Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL ("Info-IBMPC Digest") (03/04/91)
Info-IBMPC Digest Thu, 28 Feb 91 Volume 91 : Issue 40
Today's Editor:
Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <GHICKS@WSMR-Simtel20.Army.Mil>
Today's Topics:
editor
Fujitsu M2263SA SCSI Drive Experience
Re: Hard drive controllers (V91 #33)
Leading Edge (V91 #25)
Real Time Clock on a PC AT (386 Arch.)
retain/restore directories (2 msgs)
TeX viewer for VGA?
Today's Queries:
bar code reader
Computerized Accounting
MapAssist - manufacturer query
pcsa questions
Postcript Tools
postscript graphics conversions
Setting Mouse Driver's Idea of Screen Size?
Use a HardCard XL on a Zenith Z-386/25?
Problems with RBBS
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Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 13:44 EDT
From: PARESI%SJC.BITNET@YALEVM.YCC.Yale.Edu
Subject: editor
Someone was asking about a text editor. I downloaded a shareware
program called E1.ZIP. It is an editor from frane. Every single key is
remappable - so you can remap to wordstar or how ever you like.
Features include: autosave, auto limit keystrokes, editing unlimited
docs at one time, windows of documents, access to dos thru one
keystroke, insert, block rectangle OR block sentence, remembers the
last place where your cursor was on each document, 60 lines support,
config colors, move/paste/copy between documents, shows available
memory, col, row, time. I have been searching for programming/text
editors for 4 years and finally this one is the one i will stay with!
check it out, available on most boards, or I can supply a access
bulliten board who has it.
-BOB
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 09:48:11 CST
From: Charlie Turner <CHARLIE%UMVMA.bitnet@UMRVMB.UMR.EDU>
Subject: Fujitsu M2263SA SCSI Drive Experience
I recently installed a Fujitsu M2263SA SCSI 640mb hard drive in my 386
based PC. In a nut shell, this drive works flawlessly and runs very
fast indeed compaired to my other HD, a Seagate ST277R RLL 60mb.
Unfortunately, the SCSI host adapter installation was troublesome. The
HD came from the distributor with a Future Domain adapter (a TMS780 or
something like that). To make a long story short, this board is not
very compatible with my motherboard, a 25mHz cached 386 using an AMI
BIOS.
By taking the system out of 'turbo' mode, the adapter and SCSI drive
behind it would come online. Running at full speed, however, just
didn't work. My local clone dealer said there are known SCSI and IDE
interface bugs in older AMI BIOS's, but I think the main problem with
the Future Domain and my motherboard is I/O bus speed. The Fujitsu
technical support group was very helpful plus they even have an
800 number.
In the end, my dealer replaced the Future Domain SCSI adapter with a
Columbia Data Products SCSI adapter, which is based on the Western
Digital WD7000 FASST chip set. This worked the first time. If we would
have used the CDP adapter in the first place the whole SCSI HD
installation would have been plug-and-play. Note that this SCSI adapter
is sucessfully coexisting with an RLL HD/floppy controller.
In summary, I am very pleased so far with my new Fujitsu drive. Its
price was under $3/mb, Fujitsu tech support is very good, and it has a
five year manufacturer's warranty. This last point is especially
important to me since I recently lost a 120mb RLL drive that was just
five months out of its one year warranty (an ST4144).
In the process of researching this drive for me, my dealer also found
however that the big brother of the M2263 drive, a 1gb HD (I can't
remember the model number), is still a new 'green' product that has
some reliability problems.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 10:56:26 MST
From: David Bear <IDDWB%ASUACAD.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Hard drive controllers (V91 #33)
In Reply to William Schmidt's question on the RLL drive:
I have had a lot of trouble finding RLL drives that will work in AT's
becuase the internal BIOS drive tables don't match. In any case, to
get RLL -- Run Length Limited Coding from a drive you need an RLL
controller -- in the XT it was probably a Western Digital WD 27X or an
OMTI RLL controller.
IDE is not a controller in the same sense -- IDE drives have the
controller built onto the drive itself. The circuit board that plugs
onto the buss is merely a bus adapter with floppy drive controls.
So, your old seagate RLL drive will not work for two reasons, first
because it has no integrated controller -- (your cables are different)
-- second because it is an RLL and needs that type of controller.
My personal opinion about RLL drives is they are better off in
the trash -- they seem to spuriously generate read/write errors..
D Bear
ASU COPP ext 8257
... the only Bear on campus ...
IDDWB@ASUVM.INRE.ASU.EDU
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 17:46:25 GMT
From: ssw@ogre.cica.indiana.edu (Steve Wallace)
Subject: Leading Edge (V91 #25)
In digest <V91 #31> Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.mil writes:
>Leading Edge Model 'D' for sale, it is NOT a 286 machine (I had one,
>and I'm sure it's 8088 unless it's been upgraded w/ a drop-in 286).
