Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL ("Info-IBMPC Digest") (03/11/91)
Info-IBMPC Digest Thu, 7 Mar 91 Volume 91 : Issue 54
Today's Editor:
Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <GHICKS@WSMR-Simtel20.Army.Mil>
Today's Topics:
Detecting LCD Screens
Extended/Expanded - Arg!
GNU, FSF and so forth.
Request for help with floppy tape unit (V91 #44) (2 msgs)
program to find text strings in ZIP-archives needed (V91 #46)
Memory
reading 41st track of 360k floppies
Re: NUMLOCK-key
Today's Queries:
9 pin mouse vs IBM PS/2 50
IBM Tickler software
Personal Communications/3270 PDF file for HP Laserjet III
ZModem with Telix
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Date: 6 Mar 91 08:56:00 EDT
From: "SI00::KELLYL" <kellyl%si00.decnet@v3.hanscom.af.mil>
Subject: Detecting LCD Screens
Gonzalo M Rojas Costa asks about detecting, via software, if the screen
is an LCD.
Funny you should ask that. I just spent about a month wandering around
CompuServe asking the same question. Problem is that the LCD screens
return all the values of a CGA/EGA/VGA monitor. I was trying to
detect, from inside an application, whether it was an LCD so I could
adjust colors.
Bottom line is, I never found a way. I gave up when I noticed that PC
Tools uses an environment variable to tell that it is running on an
LCD. I figured that if Central Point can't do it, it can't be done.
I now pass a parameter at run time to force LCD colors if desired.
PLEASE let me know if you do find a way.
- Larry Kelly
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Mar 91 01:52 EDT
From: Chris <CHOWE%HAMPVMS.BITNET@YALEVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
Subject: Extended/Expanded - Arg!
Regarding the exchange about memory, windows, EMM, XMS, QEMM... You
could just get Digital Research DOS 5.0, which can load all drivers,
TSR's, and *itself* into that 384k upper memory space. As I write
this, with several TSR utilities in memory, I have 640,969 bytes free!
-Chris
CHOWE@HAMPVMS.BITNET
#include <std.disclaimer>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1991 06:40:52 PST
From: hugh_davies.wgc1@rx.xerox.com
Subject: GNU, FSF and so forth.
Raul V Ramirez Velarde <PA251678%TECMTYVM.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu> asks;
"would anybody care to tell what is the GNU project, what is gcc and
g++?."
Raul,
GNU stands for "GNU is Not Unix" and is the motto of the Free Software
Foundation. FSF's aim is to produce a complete Unix compatible software
system that will be given away to anyone who wants it. The principal
worker is Richard Stallman of MIT, who is the author of the Emacs
editor.
FSF provides software in source form, and is subject to a "copyleft"
agreement, which basically says you can give the software to whoever
you like, but you must not apply any restrictive covenants to whoever
you give it to.
"gcc" is the GNU 'c' compiler. "g++" is the GNU 'c++' compiler. They
are both supposed to be *very* good, although I have used neither.
Incidentally, since this is the IBM-PC digest, I had better mention
that the FSF has stated they are not much interested in MS-DOS ports of
their software, since they (and indeed I) consider it to be
brain-damaged.
The GNU stuff is obtainable by anonymous ftp (or via BITNET trickle
server) from prep.ai.mit.edu, or by writing to;
Free Software Foundation Inc.
675 Mass Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02139
USA
There is a charge for administration and media.
Have a nice day.
Hugh.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 05 Mar 91 08:42:08 MST
From: d bear <IDDWB%ASUACAD.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Request for help with floppy tape unit (V91 #44)
in reply to Ed Bawolek's question on floppy controllers>
I have never heared of putting to floppy controllers in the same
system. My experience with tape backups is that they will daisy chain
fine into the existing floppy drives. You should only need a ribbon
cable with 3 edge connectors, 2 for your existing floppies, and the 3rd
for the tape backup. My guess is there will be conflicts over having
two controllers in the system. Furthermore, the BIOS was'nt built to
handle tape backup hardware -- that functionality is provided via the
tape software you should have recieved..
good luck
D Bear
ASU COPP ext 8257
... the only Bear on campus ...
IDDWB@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1991 13:02:31 PST
From: George_C._Burkitt.El_Segundo@xerox.com
Subject: Request for help with floppy tape unit (V91 #44)
> Date: Sat, 23 Feb 91 22:30 MST
> From: <AGEJB%ASUACVAX.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
> I added a secondary floppy controller to my system ...
This isn't legal; the two floppy controllers clash. The solution to
the need for a third floppy connection is to use a floppy bus expander.
