Info-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA (Info-IBMPC Digest) (02/23/86)
Info-IBMPC Digest Sunday, 23 February 1986 Volume 5 : Issue 27 This Week's Editor: Richard Gillmann Today's Topics: Updated Xenix PC/AT C Compiler Leading Edge Setup NANSI is a Snowy Mode Program CMR-ATTRIB.ASM added to Library SAVSCR11.ASM added to Library CRC2.PAS added to Library IBM Mono vertical hold Source for SPF/PC How to Print the Screen from Basic Undocumented switches in LINK Query: Date and Time from Turbo Pascal Problems locking bad sectors on AT hard drives Interface to Videodisk Player Wanted Wordstar Locations Wanted Extended vs. Expanded Memory Query Three Queries ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Herm Fischer <hermix!fischer@rand-unix.ARPA> Reply-To: HFischer@ada20 To: info-ibmpc@isib.arpa Subject: Updated Xenix PC/AT C Compiler Date: Sat Feb 22 21:10:17 1986 The latest Microsoft update to the Xenix C compiler just about fixes up the Large Model. Gasp! Finally! It sure is nice to be able to rely on large model programs without hunting for compiler bugs... (I found one problem with the optimizer generating bad code, but that was obscure, avoided by dropping the -O flag, and so far hasn't recurred in other programs. Register variables seem to finally work. A far cry from having to hack middle model to allocate large data segments last December...) Look for the set of Microsoft update disks dated 12/31/85. I understand they were sent out to the OEMs and DIAL customers. Your Xenix source should be able to provide them. (Other things fixed: shared memory; large malloc (32K-64K) seems to work now; a huge model seems to generate code but some link modules are missing (compiler flag -Mh); the way the kernel allocates internal memory is different now (may affect custom driver code), and a few others.) ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 86 13:34:00 EST From: <doug@ari-hq1> Subject: Leading Edge Setup To: info-ibmpc <info-ibmpc@usc-isid> I ordered a Leading Edge "M" through the mail. When it arrived I set it according to the instructions, except the instructions didn't tell how to install the monitor card. No problem, except that once installed I couldn't get anything on the screen. I reseated the card, tried it in several different slots, even read the instructions. No joy. Finally, about midnight, an image of a dip switch bubbled up from some deep recess of my mind. Certainly not from the installation documation - I finally found them mentioned in the Technical Specs, about page 178. Those switches were set, quite logically, to null, since the monitor card was not installed at the factory. MORAL: It's not the device that's faulty - more likely it's the documentation. ------------------------------ From: chapman%miro@BERKELEY.EDU (Brent Chapman) To: kegel@juliet.caltech.edu Cc: info-ibmpc@usc-isib.arpa Subject: NANSI is a Snowy Mode Program Date: 21 Feb 86 16:17:33 PST (Fri) I snagged your NANSI driver from the INFO-IBMPC library. I like it so far, but I have one problem with it: It thoroughly snows my screen. Any ideas for a fix? I have an AT with a CGA. Thanks! Brent Chapman chapman@miro.berkeley.edu ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 1986 20:47:21 PST Subject: CMR-ATTRIB.ASM added to Library From: Eliot Moore <SWG.ELMO@USC-ISIB.ARPA> To: info-ibmpc@USC-ISIB.ARPA CMR-ATTRIB.ASM Modified attrib.asm to twiddle archive bit. I also made a couple of other minor changes. I changed the command parser to make '.*' the default when the file name extension is not specified. I changed the command parser to accept ";" as a delimiter. I changed the command parser to accept multiple attributes. In the case of incompatible attributes the last one wins. The user should be aware that there are some other differences between this program and the dos 3.10 attrib command. The dos attrib command lists the entire drive and path when listing files, while this program lists only as much of the path as the user specified. Original program was written by Bob Eager, Herne Bay, England. Craig Milo <Rogers@Isi> 3-Feb-86 ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 1986 21:26:10 PST Subject: SAVSCR11.ASM added