lane@dalcs.UUCP (John Wright/Dr. Pat Lane) (03/29/88)
To those that have been flaming Microsoft for their choice for defaults on
the ECHO OFF command (not to mention others)...I totally agree!
My solution: patch the old COMMAND.COM.
Following are several patchs for COMMAND.COMs from various versions of DOS
(by no means a complete list). These patchs give you the ECHO OFF default,
make ECHO followed by one or more spaces produce a blank line, and give you
a decent environment size. I've used all the ones listed below successfully.
BTW, I originally got these patchs right here on USENET.
I'll assume you know how to do the patchs using DEBUG or whatever. Needless
to say, have a bootable disk with a backup copy of your COMMAND.COM handy.
Remember to add 100h to the offsets when patching with DEBUG.
If anyone has problems or needs to find the appropriate locations in their
DOS, send me mail and I'll try to help (what am I letting myself in for :-)
[OFFSETS] for patchs to PC or MSDOS 3.10 COMMAND.COM (Miscrsoft, IBM or COMPAQ)
Echo off for batch files except AUTOEXEC.BAT
[1867] = 01 -> 00
ECHO OFF for AUTOEXEC.BAT
[F5b] = 03 -> 02
ECHO<space> produces blank line
[3778] = E8 20 00 74 -> 83 F9 01 72
Correct CLS to clear 25 lines
[253B] = 19 -> 18
Default environment size is 512 bytes
[0C11] = 0A 00 -> 00 20
(Note Microsoft, IBM & COMPAQ versions of COMMAND.COM differ only in text
strings for start-up and "ver" command)
[OFFSETS] for patchs to PCDOS 3.20 COMMAND.COM (IBM version)
Echo off for batch files except AUTOEXEC.BAT
[1A2C] = 01 -> 00
ECHO OFF for AUTOEXEC.BAT
[105E] = 03 -> 02
ECHO<space> produces blank line
[3988] = E8 20 00 74 -> 83 F9 01 72
Default environment size is 640 bytes
[0C4F] = 0A 00 -> 28 00
[OFFSETS] for patchs to MSDOS 3.20 COMMAND.COM (Microsoft version)
Echo off for batch files except AUTOEXEC.BAT
[19BC] = 01 -> 00
ECHO OFF for AUTOEXEC.BAT
[105E] = 03 -> 02
ECHO<space> produces blank line
[3918] = E8 20 00 74 -> 83 F9 01 72
Default environment size is 640 bytes
[0C4F] = 0A 00 -> 28 00
[OFFSETS] for patchs to PCDOS 3.20 COMMAND.COM (COMPAQ version)
Echo off for batch files except AUTOEXEC.BAT
[1A6C] = 01 -> 00
ECHO OFF for AUTOEXEC.BAT
[10A4] = 03 -> 02
ECHO<space> produces blank line
[39C8] = E8 20 00 74 -> 83 F9 01 72
Default environment size is 640 bytes
[0C4F] = 0A 00 -> 28 00
[OFFSETS] for patchs to PCDOS 3.30 COMMAND.COM (IBM version)
Echo off for batch files except AUTOEXEC.BAT
[1C68] = 01 -> 00
ECHO OFF for AUTOEXEC.BAT
[1204] = 03 -> 02
ECHO<space> produces blank line
[3D29] = E8 20 00 74 -> 83 F9 01 72
Default environment size is 640 bytes
[0CB8] = 0A 00 -> 28 00
--
John Wright ////////////////// Phone: 902-424-3805 or 902-424-6527
Post: c/o Dr Pat Lane, Biology Dept, Dalhousie U, Halifax N.S., CANADA B3H-4H8
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