dmt@mtunb.ATT.COM (Dave Tutelman) (01/11/89)
In article <506@blake.acs.washington.edu> evan@blake.acs.washington.edu (Not Evan) writes: > >GENERAL STATEMENT TO ALL PERSONS POSTING QUERIES FOR HELP: >If you are asking for assistance with a copyrighted, commercial software >package, and are specifically asking for things that are explained clearly >in the documentation that is included with that package, PLEASE clarify >precisely why you are posting the request, instead of going through more >official channels. (For instance: company I work for runs IBM DOS 4.01, >documentation got stolen, two weeks til replacements arrive, problem can't >wait.) I am willing to render whatever assistance I can, but I don't >condone software piracy, and I will not knowingly assist a person use any >pirated software, any more than I'd help them to pirate it in the first >place. In the absence of information, I am inclined to give you the >benefit of the doubt and answer anyways, but certain corporations may feel >differently, and I really don't want to get nailed on the behalf of an >anonymous net-user. Thank you. In general, I agree with Not-Evan's statement. But in this case, I got a little out of joint. (I've been an interested bystander till now; he wasn't aiming his comment at me.) Let's recall that the query was how to change the environment size used by DOS. Not-Evan's answer was (quite correctly) to use the /E argument in the SHELL= line of CONFIG.SYS. His little lecture above implied, "If you owned the documentation and bothered to look in it, you'd have known this." WRONG !!!! I own the user's guide and the system programmer's guide for my DOS, and there's nothing useful in either one about SHELL=. Nor is there in either Norton or Duncan, the two most common serious references for DOS programmers. (It may be in the $150 MSDOS Encyclopedia; I don't usually have one handy.) In fact, THE ONLY place I've ever seen this information is [roughly semi-annually] in this newsgroup. So, to Not-Evan: - Thanks for taking on yourself the responsibility to post the early-1989 version of the SHELL= tutorial. - I agree in principle with your lecture on "RTFM, or tell the net why you can't." - This was a really inappropriate discussion to attach the lecture to. +---------------------------------------------------------------+ | Dave Tutelman | | Physical - AT&T Bell Labs - Lincroft, NJ | | Logical - ...att!mtunb!dmt | | Audible - (201) 576 2442 | +---------------------------------------------------------------+