Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL ("Info-IBMPC Digest") (08/02/90)
Info-IBMPC Digest Thu, 2 Aug 90 Volume 90 : Issue 125
Today's Editor:
Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <GHICKS@WSMR-Simtel20.Army.Mil>
Today's Topics:
Exchanging files Mac<->PC/Re: Mac mail systems
Strange Date Behavior
High Density Disks in a PC/XT
Postscript Speed
Problems with 80387 in QuickBasic
PS/2 hard disks
Unix systems for 386
Unpacking a .Z file
Today's Queries:
Calling Programs from MicroSoft C 5.1
Datasouth DS-180 printer
Fortran Benchmarks
Lotus 1-2-3 compiler
PL/I for PC?
Possible to Disable a Card once Installed?
Zenith Supersport '286 hard disk
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 08:45:17 EDT
From: gary@ctc.contel.com (Gary Bisaga x4219)
Subject: Exchanging files Mac<->PC/Re: Mac mail systems
About copying files:
> I have a MacII Ci with a 3.5" floppy driver, and IBM AT with a 3.5" and
> 5.25". I need to exchange files between them ...
The Mac comes standard with a program called "Apple File Exchange",
which gets installed automatically (I think) in the "Utilities" folder.
This lets you copy files back and forth, and also to format the disk to
1.44 or 720. I use it all the time and have had no problems with it.
About Mac to PC MS Words:
> Allowing the Macs in wordprocessing to more readily open the
> documents from the PC side ...
As far as I know, RTF is the best way to do it. Both sides more or
less automatically handle RTF. It seems to work quite well for text,
preserving all formatting information including ruler and style setups.
Not sure about fonts, though, since I have a daisy wheel printer which,
of course, doesn't support multiple fonts. BTW, I would recommend, if
you have a modern VGA, using something higher than the 640x480
resolution. 12-point type in MS Word at 640x480 tends to look like
those large-type books which are on the "on-sale" tables at book
stores. I normally use 800x600; I tried 1024x768 but that was a little
ridiculous. If you have an ATI VGA, you can download the high-res
drivers from SIMTEL (PD1:<MSDOS.WINDOWS3>).
Gary Bisaga (gary@ctc.contel.com)
------------------------------
Date: Sun Jul 29 11:50:55 1990
From: microsoft!larryo@beaver.cs.washington.edu
Subject: Strange Date Behavior
| Date: Tue, 24 Jul 90 23:18:03 CDT
| >From: david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J. Camp)
|
| I have noticed the failure of Dos to increment the date also. It seems
| only to happen when you are not at the COMMAND.COM prompt at midnight.
| This also happens sometimes when running MS-Windows.
|
| My solution is to reboot once every morning. -David-
|
| Internet: david%wubios@wugate.wustl.edu ^ David J. Camp
| uucp: ...!uunet!wugate!wubios!david < * >
The reason for the strange date behavior is quite simple.
You're running a T&SR program that issues INT 1A ROM BIOS calls to get
the time of day. The problem is that INT 1A gives the caller ONE and
ONLY ONE chance to determine if the date has changed at midnight.
Ordinarily the DOS clock device driver issues INT 1A's and when the
indication comes back that the date has changed, it flips the internal
DOS date counter. However, since your T&SR application has caught the
date change indication, it messed up the date on your system clock.
There are a couple of solutions:
1) Scream loudly at the author of your T&SR program. Believe it or
not, this DOES sometime work. The original version of MS-NET had a
program MINSES.EXE that causes this behavior, Microsoft's customers
complained and we fixed it in the next release.
2) Upgrade your DOS version. Starting with DOS 3.30, the DOS was
modified to use the PC/AT CMOS clock to read the date and time. On XT
class machines, you're scrod, but there's not much that you can do to
help the problem.
3) If you are stuck with an XT, you can buy one of many
multi-function expansion cards like the Microsoft SystemCard (I don't
think we've sold it for 4 years or so, but you might find one used).
Most of the 3rd party multi-function cards come with a real time clock
built in and a clock driver that replaces the DOS clock driver to read
the real time clock on the board.
Hope this helps.
Larry
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 11:52:01 -0400
From: "Paul P. Dziomba" <dziomba@a1.benhur.upenn.edu>
Subject: High Density Disks in a PC/XT
An article in this issue asked the question, "Is it possible to
install and operate a 1.44mb disk drive in an IBM XT??". A company
called SOTA makes a floppy disk controller called The Floppy I/O Plus.
