Info-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA (Info-IBMPC Digest) (02/08/86)
Info-IBMPC Digest Saturday, 8 February 1986 Volume 5 : Issue 19 This Week's Editor: Richard Nelson Today's Topics: ARC - Freeware File Compression AT 1.2Mb Drive Failure Not Maxell Media UNIX|STAT Ordering Information More About the PC RT (Than You Ever Wanted to Know...) Beware of 'MVDIR.BAT' (& all self-documenting code) Microsoft Quick-Basic 1.00 Known Bugs Undocumented Microsoft LINK Option: /E Microsoft Assembler Alsys Ada on AT Windows with Mouse; Norton Editor The CHMOD Woes XTREE Review Plotting Overhead Transparencies Hard Disk Optimizer AT to VAX Serial Problem XENIX outb() Function Not Found Parallel Transfer Rate of AT Query Columbia BIOS ROM Query Film Digitizing Query DBASE III+ Query Digitizing Tablets Query Apple Laserwriter with MS-DOS Query ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Feb 1986 17:33:53 PST Subject: ARC - Freeware File Compression From: Billy <BRACKENRIDGE@USC-ISIB.ARPA> To: info-ibmpc@USC-ISIB.ARPA We will shortly be getting a new version of Hack for our lending library. For those that may have forgotten Hack is sort of a super Rogue (a screen oriented adventure game). I understand from Tim Iverson (iverson%cory@BERKELEY) the source code is some 280K. Koji will let the world know when we have transferred the files. The only reason I mention this before the fact is that we are getting the file in ARC format. I have seen several messages in the digest discussing differences between ARC 5.0 format and ARC 4.0 format. I didn't know what these messages were referring to until now. ARC is a freeware program from System Enhancement Associates which compresses files of any kind (by one of four compression techniques) and stores the compressed files in one large archive file. It is just the ticket for something like Hack which involves dozens of files and hundreds of thousands of characters. If anyone is interested in this program, I have placed the file ARC500.DOC in our info-ibmpc lending library. INFO-IBMPC still maintains its policy of not distributing freeware, and all program submissions must be in clear text source code. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Feb 86 8:50:37 EST From: "Lawrence D. Sher" <sher@BBNJ.ARPA> To: Info-IBMPC@usc-isib.ARPA Subject: AT 1.2Mb Drive Failure Not Maxell Media In Vol. 4 Issue 105 of this Digest (14-Sep-85), I reported that 2 of 10 Maxell floppies (high capacity type MD2-HD for the PC AT) had failed. After two more failed, I tried the Dysan equivalent, whereupon one of those failed. I called Maxell and explained what had happened on the chance that they would see some self-interest in understanding the problem. They were extra-ordinarily helpful, and I must say that were every company half as helpful, we would have a much more serene Digest to read. Witness: They offered to send two of my failed diskettes to their lab for detailed examination. I sent the diskettes and (after a month) they replied with a telephoned, then a written(!!!), report including micrographs and oscilloscope tracings. The report shows that the head of my seldom-used IBM high-density diskette drive is canted so as to scratch track 0 into track heaven. The two failed samples (one Maxell, one Dysan) show identical scratches on the 200x photographs. There are several lessons for us all: 1. A new diskette drive can have an insidious diskette-killing disease. 2. Media failures should not automatically be blamed on a "bad batch". 3. Maxell has shown itself to be a paragon of an end-user-oriented company. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Feb 86 10:01:36 est From: "Bennett E. Todd III" <ecsvax!bet%mcnc.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA> To: info-ibmpc@usc-isib.ARPA Subject: UNIX|STAT Ordering Information Turns out the announcement of the availability of UNIX|STAT for MS-DOS went out early in November of 1985, and I cannot find machine-readable for it anywhere, so I will just retype the crucial information: Requirements to run UNIX|STAT: MS-DOS at least 96K RAM floppy drives Of course, more memory and a hard disk make things (substantially) nicer to use, but isn't that always the case? Send a check or money order for $15 in US funds (no personal notes or invoices) made out to Gary Perlman. Include the return mailing address in *exactly* the following format: Gary Perlman School of Information Technology Wang Institute of Graduate Studies Tyngsboro, MA 01879 USA Distribution is via US Mail *only*. You can also write him for more information. -Bennett Todd Bennett Todd -- Duke Computation Center, Durham, NC 27706-7756; (919) 684-3695 UUCP: ...