Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL (02/06/89)
Info-IBMPC Digest Mon, 6 Feb 89 Volume 89 : Issue 19
Today's Editor:
Gregory Hicks - Chinhae Korea <COMFLEACT@Taegu-EMH1.army.mil>
Today's Topics:
A few things cleaned up in the Random number generator
drawing
eight inch reading capablities on an AT
Hard Disk Info Wanted
help uuencode
Motorola-68000/68020 Cross Assembler wanted
info-ibmpc
Password Protection for an IBM-PC System
microsecond timing on a PC
NORTON SD problem(s)
Norton Utilities V4.5 bugs
Quick reference list to SIMTEL20's MISC directories
Quick reference list to Simtel20 MSDOS directories
DOS Technical question
Utility for Examining Word Perfect Graphics Files
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Date: 3 Feb 89 09:36
From: dantowitz%eagle1.DEC@decwrl.dec.com (color)
Subject: A few things cleaned up in the Random number generator
Please note that the Random function below returns a REAL value
between 0 and 1. You must also initialize SEED to a non-zero value before
calling Random.
David Dantowitz
var
(* Initialize seed to a non-zero value *)
seed : integer; (* this has to persist from call to call *)
function Random : real;
const
a = 16807;
m = 2147483647; (* 2^31 - 1 *)
q = 127773; (* M div A *)
r = 2836; (* M mod A *)
var
lo, hi, test : integer;
begin
hi := seed div q;
(* division truncated to integer *)
lo := seed mod q;
test := a * lo - r * hi;
if test > 0
then
seed := test
else
seed := test + m;
Random := seed / m;
(* floating point division *)
end;
------------------------------
Date: Friday, 3 Feb 1989 10:08:47 EST
From: m10293@mwvm.mitre.org (Dwight Love)
Subject: drawing
Mike Benedik asks:
> Does anyone have recommendations for drawing packages for the PC. I need
> something similar to MacDRAW... I need good quality output with text on
> a HP laserjet. Paint packages will not do the job.
I heartily recommend Lotus Freelance Plus. I have been using this package
for over a year for technical illustrations, and I have been very pleased
with the results. It supports a large number of printers and plotters,
including the HP LaserJet. Freelance Plus is easy to learn, and even
easier to use. A mouse is not required, but can be used to add freehand
lines to a drawing. It lists for $499, but can be found for $310 or less.
Although that's certainly not cheap, as drawing packages go, I feel like I
got more than my money's worth.
- Dwight Love
The MITRE Corporation
McLean, Virginia
Short e-mail address: dlove@mitre.org
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 31 Jan 89 09:18 PST
From: (Joseph A. Faracchio) <SPGJAF%UCBCMSA.Berkeley.EDU@jade.berkeley.edu>
Subject: eight inch reading capablities on an AT
There's a program called JFormat-2 from Tall Tree Systems. Its very old
and no longer supported. You might get a copy of it from JDR Micro
devices (I think) and cheap! They are in LA. Tall Tree Systems is at P.O
Box 50690 2585 E. Bayshore Road Palo Alto Ca. 94303 (415) 493-1980.
JF2 was written back in DOS 2.1 days for the XT and PC's. It's a device
driver and accompanying format progams. Best part is it comes with
SOURCE!
Under eight inch it lists :
style sector size max bytes clstr size
------------ ---- --------- ----------
3740 128 252K 512
large 1024 621K 1024
massive 512 622k 1024
giant 1024 1250K 1024
whale 512 1251K 1024
I think it'll work on an AT. I was using it to get 720K Quad support with
Teac 55F's and Tandon 100-4's before IBM came out with DOS3.2 with 3 1/2in
support for 720K which works just as well with 55F's that are 5 1/4 inch.
I also tried to get it to work with a PCjr, but alas no DMA in the JR!
I hope this helps. cheers .. joe.f.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2-FEB-1989 16:30 GMT + 1:00
From: "Walter Speth, Bonn" <SPETH%DBNPIB5.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu>
Subject: Hard Disk Info Wanted
Recently I bought a Harddisk Drive second hand. I got no Information with
it, so i hope someone out there might know it.
