Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL ("Info-IBMPC Digest") (01/03/91)
Info-IBMPC Digest Wed, 2 Jan 91 Volume 91 : Issue 3
Today's Editor:
Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <GHICKS@WSMR-Simtel20.Army.Mil>
Today's Topics:
Disk Manager and Miniscribe drive problem (V90 #213)
Epson Upgrade (2 msgs)
NUL, the file (V90 #213)
PC-GLOBE (2 msgs)
Upgrading an AT&T 6300 (#216)
Word Processors
X-windows for MS-DOS
Today's Queries:
Disk Boot Failures
Epson Upgrade
Hardcards and Norton Utilities
Word Processor
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Date: Mon, 31 Dec 90 14:03:32 EST
From: jim@visix.com (Jim Edwards-Hewitt)
Subject: Disk Manager and Miniscribe drive problem (V90 #213)
> From: R. Allen Wilkinson x3383 <urt@magi.ncsl.nist.gov>
> I am looking for a way to fix a driver problem.
> First the driver that I am having problems with is "dmdrvr.bin". ...
> [...text deleted...]
> Drive: Miniscribe Model 3180E
> Number of Heads: 7
> Number of Cylinders: 1250
> ROM bios: DTK 386 Bios Version 4.25 06/12/89
> Driver: dmdrvr.bin from Ontrack Computer Systems Inc.
> Disk Manager Version 4.02
The purpose of Disk Manager is to allow DOS versions <4.0 to use drives
larger than 32MB and see it as one drive, rather than as multiple 32MB
logical drives. There are two solutions.
1. Use DOS 4.01, which handles larger drives. You may have to upgrade
some software to get versions that are compatible with DOS 4, and the
memory savings will be somewhat reduced because DOS 4 is bigger than
DOS 3.x.
2. Repartition your drive, using FDISK or Disk Manager, into multiple
32MB drives, if you don't mind that.
Either solution requires reformatting your hard disk, so be sure to
back it up first. If you use solution 2, be sure to back up using a
method that will allow you to restore files to a different drive than
you backed them up from, since all the files will come from drive C:
and will need to be restored to C:, D:, etc.
Jim Edwards-Hewitt jim@visix.com
Visix Software Inc. ...!uunet!visix!jim
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Date: Mon, 31 Dec 90 08:33:53 MST
From: Gregory Hicks <GHICKS@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL>
Subject: Epson Upgrade
Bob:
I think that you'll find that a 'baby' XX board will fit in an XT case.
There are quite a few offered in PC Mag, Computer Shopper, Byte, ...
Going price appears to be around $120-220 (with 0K ram)... I can't
tell if these are 'baby' or full size boards.
I say XX above because both 286/386 Baby Boards are made. (Baby means
smaller physically). Is your Epson case a 'standard' XT size? A problem
you may run into is that your XT case probably won't take the majority
of AT add in cards. They tend to be a bit TALLER than the XT variety.
Gregory Hicks
[Original price I stated was around $700. I was wrong! gph]
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Date: Mon, 31 Dec 90 10:48 EDT
From: <RICHTER%CTSTATEU.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Epson Upgrade
Greg -
Thanks for the response. I'm not sure whether the footprint is the
same as an XT, but are you sure the cost of a baby board is @ $700.00?
In Computer Shopper, the price of a motherboard upgrade to a 286 [0k]
is about $130.00. I can buy a new case, power supply, keyboard, 1k
RAM, and floppy for @ $450.00, including the motherboard.
Well, have a good New Year. Hope to talk to you soon... Bob Richter
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 90 11:41:45 EST
From: jim@visix.com (Jim Edwards-Hewitt)
Subject: NUL, the file (V90 #213)
> From: Thom Tellez <tellez@STL-06SIMA.ARMY.MIL>
> How may I delete a file called NUL?
> [...text deleted...]
> The file shows in the root directory of my c: drive as 59 bytes long.
