[comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d] alias on ibm-pc, anyone?

tumavitc@buster.cps.msu.edu (Jeffrey J Tumavitch) (01/23/91)

In article <29520@usc> phuocle@skat.usc.edu (Christopher Le) writes:
>Wouldn't it be nice if someone could write a program that can do aliases
>for the ibm machines? I know people have wrote programs for ls, more, cat,
>rm and others, but no alias yet.
>Any super programmers wanna do it?
>
>Chris
>phuocle@skat.usc.edu

A really nice program that provides alias-like abilities is "ced" put
out by pc-magazine a while ago ... it should be available out there
somewhere.

Tumavitch@buster.cps.msu.edu

phil@cs.mcgill.ca (Philip LOCONG) (01/23/91)

There is 4DOS that has aliases as well as many other features. It's very
well know, I think, you should be able to get it almost anywhere. It's
shareware.

Phil

belt@freyr.pttrnl.nl (Evert van de Belt) (01/23/91)

phuocle@skat.usc.edu (Christopher Le) writes:

>Wouldn't it be nice if someone could write a program that can do aliases
>for the ibm machines? I know people have wrote programs for ls, more, cat,
>rm and others, but no alias yet.
>Any super programmers wanna do it?

What about CED or 4DOS? I'm using 4DOS with aliases. It's great.

Evert

ralphs@sumax.seattleu.edu (Ralph Sims) (01/23/91)

phuocle@skat.usc.edu (Christopher Le) writes:

> Wouldn't it be nice if someone could write a program that can do aliases
> for the ibm machines? I know people have wrote programs for ls, more, cat,
> rm and others, but no alias yet.

Folks that are interested in this should look at replacing command.com
with 4DOS, which provdies aliases, commandline editing, environment
manipulations, and much more.

In the meantime, aliases can be provided by batch files.  I have seen a
program that provided aliasing commands on a limited basis, perhaps on
chyde.uwasa.fi.

--
  halcyon!ralphs@sumax.seattleu.edu (Ralph Sims)
  ralphs@halcyon.uucp or ralphs@halcyon.wa.com
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sonny@charybdis.harris-atd.com (Bob Davis) (01/23/91)

In article <1991Jan23.081313.4221@cs.mcgill.ca> phil@cs.mcgill.ca (Philip LOCONG) writes:
>There is 4DOS that has aliases as well as many other features. It's very
>well know, I think, you should be able to get it almost anywhere. It's
>shareware.
>
	4DOS is dynamite.
	Also, there is the older CED by Chris Dunford which is 
free. It has the alias (called "synonym") function, as well as
command recall/edit and several other things. CED is one of my all-time
favorite DOS Freeware programs. It is Excellent.
	Available at SIMTEL and at many other fine archives around
the globe.

_____________________________________________________________________________
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toma@sail.LABS.TEK.COM (Tom Almy) (01/24/91)

In article <29520@usc> phuocle@skat.usc.edu (Christopher Le) writes:
>Wouldn't it be nice if someone could write a program that can do aliases
>for the ibm machines? I know people have wrote programs for ls, more, cat,
>rm and others, but no alias yet.
>Any super programmers wanna do it?

No reason to. There are already several programs that meet this need.

In increasing cost:

Anarkey -- provides command history, better command line editing, and
	aliasing. Shareware (I believe about $20-30).

4DOS -- A command.com replacement with the above plus a much more rich
	set of commands, on-line help, takes less memory...
	Shareware, $50.

MKS Toolkit -- Provides a UNIX-like environment, including Korn shell, which
	has aliases. Also has vi and awk. Commercial $250.


-- 
Tom Almy
toma@sail.labs.tek.com <<< Note new address
Standard Disclaimers Apply

thoger@solan.unit.no (Terje Th|gersen) (01/24/91)

In article <29520@usc> phuocle@skat.usc.edu (Christopher Le) writes:


   Wouldn't it be nice if someone could write a program that can do aliases
   for the ibm machines? I know people have wrote programs for ls, more, cat,
   rm and others, but no alias yet.
   Any super programmers wanna do it?

