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Text File | 1992-09-07 | 31KB | 501 lines

SPC 5.6 Integrated equipment utility by Bob Eyer [73230,2620] Sep 6, 1992 ╔══════════════════════════ ADVERTISEMENT ════════════════════════════════╗ ║ ║ ║ In brief, my shareware deal is this: If you register one of my ║ ║ programs with me, you get in return all the most recent updates of ║ ║ all the programs in my collection, except for my retail software. ║ ║ There are only a few retail items, and they carry a very modest ║ ║ additional charge. Add these charges, and you get everything. ║ ║ This is a deal that can't be beat in today's shareware market. ║ ║ You're looking at nearly a megabyte of original work covering a ║ ║ wide range; and you can have it all for just $30.00. For details ║ ║ see below. Get your order in today!! - Bob Eyer ║ ║ ║ ╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝ ┌──────────────────── SHAREWARE NOTICE and TERMS ──────────────────────────┐ │ │ │ The content of this archive is shareware: if you intend to │ │ use it more or less regularly, you must register with the author. │ │ │ │ In return for your registration you will receive the most recent │ │ updates of the items mentioned in the list below. This benefit │ │ far exceeds the value of the specific program(s) you are │ │ registering. More important you'll have the satisfaction of │ │ knowing that you're supporting the shareware movement. │ │ │ │ Simply purchase a money order from your bank in the amount of $20 │ │ US made out to Bob Eyer and send with your return address to: │ │ │ │ Bob Eyer │ │ 1100 Bloor Street West │ │ Suite 16 │ │ Toronto, Canada M6H 1M8 │ │ │ │ Please mention in your accompanying note whether you wish 5.25" or │ │ 3.5" diskette format. │ │ │ │ Do not send checks. Checks cause problems across international │ │ borders which make them unsuitable for small purchases by mail │ │ order. Only cash or money orders will be accepted. Improper or │ │ incomplete orders will be returned to the sender unfilled. │ │ │ │ Enquiries may be placed by writing directly to the author via │ │ Easyplex at Compuserve [73230,2620], or by mail to the address │ │ above. Registered users are always assured of a response, and of │ │ tech support related to these programs, if needed. │ │ │ │ The author is amenable to requests for custom versions of any of │ │ these works; terms subject to negotiation. │ │ │ │ Certain items are not 'shareware' but are, enhanced retail │ │ versions. These versions are marked by asterisk, and are │ │ separately priced. They are not included unless you add the fee │ │ appropriate for the items mentioned. The author has decided to │ │ conform his shareware standards to that of the Association of │ │ Shareware Professionals (ASP). This means essentially that │ │ registered shareware will be functionally equivalent to │ │ distributed versions, and enhanced versions will be offered as │ │ retail, distinct from shareware. The principal incentive(s) for │ │ registering distributed versions will be removal of any builtin │ │ advertising in these versions, and the inclusion of the most │ │ recent updates of the author's shareware collections with any │ │ particular shareware order. │ │ │ │ Warranty and Disclaimer: │ │ ----------------------- │ │ The author, Bob Eyer, of this and all items below guarantees the │ │ physical integrity of the diskette covering the points above, and │ │ will replace free of charge, if it is received defective. │ │ However, in no case will the author be responsible for any damages │ │ due to loss of data or any other reason. In no event does the │ │ author's liability for any damages exceed the price paid for the │ │ buyer's order of this software, regardless of the form of the │ │ claim. The person using the software bears all risk as to the │ │ quality and performance of the software. │ │ │ │ │ │ DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAMS YOU WILL RECEIVE FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION │ │ -------------------------------------------------------------- │ │ │ │ * MG 3.2 - retail $5.00 │ │ ------ │ │ Moving average graphing program. Especially designed for │ │ obtaining graphic updates on stock-market activity in practical │ │ trading environments, in which it is essential that the user get a │ │ quick graph immediately, with points of the graph directly │ │ associated with the numerical and other text information which │ │ these points represent (a feat impractical in Lotus graphics). │ │ Designed to be used with SETV in the SUTL package. │ │ │ │ * FCAP 1.2 - retail $5.00 │ │ -------- │ │ Memory resident calculator with formatted displays and direct │ │ paste to text, minimum screen overlay. 