{decvax,seismo,philabs,ihnp4,akgua}!mcnc!ecsvax!duccpc!bet ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Feb 86 22:03:21 est From: "John R. Levine, P.O.Box 349, Cambridge MA 02238-0349 (617-494-1400)" <ima!johnl%cca-unix.arpa@cca-unix.arpa> Subject: More About the PC RT (Than You Ever Wanted to Know...) To: info-ibmpc%usc-isib.arpa.ima!net.micro.pc@cca-unix.arpa I just got a copy of the PC RT "technology book" which contains 157 pages all about the RT's hardware and software, including the VRM and AIX but not 4.2BSD. Order SA23-1057, "IBM RT Personal Computer Technology" from your local IBM branch office. John Levine, ima!johnl, Levine@YALE ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 06 Feb 86 02:46:28 EST From: James H. Coombs <JAZBO%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> To: info-ibmpc@usc-isib.ARPA Subject: Beware of 'MVDIR.BAT' (& all self-documenting code) Info-IBMPC Digest V5 #15 (01/28/86) carried a notice that gave directions for moving "an entire directory." The procedure involves creating a 'MVDIR.BAT', which invokes the public domain 'MV.DIR' (presumably the one by Harry G. McGavran, Jr., version 3.00). While I'm sure that the author of the notice has had lots of success with this technique, one of my colleagues destroyed our hard disk directory on the first try. Don't ask me how. All files were moved into one directory, which ended up with bad links--an error message that I have never seen before. When I restored the original directory structure, I ended up with cross-linked files and truncated entries. I restored a couple of the files but lost a directory. CHKDSK recovered a lot of chains that were unrecognizable, of course. Finally, I can't boot off the disk. I found that COMMAND.COM was degraded and restored that. Still no help. It will be quicker to just reformat the damned thing and start from scratch. So far, 'MVDIR.BAT' has cost me two hours. If I'm lucky, I can get everything set up again in another two hours, plus diddling this and that for several weeks. I hope no one else has shared this experience, and I am writing in the hope that no one else will. Finally, I have to say that I am not pleased to find an uncommented, unexplained BAT file in INFO-IBMPC. I don't have the time to work through it to figure out what it is supposed to do, and I am sure as hell not going to try it out. I suppose that the author might feel that the code is "self-documenting"; well, that is why I would never have tried the damned thing in the first place. Unfortunately, my colleague is not a programmer and has not been taught to recognize and revile something that is not well-thought out. For those who do not have technical backgrounds, I strongly encourage that you do not try out public domain software unless you understand how it works or have had it "certified" by a local expert. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Feb 86 05:50:30 PST From: Ya'akov_Miles%UBC.MAILNET@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA To: info-ibmpc@USC-ISIB.ARPA Subject: Microsoft Quick-Basic 1.00 Known Bugs List of Known Bugs in Microsoft Quick-Basic Compiler Ver 1.0 ------------------------------------------------------------ I currently have Microsoft Quick-Basic Compiler 1.00 in my possession, and have placed an order for Microsoft Quick-Basic 2.00 with JMG International. I found the following bugs in Ver 1.00 and would like to know if they have been fixed: o BASCOM /C:size accepted, but not documented. Does it work? o BASCOM /V checks each STATEMENT for events. Docs say /V checks each LINE o BASCOM /W does not allow ON KEY GOSUB/ON COM GOSUB/... etc. at run-time o BREAK sent to (opened) COM1: or COM2: makes QUICK-BASIC program to crash Please reply to this message... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 5 Feb 86 06:07:10 PST From: Ya'akov_Miles%UBC.MAILNET@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA To: INFO-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA Subject: Undocumented Microsoft LINK Option: /E There exists an undocumented(?) switch to Microsoft LINK.EXE ver 3.XX, which will cause an automatic compaction during binding. This process will eliminate storage for uninitialized arrays from the .EXE file produced by the linker, reducing the .EXE file size by up to 300 percent! To use this feature, specify the /E option to the command line, eg LINK myprog/E; should work. For example, PCKERMIT.EXE ver 2.27 was 80K when linked normally but shrunk down to 33K when linked with the /E option... ------------------------------ From: dob%ihmax.UUCP@brl Subject: Microsoft Assembler Date: Sat, 1-Feb-86 06:41:31 PST ReSent-Date: 6 Feb 1986 14:18:37 PST ReSent-From: Richard Gillmann <GILLMANN@USC-ISIB.ARPA> ReSent-To: info-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA > >I think that the following should assemble without problems: > >PUBLIC foo > >foo PROC NEAR > > mov [si],OFFSET bar > >foo ENDP ... > > error 35: Operand must have size > > The only work-around I found was: > mov [si],Word Ptr (OFFSET bar) > which looks funny, but assembles correctly. The parentheses are > necessary, as: ... Won't this work? mov word ptr [si],OFFSET bar Daniel M. O'Brien (ihnp4!ihmax!dob) AT&T Bell Laboratories IH 4A-257, x 4782 Naperville-Wheaton Road Naperville, IL 60566 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Feb 86 14:37:52 PST From: larry@Jpl-VLSI.ARPA Subject: Alsys Ada on AT To: info-ibmpc@isib.arpa I received info on a full-Ada compiler for the PC-AT today. Alsys Inc. is the vendor. It's headed by Jean Ichbiach, the Ada design-team leader. The compiler looks very interesting; I intend to give it a close look at the SIGAda/AdaJUG conference the last week of this month in L.A. Alsys says they will be demoing their AT, Sun, and possibly Apollo versions of the compiler. The host is an AT with a hard disk, DOS 3.x, and at least 512K of memory. The compiler comes with a ~3 MB memory board that fits in a full slot. You run under PC-DOS, using your own editor to create source files. Source files are stored in a library created and maintained by an Alsys-proprietary library manager. You could, of course, edit your files on an XT or any other system that creates ASCII files you could copy to your AT. Possibly even the library manager would run on an XT or PC compatible. Compilation, however, has to be done on the AT. The Alsys linker binds into the load module a run-time executive which handles dynamic memory allocation/freeing. If you want to create programs which do parallel processing with Ada tasks, you would bind a larger alternate run-time executive which also implements tasking . The resulting module will run on a PC or compatible under MS-DOS 2.x. If you want to do any floating point the target must also have an 8087/80287 chip. No mention is made of a symbolic debugger of any kind, a serious lack if there really is none. If the target is an AT with more than 512K of memory you can have it run in virtual mode (this is NOT virtual memory, of course, but the 16 MByte direct memory addressing feature of the 80286). There's no need to recompile to have your program run in real or virtual mode; I assume this is a linker option. Alsys claims the object code is about as compact and fast as C code and give a few benchmarks to support that. The size of the run-time executive isn't given, however. My guess is that the executable is probably a good deal bulkier than the C executable if it does parallel processing, due to the tasking part of the alternate run-time exec. (The dynamic-memory management code in the executive should be comparable to the C code in size.) Alsys says they'll soon pre-validate the AT compiler system under the Ada verification suite 1.6 as a preliminary to getting an official validation from DoD. They say the total cost including the ~3MB memory will be under $3000. If the compile and execution speed and load-module size isn't too bad, my section will probably buy a copy. That combined with Alsys' computer-aided instruction "Lessons on Ada" ought to make a good educational tool. After the conference I'll pass on any interesting info. Larry @ JPL-VLSI.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Feb 86 08:22:38 PST From: walton%Deimos@Hamlet.Caltech.Edu Subject: Windows with Mouse; Norton Editor To: info-ibmpc@Hamlet.Caltech.Edu I just got a Microsoft Mouse for use with Windows and my Zenith Z-151. I have seen the future of DOS, and it is good (to misquote PC magazine). I have come to agree with those who have said that Windows without a mouse is not a good thing. Windows with a mouse is rapidly becoming indispensable to me. Now that a means exists for making any program RAM-resident, perhaps we can hope to see Borland Lightning for Windows... On another topic--I just ordered my copy of The Norton Editor. It was reviewed positively in PC magazine, saying essentially the ads were correct--namely it is fast, great for Pascal and C, and can do simple word processing. PC griped a bit about the fairly limited printer support, but whatta ya want for 50 bucks? I would be interested in corresponding with other users of this editor on tricks and customization. Steve Walton walton%deimos@hamlet.cit.edu swalton@caltech.