Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (07/04/89)
Info-IBMPC Digest Tue, 4 Jul 89 Volume 89 : Issue 65
Today's Editor:
Gregory Hicks - Chinhae Korea <COMFLEACT@Taegu-EMH1.army.mil>
Today's Topics:
Does PKARC do Sub-Directories
80386SX adaptercard for 80286 ATs
bibliographic programs
Desqview Pascal API Toolkit?
Re: Documentation for PC Video adapters (2 msgs)
Converting 8" diskettes from IBM6580 (Displaywriter System)
Re: Resetting Interleave on a Slow Hard Drive (2 msgs)
Executable for Ghostscript
External 3 1/2" Floppy
Re: Disabling Key click on a Z-248
Re: PS/2 error
Re: Redirect PrtSc output to a file
Re: RS-232 interface problems
SIMTEL20 MSDOS support
Text editor required
Updating ROM
New TRICKLE Server Available
Tandy 1200 hardware compatability
Info-IBMPC Lending Library is available from: Bitnet via server at CCUC;
and from WSMR-Simtel20.army.mil (see file PD1:<msdos>files.idx for listing
of source files)
WSMR-Simtel20.army.mil can be accessed using LISTSERV commands from BITNET
via LISTSERV@RPIECS.BITNET and in Europe from EARN TRICKLE servers as
listed: (send commands to TRICKLE@<host-name> eg: TRICKLE@AWIWUW11)
AWIWUW11 (Austria), BANUFS11 (Belgium), DKTC11 (Denmark), DB0FUB11
(Germany), FINTUVM (Finland), IMIPOLI (Italy), EB0UB011 (Spain) and TREARN
(Turkey).
Send Replies or notes for publication to: <Info-IBMPC@WSMR-Simtel20.Army.Mil>
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Date: 19 June 1989 13:05:41 CDT
From: <U27745@UICVM.uic.edu>
Subject: Does PKARC do Sub-Directories
Does anyone out there know of a program which compresses all files on a
hard drive (logical partition) into one or several files and has a
relativly uncomplicated method of restoring the files to another hard
drive? (uncomplicated = able to write a .BAT file to 'explode' the files)
I guess I'm looking for a PKARC type program which does subdirectories.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Bob Johnson << u27745@uicvm.uic.edu >>
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 18:53:21 MES
From: PT151%DMSWWU1A.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: 80386SX adaptercard for 80286 ATs
I'm thinking about upgrading my AT-compatible 80286 clone to a 80386.
Because I am looking for a cheap solution I would prefer an adaptercard
with a 80386SX prozessor on it which can simply plugged into the 80286
socket on my motherboard.
I have read in some magazine (BYTE or so) about one or two companies
offering or developing such a card but there was no definite information
about adresses, price etc.
If anybody knows about such a 386SX upgrade card for ATs (price,
distributor, ...) please let me know it.
Thanks in advance
Hans-Georg Reusch <PT151@DMSWWU1A.BITNET>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 89 03:20:54 -0500
From: Noshir Contractor <nosh@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Subject: bibliographic programs
I am looking for a bibliogrpahic programs that will allow generating APA
styled references for several wordprocessing packages (esp. wordperfect,
word). Is anyone familiar with such packages, their capabilities, cost
etc? Thanks in advance,
Noshir Contractor
Univ of Illinois
nosh@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
OR
contract@uiucvmd.bitnet
------------------------------
Date: 19 Jun 89 12:56:59 GMT
From: dmurdoch@watstat.waterloo.edu (Duncan Murdoch)
Subject: Desqview Pascal API Toolkit?
Does anyone have any experience with the Desqview API toolkit, especially
the Pascal version of it? It costs about $100 more than the reference
manual alone; is it worth it?
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1989 09:21:33 CET
From: A0045%DK0RRZK0.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: Documentation for PC Video adapters
Answer to: Technical book for video adapters wanted (IBMPC-Digest # 57)
A similar question about 8514/A (I lost the reference)
The best book about PC graphic adapters that I found so far is
Richard Wilton: Programmer's Guide to PC and PS/2 Video Systems, Microsoft
Press 1987, ISBN 1-55615-103-9
It covers technical and programming information about all the common PC
video boards (MDA, CGA, EGA, VGA, HGC Mono and Color). Contrary to a mere
Reference Manual Wilton explains in detail what you really have to do when
you want to write programs for these adapters including numerous
algorithms and working assembly code examples. Highly recommended.
