[comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest] Info-IBMPC Digest V91 #78

Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL ("Info-IBMPC Digest") (04/06/91)

Info-IBMPC Digest           Wed,  3 Apr 91       Volume 91 : Issue  78 

Today's Editor:
         Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <GHICKS@WSMR-Simtel20.Army.Mil>

Today's Topics:

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Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 09:01:18 CST
From: CW00000 <CW00%SIUEMUS.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
Subject: 386 BSD Berkeley UNIX or 386 PCs

   I am looking for some information about 386 BSD Berkeley UNIX for
386 PC's.  Any information such as where or how can I get it, how much
is it, and what does it require will be greatly appreciated.

   Thanks in advance.
Don Weihl
CW00@SIUEMUS

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 29 Mar 91 08:49:56 MST
From: Gregory Hicks <GHICKS@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL>
Subject: 386 BSD Berkeley UNIX or 386 PCs

Don:

Dr Dobbs Journal currently has a series of articles re: porting BSD
Unix to the '386.  

Unfortunately, the only info I've been able to glean about obtaining
the system is "Those who meet the requirements of the Regents of the
University of California can obtain the system from the Univ of
California at Berkeley."  Unfortunately, no-where do they tell you what
those requirements are- or even where to get the info...

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 14:55 MET
From: "Jim Groeneveld, NIPG-TNO, Leiden, NL" <JIM%RULTNO@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: File and subdirectory detection

Below is the source of the BATch file CHKEXIST, which may be of general
use.  It checks existence (or not) of some name as a disk file or
subdirectory.  One may adapt it for specific purposes, e.g. replacing
the textual output by environment variable definitions. It's simple
standard DOS language.

Beginning of CHKEXIST.BAT 

@echo off
if "%1"=="" goto help
if not exist %1 goto no_file
echo %1 is a diskfile
goto end
:no_file
if not exist %1\nul goto no_subdir
if exist %1\*.* echo %1 is a non-empty subdirectory
if not exist %1\*.* echo %1 is an empty subdirectory
goto end
:no_subdir
echo %1 does not exist
goto end
:help
echo CHKEXIST by Jim Groeneveld, NL, 21/3-91.
echo Checks existence (or not) of some name as a disk file or subdirectory.
echo Syntax: CHKEXIST name
echo Output: textual report of existence, adapt for specific purposes.
:end
=================================end===================================

Regards - Jim Groeneveld.

E-mail: GROENEVELD@NIPG.TNO.NL (RFC-822/internet-type Bitnet address)
  GROENEVELD%NIPG.TNO.NL@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (from Internet)
File xfer: GROENEVELD@HDETNO51.BITNET (EARN address) 
NIPG-TNO [postal/visiting address] | Y. Groeneveld   
P.O.Box 124    | Wassenaarseweg 56 | Schoolweg 14    
2300 AC Leiden | 2333 AL Leiden    | 8071 BC Nunspeet
Nederland (NL) | (+31|0)71-178810  | 03412-60413     
[office]     Fax (+31|0)71-176382  | [home]          

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 13:56:40 PST
From: Andrew Klossner <andrew%frip.wv.tek.com@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: Programming Printer Port for Input??

Recent PCs can, indeed, input on the 8 data lines of the parallel port.
Examples include the PS/2 series and my Toshiba T3100SX.  The hardware
lets you configure the port to be either input or output in a
half-duplex model.

There is absolutely no support for this in the BIOS, so you have to
program the hardware by hand.  As far as I can tell, there is no
established protocol for turning around the line (changing the
direction of data in a two-way conversation.)  In fact, I haven't found
any program, anywhere, that configures this port for input.  For this
reason, we decided not to support the bidirectional parallel capability
in our printer product line.

Reference: "IBM Personal System/2 Hardware Interface Technical
Reference", chapter entitled "Parallel Port Controller (Type 1)".

  -=- Andrew Klossner   (uunet!tektronix!frip.WV.TEK!andrew)    [UUCP]
                        (andrew%frip.wv.tek.com@relay.cs.net)   [ARPA]

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 14:37:30 -0500
From: David Kirschbaum <kirsch@usasoc.soc.mil>
Subject: Repair of DOS backup files (V91 #66)

>Date: Sat, 16 Mar 91 15:54:35 GMT
>From: salehh@jacobs.cs.orst.edu ()

> Is there a utility that will repair damaged backup files?  The files
>are ascii and were backedup under DOS 3.2 . The possible cause of the
>damage is that the machine the files were backedup from had floppy
>drives that were out of alignment.

I don't believe so.  However, if you wish to salvage the maximum of
that ASCII text (via an editor or some such), it's relatively trivial
to trim off BACKUP's 128-byte header and produce a (hopefully)
clean_if_broken text file.  I even have an ancient utility (BCOPY,
*not* the BCOPY at SIMTEL20's <FILUTL> subdirectory) that does the
trimming for you.  But it's also easy to do with DEBUG or with any
binary editor.

