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Text File | 1990-05-21 | 29KB | 644 lines

_______ ____|__ | (tm) --| | |------------------- | ____|__ | Association of tm | | |_| Shareware VMiX 386 Version 2.25 |__| o | Professionals ----------------------- -----| | |--------------------- |___|___| MEMBER Copyright (c) 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 Commercial Software Associates Post Office Box 185 Corona del Mar, California 92625 BBS (714) 721-1228 (24 Hrs.) VOICE (714) 721-9953 (8 - 6pm PDT) Version of Oct. 22, 1989 1. This is the first non BETA release of VMiX. VMiX now works on the IBM PS/2 and COMPAQ 386 SX. 2. VMiX now supports ESDI fixed disk systems. 3. Made some more fixes related to DOS 4.01 multitasking. Reduced resident memory size by 8Kbytes. The VMiX prompt now displays the current directory. 4. In 386 mode, the Shift-Tab key now works when MicroSoft Windows is executing under VMiX. 5. When a program executing as a VMiX task first uses a COMM port, the port is automatically assigned to that process id. The port is only deassigned when the VMiX task is 'quit', not when the program terminates. This allows the preemptive scheduler to service communications faster by switching-in the owner program of a COMM port when I/O is detected. VMiX Release 2.22 Notes ----------------------- 1. Fixed a major bug which caused VMiX to crash on any 386 AT with more than 3 Megabytes of extended memory. 2. Added code for IBM PS/2 support, but VMiX is still not fully working on PS/2s. 3. VMiX now relocates portions of its system code to extended memory. More code will be moved in future releases, to allow larger DOS partition sizes. The VMiX start-up program 'VM_BOOT' has a new command line switch that controls relocation of VMiX to extended memory. Starting VMiX with VM_BOOT -l (lower case 'L') will inhibit relocation of portions of VMiX to extended memory. 4. Fixed a bug with the 286 mode 'swap' command, which had stopped working correctly in the previous release. VMiX Release 2.21 Notes ----------------------- 1. Fixed a bug that left the clock running fast, after exiting VMiX. 2. The <Shift> <Tab> hot key will now swap screens between graphics mode tasks and alphanumeric mode tasks. Also, tasks using different video pages will be switched correctly. This affects only tasks that were started with the 'dosjob -W' (full screen) command. The hot key is now handled by the event manager. VMiX Release 2.20 Notes ----------------------- 1. More DOS 4.01 fixes. 2. Communications support fixes in 80386 protected mode. Higher baud rates now supported. 3. The VMiX clock tick has been changed from 55msec (18.2 task switches per second) to 11msec (90.9 task switches per second). A new command, 'set system -c ????' will allow you to tune your multitasking environ- ment for maximum efficiency. The command specifies the number of clock ticks a running task is guarranteed to be active before preemption. VMiX Release 2.11 Notes ----------------------- 1. 80386 mode bug fixes. Smaller process control block. 2. The VMiX start-up program 'VM_BOOT' has two new command line switches that control the mode the program runs. Using VM_BOOT -r, will force VMiX into real (8086) mode and using VM_BOOT -x, will force VMiX into extended (80286) mode. These 2 command line switches, disable 80386 protected mode operations. (Useful for getting around compatibility problems, on certain computers.) 3. Version 2.11 will operate with DOS 4.01. Since DOS 4.01 can be set to use extended memory, conflicts can arise. VMiX must be told how much extended memory other programs are using (see 'assign memory'). VMiX Release 2.10 Notes ----------------------- 1. VMiX 386 replaces the older 286 versions. The new 386 version will still work on 8088, 8086, and 80286 computers that are IBM PC or AT compatible. Version 2.10 executes in protected mode with extended memory paging on 80386 processors. This allows multiple DOS partitions, each with about 450Kb free. 2. Fixed a bug with channels assigned to a printer (CHRSINK type). When DOS console output was redirected to a task, with a CHRSINK type as its STDIO, line feeds were not being printed. assign CHRSINK 1 (returns a channel ???? for LPT1) spawn -c ???? type myfile.txt (performs redirection to LPT1) The above sequence of VMiX commands will now successfully redirect the dos 'type' command to LPT1: This method is recommended over 'exec type myfile.txt > PRN' when multitasking. 3. When using VMiX in 80386 mode, the memory partition size is set auto- matically to 512Kb, at boot time. If you use the command 'exec -m' to set a partition size less than 512Kb, VMiX will not request extended memory for new task partitions until you issue 'exec -m512' again. When the partition size is less than 512Kb, VMiX uses memory from the parent process for the new task (same as 8088 and 80286 mode). If you have less than 512Kb of extended memory, the partition size must still be 512Kb or more, in 80386's, VMiX will only use what is available. The default partition size for all other VMiX modes remains 224Kb. 4. The new '?' command, lists the available VMiX shell commands. The 'set dos -m' command has been removed, since the VMiX shell is now always transparent to DOS commands. MSDOS commands are passed to 'command.com' and VMiX commands are passed to VMiX. If the name of a VMiX command