to Library From: Eliot Moore <SWG.ELMO@USC-ISIB.ARPA> To: info-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA SAVSCR.ASM Is a resident program to write text displayed on a screen to disk. Version 1.1 adds support for the EGA board. Ted Shapin <Bec.Shapin@ECL> 11 Feb 86 ------------------------------ Date: 21 Feb 1986 22:15:59 PST Subject: CRC2.PAS added to Library From: Eliot Moore <SWG.ELMO@USC-ISIB.ARPA> To: info-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA CRC2.PAS A collection of documented routines to calculate CRC's written for Turbo pascal, inspired by CRC.PAS David Dantowitz <dantowitz%eagle1@decwrl.dec.com> Feb 86 ------------------------------ Date: 22 Feb 1986 02:39:07 EST Subject: IBM Mono vertical hold From: Franklin Antonio <QUALCOMM@USC-ISID.ARPA> To: info-ibmpc@USC-ISIB.ARPA Someone asked recently if IBM Mono displays had a vertical hold adjustment. Yes. Several pots inside. VR401 -- Vertical Hold VR402 -- Vertical Size VR403 -- Vertical Linearity Pretty simple circuitry. Schematic is in the IBMPC technical reference manual. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Feb 86 20:28 EST From: Yedidyah Langsam <YDLBC%CUNYVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> Subject: Source for SPF/PC To: <Info-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA> To the individual who was looking for the source of SPF/PC: Command Technology Corporation 1900 Mountain Boulevard Oakland, California 94611 415-339-3530 telex: 509330 ------------------------------ From: todd%trsvax.UUCP@BRL.ARPA Subject: How to Print the Screen from Basic Date: Tue, 11-Feb-86 15:12:00 PST To print the screen from BASIC, a short assembly language program will do the trick. The assembly language routine is embedded in a string, and should work with any MS-DOS BASIC. To use it, just say GOSUB 900. 900 ' Dump screen using INT 5 910 A$ = CHR$(&HCD) + CHR$(&H5) ' int 5 instruction 920 A$ = A$ + CHR$(&HCB) ' far return instruction 930 ENTRY!=PEEK(VARPTR(A$)+1)+256*PEEK(VARPTR(A$)+2) 940 CALL ENTRY! 950 RETURN This information has been provided by an individual. ... canonical disclaimer ... Todd Milburn Tandy Corp. ------------------------------ From: rde@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Undocumented switches in LINK Date: Wed, 12-Feb-86 16:54:17 PST Some people may have seen the article about the /E switch in LINK although it may not have come to this newsgroup. Not quite sure where it came from, but basically it said that there was an undocumented switch in LINK, the /E switch (actually, that's the minimum abbreviation; its full name is EXEPACK). Apparently it does much the same job as the EXEPACK utility that comes with version 4 of the assembler; it compresses uninitialised data areas and grafts in a bit of code to expand them again at run time. Sure makes a difference on some files! For example, version 2.27 of MS-Kermit shrinks (the .EXE file that is) from 84K to 35K approx (but then there are some enormous data areas for screen saving). Version 2.28 of MS-Kermit claims space dynamically so the saving won't be as dramatic. The time taken to do the expansion at the start of execution is a *lot* less than the time taken to load 50K of zeros off a floppy. This switch is not present in version 3.00 of the linker (came with the 3.00 assembler) but it is in version 3.02 of the linker (came with version 1.0 of QuickBasic). Incidentally, both 3.00 and 3.02 have a handy switch called /HELP (abbreviation at least /HE) which just summarises switches and exits. There is also a /WINDOWS switch; no idea what it does though. Bob Eager rde@ukc.UUCP rde@ukc ...!mcvax!ukc!rde Phone: +44 227 66822 ext 7589 ------------------------------ Date: 18 Feb 1986 05:57-PST Subject: Query: Date and Time from Turbo Pascal From: BSCHAAR@USC-ISIF.ARPA To: info-ibmpc@USC-ISIB.ARPA How do I get the date and time from within a Turbo Pascal program? Is there a function call, or do I have to use some embedded assembly code? Please provide me some code, or a pointer to a PC Digest (volume and issue) where I can find it. Thanks. Brian Schaar ------------------------------ From: chapman%miro@BERKELEY.EDU (Brent Chapman) To: info-ibmpc@usc-isib.arpa