hicks@WALKER-EMH.ARPA (Gregory Hicks COMFLEACTS) (02/15/88)
Info-IBMPC Digest Sun, 14 Feb 88 Volume 7 : Issue 13
This Week's Editor: Gregory Hicks -- Chinhae Korea <hicks@walker-emh.arpa>
Today's Topics:
80486 rumors
Proposal for SIMTEL20 access via RPICICGE
Copyright Re-visited
DOS 3.3 and DISKPARM
Using AST 6-Pak for Memory beyond 640K
Possible MSC 5.0 Bug Solution
MSC 5.0 Bugs, Microsoft ``support''
Response to query about CompuAdd 286/10
Text to Postscript converter
TURBO C 1.5
VT-100 Emulation
What's a good textbook
Where to get IBM PC DOS software via FTP Hosts
MSC 5.0 C1004 Error Solved
Today's Queries:
Another MS Word Question
CGA adaptor and PC Jr Color Monitor
Fortran -> C translator needed
Formating 5 1/4 inch, 720K, DD Diskettes using an AT HD Drive
Problems running Windows/386 on NEC
CD-ROM Information requested
Question about TURBO C 1.5
Some General Help on -286/-287/RLL Controller Requested
Speed of arithmetic co-processor 80287
Tape Back Up
Turbo C vs Quick C
Info-IBMPC Lending Library is available from:
Bitnet via server at CCUC; and from SIMTEL20.ARPA (see file
PD1:<msdos>files.idx for listing of source files)
SIMTEL20.ARPA can now be accessed access from BITNET is via
LISTSERV@RPICICGE.BITNET using LISTSERV Commands
INFO-IBMPC BBS Phone Numbers: (213) 827-2635 and (213) 827-2515
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 11 Feb 88 00:27:00 GMT
From: madd@bu-cs.bu.edu (Jim Frost)
Subject: 80486 rumors
>From: mcvax!olnl1!inno@uunet.UU.NET
>
>While the 386-wave is overwhelming computerland, the first rumours of the
>Intel 80486 are popping up. Does anybody out there in netland know some-
>thing more about this next hot item ?
>
What it will do is beyond me, but I'd say that a rather large ad in the Feb
7, 1988 Boston Globe that had the catchy title "80486" might make a few
people believe that it's being worked on. The ad basically said that Intel
was looking for a few good designers.
jim frost
madd@bu-it.bu.edu
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 14:29 CST
From: <MADS%UNO.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Proposal for SIMTEL20 access via RPICICGE
We are unable to access the Simtel20 files directly so the RPICICGE
service has been greatly appreciated. Apparently, many others on BITNET find
it useful, too, and RPICICGE has been forced to limit requests. We don't want
to see this valuable service cancelled but that might happen if RPICICGE
finds it to be too time and resource consuming.
Is anyone out there in BITNET Land willing to consider "limited"
distribution of files which have already been downloaded? For example, we
have a few Simtel20 files which could be shared with other sites so long as
we could control the effort. What I envision is that people would make
requests to the 'club' (need a list) and someone would respond if they had
the file and were willing to send it.
If anyone in BITNET is interested, please respond directly to me and I
will summarize. Major issues I see are 1) daily limit of 10?; 2) we need a
uuencode program for our VAX so we can convert before sending; 3) need a list
of crcs on all Simtel20 files to minimize worms or viruses; 4) each transfer
is voluntary.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 88 10:25:20 est
From: Dave Sill <dsill@NSWC-OAS.arpa>
Subject: Copyright Re-visited
Gregory Conway <ritcsh!gregory> writes:
>Nonetheless, registered or not, the program is copyrighted.
>You would be wise to use caution in assuming the work is public domain.
I believe it safe to assume that a published work without the appropriate
copyright notices is in the public domain.
Note the distinctions between published versus unpublished, registered versus
unregistered, and with versus without copyright notices. For example, let's
say I write a program for my own use. It is unregistered, and contains no
copyright notices.
One day my house is broken into and a copy of the program is stolen. The
thief posts my program to a public bulletin board system. The manager of the
BBS finds no copyright notices, is unaware of the circumstances under which
it was obtained, and distributes it, i.e., publishes it.
Is he guilty of violating my copyright? Not knowingly. Even if I had
registered the program, it's unlikely the BBS manager would be expected to
know it was copyrighted. However, if I had placed the appropriate copyright
notices in my program, and the thief had not removed them, the BBS manager
would clearly be held accountable.
