hicks@WALKER-EMH.ARPA (Gregory Hicks COMFLEACTS) (10/18/87)
Info-IBMPC Digest Fri, 16 October 1987 Volume 6 : Issue 68
This Week's Editor: Gregory Hicks - Chinhae Korea <hicks@walker-emh.arpa>
Today's Topics:
OS/2 the Video
REMINDER.C program submission
TOKEN RING TYPE 3 CABLING
New 6 Meg Floppy Diskettes Available
80386 32 Bit Multiply Bug
Crossword Puzzles Revisited
New programs uploaded to SIMTEL20 (3 msgs)
Z-248 Upgrade to 386 and 386 Unix V.3
Info-IBMPC Host dying on Halloween
Today's Queries:
PC Common Lisp and TI Explorer
Disk Technician (TM) and a plea for help
Boot Problem with Plus Hardcard
Hard disk wars
Stopping output from CONFIG.SYS during boot-up
80287 emulation for the IBM AT
REAL v. PROTECTED MODE
FTP Kermit problems with Binary Files
Public Domain C Compiler
Absolute disk read/write from Turbo Pascal
T1100+ disk drive problems
Request for information on NEC 765 Floppy Disk Controller
Help with interrupt 52
PCVMS
Freeware VI for MSDOS
Scheduling Software
Statistics and Curve fitting code Request
RAMDISK questions and Answers (2 msgs)
INFO-IBMPC BBS Phone Numbers: (213) 827-2635 (213) 827-2515
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 7 Oct 1987 17:06:22 PDT
From: Billy <BRACKENRIDGE@C.ISI.EDU>
Subject: OS/2 the Video
I haven't been around for the last two weeks as I have had a bad back
and spent the last twelve days on a hardwood floor.
As I was starting to recover I got really bored just laying around all
day and night. In desperation I called up John Romkey who sent me the 15
hour Microsoft OS/2 video.
I am told I am the only one who has ever gotten through all eight
tapes. The previous record holder got through tape 5 before giving up. I
may be disqualified from official record books as I was taking pain drugs.
It may not be possible to survive all 15 hours without some chemical help.
The tapes consist of a series of lectures on various aspects of OS/2 by
the authors of the product. It was fun seeing Gordon Letwin and Mark
Zibkowski; both of whom have appeared in INFO-IBMPC. In addition to raw
technical descriptions, the lecturers explained why they made some of the
decisions they made. Nobody at Microsoft was claiming that OS/2 is the
greatest operating system in the world, but they did justify why OS/2 is
the way it is. OS/2 is a mixture of some solid computer science combined
with some clever tricks, and terrible kludges. For better or worse
Microsoft is betting the farm on OS/2, and to my knowledge none of the in-
siders are unloading their stock just yet. INFO-IBMPC usually doesn't dis-
cuss marketing strategy, but as OS/2's design is heavily influenced by
marketing decisions a little discussion is in order.
The first tape was an overview of OS/2. I was interested to learn that
Microsoft claims that there are 9 million DOS machines and 1 Million copies
of Windows sold. I was very surprised at the latter figure. I know of
several people who have purchased Windows, but don't know anybody who runs
it. Microsoft is betting on a solid Windows base as a foundation for OS/2.
I was also amused to hear of Microsoft's "patented technique" for
switching between real and protected modes. The necessity to run real and
protected mode programs simultaneously, or more importantly to provide a
path for migration of applications from DOS to OS/2 dominates every aspect
of OS/2.
Gordon Letwin and company did a good job on the compatibility box. It
doesn't really run DOS 3.3. Rather it runs a DOS stub and depends on OS/2
to provide services. This stub contains the notorious "indos" flag. I
don't think it is officially supported, but it is there. NETBIOS is also
supported. Of course OS/2 has its own elaborate networking, but one can run
netbios applications in the compatibility box simultaneously with OS/2 net-
working.
As a migration path Microsoft provides "DOS Family Applications". If
you write your programs following these rules your .EXE files will run un-
der either DOS or OS/2. The tapes explain in great detail how all this
works. There is some overhead involved in both disk space and a slight per-
formance overhead when running under DOS. I suspect this is why the DOS
utilities on the OS/2 distribution system take up so much disk space.
Much of the tape is taken up describing the graphics system. I rarely
write graphics applications so I am no expert, but it looked to me like it
had all the features anyone could ever need. It appeared well organized and
efficient considering its size. I was very impressed with the graphics mode
text functions. Microsoft has stolen lots from Xerox and Apple. I loved the
concept of "incremental WYSIWYG". This means "what we can show you on the
screen is as close as we can get to what you will get on your printer".
OS/2 should delight the grubby systems level programmer. There are
lots of efficient means for interprocess communication. I don't know much
about Unix, but I believe OS/2 provides a richer set of primitives. One
can write device drivers and easily replace Microsoft's drivers if neces-
sary. Dynamic linked libraries are nice in that not every routine needs to
get loaded in memory at once. Much has been said of OS/2's flakiness.
Gordon Letwin claims that when mature OS/2 will never just hang up like DOS
sometimes does. This should be possible in a protected mode operating sys-
tem. It is nice to know this is a stated goal. Microsoft has a ways to go
to achieve this.
In the last tape Darryl Rubin talked about networking. Networking
seems to be at the core of Microsoft's marketing plan. He explained that
Microsoft still expects many DOS machines to be sold and expects OS/2
machines will be used for large memory applications like CAD/CAM, desktop
publishing, and as servers to the millions of DOS machines.
