Info-IBMPC@B.ISI.EDU (Info-IBMPC Digest) (09/16/86)
Info-IBMPC Digest Monday, September 15, 1986 Volume 5 : Issue 85
This Week's Editor: Eliot Moore <Elmo@B.ISI.Edu>
Today's Topics:
MV.C
Forms Generator
Re: Displaywriter III
Microway's Number Smasher Card
Slow Garbage-Collector in BASICA
Framework and Sidekick (2 Messages)
Re: Higher Density (Floppy) Drives
Graphics to Postscript (for Inclusion in TeX files)
Today's Queries:
ARC format
PCSHELL
Bar code scanners
SIM3278
Problem with IBM Graphics Printer
Xenix and Orchid Turbo
IBM Xenix V.1 vs V.2
Event Counter Card
Problem with DECnet-DOS V1.1
US Designs Intelligent Disk Controller
Scientific Subroutines
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 86 01:18:20 cdt
From: Peter Wu <pwu@unix.macc.wisc.edu>
Subject: MV.C
MV - move/rename files or subdirectories for PC DOS 2.xx and 3.xx;
version 1.20
Yet another MV program? This is one of the few MV that
moves/renames sub-directories in addition to moves/renames
files. It uses a non-recursive algorithm (therefore more
efficient) to move sub-directories. When source contains
wildcards, command line options let you select files only or
sub-directories only or both. Invisible files/sub-directories
can also be operated on. Works on DOS 3.xx and 2.xx.
Need Microsoft C compiler version 3 or 4 or IBM C compiler
version 1, and macro assembler.
Peter Wu
Faculty Support Center, MACC
Madison, WI 53706
Arpanet: pwu@unix.macc.wisc.edu
Bitnet: WU at WISVMACC
CompuServe: 76377,1332
UUCP: ..{akgua|seismo|harvard|ucbvax|allegra}!uwvax!uwmacc!pwu
[MV.C and MV.DOC have been added to the Info-IBMPC library. -rag]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 86 11:39:40 edt
From: Jim Galbiati <nike!think!harvard!wjh12!panda!teddy!jwg@cad.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: Forms Generator
>Date: Thu, 28 Aug 86 17:50 AST
>From: <IUS%DACTH51.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> (Eberhard W. Lisse)
>Subject: Forms Generator for IBM-PC Query
>To: info-ibmpc@b.isi.edu
>
> One of the residents of the department of forensic medicine has asked me to
> inquire if there is something like a Forms Generator for the IBM-PC.
>
> They are going to get an AT and are used to the FMS package on the VAX. It
> works like this: One creates the masks, menues with the normal editor and
> calls procdures from the library to display them and input/output the
> variables.
There is a package called "MenuMaker" available from
Lincoln Computer Co., Inc.
276 Arlington Street, Acton MA 01720 (617) 264-9085
that sounds like it fits your needs.
MenuMaker lets you display variables on the screen
for the user to examine or modify. Any number of things
can be displayed on the screen, and the user bounces the cursor around
and changes whatever variables he wants to. There are lots of attributes
you can set for each variable, such as max/min value limits, number of
characters, not-modifiable, and more. MenuMaker is written in C
so if you are running Xenix on your AT you can probably use it.
I've seen it working on a Sun.
------------------------------
Subject: Re: Displaywriter III
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 86 08:28:22 -0500
From: edelheit@mitre.ARPA (Jeff Edelheit)
Carl - At one time IBM offered a software package for the Displaywriter
which would allow you to pass files to a PC that ran Displaywrite. I think
that the printer (?) port on the Displaywriter was used.
It's been a long time since I saw the announcement (2-3 yrs) and I don't
remember the details. You could always give your local IBM office a
call.
Regards,
Jeff Edelheit (edelheit@mitre.arpa)
The MITRE Corporation, 1820 Dolley Madison Blvd.
McLean, VA 22102 (703) 883-7586
------------------------------
From: Ivan Auger <LAWRENCE.Auger%BIONET@SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: Microway's Number Smasher Card
We have one in an XT and we are extremely pleased with it. You do get
a significant speed improvement (2-3 times), and we have not had any
problems running programs in it. They have a new model now called
number smasher/ECM that can run at 12 mhz. According to the review in
PC magazine, it works great if you don't use the ECM part of it (ECM stands
for extended conventional memory, it allows you to have 1 meg of
continous memory in DOS, but this is only good for programs that
use the BIOS to access the screen).