And there are several shareware/freeware/public domain editors that
would handle any binary characters that might sneak into the previously
pristine ASCII text.

If you need a step-by-step explanation of what to do, contact me
privately via EMail.

David Kirschbaum
Toad Hall
kirsch@usasoc.soc.mil

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 16:14:19 CST
From: Charlie Turner <CHARLIE%UMVMA@TAUNIVM.TAU.AC.IL>
Subject: ST225 and RLL

I forward a reply I got directly about my Hard Disks and controllers problem.

----------------------------Original message----------------------------
I saw your question in the Info_IBMPC digest.

Old ST225 drives were supposed to be solid enough to actually work
properly in RLL mode. Supposedly the newer ST225 drives won't,
persumably because Seagate sells the good ones as ST238 RLL drives
instead!

You can try cabling the ST225 as the second HD behind your RLL
controller and see what happens. Otherwise I think it is possible to
have both a MFM and RLL controller in a PC at once, but that requires
the two controllers to keep out of each other's way. I have a SCSI
adapter and an RLL adapter in my 386 PC and everything works fine. I
haven't tried a MFM and RLL together however. Hopefully someone can
recommend a MFM controller to you that is known to work in a two
controller situation. Otherwise you may be in for an adventure getting
everything working.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 14:37:07 -0500
From: David Kirschbaum <kirsch@usasoc.soc.mil>
Subject: Tiff File Format

In Info-IBM #050, Danny Taub asks:

>        A friend here at Vassar has asked me if I can find out the file
>formats of TIFF files.  If anyone has any information, please send
>information either to the net or to me directly.  Thanks in advance.

A fast fgrep of my SIMTEL index reveals:

PD1:<MSDOS.GIF>
VUIMG295.ZIP      GIF/GIF89a/TIFF view/print w/Zoom/Pan/Scale

PD1:<MSDOS.GRAPHICS>
ALCHMY13.ZIP      JPEG/Targa/GIF/IFF/PICT2/PCX/Sun/TIFF convert
GRAFWK48.ZIP      View/cvt/print MAC/IMG/GIF/TIFF/EPS graphics

PD1:<MSDOS.TIFF>
DTIFF.ZIP         Displays TIFF files on screen, uses TACS
DVTIF1.ZIP        TIFF reader:PACKBITS compr/uncomp C src, ALDUS
TACS40.ZIP        TIFF Access/Create System - C source, TIFF 4.0
TFTOOL.ZIP        TIFF toolkit developer package C source, ALDUS
TIFF-50.ARC       Tagged Image File Format specs, v5.0
TIFFAX.ZIP        TIFF FAX format definition/example, ALDUS

Those last two look like just what the doctor ordered, and the first
ones might give you utilities to play with. 

[David, file descriptions are more readable when reformated...
Although, thanks for the FGREP...  gph]

Regards,
David Kirschbaum
Toad Hall
kirsch@usasoc.soc.mil

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 14:37:34 -0500
From: David Kirschbaum <kirsch@usasoc.soc.mil>
Subject: UUDECODE question

In Info-IBMPC #066:
>Date: Fri Mar 15 09:29:32 1991
>From: johnboyd@logdis1.oc.aflc.af.mil (John Boyd;CRENP)
>
>I've run into a problem with a uuencoded file from the listserver@nodak.
...
>On INFOP145.ZIP I get the pieces OK, and strip out the 'spurious garbage'
>and then proceed to uudecode.  The error message I get says 'end not
>found'.  The DDs warn that files passing through Unix systems may
>incorrectly translate the CR/LF situation, but that it will really be OK.
>Well, it's *not*.  I go ahead and run pkunzip -t, and it tells me that
>there is an error, and to use pkzipfix.  I do that, and go ahead and
>extract the exe, and when I try to run that; *suprise*, DOS says 'error in
>exe file'.

I could probably <smugly> say, "Well, if you were using TOADUU, you
wouldn't *have* this problem."  But that might be naive or premature.

Possibilities:

1 - You *are* doing all this in the MSDOS environment, right?  If not,
entirely new ballgame.

2 - If you had a CR/LF translation problem, you should've had an editor
problem already when doing that "strip out the spurious garbage".  If
you're needing CR -> CR/LF conversion, you *are* using FLIP, right?

3 - If you're having to put together multiple pieces of a uuencoded
file, are you *sure* something isn't getting lost in the reassembly?
Does each chunk have a unique begin and end you can use during the
reassembly?  Don't depend on editing off headers and trailers of each
separate chunk and then using DOS's COPY or some such to concatenate
the chunks.  Blank lines are liable to sneak in there.  And blank lines
are a "no-no" with the uudecode process.

4 - Some braindead uuencodes still use spaces (ASCII 32) instead of the
commonly accepted "`" (ASCII 96) replacement.  These spaces (mainly the
trailing ones on each line) can be trimmed by an equally braindead
communication channel.  Then, if you don't have a uudecode utility
smart enough to make up for this .. problem city.  (Toad Hall UUDECODE
of course handles this problem.)

