[comp.sys.ibm.pc] Microwaves, _video, & switchar

schanck@harmonica.cis.ohio-state.edu (Christopher Schanck) (01/30/89)

Three questions for the folks of netland:

1) Having just rearranged my apartment a bit, I find my microwave is now
very close to my system unit. Question is, can the output of the microwave
have an adverse effect on my data/hardware?

2) I asked about this before, but it was a while ago, and I did not get
a reply so I figured I would inquire again. Several months ago, somebody
mentioned a __video structure used internally by TC which when tweaked in
the proper way allowed for even faster video output than DIRECTVIDEO
alone. Could somebody post/email me this info?

3) Couple weeks ago I asked for some C code which would enable me to
set and retrieve the current switchar. I received several responses
(thanks to all!) and they work quite nicely. Thing is, I can't really
seem to see what the use is; even with my disk-manager software in use
and switchar set to '/', things work fine. (the disk manager is homebrew,
written in TC1.0/1.5/2.0) I didn't do any extensive testing, but
things all seem to work fine no matter what switchar is set to. So could
somebody post a write up of why you would change it, how it can be a
problem, and so on. Enquiring minds want to know....

Chris

-=-
"I do not THINK in regular expressions, and I am not NP-complete!"
--- Christopher Schanck, occasional human being.
schanck@.cis.ohio-state.edu

sullivan@phyllis.math.binghamton.edu (fred sullivan) (02/01/89)

In article <32972@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Christopher Schanck <schanck@cis.ohio-state.edu> writes:
>Three questions for the folks of netland:
>
>things all seem to work fine no matter what switchar is set to. So could
>somebody post a write up of why you would change it, how it can be a
>problem, and so on. Enquiring minds want to know....
>
Some of us are psychologically incapable of typing backslashes in path
names.  Setting switchar to '-' allows us to use foreslashes.

Use of switchar other than '/' breaks some programs, notably Norton Utilities.

Fred Sullivan				SUNY at Binghamton
Dept. Math. Sciences			Binghamton, NY 13903
					sullivan@marge.math.binghamton.edu
First you make a roux!

jsilva@cogsci.berkeley.edu (John Silva) (02/02/89)

In article <1796@bingvaxu.cc.binghamton.edu> sullivan@phyllis.math.binghamton.edu writes:
>
>Use of switchar other than '/' breaks some programs, notably Norton Utilities.
>
>Fred Sullivan				SUNY at Binghamton
>Dept. Math. Sciences			Binghamton, NY 13903
>					sullivan@marge.math.binghamton.edu

Norton utilities appear to have been designed to specifically BREAK when 
switchar is other than '/'.  If you search for the byte sequence

B80037CD2180FA2F7405
		^^
and change the indicated 74h to EBh (changes a JZ instruction to JMP),
Norton utilities will function correctly with an altered switchar.

This sequence is found in every one of the utilities, and has been the same
since version 3 at least.

Keep in mind that although NORTON.EXE functions when patched, it cannot find
it's help file unless the path is built using the backslash ('\').

-J.

---
John P. Silva
INTERNET : jsilva@cogsci.berkeley.edu           "You don't know what you're
UUCP     : {backbone}!ucbvax!cogsci!jsilva       getting into, friend..."