Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (02/16/89)
Info-IBMPC Digest Wed, 15 Feb 89 Volume 89 : Issue 23
Today's Editor:
Gregory Hicks - Chinhae Korea <COMFLEACT@Taegu-EMH1.army.mil>
Today's Topics:
ADA Compilers
Automatic Translation Software
MUMPS Programming
Duplicate Files, REPEAT
EEMS/286 Upgrade Problems
Environment variables in DOS
DSDD/DSHD Drives Re-visited
Disk 0 Error
IBM 3270 Workstation Program on PS/2
New msdos uploads to Simtel20
Non-standard formatting on IBM Diskettes
Random number generators
Trouble with MS Windows (2 msgs)
Writing MAC disks
SIMTEL20 Address Request
IBM PC benchmarks source code Request
360K vs 1.2Mb problems
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Date: Sat, 11 Feb 89 12:36:30 -0500
From: grant@itd.nrl.navy.mil (William (Liam) Grant)
Subject: ADA Compilers
I am looking for information on a few intro topics to start with. In the
near future my workgroup will start working with some COMPAQ 386/20 or 25
machines. We will be using the 110 or 130 MB ESDI drives and some NEC
monitors and bus meeses. I have used PC's before, but strictly on an
occasional basis, and I don't know the intricasies of the operating
environment too well. We will be probably getting Compaq's DOS 3.31 and
MS Windows. Can people send me suggestions for introductory references
and books concerning the PC [aimed at a recent EE BS grad with a good bit
of Comp Sci work]? I intend to go through the DOS manuals when they
arrive, but I am looking for other material also. No assembler just yet,
and while there will be some application writing, that is not our primary
purpose. Replies to me will be compiled and forwarded to any one who
wants them.
Also, can anyone make recommendations on ADA compilers or comment on the
ADAVANTAGE compiler from MERIDIAN?
Thanks
William "Leprechaun Liam" Grant Code 5541
ARPA: grant@itd.nrl.navy.mil Naval Research Laboratory
BITNET: grant@WPI.BITNET 4555 Overlook Avenue
(202) 767-2392 Washington, DC 20375
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 89 18:36:03 IST
From: Itamar Even-Zohar <B10%TAUNIVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Automatic Translation Software
Here is a short description of TOVNA, a machine translation system which I
have been preoccupied with recently. I believe this information can be of
interest to others who are both skeptical of and fascinated by machine
translation. This particular system is very promising indeed.
(I wish to declare that I am in no commercial or other way connected to
this product. My report is wholly based on information received from the
company when I was testing it, as well as on my personal experience with
its performance. Though I have not operated it independently, I managed to
test it in a sufficient variety of ways to be able to express some opinion
about its capacities. - Itamar Even-Zohar)
TOVNA - MACHINE TRANSLATION SYSTEM
TOVNA MTS (I will refer to it in the following as "Tovna") is a
sophisticated AI solution for multi-language environments. It currently
allows automatic translation for French-English Russian- English (both
ways). The French-English option is at a more advanced stage than the
Russian-English one.
In accordance with new developments in this field, automatic translation
(AT) is no longer conceived of as man-independent. Translation is
interactive in the sense that both a "regular" and an advanced user (a
"power user") can intervene in the various stages of the MTS decision
making. The system consequently can be taught both rules and new material,
including personal preferences on various levels, both directly and
indirectly (through extraction - see below).
Tovna maintains a complete and rigorous separation of knowledge of the
language from the software. This means that there is only one set of
software programs which work in exactly the same way with *all languages*
available with Tovna. There is only one system for the user to learn.
Moreover, Tovna is a learning system which improves with use. The more it
translates, the better its performance.
Ambiguity (which leads to incorrect translation) is handled by
discovering, at each phase of the translation process, all the possible
alternatives, passing them on to the next phase in the expectation that
later phases will reject the incorrect alternatives.
The problem of incomplete specification of grammar (which leads to
incomplete translations) is handled by Tovna's capacity to extract
(construct) rules from examples. The linguist who "teaches" Tovna a
language's grammar can do so by either specifying a rule, or where more
convenient, by providing a local solution to a specific case, i.e., an
example. One is never required to specify an algorithm and in fact has no
way of doing so.
