Info-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA (Info-IBMPC Digest) (02/13/86)
Info-IBMPC Digest Wednesday, 12 February 1986 Volume 5 : Issue 21 This Week's Editor: Billy Brackenridge Today's Topics: Review of "Schmeme" Lisp AT&T PC 6300 Expansion Now How About Specs for 1-2-3 Device Drivers? SHELL, Modula2 Software Development System Fansi Console and Shell from Dr. Dobbs Turbo Board Comparison? monochrome monitor query Removing non-DOS Partitions from AT Disk LINK Option /E vs EXEPACK PC-DOS 3.1 and "echo off" CGA: 2 More Palettes in Medium Res Re: File truncation under PC-DOS Co-Processor Board Inquiry WordPerfect and the LaserJet CHMOD Woes ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue 11 Feb 86 22:38:38-CST From: Rob Pettengill <CAD.PETTENGILL@MCC.ARPA> Subject: Review of "Schmeme" Lisp I recently purchased an implementation of the Scheme dialect of lisp for my PC. I am familiar with GC Lisp, IQ Lisp, and Mu Lisp for the PC. I use Lambdas and 3600s with ZetaLisp at work. TI PC Scheme is a very complete implementation of scheme for the IBM and TI personal computers and compatibles. It combines high speed code execution, a good debugging and editing environment, and very low cost. The Language: * Adheres faithfully to the Scheme standard. * Has true lexical scoping. * Prodedures and environments are first class data objects. * Is properly tail recursive - there is no penalty compared to iteration. * Includes window and graphics extensions. The Environment: * An incremental optimizing compiler (not native 8086 code) * Top level read-compile-print loop. * Interactive debugger allows run time error recovery. * A minimal Emacs-like full screen editor with a scheme mode featuring parethesis matching and auto indenting of lisp code. * An execute DOS command or "push" to DOS capability - this is only practical with a hard disk because of the swap file PCS writes. * A DOS based Fast Load file format object file conversion utility. * A fast 2 stage garbage collector. First Impressions: Scheme seems to be much better sized to a PC class machine than the other standard dialects of lisp because of its simplicity. The TI implementation appears to be very solid and complete. The compiled code that it produces (with debugging switches off) is 2 to 5 times faster than the other PC lisps that I have used. With the full screen editor loaded (there is also a structure editor) there seems to be plenty of room for my code in a 640k PC. TI recommends 320k or 512k with the editor loaded. The documentation is of professional quality (about 390 pages), but not tutorial. Abelson and Sussman^2's "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs" is a very good companion for learning scheme as well as the art and science of programming in general. My favorite quick benchmark - (define (test n) (do ((i 0 (1+ i)) (r () (cons i r))) ((>= i n) r))) runs (test 10000) in less than 10 seconds with the editor loaded - of course it takes a couple of minutes to print out the ten thousand element list that results. The main lack I find is that the source code for the system is not included - one gets used to that in good lisp environments. I have hit only a couple of minor glitches, that are probably pilot error, so far. Since the system is compiled with debugging switches off it is hard to get much useful information about the system from the dubugger. Based on my brief, but very positive experience with TI PC scheme and its very low price of $95 - I recommend it to anyone interested in a PC based lisp. You can order from Texas Instruments at 1-800-TI-PARTS. (Standard disclaimers about personal opinions and having no commercial interest in the product ...) Rob Pettengill ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Feb 86 05:56:59 cet From: 10409813%WSUVM1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU Subject: AT&T PC 6300 Expansion I have an AT&T PC 6300 and would be interested to hear from other owners concerning expansion. I am looking into an expanded memory board, and I believe AT&T makes one which would take advantage of the 16-bit data bus. Does anyone have any experience with this product? I would also like to find out about other boards for the AT&T which take advantage of the 8086's 16-bits. (Graphics, ports, etc.) On an unrelated note, does anyone have a screen dump routine for the TOSHIBA P1340? I have FRIEZE (comes w/PC PAINTBRUSH) and it seems to support as many printers as any, and it does not support the P1340. I have written (not entirely successfully) my own driver, but would most insterested in seeing what others have done. Ultimately, I would like to be able to dump AT&T 640x400 monochrome, but would settle for a routine which expects a CGA. Thanks, Eric Schneider 10409813@wsuvm1.BITNET or eric@wsu.CSNET ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Feb 86 05:17 ??? From: LBAFRIN%clemson.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA Subject: Now How About Specs for 1-2-3 Device Drivers? Plaudits to the kind soul who contributed the 1-2-3 worksheet file format specification to the Info-IBMPC archives. Would it also be possible to obtain for the archives a copy of whatever specs Lotus may have for writing 1-2-3 device drivers? Just wondering... -- Larry Afrin Dept. of Computer Science Clemson University ================================ Please send replies, if any, to: lbafrin@clemson.csnet or lbafrin%eureka@clemson.csnet or, as a last resort, any reasonable-looking string with "lbafrin", "eureka", and "clemson" in it (And I'm told that Usenet fans can try ihnp4!seismo!clemson.CSNET!lbafrin) I disclaim everything anybody ever said about anything. ------------------------------ Date: Feb 10 1986 From: Hermann Willers <G95%DHDURZ2.