> I cannot, however discover any contents to it (with VB's LIST for
> instance). [...more text deleted...]
The problem is that the file name conflicts with the DOS device
NUL:. I once had the same problem when a co-worker somehow created a
file called COM1. The reason you read no contents for it is that when
you request to read NUL, DOS reads from the NUL device (which contains
nothing) instead of the file. The way I solved this problem was by
changing the file name by modifying the directory with the Norton
Utilities. Then it was just like a normal file, and could be read,
deleted, etc.
Jim Edwards-Hewitt jim@visix.com
Visix Software Inc. ...!uunet!visix!jim
------------------------------
Date: 31 Dec 90 15:27:00 CST
From: "HQSACHCX" <hqsachcx@sacemnet.af.mil>
Subject: PC-GLOBE
I haven't purchased PC-Globe yet, but I do own PC-USA which was
purchased from the previously discussed DAK Industries. If you have
need for such a program, it's worthwhile to have. PC-USA produces all
sorts of demographic info, maps of States, and can calculate mileage
between two cities in the US. It even has Bellevue, NE in its database
for calculating of mileage, etc (of importance to inquiree and myself
as we're from the area). It can print the produced graphs and maps on
Epson and IBM compatible dot matrix and most laser printers. Hope this
helps.
Dominick Scalzitti
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 90 03:11:55 PST
From: "Henning Kather" <hkather@rtoic.enet.dec.com>
Subject: reply to: PC-GLOBE
this is a reply to Frank Starr's question about the PC-Globe distribution:
PC Globe Inc.
4435 South Rural Road
Building 5, Suite 333
Tempe, AZ 85282
USA
phone: 602-894-6866
fax : 602-986-7196
Regards,
Henning Kather email: hkather@rtoic.dec.com
Digital Equipment Germany
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 90 15:33 EST
From: Michael Gordon <GORDONM@MAX.CC.DENISON.EDU>
Subject: Upgrading an AT&T 6300 (V90 #216)
I had the same machine (360K diskette & 20MB HD) and thought about
upgrading to, at the very least, 3.5" drives. In addition to changing
the controller, you also have to pay attention to the BIOS.
AT&T stopped upgrading their BIOS at version 1.43 (I think I remember
this properly) and there is (was?) some uncertainty whether that BIOS
would support HD drives (I *think* it won't). Some very helpful people
at AT&T support told me about a product made somewhere in the SouthWest
which would allow 6300s to support HD drives.
They had tested this product (I wish I could remember what it
was--perhaps a controller??) and said it worked. Unfortunately for
David (but fortunately for me), I got rid of the AT&T and all
supporting papers. Perhaps someone out there will know? Hope this is
helpful.
Michael Gordon
Denison University
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 90 21:21:00 CST
From: 55SRWLGS <55srwlgs%SACEMNET.AF.MIL@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject: Word Processors
Don't know how you define WYSIWYG, and how close you want the product
to come.
GALAXY is a shareware WORDSTAR workalike. It uses many of the same
commands as WORDSTAR through version 4. The dictionary leaves a lot to
be desired, but it can handle WORDSTAR files. It saves files created by
it in ASCII, and strips the high bits for display purposes so you can
work with a WORDSTAR file. It has no underline, italic, or other
fancies, as I recall, but for a shareware product, ain't half bad.
Simtel20 has it, and local bulletin boards may. Beleive version 2.43
is the latest on the market.
Frank Starr
55srwlgs@sacemnet.af.mil
------------------------------
Date: 31 Dec 90 08:24:52 GMT
From: medici@dorm.rutgers.edu (Mark Medici)
Subject: X-windows for MS-DOS.
Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.mil writes:
>We use an Ethernet-TCP/IP network connecting Unix machines. We would
>like to run X-windows clients (on Unix servers) from MS-DOS PCs, and
>are *very* interested in getting advises or comments from people who
>have an operational experience with X-windows implementations for
>MS-DOS PCs (80386 machines with > 4Mb RAM and VGA cards).
