Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL ("Info-IBMPC Digest") (07/13/90)
Info-IBMPC Digest Thu, 12 Jul 90 Volume 90 : Issue 106
Today's Editor:
Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <GHICKS@WSMR-Simtel20.Army.Mil>
Today's Topics:
?Packard-Bell laptop w/ext Monitor & ext Kbd?
AT&T PC 6300 REAL TIME CLOCK PROBLEM
Communicating with ATT Mail
DiskDrive Parameter Table
Hercules / Assembly Problem
Group 3/Group 4 Compression software
Help: Keyboard input into environment variable
KERMIT problem downloading .ARC files
Voice Mail cards for a PC
Windows 3.0 and EMS 4.0 (2 msgs)
8250 UART Parity info Wanted
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 90 14:19 EDT
From: <PJORGENS%COLGATEU.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu> (Peter Jorgensen)
Subject: ?Packard-Bell laptop w/ext Monitor & ext Kbd?
Greetings
A professor here is trying to get his Packard-Bell laptop to work with
both an external monitor and an external keyboard. Both external
devices work fine alone. The problem is, the external keyboard does not
have a blue "FN" key which he needs to toggle screens (from the LCD to
the external) and if he boots up with the external keyboard detached
(so he can toggle to the ext. Monitor) then it won't recognize the
external keyboard when it is plugged in.
Has anyone out there tamed this feature?
ThanksInAdvance
Peter Jorgensen
Microcomputer specialist
Colgate University - Hamilton, NY 13346
AppleLink - U0523
BITNET - PJORGENSEN@COLGATEU
tel - 315-824-1000 ext 742
------------------------------
Date: 22 Jun 90 9:17 +0100
From: Norbert Hanke <dosman@cs.id.ETHZ.ch>
Subject: AT&T PC 6300 REAL TIME CLOCK PROBLEM
We had similar problems at our site with some Olivetti M24/M21
Computers which are essentially the same model as the AT&T 6300:
sometimes the real time clocks hang, even with fresh batteries.
I tried with a utility program which was written here some time ago for
setting the rt clock time when running IBM's PC-DOS which doesn't know
about Olivetti clocks: It made them run again.
I sent the program to kerry (laviole@acsu.buffalo.edu), if anyone else
is interested: drop me a mail and I'll send it.
Norbert Hanke
ETH Zurich, Switzerland
------------------------------
Date: Thu Jun 21 08:42:16 1990
From: johnboyd@ocdis01.af.mil (John Boyd;CRENP;)
Subject: Communicating with ATT Mail
Is there any way to send mail from a machine on Internet to someone's
ATT mail account? I've tried looking up my friend's machine name in
the obvious places on my Unix machine, but no dice. But he informs me
that he has an ATT mail account. Any help would be appreciated!
johnboyd@ocdis01.af.mil 72341.1707@compuserve.com
"Remember, just because you're paranoid doesn't necessarily mean there's
not someone out to get you" -Gallagher
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 15:46 MET
From: "Jim Groeneveld, NIPG TNO." <GROENEVELD%TNO.NL@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: DiskDrive Parameter Table
Dear Paul <SPW@NUSEEV>,
Concerning your request for info on disk drive parameter tables in
Info-IBMPC Digest V90 #102 I think I may help you a little. From the
Ultra-Utilities I extracted the following information: (these
parameters may be changed from the U-Utilities)
DISK PARAMETER TABLE VALUES Radix=HEX
---------------------------
1) Specify Byte #1.................. DF
2) Specify Byte #2.................. 02
3) Wait Time Before Motor Off....... 25
4) Bytes Per Sector Value........... 02
5) Highest Sector Number On Track... 09
6) Gap Length Between Sectors....... 2A
7) Data length value................ FF
8) Formatting Gap Length............ 50
9) Formatting Fill Byte............. F6
10) Head Settle Time................. 01
11) Motor Start Delay................ 04
Regards - Jim Groeneveld.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NIPG TNO <work>: Y. Groeneveld (call name: Jim) <home>| GROENEVELD@TNO.NL |
| Postbus 124 | Wassenaarseweg 56 | Schoolweg 14 | GROENEVELD@HDETNO51 |
| 2300 AC Leiden | 2333 AL Leiden | 8071 BC Nunspeet | TNOSUR::GROENEVELD |
| Nederland (NL) : (+31|0)71-178810 | (+31|0)3412-60413| RULTNO::JIM |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 90 23:25 EST
From: Mark James Burge <MJBURGE@OWUCOMCN.bitnet>
Subject: Hercules / Assembly Problem
I found out that most programs test for the Hercules card by
determining whether bit 7 of display mode status port (3BAh) changes.
