Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL ("Info-IBMPC Digest") (09/24/90)
Info-IBMPC Digest Sun, 23 Sep 90 Volume 90 : Issue 152
Today's Editor:
Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <GHICKS@WSMR-Simtel20.Army.Mil>
Today's Topics:
(R)Winchester disk seeks at half-speed
386 & 486 towers (2 msgs)
Re: Mailing List Availability (Digest V90 #148)
Reformat Fixes Drifted Magnetic Fields (Defective HD)
Request info on WordPerfect Mailing List
Re: Uuencode download problems
Today's Queries:
.OBJ file header format
Graphics format
Unix on PCs
using ANSI.SYS in prompt
Win 3, DOS 4, EPT
Hard Drive Saver?
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Date: Mon, 17 Sep 1990 13:05 EDT
From: Karl Brendel <CDCKAB%EMUVM1.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: (R)Winchester disk seeks at half-speed
From Info-IBMPC Digest Volume 90 : Issue 148:
>From: Gregory Hicks <GHICKS@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil>
>Guess I owe him $10...) and CORETEST... SPINRITE reports that the RPM
>is 1812 +/- 0.3% while CORETEST reports that the average seek time
>Does anyone know if there is a test point (on a ST-251) where I can
>check (with an O'scope, natch) what the rotation speed of the platter
>is??? gph
Greg, my memory may be totally shot, and IANAHWT (IANA HardWare Type)
but it seems to me that the proper rotation speed is 3600 RPM. If so,
this fits the (half frequency => octave--) theory. The SPINTIME docs
should address this point.
------------------------------
Date: 17 Sep 90 10:16 EST
From: jchester@nsf.gov
Subject: 386 & 486 towers
In the Info-IBMPC Digest for Sunday, 16 Sep 90 (Volume 90 : Issue
148), Frank Starr (55srwlgs@sacemnet.af.mil) asked:
FS> Just what is a "tower", and what advantages does it have to
FS> standard PC's. From the ads I've seen, it looks to be
FS> nothing more than a CPU made to stand on end, rather than
FS> sitting flat like standard PC CPUs. Doesn't look to be that
FS> extraordinary, to me.
I think that's it: a tower is a CPU made to stand on end beside one's
desk rather than sit flat on it. There are some advantages to a tower
configuration, notably that it can contain lots of slots without taking
up too much desk space, but one could get the same effect by having
one's "flat" CPU on a table next to one's desk or even (as I once saw)
put on a made-to-order shelf in the leghole of one's desk. I have both
my PS/2 Model 80-041 at home and Dell 310 at work in the same
configuration -- i.e., with the CPU sitting beside my desk and keyboard
and monitor on it. Theoretically, I guess I might have some problems
with the hard and floppy drives in the Dell, since they were presumably
not designed to work in a perpendicular plane, but I had an ITT XP on
its side for a couple-three years and had no problems with its drives.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 21:06:55 EDT
From: Ken Iisaka <KIISAKA%UOTTAWA.bitnet@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: 386 & 486 Tower case
Now, many 386 and 486 PCs are now being used as a file server,
replacing many old mini computers.
A file server must hold a large amount of data. Often, it must hold
more than 1 GB of magnetic disk storage. Although there are now
harddisks with capacity close to 1 GB, you often need to install more
than 2 full-height drives to achi eve the necessary capacity. A
standard desk-top case does not allow this, thus the tower-case was
introduced. You can typically install 5 or more drives.
You might say, why do we need so many drives? In addition to harddisk
drives, the file server should have a backup system, which would take
more space. Throw in a CD-ROM drive and WORM, etc... The list is
endless.
There is another very important reason for the vertical design of the
case.
With so many devices, a great amount of heat is generated. It was
needed to design a efficient cooling system. Although early tower
cases had a power source at the bottom of the case, recent tower cases
holds the power source at the top of the case. One or two fans are
used to expell warm air from the case. If no efficient cooling system
is implemented, the computer would cook itself.
