sock@gumby.UUCP (Sock Leng Ng) (07/01/86)
Does anybody have experience with the above program, is it really useful, could you do communication with a mainframe while editing a file. With communication, I mean getting reponse from the Host while doing editing on some document. Does it Take up lots of overhead on the IBM AT ! Please Mail me, thanks in advance ! Isabella
gritz@homxb.UUCP (R.SHARPLES) (07/08/86)
I have just finished fooling around with desqview, and i was not really impressed. It does do multitasking in the true sense of the word so you could be downloading data from a mainframe in one window and doing something else in another. But it does this by allocating "ticks" to each window: there are 18 ticks a second and if a background window gets nine of them then each dos process will slow by one half (if there are two processes running). I think this is how it works, I only fooled with it for about an hour. One thing that really annoyed me was the interface, Desqview wants you to run all applications from a list of "installed" software. It then opens up a window and runs the application. DOS is one of these applications. If you run DOS from Desqview and then in DOS run a program with graphics (like Xtree) the program will try to over-write the Desqview graphics. The results are an unpredictiable mess. Usually the process hung and you had to reboot from hardware. Also I have a 6300 with 640K and was unable to run both PCWrite and Xtree with out one process or the other hanging (requiring reboot). I will play with it some more but I am going to definately check out MS Windows. I have also seen a reference on the net to something called Polywindows that someone received with a board. If anyone else has experience or advice to offer, I would be very interested. Russ Sharples homxa!gritz My comments in no way reflect the opinions of my employer.
halff@utah-cs.UUCP (Henry M. Halff) (07/10/86)
In article <1761@homxb.UUCP>, gritz@homxb.UUCP (R.SHARPLES) writes: > I have just finished fooling around with desqview, and i was not > really impressed. It does do multitasking in the true sense of the > word so you could be downloading data from a mainframe in one window and > doing something else in another. But it does this by allocating "ticks" > to each window: there are 18 ticks a second and if a background window gets > nine of them then each dos process will slow by one half (if there are two > processes running). I think this is how it works, I only fooled with it > for about an hour. The numbers of ticks allocated to background and foreground tasks can be set as a global parameter of the system. In addition, you can give telecommunications programs top priority whether they run in foreground or background. Desqview does not give any ticks to programs that are "idling" so that only programs like Lotus 123 (tm or whatever) that hog the machine will noticably degrade foreground processing. On the other hand Desqview itself extracts a sligthly noticable overhead. > > One thing that really annoyed me was the interface, Desqview wants you to > run all applications from a list of "installed" software. It then opens up a > window and runs the application. DOS is one of these applications. If you > run DOS from Desqview and then in DOS run a program with graphics (like Xtree) > the program will try to over-write the Desqview graphics. The results are > an unpredictiable mess. Usually the process hung and you had to reboot from > hardware. Desqview provides a fairly easy and flexible process for installing new applicationsincluding those that write directly to screen memory or those that use graphics. Some programs that go to graphics without informing DOS require a bit of kludging, but I believe that Xtree uses only character graphics and should run with Desqview's "writes directly to screen" option on. If you can't use Desqview's DOS (that runs in a small window), you can create your own DOS that uses the full screen. You probably had to reboot because Xtree requires more memory than the 128K is the standard Desqview DOS, but you can take care of that problem by creating an Xtree or DOS application that allocates more memory. Another possible cure is to make sure that Xtree is running as an nonTSR program. > > I have > also seen a reference on the net to something called Polywindows that someone > received with a board. I believe that Polywindows is a set of desktop accessories like Sidekick (tm mumble mumble...). Some of these, like a cut and paste facility, keyboard macros, autodialer, etc. are also provided by Desqview. I have no connection with Quarterdeck other than as a fairly satisfied customer. hh -- Henry M. Halff Halff Resources, Inc. halff@utah-cs.ARPA 4918 33rd Road, N., Arlington, VA 22207
geoff@suneast.uucp (Geoff Arnold) (07/11/86)
There's a nasty little bug in DesqView 1.21 which prevents a program
compiled under Microsoft C 3.0 from successfully exec'ing a second
program. The problem is that the wrong segment fixups are used.
Here's a patch that seems to do the trick.
(1) copy DV.EXE to DV.TMP
(2) debug DV.TMP
(3) Enter "r" to look at the registers. Note the value for DS(=ES=SS=CS).
