{"id":7627,"date":"2014-02-11T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2014-02-11T12:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/?p=7627"},"modified":"2023-03-29T13:43:31","modified_gmt":"2023-03-29T17:43:31","slug":"burk-autopilot-dos-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.engineeringradio.us\/blog\/2014\/02\/burk-autopilot-dos-version\/","title":{"rendered":"Burk Autopilot, DOS version"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We have been doing work at a particular radio station for a few years now. Every time I go there, I look at this… thing:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Burk<\/a>
Burk DOS Autopilot\/CDL running on Windows 98<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It is a very old PC running Windows 98 and Burk Autopilot\/CDL 4.6 for DOS.\u00a0 The autopilot program is running from a windows DOS prompt and seems to be working okay; my concern is about the age of the hardware and the potential for failure.\u00a0 The Autopilot is what controls the AM station’s power levels, which vary from 1,000 watts daytime to 4 watts nighttime.\u00a0 We have all read about AM stations fined by the FCC for running daytime power levels at night.\u00a0 Failure of the ancient autopilot computer could lead to exactly this scenario.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I attempted to purchase the newer, Windows XP version of Autopilot, only to be told “that item is not in this year’s budget.”\u00a0 Apparently, it was not in the budget for the following year or the one after that.\u00a0 Thus, when the hard drive on the old Windoze 98 machine began making a terrible grinding noise, I knew the end was near.\u00a0 I made an attempt to run the Autopilot from a Windows XP DOS prompt, at which time I was informed: “The program cannot start or run due to incompatibility with 64-bit versions of windows…” GAK!\u00a0 I kind of knew this already.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I began daydreaming about running a DOS virtual machine inside of a Ubuntu or Lubuntu operating system.\u00a0 Then I found a DOS emulator program for Linux called “DOSemu” which looked like exactly what the doctor ordered.\u00a0 Using the carcasses of several old HP desktop computers, I came up with one working PC that had two organic serial ports.\u00a0 This is actually not a bad unit, as it has a 1.6 GHz dual-core processor and 2 GB RAM.\u00a0 On this machine, I loaded the 32-bit version of Ubuntu 12.04 desktop.\u00a0 Naturally, the original Autopilot\/CDL 4.6 disks were nowhere to be found so I had to copy the directory off of the old computer.\u00a0 It was also understood that this project was simply going to suck.\u00a0 Therefore, the superannuated Windoze 98 machine had no network interface or any USB ports.\u00a0 My only option was to copy the files onto a 3 1\/2-inch floppy disk.\u00a0 Fortunately, I have a USB 3 1\/2 floppy drive, which I was able to use to copy the files onto the new computer into the \/home\/ARC16<\/strong> directory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Downloading and setting up Dosemu was fairly straightforward.\u00a0 There were a few configuration steps that needed to be completed before the Autopilot software would work and communicate with the ARC-16 remote control:<\/p>\n\n\n\n