For the OS/2 programmer networking is transparent. The file system can
recognize if a file is on a remote machine and do the appropriate thing.
Applications can easily be divided between machines using remote procedure
calls. OS/2 is a message passing operating system. For efficiency it
passes pointers to messages rather than copy them. The remote procedure
call facility can easily blend in with this message passing scheme to
provide transparent implementation of distributed applications.
Unfortunately Microsoft is using a proprietary networking scheme. This
cuts out all us university, military, and government users who have to use
standard protocols to connect machines from multiple vendors. I suspect
the majority of business users don't care about this and will be delighted
with Microsoft's accounting and "security" enhancements. If you liked
3Comm's 3Server you will love OS/2 networking. Of course no networking
system which sends unencrypted messages on a broadcast network is secure,
but Microsoft has added elaborate and extendible accounting and user
validation features that should make the most paranoid network ad-
ministrator happy.
The operating system looks well enough constructed that we could just
rip out all the networking stuff and replace it with IP/TCP based protocols
and allow OS/2 to communicate with the rest of the world. I'd really like
to get my hands on a real OS/2 development kit to determine if this is pos-
sible. If this is impossible I will just have to give up on OS/2 and start
reading Unix manuals.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 87 12:57:29 EDT
From: Kenneth Van Camp -FSAC- <kvancamp@ARDEC.ARPA>
Subject: REMINDER.C program submission
I have adapted the popular Unix 'reminder' program to compile under Turbo
C. The source & documentation are submitted to the info-ibmpc lending
library.
--Ken Van Camp <kvancamp@ARDEC.ARPA>
[REMIND.C has been added to the Info-IBMPC Lending Library. gph]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 87 09:42:23 BST
From: Mike Lewis <MIKEL@LIV3083.AC.UK>
<mikel%liv3083.ukacrl.bitnet@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: TOKEN RING TYPE 3 CABLING
When we got our first token ring cards this time last year, IBM UK had a
cable shortage. We didn't have any of the normal cabling, so I temporarily
linked our first units up using ordinary telephone twisted pair since I
noticed that IBM had mentioned use of type 3 phone cable in their original
announcements. We didn't have any line filters, but then in the UK, we
don't have the FCC!
The wiring worked fine on a small cluster with 6 foot cables, so I in-
stalled a small user service ring of 6 PCs. No problems.
I extended some of the lobes using our computer centre existing async data
cabling, up to around 200 feet. Still no ring errors. We've now put a
pilot teaching lab of 22 pcs together using the low cost wiring and, even
though the environment is unlikely to be electrically very quiet, we still
are OK, and are going ahead with a further 3 teaching labs this year based
on phone cabling.
Using type 3 does put in some constraints of course, like a maximum 72 sta-
tions per ring, but I really don't see this as a problem since we intend
using small local rings with bridges to a fibre based backbone. It is
clear that type 3 won't go at 16Mbits, but then current adaptor cards don't
and it will be a long time before ring thruput becomes a bottleneck. The
only difficulty I have found to date is that some cards based on use of the
TI chip set don't seem to like type 3 whereas IBM cards have no problem: I
found that the non IBM cards were fine on long lobes, but fell over on
short distances.
Type 3 is an IBM extension to IEEE802.5 but to me, 4Mbits over cheapo phone
cabling is one of the greatest advantages of token ring over other
networks: quite apart from the cost, its much easier to install and much
less clumsy than most lan cabling.
Is any one else doing the same: any one tried it and had problems? In-
cidentally we still don't have any line filters: nobodies complained, maybe
the noise from the mainframes in the building hides any TR generated stuff!
Mike Lewis
Computer Lab
University of Liverpool
(MIKEL@UK.AC.LIV3083)
------------------------------
Date: 25 Sep 87 03:16:30 GMT
From: bob@imsvax.UUCP (Bob Burch)
Subject: New 6 Meg Floppy Diskettes Available
Aside from the 800x600 graphics boards which are now showing up for $200-
$300 in Computer-Shopper ads, obviously intended to work with the NEC Mul-
tisync, there is another new piece of technology hitting the market about
now which represents a revolutionary capability. Kodak is marketing a new
kind of floppy technology, with the mid-priced product, a 6 meg floppy,
being sold by most dealers for around $350, the controller board for about
$130. Boxes of the 6 meg floppies are going for about $100 (5/box), and
will come down as sales increase. Disk speeds are comparable to a slow
hard disk. This is essentially cheap and limitless storage; major software
systems along with data files could be kept on such floppies, simplifying
organization tremendously. And, unlike the Bernoulli Box, the prices seem
believeable and in line with the realities of micro usage.
Ted Holden
HT Enterprises
------------------------------
Date: 25 Sep 87 12:37:32 GMT
From: wtm@neoucom.UUCP (Bill Mayhew)
Subject: 80386 32 Bit Multiply Bug
Apparently some buyers in these parts have spotted some no-name '386 cut-
rate boards that have buggy CPU chips. Recently manufactured 80386 chips
bear a double capital Sigma ("EE") hallmark on the chip's lid. The double
sigma indicates that the chip in question has correctly passed 32-bit mul-
tiply. Intel quite intentionally sold some defective chips in order to get
product out to developers and customers that weren't running 32 bit ap-
plications. Such chips are quite clearly stamped "for 16 bit use only".
