Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr12/v93n05y.zip/V93N057.IBM

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Date: Thu,  6 May 93 11:08:49 GMT+0
From: "Info-IBMPC Digest" <[e-mail]>
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Subject: Info-IBMPC Digest V93 #57
To: "Info-IBMPC Distribution": ;

Info-IBMPC Digest           Thu,  6 May 93       Volume 93 : Issue  57

Today's Editor:
         Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <[e-mail]>

Today's Topics:
                    BIOS TImer Interrupt Info Wanted
                   3 1/2 DD diskettes not recognized
                            about MS-DOS 6.0
                    PD Computer Test Package Wanted
                           FTP-Site Location
                     larger-type display programs?
                            Two items wanted
                          What is 16550 UART?
                 WordPerfect (DOS) -> Panasonic KXP1081
                      Archaeological Dig Sites???

Send Replies or notes for publication to: <[e-mail]>

Send requests of an administrative nature (addition to, deletion from
the distribution list, et al) to: <[e-mail]>

Archives of past issues of the Info-IBMPC Digest are available by FTP
ONLY from WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL in directory PD2:<ARCHIVES.IBMPC>.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993 14:23:30 -0400 (EDT)
From: Joe Eddy Demers <[e-mail]>
Subject: BIOS TImer Interrupt Info Wanted

Hello,
    I'm trying to use the BIOS timer interrupts (which occur every .055
seconds, or 18.2 times a second) to time people's response times, in a
psychology experiment, and the response times are on the order of .01
seconds. Is there any way I can get better precision than by counting
ticks? Or can I make the ticks occur more frequently? I'm trying to do
this in DOS 5.0 on a 386, and it would be nice if this could also work
on our old 8086 machines running DOS 2.1 (I know, I know, I don't like
them any more than you do) but this is by no means a requirement, just
a possibility.

    So, basically, any information on the BIOS tick scheme and the
related inrterruots would be appreciated, as well as any information on
alternate ways of improving accuracy. Email is preferred, as I'm
planning on posting this to a few boards, and I don't read all of them.
Thanks

Joe

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1993  9:49:04 UTC+0200
From: Jose Luis Romeral <[e-mail]>
Subject: 3 1/2 DD diskettes not recognized

    Hello,

    My problem is this: when I try to use 3 1/2 DD diskettes in my
computer it appears a message in the screen that says Data Error, just
as the diskettes hadn't been formatted (of course, they had been
formatted and they contained information). The problem occurs only with
3 1/2 DD and not with 3 1/2 HD. It's a strange thing because I have had
this computer for years and I never have had this problem before. Which
is the problem?, Hardware?, Software?, Virus?, What?. Which is the
possible solutions?.  I wait your suggestions. Thanks for your help.

                         Regards, J.L.R.M.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 9 Apr 93 8:20:15 EDT
From: Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <[e-mail]>
Subject: about MS-DOS 6.0

You said:

> I am wondering why the discussion about MS DOS 6.0 wasn't carried
> Info-IBMPC.  The sale of MS DOS 6.0 is only in Korea?

Actually, the reason I didn't mention it is because of the newsgroups I
see, I didn't see anyone write about it.  I also haven't seen any
magazine articles discussing (you have to know that I get my trade rags
about 4-6 weeks late.)...

Regards,
Gregory Hicks
Editor, Info-IBMPC Digest

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 15:24 PST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: PD Computer Test Package Wanted

Dear sirs:

I would like to test my new PC system, could anyone tell me where I
acess public domain test package?

Also I am interested in install PC-Unix,  could you give me some advice
on which O.S. should I install?   My PC system configuration is

   486 DX33  8MB RAM 207MB HD

Thank you very much in advance.

Philip Wang

973 Helen Ave #4
Sunnyvale,  CA 94086   Tel:  [phone]
E-mail: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 23 Apr 93 14:19:43 GMT
From: bellcore!arran.bellcore.com![e-mail] (Ronald W Underwood)
Subject: FTP-Site Location

[e-mail] writes:

>Timezone of various FTP sites?

>Most operators for sites in the US express their download times in
>terms of East Easternn Standard Time (EST) or GMT+6)...