Although ambiguity and incomplete specification of grammar are the crucial
problems which must be solved by an MT system, they are hardly the only
ones whose solution is critical to the success of the system. Other, less
technical but still important issues which must be addressed are:
a. Pre-editing and post editing of text.
b. Adding new words and phrases to dictionaries.
c. Adding new languages to the system.
Pre-editing and post-editing of text consume valuable time because the
user must hunt down sections which require post-editing, and the output
format is often not suitable for word processors and typesetting
equipment. With Tovna, no pre-editing is required. A high degree of
accuracy will eventually eliminate the need for most post- editing as the
system improves its performance. Moreover, Tovna maintains typesetting and
control codes for complete compatibility with word processors and
typesetting equipment (existing and future).
Tovna makes it easy to add words and phrases to dictionaries, by providing
sophisticated and easy to use menu based screens which enable the user to
enter the required data accurately and quickly in a user friendly
environment.
The problem of adding new languages to an MT system is especially vexing.
Most existing systems have to be completely rewritten to accommodate a new
language, a process which takes several years. Often, the new system has
different capabilities and a different user interface, thus confusing the
user. Since Tovna maintains a complete and rigorous separation of
knowledge of the language from the software, new languages can be added
relatively quickly. ("Quickly" is, of course, relative: I am told that
each new language requires something between 6 months and 2 years,
depending on how remote the relevant language is from the extant
material.)
The language's complexity is reflected not in the algorithms but rather in
the rules and in the example-based language model. More complex languages
simply have more rules and more examples in their models. The software is
the same for all languages, and the system's capabilities and user
interface are consistently maintained across all languages.
In addition to being language independent (that is, the same software
works with all languages), Tovna is also operating system independent and
machine independent. Tovna can work with most commonly available operating
systems and most commonly available computers. It works best, however,
with large memory and large storage, which means that it would be fastest
with an advanced SUN. When I worked with it on a SUN (with 16 MB of
memory), it speed was very impressive, especially in entering new material
and teaching it new fatures.
Tovna headquarters are located in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. The European
sales office is located in London. Here are the addresses for those who
wish further information:
Tovna TM Ltd. Tovna TM Ltd.
Yigal Alon 127 Betar 17
Tel Aviv 67443 Jerusalem
Israel (Phones: 02-712623, 02-719157)
(Phones: 03-256252/3; Fax: 03-256257)
Tovna TM Ltd. Itamar Even-Zohar
C.I.B.C Building Porter Institute for
Cottons Lane Poetics and Semiotics
London SE12QL Tel Aviv University
England
(Phones: 1-2346633/4/5. Fax: 1-2346897)
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 08:25:34 GMT
From: UA0095%SYSB.SALFORD.AC.UK@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: MUMPS Programming
Hi there all you electron bombarded screen gazers!
I have a request, could anybody send me, or tell me where to find
anything to make programming in MUMPS on a PC any easier?
Not an easy request I know, and beleive me, I'm not using it through
choice! Also if anybody has had any experience, or comments about MUMPS,
I would be *really* grateful to hear from you.
Thanks in advance...
Steve.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 1989 08:54:36 CET
From: A0045%DK0RRZK0.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Duplicate Files, REPEAT
REPEAT, a PC Magazine utility for finding duplicate files on a disk, which
was mentioned in this digest, can be found in the SIMTEL20 archive in the
file <MSDOS.PCMAG>VOL6N11.ARC.
Jochen Roderburg
Regional Computing Center
University of Cologne, West Germany
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 13:22:27 EST
From: Paul.Birkel@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: EEMS/286 Upgrade Problems
I have a Xebec EEMS board which, thanks to help received here earlier,
works just fine in my PC-Portable with either an 8088 or V20 CPU.
Upon installing a ChargeCard-286, it fails miserable and locks up the
system. Specifically, it does the EEMS memory self-test OK, but then locks
-- apparently at the point that the TSR is installed. The problem is *not*
at the subsequent installation of the VDISK TSR (which it never gets to).
The ChargeCard-286 is your standard "coprocessor" card in which you move
the main CPU to the card and cable from there back to the CPU socket.
There is a 8k cache; disabling it has no effect. You can only boot one
CPU, so it's really just a replacement processor. The 80286 runs at ~7.2
Mhz; there is no on-card memory, or provisions for any. Substituting the
8088/V20 makes no difference.
The Xebex card is physically *identical* to the Intel version except for
some apparent differences in the PALs. For example, the banks are in
different orders. The installation software for one works just fine on the
other. As I no longer have access to the Intel version software I can not
verify if the same failure occurs with it as with mine. As Xebec no longer
supports the product, and I have their last release of the software (2.03)
I have no recourse there.