The high resolution 8514/A adapter is not covered in this book, therefore
I think for the moment the only documentation about that is IBM's original
8514/A Technical Reference Manual. This adapter is quite different from
the other PC graphic boards, because it's graphic memory is not directly
accessible and it uses a real graphic processor with high level functions.
You get interface libraries for DOS and OS/2, when you buy such a board,
but no documentation.
Jochen Roderburg
Regional Computing Center
University of Cologne
Robert-Koch-Str. 10 Tel. : +49-221/470-4564
D-5000 Koeln 41 Email: A0045 @ DK0RRZK0.BITNET (CDC)
West Germany or A0045 @ DK0RRZK1.BITNET (IBM)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 89 08:24:44 edt
From: bvan@mvax.dcem.dnd.ca (Bryan E. Van Blaricom)
Subject: Re: Documentation for PC Video adapters
> Can anybody give me a reference to a good book about all Video adapters
> (up to VGA) with all the technical details about registers and so on.
One excellent reference is "EGA/VGA A Programmer's Reference Guide", by
Bradley Dyck Kliewer, McGraw Hill, 1988.
Bryan Van Blaricom
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 13:51:11 CET
From: Wolf-Dieter Batz <L12%DHDURZ1.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Converting 8" diskettes from IBM6580 (Displaywriter System)
We have a lot of data and text on an old (5 years or so) IBM Display
Writer System (IBM6580) with an 8 inch floppy drive box (IBM6360).
How can I read this format on a PC/MS-Dos machine that also an 8 inch
drive installed as drive "D:"?
Someone around here mentioned Vertex company to have converting software
but did not know lot more about the thing...
So if *YOU* have some hint or even another person's name who might be able
to help - any EMAIL note to the address above is greatly apprecciated !!!
Virtually *** WDB
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 23:12 EDT
From: That which does not kill us makes us stronger <S0703PDB%SEMASSU.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Re: Resetting Interleave on a Slow Hard Drive
My recommendation if you want to reset the interleave on a hard drive
is to get a program from the Simtel20 Archives called HDTEST125.ARC from
the <MSDOS.DSKUTL> directory. It will determine the proper interleave for
you, and will reformat the drive WITHOUT LOSS OF DATA to the correct
interleave. It will also perform a surface test and assorted controler
tests etc. I've seen it run on 2 PS/2 Model 50's and an Epson Equity with
substantial speed improvements due to incorrect interleaves. (The Epson
came set 3:1, but could only handle 6:1 which sped it up considerably, and
the PS/2's came set 2:1, but could handle 1:1) The program is fully menu
driven and is well documented.
Paul Bienvenue
S0703PDB@SEMASSU.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 13:42:58 CDT
From: "Rich Winkel UMC Math Department" <MATHRICH@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU>
Subject: Re: Resetting Interleave on a Slow Hard Disk
Your low disk performance is probably due to a non-optimal interleave
factor. The interleave is a number which indicates how many physical
sectors lie between consecutive logical sectors on a track. With a fast
enough controller and cpu, the logical sectors could be placed in
sequential order around the track, but with a PC-level machine reading
consecutive sectors, by the time the machine is finished digesting sector
N, the next physical sector has already passed by the head, so it can't be
read until the disk undergoes a full rotation. The solution is to place
logical sector N+1 two or more sectors away from sector N, so that N+1 is
about to pass under the head at the same time that the hardware is ready
for it. Anyway, on PC style machines, an interleave of 3 is usually best.
The original IBM XTs came with an interleave factor of 6, so the hard disk
had about half the performance that it was capable of. The interleave
factor is determined at 'primary format' time. Primary formatting is NOT
what the dos FORMAT.COM does. If you want to do a primary format, you
have to either use debug to write your own short machine language program,
or, on some hard disk controllers, you can run a relatively 'user
friendly' routine that's built into your hard disk bios at address C800:5.
I recommend writing the program, since not all controllers have the C800:5
routine. Here's what you do:
DEBUG (run debug.com from the dos prompt)
A 100 ; assemble a program
MOV AX,0703 ; the 03 here is the interleave to use
XOR BX,BX
MOV ES,BX ; this gets around a pesky bug in the XT bios
MOV CX,0001
MOV DX,0080 ; use 80 for the first hard disk, 81 for second
INT 13 ; do the format ... takes a few minutes
INT 20 ; terminate program
(enter a null line here to get out of input mode)
G (run the program that you just typed in)
Q (exit to dos)
After this, you'll need to run FDISK and the dos FORMAT to finish setting
up the disk. Of course, don't forget to BACK UP YOUR FILES before you do
anything ... this procedure will wipe the slate clean.