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> Subject: SHELL, Modula2 Software Development System 1. Did anyone try successfully to put COMMAND.COM into an other directory than the root ? I tried, but the SHELL command in CONFIG.SYS did'nt work. "missing or defective command interpreter" (or so) was the message. My system is an Olivetti M24, MSDOS 2.11, version to support 720 K drives (M24 = AT&T 6300). Does it under these conditions always fail or did I miss something too obvious ? 2. Does anyone know, if the M2SDS has nice features like INLINE (as Turbo-P.), interruptcalls, the capability of executing as an interrupt service routine, include files (optional), including EXTERNAL code, absolute variables, short: the things one wouldn't want to miss in T.P. Please reply directly to me, since I see only someone else's copy of INFO-IBMPC and this is VERY irregular. Thanks in advance for your time and effort ! Hermann Willers G95@DHDURZ2.BITNET Heidelberg, FRG ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Feb 86 13:30 EST From: Hess@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Fansi Console and Shell from Dr. Dobbs To: info-ibmpc@USC-ISIB.ARPA Message-ID: <860212183030.376476@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> For the person who wanted a faster ANSI driver, there is FANSI-CONSOLE, which is shareware of some sort. Not freeware, but not expensive either. Try Hersey Micro Consulting (or "no Smoking Software"?) in Ann Arbor, MI. For the person who wanted to create a shell to replace COMMAND.COM, try looking at last month's and this month's Doctor Dobbs Journal. They claim to have a disk available, with source code (MS-C) and executable shell. Try DDJ in Palo Alto, CA. Brian ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Feb 86 13:32 EST From: Hess@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Turbo Board Comparison? Can someone with a Victor plug-into-socket board estimate the speed-up via Norton tests? I recall that the most recent message about it described mostly installation stuff. Joe Newcomer's note about his turbo card and an advertisement from Victor sparked my interest. Brian ------------------------------ Date: 12 Feb 1986 12:09:49 PST Subject: monochrome monitor query From: Laurence I. Press <SWG.LPRESS@USC-ISIB.ARPA> Does anyone know a source for schematics and parts for the IBM monochrome monitor? Thanks, Larry Press ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12-FEB-1986 12:31 PST From: Mike Iglesias <MIGLESIAS%UCIVMS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> Subject: Removing non-DOS Partitions from AT Disk We have an AT w/20mb hard disk. We had a copy of PC/IX on loan about a year ago, and we tried to install it, but for some reason that I can't remember right now, it didn't work. We don't have PC/IX anymore, and we want to get rid of the PC/IX partition on the hard disk so we can have a 20mb DOS partition again. I've tried using FDISK to remove the PC/IX partition with no success. Is there a way to get rid of the PC/IX partition without having PC/IX? Thanks, Mike Iglesias University of California, Irvine ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Feb 86 04:14:42 PST From: Ya'akov_Miles%UBC.MAILNET@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: LINK Option /E vs EXEPACK By comparing the sizes of the (packed) files generated from LINK ver 3.02 and the /E option with the size of the .EXE file manually packed with the (scarce and infrequently distributed) utility EXEPACK, I have come to the conclusion that LINK ver 3.02 option /E generates EXACTLY the same size file as manually running EXEPACK on a regular .EXE file output by LINK... Since LINK is easy to get, whereas EXEPACK is only distributed with an (expensive) subset of Microsoft packages, I heartily recommend using LINK and /E. Also, the LINK with /E does not involve the hassle of intermediate files, and appears to bind at the same rate as LINK without /E. There is only one slight problem with packed files, namely SYMDEBUG does not know how to use them. In reality this is no problem, you link without /E while developing and then release the final product packed. Also, in higher level languages (such as Quick-Basic), who cares about the Symbolic Debugger, anyway... While on the topic of Quick-Basic, when is Microsoft going to improve their manual so as to mention that you have to link to GWCOM.OBJ to get the serial I/O ports to work, and what the file SMALLERR.OBJ is good for? It would also be nice if the /V and /W switches to BASCOM worked as the manual said they did. (/V works like /W is supposed to, /W produces junk) Also, a BREAK or a FRAMING ERROR to the serial I/O port crashes Quick-Basic ------------------------------ From: 2212msr%whuts.UUCP@BRL Subject: PC-DOS 3.1 and "echo off" Date: Tue, 4-Feb-86 10:15:45 PST nather@astro.utexas.edu writes: "For several reasons (none very good) I'd like to use PC-DOS 3.1, but not at the expense of bat-chatter. If anyone knows how to patch the 3.x command.com so it runs .bat files silently, please send it to me, or post it to the net. The patch for 2.x I am using does not work on 3.x (*sigh*). I have a kludge that erases the "echo off" which