Apparently, there are some quite old '386s that have neither sigma nor
stamp. Unmarked chips should be assumed to be buggy. If you have a brain-
damaged chip, not all is lost; according to an article in Infoworld, Intel
will swap buggy chips for good ones-- but not until first quarter 1988.
We haven't seen any defaced chips where unscrupulous dealers are attempting
to alter the certification stamp. Knowing some dealers, it wouldn't
surprise me though. This is also a caviat for mail order buyers-- know
what you are getting, and only buy from an established vendor with a decent
reputation. For the moment, if you are thinking of buying a rock bottom
'386 from a guy down the block in a garage, make sure you pull the cover
and eye the CPU chip carefully. Of course, you should carefully check any
computer or peripheral device carefully anyway. Remember that more often
than not, you get what you pay for-- at least to a ceratin extent.
--Bill
Bill Mayhew, Electrical Engineering Office
Division of Basic Medical Sciences
Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine
Rootstown, OH 44272-9989 USA (216) 325-2511
(wtm@neoucom.UUCP ...!cbosgd!neoucom!wtm)
------------------------------
Date: 08 Oct 87 11:32:08 ADT
From: Michel LANDRY <LANDRYM%UDEM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: Crossword Puzzles
If you find the cross word puzzle generator you refer to in the Digest
V6 #66, would you please send me a copy. We are an HP site and cannot yet
generate CMS files as CSNEWS@MAINE requires, so I can't access the Lending
Library. Thank you in advance.
Regards,
Michel Landry <LANDRYM@UDEM.BITNET>
Centre d'Informatique
Universite de Moncton
Moncton, Canada
[Regrets, I found the program I was looking for, but the program turned out
to be a hidden word puzzle generator instead of a crossword puzzle gener-
ator. The magazine in question was the September/October 1977 issue of
PERSONAL COMPUTING (pp 95-100). I still think I saw a crossword puzzle
generator about the same time though. For the life of me, I can't remember
where. gph]
------------------------------
Date: Thursday, 8 October 1987 18:14-MDT
From: David Kirschbaum <kirsch@BRAGGVAX.ARPA>
Subject: New programs uploaded to SIMTEL20
Now available from SIMTEL20...
Filename Type Bytes CRC
PD:<MSDOS.SYSUTL>BGECHO.ARC BINARY 9188 23FBH
PD:<MSDOS.SCREEN>PCBAO11.ARC BINARY 34749 A67BH
PD:<MSDOS.MODEM>XFI.ARC BINARY 29377 E362H
PD:<MSDOS.MODEM>PCALL1-3.ARC BINARY 18816 8815H
PD:<MSDOS.MODEM>TT_V096.ARC BINARY 70272 5EAFH
I've uploaded the above files, recently snarfed from a local BBS (SEMPER,
Fayetteville NC).
BGECHO displays large characters on a screen, using the ANSI or NANSI
driver. Nice for flashy .BAT files or whatever. ASM source code, plus the
two public domain (freeware?) utilities SEND.COM and WAITN.COM (send a line
of text to the console, wait for user response, both within batch files).
PCBAO11 is an ANSI optimizer. It'll work through a target file that con-
tains ANSI command sequences and "optimize" those sequences. Read its doc
for detailed explanations. No source, Freeware.
XFI is yet another communications driver to easily use external comm
drivers (MLINK, GSZ, whatever) from within a comm program that doesn't
provide those particular protocols internally. Read its documentation (no
source).
PCALL1-3 works much like XFI, but a nicer, windowed user selection.
TT is a pretty, windowed modem and file transfer program. Nice menus, nice
dialing process, x/y/zmodem protocols, no documentation (except for the few
comments I added in a short .DOC). No terminal emulation though.
All were tested, none tried to lunch my hard drive (well, no signs of it
yet anyway), all came off a creditable BBS.
David Kirschbaum
Toad Hall
kirsch@braggvax.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: Saturday, 3 October 1987 13:16-MDT
From: morearty%cory.Berkeley.EDU@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike Morearty)
Subject: Filename completion program for PC
Now available via standard anonymous FTP from SIMTEL20...
Filename Type Bytes CRC
Directory PD:<MSDOS.SYSUTL>
FILEC.ARC.1 BINARY 12086 F531H
This program does filename completion, similar to that done by some ver-
sions of Unix C Shell (also called "Tenex-style" completion): you can type
the first few characters of a filename and then hit Escape, and the rest of
the name is filled in on the command line. It works with CED as well as
with the normal DOS command line interface. I've been using it for several
months without trouble; please let me know if you encounter any problems.
The purpose of filename completion is so that the user doesn't have to type
in long filenames when the first few characters would be enough to distin-
guish a filename from all other files in the directory. For example, sup-
pose a directory contains only the following files:
A B C LONGFILE.NAM
To access LONGFILE.NAM (for example, to see its contents with the TYPE
command), the user normally has to type the entire filename. However, with
filename completion, the user need only enter
TYPE L_
and then hit the Escape key. (The underline represents the cursor.) Since
there is only one filename in the directory that begins with the letter L,
the rest of the filename is filled in automatically, as if the user had
typed it. Now, the command lines reads
TYPE LONGFILE.NAM_
and the user can hit Enter.