Rich
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 7:27:45 MST
From: ASBF-CSO Lesh <sal@huachuca-emh5.army.mil>
Subject: executable for ghostscript
If anyone has compiled the GNU ghostscript program for a PC with EGA
(PD2:<unix-c.gnu>ghostscript.tar-z>), I would appreciate a copy. I don't
have access to a Turbo C compiler at the required 1.5 revision level.
Thanks,
------------------------------
Date: 20 Jun 89 16:58:12 GMT
From: burkett@csd4.milw.wisc.edu (Edward W Burkett)
Subject: External 3 1/2" Floppy
I have a Leading Edge Model D with the following installed:
640 K
2400 baud modem
5 1/4 in. floppy
30 meg Seagate HD
DOS 3.2
What I would like to do is add an EXTERNAL 3 1/2 in. drive. The question
is HOW?
1) The LE only has two connectors on the power supply.
1 - for the HD
1 - for the 3 1/4 in floppy
[You need a 'V' power adaptor.]
2) The LE has the floppy controller built into the mother board. Will
that controller work or do I need another?
I would like info on what I need to know to do this. Any help would be
appreciated.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 89 07:56 CDT
From: Dan Scott - Kansas State University Library <DSCOTT@KSUVM.KSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: Disabling Key click on a Z-248
Isn't it simpler to press Alt-~ to disable the key click on the Zenith
248 than to take the keyboard apart and void the warranty?
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 89 10:59:29 PDT
From: swillett@violet.berkeley.edu (Steve Willett)
Subject: Re: PS/2 error
Khaled A. Hadi inquired about error 162, 163 messages on a model 60 PS/2.
We have a model 60 PS/2 here in the Chem. Engineering Dept. at Berkleley
which, fortunately, belongs to IBM (loaned on a grant), We had the same
problem. The IBM service people did the following things (in the
following order!):
1. Replaced the hard drive.
2. Replaced the motherboard.
3. Replaced the battery.
4. Sent us a software fix.
Each step seemed to help somewhat - the most dramatic was the last. Since
that fix we have only had two occurances of the problem which started out
as virtually continuous - we had to reconfigure the machine every time we
started it up.
The software fix was the most puzzling. What we got was an installable
device driver, "DASDDRVR.SYS", whach was apparently a replacement for the
hard disk driver in ROM (?) or on the controller board (?). We were told
about third hand that there was a bug in DOS for the PS/2 which caused
part of the "non-volatile" (i.e., battery backed?) RAM containing the
configuration info to be clobbered during some unrelated activity. We
never got any more info from the IBM folks.
Fortunately we did not have to pay for all of this - since it was an IBM
machine they paid for it all. I estimate that it would have cost about 5k
just for the replacement parts! The machine was about 6 months old when
all of this started - we did not use it much when we first had it.
Good luck. The software fix should be available from your local IBM
distributor - contrary to IBM's approach I would start with that! By the
way - the serviceman who replaced the battery (reluctantly, at my
insistence) said that he had never had a battery fail, but that the
motherboards had to be replaced all the time! Well, he seemed to be
supported by the facts.
Good luck.
Steve Willett
Department of Chemical Engineering
U.C. Berkeley
swillett@violet.berkeley.edu
swillett@ucbviolet
or whatever gets there
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 1989 09:25:50 CET
From: A0045%DK0RRZK0.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: Redirect PrtSc output to a file
If your problem is to catch some screen output during a KERMIT session,
there are several possibilities with KERMIT itself (at least with newer
versions, the current one is 2.32/A). The command LOG SESSION filename
copies everything that is coming over the line to a file and there is also
an 'escape command' which does a single screen dump to a file. You can
assign this command to key, the appropriate keyword for SET KEY is \Kdump.
For general Printer -> Disk redirection (including PrtSc) I recommend a
PC-Magazine utility named PRN2FILE, which is in <MSDOS.PCMAG>VOL6N22.ARC
in the SIMTEL20 archive.
Jochen Roderburg
Regional Computing Center
University of Cologne
Robert-Koch-Str. 10 Tel. : +49-221/470-4564
D-5000 Koeln 41 Email: A0045 @ DK0RRZK0.BITNET (CDC)
West Germany or A0045 @ DK0RRZK1.BITNET (IBM)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 13:27:17 +0200
From: Andr'e PIRARD <A-PIRARD%BLIULG11.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Re: RS-232 interface problems
On your I/O board, you will find near the 40-pins 8250 two small chips:
1488: line driver and 1489: line receiver. They usually take the knock out
from voltage surges on the line and do a good job at stopping it there (I
once saw one with a crater in it. The guy had tried the mains). They are
usually socketed for that very reason. It's worth the few cents trying to
replace them. Other part numbers exist for the chips. The electronics
parts dealer should know.