29 functions, including │ │ trig, factorials & combinations, binomial, Poisson, normal, and │ │ Student distributions, regression and mean & standard deviation │ │ analysis. Six mode groups. ADD accumulation area. FCAP is the │ │ most sophisticated calculator in the business for its size. 38K │ │ of memory. FCAP 1.3-1.4 includes IRR and other financial │ │ functions. │ │ │ │ FCA 2.5 │ │ ------- │ │ Memory resident calculator with formatted displays and direct │ │ paste to text, minimum screen overlay. 28 functions, including │ │ trig, factorials & combinations, binomial, Poisson, normal, and │ │ Student distributions. Six mode groups. ADD accumulation area. │ │ FCA is the most sophisticated calculator in the business for its │ │ size. 35K of memory. │ │ │ │ SPC 5.6 │ │ ------- │ │ Multidrive columnar drive report, with fairly complete description │ │ of your machine including important chips, printer, BIOS, memory, │ │ processor and coprocessor speed, multitasking, networking, │ │ complete info on communications ports and modems, as well as │ │ drives. P parameter provides to DOS PRINT multiplexer a pause │ │ command. New: version 5.6 includes a map of removable programs │ │ resident in RAM. Everything in a fast one-screen snapshot. │ │ │ │ HOST 2.5 │ │ -------- │ │ Provides a simple BBS host for occasional use. Fully │ │ configurable, but capable of being run 'right out of the box', │ │ HOST provides ringback, file transfer, mail, chat, userlog, shell, │ │ and much more - in an executable only 30K in size. Version 2.5 │ │ adds option to turn off noise filtering, and facilities for │ │ reading in the user's own list of file protocols. Corrects fault │ │ in protocol defaults, and makes all options available in the │ │ distribution version. │ │ │ │ FUTL 2.3 │ │ -------- │ │ A collection of file processing utilities including - │ │ CHG 2.8 - File/directory attribute/date/time reader/changer │ │ ELIM 2.6 - Replacement for DOS DEL │ │ FVER 2.1 - BBS file list verifier - automatic, redirectable │ │ MV 3.0 - File mover, new with environment control │ │ MVA 2.1 - BBS file mover, reads from list, uses download path │ │ OTL 3.0 - Operation to List, generalisation of MVA, for BBSes │ │ RNF 2.2 - Puts special flags on filenames │ │ SWP 2.0 - Single level sweep program, faster than SWEEP.COM │ │ TYME 2.3 - Program execution timer │ │ WD 2.6 - Applies wildcard to any program │ │ Each is the best and smallest in the business for what it does. │ │ │ │ SUTL 2.6 │ │ -------- │ │ A collection of small utilities covering batch file, diagnostic, │ │ communications analysis, file, video, and other areas, including │ │ AL, CA, CFIX, DOSV, DTR, EL, EMS, KALL, KNT, LF, PAGE, PAUZ, PF, │ │ PORT, RING, RTS, SETV, SS, STR, and TSTF. Includes 7 useful │ │ memory resident programs, such as AL(alarm), KNT(count keystrokes) │ │ PORT(analyser), CA (4-fcn calculator), and PAGE (Ctrl-L printer │ │ pager). │ │ │ │ TUTL 2.1 │ │ -------- │ │ A collection of text-processing utilities, including ADD, CBRO, │ │ CITM, COMB, DIV, ESRT, LCNT, REV, and SPLT. Except for LCNT (a │ │ very fast wildcarded text linecounter), these programs cover │ │ important ground in text processing for which there exists no │ │ other alternative in the shareware market. Users who do much │ │ work with ASCII text should not be without these utilities. │ │ │ └───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Syntax ------ SPC [? H A P F E D S] [=identification] [>file/PRN/COMx] Options (any order, any case, any combination) ---------------------------------------------- ? or H or HELP - Brief help screen. Default is no help. A - Use standard ASCII character set, to accommodate Epson compatible printers. Default is to use extended ASCII character set for display. P - Pause printer. Intended to be used ONLY as an enhancement of DOS PRINT. To resume printing, enter PRINT. F - Include drives A: and B: in drive report. No include is the default. E - Exclude UNDEF drives from totals. Default is to include drives flagged as UNDEF in totals. D - Force DUPlicate detection instead of SUBSTed detection in drive report and net duplicates out of the totals. The default is SUBSTed detection, unless a supported network is detected, in which case SPC defaults to DUPlicate detection. The D or S options are used for overriding these defaults. For details see discussion below. S - Force SUBSTed detection