Subject: Problems locking bad sectors on AT hard drives Date: 21 Feb 86 16:20:33 PST (Fri) I use an AT, with a 20M disk, running DOS 3.10. I have been experiencing problems with DOS's handling of bad clusters on the disk. PC-TOOLS showed two bad clusters on the disk when it was formatted, before any files were copied onto it. Now, however, it appears that DOS has allocated right over the top of one of those two bad clusters. Has anyone had any experience with this type of problem? Can anyone suggest any solutions? I'd like to be able to mark these clusters in some way and prevent DOS from allocating them. I could simply create a file that is made up of these two bad clusters, then hide the file, but when I did a backup/restore, that would because the file would be restored to an arbitrary position on the disk, and something else would be written over those bad clusters. Any other ideas? Thanks! Brent Chapman chapman@miro.berkeley.edu ucbvax!miro!chapman ------------------------------ Date: 21 February 86 19:30-PST From: PHMWJ%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU To: INFO-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA Subject: Interface to Videodisk Player Wanted Does anyone know about ways to use a PC to control a videodisk player? A friend in the drama department here at Stanford is trying to put together a catalog for his collection of slides in the form of a database on a PC (probably an IBM AT), and it would be nice to be able to display the pictures on a videodisk machine under control of the program on the computer. I assume that this will require a physical link of some sort and software on the computer, but my knowledge of videodisk players is limited to that required to get one to play Empire Strikes Back. If you send information to me directly, I will be happy to summarize for the net. Thanks in advance. Pat McAllister on BITNET: PHMWJ@SLACVM on ARPANET: PHMWJ%SLACVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 22 Feb 86 03:20 GMT From: oli2146 @ KOREA-EMH Subject: Wordstar Locations Wanted To: Info-IBMPC @ USC-ISIB.ARPA Looking for the source code locations for the delay defaults used by WordStar Ver 3.3. Thanks in advance Mark H. Meaders "From the Land of the Morning Calm" and the mid-afternoon madness... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1986 22:29:45 EST From: Mark Harris Perlman <6108070%PUCC.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> To: info-ibmpc@usc-isib.arpa Subject: Extended vs. Expanded Memory Query Can anyone out there relate experiences using extended and expanded memory on the AT in both a dos and XENIX environment? I know that XENIX requires extended memory, but what about DesQview and Windows? Also, will the Intel Above Board AT support both extended and expanded memory? Thanks in advance. --Mark Perlman 6108070@PUCC.BITNET (Many of the above words are trademarks of many companies). ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 22 Feb 86 14:04:48 PST From: Doug Lind <entropy!lind@uw-beaver.arpa> To: INFO-IBMPC@usc-isib.arpa Subject: Three Queries 1. Does anyone know of a package of Turbo Pascal scientific programs, like the NAG library? It should handle standard problems (differential equations, numerical integration, matrix operations, etc.), use complex numbers, be available in source code, and it would be nice to support Hercules card graphics, like the Turbo Graphix Toolbox. 2. The Norton NU program bombs out on my Zenith 158 with a message about the program being out of memory (used on a hard disk with about 6 MB of files; works fine on the second hard disk). Is there a public domain Unerase program to recover erased files similar to Norton's? 3. DoubleDos crashes on my Z158; the problem seems to be with the keyboard buffer. Has anyone successfully run DoubleDos on a Zenith, either at 4.77Mhz or 8Mhz? It crashes on mine at either speed. DoubleDos is working on the problem, and seems to think the problem is in the keyboard hardware of the Zenith. Any information on these would be much appreciated. Doug Lind, Univ. of Wash. Math. Dept. uw-beaver!entropy!lind ------------------------------ End of Info-IBMPC Digest ************************ -------