Replacing your existing Floppy controller with this controller will
allow you to use a 360kb, 720kb, 1,2mb, or 1,44mb disk drive in an IBM
PC. I have the Floppy I/O Plus in an original IBM XT, and have been
very heppily reading and writing 1.44mb disks.
Paul P. Dziomba
Internet: Dziomba@A1.BenHur.UPenn.Edu
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 4:10:15 CDT
From: david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J. Camp)
Subject: postscript speed
We bought a Pacific Page cartridge for a LaserJet Series II. We found
that for graphics images, it was faster to use PostScript and wait for
the interpreter than to download a 500K+ PCL file.
We later bought a real Postscript printer from QMS, and now users
complain about how slow the Pacific Page is by comparison.
-David-
------------------------------
Date: 30 Jul 90 16:04 -0100
From: Dr Ivan D Reid <ivan@cvax.psi.ch>
Subject: Problems with 80387 in QuickBasic
In Volume 90 Issue 119 of Info-IBMPC Digest, I wrote of problems
with exp(X) for values of X "approximately between 89 and 103" -- what
I meant, of course, was for values between -89 and -103! Values above
+89 give (reasonably) an overflow error.
I have also been able to reproduce this behaviour in the equivalent
FORTRAN programme compiled with MS-FORTRAN V4.00. So far I have found
that the calculation of exp(x) is carried out OK, but the programme
bombs in the output routine (it's tedious code to debug with SYMDEB or
CV...).
Ivan Reid.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 08:03:00 EDT
From: bvan@mvax.dcem.dnd.ca (Bryan E. Van Blaricom)
Subject: PS/2 hard disks
> My wife has an IBM PS/2 model 50 (the original) with a 20 Meg hard
> disk. She wants to either replace the hard disk with a larger one, or
> add a second hard disk. IBM is asking a typically large sum for their
> disks, and I haven't seen any PS/2 disks advertised in the press. Do
> third-party disks exist? How difficult are they to install?
>
> David W. Garber garber@aru.dom.uab.edu
A couple of years ago I had my PS/2 Model 50 upgraded to a 50 Mbyte
hard drive from:
CMS Enhancments, Inc
1372 Valencia Ave
Tustin, CA 92680
I believe the drive cost about $1200 then, though I have no idea how
much it would sell for now, or if CMS is still selling them. I've been
very happy with it - to install we just took out the old drive, plugged
in the CMS drive, then did a low level format, partition and high level
format. There are no cables to worry about in the PS/2. The drive had
no bad sectors, showed a Core test access time of about 28 ms, and has
never given me any trouble whatsoever. It is also completely silent.
TINAR
Bryan Van Blaricom
bvan@mvax.dcem.dnd.ca
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 3:57:41 CDT
From: david@wubios.wustl.edu (David J. Camp)
Subject: Unix systems for 386
Probably the most popular Unix system for a 386 is SCO. It is
expensive, between $500 to $1000.
There is a close competitor, of which I cannot remember the name.
They were reviewed in a recent issue of Computer Language magazine.
One that was not mentioned, but for which I saw an ad is Mark Williams
Unix. This is a new product that is purported to cost less than $100
and take about 10MB of hard disk space. Other versions of Unix that I
have seen take much more disk space.
There is another product called Wendin Unix that runs on an 8088.
There is also Minix, which is inexpensive and provides full sources for
an 8088 unix. Unix is inherently unstable on an 8088 because there is
no hardware protected mode. The GNU project is planning a free version
of Unix, but I have heard no hint of a release date.
-David-
Internet: david%wubios@wugate.wustl.edu ^ David J. Camp
uucp: ...!uunet!wugate!wubios!david < * >
v 314-382-0584
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 03:00:00 LCL
From: mario%NTIAA.EMBRAPA.ANSP.BR@VM1.NoDak.EDU
Subject: unpacking a .Z file.
Luiz,
See the directory <msdos.sq-usq> in SIMTEL20 archive. Be
careful with options used to compress/uncompress archives, in UNIX
default is -b 16 and in PC is -b 12. Besides that, no problem. Have a
nice job ... Mario.