To find out what characters the user has typed so far, Filec reads the
screen directly. This means it will not work on computers that do not use
a video memory system similar to that of the IBM. (This will be a problem
for very few users.)
I would have posted this earlier, but I had been hoping to get a chance to
clear up problems with snow on color monitors. However, I seldom have
access to color systems, and I felt many people could use it in its present
state. (It will *work* with color systems, it might just be a little ir-
ritating.) I will eventually fix the snow problem.
-- Mike Morearty, morearty@cory.Berkeley.EDU
------------------------------
Date: Saturday, 10 October 1987 17:19-MDT
From: karl%hipl@NYU.ARPA (Karl Gegenfurtner)
Subject: New version of Jove for IBM-PC
I uploaded the newest version of the Jove text editor to SIMTEL20.
Filename Type Bytes CRC
Directory PD:<MSDOS.EDITOR>
JOVEDOC.ARC.2 BINARY 147600 F58BH
JOVEEXE.ARC.2 BINARY 181044 5AB8H
JOVESRC.ARC.2 BINARY 231282 58CEH
Maybe you have seen Jonathan Payne's announcement on the net. There
are lots of improvements, like support for word-abbreviation mode, but
the best of all is, that the PC version is now contained within the
Unix version as a conditional compilation option.
Karl
Karl Gegenfurtner
arpa: karl@hipl.psych.nyu.edu
uucp: ...{seismo|ihnp4|allegra}!cmcl2!xp!hipl!karl
usps: Department of Psychology, NYU
6 Washington Place, 8th fl.
New York, NY 10003
at&t: (212) 998-7755
Here's what's in the arc files:
JOVEEXE.ARC:
Contains executables for IBM PC's and generic MSDOS computers. PCJOVE will
run on any ROM Bios compatibel clone. MSJOVE uses only DOS function calls,
and should run on any computer running MSDOS. The version of MAKE that is
included can be used to build the executables from the sources. The public
domain NDMAKE will also do the job, but the MAKE that comes with the
Microsoft C Compiler doesn't work with the makefile (of course not).
MTERMLIB is a library that is needed to build MSJOVE. It is not provided
with the sources. README.DOS describes the differences between PCJOVE and
JOVE running under Unix. It also describes the environment variables that
are used under MSDOS.
JOVEDOC.ARC:
Contains the documentation, preprocessed with nroff. That way it can be
viewed on the screen, or printed on a lineprinter. It also contains the on-
line documentation that PCJOVE uses, a manual page for JOVE, and TEACHJ, a
short file that's for JOVE beginners.
JOVESRC.ARC:
Contains all the source files that are neccessary to compile JOVE under
MSDOS. Please note, that a recent version (4.0 or 3.0) of the Microsoft C
Compiler is neccessary for that. Other compilers won't compile JOVE in it's
current state.
JOVEUNX.ARC:
This file contains all files that are neccessary to compile JOVE under
Unix, but not under MSDOS. It contains one big file, JOVEUNX.TAR, which can
be extracted with tar to produce the single files. This was done to
preserve some long Unix-style filenames, that cannot be handled by arc. It
also includes the [tn]roff sources for the documents described above.
------------------------------
Date: 8 Oct 87 21:08:01 GMT
From: bae@lll-tis.arpa (Hwa Jin Bae)
Subject: Z-248 Upgrade to 386 and 386 Unix V.3
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore CA
I have not received any information about the available UNIX systems
for the 386 from the Usenet, but here's what I have found out so far.
There are several vendors offering the UNIX system for 386 boxes, namely
Interactive Systems (Santa Monica), SCO (Sant Cruz), Microport, Microsoft,
and LOCUS (Santa Monica).
The 386/ix, Xenix/386, etc. names from vendors SCO and Microport are basi-
cally different versions of the Unix Systems V release 3 worked out by In-
teractive Systems under a contract to Intel which was in turn under a con-
tract to AT&T. The Interactive people did most of real implementation work
on different copies of 386 based UNIX V.3.
In addition, Interactive introduced a product to merge MS-DOS into the
UNIX, named VP/ix. The MS-DOS tasks run as processes within UNIX on 386
using the virtual 86 mode of 386; you can have multiple session of MS-DOS.
Interactive people contracted Phoenix Technology to do this VP/ix im-
plemenation. As you know, Phoenix BIOS is very popular in IBM compatilbles
market. The UNIX V.3 put out by Interactive Systems has been certified by
AT&T and seems to be the latest implementation of a true standard UNIX.
There are two ways to initiate a DOS application from the UNIX environment
using VP/ix. One way to to give a VP/ix shell command to get the DOS
automatically loaded. A DOS application can then be invoked and loaded via
any DOS command since you are running DOS and don't even have to realize
that your DOS is running as a task within UNIX. Another way is to just
give a DOS command while you're in UNIX. In this case, UNIX will detect
that it is a DOS application and automatically load in the DOS and start
running the specified DOS application. Basically, VP/ix is an extension to
the UNIX kernel which allows a user to run DOS and DOS applications under
UNIX System V.3 allowing multiple users to run multiple UNIX and DOS ap-
plications simultaneaously.
VP/ix provides virtual PC hardware services either via a modified version
of BIOS, or via emulation within the Emulation Control Task. Most addi-
tional devices will require additions to the "vpc" program to support a new
virtual device. In some cases a new device driver is also needed. Since
most PC emulation is in the "vpc" program which runs as a user process, the
changes made to the kernel is minimum. On an AT compatible 80386 PC with 4
Megabytes of memory, 4 MS-DOS sessions can run with at least the perfor-
mance of an 8088 running a 4.77Mhz.