   Chris
   phuocle@skat.usc.edu

Check out CMDEDIT, recently put out by PC-Magazine. This is almost a 
"tcsh" for dos, giving aliases, file name completion, pusd/popd etc, etc..
A bit silly, as all commands gotten from stdin end up in the same buffer.
(that is, all commands you've typed in 'debug' end up in the same buffer as
the commands you've typed on the commandline. A by-product of this is that
all programs that use stdin get the filename completion etc..)

Other programs to do "aliasing" : 

CED - 	This is the original. The best until CMDEDIT came along, in my opinion.
	Uses 12k mem. when whittled down as far as it can go.

COMMANDO - Cute, uses less mem, buggy. Has file name completion.

ALIAS - Also by PC magazine. Limited.

There's one more, but I didn't keep it for very long since it's nagware, 
requiring you to type in a random, 10-digit number on startup. Gets tiring,
for a program to be loaded from autoexec.bat....

All programs found on simtel / wustl. CMDEDIT / Alias are freeware, the other
shareware. (or atleast that's what I seem to recall.. :-))

regards,

  -Terje

--
____________________________________________________________________________
thoger@solan.unit.no       |                 Institute of Physical Chemistry
THOGER AT NORUNIT.BITNET   | Div. of Computer Assisted Instrumental Analysis
                           |               Norwegian Institute of Technology

joee@cabezon.uucp (Joe Eckardt) (01/25/91)

There's a shareware program from a few years back call DOSEDIT which provides
alias support as a secondary feature.  It's primary purpose is to allow command
history scrollback and editting.  Works great.  I'd be lost without either
feature anymore.

Suspect it's still bopping around on the bulletin boards somewhere.  I think I
got my original copy from PC-SIG in the Bay Area.


			Joe Eckardt
			Logic Automation, Inc
			lauto!joee@cse.ogi.edu	,or
			...!uunet!ogicse!lauto!joee
-- 
			Joe Eckardt
			Logic Automation, Inc
			(503)690-6900
			lauto!joee@cse.ogi.edu	,or

jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck) (01/27/91)

In an article mikek@col.hp.com (Mike Karin) wrote:
>Another nice program that was published in PC Magazine is ALIAS.  It is 
[]
>I am using Alias and it works great.

I have tried every alias and command-line editor that I have gotten my
hands on, and I am using alias from PCmag now.  But I am not happy with
its command line recall for several reasons:

1. If you re-execute a previous command, it puts another instance of that
command line in the stack.  It is inconvenient and has no useful purpose
to have multiple copies of the same command line in the stack.
2. The stack does not wrap around, so that when you get to the end, you 
have  to step all the way back the other way to get to an earlier command.
3. It always adds edited commands at the end of the stack, rather than inserting
them at the place where you are currently working.

I used to use ndosedit, which did these things the way I like, but I found that
it uses FCB's instead of file handles, and leaves them open forever after.
To me that is a sign of trouble to come, since it was obviously written in
the days of DOS 1.x.


-- 
John Dudeck                                        "Communication systems are
jdudeck@Polyslo.CalPoly.Edu                              inherently complex".
ESL: 62013975 Tel: 805-545-9549                                 -- Ron Oliver

roeve@cip-s02.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Michael Roevenich) (01/28/91)

phuocle@skat.usc.edu (Christopher Le) writes:

>Wouldn't it be nice if someone could write a program that can do aliases
>for the ibm machines? I know people have wrote programs for ls, more, cat,
>rm and others, but no alias yet.
>Any super programmers wanna do it?

There is a program with this feature and a lot more... it is called 4Dos and
replaces COMMAND.COM totally. Very nice, very compatible. I use it all the 
time. It's SHAREWARE as well...

Greetings
Michael



Internet: roeve@rwthi3.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
UUCP:     ...unido!rwthi3!roeve
FIDO:     2:242/42.1 (Michael Roevenich)

ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) (01/29/91)

In article <1991Jan24.185021.11667@cabezon.uucp> joee@cabezon.uucp (Joe Eckardt) writes:
>There's a shareware program from a few years back call DOSEDIT which provides
>alias support as a secondary feature.  It's primary purpose is to allow command
>history scrollback and editting.  Works great.  I'd be lost without either

It is contained in /pc/pcmag/vol5n03.zip of PC-Magazine's utilities,
and is called dos-edit.  Personally I prefer /pc/pd2/ced10da.zip of
these two early command line editors, partly because I run into
compatibility problems with dos-edit on a laptop I was using.
   If you don't find vol5n03.zip in our /pc/pcmag directory, try
/pc/stash where I stash stuff temporarily until my fellow moderator
Harri Valkama has had time to allocate the files to their proper
directories.  (He is very busy at the moment tuning garbo.uwasa.fi.)