8-) : MARIO A. Nascimento ___ E-mail: mario@ntiaa.embrapa.ansp.br
Address: NTIA-EMBRAPA; P.O. Box 5010; CEP 13031; Campinas; SP; BRAZIL
Phone #: 55-192-401073 (NTIA-office); 55-192-402029 (fax, C/O NTIA)
------------------------------
Subject: Today's Queries:
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 90 16:46:46 CDT
From: rs.miller@pro-harvest.cts.com (Randy Miller)
Subject: calling programs from MicroSoft C 5.1
I am currently trying to write a menu selection program for an
associate of mine at my place of employment. One of the requirements
is that the program MUST be written in MicroSoft C 5.1. In writing the
program, I have been attempting to use the spawn function in order to
launch the application chosen from the menu. However, when the menu
selection is made, the application will not launch and I will be
returned to my menu program. The fragment below shows how I am
attempting to call the program in question.
spawn(p_wait,d:\foo\foo,dummyarg,null);
Is there some inconsistency in the way MicroSoft implemented spawn(),
or am I implementing this function improperly?
Randy Miller
proline:rs.miller@pro-harvest
uucp:crash!pro-harvest!rs.miller
internet:rs.miller@pro-harvest.cts.com
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 90 23:43 EDT
From: Gaj@DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL
Subject: Datasouth DS-180 printer
Does anyone have the setup codes that are used for the DS-180 printer?
I do not have the manual and the printer requires a set-up. Any help
will be appreciated.
Dockmaster.Arpa. Thanks
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 13:06:31 EDT
From: "Rob Murray" <RDM@UNB.CA>
Subject: Fortran Benchmarks
I'm looking for recommendations for a good optimizing FORTRAN compiler.
Does anyone have any benchmarks, or know where to obtain published
benchmarks for various FORTRAN compilers on PC's? Does anyone have
any experiences they would like to tell.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 90 14:04:02 CET
From: "Bjorn H. Hanto" <ADMTE007%NOBIVM@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
Subject: Lotus 1-2-3 compiler
I have heard rumours of the existence of a Lotus 1-2-3 compiler. This
wonderful engine should be able to make .EXE files from spreadsheets.
Is there anybody out there who could confirm the existene of this
program, and even better, tell me where I could get further
informations.
Thanks in advance.
Bjorn H. Hanto, ADMTE007@NOBIVM
EDP-consultant,
Norwegian School of Management,
Porsgrunn, Norway
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 90 17:53:56 IST
From: Shelly Glaser <GLAS%TAUNIVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: PL/I for PC?
Is there a good PL/I compiler for the PC, either for DOS or OS/2?
Thanks
Shelly Glaser
FAX: 972 3 5414540
Computer network: GLAS@TAUNIVM.BITNET
glas@taunivm.tau.ac.il
glas%taunivm.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
[Digital Research (DRI) had one at one time, but now? ...]
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 90 16:35 N
From: <PAAI%HTIKUB5.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Possible to Disable a Card once Installed?
Hardware question: is it possible to make a card 'invisible' while it
is sitting in its slot?
I want to connect two video's to my 80386 system, one VGA and a A-4
monitor. Now the A-4 card does not want to share the system with the
VGA-card. The VGA has similar feelings 'bout the A-4, but removing the
EPROM from the VGA-card cured that (the A-4 screen came up). Removing
the EPROM from the A-4 did not result in resurrecting the VGA-monitor
though.
What I'm lookin for is a simple hardware switch, which disables a slot
(and/or the card that's plugged in it, e.g. by disabling the EPROM). I
can handle soldering iron and tweezers, but I'm not an electrician, so
please, keep it simple.
thanx
Hans Paijmans
PAAI@KUB.NL
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 90 22:41:00 IST
From: Freund <HCUFE%HUJIVM1.BITNET@VM1.NoDak.EDU>
Subject: Zenith superport 286 hard disk.
Hello All,
I just received a Zenith SuperPort 286 laptop from a friend who had
trouble with the hard disk. I have no documentation or disk. When using
NDD I get a warning that the BIOS setup for the disk is wrong. The only
label on the disk is marked:
8920
ZHD-02
BR2113
This is a Conner disk with 21.4Mb (I think). I think the right setup up
is number 2. Any help will be most welcome.
=Gil=
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End of Info-IBMPC Digest V90 #125
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