My guess is that the Xebec software is unhappy with the fact that there is
now a *real* (unused) address space which it is instead *emulating*.
My questions are:
(1) What experience do others have with similar (swap processors, rather
than true coprocessing) '286 upgrades vis-a-vis EEMS boards?
(2) Any ideas on how to solve my specific problem? As I am otherwise
happy with the ChargeCard286 (and obtained it at a below-market price), I
am inclined to learn to live without the EEMS memory. But I would rather
not ...
For example, are there any "generic" EEMS drivers I could try? Would
anyone help me try out the Intel driver? Hmm?
Paul A. Birkel
Dept. of Computer Science
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, PA 15213
(412) 268-8893
------------------------------
Date: 09 Feb 89 09:30:57 EDT
From: RSPELLMAN@BAT.Bates.EDU
Subject: Environment variables in DOS
I've been reading the discussion on how to get the current working
directory name into an environment variable. I have lately been trying to
write a program to work under the Banyan Vines network operating system
that would put the user's name into an environment variable.
I am using MSC 4.00, and have found out that using the putenv library call
only sets the variable for the current program and it's sibblings. What I
would like is for the variable to remain set when I return to dos. I
don't want to have to resort to any tricks of writing a batch file, I want
to do it all from within C.
Since I assume that I am getting to see a copy of the master environment
table, How do I get a pointer to the master environment table?
Thanks
Rob Spellman
RSpellman@Bat.Bates.EDU
Computing Center
Bates College
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1989 13:19:55 LCL
From: JKMASSEY%UFFSC.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject: DSDD/DSHD Drives Re-visited
After posting my comments regarding sharing media between DSDD drives and
DSHD drives I received several comments. One from Ken Van Camp <kvancamp@
ARDEC.ARPA) questioned the "original drive" theory and another from K.
Krallis <g7ahn%cc.imperial.ac.uk@cernvax> gave a reasonable explanation.
Though I mentioned that there were drive dependencies, I had never
attempted to correlate them specifically with drive manufacturers. The
discussions regarding "wide track" vs "narrow track" appears to be valid.
If the original drive is a DSDD drive that tracks to the same accuracy
(center track location) then the failures when subsequently operated on by
DSHD drives should be low.
However, as K. Krallis pointed out, many of the early full-height drives
were sloppy on this tolerance and subsequently the failures are generally
greater in this class than in the newer half-height drives. Since the
3.5" drives have been generally built on this prior art (and have closer
tolerances anyway) the media exchange between these drives has generally
been more successful.
Having worked with many different removable media hard drives over the
past seventeen years I can attest to the importance of "alignment" (a
factor we all take for granted in floppy drives today). If the
manufacturer builds a drive with careful attention to "alignment" and
repeatability on track seeking then we can expect fairly reliable media
exchange. By avoiding writing on media with a "wide track" device, we
limit the impact of sloppiness in this area, and consequently reduce the
UFC (User Frustration Coefficient).
So, my previous statements with respect to our experience stand but with a
better understanding of why certain drives just don't work. If you want
to maximize READ reliability, then only WRITE on DSDD media with a "wide
track" drive *OR* a "narrow track" drive. Never mix the two. (WRITE also
refers to FORMAT).
As for myself, I will undoubtedly be caught one day soon with only one
DSDD floppy disc with which to exchange data on two different machines and
I will write the files on the disc more than once when I am on the DSHD
drive so there are several oportunities to attempt retries on the DSDD
drive.
James K. Massey (JKMASSEY@UFFSC.BITNET)
Box J-275 904-395-0208
Department of Pathology
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32610
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 07 Feb 89 16:50:19 EDT
From: Bill Blum <BASTILLE@GRIFFIN>
Subject: Disk 0 error
I have a user who is working on a Compaq 286 Deskpro (8MHz) w/ a 20 MB
hard drive (all Compaq standard). He is getting a "DISK 0 ERROR" error
code 1790 (obviously a hard disk error code altho my list for IBMs only
goes to 1704). This is intermittant and does not always occur. When it
does, only booting from a floppy works. Doing a SYS and copying
Command.COM didn't help. Neither did a FORMAT/S. Finally neither did a
low-level format (via Compaq's INIT program) followed by a FORMAT/S.