Now let's say that instead of being posted by a thief, I distribute the
program myself, unregistered and without copyright notices. Can I, six
months later, sue the BBS manager for copyright violation? Heck no. Is the
program in the public domain? Yep.
=========
The opinions expressed above are mine, and I'm not a lawyer.
How much work would a network net if a network could net work?
------------------------------
Date: Mon Feb 08 19:36:05 1988
From: microsof!larryo%beaver.cs@beaver.cs.washington.edu
Subject: DOS 3.3 and DISKPARM
| >From: Tim Margush <R1TMARG@AKRONVM>
|
| Is it true that the DISKPARM command is not available in DOS 3.3? If so,
| what is the best way to configure a system with 1 20M, 1 360K 5 1/4 and 1
| 720K 3 1/2 drive. Can the DRIVESYS command be used to force the assignment
| of B: to the 3 1/2 inch drive??? Attempts to do this have resulted in as-
| signing D:. Any help would be appreciated.
|
First, it is "DRIVEPARMS=", and this has NEVER been a documented command.
There is a known bug in DOS 3.3 that causes the DRIVEPARMS= line to be parsed
incorrectly. The "DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS /xxx" command can be used, but it will
not modify an existing drive, only add new drives to the list of existing
drives. The DRIVEPARMS= command simply issues a Generic IOCTL (INT 21/440D)
to modify the BPB of the existing drive, so you probably could write a
program to do what you want to do with a little effort. Larry Osterman
"The opinions..."
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 88 16:37:37 est
From: genrad!jpn@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (John P. Nelson)
Subject: Using AST 6-Pak for Memory beyond 640K
>From: Seth Chaiklin <TC.CHAIKLIN@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU>
>
>PREMISE: 640K on XT clone motherboard
> 384K on AST 6-Pak
>
>DESIRE: Use 384K as EMS or Ram Disk
>
>CONCLUSION: Does a driver exist?
RESPONSE: This is impossible (sorry).
You cannot use the additional 384K of ram. There is nowhere to put it. 0 to
640K is reserved for RAM, but 640K-1Meg is reserved for I/O devices (video
displays, for instance) and ROM.
80286 based machines can address more than 1Megabyte, and memory past
1Megabyte is called Extended memory. Only cards with the 16 bit AT connecter
can have addresses above 1 Meg, and the 6pack doesn't.
Expanded memory is a bank-switch system, and requires special hardware. The
6pack doesn't have it. The 6pack came BEFORE the EMS standard.
Basically, if you try to install the sixpack without disabling the extra
memory, you will get errors because the motherboard memory and the 6 pack
memory will conflict. A driver is no help: You have a hardware problem.
RECOMMENDATION: Forget it. Just disable the 384K of ram, or buy
a different card that supports EMS memory.
It MIGHT be possible to install 64K of ram starting at 640K, if you don't
have an EGA or VGA display card. AST's ramdisk can use this memory, I think,
if you tell it to use HIGH memory. (DOS will ignore anything after 640K).
I'm not sure that the 6pack's switches will accomodate this, though.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Feb 88 10:32:43 GMT
From: gordan <gordan@maccs.uucp>
Subject: Possible MSC 5.0 Bug Solution
C03601DM%WUVMD.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Derek Morgan) writes:
-Is anybodyaware of a bug in the fwrite() routine of MSC 5? If not, then
-either I found one (highly unlikely), or my program is screwed up in some
-subtle way (Extremely probable)...
Perhaps your problem has something to do with the fact that newline is two
characters (CR LF) in MS-DOS, while C prefers it to be a single character
('\n').
I think operating systems like MS-DOS use low-level routines to automatically
map between CR LF <--> '\n' if you open a file as a text file. However this
can have counterintuitive results, e.g. if you do ftell (...) fread (N bytes)
ftell (...) your position in the file as reported by ftell will not
necessarily have been incremented by exactly N, due to the translation of two
bytes into one for CR LF.
Disclaimer: it's 5:30 am. Any resemblance to fact is purely coincidental.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Feb 88 20:52:21 GMT
From: Dave Neff <neff@hpvcla.HP.COM>
Subject: MSC 5.0 Bugs, Microsoft ``support''
I have no great love for Microsoft, but I have found their support to be
acceptable. What is unacceptable is the quality of their software. A
company as large as Microsoft should not be shipping products -- especially
language products -- with as many bugs as exist in these products.