instead of DUPlicate detection in drive report and net SUBSTed drives out of the totals. = - Identification string. SPC puts your identification string on the right half of Line 1 of the display, overriding the author credit, if you use '=' followed by your selected identification information. SPC looks for the occurrence of the equals sign on the commandline and interprets everything following it (up to but not including redirection and piping symbols) as an identification string rather than as an option. SPC no longer converts your ID string to upper case. Maximum length is 21 characters. Default is to display author credit. Use of SPC options ------------------ SPC options are provided largely to supply fine-tuning in SPC applications as well as solutions to specialised problems which few users will have. For example, only network operators who are not using the network types which SPC can detect will find it necessary to use the D option. Generally, use of SPC's options will not be needed. To get help on the use of SPC options, just enter SPC H CHANGES FROM SPC 5.5 -------------------- RAM memory map added, showing which removable TSR's are in conventional memory, and how much space they occupy (other than environment and data space). Much smaller and faster than competing memory maps, though requires at least DOS 4 for full information. CHANGES FROM SPC 5.4 -------------------- The criterion for zero-fault modem connect was changed to agree with that employed in HOST 2.2. This should correct detection mistakes which occurred in previous versions for low-speed modems. Also, the deactivation scope of the DOS critical error handler has been broadened in SPC 5.5. CHANGES FROM SPC 5.2 -------------------- SPC 5.2 was posted in March 1991, containing full documentation. A number of changes and additions have been made, as the user may note by comparing the old and new displays. - SPC, from version 5.4, is now Shareware. Users who wish full documentation must register with the author. See SHAREWARE NOTICE below. Registration brings benefits which go beyond this program. - The display arrangement has been changed to accommodate adding a coprocessor speed test and expanding coverage of communications data. The communications port command line option has been eliminated, in favour of a columnar list of a maximum of 4 available communications ports. The space freed up on the motherboard line is now used to list the processor and coprocessor and speeds corresponding thereto. Following the motherboard line, an expanded 60-point speed graph appears, followed by a new readout on environment space usage. - SPC 5.4 now provides information on port addresses and configuration (baud, parity, data bits and stop bits), in addition to UART identification, modem check, DTR, RTS, and carrier status. Only those ports are listed which have UART's installed on the corresponding communications card. Where a multitasking environment may not permit direct access to an existing port from a given task because that port is being used in another task, the Config report will show the message 'Access error' but will otherwise reflect other types of information about that port. - A PRINT pausing function has been added to the command line. This function takes effect when the DOS PRINT multiplexer is actually feeding information to the printer's buffer, and is otherwise inactive. The purpose here is to add a useful function to the PRINT command which Microsoft has consistently failed to introduce in various DOS versions. To resume processing the existing PRINT queue, simply enter PRINT from DOS. The use of the pause function is reflected on the title line with the symbol 'PMP' replacing 'PM'. The response time depends on the size of the printer's buffer. - SPC 5.4 now provides an environment usage readout, located at the end of the speed graph. - These changes have resulted in an increase in the size of the executable from about 20k to about 28k; nearly all of which is due to the introduction of the coprocessor speed test, which requires the use of floating point arithmetic. SPC's coprocessor speed reading should be understood as being on the same scale as the CPU reading, and accordingly, the coprocessor reading is indicated on the speed graph by means of the '!' character, where the existence of a coprocessor is detected by SPC. The following is a brief explanation of SPC's display, hitting the main points without going into detail (the detailed explanation is available in the complete docs, obtainable through registration). Let's look at a relatively full display. Situation is we have logged in remotely to our own BBS and have remotely initiated a print job at the host through a shell allowing us a little more than 200k of memory space. We issue the command SPC P =Lan remote so as to document our work remotely (this assumes that SPC 5.6 is in the DOS path at the host). ┌ Sunday 09-06-1992 18:49:29 ────────────────────────────── SPC 5.6 ┐ │ DOS 5.00 VGA Color 3 MB 1 LPT1: S* PMP ID: Lan remote │ │ FC (01/15/88) ISA - K R 8259 - ----- 80386/29.5 80387/140 │ │ X.....1..........2...........