The manufacturer is MICROPOLIS, The type is HDA#30059 (at least I found
that number on the case).
The media defect table - also on the case - reports no less than 27
errors. Least and highest numbers that occur are
0 .. 4 Hd
3 .. 826 Ctl
and 98 .. 10370 BFIND
So I guess i got a five heads, eight hundred-something Cylinders drive. I
got as much as 35.9 Mbyte out of it using a WD-Controller for preformat.
Of course I would like to get even more, if possible. Anyway it is
annoying not to now what there is inside. So does anybody know that drive
and can tell me matter of fact data on it?
By the way I learned from one of those performance programs, it must be a
28ms drive.
Thanks for any kind of reply,
Walter SPETH@DBNPIB5
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 89 16:40 MET
From: RUWHOF%HLERUL5.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject: help uuencode
I would like some help using the uuencode / uudecode.
1. For some reason I cannot uuencode an arc-file created with pkarc/pkpak.
When I offer it to uuencode the output file only contains 'begin 400
filename', a few empty lines and 'end'.
2. When I uuencode an exe-file, and uudecode it afterwards, the result is
different from the original file. This applies to exe-files created with
the self-extracting-file utility of pkpak.
Who knows what's happening?
Peter Ruwhof
Leiden University Bureau System Manager
bitnet: ruwhof@hlerul5
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 89 01:36:22 PST
From: xjyan@Romeo.Caltech.Edu (Xiaojian Yan)
Subject: Motorola-68000/68020 Cross Assembler wanted
HI:
WE NEED TO FIND A COMPILER THAT COMPILES MOTOROLA-68000(OR 68020) ASSEMBLY
LANGUAGE ON IBM COMPUTER. IS THERE ANYONE KNOWS ABOUT THIS. PLEASE GIVE
ME A CALL OR LEAVE A MESSAGE. THANKS!
PHONE # 351-4259 OR x3748
E-MAIL XJYAN@ROMEO
YAN
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 89 12:53 EST
From: George Nassas <A5000002%LAUVAX01.LAURENTIAN.CA@CORNELLC.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject: Password Protection for an IBM-PC System
in digests V89 # 14 I saw two messages that asked about programs that I
had recently retrieved from Simtel,
>From: Don Branson <C08922DB%WUVMD.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
>Is anyone familiar with some software that can be used to password-protect
>the hard drive of an IBM PC system? Has anyone written something that
>would be useful?
and
>From: D.Murphy%edinburgh.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK
>Are there any PD or cheap (<$100) packages that allow PC's to use hard
>disk space as virtual memory (preferably emulating expanded memory) ?
>Speed is not a problem.
the files you seek are
PD1:<MSDOS.SYSUTL>PCLOCK21.ARC "Protect hard disk even from floppy boot"
PD1:<MSDOS.SYSUTL>VRAM.ARC "Use hard or ram disk to simulate EMS mem"
Licencing info can be found within. Whoever decided to set up an
annotated directory of MSDOS files on Simtel gets a thousand compliments
from me! [Thanks Keith!]
- George Nassas
Laurentian University
"A new job is easier to find than a good date."
- Guy Kawasaki
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 89 13:16 EST
From: George Nassas <A5000002%LAUVAX01.LAURENTIAN.CA@CORNELLC.ccs.cornell.edu>
Subject: microsecond timing on a PC
Hello,
We're all familiar with the time-of-day BIOS call that returns the
number of "tics" in the system clock since midnight and that there are
18.2 tics each second. But, what happens if you want to get a time
reading more accurate than the tenths of a second that you can get from
the BIOS call? Like maybe thousandths.
I did a little reading and found that the 8253-5 timer chip that the
PC uses gets a 1.19318MHz signal that it uses to update counters that
signal refreshes for RAM, make the speaker go and generate the interrupt
that keeps the BIOS system time go. The books warned me about messing
with the counter that keeps track of when to refresh DRAM and I'm wary of
using the speaker counter since it's kind of "public property" but what
about the one that keeps the system time?