is echoed when the batch command "echo off" is executed, but it is irritating after getting used to the real thing." This patch changes echo default to echo off (DOS 3.1 only!). debug command.com -e 1967<cr> xxxx:1967 01.00<cr> -w <cr> writing xxxx bytes -q<cr> Max S. Robin AT&T Bell Laboratories Rm. 3E-318A Whippany, NJ 07981 201-386-6865 email:whuxg!2212msr ------------------------------ From: farren%well.UUCP@brl Subject: CGA: 2 More Palettes in Medium Res Date: Sun, 9-Feb-86 10:44:51 PST jan@looking.UUCP (Jan Gray) writes: "From the documentation I've seen, there are only two medium res colour palettes, one with black, red, green, yellow, and the other black, magenta, cyan, white. However, Turbo Pascal can set another two palettes with "high intensity" colours. How is this done? The BIOS Video Set Palette call doesn't seem to be able to set palette 2 or 3. Is there a BIOS call to do this? Is there a (much less portable) IO address to poke?" You can get the high-intensity palette by setting the background color to a high-intensity color (Probably black, that's usually the most common choice). To do this, you use the normal BIOS call, INT 10H, with AH set to 0BH, BH set to zero, and BL set to 8 (high intensity black). Likewise, if BL is set to zero, you will get the low-intensity pallette. Mike Farren uucp: {your favorite backbone site}!hplabs!well!farren Fido: Sci-Fido, Fidonode 125/84, (415)655-0667 ------------------------------ From: rde@ukc.ac.uk Subject: Re: File truncation under PC-DOS Date: Tue, 4-Feb-86 01:08:02 PST bright@dataio.UUCP writes: "Anyone out there know a way to truncate a file to 'n' bytes in length without going in and directly manipulating the FAT? I need a method that is well-behaved." Use function 42H (seek) to move the file pointer to the place you want the file truncated. Then use function 40H (write) with a count of zero (CX=0). This comes from the MS-DOS Programmer's Manual so it ought (!) to be well behaved. Hope this helps. Bob Eager rde@ukc.UUCP rde@ukc ...!mcvax!ukc!rde Phone: +44 227 66822 ext 7589 ------------------------------ Date: Wednesday, 12 Feb 1986 13:15:20-PST From: watson%akov04.DEC@decwrl.DEC.COM Subject: Co-Processor Board Inquiry I would like to find out what a co-processor is and how it works. I have requested information from suppliers that advertize such products in the trade magazines but all I get is hype on their products. I would like to know does the co-processor and system processor compute concurrently? How do the processors communicate, do (all, most, some, none) of the popular software work on the co-processor? How does the user control the 2 processors? Are there (one, two, several, many) different types of co-processors? Which one is best? etc, etc, etc. If you are privy to this information, I would very much appreciate hearing from you. I will try to summarize the responses for other curious and/or confused souls out there with the same interests. Thank in advance. Rick Watson ------------------------------ Date: 12 Feb 1986 16:24:43 PST Subject: Co-Processor Board Inquiry From: Billy <BRACKENRIDGE@USC-ISIB.ARPA> To: watson%akov04.DEC@DECWRL.DEC.COM A co-processor as defined by Intel is a chip nearly pin for pin identical to the processor chip. In the case of the PC/XT the main processor chip is an Intel 8088 and the floating point co-processor chip is an Intel 8087. When the main processor issues a special instruction the co-processor is informed that the next few following bytes are instructions for the co-processor to perform. Currently there are two co-processor chips made by Intel. The 8087 does fast floating point arithmetic, the other is a special chip that aids in implementation of stand alone word processors. Intelwill soon announce a third co-processor chip that will speed up graphics for PC applications. There are also co-processor boards available for the PC. I suspect this is what you were asking about and relabeled your query accordingly. Some co-processor boards use the Intel family chips to run DOS faster than a PC or AT. Others contain 68000s or National 320XX chips and run various flavors of Unix. The subject is indeed confusing as no standard has emerged in this area. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Feb 86 16:27 CST From: XASSHOR%UCHIMVS1.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU Subject: WordPerfect and the LaserJet The reason WordPerfect will sometimes not print boldface on the LaserJet even though there is a bold font available is this: WordPerfect assumes that there is one printer command string for turning on boldface. On the LaserJet there is both a primary font and a secondary font available, and the command strings for working with them are slightly different. By default, WordPerfect sends the string for boldfacing the primary font. The fixes are obvious. -- Melinda Shore University of Chicago Computation Center ...!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!shor XASSHOR@UChicago.Bitnet ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1986 19:56 EST From: LENOIL@XX.LCS.MIT.EDU To: Craig Milo Rogers <ROGERS@USC-ISIB.ARPA> Subject: CHMOD CHMOD (PC-DOS interrupt function 43H) negligently trashes register AX on a non-error return from subfunction 00H (Get File) Not negligent at all. The DOS technical manual explicitly states (somewhere) that AX is never preserved by an INT 21. ------------------------------ End of Info-IBMPC Digest ************************ -------