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 86 16:04:58 edt
From: "SCHEUTZOW, MICHAEL J" <gt6294b%gitpyr%gatech.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: Slow Garbage-Collector in BASICA
"Garbage Collection" is used by an interpreter to recover memory that
is no longer being used. It is generally considered to be "slow"
because it is necessary to move the good data around to "pack" it
together so there are no gaps in memory. *However*, "slow" is a
relative term and even a second or two would be an exasperatingly long
time for only 64K.
There is one other thing you should know: Each time fre(0) [or
whatever command is used to get the amount of unused memory] is
called, the interpreter *must* do GC in order to be able to reliably
report the amount of free space. When you noticed that memory "reset
to 50K", it was because your program no longer was using it, not
because GC was performed.
Whatever is happening during that 10 to 15 minutes, it ain't GC.
Mike Scheutzow Trek trivia: How long is a typical Vulcan lifespan?
Georgia Tech
gt6294b@gitpyr.uucp
------------------------------
Date: Sat 13 Sep 86 21:40:32-PDT
From: Tom Mandel <MANDEL@SRI-KL.ARPA>
Subject: Framework and Sidekick
You asked a question about using Framework and Sidekick together.
I do not use Sidekick but do use Framework II extensively, and seem to
recall from reading Ashton-Tate technical literature that, if you load
Sidekick first, there should be no collisions of the sort you describe.
If you are using the earlier version of Framework (1.x), you should
probably upgrade to the most recent version, Framework II 1.1, which
is both vastly improved and no longer copy-protected.
I too agree that Framework II is an excellent program. Frankly, you
might consider creating the Sidekick features you like solely within
Framework. Its macro features and the FRED programming language make
this relatively simple work. Then you could have these features
instantly accessible as memory-resident Framework utilities, or quickly
loadable from your disk. I have done this, designing the utilities I
need to reflect my style of work, rather than as provided "canned" by
programs such as Sidekick.
One other thing: Ashton-Tate sells a Framework utility called
"Timeframe" ($49.95 in the U.S., I believe), which offers some of
Sidekick's features, most notably a very nice calendar. You might
want to consider that if you don't feel inclined to build your own
utilities.
And feel free to send email directly to me if you have any questions
about creating macro-driven utilities in Framework. I'll try to
answer directly to you as time permits.
Tom Mandel
ARPA: mandel@sri-kl.arpa
UUCP: {ptsfa,hplabs,lll-crg,hoptoad,apple}!well!mandel
Business Intelligence Program
SRI International
Menlo Park, CA 94025
U.S.A.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 1986 11:04:15 EDT
From: Raymond J Chen <6101695%PUCC.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: Framework and Sidekick
The reason for the assorted gibberish on the screen is that Framework
uses the graphics screen and SideKick uses the text screen. I'm not
sure about this, but if you use Ctrl-Alt to enter SideKick, then try
to exit Sidekick with Ctrl-Alt. (Some programs are "nasty" in that if
you call up Sidekick while they are running, you have to exit SK with
the same keys you entered it with.)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 86 14:56:17 PDT
From: landauer@Sun.COM (Doug Landauer)
Subject: Re: Higher Density (Floppy) Drives
Summary: PC-DOS 3.2 already supports 80-track floppies
I've had a 96-tpi floppy drive in my PC for years, connected to the
normal floppy controller. Since I don't make very heavy use of the
PC, I never got around to acquiring or writing a proper driver for it.
Thus, I've just been using it as a second, incompatible 360K drive,
until a few weeks ago. Since I'm about to get a hard disk, I figured
it'd be nice to have the higher- capacity floppy drive do its job
right, so I could use it for backup. I did some investigation,
looking at the possibilities of buying Jformat ($60, from Tall Tree
Systems) and a driver from Small Office Systems in Arizona ($45). I
found a free (if you have PC-DOS 3.2) solution, and Norbert Burman's
note in Info-IBMPC Digest V5 #84, mentioning a $30 driver from Western
Systems and Components induced me to write this.
In addition to reading the ads in various magazines, I also read the
PC-DOS 3.2 documentation a little more carefully. I discovered that
with the introduction of the 720K microfloppies on the Portable PC,
someone (Microsoft, I presume) has added support for them to PC-DOS.
The bottom line: if you have PC-DOS 3.2, you already have a driver
that will treat your 96-TPI drive like a 720K drive! I just added the
lines
device=driver.sys /d:1
device=driver.sys /d:1
to my CONFIG.SYS file, and suddenly the drive worked like a charm!