>The machine has (I think) 5 8-bit slots and the ORIGINAL 'D' (circa
^ 4
>'86) was SLOW, SLOW, SLOW 4.77mhz. The "new" Leading Edge "D" are 8mhz
>8086.
^^^^ nope it's an 8088
Steven Wallace
Indiana University
ssw@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 09:47:39 -0500
From: David Kirschbaum <kirsch@usasoc.soc.mil>
Subject: Real Time Clock on a PC AT (386 Arch.)
>I have written an Assembly Routine to get times down to thousandths of
>a second for a PC XT, the manual I got for this machine was really
>good, it gave all the addresses and what way the time was set up within
>these addresses. Now I am trying to use an AT for the same routine,
>but the manual for the machine (Viglen GENIE 3SX) only describes the
>Timer at addresses 040H - 05FH, but I can't get any sensible
>information from these addresses.
I'll be sending you two chunks of file (HRT.ASM and TIMER.ASM) that use
the 8253 timer at 40H.
>Is there any easy way of getting times down to thousandths of a second,
>just using the DOS command `time' isn't accurate enough?. In the
>Viglen it gives the timer as being the Intel 8254-2 chip, but it
>doesn't explain at what i/o address one could read the time from this
>timer. Does anyone have any experience of this sort of achitecture,
>probably it will be the normal AT architecture, if so how can I access
>this timer chip?.
Hopefully the code will do exactly that. I have no guarantees it'll
work on an AT or the Viglen, and the code comments only mention an
8253, NOT an 8254-2 chip .. so you're on your own! Nice code, though!
Forget where I got it.
David Kirschbaum
Toad Hall
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 09:47:30 -0500
From: David Kirschbaum <kirsch@usasoc.soc.mil>
Subject: retain/restore directories
>In the past year, PCMAG had a little thing on how to save and then
>restore the current directory in a batch file which changed the path.
>Does anybody remember how to do that?
>Chuck R. bitnet: 346b36g@cmuvm.bitnet Michigan, USA
A fast fgrep of SIMTEL's index reveals:
PD1:<MSDOS.DIRUTL>
BACK2DIR.ZIP BAT equivalent of Push/PopDir, no memory use
PUSHDIR.ASM Save current drive and subdir
PD1:<MSDOS.PCMAG>
VOL5N10.ARC POPDIR, PUSHDIR
VOL9N09.ZIP GETPUTEA,POP/PUSHPATH,SETEA,WHEREIS,PAN
Maybe that BACK2DIR is the one you remember.
David Kirschbaum
Toad Hall
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 22:41:31 EST
From: Mohit Chadha <MCHADHA@SBCCVM>
Subject: retain/restore directories
> In the past year, PCMAG had a little thing on how to save and then
> restore the current directory in a batch file which changed
> the path. Does anybody remember how to do that?
If you're talking about the utility Batchman, it does have the option
'pushpath' and 'poppath' which do what you want. In addition to these,
Batchman has some other fairly useful functions for batch files. Also,
there are a number of utilities on SIMTEL (in the BATUTL directory I
believe) that would do what you want.
--- Mohit Chadha
24 Hastings Drive Bitnet : mchadha @ sbccvm
Stony Brook, NY 11790. Internet : mchadha @ ccvm.sunysb.edu
(516) 751-5289 CompuServe : 70132,1546
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 22:45:25 EST
From: Mohit Chadha <MCHADHA@SBCCVM>
Subject: TeX viewer for VGA?
> Any one recommand a good Tex DVI viewer for VGA (SVGA better)?
> I have looked at dvivga and dview. dvivga is quite nice except
> it didn't implement special (graphics).
I used DVIVGA and found it to be pretty good, and I had some complex
mathematical formulas to view. You could try posting this question on
the various TeX lists (TeXMag, TeXhax, etc) if you haven't already done
so.
--- Mohit Chadha
24 Hastings Drive Bitnet : mchadha @ sbccvm
Stony Brook, NY 11790. Internet : mchadha @ ccvm.sunysb.edu
(516) 751-5289 CompuServe : 70132,1546
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 19:25:32 EST
From: WAB1@NS.CC.LEHIGH.EDU (William Anthony Barry)
Subject: bar code reader
Does anyone know of any cheap bar code readers they can recommend that
will work with a PC? Also does anyone know of any software that will
work with bar code readers or scanners? I am interested in setting up a
home inventory system.
Bill
------------------------------
Date: Tue,19 Feb 91 18:11:07 GMT
From: SMR49%hull.ac.uk@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: Computerized Accounting
Does anybody out there know of a discussion list similar to this one
that deals with accounting/accountancy.
It does not have to be a moderated list.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 01:12:00 MEZ
From: "Gisbert W.Selke" <S00100%DBNRHRZ1.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: MapAssist - manufacturer query
A few weeks ago, one John Van Voorhis reported on MapAssist, a Novell-
approved programme that makes local disks accessible via a Novell LAN.