...................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi        
Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.12.37
School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland
Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun

frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) (01/30/91)

In article <1991Jan24.185021.11667@cabezon.uucp> joee@cabezon.uucp (Joe Eckardt) writes:
>There's a shareware program from a few years back call DOSEDIT which provides
>alias support as a secondary feature.  It's primary purpose is to allow command
>history scrollback and editting.  Works great.  I'd be lost without either

I use DOSEDIT all the time, but it has one serious flaw - it is not able to
properly handle characters above 128 on the command line.

-frisk

Fridrik Skulason      University of Iceland  |       
Technical Editor of the Virus Bulletin (UK)  |  Reserved for future expansion
E-Mail: frisk@rhi.hi.is    Fax: 354-1-28801  |   

einari@rhi.hi.is (Einar Indridason) (01/30/91)

In article <2701@krafla.rhi.hi.is> frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes:
>I use DOSEDIT all the time, but it has one serious flaw - it is not able to
>properly handle characters above 128 on the command line.
>

(YALM8BP)

Yet another 'lets mask the 8th bit' program!!!  :-(  :-( :-(  :-( :-(  :-( :-(




--
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UUCP:    ..!mcsun!isgate!rhi!einari  |   the GUIs to the waste basket!!!!"

Surgeon Generals warning:  Masking the 8th bit can seriously damage your brain!!

asphgcm@cidsv01.cid.aes.doe.CA (Claude Mercier) (01/31/91)

In article <2701@krafla.rhi.hi.is>, frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) writes:
|> In article <1991Jan24.185021.11667@cabezon.uucp> joee@cabezon.uucp
(Joe Eckardt) writes:
|> >There's a shareware program from a few years back call DOSEDIT which
provides
|> >alias support as a secondary feature.  It's primary purpose is to
allow command
|> >history scrollback and editting.  Works great.  I'd be lost without either
|> 
|> I use DOSEDIT all the time, but it has one serious flaw - it is not able to
|> properly handle characters above 128 on the command line.
|> 
|> -frisk
|> 

Tsk tsk tsk !!!

This, Fridrik, is a DOS flaw.  DOS's command line buffer is 128 bytes long.
Therefore, it is useless to feed it with a command longer than 128
characters.

Just worth my 2 cents.

--
Claude Mercier (asphgcm@cid.aes.doe.CA)
Disclaimer: "I'm not God, so I may be wrong sometimes ..."
Quote: "Don't listen to what I say. I never do." -- Doctor Who
Quote: "Tools for power are just that, TOOLS." -- Me. (Want a list? :-)

frisk@rhi.hi.is (Fridrik Skulason) (02/01/91)

In article <1991Jan30.171009.16994@cid.aes.doe.CA> asphgcm@cidsv01.cid.aes.doe.CA (Claude Mercier) writes:
>|> I use DOSEDIT all the time, but it has one serious flaw - it is not able to
>|> properly handle characters above 128 on the command line.
>|> 
>Tsk tsk tsk !!!
>
>This, Fridrik, is a DOS flaw.  DOS's command line buffer is 128 bytes long.
>Therefore, it is useless to feed it with a command longer than 128
>characters.

I said "characters above 128" (well, above 127 would have been more accurate)
that is characters vith values 128,129,...255 - all the accented and graphic
characters in the character set.

DOSEDIT is yet another American program, whose author ignores the fact that
the rest of the world uses 8-bit characters.

Any program which does not properly handle the upper half of the character
set is pretty useless.

-frisk

Fridrik Skulason      University of Iceland  |       
Technical Editor of the Virus Bulletin (UK)  |  Reserved for future expansion
E-Mail: frisk@rhi.hi.is    Fax: 354-1-28801  |