Better yet, I can still use "B:" to refer to my old 360K 96TPI disks,
to copy stuff from them. Putting the "device=..." line twice in the
config.sys file causes PC_DOS to pretend that the drive holds two such
logical drives, so you can copy from C: to D: to copy a 720K floppy.
Doug Landauer Sun's Net: landauer@morocco
Phone: 415 691-7655 ARPANET (aka DDN): landauer@sun.com
UUCP: {amdahl, decwrl, hplabs, seismo, ...}!sun!landauer
------------------------------
Date: Mon 15 Sep 86 20:28:54-PDT
From: Richard Pattis <PATTIS@WASHINGTON.ARPA>
Subject: Graphics to Postscript (for Inclusion in TeX files)
A few weeks ago I posted a message asking for information on drawing
programs that would produce Postscipt, for merging into TeX files. No
one responded with anything definite (although a few people asked for
any information that I received). From an independent source, I have
been told that a solution to my problem can be obtained as follows:
(1) Get Microsoft's Windows (after version 1.03). It supports
Postscript output; (2) Get a Micrografx (spelling?) program called
Draw (maybe now called Windows Draw), which runs under Windows.
Putting the two together supposedly solves my problem. Does anyone
have experience with this drawing program? It supposedly costs about
$200 (and I don't want to get burned at this price).
In addition, I did finally purchase the new version of the MDS Genius
VHR. It is superb for editing; when I go back to a standard 25 line
screen it's like someone scrunched my eyes closed. I'm still trying
to get it to run lots of other software at 66 lines (DOS works fine
but I'm still playing with Kermit). Best of all, PC-TEX is supposed
to release a previewer soon that supports this type of monitor. If it
wasn't clear from the paragraph above, Windows release 1.03 supports
the Genius VHR too (or, so I'm told).
Rich
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 86 11:43:33 EDT
From: mek%UMass.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Subject: ARC format
Reply-To: mek%UMass.BITNET@wiscvm.ARPA
Is there a file anywhere, perhaps on SIMTEL20, that defines the ARC
file format, similiar to LUDEF5.DOC? Please respond to me directly
as I don't subscribe to Info-IBMPC. Thanks!
/ Matt Kimmel,
: mek%UMass.BITNET@wiscvm.ARPA
:
\ The poor neutron, he thought he was a proton but he wasn't positive.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 86 14:26:15 cdt
From: moore@ncsc.ARPA (Moore)
Subject: PCSHELL
Is there someone who is willing to either UUENCODE and MAIL or allow
me to FTP to your host to get a *compiled* version of PCSHELL? It's
all well and good to be able to get the source (pcshell.lbr) from
SIMTEL20, but I don't have a C compiler. Thanks for responding.
Jim Moore
NCSC
Panama City FL
------------------------------
From: "Roger Fajman" <RAF%NIHCU.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 86 20:12:40 EDT
Subject: Bar code scanners
Does anyone know of a scanner for Universal Product Code or some
similar code that can be attached to a PC? I am primarily interested
in scanners that work like supermarket scanners in that the object
with the code is passed near the scanner. Scanners that require the
use of a hand-held wand are considered to be much less desirable for
the application that I have in mind.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 86 10:14:11 MEZ
From: Thorsten Glattki <IWI432%DERRZE1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: SIM3278
Date: 12 September 1986, 10:09:29 MEZ
From: Thorsten Glattki +49 228/73-2747 UZR500 at DBNRHRZ1
Regionales Hochschulrechenzentrum der Universitaet
Wegelerstrasse 6
D-5300 Bonn 1
Federal Republic of Germany (West-Germany)
In the May/June 1986-issue of VM/COM there was written something about
a pro- gram called SIM3278. We are very interested in getting to know
where one can get this program. We didn't found it yet in some archive
we ahve looked in. Any help is very welcome. Please send all
information to my new account <IWI432%DERRZE1.BITNET@WISCVM...> at the
Dept. of Computer Science (Institute for Communication systems) in Er-
langen,West-Germany,my new workplace. Thankxs a lot for all your
efforts in ad- vance.
Thorsten Glattki
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 86 15:56:35 +0200
From: Guy Sirton <MLSIRTON%WEIZMANN.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: Problem with IBM Graphics Printer
The IBM Graphics Printer is giving me some strange problems while
producing graphics on it. The problem occurs in the 960 Bit Image
mode (ESC L, maybe on other modes too, this is the one I tried). If
you send SUBs to the priner (hex 1A, dec 26) while in graphics it goes
mad (Starts printing junk). This seems to be happening with other
charaters as well but I didn't manage yet to find which. Any help
with this problem would be appreciated.