From the support standpoint, I have sent in compiler bugs with the various
documentation and gotton phone calls acknowledging the bug, letters including
fixes to the bugs, and free compiler updates. Of course they will not
promise in advance to fix any or all bugs, but would you make this promise if
you were running your own software company? What the user perceives as a bug
may not be perceived as a bug to the programmer. On one extreme I have dealt
with a company that defines a bug as "anything that PREVENTS you from
accomplishing the task the software was designed to do." If its an annoying
problem that slows you down, its not a bug! This company was not even
willing to concede that a program crash was a bug -- as long as there was a
workaround to the program crash (i.e. don't do whatever caused the crash,
accomplish the task with a different combination of instructions, etc.)!
Once when I found a bug and the Microsoft technical support person said the
bug was known and their was a free compiler upgrade with the bug fixed. I
then complained that I was never notified of the upgrade despite being a
registered owner (they ALWAYS notified me when there was a not for free
upgrade). I wrote a letter to their customer support person. Over the next
year, I received in the mail no less than 10 copies of the compiler (all the
same version). I kept expecting a dump truck to show up one day and unload a
truckload of compilers on my front lawn!!
I summary, I think Microsoft's customer support people do try hard, I just
think the quality of their products is very poor. I wouldn't touch OS/2 for
at least a year after its release.
Dave Neff
ihnp4!hpfcla!hpvcla!neff
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 88 18:06 EST
From: RAVEN%ALBION.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Response to query about CompuAdd 286/10
I have had a CompuAdd 286/10 about 6 months ago. I was impressed by the
speed with which they shipped my order. Their service department also seems
to be pretty good, too. My monitor went on the fritz a few days after I got
the computer. I sent it back to them UPS, they tried to repair it. They
ended up sending me a new monitor, all within 48 hours of receiving my
damaged one. Since I've only had a experience with them for a limited time,
I cannot say much about longevity, though.
Hope this helps,
Jason Ruiter
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 88 16:24:59 PST
From: forags@violet.Berkeley.EDU
Subject: Text to Postscript converter
Following is a Turbo-Pascal program which was posted to another newsgroup
several months ago. It translates text files to Postscript. It's not
perfect, but several of our users have found it quite useful.
Al Stangenberger Dept. of Forestry & Resource Mgt.
forags@violet.berkeley.edu 145 Mulford Hall
uucp: ucbvax!ucbviolet!forags Univ. of California
(415) 642-4424 Berkeley, CA 94720
{ASCII menu driven listing program that generates PostScript commands to the
Apple LaserWriter. Allows selction of bold and normal fonts, font size and
line spacing. Output can go to a disk file (output.ps) or directly to the
printer.
Limitations: Handling tabs is limited to move to an absolute location on the
line. Program is not smart about the actual widths of characters in
different fonts... it just uses an average width per character of fontsize/2.
Program cannot handle tabs and font change escapes on the same line. Epson
font change escapes ESC G for bold and ESC H for normal are used. Bold font
and normal font do not mix too well on the same line. Spacing for a tab is
based on an average of 8 nominal characters... as a result the tab spacing
after some text with capital letters may not be wide enough and the text
starting after the tab may overlap with previous text. (On the other hand,
the worst case width of 8 characters is too large for normal use).
Can be invoked with filename as a parameter: nlist filename 286!!
Karl
[POSTSCRIPT.PAS has been added to the Info-IBMPC Lending Library in file
pd1:<msdos.turbo-pas> ... gph]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1988 19:28 CST
From: MITCHELL L GRAVES <VC008329%NDSUVM1.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: TURBO C 1.5
I called Borland this morning and here are the costs of the new update to
Turbo C:
If you purchased the C Run Time Library the update is FREE! If you want to
purchase the Run Time Library you can also get Turbo C 1.5 free.
If you'd purchased C after October 1st 1987 you have to pay $10.00 plus a
$5.00 shipping cost. If you already have sent in your registration card,
there is a second one in the other C manual. You need to fill out the Reg.
card, get your receipt for proof of purchase, your check and mail it to
Borland International. Don't forget to specify what size media you need.