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: 6 Feb 1986 02:59:43 PST Subject: The CHMOD Woes From: Craig Milo Rogers <ROGERS@USC-ISIB.ARPA> To: Info-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA CHMOD (PC-DOS interrupt function 43H) negligently trashes register AX on a non-error return from subfunction 00H (Get File Attributes). My DOS Technical Reference says "AX Error codes if carry flag set". I interpreted that to mean no change if carry flag not set. I was wrong. Craig Milo Rogers ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Feb 86 08:22:15 PST From: walton%Deimos@Hamlet.Caltech.Edu Subject: XTREE Review To: INFO-IBMPC@Hamlet.Caltech.Edu [Forwarded for Art Chodos, who is not on the ARPAnet.] "I am not on the network but I do read the PCINFO documents put out on PCPUBLIC by Educational Computing. [Submitter's note: there is an AT running Xenix on campus which is our central repository for PD software, FreeWare, and ShareWare.] In PCINFO8 there were a lot of comments about writing programs to change file attributes and rename subdirectories. An extremely powerful, inexpensive program exists which does all that and more and it seems to me that it would save a lot of people considerable effort. The program is XTREE by Executive Systems, 15300 Ventura Blvd., Suite 305, Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 800-634-5545 or 818-990-3457 $49.95 list. It allows you to see the tree structure of your disk and examine the files within directories or subdirectories or it will show you ALL the files on your disk. Files may be sorted by name, date, size, or extension. Directories and subdirectories may be created, deleted or renamed. File display can include attributes, date of creation, size, and so on. Attributes can be changed. Files can be tagged so that only tagged files will be acted upon. DOS can be run from within XTREE. I could not get along without it. I would appreciate it if you could make this information available on the network. I have no connection with Executive Systems--I'm just a satisfied user." Steve Walton walton%deimos@hamlet.cit.edu swalton@caltech.bitnet ------------------------------ From: Roy Stehle <stehle@sri-tsc> Date: 7 Feb 1986 0838-PST (Friday) To: Bohnsa@wharton-10 Cc: Info-Ibmpc@usc-isib, Stehle@sri-tsc Subject: Plotting Overhead Transparencies Advanced Graphics Software offers SlideWrite. I have tried it with an HP plotter and found it to be a fairly good product. They can provide you with a trial disk (which is how I tried it). If you get the trial disk, you will probably get a coupon worth $30 off the list price of $225. They offer a 30 day money back guarantee. SlideWrite offers: 2 Fonts (Modern, Roman) 3 Weights (Light, Medium, Bold) 5 Sizes (Tiny, Small, Medium, Large, Giant) 4 Styles (Italic, Color, Underline, Outline) 4 Symbols (Dot, Box, Triangle, Checkmark) 4 Rules (Dotted, Thin, Medium, Heavy) Graphics (Boxes, Circles, Arrows, etc) What You See Is What You Get Contact: Advanced Graphics Software Inc. 333 W. Maude Avenue, Suite 105 Sunnyvale, CA 94086 (408) 749-8620 ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 7 Feb 86 13:10:13 cst From: knutson@huey.UTEXAS.EDU (Jim Knutson) To: info-ibmpc@usc-isib.ARPA Subject: Hard Disk Optimizer About the cheapest optimizer you can get is the BACKUP/RESTORE programs. Just backup your hard disk, zero it out and restore all the files. They will all have contiguous allocations. This, however, does not move the most frequently accessed files together (to reduce seek time) but then I don't know of any optimizers that do this automatically either. Jim Knutson ARPA: knutson@ngp.UTEXAS.EDU UUCP: {ihnp4,seismo,kpno,ctvax}!ut-sally!ut-ngp!knutson Phone: (512) 471-3241 ------------------------------ Date: 7 Feb 1986 09:30-EST Subject: AT to VAX Serial Problem From: MHARRIS@A.BBN.COM To: Info-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA Cc: jpg@SRN-VAX.BBN.COM, MHarris@A.BBN.COM Perhaps there's something I don't understand (likely), and perhaps this has already been discussed here (although I don't recall seeing it), but: I have a vanilla AT with AST Advantage card (2 serial ports) and need to make a serial line connection directly (not via modem) to a vanilla Vax 750. Until recently, I've had this connection running successfully by converting to current-loop at the Vax end and converting back to EIA at the AT end. But I just moved the AT closer to the Vax and removed the current-loop stuff; now it doesn't work. On poking around with a 'scope, I discovered that the AT serial card is putting out 0 to +6 volt signal levels; the RS232 standard calls for something like -3 to +3 volt levels. The current-loop converters were being friendly and making the right thing happen, but apparently the Vax serial port hardware won't deal with it. So: 1. Do I understand correctly what's going on? 2. Same problem if I use IBM serial/parallel adapters? 