The LOCUS computing is marketing their own version of UNIX and DOSmerge
product as well for the 386 machine. There have been many research papers
written about LOCUS since the architects of LOCUS distributed operating
systems (UCLA) are the founders of this company. Reading the papers indi-
cate that this product is more concentrated in its distributed computing
and networking concepts than others. DOSmerge product is supposed to be
similar to VP/ix but it also allows transparency between DOS and UNIX
universes. For instance, they say that it is possible to pipe the output
of a DOS command into a UNIX command and vice versa. I remember reading
research papers on this modified distributed UNIX operating system when I
was studying operating systems in college. Their idea is to support degree
of network transparency allowing a network wide filesystem, automatic
replication of storage, transparent distributed process execution, and
more.
Here are some phone numbers:
Locus computing 213-452-2435
Interactive systems 213-453-8649
Microport 800-822-unix (in CA)
800-722-unix (elsewhere)
SCO 409-425-7222
I was also looking for a plug-in 386 CPU circuit card board compatilbe with
Zenith Z-248, but I discovered that Zenith does not offer the 386 upgrade
kit as of now. A headquarters sale rep. told me that the project leader
reponsible for building the kit reported everything was ready to go, but
they are not yet willing to market the product without having some kind of
request from a big time buyer. The kit itself consists of a passive back-
plane of 32 bit bus architecture and a 386 CPU card that can be plugged
into one of the slots on the backplane.
I also heard several contradicting options about whether the Intel Inboard
is compatible with Z-248. Intel Inboard is a product that can be plugged
into an AT machine to make it use the 386 CPU instead of the 286 CPU,
therefore making it possible for us to run 386 Unix on it. The Intel
people said that their lab test result shows that Z-248 is incompatible
with Inboard; one of the technical rep. of Zenith said just the opposite.
If any of you have any more informantion please let me know.
Hwa Jin Bae (415) 463-6865 | Control Data Corp.
bae@{lll-tis.arpa,lll-aftac.arpa} (internet) | 4234 Hacienda Dr.
{ames,ihnp4,lll-crg}!lll-tis!plseca!hbae (UUCP) | Pleasanton, CA 94566
------------------------------
Date: 14 Oct 1987 18:08:55 PDT
From: Billy <BRACKENRIDGE@C.ISI.EDU>
Subject: Info-IBMPC Host dying on Halloween
The official date for disappearance of C.ISI.EDU is 30 October. I will make
a dumper tape by then and will set up forwarding to SIMTEL20 as soon
as I get the word.
[Most of the Info-IBMPC Lending Library has been transferred to SIMTEL20.
This tape will make sure the remainder of the programs get there also.
Along the same lines as the C.ISI.EDU host going away on October 30,
the Digest needs a new distribution point for BITNET. I believe current
plans for WISCVM.WISC.EDU are to cease operations on 1 December 1987.
I have a number of possible sites that understand BITNET to do the
transfer, but need their permission. I have sent a message to these
sites and am waiting for replys. If anyone knows of any other gateways
to BITNET, please let me know.
An <Info-IBMPC-Request@walker-emh.arpa> has been established. Please
use it. As plans for SIMTEL20, or any other site firm up, we will update
our readers. --Gregory Hicks]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 87 19:40:09 GMT
From: A385%EMDUCM11.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Subject: PC Common Lisp and TI Explorer
We are here a group of absolutelly beginners using the TI EXPLORER
machine. Our problem is that we only have two 'explorers' for a lot of
people and we'd like to profite ours PC's (AT's) in order to take ex-
perience using Common Lisp, but two question arises:
1) Which is the best Common Lisp implementation (with flavors, package
s....) running on AT's??. Is it Golden Common Lisp?
2) Does anyone has any experience connecting PC's and TI Explorers to
transfer files? Is it posible ?
Thank you very much in advance for any help or suggestion.
Yours
Javier Lopez <A385 at EMDUCM11>
------------------------------
Date: 2 Oct 87 12:15:37 GMT
From: ihnp4!whutt!tes@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (STERKEL)
Subject: Disk Technician (TM) and a plea for help
I have a dead hard disk that *apparently* accepts a low level formatting
but crashes FDISK with a *divide overflow*. The condition apparently was
caused originally by running "Disk Technician (tm)" and I urge that no one
use that program. My configuration is PCDOS 3.2, IBM-PC-1 with V20/30
CPU/NPU. I am looking for alternative low level formatters and/or disk
partitioners. Please send if you have same. Many Thanks
----- Terry Sterkel
-====---- AT&T Bell Laboratories
--------- {clyde|harvard|cbosgd|allegra|ulysses|ihnp4}!whutt!tes
----- [opinions are obviously only my own]
------------------------------
Date: Sat 3 Oct 87 06:15:11-PDT
From: David Kristofferson <KRISTOFFERSON@BIONET-20.ARPA>
Subject: Boot Problem with Plus Hardcard
I have had a 20 Mb Plus Development Hardcard in my XT for over a year now
and have been very happy with the product except for the following glitch.