*.........4..!....5............ 294 │ │ Resident: TIMEPARK-512 QUICKEYS-448 QUICKEYS-448 │ │ MARK-1392 DOSEDIT-1968 MARK-1408 PRINT-10768 │ │ - SHARE PC LAN 655360/204144 - EMS 4.0: 1278/885 1 │ │ Port ─ Address Config ────── Uart ── Modem ── DTR ─ RTS ─ Carrier │ │ COM1: 3F8 19200 N 8 1 16550A Ok High High High │ │ COM2: 2F8 2400 N 8 1 8250 - - - - │ │ Drv ── Status ─ Sector ─ Cluster ─── Free ─ Allocated ─ Total ─ Drv │ │ C: BOOT 512 2048 1.501 16.298 17.799 C: │ │ D: 512 2048 10.250 7.549 17.799 D: │ │ E: 512 4096 0.979 6.037 7.016 E: │ │ ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │ │ M: Totals less SUBSTed drives: 12.730 29.884 42.614 M: │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ This is the "snapshot" display advertised, and it is designed to present as much redirectable information as possible in a very small space, so that the user can obtain a quick overview. The display informs us that our host is run under PC LAN on top of DOS 5, the host monitor is VGA color, there are 3 MS mouse buttons active for the Sysop at the other end, 1 printer port now Selected and printing (S*) with PRINT multiplexer currently paused (PMP). We note that the CPU speed is 29.5 and the coprocessor is operating at 140. Removable TSRs installed at the host are TIMEPARK, QUICKEYS (twice), MARK (twice), DOSEDIT, and of course the PRINT multiplexer. Little or no EMS is in use. We are communicating through a 16550A Universal Asychronous Receiver-Transmitter (UART), the modem is Ok and DTR, RTS, and the Carrier are all at logic High. There is another communications port in the host node, but no modem is connected to it. Having noted these facts, we issue the PRINT command from DOS remote to continue the print job, and use SPC to determine when the job is finished (the '*' will disappear when data is no longer flowing to the printer). Throughout SPC's reporting method, the simple '-' or dash is used to represent logic low, feature not present, or zero. The appearance of a symbol means that what it represents has been detected. In general, the display may be classified into a header, and two columnar reports. The header consists of the DOS Line, the Motherboard line, the Speed graph line, the RAM memory map lines, and the Memory line, in consecutive order. The first columnar report is about communications ports, while the second is about disk drives. The DOS Line is in fact a display of a mixture of miscellaneous readouts. From left to right these are: The DOS version number, the type of monitor/adaptor, number of MS-compatible mouse buttons installed, number of printer ports displaying which one active, status of active port (Selected, Disconnected, Out of paper, etc), asterisk indicating whether data is being fed to the printer, whether DOS's PRINT multiplexer is resident, and whether it is paused (see above about the P option). Following these data appear the user-selected report identification (see above about command line usage). The Motherboard line shows, from left to right, the Model Number in hex notation, the date of the BIOS revision, the type of bus (MCA or ISA), External event wait states, Keyboard intercept, Real time clock, Slave 8259 present, and whether DMA channel 3 is used. This group is followed by keyboard info, whether keyboard is Enhanced, Insert mode, Caps lock, Num lock, and Scroll lock. The last group on this line are the processor and coprocessor types, with the speed index for each. The Speed graph line consists mainly of a 60-point logarithmic speed graph for the CPU and NCP speeds. X means '4.77 Mhz 8088 XT' - an index value of about 1.0. '1' refers to the approximate speed of an 80186 machine (about 2.0 on the Norton scale), '2' refers to the speed position of a 6 MHz 80286 AT (about 7.0), '3' the position of a 16 MHz 80386 AT (about 29.0), '4' the position of a 16 MHz 80486 machine (about 94.0), and '5' the estimated speed position of a 16 MHz 80586 machine (about 250.0). The maximum of the scale is a speed