Andr).
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 1989 13:36 MDT
From: Keith Petersen <w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL>
Subject: SIMTEL20 MSDOS support
If you are a SysOp of a BBS which supports MS-DOS file downloads and you
also have access to the Internet to get files from SIMTEL20, please send a
message to my SIMTEL20 address. I am setting up a special SIMTEL20
supporters mailing list for regular announcements of new uploads to our
MS-DOS collection. We would like to have your participation in uploading
to help keep our archives up to date with current releases of programs and
information files (such as BBS lists).
Keith
Keith Petersen
Maintainer of SIMTEL20's CP/M, MSDOS, and MISC archives
Internet: w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil [26.2.0.74]
Uucp: {ames,decwrl,harvard,rutgers,ucbvax,uunet}!wsmr-simtel20.army.mil!w8sdz
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 02:41 EST
From: "Paul Poncelet - SMR" <PONCELET%smr.sdr.slb.com@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: Text editor required
Does anybody know of a "simple" text editor, such as PC-WRITE that can
hold source files which are larger than 64kbytes in size?
Any suggestions, and information, please mail me on SWFMC1::NEVILLE, the
product should be 'obtainable' in the UK.
Many thanks,
Neville Pattinson - Schlumberger Industries, Felixstowe, Suffolk.
CSNet: NEVILLE@swfmc1.sdr.slb.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 89 08:17:02 -0400
From: "J.Chester" <jchester@note.nsf.gov>
Subject: Updating ROM
I use an ITT XP (that's an IBM XT-286 clone) at work. I'd like to use an
enhanced keyboard with it, to make it consistent with my PS/2 at home. A
Northgate "C/T 101" keyboard works well, except the F11 and F12 keys won't
work. I'm told that's because the BIOS in the XP doesn't recognize those
keys. (PCTools says the XP's BIOS is dated 08/01/85.) I've read comments
here about updating BIOS. Can someone tell me how I go about doing that?
Through hardware or software? What does it cost?
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 89 08:58:24 EET
From: Matti Aarnio <FYS-MA@MAMMUTTI.UTU.FI>
Subject: New TRICKLE Server Available
I have something to add for your standard header...
Somewhat terse, but edit freely.
>
>WSMR-Simtel20.army.mil can be accessed using LISTSERV commands from
>BITNET via LISTSERV@RPIECS.BITNET and in Europe from EARN TRICKLE servers
>as listed: (send commands to TRICKLE@<host-name> eg: TRICKLE@AWIWUW11)
>AWIWUW11 (Austria), BANUFS11 (Belgium), DKTC11 (Denmark), DB0FUB11
>(Germany), IMIPOLI (Italy), EB0UB011 (Spain) and TREARN (Turkey)
In Europe also LISTSERV@FINTUVM.BITNET (aka LISTSERV@MAMMUTTI.UTU.FI)
Location: University of Turku, Finland. Lat: 60-27N, Long: 022-17E.
GMT+0200 Features: a rewritten 'clone' of RPIECS, eg this system does an
FTP to Simtel20. It feeds UNIX-C to European Trickle network. (Soon
- I hope - also Ada) It accesses also a dozen of UNIX hosts throughout
Internet.
/Matti Aarnio (Listserv & Trickle keeper, Postmaster for a while)
PS: Where is NDSUVM from your list? [Good question. Any info available?]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 89 22:08:35 -0900
From: <GFWT%ALASKA.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Tandy 1200 hardware compatability
Can anyone tell me if the Tandy 1200 is capable of handling other disk
drives than the one that comes standard with the computer, which is
manufactured by Tandon. I know other Tandy computers are
hardware-specific, but I don't believe I have ever seen hardware
specifically for a Tandy 1200. I have a damaged drive I am looking to
replace, and I would prefer to hang two half-height floppies on it rather
than a single full-height. Please EMAIL responses directly to me, since I
am not a regular subscriber to this newsgroup... Thanks...
Wigi Tozzi
Bitnet: GFWT@ALASKA
Internet:GFWT@ACAD3.FAI.ALASKA.EDU
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End of Info-IBMPC Digest
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