When we did it, the value was 20E7.
(4) Add 1000 hex to this value - in our case 30E7,
(5) Unassemble VALUE:7652 - in our case
u 30E7:7652
You should see
MOV DS,[BP+12]
MOV SI,[BP+04]
MOV BP,[SI+02]
JMP 7661
etc.
If you don't, you haven't got 1.21 (the latest version). Sorry.
(6) Type
a VALUE:7652
MOV AX,DS
MOV DS,WORD PTR [BP+12]
MOV BP,AX
JMP 7661
(7) Hit ENTER to exit assembly mode, then write it out with w and q.
(8) Copy DV.TMP DV.EXE, then try it out.
This patch (courtesy Bill Pittore) allows us to run TELNET under DesqView
with PC-NFS. Don't call Quarterdeck about it - they already know.... :-(
--
"disclaimo, disclaimas, disclaimat, disclaimamus, disclaimatis, disclamant"
UUCP: {hplabs,ihnp4,nsc,pyramid,decwrl}!sun!suneast!hinode!geoffear@duke.UUCP (07/14/86)
In article <1761@homxb.UUCP> gritz@homxb.UUCP (R.SHARPLES) writes: >I have just finished fooling around with desqview, and i was not >really impressed. I too just finished fooling around with Desqview. I was impressed. > It does do multitasking in the true sense of the >word so you could be downloading data from a mainframe in one window and >doing something else in another. But it does this by allocating "ticks" >to each window: there are 18 ticks a second and if a background window gets >nine of them then each dos process will slow by one half (if there are two >processes running). I think this is how it works, I only fooled with it >for about an hour. How else do you expect to get multitasking on a single processor machine? Sure, it slows down as you add processes, but you don't get something for nothing. If you want a background process to get a lower priority, you can configure Desqview to allocate fewer ticks to it. Oh and by the way, communications in the background, let's see Windows do that (that is if you can wait for them to release their comm program .... Desqview lets you use your own.) >One thing that really annoyed me was the interface, Desqview wants you to >run all applications from a list of "installed" software. It then opens up a >window and runs the application. DOS is one of these applications. If you >run DOS from Desqview and then in DOS run a program with graphics (like Xtree) >the program will try to over-write the Desqview graphics. The results are >an unpredictiable mess. Usually the process hung and you had to reboot from >hardware. True. But once you have installed the program (which isn't as difficult as it may seem) correctly (i.e. tell it if writes to the screen directly, uses graphics modes, can't run in the background), it should be ok. If you don't want to install every program, than don't. Simply install a version of DOS (installation merely defines parameters - it does not load the program into memory) that has a superset of all of the correct parameters for the programs you want to run within that window and then run those programs under dos as usual in its own window. True you may not be able to run these programs concurently in the background (i.e. in a non-full screen window) but you will be able to jump back and forth between other programs (and even copy blocks of data from them) (By the way, Desqview does not load in addtional copies of DOS; it uses the one thats already in memory.) Desqview comes with PREDEFINED INSTALLATIONS for many of the commercial programs available. >Also I have a 6300 with 640K and was unable to run both PCWrite and Xtree >with out one process or the other hanging (requiring reboot). Oh yeah? How did you have them installed? If they both write directly to the screen, then they probably need to be installed a "run only in foreground". By the way, DesqView swaps processes to disk if it needs the extra memory! > I will play >with it some more but I am going to definately check out MS Windows. Windows is incredably slow on a PC/XT. It really needs an AT w/an EGA. (And lets see it do comm in the background ... today ... with ProComm.) > I have >also seen a reference on the net to something called Polywindows that someone >received with a board. If anyone else has experience or advice to offer, I >would be very interested. Polywindows is a memory resident desktop type programs (i.e. Sidekick). Desqview comes bundled w/ AST's boards. All in all, its a good product. Very compatable with your existing software, good performance on a PC (try typing a document in windows), and not too much demand on your memory (o.k. so you'll probably want 640k and I'm getting tempted to buy some expanded memory). I originally planned on using it for doing downloads in the background. Now, I'm not so sure. (exchanging data amongst programs, editing while compiling ...) Time will tell. -- Eric A. Raymond UUCP: ...decvax!mcnc!duke!ear