shurr@cbnews.att.com (larry.a.shurr) (03/09/91)
In article <1601@umvlsi.ecs.umass.edu> rkaminsk@umvlsi.ecs.umass.edu (Robert D. Kaminsky) writes: }I recently obtained the the MS-DOS shell from the SIMTEL Archive... }I am having some trouble with it. I have a 386SX computer with 2 MEG. }The shell often gives the message "Warning: EMS not available" (I've }tried playing with the swap setting.) Also, I cannot seem to }get "aliases" working by setting up shell scripts to mimic commands }(e.g. make a shell script named "rm" to do "rm -i $*" -- I, of course, have }many of the unix commands for IBM-PC's via the SIMTEL archive.) "EMS not available" means what it says. You don't have any EMS support loaded, so even though you have 2MB, there's no support for accessing mem using EMS (or maybe you do, but it's all used up). MS_SHELL's swapping feature defaults to "swap all." Therefore, it tries each of the available swapping methods until it finds one that works. Furthermore, it will try each time it wants to swap - it does NOT have a try-once-and-give-up-if- it-fails feature. To get rid of the message, try "swap off" or "swap disk." If you have V1.64 or later, it can swap to extended memory, as well, using "swap xms" (I think), but it's best to have an XMS driver loaded or will simply swap to a fixed address in extended memory - not necessarily a safe thing to do. Regarding aliases: I don't recall that MS_SHELL has aliases (Bourne shell doesn't either - they are a Korn Shell feature, maybe CSH also, but I don't use it). It does have functions, just as Bourne shell does, which can do exactly what you are looking for - I've done it myself with MS_SHELL. regards, Larry -- Larry A. Shurr (cbnmva!las@att.ATT.COM or att!cbnmva!las) The end of the world has been delayed due to a shortage of trumpet players. (The above reflects my opinions, not those of AGS or AT&T, but you knew that.)