I hope this gave you an idea why we are seeing many tower cases.
Souriez! (Smile!) :->
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 09:36:31 EDT
From: Greg Kroll <USDGK@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU>
Subject: Re: Mailing List Availability (Digest V90 #148)
On Sun, 16 Sep 90 01:30:06 +0200 you said:
>From: "Thomas H. Couper, Civ." <couperth@afsc-sdx.af.mil>
>Subject: Request info on WordPerfect Mailing List
>
>I've heard that somewhere on the Internet is a WordPerfect mailing list
>devoted to the discussion of various WP topics.
>...
>From: "Chuck R." <346B36G%CMUVM@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
>Subject: ARC or ZIP Utilities for CMS Wanted
>
>Does anybody know of any ARC or ZIP utilities for CMS?
>...
>Does anybody know of a discussion list for mainframe CMS operating
>system problems?
Tom and Chuck,
There is a WP50-L list for WordPerfect that is "peered" to several
nodes (HEARN, UBVM, YORKVM1). There are many CMS type discussion
lists. Hope this helps!
--Greg Kroll USDGK@VTVM1.CC.VT.EDU
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 14:57:05 CDT
From: david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J. Camp)
Subject: Reformat Fixes Drifted Magnetic Fields
>From: Tony Phillips <S102066@UMRVMA.UMR.EDU>
>Subject: Defective Hard Disk
>
>On Tue, 4 Sep 90 20:00:04 +0200 Info-IBMPC Digest said:
>
>>From: Vainer Moshe <VAINER%BENGUS.BITNET@VM1.NoDak.EDU>
>
>>I've sent a day or two ago a mail about my defective disk after
>>receiving a lot of suggetions. ... Text Deleted ...
>>interesting thing is that after formatting the disk even has no bad
>>sectors!!! so, the problem wasn't physical?!!?!?
>
>Probably not. I had that same problem a few weeks ago when my Hard
>Drive started to suddenly give "General Read Failure" errors on several
>of my programs. All that was required was a low-level format, and
>everything was back to normal. With no bad sectors reported.
>...
This is all true, but it is unnecessary to delete all your files to
reformat the disk. Just go out and buy 'SpinRite'. Its claim to fame
is the ressurection of hard disks with magnetic fields that have drifted
out of their proper location and intensity. It has been known to repair
numerous systems that seemed to have hardware problems.
Now for the flame. I ran SpinRite on a system, and the hard disk failed
the next morning. It gave a clicking and groaning sound and would not
boot. I do not think this was SpinRite's fault. I suspect that the
disk was marginal, and the extra activity used by SpinRite accelerated
the failure. That does not change the fact that we lost data due to
insufficient backups. Of course, SpinRite warns me to do backups first,
so I have noone to blame but myself. -David-
david@wubios.wustl.edu ^ Mr. David J. Camp
david%wubios@wugate.wustl.edu < * > +1 314 382 0584
...!uunet!wugate!wubios!david v "Be kind to sinners."
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 16:32 EDT
From: Mark J Strawcutter <MJSTRAW%IUP.BITNET@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu>
Subject: Request info on WordPerfect Mailing List
>I've heard that somewhere on the Internet is a WordPerfect mailing list
>devoted to the discussion of various WP topics.
The one I know of is a BitNet listserv list called WP50-L based with
LISTSERV@UBVM
The title is somewhat misleading - any WPCorp products on any hardware
are fair game.
Mark J Strawcutter BitNet: MJSTRAW@IUP
Director, Systems and Data Communications InterNet: mjstraw@grove.iup.edu
Indiana University of Pennsylvania AT&T: (412) 357-4000
Indiana, PA 15705
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 14:26:50 -0400
From: David Kirschbaum <kirsch@usasoc.soc.mil>
Subject: Re: Uuencode download problems
>I am having problems downloading large uuencoded files. For this
>instance, I put together several files from TRICKLE and took out the
>mail headers.