So far as I can tell it starts at 65535 and counts 1.19318MHz tics
until it reaches zero then generates an interrupt and starts all over
again. This happens 18.2 times per second thus the resolution on the
system time.
Would it not be possible, after some manipulation, to use this counter
as the lower 16 bits of the system time? Could one then do a division by
1000 or so to get the system time in milliseconds? I've written a routine
to do this but I'm having trouble verifying it as milliseconds are a
little fast for my stopwatch :-).
Any comments or critisisms out there in netland?
- George Nassas
Laurentian University
What Descartes really meant was "I think; therefore I am paid"
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 89 07:46:38-1000
From: doug@loihi.hig.hawaii.edu (Doug Myhre)
Subject: NORTON SD problem(s)
It is reported in PC Magazine, Oct 11, 1988 that Norton's SD runs it's
"own more rigorous counterpart of DOS's CHKDSK" (p. 190) when it starts
up.
DOG is a shareware program (Disk OrGanizer) written by G. Allen Morris
III. The PC Magazine on hard disk defragmenters doesn't mention wither or
not DOG runs a chkdsk first. It also doesn't mention finding any problems
with it (not to say that there aren't any).
(Quote used from PC Magazine w/o permission) standard disclaimers apply
Doug Myhre
Hawaii Institute of Geophysics
2525 Correa Rd.
Honolulu, HI 96822
<doug@loihi.hig.hawaii.edu>
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 1 February 1989 17:17-MST
From: sklar%ihlpl.ATT.COM@ATT.ARPA (Sklar)
Subject: Norton Utilities V4.5 bugs
For anyone who doesn't already know, there have been problems with Norton
Advanced Utilities V4.5 trashing partition information on disks with
non-DOS partitions, including disks with both DOS and UNIX(TM) partitions,
and disks with partitions created by such programs as Ontrack's Disk
Manager.
The Norton people are very concerned about the problems that have been
caused by this, and about possible future problems. They have been
extremely cooperative. When I talked to them, I volunteered to post the
attached letter to the net so that it would gain the widest possible
distribution.
Robert Sklar
(Lachman Associates Inc. @)
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Naperville, Illinois
att!ihlpl!sklar
LETTER FOLLOWS:
This responds to all bulletin board users who have found they have
problems with the latest version (4.5) of the Norton Utilities. Most of
the complaints have concentrated on the Norton Disk Doctor: specifically,
running the Disk Doctor with partitioning schemes other than straight DOS.
Please feel free to upload this message, unedited, to any other bulletin
board you frequent.
First, let us say there was a problem only with "third- party"
partitioning software. This did result in false error messages, and NDD
asked for permission to repair the error. If told to fix the error, NDD
would clobber the partition trying to fix what wasn't broken.
All of the destructive bugs have now been fixed, and we (Peter Norton
Computing) are taking the following steps to put things right:
We will notify all registered users of the Norton Utilities v. 4.5 so
they can get a free fix-it disk that will correct the problems. For
faster service, send the title page of the 4.5 reference manual to Peter
Norton Computing, Inc., 100 Wilshire Blvd., 9th Floor, Santa Monica, CA
90401 - ATTN:NU4500. Please specify which size disk (3.5" or 5.25") you
require, and please tell us if you will not be installing the fix onto a
hard disk.
Our phone support has also had its problems: lines were overloaded,
calls were not returned --- this is NOT acceptable. We are now allocating
special phone lines to give fast, effective support to anyone who has had
problems as a result of the Norton Utilities v. 4.5.
At Peter Norton Computing, we take your comments and suggestions very
seriously and apologize for not responding to them sooner.
I personally feel very bad about what happened, and apologize for the
problems caused. You are the people who built this business, and you are
the people who will keep us in business.