>As to where the sites you asked about are...:

>SIMTEL20  - New Mexico (GMT+8)
>WUARCHIVE - Washington state (GMT+9)
>OAK       - Oakland, California (GMT+9)
>HOBBES (also known as FTP-OS2) - Arizona (GMT+9)

>You might want to try getting files via your friendly TRICKLE site.
>It's much quicker (usually)...  I'll send instructions separately.

I thought wuarchive is at Washington University St. Louis, in St.
Louis, MO, (GMT+7)

Ron
--
                Ron Underwood
                Distributed Systems Research Group
                [e-mail]
                [phone]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 22:03:40 -0400 (EDT)
From: Lili Velez <[e-mail]>
Subject: larger-type display programs?

I'm using WordPerfect 5.1 and I'm wondering if there are any shareware
programs out there which would give me enlarged type. [sometimes i need
to be seated further away from my monitor than even my farsighted eyes
can tolerate with the standard DOS character size.]

Do such programs exist?

Lili Fox Velez
Rhetorician in Residence               "Rhet in the Blue Linen Labcoat"
Department of Biological Sciences
Carnegie Mellon University                   [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 22 Apr 1993 21:44:47 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Jim Baltaxe)
Subject: Two items wanted
Summary: Amiga 2090A & PC expanded memory card

Hi

I am looking for two completely unrelated items, for two completely
unrelated machines; I hope somebody can help.

1. 2090A hard disk controller for an Amiga 2000 with an old MFM disk
drive. This is for a friend whose machine has been out of action for a
couple of years now and the situation is starting to get just a tad
rediculous (ridi.. redic... o heck, silly!).

2. A cheap expanded memory card for an XT style PC, preferably
populated but not necessarily. This is for a machine to be used as a
mail gateway and I want to set up a RAM disk so that the hard disk
doesn't drill itself into the ground.

Both of these requests have been poosted elsewhere before, so apologies
to anyone whose seen them already.

Jim Baltaxe - [e-mail]
Computing Services Centre - Victoria University of Wellington - New Zealand
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Time is such a valuable commodity because they're not making it any more.

------------------------------

Date: 22 Apr 93 20:27:53 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Robert J. Niland)
Subject: What is 16550 UART?

re: What to do after the high speed modem arrives.       Edition 22 Apr 93

This article applies only to:
  Windows 3.0 and 3.1,
and NOT to:
  Windows 2.0 or prior,
  NT,
  OS/2,
  PC Unix,
  or DOS apps not running under Windows.

One of the unadvertised limitations of most current Windows PCs is that
their RS-232C (serial, COM) performance is seriously deficient.  Almost
everyone who purchases a high-speed modem (V.32bis, V.32, PEP or HST)
discovers the problem the first time they try to download a file or
accept an incoming FAX (at 9600+) after upgrading the modem.  Overrun
and retry errors abound, even when the only active application is the
datacomm or FAX program.  If the transfer completes at all, it may take
even longer than with the old 2400bps modem.

There are three reasons for the problem:

1. The Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitters (UARTs) used in
most PCs are primitive Ns8250 or 16450 devices with single-byte FIFO
buffers.  If the operating system/driver cannot read and flush each
character at high interrupt rates, the next incoming character
overwrites the FIFO and the previous one is lost.  DOS, being a fairly
single-minded environment during datacomm, can usually keep up.
Windows can't.

2. Windows has more operating system overhead than plain DOS, and
interrupts often take longer to service.  Overruns are much more likely
than under DOS.  As soon as you report to your PC/modem vendor that you
are losing data, you may be advised that "you need to upgrade to a
16550".  However, since there seems to be a conspiracy of ignorance
about this issue,  you'll often get no useful advice at all.  Most of
the store-front and mail-order sources I spoke with in attempting to
solve my own problem had never heard the term "16550" and many didn't
even know what a UART was.

3. Even if your PC has Ns16550A UARTs (and PS/2's do), or if you can
upgrade your mother/COM board or add a new COM board, you may STILL
experience errors and overruns because the standard MicroSoft Windows
COM drivers don't take full advantage of the 16550.  Windows 3.1 is
improved in this regard over 3.0, but I still recommend a driver
upgrade.  Applications like ProComm+/Win (which is what I use) cannot
get around this problem by themselves.