Any suggestions?? If I need to mark that area of the disk as BAD during a
low level format, how can I tell where the bad tracks are?
Any help would be appreciative.
Bill Blum BASTILLE@GRIFFIN.UGA.EDU
Georgia Experiment Station DIALCOM 157:AGS634
1109 Experiment Street
Griffin, Georgia 30223-1797
Acknowledge-To: <BASTILLE@GRIFFIN>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 89 17:12:07 EST
From: Jim Ennis <JIM%UCF1VM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: IBM 3270 Workstation Program on PS/2
Hello,
I am posting this question for a friend.
Re: IBM 3270 workstation program
Can it be loaded in memory between 640K and 1024K on PS/2 50s thru
PS/2 80s?
If so, how?
If not, can it use that memory at all with WS loaded?
Thanks,
Jim Ennis
UCF - Computer Services
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 9 Feb 1989 12:38 MST
From: Keith Petersen <w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL>
Subject: New msdos uploads to Simtel20
I have just uploaded the following new files to Simtel20:
<msdos.arc-lbr>COMPRES5.ARC Comparisons of performance of archiving pgms
<msdos.arc-lbr>PAK16.ARC NoGate's archive create/extract program
<msdos.graphics>PC-DRAFT.ARC Hi-res pixel oriented drawing and graphing utl.
<msdos.arc-lbr>PKFORMAT.ARC Specs on Phil Katz's new PD ZIP archive format
PC-Draft is a high resolution pixel oriented drawing and graphing utility,
which is designed to facilitate a variety of drawing and drafting needs.
With PC-Draft you can produce drawings up to 1280 by 700 dots using IBM's
color graphic adaptor high resolution graphics mode (640 x 200 dots per
screen). Such a drawing will fill an 8-1/2 x 11 inch printed output (at
150 dots per inch resolution). Built-in functions allow you to draw
circles, lines, boxes; draw bar, line and pie graphs; create patterns with
which to fill areas; cut and paste objects and save objects to files for
later use. You can record graphic keyboard macros saved in files for
later playback and for animation effects. You can load and edit fonts.
And you can print your drawings on Epson compatible graphic printers or HP
Laserjet+ printers.
Here is an excerpt from PKFORMAT.ARC:
The file format of the files created by these programs, which file format
is original with the first release of this software, is hereby dedicated
to the public domain. Further, the filename extension of ".ZIP", first
used in connection with data compression software on the first release of
this software, is also hereby dedicated to the public domain, with the
fervent and sincere hope that it will not be attempted to be appropriated
by anyone else for their exclusive use, but rather that it will be used to
refer to data compression and librarying software in general, of a class
or type which creates files having a format generally compatible with this
software.
--Keith Petersen
Maintainer of the CP/M & MSDOS archives at wsmr-simtel20.army.mil [26.0.0.74]
DDN: w8sdz@wsmr-simtel20.army.mil
Uucp: {ames,decwrl,harvard,rutgers,ucbvax,uunet}!wsmr-simtel20.army.mil!w8sdz
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 08 Feb 89 15:13:31 EST
From: Weng Loh <LKOKWENG%SBCCVM.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Subject: Non-standard formatting on IBM Diskettes
>Does anyone have a program to format a 360K disk with 10 sectors instead
>of 9, and if that is possible, do other PC's recognize the disk, or is it
>only possible to read it with another program?
There are two programs available on the SIMTEL20 archives that permit
non-standard formatting of PC diskettes:
These are respectively,
PD1:<MSDOS.AT>800KS.ARC,1,11612,8,880720
PD1:<MSDOS.DSKUTL>MAXI5.ARC,1,36727,8,881023
800KS is a PD utility which allows AT HD 5-1/4 inch disks to format DS/DD
disks to 80 tracks at 10 sectors/track, giving over 800K of useable
storage space. It works very well on most AT compatibles that I have
tried. Depending on the type of controller and the BIOS installed on your
machine, it may be necessary to use the resident BIOS patch program
(included) to read 800K the disks formatted by this program.
MAXI5 is a shareware program that allows use of non-standard sector sizes
on various diskette formats, including the following: 410 K on DS/DD 5-1/4
drives with DD disks, 1.44M on DS/HD 5-1/4 drives with HD disks, 1.6M on
DS/HD 3-1/2 drives with HD disks.