Mine is a 1/3 card which goes in series with the floppy controller
output and provides a connector for the internal two drive cable and
an external connector for the additional cable. I got mine from a
store which sells the ADIC tape drive and software. The store was
Vitek, (619)744-8305. The card was called an interface or adapter
card, I forget which and was made by ADIC, I think. It (or somebody
else's version of it) should still be available
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 09:34:01 EST
From: Manjit Trehan <ITMS400%INDYCMS.BITNET@UICVM.uic.edu>
Subject: program to find text strings in ZIP-archives needed (V91 #46)
>Does anybody know a program to find occurences of text strings in a
>ZIP-archive containing text files ? I am looking for a utility which
>gives the whole line of text (the line containing the search string),
>and which scans through all text files contained in the archive.
If you cannot find a program that does this, you could try using pipes
and grep
e.g.
pkunzip -c zipfile | grep searchstring
One of the drawbacks of this is that you would not know which file
within the archive contains the string (unless your grep program can
take two strings to be searched).
Manjit <ITMS400@INDYCMS>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 4 Mar 91 09:31:00 EST
From: Rick Beebe <BEEBE%YALEMED.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject: Memory
>I am totaly confused!!!
>I've bought a DX-25, w/o cache memory, but after a mips test that i
>arranged i found it have 33mhz so i suspect it to be dx-33.
The best way to make sure is to open up the computer and examine the
CPU itself. The speed is written on it. It is, of course, possible that
you got a computer with a DX-25 that's running at 33mHz. Potentially
bad news in my opinion.
>As i know DX-33 got to have a cache, but i don't know how to
>activate it, nor how to use.
I would contact the person that sold you the computer (was there no
documentation with it?). Normally you shouldn't have to do anything to
activate the cache (if there is one). It should be set up for it.
>I also am not sure about differences between XMS, EMS, etc. (i have
>2mb of ram.), and what shadow mem is..
The original IBM PC (8088 processor) could address 1 megabyte of
memory. The IBM designers reserved the top 384K for the BIOS, video
memory, and other adapters. Note that there usually isn't any *real*
memory in this space. Video memory resides on the video adapter. The
BIOS is in ROM. That's why you can't really use reserved memory.
After a while, people began clamoring for more memory. People trying to
build large spreadsheets in Lotus 1-2-3 especially (lotus keeps the
whole spreadsheet in memory). Lotus, Intel and Microsoft got together
and created a bank-switched memory scheme that allowed you to put an
additional 4 megs of memory in a PC using an expanded memory board
(EMS). The board maps a 64K window, called a frame, into a usually
empty place within the reserved space. Applications can make calls to
the board which will swap different 16K banks of memory into an out of
the frame. Notice that the processor is still only dealing with memory
that's within its 1 meg address space--the expanded memory board
handles the actual memory. The spec that they came up with is called
LIM 3.2. Later it was updated to LIM 4.0 which allows 16M of expanded
memory and, I believe, a 128K window.
The AT (80286) can directly address 16 Megabytes of memory, an 80386
can deal with 4 GIGAbytes (4048 Megabytes)! This memory, above the 1
meg that an 8088 can deal with, is called extended memory (I remember
PC-exPanded, AT-exTended). DOS, written when it was, can still only
deal with 1 meg (or Real memory). Sigh. In order to really use
extended memory, you need to switch operating systems: Unix or OS/2.
Windows 3.0 can also use extended memory. (XMS)
The 386 has a feature called virtual memory mapping. It can take any
*physical* section of memory and make it look like any other section.
For example, it can take the memory that starts at 2 megs and remap it
so that it starts at 640K. Suddenly those "holes" have memory in
them. Unfortunately, it takes software to do this and it ONLY works on
a 386. The two best programs are QEMM-386 from Quarterdeck Office
Systems and 386MAX from Qualitas. They both can turn your extended
memory into LIM 4.0 expanded (which far more programs can utilize),
AND they can shove DOS buffers, TSRs and other stuff into the
"reserved" space by remapping extended memory into that space. This
memory is usually called High Memory.
Shadowing: accessing ROM is much slower than accessing RAM. Since the
BIOS is in ROM, the speed of accessing it becomes a performance
bottleneck on fast machines. Shadowing uses the above memory mapping
features of the 386. First they copy the ROM into RAM and then they
remap the RAM so that it gets used instead of the ROM. It speeds up the
machine. If your machine doesn't have that feature built in, QEMM can
do it for you.
>Any hints are welcomed...
>Moshe Vainer
>vainer@bengus.bgu.AC.IL
>vainer@bengus.bitnet
Hope this helps.