I had an opportunity to use Unipress Software's X-Vision. This is an
X-Window client package that runs under MS-Windows 3 (which, of course,
runs on top of DOS). It seems to be an okay package, if you don't mind
the cost. In order to use X-Vision, you need the X-Vision package,
MS-Windows 3.0, and FTP Software's PC-TCP package. Add all that up and
we're talking about $600.00!
Also, it takes some fiddling to get X-Vision running. Even with a
Unipress techie on-site to help install, it took a good 4 hours to get
X-Vision up. We had a lot of trouble getting PC-TCP set-up right for
X-Vision, but most of this was due to an older version of FTP Inc's
software. X-Vision does not do domain name resolution, so you have to
build host tables listing all the systems you want to use. This can be
burdensome in some environments. Even when we got it running, we
couldn't initiate the connection from the PC running X-Vision. We had
to go to a second PC, log-in on our UNIX host, and throw an X-Window's
session to the PC running X-Vision. This was attributed to some
configuration problem on the UNIX host side, though was never
identified or resolved.
Once you get X-Vision running, it looks great. Unfortunately, since
FTP Inc's TSR software must be loaded before Windows, the reduced DOS
memory slowed things down a bit. But I was able to get several
X-Windows apps running in separate windows. Also, You can run X-Vision
so that all X-Window's apps display in a single MS-Windows window. The
advantage to the single window mode is you can select a different
window manager, such as Motif. Even though X-Vision is X11R3
compliant, I had no problem running X11R4 apps in single or
multi-window mode.
Things that would make this a better package include X11R4 compliance,
DDE links (dynamic data exchange), domain name resolution, easier
installation and lower prices.
You can get more information on X-Vision by sending a request to
info@unipress.com.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 1990 09:22:28 PST
From: Mike_Beezley.Houston@xerox.com
Subject: Disk Boot Failures
I am beginning to see a pattern developing here with the Seagate 238R
hard drives. A friend of mine (with the same drive) told me about this
boot-up problem on his system. I have now started seeing the same
thing and I see some other folks on here have run into this problem.
My system will hang on a boot only. It just seems to go to sleep.
I don't have to reboot from a floppy and run Norton though. I just hit
my reset button and it _has_ always successfully done the second boot.
This friend of mine says he fixes this problem about every 2 or 3 years
by doing a low-level format and rebuilding his system. I just did that
and so far I have not seen my boot hang.
Is this a problem with the Seagate drive or could it be the Western
Digital controller? I am running a DTK PC clone and am on DOS 3.3.
Thanks
__mike
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 31 Dec 90 09:21 EDT
From: <RICHTER%CTSTATEU.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: epson upgrade
Can an Epson Equity I computer be upgraded to a 286 motherboard? I've
heard that the case is too small, but it seems to me that SOMEONE,
SOMEWHERE, should make a smaller size board that will fit. Please
help me out. 4.77Mh is going to be the death of me...
Sign me... "At wits end in Connecticut..."
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 90 15:38 EST
From: Michael Gordon <GORDONM@MAX.CC.DENISON.EDU>
Subject: Hardcards and Norton Utilities
I need to add to my HD storage and have to choose between adding a
second IDE drive or on of the new PLUS Hardcard IIs. For reasons of
both convenience and economy, I'd prefer the Hardcard, but will only go
that way if I can use the Norton Utilities on it. Does anyone know
whether Norton Disk Doctor, Speed Disk, etc. will recognize a Hardcard?
Thanks.
Michael Gordon
Denison University
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 30 Dec 90 21:04:08 CST
From: Don Branson <C08922DB%WUVMD.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject: Word Processor
I'm looking for a PD or shareware WYSIWYG word processor. Are there
any? PC-WRITE seems to come pretty close, is there something better?
Thank for your help,
Don Branson
Washington University Information Systems
C08922DB@WUVMD.BITNET
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End of Info-IBMPC Digest V91 #3
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