Two tracks in our club (me included) are using Compurace track management systems made by The Cobblestone Group circa 1988. This is one of the first computer timing, scoring and race management systems produced. It has worked flawlessly for the past twenty years; but I now need help.

One of our computers crashed and needs to have the software reloaded. We have tried loading both original 3 1/2" floppys and all of our backup disks without success. It seems the software has become corrupted just sitting around for all of these years.

Does anyone out there that is still using Compurace have a good copy of the software on floppy or CD that you would be willing to share? Or does anyone know how to get in touch with any of the former principals from The Cobblestone Group?

If this is old dos based stuff you should be able to copy it from the other working PC that uses it in your club. Most the dos based stuff installed itself in its own directory, not like windows stuff today that can put files in lots of different places.

Thanks tasman. We're a bit worried about doing anything to working systems due to its age--including just trying to copy the program--but we'll try that if all else fails.

BTW--come race with us. We have seven tracks around Toledo and growing to eight or nine next year.

Yep, those old floppy disks have limited retentivity and degrade over time to the point of becoming unreadable. The same is true for CD-Rs and CD-RWs.

Like tasman said, copying over the entire application directory from the machine that has a working copy of the ancient software should probably work. The other things to check on the working computer are these two files in the root directory:

autoexec.bat
config.sys

Many DOS programs would make changes to these two files for a program to run. It may be as simple as changing the path or other environment variables, increasing files or buffers, changing COM port settings, or installing a TSR program or device driver that runs in the background. At the very least, print out a copy of these two files and if the copied program does not run on the repaired computer, make the changes to the same named files on the repaired computer. If these two files make reference to a file, say something named with a "sys" extension, you may have to copy that file from the source computer to the repaired computer.

Thanks tasman. We're a bit worried about doing anything to working systems due to its age--including just trying to copy the program--but we'll try that if all else fails.

BTW--come race with us. We have seven tracks around Toledo and growing to eight or nine next year.

How old is the hardware you are talking about here? I've got 3.5" boot floppies that will clone one hard drive to another over a parallel cable (if I can find the cable). You don't even have to open the case. It's even easier and faster if the PC is new enough to plug in two IDE hard disks. I work in IT near Rossford. I'll PM you my #. Gimme a call Fri. morning.

Thanks AfxToo for the info.

twolff-- The computers aren't that old--old enough to be useless for anything other than slot track management--but relatively new. I don't know about the IDE plug in ability though.

I'll give you a call.

Wow, AMSRA
Any chance of making a copy of that software? Im a fan of the DOS stuff and would like to try it out.

Rich

Rich--

You're welcome to a copy of it, if we get a working copy. I don't know how much good it will do you without the interface card though. That is one of the big worries we have--if the card goes south on us, we are SOL. The last contact we had with The Cobblestone Group was at least ten years ago.

Steve

Thanks tasman. We're a bit worried about doing anything to working systems due to its age--including just trying to copy the program--but we'll try that if all else fails.

BTW--come race with us. We have seven tracks around Toledo and growing to eight or nine next year.


Thanks AMSRA - a couple of your former racers (Jules and Bob) are responsible for getting me back into the hobby. I have heard of your track and would love to see it sometime. I have a two lane about 70' ft.

Good luck restoring your software.

tasman--Open practice Wednesday night at 8pm. Bring J & B with you. PM me if your interested and I'll send you my address.