Thanx,
Guy
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 86 21:27:56 CDT
From: tness1!hcsjgh%ots.UUCP@rice.edu (Greg Hackney)
Subject: Xenix and Orchid Turbo
Does anyone know how to make an Orchid Turbo-186
board work with Xenix-86 on an IBM-XT ?
Thanks in advance,
Greg
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 86 17:04:02 edt
From: Kevin Sullivan <kjs%tufts.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: IBM Xenix V.1 vs V.2
I am running version 1 of IBMs XENIX on an AT. What would I get for
my money if I bought version 2? Should I bag XENIX altogether and go
with some other U*IX like operating system? (Actually I am more
interested in answers to the first question.) Thanks a lot. Please
respond to me directly as I don't often read what comes over this
list.
kevin sullivan
tufts university
kjs%tufts@csnet-relay (CSNet)
kjs@tufts (BITNET)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 86 13:55:20 edt
From: freudent@nyu.arpa (Eric Freudenthal)
Subject: Event Counter Card
Reply-To: freudent@cmcl2.UUCP (Eric Freudenthal)
We need a general-purpose event counter board for the IBM-PC which we
could use to monitor cpu accesses on the NYU ultracomputer (a MIMD
parallel computer with shared memory). It should be able to count at
5MHz, with at least 16 bit resolution (pre-scaling would be a nice
extra). Ideally, the card would have at least 8 independent counters
which we could read easily from software.
Any leads would be appreciated, as that wee would like to avoid designing
such a board ourselves. Please reply to me directly.
[And CC Info-IBMPC -Elmo]
Thanks,
Eric Freudenthal
NYU Ultracompter Lab
715 Broadway, 10th floor
New York, NY 10012
Phone:(212) 460-7327
Email:freudent@nyu-cmcl2.arpa
ihnp4!cmcl2!freudent
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 86 16:18 CDT
From: FRENCH%ti-eg.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
Subject: Problem with DECnet-DOS V1.1
We just received a copy of DECnet-DOS V1.1 for the IBM PC family.
We are using it on a TI Business Pro running in AT-mode with the
3Com TE4 Ethernet board. The product seems to work as advertised.
The documentation states that the Ethernet board be set up using
IO address 300 and interrupt 3.
The problem is that this configuration for the Ethernet board
conflicts when we run the machine in TI-mode. Does anybody
know of a way to change the DECnet-DOS product to use some
other interrupt beside 3?
Thanks for any help,
Stewart French
Texas Instruments
------------------------------
Date: Sat 13 Sep 86 19:49:44-PDT
From: IEEE CS Students <IEEE-CS@Sierra.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: US Designs Intelligent Disk Controller
Reply-To: well!rogue@LLL-CRG.ARPA
In a recent digest, Billy Brackenridge mentioned that fast intelligent
disk controllers with large caches can be had from a company called
US Designs. Pointers to this company, and reviews of their products,
would be appreciated. Please respond by mail as well as to the digest,
since I only get to read INFO-IBMPC sporadically....
Thanks,
Brett Glass
<well!rogue@LLL-CRG.ARPA>
[Billy is unavailable for comment, anyone else have the address? -Elmo]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 86 09:29:09 edt
From: nike!lll-crg!seismo!harvard!wjh12!encore!sypek@cad.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Scientific Subroutines
I am currently looking for sources for the following routines,
I'll take them in just about any (reasonable) language: C, PASCAL,
FORTRAN, assembler. Target machine is an IBM PC.
I know that these are available commercially, but the application
is a low-level background (and personal) project, and I don'/t want to
spend big $$$ for something that may/may not ever be finished.
1) FFT's
simple one dimensional real&complex functions are adequate.
2) filtering, peak detection
3) graphics
simple x-y plots, with axes, labelling capability
(grids, tick marks, etc would be nice, but not necessary)
4 sorting
ability to sort on selected fields in a record is a must
(the standard IBM sort utility basically sucks pond scum)
If someone can send me sources, or point me in the right
direction, I'd appreciate it greatly.
Eons ago, (circa '75) when I was working on a PDP-11/40
(great machine, by the way, one of the last with a REAL front panel),
we had a copy (including source code) of something called SSP
(scientific subroutine package). It seemed to have originally come from
Big Blue. Does anyone know if there is a public domain version of it out
there in Net-land??
Thanks, R.J. Sypek
DISCLAIMER:: dis' claimer, dat' claimer, who'll claim 'er
------------------------------
End of Info-IBMPC Digest
************************
-------