Every now and then, seemingly at random, when I first turn on the computer
the keyboard freezes up after typing just a couple of characters. This
problem usually announces itself in advance because the speaker does not
beep when drive A: first comes on. Turning the system off and back on in-
evitably clears everything up. Plus's technical support people had not
heard of a problem like this and could not offer any suggestions. Has
anyone else had this experience? Does anyone know what could be causing
the problem? The problem appeared shortly after installing the Hardcard
but I can't rule out the possibility that the timing could be coincidental
and something else is acting up.
Sincerely,
Dave Kristofferson
ARPANET Address: kristofferson@bionet-20.arpa
BITNET Address: kristofferson%bionet-20.arpa@wiscvm.bitnet
------------------------------
Date: 2 Oct 87 16:16:14 GMT
From: obroin%hslrswi.UUCP%cernvax.bitnet@jade.berkeley.edu (Niall O Broin)
Subject: Hard disk wars
Organization: Hasler AG, CH-3000 Berne 14, Switzerland
I have in the past reported in this newsgroup some flaky behaviour with my
hard disk.
I have an Amstrad/Schneider PC 1512. I don't use it much, but it does do
funny things. The latest is that I have not used it for some time (I was on
holiday) and when I booted it up again, I got some problems. As it has been
troublesome, I back up regularly, so I decided to back up all files which
needed backing up before investigating further. Before backup, Norton's DT
reported lots of flaky clusters, and while backing up, I got 1 DOS Abort,
Retry, Ignore? message I ignored it, as it referred to an unimportant file.
When the backup had finished, I ran DT again and VOILA! No problems! What
the heck is going on here?
If anyone has any ideas, I will be pleased to mail them my previous posting
re other mystifying problems. But it has me baffled, and I am not un-
familiar with DOS. Any ideas, anyone???
Regards,
Niall O Broin
AXE Software Development
Hasler AG
Berne
Switzerland
BITNET obroin%hslrswi.UUCP@cernvax.BITNET
UUCP.. {uunet,mcvax..}!cernvax!hslrswi!obroin
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1987 14:54:43 EST
From: Natalie Stone <NSTO@UORVM>
Subject: Stopping output from CONFIG.SYS during boot-up
I am looking for a way to turn off the screen while CONFIG.SYS is loading
the DOS VDISK driver.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 02 Oct 87 20:09:27 CDT
From: "David M. Zielke" <ZIELKEXN%RICE.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: 80287 emulation for the IBM AT
I am looking for code to emulate the 80X87 numeric processors for the IBM
AT. I rarely have to use a coprocessor (as most software senses its
presence, or lack there of) but there are some packages which assume that
one will be present in the machine.
I have been told that this type of software is not possible. I agree for
the case of 8088 & 8086 based machines but the 80286 provides the EM
(Emulation Mode Flag), MP(Math Present Flag), and the TS(Task Switched
Flag).
In the event that an 8088 attempts a FNINIT instruction and a Wait to
initialize the co-processor the system will hang waiting for a nonexistant
8087 chip. But in the case of the 80286 an interrupt 7 -- Processor Exten-
sion Not Available (NM) should be able to handle the exception and emulate
the 80287 chip.
Does anyone know of software to perform this task, or would it be pos-
sible to create a DOS-DEVICE which could handle the task from something
like a Fortran/C/Pascal/Assembler package which provides the emulation
code?
Thanks...
David M. Zielke
(ZIELKEXN@RICE)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 21 Sep 87 09:42:23 BST
From: Mike Lewis <MIKEL@LIV3083.AC.UK>
<mikel%liv3083.ukacrl.bitnet@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: REAL v. PROTECTED MODE
I've been watching the words flying about regarding OS/2 and 286s. I'm in-
terested to see reports elsewhere about a new INTEL chip codenamed P9: said
to be a cut down version of the 386 with a 286 compatible pinout. Maybe all
the discussion is really a bit academic, provided of course that the 286 in
your system is socketed!
Any one know anything more in this area?
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 87 11:07:34 PDT
From: David Gaertner <davidg%scam.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
Subject: FTP and Kermit problems with Binary Files
Organization: University of California, Berkeley
I have been having problems getting files from simtel20.arpa. I use unix
ftp, use file type image, and get the file. Then, using Kermit set to bi-
nary mode, I send the file to my pc, running procomm, which is set to get
kermit stuff in binary. Then, when I try to pkxarc the file, the result is
garbage. This is happened more than once. Has anything changed that I
don't know about? I have been able to get files just fine before....
Thanks for your help.
David Gaertner
..ucbcvax!scam!davidg or davidg@scam.berkeley.edu
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 05 Oct 87 23:36:05 EST
From: John <JOHN%NCSUVM.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: XLISP v1.7 Documentation and Sources Request
I'm using version 1.7 of Xlisp, however, I don't have the documentation
nor sources.
The version 1.4 documentation is at simtel20, which I now have, but,
does anyone know where I can get the latest copy of docs and source?
Thanks,
John DeBoskey
[I tried contacting the author listed in the XLISP documentation available
from the Info-IBMPC Lending Library (v1.4) and didn't get a response. gph]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 87 11:53:04 edt
From: Mike Watson <mwatson@NSWC-OAS.ARPA>
Subject: Public Domain C Compiler
Does anyone know anything about a PD C compiler such as Small C? I would
be interested in any info, source, executables, etc....
