The NEC Hot Setup: TS-DOS & DeskLink
You won't find a better way to store programs and documents for your laptop.. If you have a DOS or Windows desktop PC, and you have a null-modem cable, then you've got all the hardware it takes. Now you just need the appropriate software. If you are already familiar with TS-DOS, then imagine your desktop PC acting like a Tandy Portable Disk Drive that has subdirectories! The very same TS-DOS that you use with the TPDD also supports the creation and navigation of one level of subdirectories, so that files stored on the PC side can be organized more appropriately.

If you're not already familiar with how to transfer files from your desktop PC to your laptop to begin with, read these transfer instructions. You'll need to load two files into your NEC using that method, but after you get the DESKLINK/TS-DOS connection working, things will get SO MUCH EASIER. Here are the steps required:

  1. Connect your desktop PC and your laptop together with a null-modem cable, or a serial cable and a null-modem adapter.
  2. Download and install DL-ARC.EXE onto your desktop PC.
  3. Download both DOSNEC.DO and CHGHEX.DO and transfer both of these to your NEC's main memory using the transfer instructions above.
  4. From BASIC, type LOAD "CHGHEX.DO", and then RUN it.
  5. You'll be prompted for which hex file to load. Type "DOSNEC.DO".
  6. After several minutes, you should then be asked if you wish to kill the hex input file. Say YES. When it's done, you'll now have DOSNEC.CO on your main menu!
  7. Now you can type "NEW" to get rid of the tokenized CHGHEX.DO that you loaded as a BASIC program.
  8. Return to the MENU and finally kill "CHGHEX.DO" from your main menu.
  9. On the desktop PC, follow the instructions in DESKLINK.TXT for setting up and running DESKLINK on the desktop PC.

With DESKLINK running on the desktop PC, all you'll ever have to do is run DOSNEC.CO on your NEC and you'll be able to load and save files just as simply as with a Tandy Portable Disk Drive.

If you ever try to launch DOSNEC.CO from the NEC's main menu and you get a beep, this probably means that there isn't enough free high-memory available on the NEC. From BASIC, type CLEAR 256, 56500 and then return to the main menu. You should now able to launch DOSNEC.CO without a problem.