Both 800KS and MAXI are excellent alternatives to JFORMAT2 and they can
be obtained via anonymous ftp from SIMTEL20.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 1989 13:06:41 CST
From: Derek Morgan <C03601DM%WUVMD.BITNET@UICVM.uic.edu>
Subject: Random number generators
The definitive statistical paper for random number generators is from _The
Journal of the American Statistical Association_, vol. 77, No. 377, by
George Fishman and Louis Moore. In it, they test several pseudo-random
multiplicative congruential generators, including the one sent in by John
Levine. The multiplier 16087 is the fastest, but also rejected as "not
random enough". The next best multiplier to use is 397204094, which takes
2.37 times as long. Again, this assumes 32-bit math. For an application
which I have, I use it with double precision, instead of long integers,
since I don't get 32-bit integers. (If I'm wrong about this, please let me
know).
The loss in precision is minor (for my application), and will yield a
fairly flat distribution. Tested with 500000 random #'s, and broken down
into .05 segments, no segment has more than 5.2%, less than 4.8% of the
random numbers.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 8 Feb 89 13:58 EST
From: <VY7106%BINGVAXA.BITNET@CORNELLC.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject: Trouble with MS Windows
Hi ho. I'm having trouble with MS Windows v2.03 on an IBM PC/XT with
640K, CGA, running it at about 8 MHz from a 20 meg drive. Whenever I try
to execute a .PIF file, I get the message "Not enough memory...", however
it will still execute any file made for windows, like Write, Paint, and
some shareware stuff, like QVT and Command Post. I know I'm not short on
memory, because I've even tried it with VRAM simulating 128k EMS, and I
know it's not a disagreement with a TSR program, because I've tried it
with none present. For some reason, Windows just won't run a .PIF file.
Anybody else with a similar problem or solution?
Rick Dickens
VY7106@BINGVAXA
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 10 Feb 89 02:00:22 MST
From: Gregory Hicks <GHICKS@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL>
Subject: Trouble with MS Windows
You don't say what version of DOS you're using, but the 'out of memory'
happens to me when I don't have the "FILES=XX" set high enough...
(FILES=XX should be in your CONFIG.SYS file, and probably should be about
XX= 30 or 40...)
Regards,
Gregory Hicks
------------------------------
Date: Thu 9 Feb 89 12:45:39-PST
From: Ted Shapin <BEC.SHAPIN@ECLA.USC.EDU>
Subject: Writing MAC disks
>From: Wujastyk <UCGADKW%euclid.ucl.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK>
>I am looking for a utility that will run on a PC under DOS and write to a
>3.5 inch diskette in Mac format. PD or shareware preferred.
Central Point Software makes a disk controller and software that will read
and write MAC format diskettes. It is their COPY-PC Option Board. Their
address: 15220 N.W. Greenbrier Pkwy., Beaverton, OR 97006.
Ted Shapin
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 89 16:43:00 MEX
From: Mario Camou Riveroll <EM302723%VMTECMEX.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Simtel20 address request
What is the complete address of the Simtel20 archives?
[The host address is WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL [26.0.0.74]. This address
will change about 20 March to [26.2.0.74].] If however, you're asking for
what archives are stored there, that's another story. See Info-IBMPC
Digest V89 #19 for a more 'complete' list. gph]
Mario Camou
EM302723@VMTECMEX
#include <disclaimer.h>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 89 16:43:00 MEX
From: Mario Camou Riveroll <EM302723%VMTECMEX.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: IBM PC benchmarks source code
Where can I get the standard benchmark source code? (Dhrystone,
Whetstone, etc.)
[Whetstone sources are in PD1:<MSDOS.SYSUTL> as follows:
"PD1:","<MSDOS.SYSUTL>","WHETST.ANS",1,1405,7,851230
"PD1:","<MSDOS.SYSUTL>","WHETST.FOR",8,4012,7,840129
gph]
Mario Camou
EM302723@VMTECMEX
#include <disclaimer.h>
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 09 Feb 89 16:43:00 MEX
From: Mario Camou Riveroll <EM302723%VMTECMEX.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: 360K vs 1.2Mb problems
I've been following the discussion on the incompatiblity problems between
360K floppies formatted in DSDD & 1.2M drives. Does anyone know whether
there are also problems with 720K & 1.44M drives?
Mario Camou
EM302723@VMTECMEX
#include <disclaimer.h>
------------------------------
End of Info-IBMPC Digest
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