Thanks,
Mike Watson
Naval Surface Warfare Center
mwatson@nswc-oas.arpa
------------------------------
Date: 6 Oct 87 12:43:27 GMT
From: obroin%hslrswi.UUCP%cernvax.bitnet@jade.berkeley.edu (Niall O Broin)
Subject: Absolute disk read/write from Turbo Pascal
I have a problem with using the DOS functions Absolute disk read or Ab-
solute disk write (INT 25H and 26H) from Turbo Pascal (V3.0) using the INTR
procedure. The code for INT 25 and INT 26 does not return with IRET but
rather with RET, leaving the original flags on the stack. This causes
failure of a Turbo Pascal program - memory allocation error in memory mode,
early termination of a .COM program. Using INLINE to put a POPF in does not
work, as the code Turbo generates for an INTR call looks like
CALL RuntimeProcedure1
INT YourIntNumber
CALL RuntimeProcedure2
so the POPF goes after the call to RuntimeProcedure2. The two runtime pro-
cedures put your values in the registers and restore them afterwards.
I have used DEBUG to patch the .COM file, but this is not very satisfac-
tory. Has anyone else come across this, and if so, what did you do to fix
it?
I think it can fairly be regarded as a bug in Turbo Pascal, as Borland does
not say in the manual that some interrupts do not work.
Comments or solutions, anyone ?
Regards,
Niall O Broin
AXE Software Development
Hasler AG
Berne
Switzerland
BITNET obroin%hslrswi.UUCP@cernvax.BITNET
UUCP..{uunet,mcvax..}!cernvax!hslrswi!obroin
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 87 16:59:27 EDT
From: cross@nrl-css.arpa (Chuck Cross)
Subject: T1100+ disk drive problems
Has anyone else had the following problem with a Toshiba T1100+?
About half a year ago my T1100+'s A drive began to lose its ability to
detect diskette switches and removals. I could remove the diskette from
the A drive, execute "dir," and the computer would return the directory of
the diskette just removed. If I inserted a new diskette into drive A it
would still return the directory of the previous diskette. At first this
happened only once in a while. Eventually the A drive degraded so much
that it would never detect a diskette removal. I sent the computer to
Toshiba, and they sent me a new one (in May, I think), which worked fine
until last week when I started having the same problem again, this time
with the B drive.
If this is a well known problem (and if Toshiba is known to made some disk
drive design changes to take care of it), I'd be very interested in hearing
about it.
Thanks
Chuck Cross
cross@nrl-css.arpa
------------------------------
Date: 7 Oct 87 21:57:36 PDT (Wednesday)
From: "Philip_M._Burton.osbunorth"@Xerox.COM
Subject: Hercules Video Upgrade to old Compaq Portable (8088-based)
A friend not on the net wants to upgrade his old Compaq Portable with
Hercules-type video. Does anyone know how to replace the original Compaq
video adapter with a Hercules-type display?
Please post messages to the digest, because my mailer doesn't always work.
Thanks in advance
Phil Burton
Xerox Corporation
------------------------------
Date: Thu 8 Oct 87 15:08:46-EDT
From: PANDELIOS@TL-20B.ARPA
Subject: Leading Edge "D" compatibility issues/questions
I am considering the purchase of PC or PC clone. Currently, my top pick is
the Leading Edge Model "D". Here's what I want to do with it:
1. Wordprocessing using DEC's WPS/PC product. Questions:
o Has anyone used this product on a Leading Edge?
o Are you happy with it?
o What printer(s) does it need?
o What would YOU recomment for W/P on PCs? (If you are familiar with
DEC's product, a comparison would be welcomed.)
2. Run Financial & Stock portfolio management software such as "The
Equalizer". Again, the questions are:
o Has anyone used this product on a Leading Edge?
o Are you happy with it?
o Is there a product for this stuff that you prefer? If so, please
tell me about it. If you can provide a comparison, so much the better.
3. Run Turbo Pascal (from Borland) and develop software.
Questions:
o Does it perform well on a Leading Edge?
o Are you happy with it?
o Is there a PASCAL environment that you prefer? If so, please tell
me about it. If you can provide a comparison, so much the better.
The most critical issue is: HOW compatible is it to the IBM PC?
Please help out a confused consumer. I'll be glad to summarize replies to
the net. Thanks in advance for the assistance.
George Pandelios
ARPA: PANDELIOS@TL-20B
USENET: pitt!tl-vaxa!pandelios
MA BELL: (412) 621-2210
U.S. SNAIL: George Pandelios
Tartan Laboratories
461 Melwood Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15213 USA
------------------------------
Date: Fri 09 Oct 1987 17:30 CDT
From: <BALWN@ECNCDC>
Subject: Zenith and Hitachi CD-ROM PLayer
We are trying to interface an Hitachi Disc Player to a Zenith Micro (a
Z-248 and a Z-159) wiht EGA Color using Silver Platter Software. package
comes up. Searches the Bibliographic data base. BUT when doing a condi-
tional search (that presumably takes a lot of RAM space the Screen gets
color blotches then the machine locks up and requires a powerdown to rest.
Clearly seems to be amtter of the Silver Platter software not knowing where
to read the Upper and Lower free RAM addresses and overwriting the Video
section then clobbering the Operating system. We have tried the Disclosure
package too on the same machine configuration but it won't even come
up..this preseumably because of the EGA. The software (both of them) work
perfectly on a stupid old IBM PC with only a pair of floppies and 512K in
monochrome. We can't get either package to work on either a Z148 or a Z151
in monochrome. YET it oughta work says everybody (Zenith and
SIlverPlatter). Has anybody there tried this?