5 - If PKUNZIP reports an error (either during unzipping or via the
"-t" switch .. forget it.  You're broke, finished, done with.  Throw
the .zip file away .. PKZIPFIX doesn't solve problems like that.  Your
problem's in the original uudecode process.

6 - These *ARE* uuencoded files, right?  Starting with a "M" on each
line?  And a "begin 644 foobar.zip" as a first line format?  And a
"end" for the very last line?  xxencoded files look similar to
uuencoded ones, but are fundamentally different!

Hope this helps, or at least gives you some ideas to chew on.

David Kirschbaum
Toad Hall

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 23:27 +0200
From: Urban_Janlert_Socialmedicin@norrkom.umu.se
Subject: Validation programme

February 28th Andrew McLean <PHR050@ibm.southampton.ac.uk> asked about
programs for validated data input:

I think that the EPIINFO programme (a PD from Centre for Disease
Control) will fit you excellent. It has facilites for entering,
validating, exporting & importing as well as analyzing data. The
programme is distributed by

   USD, Incorporated
   2575 A West Park Place
   Stone Mountain, GA 30087
   U.S.A.

Urban Janlert  M.D.            Phone: +46 920 712 14      
Dept. of Community Medicine    Fax: +46 920 147 26        
Kopmangatan 36 B           
S-951 32 LULEA             
SWEDEN                     
mail: Urban_Janlert@NORRKOM.UMU.SE 

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 08:30:00 EST
From: "Bruce H. McIntosh" <DHBHM@nervm.nerdc.ufl.edu>
Subject: Windows 3.0 in 386 mode

You have to have at least 2 megabytes of RAM for Windows 3 to run in
386 mode; the more RAM you have, the happier Windows'll be.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 18:07:40 EST
From: Curt Priest <BMSLIB@mitvma.mit.edu>
Subject: AST Rampage board

I have a specialized need for another RAMpage AT board that was
discontinued by AST about four years ago.  This is the 2 meg EEMS
board.  Does anyone know of any source that might be clearing out these
boards or is there someone out there who is upgrading their AT and just
happens to have one they might contact us about.  If it weren't a
special need we would just go to the RAMpage Plus but this isn't
compatible.

------------------------------

Date: 26 Mar 91 17:22:00 EDT
From: "DRCV06::OPER1" <oper1%drcv06.decnet@drcvax.af.mil>
Subject: CLOCK.SYS

        I am having a bit of a problem with a DELTA XT10 pc.  The
clock.sys driver does not allows you to enter a date greater than
3/18/91.  If you enter a date greater than that it makes the date some
date in 1990.  Does anyone know of a newer version of this clock
driver?  Is the clock driver machine specific?

Glenn.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 27 Mar 91 08:52:15 MET
From:    "Rene de Bie" <CRISRB@HLERUL2.BITNET>
Subject: Quantum HD info wanted

Hello networkers, I have the following problem:
I have a 32MB QUANTUM HD model Q540 dated 1982 wich worked fine in a
WANG PC, but will not do so in an other PC. We've tried to build it in
an IBM XT, and it starts up ok, the light flashes as normal, but that's
all! There's no way the PC wil recognize the HD.  Now I know that the
WANG pc is not at all compatible, but why should a HD be this also?

Does anyone has any suggestions?

Rene de Bie - CRI - University Leiden - Holland
System Programmer ORACLE/IDMS/PCSA
Mail   :P.O.Box 9512 - 2300 RA Leiden - The Netherlands
Phone  :+31 71 276948/276968

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1991 19:55 CST
From: ST11A@jetson.uh.edu
Subject: Help with Vmix.

Does anyone use the shareware multitasker called VMIX?  I'm trying to
get kermit to run in a window by itself, but It won't work.  I can get
to the MSkermit> prompt, but when I connect the window locks up.

I used the terminal emulator that comes with external zmodem, and it
works just fine in a window.  I have also gotten basic and a small
ascii editor to work at the same time with no problem.  I just can't
get kermit to work properly.

If someone knows of a shareware multitasker, let me know so that I can
try it out.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 26 Mar 91 15:38:13 CST
From: Mark Parr <JPARR1@UA1VM.ua.edu>
Subject: IBM Error codes

When booting an IBM PS/2 Model 60, what does a "165" error code mean?
(IBM is so wonderful with it's error messages and we don't have a
manual around here to decipher the codes. :)

Is it a catch-all error code or what?  (I've taken out all of the cards
-- except for the HD controller and the 5.25" FD card -- and I don't
get the error, but when I start putting the other ones -- one for a
CD-ROM drive, Novell network card, & EMS memory card -- I start getting
the number again.)

Thanks,
Mark
               |-- JPARR1@UA1VM.BITNET  --  JPARR@MIBSRV.MIB.ENG.UA.EDU
   Mark Parr --|-- University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa

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End of Info-IBMPC Digest V91 #78
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