Rick Beebe (203) 785-4566
Biomedical Computing Unit
Yale University School of Medicine
333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT 06514
BEEBE@YALEMED.BITNET
beebe@biomed.med.yale.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 10:00:36 +0100
From: bax%TUDGW2.TUDELFT.NL@uga.cc.uga.edu
Subject: reading 41st track of 360k floppies
>I need to read and/or write to the 41st track of a diskette. How
>to I do this? Is there an easy, brute-force mechanism, or do I have
>to do address/hardware level transfers?
From Ralph Brown's interrupt list:
INT 13 - DISK - READ SECTORS INTO MEMORY
AH = 02h
AL = number of sectors to read
CH = track (for hard disk, bits 8,9 in high bits of CL)
CL = sector (01h to number of sectors/track for drive)
DH = head
DL = drive
ES:BX -> buffer to fill
Return: CF set on error
AH = status (see AH=01h)
AL = number of sectors read
Notes: results undefined if attempting to read zero sectors
AWARD AT BIOS extended to handle more than 1024 cylinders by placing
bits 10 and 11 of the cylinder number into bits 6 and 7 of DH
apparently, the AMI BIOS also follows this convention
SeeAlso: AH=03h,AH=0Ah
INT 13 - DISK - WRITE SECTORS FROM MEMORY
AH = 03h
AL = number of sectors to write
CH = track (if hard disk, bits 8,9 in high bits of CL)
CL = sector (if hard disk, high two bits are high bits of track #)
DH = head
DL = drive
ES:BX -> buffer
Return: CF set on error
AH = status (see AH=01h)
AL = number of sectors written
Notes: results undefined if attempting to write zero sectors
AWARD AT BIOS extended to handle more than 1024 cylinders by placing
bits 10 and 11 of the cylinder number into bits 6 and 7 of DH
apparently, the AMI BIOS also follows this convention
SeeAlso: AH=02h,AH=0Bh
Hope you can use this....
Arjen Bax.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 09:59:17 -0800
From: Chengi Jimmy Kuo <cjkuo@devnet.la.locus.com>
Subject: Re: NUMLOCK-key
wolfgang wuerz <wuerz-w%vax.hmi.dbp.de@RELAY.CS.NET> writes:
>I want to use the upper row of keys on the numeric-pad; my problem is
>the numlock-key. I want to disable the light, which is associated with
>it and then use the key as any other one, but not to toggle between
>numeric-pad ON/OFF. Any suggestion/pseudo-code/... appreciated.
The numeric key is electrically different from the other keys. For one
thing, it has no typamatic. So if you want to "use the key as any
other one", it is an impossibility.
Jimmy Kuo
cjkuo@locus.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 91 09:37:36 EST
From: George Waller <HBLADM1%UCONNVM.BITNET@YALEVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
Subject: 9 pin mouse vs IBM PS/2 50
I bought a 6-9 pin converter so that I could plug a 9-pin mouse into
the 6-pin dedicated mouse/joystick port on my IBM PS2-50 (curse the
beast). The mouse driver looks out to COM1 (my modem flashes) but
doesn't find the mouse. Suggestions? (And yes, my 50 *will* go to the
kids once I can afford something new). Thanks!
------------------------------
Date: 5 Mar 91 23:48:00 EDT
From: "WILLING, PAUL" <willingp@gar.union.edu>
Subject: IBM Tickler software
I am looking for a freeware/shareware program for PC DOS which might be
called a Scheduler-Diary-Calender-Tickler to keep track of information,
important dates. A good commercial program might also be acceptable.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 05 Mar 91 16:22:18 EST
From: REED%ETSU.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Personal Communications/3270 PDF file for HP Laserjet III
I have started using IBM's Personal Communications/3270 package. I
want to use it as a source for my mainframe printing. My printer is an
HP Laserjet Series III. The problem is that all of the Printer
Defintion Files (PDF) are for IBM printers. Has anyone ever written
one of these things for an HP. Or can you point me to a potential
source?
Reed Sturdivant
East Tennessee State University
Johnson City, TN 36714
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 91 09:59 EDT
From: <BLABS586@ksuvxa.kent.edu>
Subject: ZModem with Telix
Has there been any updates with Telix that will allow it (ZModem)
to upload and download wildcards? I've made some of my own corrections
in ZModem for the VAX/VMS systems, and I know it will work. I just
what to be able to pass wildcards off as files with Telix ZModem.
Any Clues?
Greg "TwoTone" Spiegelberg
BSA Lab Assistant
Bitnet: BLABS586@KENTVMS
Internet: BLABS586@ksuvxa.kent.edu
Phone: (216) 672-3994
Fax: (216) 672-2448
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End of Info-IBMPC Digest V91 #54
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