If you have a modem CARD, you may or may not have a problem, as the
modem part of the card can be designed to be aware of the state of the
UART, and avoid overrunning it; however, I wouldn't want to bet that
the card designers were that clever, and would generally insist on a
16550 UART when buying modem card.  Some modem cards don't even have
conventional UARTs, but if they are to work with standard Windows
drivers, they need to simulate one. Use MSD.EXE (below) to see what the
modem card is, or is pretending to be.

The Hardware Situation.

This applies to:
  Serial/COM ports/cards
  Internal modems/cards
..but NOT..
  External modems (what matters is the UART seen at the PC backplane)

The UARTs on most PC COM ports are based on National Semiconductor
Ns8250 or Ns16450 chips (or megacells inside VLSI chips where you can't
replace them).  You can ID the UART type on your system by running the
MicroSoft diagnostic program \WINDOWS\MSD.EXE.  Be sure to run it in
DOS *before* bringing up Windows.   The Windows serial API may prevent
MSD from accurately identifying a 16550 if you run it from a Windows
DOS prompt.

The Ns16550 UART has separate 16-byte transmit and receive FIFOs with
configurable trigger levels, and can run reliably at clock rates up to
460,800 bps, although with current modem technology, there's no point
in pushing your luck by going over 115,200 bps. The 16550 has shorter
access cycle times than the 16450 or 8250.  The 16550 also has DMA
capability, but it is not clear that any PC drivers ever use this.  For
more technical info, see National Semiconductor Application Note
AN-491.  The UART, by the way, is the circuit that converts the serial
stream of demodulated "mark/space" signals into a sequence of parallel
8-bit bytes, and vice versa.

So, what UART component hardware do you have?

Try to locate the UART on your mother board, multi-function I/O card,
COM board or ISA/MCA modem card.  If you can't find a socketed
component with the numbers "8250" or "16450", your COM ports are
probably buried in VLSI, and you won't be able to perform a chip
replacement.  If you can DISABLE your VLSI COM ports (as I chose to
do), you can at least add an aftermarket COM board.  Disabling the UART
may require throwing switches or configuring non-volatile BIOS
registers.

If you have one or more socketed 8250 or 16450 chips, you can buy
plug-in Ns16550AFN or PC16C550CN (low power CMOS version) ICs from
several suppliers typically for $9 to $15 each.  The "N" chip is the
normal 40-pin dual-in-line package.  Other styles are available, but
avoid any Ns16550 chips without the "A" (the 16C550C are presumably all
OK).

Early Ns chips have bugs, although National will reportedly exchange
those of their own manufacture for free.  Clone chips are available
from various IC makers other than National.  The manual for the
TurboCom drivers states support for the following (apparently
equivalent) chips:

National Semiconductor: 16550A, 16551, 16552
                        (PC87312 SuperIO chip has two 16550's inside)
Chips&Technology:       82C607
Texas Instruments:      t16c550a
Silicon Systems:        73M550
VLSI                    16C550

TurboCom warns about the pre-"A" Ns16550 and Western Digital 16C550,
says that problems have been reported with early IBM PS/2 55SX and 70
systems (IBM reportedly will upgrade them).

If you DON'T have socketed 8250/16450 chips, you'll need to buy an
after- market COM or multi-function board. If this is a modem card
situation, you may be hosed. To add a new COM or multi-function card,
you'll need to either disable the COM1/2 port(s) you are replacing, or
re-assign them to COM3/4 (although watch out for IRQ conflicts without
TurboCom).

Although cheaper cards are available, in the interest of getting the
problem solved quickly I elected buy the Modular Circuit Technology
MCT-AIO+ card from:

JDR Microdevices
2233 Samaritan Drive
San Jose  CA  95124
[phone] voice US
[phone] voice other
[phone] FAX US

The MCT-AIO+ (and the "+" is important) sells for $89.95.  It is an
8-bit ISA card providing:

Port Type  Connector  Address and IRQ        Comments
COM        DB9M       COM 1,2,3 IRQ 2,3,4,5  Ns16550AFN in socket
COM        ribbon     COM 2,3,4 IRQ 2,3,4,5  Ns16550AFN in socket
Parallel   DB25F      LPT1,2,3  IRQ 5,7
Game       ribbon

The kit includes a ribbon cable and DB25F connector for the secondary
COM port, a ribbon cable/connector for the game port, two bulkhead
plates for the ribbon-based connectors and a 9F-to-25F adaptor cable.
Each port can be individually disabled, and the COM ports have TX, RX,
RTS, CTS, DTR, DCD, and DSR jumpers.