For all other Turbo C owners the update will cost 33.95 plus 5.00 shipping.
------------------------------
Date: Wed 10 Feb 88 09:02:57-EST
From: Frank da Cruz <SY.FDC@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: VT-100 Emulation
The current version of MS-DOS Kermit does full VT100 emulation (including 132
columns if you have the hardware). The version number is 2.30. The keypad
behaves just as a normal VT100 keypad does. This version is available via
anonymous FTP from CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU as KER:MSVIBM.BOO, with documentation
in KER:MSKERM.DOC.
------------------------------
Date: 9 Feb 88 14:37:25 GMT
From: Rich Wagenknecht <richw@rosevax.Rosemount.COM>
Subject: What's a good textbook
levine@atpal.UUCP (Sysop account) writes:
> Let me add that I found >C Primer Plus< by the Waite Group and
> the sequal >Advanced C Primer Plus Plus< to be very readable,
> helpful and easily absorbed. They are well organized, give many
> examples, and serve as excellent references.
>
I have used both texts above and can highly recommend them. Both are
excellent texts and in my opinion are preferred over K&R by those learning C.
Rich W
richw@rosevax.Rosemount.COM
Disclaimer: My views may not represent my own much less my employer's.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 88 10:11:29 EST
From: Russell Nelson <nelson@clutx.clarkson.edu>
Subject: Where to get IBM PC DOS software via FTP Hosts
We (Clarkson University) have a file server that is running the Opus BBS
system and Phil Karn's NET using Double DOS. You can access this by either
ftping to [128.153.13.196] (grape.ecs.clarkson.edu, not a registered host,
but any name server should be able to find it), or calling (315)-268-6667.
Each of the subdirectories has a file called 'files.bbs' that holds a
description of each of the files.
Telnetting to this host accomplishes nothing unless there is someone sitting
at the console to answer the incoming telnet request.
If you wish to contribute to this server, you should login as 'upload' (any
password will do), and put your file(s). We insist that archives not have
any 'squashed' files. Please also deposit a description of the archive in a
file with the same name but the extension '.me'. This helps us keep the
'files.bbs' up to date. -russ
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 88 10:02:56 EST
From: Brady@UDEL.EDU
Subject: MSC 5.0 C1004 Error Solved
A wrinkle in the new MSC 5.0 compiler:
Compiler apparently does not like eof markers that are at the end of the last
line in a file. Error c1004 results. Putting a cr-lf at the end of the file
solved the problem.
C1004 documentation suggests that the problem is in either the /tmp space or
in the way macros are defined. Coincidentally, my offending file is a .h file
that defines a macro with arguments, so some time was wasted trying to fix a
non-existent macro problem.
JAB
------------------------------
Date: 30 Jan 88 16:37:29 GMT
From: Bill Mayhew <wtm@neoucom.uucp>
Subject: Question about TURBO C 1.5
I finally got TC 1.5 with the nice apologetic letter for losing my order down
a black hole. In fact it came UPS next day, showing up three days after I
called complaining, "Where in tarnation is my order?" I suggest that anybody
that ordered a TC upgrade and has waited more than about 3 weeks should give
Borland a call. Don't bother wearing your fingers to nubs trying to get
through on the 800 number. Call the corporate office and ask for "customer
service". I got very courteous service. Other than the fact they lost my
order, I am impressed.
Well, down to business. I am using an EGA card in an AT&T PC6300. The
PC6300 is smitten by a minor bug sends the bytes of the 8086's 16-bit OUT in
the opposite order of a PC/AT. You really can't fault AT&T, since the PC6300
was designed *before* the de facto standard was set by PC/AT.
TC 1.5's EGA driver seems to be doing word wide writes to the EGA registers.
Doing word wide writes speeds up some operations by making clever use of the
ordering of registers on an EGA card. Unfortunately, the alternate ordering
of the output bytes goofs up operations for the PC6300. Many of the TC 1.5
graphics operations do work on PC6300, but a few will cause your program to
crash.
The CGA operations work just fine on an EGA board in the PC6300. The
PC6300's indigenous 640*400 video controller also works just fine.
The TC graphics support is quite a handy and welcome addtion.
--Bill
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 14:26:20 CST
From: moore@ncsc.ARPA (Moore)
Subject: Another MS Word Question
Has anyone had problems with Word 4.0 and properly adjusting running footers?