This software was said to be made by Fresh Technology.
Now, I'd like to find out how to get in touch with them, which is not
so easy as it may seem, me living on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
Would some kind soul, please, mail me their address and/or fax and/or
phone number? (I could not get through to the original poster, that's
why I'm asking here.) Please, mail directly since the digests sometimes
take long to get here. I'll summarize - promise.
\Gisbert <S00100@DBNRHRZ1.BITNET> Bonn, Germany
^^ ^^zeroes, not ohs!!
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 11:47 EST
From: DULING%NIEHS.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: pcsa questions
Hello everyone,
The big iron / network people here have decided we will pcsa to
connect all the ibms here together and to the Vax controlled decnet
backbone. My question is : for my lab with some 10 or so pcs, a few
macs, an os/9 (tcp/ip) computer, how best do I implement peer-2-peer
file sharing, some postscript printer sharing, and access to unix
machines. Do I have to have the pcsa server or should I go with some
other net software (tcp/ip ?) ? Is there some public domain tcp/ip
software for the 3com ethernet cards as there is for macs and other
computers ? I get the 3com cards and pcsa software free but anything
else we would have to pay for.
--- Dave Duling. Laboratory of Molecular Biophysics. Tel 919-541-381.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 91 17:24 +0800
From: "Mike Reid, Hong Kong" <MFREID%HKUCC.BITNET@YALEVM.YCC.Yale.Edu>
Subject: Postcript Tools
We are in the process of buying a postscript printer to hang on our PC
network and I'm interested in sources for PC tools for PostScript. On
Simtel's MSDOS area I have found several good programs to print a text
file in PostScript, some useful tools from Adobe, such as timing and
debugging (in the ventura directory) and a program that claims to
translate HPGraphicsLanguage to PostScript (haven't tested that one).
I'd like to hear from anyone who has discovered other particularly
indispensible tools (PD, ShareWare, or commercial). In particular, it
seems to me that a complete simulation of an Epson MX/FX/etc (text and
graphics) would be relatively simple to do. Possesion of such a
package would be great insurance for me when someone asks me why
WordStar 3.0 doesn't seem to work proprerly with our fancy new printer!
Mike Reid, Physics, Hong Kong University <mfreid@hkucc.bitnet>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 1991 14:09:58 EST
From: garber@aru.dom.uab.edu
Subject: postscript graphics conversions
Can postscript graphics be imported as pictures into Word for Windows?
How?
Can postscript graphics be converted into HPGL graphics? Again, how?
I've found an HPGL to postscript converter in wuarchives, but not vice
versa.
David W. Garber (garber@aru.dom.uab.edu)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 22:12:51 EST
From: gary@ctc.contel.com (Gary Bisaga x4219)
Subject: Setting Mouse Driver's Idea of Screen Size?
I have a somewhat strange requirement for my mouse driver (Gateway 386,
Microsoft mouse, ATI VGA, MS C 6.0, MEWEL text mode windowing library).
What I want to do is to use it in a text mode, but have the mouse
driver return what are essentially graphics mode coordinates, i.e., up
to 640x480 and returning every pixel position, not just ones which are
a multiple of eight. I have R'd the FM's but cannot find any mention
of a way to set either the max pixel coordinates or the pixel increment
used. Does anybody know of a way to set the mouse driver to do this?
Seems like there should be some way to do it.
Thanks,
Gary Bisaga (gary@ctc.contel.com)
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 91 09:41:00 CST
From: "Coons, David" <ekdfc@ttacs1.ttu.edu>
Subject: Use a HardCard XL on a Zenith Z-386/25?
Is anyone aware of any problem using a Plus Development HardCard XL
(one of the 9ms models) on a Zenith Z-386/25? My boss won't pay the
$1,500 that Zenith charges for one of its 150M drives, and from past
experience I'm concerned about buying a third-party hard disk and
finding it won't work.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 91 13:02:00 EDT
From: Oliver Otto <d09m@dhbrrz41.bitnet>
Subject: Problems with RBBS
Hallo
I am running a RBBS bulletin board with 2 ports under desqview. Now I
wanted to give my users the chance to chat between port 1 and 2. For
this I copied the program RCHAT300 from trickle an try to put the
source Code the source of RBBS-PC.
Puuh, thats quite difficult - but today I think there might be a
mistake in the RCHAT-Source-Code. Is there anybody who tries it before?
I am interessted in everything with RBBS-PC. Specially all around FIDO
because I want to make my box "FIDOed" :-)
! Nickname: DucK !
! Realname: Oliver Otto Maus: Oliver_Otto@hb2.maus.de !
! BBS. : 0421/4677233 EARN: d09m@dhbrrz41.bitnet !
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End of Info-IBMPC Digest V91 #40
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