JDR also sells a Super-I/O m-f card that also has IDE.

I have heard from several people about less expensive m-f I/O cards
with 16550s:

TSD Systems
[phone]
$19.95 for the card, plus $9.95 per 16550.

Greenfield Trading and Distributors
[phone] (voice), [phone](FAX).
Their card is $33 w/one 16550, $45 w/2, and they sell 16550AFNs for $13.

R&S DATA SYSTEMS, INC.
820 East Highway 434
Longwood, FL  32750
PHONE: [phone]
FAX: [phone]
2COM/LPT/Game card w/2 16550s for $39

I have no personal experience with any of the firms except JDR.

Meanwhile, back at the MCT card from JDR... I only needed two serial
ports, and am running out of IRQs on my PC, so I disabled my built-in
VLSI-based 8250 ports. However, with the TurboCom driver (below), I
could have set the internals as COM3 and 4, using IRQ sharing.

The Software Situation

Simply upgrading to 16550 UARTs will not completely solve common
overrun problems.  The standard MS serial drivers don't take full
advantage of the 16550. The Windows 3.0 drivers are even less capable,
and the Windows 3.1 drivers have the following limitations: - They
enable only the receive FIFO, and only at rates above 2400 bps.  - They
never enable the transmit FIFO, which  results in an interrupt rate of
10x during uploads.  - They set the trigger level at 14 bytes (too high
- it's easy for 2 more bytes to arrive before the driver can read the
FIFO).  - The Ports menu of the Control Panel only allows speeds up to
19200.  With a V.32bis modem,  sparse data and text can easily compress
3:1 or more, suggesting that a host DTE connect rate of 57,600 bps
would be effective.  - The API won't accept rates above "CBR_128000".
- The API won't let DOS programs know there is a 16550 there, and even
if it did, DOS programs that aren't 16550-aware get little benefit from
a 16550 port with the standard drivers.  - They don't allow IRQ sharing
for COM3,4.  - The BIOS doesn't initialize COM3,4 properly in many
systems, and Windows doesn't necessarily clean this up properly when
booted..  - Windows provides no workaround for apps that don't provide
port speed options above 19200 bps.

These problems are reportedly NOT solved in Windows NT or DOS 6.0, and
may or may not be addressed in any Windows releases after 3.1 (but
before 4.0).  Rumors suggest they "may" be solved in Windows "4.0".
Some applications provide their own drivers.  For example,
"WFXCOMM.DRV" is now available for WinFAX Pro (although I have no data
on how to obtain it).

The TurboCom Drivers

You can get replacement drivers that solve all of the above problems,
for all Windows apps, by buying a copy of "TurboCom", current version
1.2, from:

Bio-Engineering Research
Pacific CommWare Division
180 Beacon Hill Lane
Ashland  OR   97520-9701
[phone] voice
[phone] FAX
[phone] BBS
MCImail:    344-5374
CompuServe: 71521,760

Price was around $50 as I recall.  Bio-Eng is not set up to accept
credit cards, so I had to send a check.  Egghead and 1-800-Software
list TurboCom but as far as I know, they don't stock it.  Bio is not a
software company per se.  They apparently needed reliable hi-speed
serial connections for an in-house instrument application, wrote their
own driver, discovered a market for it, and revised it to be a general
purpose COM driver suite.  They recently upgraded it for Windows 3.1.
It is run-time licensed.

I now have my host (DTE) connect rate set to 57,600 bps for most of my
datacomm apps, and I am having ZERO problems with downloads. I
routinely see transfer rates that exceed 2,000 bps. I am also using
115,200 bps when linking an HP95LX to my PC, with lossless
bi-directional I/O. Uploads to various remote systems are another
matter, because many hosts are still using antique UARTs and drivers.

Note that 19200 is still the highest rate that the Windows 3.1 Port
menu in Control Panel will allow in configuring a COM port's defaults.
Many apps also limit your options to 19.2K max.  TurboCom gets around
this by allowing you to specify, on each port, a factor that will set
the real UART rate to a multiple of the rate passed through the Windows
APIs and dialog boxes.