I've got a document with a style sheet reflecting the following division for-
matting:
Top Margin: 1" Bottom Margin: 1" Left: 1.25" Right: 1.25"
Top running head at 0.5" Bottom running head at 0.3" Footnotes...
Both the header and footer are one line (the footer is just -(page)-). The
header comes out okay, but on the first page that has a number on it, the
bottom margin is less than .75", and the page number is at about .3"; the
subsequent pages, though, all have a bottom margin of >1.5", with the page
number (aka footer) at .75" !!!!
If you have any insight, please drop me a note. I'm using a Z-248 outputting
to a QMS Kiss laser printer (yeah, I just posted a note for the new driver, I
hope that's not the problem).
Thanks for any assistance.
Jim Moore
NCSC (Reorg City)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 15:12:07 CST
From: Don Woods <DWOODS3%UA1VM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: CGA adaptor and PC Jr Color Monitor
Is there anyone out there who can supply me with information on
converting an IBM-PC Jr monitor for use on an IBM-PC clone with a color
graphics adaptor? Are the vertical and horizontal scan rates compatible?
If so, is there an adaptor available to allow connection with the 9-pin
port on the CGA card? Or can the PC Jr color card be placed in a PC clone?
Lastly, does anyone have information on the pin-outs for the Pc Jr adaptor
and CGA card so I could make my own. Thanks in advance for any help you can
give me.
Don Woods
------------------------------
Date: 5 Feb 88 18:06:11 GMT
From: Bruce Church <brucec@TCGOULD.TN.CORNELL.EDU>
Subject: Fortran -> C translator needed
Does anyone know where I can find a fortran to C translator that will run
on unix ( UTX or Ultrix ). I have the fortran source code for a large set of
very useful numerical routines called Numerical Recipes that are public
domain. I want to use these but I don't want to abandon my beloved C or mess
with calling fortran from C. Perhaps a yacc program would work.
Thanks in advance,
Bruce Church
brucec@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 88 18:19 CET
From: "Wolfgang Strobl GMD/Z1.BN" <GRZ010%DBNGMD21.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Formating 5 1/4 inch, 720K, DD Diskettes using an AT HD Drive
I want to use a standard AT to format 5 1/4 inch double density floppies
into a 720KByte format (80 trks per side, 9 sectors, like the format used on
old 3 1/2 inch floppies). It was simple to produce such a format on my old XT
clone, a TEAC FV 80 trk drive, PCDOS 3.2 and a line DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS ... in
the CONFIG.SYS file.
I have successfully used those floppies to transfer data between my old
XT and the IBM AT-03 in my office. The AT can read and write on such 720KByte
floppies, and I could read them on the XT again. Now that I have replaced my
XT clone by an AT clone, I want to make more 720KByte DD floppies on the AT,
because double density floppies are much cheaper than high density ones (50
cent/720K is better than 2$/1.2M).
I tried many combinations of the parameters of DRIVER.SYS; none worked.
With /F:2 I got a 80 trk, 9 sector format, but written in high density. Other
combination produced different results, some of them usable ones, some not,
but never the wanted one.
My questions are
- have I missed some hidden parameters?
- Is there any public domain formatting program available?
- I still have this TEAC drive. Is it possible to connect a 80 track
drive (low density only) to a combined AT HD/FD controller?
Wolfgang Strobl, GRZ010@DBNGMD21.BITNET or STROBL@DBNGMD21.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 10 Feb 88 15:24:28 est
From: James B. Newman <jbn@aqua.whoi.edu>
Subject: Problems running Windows/386 on NEC
I'm running a Nec 386 with one meg extended memory. Windows runs fine, but I
can't open more than one DOS window, no matter what I do. It seems like I
ought to have enough memory, but it says I don't.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 88 07:58:54 PST
From: Robert_Slade%SFU.Mailnet@um.cc.umich.edu
Subject: CD-ROM Information requested
I would appreciate any reviews/experiences with CD-ROM readers for use
with IBM or Rainbow.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 88 11:02:54 SET
From: "K.Keyte" <ESC1332%ESOC.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Some General Help -286/-287/RLL Controllers Requested
I need a bit of help. Can anyone give me answers to these:
1. Does an 80287 need to run at the same clock speed as the 80286. I.e. I
have a 10MHz AT, and I want to install an 80287. Do I need the 80287-10, or
will, say, an 80287-8 be OK?