reading of 1000.0. '*' denotes the position of your machine on this graph, and '!' indicates the position of your coprocessor, if you have one installed. Speed readings are mostly based on simple arithmetic (and on calling a simple BIOS dummy routine) - for the CPU, integer addition; and for the NCP, double-precision addition (which, if a coprocessor is present, is done exclusively by the coprocessor, not SPC's floating point emulator). The CPU speed index closely follows the Norton scale up to about 10.0, and then linearly increases for faster machines after that. Above AT-level readings, the Norton scale actually tends to level off to a maximum value of about 40 - for which reason, the Norton Index is a very poor measure of calculation efficiency for machines in the 386 or better class. At the end of the Speed graph line appears a readout for current Environment space usage in bytes. The RAM memory map lines show which removable TSR's are in conventional memory and their size, exclusive of environment and data segments associated with each program. For a more detailed report, use Kim Kokkonen's MAPMEM program, or the MEM command in DOS 5. The new RAM memory map is intended primarily as a guide for mark/release procedures and primarily for users of DOS 4 and DOS 5 who wish to avoid typing multiple commands just to get all the information that could be quickly displayed in one screen. For speed, SPC 5.6 uses the fact that, beginning with DOS 4, the name of a resident program appears in its main PSP, rather than merely in the Environment segment, and so can be retrieved in one pass. In more detailed memory maps designed to fully support DOS 3, multiple passes and lookups are needed to get all the information, and so reduces execution speed. At DOS 3 level, SPC 5.6 does not report the names of the resident programs, only their sizes. However, few people still use DOS 3 anymore. The Memory Line shows the status of the following, left to right: DOS Verify status (shows VER if set), whether DOS SHARE is resident, type of Local Area Network installed or type of multitasker in use, the total amount of normal RAM and the amount free in bytes, the total amount of available Extended memory in thousands of bytes, the EMS version number, total EMS memory in thousands, the amount free, and finally, the number of EMS handles in use. The message 'No expanded memory' replaces the latter fields if no EMS is present. The columnar reports are fairly self-explanatory, since each statistic is headed by a title. A few notes should be added. - SPC detects networks and multitasking for specific operational reasons, which have been found to affect displays and accuracy of other data. For example, SPC distinguishes SUBSTed and DUPlicate drive reporting in order to determine how individual drive statistics should be added to form the totals at the bottom of the display. Since network drives are always defined during net configuration as redirected drives, a default display in a network environment used to flag many drives falsely as being SUBSTed, and so refuse to add them into the totals at the bottom. Thus, the purpose of network detection is to enable SPC to determine whether the environment is such that exclusions from the totals should be made by means of a test for duplicate, rather than SUBSTed, drives. SPC supports detection of PC LAN, MS/LANtastic/3Com, and NOVELL netware. SPC interrogates multitasking for a different but also practical reason: Some tests run by SPC would in fact interfere with other tasks in a multitasking environment, were it not for the fact that SPC turns multitasking off just long enough to complete these tests (usually not more than one tick of the computer's clock). This is one of the reasons why it is possible to obtain relatively stable speed readings in multitasking environments. SPC supports detection of Desqview (DV) and DoubleDos (DDOS). - As in the memory line, the drive report uses decimal notation, not mixed decimal/binary. Drive space appears in millions of bytes, not thousands of "K". If a drive has more clusters than 65534, SPC will label it as having 'UNDEF' status. Typically, CDROM drives will fall into this category. To eliminate UNDEF drives from totals, use the U command line option (the default is to include them). Other SPC drive status indicators are BOOT, CSPEC, DUP, and SUBST, each of which should be self-explanatory. - The value of LASTDRIVE in CONFIG.SYS (or DOS's default) is found at the ends of the bottom Totals line. ---------------------- End of documentation