[comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d] System information from SYSID47.ZIP and a problem

ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK) (01/15/90)

There are a lot of system information programs around.  That is
programs which examine your PC and give details of the various
aspects of your hardware.  Recently I obtained (/pc/pd2/)sysid47.zip
package, and it is available by anonymous ftp from chyde.uwasa.fi. 
It gives 16 pages of detailed information.  It ran nicely on my
Zenith z-181 laptop, but when I tried it at office on my 386 16Mhz
Osborne, the program froze completely on page 2.  Only a cold boot
could restart the machine.  Pity, but compatibility problems with
programs which use complicated internal calls is quite common. 

I have had a go at such a utility myself. Inevitably it is called
sysinfo.exe. It is included in the (/pc/ts/)tsutil28.arc package.

Benchmark programs are a similar, but distinct category of of PC
information programs.  Let's look at them some other time.

...................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi        (Moderating at anon. ftp site 128.214.12.3)
School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland
Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: vakk::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
 

LC.YRS@forsythe.stanford.edu (Richard Stanton) (01/16/90)

In article <1990Jan14.210745.16706@uwasa.fi>,
ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK) writes:
>There are a lot of system information programs around.  That is
>programs which examine your PC and give details of the various
>aspects of your hardware.  Recently I obtained (/pc/pd2/)sysid47.zip
>package, and it is available by anonymous ftp from chyde.uwasa.fi.
>It gives 16 pages of detailed information.  It ran nicely on my
>Zenith z-181 laptop, but when I tried it at office on my 386 16Mhz
>Osborne, the program froze completely on page 2.  Only a cold boot

I had the same problem on my Epson Equity II+, but when I did a
hardware reset, the program ran perfectly, and has done so ever
since. What would cause this?

Richard Stanton

pstanton@gsb-what.stanford.edu

andyross@ddsw1.MCS.COM (Andrew Rossmann) (01/16/90)

In article <1990Jan14.210745.16706@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK) writes:
>There are a lot of system information programs around.  That is
>programs which examine your PC and give details of the various
>aspects of your hardware.  Recently I obtained (/pc/pd2/)sysid47.zip
>package, and it is available by anonymous ftp from chyde.uwasa.fi. 
>It gives 16 pages of detailed information.  It ran nicely on my
>Zenith z-181 laptop, but when I tried it at office on my 386 16Mhz
>Osborne, the program froze completely on page 2.  Only a cold boot
>could restart the machine.  Pity, but compatibility problems with
>programs which use complicated internal calls is quite common. 
>...................................................................
>Prof. Timo Salmi        (Moderating at anon. ftp site 128.214.12.3)

  Over the past year, I've added numerous features to the SYSID 4.4
version. The 4.7 was the first 'new' one I'd seen. My own version (I call
it 4.8), has FULL support for DOS 4 (4.7 will lock up under DOS 4), page
selection (you don't have to go through all in a row), and, I hope, correct
detection of the '486!!
  The primary change I would like to add is detection of Compaq DOS 3.31
(or similar others). I don't believe that large partitions under 3.31 will
work under my version of SYSID. I only check for the presense of DOS 4, and
use the extended DOS read. Do all 3.31 support large partitions? Will it be
possible to find a reliable way of checking the availability of extended
DOS read?
  I would also like to know as many hard disk partition types as possible.
And how to tell 'logical' drives in DOS's extended partitions. And how
DiskManager/Speedstore get 16 partitions on the disk.

  Andrew Rossmann
  andyross@ddsw1.MCS.COM