2. Does the AT have an RLL WD controller. Can I add an ST-238R 30MB RLL
disk directly, or do I need to change controller? If I need to change, will
the new controller work with my existing 20MB WD & the 1.2 MB floppy?
3. What's the difference between the VEGA Video 7 and the 'deluxe' version
of the same. Has anyone got one? What's the quality like on a NEC Multisync?
4. On a BocaRAM/AT, there is 128K memory installed. Can I add to this to
take the memory to 2MB or 4MB, or do I need to throw it away and start with
all 41256 chips? Do I have to add memory in fixed units, or can I do it 256K
at a time?
Please help!! I can't find the answers in my manuals!
Karl
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 88 16:39:08 SET
From: "K.Keyte" <ESC1332%ESOC.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Speed of arithmetic co-processor 80287
Can someone please tell me what speed a 80287 must be for a 10MHz AT? It
clocks at 1/3 the speed of the main processor, and interfaces with a busy and
wait signal..but...can I use a 6MHz or 8MHz 80287 with my 10MHz AT and just
have it running the arithmetic a bit slower than otherwise, or will it blow
the brains out of the poor slower 80287s by trying to clock them at 6MHz
(i.e. internal 2MHz) or 8MHz (i.e. internal 2.6667MHz)?
Before I either waste money buying a slower 80287 which is going to blow up,
or by paying for a super-fast one when I don't need it, can one of you
experts please help?
PS: I don't mind it running a bit slower - a 6MHz 80287 would be fast enough
for my maths - compared with all 80286!!
Karl
------------------------------
Date: 11 Feb 88 04:05:56 GMT
From: munnari!latcs1.oz.au!suter@uunet.UU.NET (David Suter)
Subject: Tape Back Up
I am looking for a driver for a tape backup unit on an AT. The tape unit is a
Tanberg TDC 3300 Series 60meg unit. Anyone with a driver for operating
through Xenix, or with information as to how to obtain one can e-mail me :
---------------------
David Suter ISD: +61 3 479-1057
Department of Computer Science, STD: (03) 479-1057
La Trobe University, ACSnet: suter@latcs1.oz
Bundoora, CSnet: suter@latcs1.oz
Victoria, 3083, ARPA: suter%latcs1.oz@uunet.uu.net
Australia UUCP: ...!uunet!munnari!latcs1.oz!suter
TELEX: AA33143
FAX: 03 4785814
------------------------------
Date: 7 Feb 88 20:30:28 GMT
From: Ric Messier <ram@lscvax.uucp>
Subject: Turbo C vs Quick C
I've finally talked myself into picking up a C compiler and thought I had
even decided on which one to get. The price was just right and so was the
name when all of a sudden, I hear about this other compiler for the same
price and also from a well-respected name. Here's my dilemna:
I can pick up both Microsoft's Quick C and Borland's Turbo C for $53/ea but I
am not sure which is the better compiler. I have asked everyone I know but
they all give me the runaround without answering the really important
questions. Therefore, I am going to ask the experts, hopefully those of you
that have used either or both. I am currently using Turbo Pascal and I like
it well enough, mainly because I have recently discovered a comprehensive
reference manual that covers everything from inline assembler code to DOS and
BIOS interrupt calls within the code, to graphics to version 4 and all the
toolboxes to ... Well, you get the picture. But I want to get a C package
that is at least as good because, all though the work I am currently doing is
in Pascal, I have never been partial to the language.
Anyway, to the point. I want to know what kind of package each of them is,
what kind of graphics capabilities, support of the Kernighan/Ritchie C, other
C compilers they are compatible with, how much low level access there is,
etc. I have asked the companies themselves for the infomation, but I doubt
that I will be getting any of it soon, if at all. The other thing I want to
know is what kind of editor comes with the latest release of Turbo C. I am
kind of partial to pulldown menus which are included in the Quick C package
and I don't particularly enjoy going to the Turbo editor sometimes, though I
realize that I can change the commands to whatever suits me, there are just
some things I want to do that it can't.
Whatever information anyone can provide me with would be greatly appreciated.
- Kilroy
'Just what cowpatch is Lyndonville, Vermont in anyway?'
dartvax!lscvax!ram *** Can't deal, &CRASH
------------------------------
************************
End of Info-IBMPC Digest
-------