I have a TSR that will perform some function depending upon the clock
count, so all I need now is the asm code to change bit 7 of of display
status port (3BAh). Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
mjburge@owucomcn.bitnet
[513] 382-2785 (collect)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 10:40:27 EDT
From: David A. Lafko <lafko@skipper.mitre.org>
Subject: Group 3/Group 4 Compression software
Does anyone know if there is public domain (or free) software that
implements CCITT Group 3 and Group 4 compression/decompression. Where
can I find it? It would be great if it is written in C. Mail me
directly and I'll summarize to the digest. Thank you.
David A. Lafko <lafko@mitre.org>
Systems Engineer
The MITRE Corporation
McLean, VA USA
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 16:24 MET
From: "Jim Groeneveld, NIPG TNO." <GROENEVELD%TNO.NL@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Help: Keyboard input into environment variable
Good morning,
I am looking for a simple program that reads (one line of) user input
from the keyboard and stores it in a (user specified) environment
variable. I want to use it for passwords so that a user only needs to
enter his/her password once if it is needed multiple times. Who could
point me to a solution?
It would be appreciated if such a program would read from standard
input (to be redirected) so that reading the first line of a disk file
would also be possible (all text until CRLF). This would make it
possible to compare the contents of the first lines of two files only
by comparing environment variable strings with 'IF %VAR1%==%VAR2%' or
pass the contents of such a line as parameters to another batch file.
I can't find a way to do this in standard DOS (3.3). The only way to
read keyboard input in DOS is with 'COPY CON FILENAME.EXT' (ended with
Ctrl-Z) which copies the keyboard input to a diskfile, but then?
I wrote a batch routine using GETKEY (or a similar program) processing
one keystroke at a time, but each entered character is analyzed
separately via a batch routine which evaluates each possible resulting
errorlevel (0-255) into a character added to the desired environment
variable and test for character value 13 as the indication for the end
of the string. But this batch file is very large because of the
evaluation routine and **VERY** slow. (Compiling with a BAT compiler
might speed it up, but can environment variables be set then, i.e. not
in a temporary transient DOS shell?) Besides the input is not echoed to
the screen (good, however, with passwords).
Any help would be appreciated very much.
Jim Groeneveld.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NIPG TNO <work>: Y. Groeneveld (call name: Jim) <home>| GROENEVELD@TNO.NL |
| Postbus 124 | Wassenaarseweg 56 | Schoolweg 14 | GROENEVELD@HDETNO51 |
| 2300 AC Leiden | 2333 AL Leiden | 8071 BC Nunspeet | TNOSUR::GROENEVELD |
| Nederland (NL) : (+31|0)71-178810 | (+31|0)3412-60413| RULTNO::JIM |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 15:48 MET
From: "Jim Groeneveld, NIPG TNO." <GROENEVELD%TNO.NL@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: KERMIT problem downloading .ARC files
Dear <DAHMR@DMZNAT51>,
Concerning your report of the KERMIT .ARC file download problem
in Info-IBMPC Digest V90 #102:
Did you actually SET FILE TYPE BINARY on the RECEIVING (local KERMIT)
side? (Or something similar? I don't have Kermit's newest version.)
Regards - Jim Groeneveld.