I assume during this assembly you (1) trimmed out any mail trailers as
well! (E.g., one solid UUENCODE-format file, nose to tail, with the
first line being a "begin 644 4dos-1.zip" or some such, and the last
line (probably following an empty line) an "end").
If this is not true, you are a non-starter.
>Then I cut this large file in half, and downloaded each half.
How'd you cut it in half? Are you ABSOLUTELY sure your file splitter
did not add any extra blank lines at the end of the first half, or at
the beginning of the second half?
When you downloaded, did you perform any required Unix -> DOS end of
line conversion? Or is the downloaded file still in Unix (LF)
end-of-line format?
>Next I
>used the dos COPY command to put the two back together like so: copy
>4dos-1.uue + 4dos-2.uue 4dosfin.uue
No problems there.
>No errors yet. When I tried to uudecode it, it said "Nothing to decode."
Ugh.
>1. Why did i get this error?
Possibles:
1 - No "begin" line as the FIRST line of the target .uue file, or
that "begin" line does not fit uuencode format.
2 - LF line endings instead of DOS CR/LF line endings, and
braindamaged uudecode can't deal with it.
3 - No "end" line, and braindamaged uudecode discarded output.
>2. Did dos or somewhere else along the line put in troublesome end-of-
>file markers in between the two halves?
I'd think you'd get SOME sort of output before your uudecoder hit that
EOF between the two halves. Unless your uudecoder deleted the
fragment.
Suggest you try world-famous TOADUU package (available for snarfing
from SIMTEL20 's PD:<MSDOS.FILUTL>TOADUU19.ARC). It's (1) a little
smarter about line endings; (2) gobbles up headers; (3) ignores
trailers; (4) will complain if it doesn't find an "end" (but will keep
what it's done already); (5) automatically pads any "short" records
resulting from EMailers trimming trailing spaces.
Also suggest you consider world-famous CONCAT10.ARC (also from Toad
Hall in <MSDOS.FILUTL>: a multi-file concatenator that (1) handles wild
cards; (2) will NOT put Ctrl-Z's between segments; (3) will remove any
Ctrl-Z's that ARE between the segments (removing any OTHER garbage
that's there at the same time).
Humbly,
David Kirschbaum
Toad Hall
------------------------------
Subject: Today's Queries:
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 09:22:00 SET
From: Karl Keyte <KKEYTE%ESOC@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
Subject: .OBJ file header format
I'm looking for a description of the format of an .OBJ file header.
I want to create my own linkable .OBJs, but can't find a description
of the format anywhere! Anyone know it, or can give me a suitable
reference?
Karl
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 1990 9:02:24 CDT
From: KUMAR@ENTO.TAMU.EDU (Dvq't B|g mh)
Subject: Graphics format
Hi! Netters,
I have to write a graphics program to display some scanned images on
the screen. My boss would like to have an image format compatible with
PC, Mac, and the Sun(X-Windows) environment.
Can anyone tell me the most widely used graphics format at least for
the PC and the Mac enviroment, and if there is any utility available to
convert this graphics format to a format suitable for Sun environment.
The graphics format should also support high quality resolution.
I will appreciate any kind of information on the availability of any
`C' source code to display the images.
Please reply directly to me. I will summerize the replies and post it
on the net.
Thank you.
- Kumar
INTERNET: kumar@ento.tamu.edu
BITNET: kumar@tamento
DECNET: ento::kumar
YELLNET: (409)845-2110
------------------------------
Date: Mon Sep 17 14:12:32 BST 1990
From: Mike O'Carroll <mike@elec-eng.leeds.ac.uk>
Subject: Unix on PCs
Does anyone out there
a) have any experience with terminal i/o controllers on PS/2s running
SCO Unix/386? (Can't find one that fully understands termio yet [but
then who does :-)] )
b) know of a more suitable forum for this sort of question?