3. Any solution other than going back to current-loop? Many thanks. -- Michael Harris MHarris @ BBNA BBN Labs 617-497-3794 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 4 Feb 86 11:02:58 est From: rochester!kodak!gardos@seismo.CSS.GOV (tom gardos) Subject: XENIX outb() Function Not Found To: rochester!seismo!usc-isib.arpa!info-ibmpc@seismo.CSS.GOV I am trying to write a device driver in C for the IBM PC AT running XENIX. The program requires use of the functions out() and outb(), however the C compiler cannot find them. Has anyone had this problem? Does anyone know where the functions are defined? Please respond by mail and I will summarize the responses. Thanks. Tom Gardos ------------------------------ Date: 5 Feb 86 15:00:45 PST (Wednesday) From: mwilliams.es@Xerox.COM Subject: Parallel Transfer Rate of AT Query To: <INFO-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA> cc: mwilliams.es@Xerox.COM Hello, I am looking for the data transmission rate for the IBM AT when running in parallel mode. I am not interested in its burst rate but the rate for a document > 20,000 bytes. If anyone knows, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanx Mitch ------------------------------ From: bwong2%amovax.uucp@UCI.EDU To: ucivax!INFO-IBMPC%USC-ISIB@amovax Subject: Columbia BIOS ROM Query Date: 05 Feb 86 15:46:54 PST (Wed) A friend of mine happens to have a Columbia computer. He wanted to upgrade the system to the new version of WordPerfect but was unable to do so because he can only run an old version of DOS because he has a outdated BIOS ROM. Does anyone know of a compatible ROM that he could buy? I thought that a company called Phoenix sold one but then again I am not sure. Many Tanks. Bradley Wong UUCP: ucbvax!ucivax!amovax!bwong2 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 6 Feb 1986 12:26 EST From: Reggie Aurora <AURORA%SBBIOVM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> To: <info-ibmpc%usc-isib@wiscvm.arpa> Subject: Film Digitizing Query Hello: We are interested in setting up a scanning/digitizing system from which we can obtain intensity and positional (X,Y coordinates) off film negatives. Any one who has set up a system that uses a video camera or alternatively a scanner type of system and can provide us with information or specifications, would be of great help. If this is of sufficient interest to other netlanders I will post to the network. Thanx Much! -- Reggie. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 06 Feb 86 14:00:10 CST From: C449499%UMCVMB.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU (Randy Davis) To: INFO-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA Subject: DBASE III+ Query Has anybody seen an actual working copy of this new 'wonderful' update? Is it really worth shelling out another $100? If all I get is the speeded up indexing time, I might as well buy QuickIndex by Fox & Geller. Randy Davis University of Missouri - Columbia ------------------------------ Date: Thu 6 Feb 86 21:25:13-PST From: Brian Reilly <CON.REILLY@SU-GSB-HOW.ARPA> Subject: Digitizing Tablets Query To: info-ibmpc@USC-ISIB.ARPA A friend of mine is interested in purchasing a digitizing tablet for his IBM-XT. If anyone has any experience with such products, or can recommend one, please send me a note and I will forward it on to him. I'm not on this list, so please send directly to me. Thanks. - Brian Reilly con.reilly@su-gsb-how.arpa ------------------------------ To: info-ibmpc@usc-isib.csnet-relay From: tcr@mhuxi.btl Date: Fri 7 Feb EST 1986 09:39 Subject: Apple Laserwriter with MS-DOS Query We are obtaining a Apple Laserwriter and would like to be able to use it with both the Macintosh and with MS-DOS. Switching from one to another electrically is no problem, but what we need is a printer driver for MS-DOS. If it could be used to print simple ASCII text, that would be good. If it could emulate a printer like the Diablo, that would be even better. Has this been done before and if not, any suggestions? Tom Russell AT & T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ (201) 582-7578 Usenet: ihnp4!mhuxi!tcr CSnet: tcr.mhuxi@btl ------------------------------ End of Info-IBMPC Digest ************************ -------