How about using a Zenith micro with a Phillips or Sony player with this
software? Any help/pointers appreciated.
Larry Noyes
Dir. Academic COmputing
Chicago State U.
------------------------------
Date: 9 Oct 87 17:40 +0600
From: Daniel Keizer <busu%cc.uofm.cdn%ubc.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: NEC 765 Floppy Disk Controller request for information
This is basically a follow-up to my request previously for information on
how to get the NEC 765 FDC to read/write/format single density floppies on
a PC compatible.
Browsing through the tech ref manual and the int13 handler, I found out
that the code to send the FDC the commands to perform the disk i/o is hard-
coded for MFM.
So, I would think that a probable way for me to get the PC to read single
density format would be to write my own int13 driver and make it resident.
Several different ways come to mind: 1) dedicate one drive to being single
density. 2) pass another parameter (flag) to indicate either MFM or FM is
required. 3) some other way ... I am not sure which way is the best, and am
wondering if anyone else has any ideas about this.
Dan Keizer
BUSU@CC.UOFM.CDN
BUSU@UOFMCC.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: 11 Oct 87 16:56
From: fulton%comet.DEC@decwrl.dec.com
(Cathy Fulton -- CXO Technical Training)
Subject: Help with interrupt 52
Does anyone have info on what interrupt 52H does? It is an undocu-
mented interrupt. It is a pointer to the start of a chain of blocks that
tells you what programs DOS has loaded in memory. I am mainly interested
in finding out what the format of these blocks are.
Thanks for any help.
- Cathy
uucp: ...decwrl!comet.dec.com!fulton
ARPA: fulton@comet.dec.com
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 12-OCT-1987 09:44:01.61 +0100 (Central European Time)
From: <203013%DHHMPI5D.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> (Markus F. Boie)
Subject: PCVMS
Has anybody heard of a program called PCVMS? As I know this is a shell run-
ning on top of MSDOS emulating many commands of the VAX/VMS operating sys-
tem. Up to three users are able to work simultanously and most MSDOS
programs should be able to run under PCVMS. The source (C) is included in
arc format. Is this public domain software? Where can I get it?
If anybody knows anything about PCVMS please contact me directly as I'm not
on this mailing list.
Thanks,
Markus Boie
--------------------------
Climate Computing Center
Bundesstrasse 55
D-2000 Hamburg 13
West-Germany
Phone: +(49) 40 / 4114-288
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 87 11:33:41 EDT
From: "Edward A. Band" (IMD-TSB) <eband@ARDEC.ARPA>
Subject: Freeware VI for MSDOS
Is anyone out there aware of a FREEWARE UNIX VI. I feel like I remember
seeing mention of one on Info-IBMPC a long time ago. I am aware that there
is a commercial one available from Custom Software Systems of Natick, MA.
But I am hoping for a freebee available perhaps by anonymous FTP via the
arpanet.
Thanks,
Ed Band <eband@ARDEC.ARPA>
------------------------------
Date: 14 Oct 87 09:45:00 EDT
From: "Vogtle, John M." <jmvogtle@sunrise.acs.syr.edu>
Subject: Scheduling Software
I have a friend who is looking for some scheduling software. This
software will be installed on an IBM PC-AT which also has some dumb ter-
minals hanging off it. The basic requirements are:
1) It must be able to schedule 8 people
2) The people must be able to be scheduled at 8 minute intervals.
3) The scheduling must be for 9 hours a day.
4) (big wish) multi-user (8 people).
The first threee item are the really important ones. Eight dumb terminals
off of one AT sounds like a bit much to me.
Does anyone know of such a software package or where the best place to look
for one is??? Any and all suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
-John Vogtle (JMVOGTLE@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU)
(315) 423-3003
------------------------------
Date: 14 Oct 1987 1301-EDT
From: Holger Sommer <SOMMER@C.CS.CMU.EDU>
Subject: Statistics and Curve fitting code
Can anyone help me out with some C code for curve fitting ( cubic
splines) and Statistics program code in C to calculate higher moments of
normal and abnormal distributions....
Thanks Holger (_)
U
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 87 09:20:20 EDT
From: Tom Jones <tj@ll-vlsi.arpa>
Subject: RAMDISK questions....
I've seen 2 public domain RAM disk programs, but nobody seems to give
source codes with them. I would really like to know how these things work,
but it may be a closely guarded secret. If anyone knows of any sources
available for RAM disk programs, plese let me know.
Also, if anyone has any experences with the programs, telling which ones
work or don't work with certain software, I would like to hear them. Any
experiences at all would be helpfull.
thanks in advance,
thomas E. jones.
tj@ll-vlsi.arpa
------------------------------
Date: 14 Oct 1987 18:02:50 PDT
From: Billy <BRACKENRIDGE@C.ISI.EDU>
Subject: RAMDISK questions.... And Answers ...
Tall Tree used to publish source code in their manuals, but I think they
thought this was too threatening to business types so they stopped.
Of course, VDISK comes free with ATs. There used to be source code for that
as well when the AT was first released.
[On the supplemental disk for my Vanilla Issue DOS 3.1 Distribution dis-
kettes, there is an assembly language listing for the IBM version of VDISK.
I use this one regularly and have not found any problems to date... gph]
------------------------------
************************
End of Info-IBMPC Digest
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