I also have CTS/RTS hardware flow control enabled, and I suggest that
you do the same.  Even if you only ever transfer 7-bit ASCII data,
Xon/XOff is not a sufficiently reliable method of flow control.  The
informal (DEC) convention for Xon/Xoff hysteresis is that the sender
may transmit another 16 (yes, sixteen) bytes after receipt of the Xoff
from the receiving system or device.  The 16 byte FIFO in the 16550 is
clearly not big enough to let us rely exclusively on Xon/Xoff.  A
well-respected datacomm engineer has informed me that the 16550's can't
really do CTS/RTS all by itself in the DOS/Windows environment, so
using data rates above 115,200 may still be risky.

Even with hardware flow control, a 16550 with TurboCom can still
experience overruns in very busy systems, with lots of apps running and
serious swapping in progress. If this is your situation, you may need
to buy a co-processed COM board, but this will cost you more than a
16550/TurboCom upgrade.  A review of two such boards, and a review of
TurboCom, can be found in the Feb'93 issue of "Windows Sources"
magazine.  I suggest trying a 16550/TurboCom upgrade first, and
experiment with process priorities and time slices if you are a "power
user" whose thrashing system still runs into comm problems.

Closing Soapbox Comments

The state of RS-232C serial datacomm support is an embarrassment across
the computer industry.  Because it is the oldest standard I/O
interface, the job of designing hardware and writing software often
seems to be assigned to the least senior or lowest ranked engineers at
computer companies.  The design of the average serial port is at least
ten years behind the state of the art. In my last job, with a major
workstation vendor, I lobbied for improved serial ports when they were
doing the initial designs of a new system.  That family of machines was
subsequently introduced with 16550 ports.  However, this is the
exception.  Few computer companies seem to have any champions for
decent I/O.

You may as well learn what you can about serial I/O, because this
situation shows no sign of improving soon.  When V.FAST arrives, I
expect cries of outrage from Windows users world-wide whose 8250- and
16450-based PCs "sort of" work today with V.32, but will fail miserably
with V.FAST.  Without a hardware-buffered UART (like the 16550) and
without software drivers that use that UART to best advantage, a V.FAST
modem will be a waste of money.

Regards,                                          1001-A East Harmony Road
Bob Niland                                        Suite 503
Internet:  [e-mail]                            Fort Collins CO 80525
CompuServe: 71044,2124                            [phone]

                     Copyright 1993 Robert J. Niland
                           All Rights Reserved

  Permission is granted for automatic redistribution of this article,
via electronic, magnetic and optical media, in an unedited form,
through any Usenet newsgroup or CompuServe forum where the article is
posted by the author.  Permission is granted for each CompuServe and
Usenet reader subscriber and each person who received this article from
Compuserve, an ftp site authorized by the author or via electronic mail
from the author, to retain one electronic copy and to make hardcopy
reproductions of this edition of this article for personal
non-commercial use, provided that no material changes are made to the
article or this copyright statement.  All other copying, storage,
reproduction or redistribution of this article, in any form, is
prohibited without the express written consent of the author,  Robert
J. Niland.

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 11:55:45 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Rob Trevor)
Subject: WordPerfect (DOS) -> Panasonic KXP1081

A friend was recently given a Panasonic KXP1081 printer which had been
in use with a Macintosh.  At the suggestion of a netter, I removed the
optional serial kit to restore the parallel port.

The printer works fine as a DOS Text Printer (from within WordPerfect),
but when you try to use WordPerfect's KXP1081 printer driver, the
output is messed up by various control characters.

I suspect the DIP switch settings may need to be changed to restore the
printer to its factory defaults.

If anyone is using WP with a Panasonic KXP1081 printer, I'd appreciate
knowing what DIP switch settings (or WP settings) you're using.

Thanks
Rob

Rob Trevor  Australian Graduate School of Management
            University of New South Wales
            PO Box 1, Kensington, NSW, AUSTRALIA    2033

Internet:  [e-mail]  or  [e-mail]
VOICE: [phone]    FAX: [phone]  or   [phone]

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 21:43:23 EDT
From: Jamie Jason <[e-mail]>
Subject: Archaeological Dig Sites???

I hope this is the right location to post this.  I was wondering where
one may find bitmapped images of archeological dig sites.

Thanks in advance.

James Jason
Illinois State University
Normal, IL

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End of Info-IBMPC Digest V93 #57
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