Peter Norton
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 3 Feb 1989 13:42 MST
From: Keith Petersen <w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL>
Subject: Quick reference list to SIMTEL20's MISC directories
Quick reference list to SIMTEL20's PD2:<MISC.x> directories as of February
3, 1989 (where 'x' is one of the names below):
BBS EPROM KA9Q-TCPIP PROTOCOLS TOPS-20
BBSLISTS GENIE MICROEMACS SQUPORT VAXVMS
BIBLE GOULD-KERMIT MINIX SS-INFO X-10
BYTE GPCSC MODEMS STANDARDS ZMODEM
CCMD HAMRADIO MSJ T20-SQUSQ
CIS IBM-CMS PACKET TELEPHONE
CONSUMERS IBM-VM PCPURSUIT TOPS-10
--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: Fri, 3 Feb 1989 13:32 MST
From: Keith Petersen <w8sdz@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL>
Subject: Quick reference list to Simtel20 MSDOS directories
Quick reference list to SIMTEL20's PD1:<MSDOS.x> directories as of
February 3, 1989 (where 'x' is one of the names below):
APL DESKPUB HYPERTEXT PC-JR SQ-USQ
ARC-LBR DESQVIEW KA9Q-TCPIP PCIP STARTER
ARCNET-PCIP DIRUTL KERMIT PCMAG SURFMODL
ASMUTL DISASM KEYBOARD PCMAIL SYSUTL
AT DSKUTL LAN PCPURSUIT TELIX
AUTOCAD EDITOR LAPTOP PCRESOURCE TELNET
BASIC EDUCATION LISP PCTECH TEX
BATUTL EEL LOTUS123 PIBTERM TROJAN-PRO
BBS EGA MAC PILOT TURBO-C
BBSLISTS EMULATORS MAPPING PLOT TURBOBAS
BIBLE FIDO MATH PREPROCESS TURBOPAS
BORLAND FILEDOCS MAX PRINTER TXTUTL
BYTEMAG FILUTL MEMACS PROCOMM UUCP
C FLOWCHART MENU PROGJOURN VENTURA
CAD FORMGEN MICROCORN PROLOG VGA
CALCULATOR FORTH MODEM QBASIC VOICE
CATALOG FORTRAN MODULA2 QMODEM WORLDMAP
CIS FREEMACS MOUSE RBBS-PC X-10
COMPATIBLES GAMES MSWINDOWS SCREEN XLISP
COMPUTE-PC GENIE MUSIC SMALL-C XPC
CROSSASM GIF NETWORK SMALLTALK ZMODEM
CROSSREF GRAPH OPUS SNOBOL4 ZOO
DATABASE GRAPHICS PACKET SPREADSHEET
DESKACCESS HAMRADIO PASCAL SPRINT
--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: Thu, 2 Feb 89 18:47:02 MST
From: <pgaughan@NMSU.Edu>
Subject: DOS Technical question
I'm *very* new to this forum so I don't know if this has been
discussed before. Here's the problem:
On a IBM PC/GX 3270, software allows the user to "hot key" back and
forth between dos/notebook/3270term modes. I understand IBM did this by
installing TSR's (Terminate and Stay Resident programs) and doing context
switching when the appropriate key was pressed. In more flowery language,
IBM made a multitasking scheduler for concurrent processes. I'd like to do
the same for NCSA telnet.
I need to know what rules need to be followed in such a context switch
(especially if its done on interupt) and what needs to be saved from each
process involved. I've got some ideas about how it might be done, but I
think consulting more experienced programmers might save a lot of time...
By the way, please see what the minimum DOS version you can find a
solution for, I'd like this to be VERY compatible.
Thanks in advance,
Patrick Gaughan Programmer of Gor
pgaughan@nmsu.edu New Mexico State University
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 2 Feb 89 22:08:53 EST
From: David Boeshaar (315) 443-3166 <BOESHAAR@SUVM.ACS.SYR.EDU>
Subject: Utility for examining Word Perfect Graphics Files
Anyone got a quick utility for peeking at Word Perfect 5.0 graphics files?
Kinda like VGIF.EXE only for the .WPG format?
advance thanks
Dkb :)
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY
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End of Info-IBMPC Digest
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