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NIPG TNO <work>: Y. Groeneveld (call name: Jim) <home>| GROENEVELD@TNO.NL |
| Postbus 124 | Wassenaarseweg 56 | Schoolweg 14 | GROENEVELD@HDETNO51 |
| 2300 AC Leiden | 2333 AL Leiden | 8071 BC Nunspeet | TNOSUR::GROENEVELD |
| Nederland (NL) : (+31|0)71-178810 | (+31|0)3412-60413| RULTNO::JIM |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 90 10:07 EST
From: <BRUCEH%UTKVX3.BITNET@CORNELLC.cit.cornell.edu>
Subject: Voice Mail cards for a PC
Does anyone have any experience with the voice mail cards that respond
to touch-tone phones? We have an application for such a card and i'm
wondering what experiences others have had. We will have to write a
custom software package for our application, so i'd be interested in
how you use these cards with some language C, pascal, basic, etc. What
about handling multiple phone lines? Any info or experiences would be
greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Bruce Harrison WB4MJG
Univ. of Tennessee at Martin
BRUCEH@UTKVX (bitnet)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 90 09:15:41 +0200
From: "P. GATHY/ISTO 5229/52.32" <gathy%ISTO.UCL.AC.BE@VM1.NoDak.EDU>
Subject: Windows 3.0 and EMS 4.0
Hello,
We have a PS/2 80-071, with 2M RAM, a 8514/A adapter, a token ring
network adapter/A and a 3363 Worm. We use Windows 3.0 and we would like
to run applications which require expanded memory (EMS 4.0) under 386
enhanced mode. But there is no contiguous 64 K bloc between 640 K and
1M, so that Windows can't allocate a page frame to emulate EMS. It
seems that Windows doesn't allocate a page frame in conventional
memory. Is there a trick to bypass this limitation ? (other than
removing an adapter to free memory between 640K and 1M).
I have already tried to add "EMMPageFrame=...", but without success...
Thanks in advance.
Philippe Gathy (gathy@isto.ucl.ac.be)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 08:04:01 MES
From: crh001 <CRH001%DJUKFA11.BITNET@VM1.NoDak.EDU>
Subject: Windows 3.0 and EMS 4.0
Hi
there was a question from Philippe Gathy about using Windows 3.0 with
EMS 4.0 to allow some programs to use expanded memory in 386 enhanced
mode. I just got the new german computerpaper DOS International and
they have some informations about this kind of problem in there. They
say that you only can use EMS 4.0 if you start up Windows 3.0 in real
mode. Starting Windows in protected mode will enable it to use all of
the memory but as extended memory and starting it in 386 enhanced mode
will force Windows to use the so called 'swapping' technic of OS/2.
So Phillipe should try running windows in real mode,but this will bring
him back to the old limitations of the 640k boundary.
The mentioned computerpaper is the DOS international of July 1990,
which is the newest available. Hope this helps a little bit. Regards
Juergen Kreuels CRAY Research at KFA Juelich West Germany
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Jun 90 08:33:23 EDT
From: "DEDGAR" <DEDGAR%MTA.bitnet@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Subject: 8250 UART Parity info wanted
I would really appreciate some information or hints on about how an
8250 UART deals with parity. Is the 8250 UART supposed to generate the
appropriate parity bits for data bytes going out the port when the
parity bits in the Line Control Register (bits 3-5) are set? The port
refused to do so when I tried. Are these parity bit settings only used
to set a flag in the Line Status Register for parity errors on incoming
bytes? A quick scan through the the Kermit source code would seem to
indicate this is true for (as far as I can tell) the programers of that
code calculated the parity bits and inserted them in the outgoing bytes
before sending them.
I would sure appreciate being enlightened on this matter. Is this
"feature" true for all UARTs. I seem to recall an 1854 UART behaving
in a similar manner when I was breadboarding some circuits.
Also if you know of any other tricks, traps, odditys, or problems with
UARTS I would sure appreciate hearing.
Thanks in advance
-Dale Edgar
Network Manager
Mount Allison University
Sackville, New Brunswick
Canada E0A-3C0
DEDGAR@MTA.BITNET
------------------------------
End of Info-IBMPC Digest V90 #106
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