Thanks
Mike O'Carroll, Microsystems Unit, The University, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK
E-mail: @ukc.ac.uk:mike@ee.leeds[.ac.uk]
uucp: ...!mcsun!ukc!lena!mike OR mike@lena.uucp
------------------------------
Date: 17 Sep 90 23:21 -0500
From: Dan Fandrich <shad04@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
Subject: using ANSI.SYS in prompt
Yes, this posting is no longer timely, but it may still be useful. Now
that everybody knows how to use 'prompt' to communicate with ANSI.SYS,
I found a simple alternative.
I found this program on my hard disk -- don't ask me where it
originally came from. It accepts an ANSI escape sequence, sans escape,
on the command line and writes it to standard output with a leading
escape character. Thus, ESC [2J clears the screen, ESC [1m turns
boldface on, etc.
Here are the debug disassembly and uuencoded binary of ESC.COM:
5F6D:0100 BB8000 MOV BX,0080
5F6D:0103 021F ADD BL,[BX]
5F6D:0105 C6470124 MOV BYTE PTR [BX+01],24
5F6D:0109 C60681001B MOV BYTE PTR [0081],1B
5F6D:010E BA8100 MOV DX,0081
5F6D:0111 B409 MOV AH,09
5F6D:0113 CD21 INT 21
5F6D:0115 B8004C MOV AX,4C00
5F6D:0118 CD21 INT 21
begin 600 esc.com
:NX A_&1P$DQ@:! !NZ@0"T"<TAN !,S2'\
end
>>> Dan
Internet: shad04@ccu.umanitoba.ca CI$: 72365,306 FidoNet: 1:153/511.1
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 90 13:43:35 WET DST
From: James Nash <ccx020@cck.coventry.ac.uk>
Subject: Win 3, DOS 4, EPT
Windows 3 running in 386 enhanced mode on a DOS 4.01 PS/2 with an IBM
Personal Pageprinter 4216 020 through an EPT interface, will not print.
The odd small simple file will get by but anything big or complex will
crash the machine ("The Print Manager cannot write to EPT. There may be
a ...etc." and after a resume, "Unrecoverable application error").
The PS/2 has 4Mb memory with an UNpartitioned 115Mb hard disk and
version 1.31 of PP. This problem occurs with any program run under
Windows 3. During one printout, a page was almost completed but came
out of the printer with "ERROR: undefined / OFFENDING COMMAND : -"
followed by a "STACK:" and a list of 1/0/-1 's.
I have already set the device contention to never issue a warning as
described in 'printers.txt'.
Can anyone help me? I can supply a copy of the relevant 'config.sys'
and 'autoexec.bat' if needed. Thanks in advance,
James Nash, Computing Services, Coventry Polytechnic, England
| Janet (UK) ccx020@uk.ac.cov.cck |
|ELSEWHERE ccx020%cck.cov.ac.uk FOLLOWED BY... |
|Earn/Bitnet @UKACRL Arparnet @uk.ac.nsfnet-relay|
|Internet @cunyvm.cuny.edu UUCP @ukc.uucp|
------------------------------
Date: Mon Sep 17 12:06:03 1990
From: guhsd000@crash.cts.com (Paula Ferris)
Subject: Hard Drive Saver?
Is there such a beast as a hard drive saver? A small TSR that can kick
in and set a bit (or something) low to disable the motor in the hard
drive?
My machine is on 24 hours a day doing all type of medial tasks, and the
hard drive isn't used about 10 hours a day on a regular basis, but it
there spinning (and generating heat), slowly wearing out.
So is there any such thing? I can stand the wait time for the disk to
wind up (the full 3 seconds) to have the drive last longer, a TSR to
shut it down after, say 15 minutes of inactivity would be fine, and on
a call to the drive, reset, and wind the drive up.
Hale Telecommunications Incorperated - KKLR & KALE
UUCP: (cbosgd, sdcsvax, nosc)!crash!guhsd000
ARPA: crash!guhsd000@nosc.mil
INET: guhsd000@crash.CTS.COM
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End of Info-IBMPC Digest V90 #152
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