conflicts with an MSDOS command or file name, the VMiX 'exec' command should preced the DOS command, on the same line. 5. The new command 'examine status' displays information about a task, including available memory. Other memory status commands include 'examine mcb' and 'monitor -p'. VMiX Release 1.55 Notes ----------------------- 1. Added support for Wordperfect 4.X form a VMiX terminal. WP will now work correctly via a COMM port. WP provides the command Ctl-F3 to set up a window less than 25 lines. On a terminal you must set up a WP window of 23 or less lines to operate within VMiX. Press Ctl-F to enable function key terminal emulation, then press the tilde key `, the equivalent of Ctl-F3 and set the WP window size. This will allow WP's row/column display to operate without disturbing the screen. 2. Reduced the length of time interrupts remain disabled during a task switch or MSDOS function call. This allows VMiX to run communication programs performing data transfers at up to 9600bps, with more than one task active on a 16MHz PC. VMiX Release 1.52 Notes ----------------------- 1. Reduced the memory size of VMiX by 6Kb in preparation for VMiX 386. 2. Added an ANSI type to the list of terminals supported. If you select an ANSI terminal mode for your COMM port user 'set term -t5', then ANSI characters and ANSI graphic characters will display correctly at the terminal. Your communications parameters must specify an 8 bit word size and no parity. 3. The VMiX 'set video -s' status line toggle will no longer display disk access errors, if they occur. This reduced the size of VMiX by 1K. 4. A small version of VMiX 1.52sml is now included on a separate archive. This version uses 18k bytes less than the big version. The small version DOES NOT support bit mapped graphics, only alphanumeric video modes. Tasks can still invoke bit mapped CGA, EGA, VGA graphic modes, but VMiX will not be able to confine them to windows. The VMiX status line 'set video -s' is not available in the small version. 5. Added an unsupported utility OUTSIDE.EXE. This utility can be used with bbs software to exit via the modem to a VMiX shell. The syntax is: outside [-c ????] where ???? is the COMM port (default is COM1) VMiX Release 1.51 Notes ----------------------- 1. Added ANSI.SYS support to VMiX windows. Scrolling should now behave correctly. 2. Added VMiX internal printer support. In VMiX, printer devices are of type CHRSINK. You can now assign a channel to a CHRSINK at LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3 (1,2,3) and spawn any task to that channel, for example: 'spawn -c ???? type myfile.doc'. Where ???? is the channel number returned by the 'assign CHRSINK' command. Printers are still accessible using DOS, from within VMiX. 3. From a terminal, the <Ctrl><F> key (toggle IBM function key emulation) no longer echoes to the screen, so it can be used in the middle of a command. 4. VMiX is now VGA compatible, in VGA native mode. There is no longer a need to set your VGA to emulate EGA or disable enhanced features. 5. VMiX will no longer run out of memory after one 'exec' or 'dosjob' command, if you forget to assign a maximum partition size (with 'exec -m ????'), or have not swapped the single executing task to extended memory. The default memory partition size is now set to 224K. You might want to override this dynamically, so that all your tasks do not use the same partition size, otherwise you will run out of memory rather quickly. 6. The command 'do .' will start a new DOS command.com shell, automatically. 7. Fixed a bug with 'exec -m ????' which did not protect partition limits when two or more tasks finished at nearly the same time and a third is started. This command now compresses available memory to a single DOS allocation memory block (garbage collection). 'exec -m ????' can now be used repeatedly, without problems. 8. Fixed a bug with COMM port initialization, which would occasionally hang the start-up sequence of VMiX. This would only occurr if COM1 had a device attached. VMiX Release 1.50 Notes ----------------------- 1. Moved most of the debugger shell command 'examine' to an external utility named MONITOR.EXE. This freed more memory for the VMiX kernel, and frees more memory for those users that do not use the old 'examine' functions. OLD NEW ---------------- ------------------ exam mem exec monitor -m exam pool exec monitor -p exam process ???? exec monitor ???? exam process -r ???? exec monitor -r ???? C Source code for ALL utilities is still included! 2. Introduced the VMiX Window Manager utility VW.EXE. This utility provides easy-to-use pull-down menus and pop-up windows to enhance the VMiX command shell. Exit from the utility or pull-down menu is with the <Esc> key. Menu selection is by either keyboard selection of capitalized menu letter or by the use of the keyboard ARROWS and <Enter> key. Start VMiX with: A> vm_boot exec vw or invoke vw from within a VMiX window or terminal with 'exec' or 'dosjob', just like any other program. From a terminal to use VW.EXE, press <Ctrl><F> to toggle function key emulation ON, then backspace becomes left arrow, <Ctrl><J> and <Ctrl><K> are down arrow and up arrow, respectively. The capabilities of this utility are not yet complete. 3. Terminal function key emulation mode (enabled by pressing <Ctrl><F> from the terminal user keyboard) now supports Alt-F1 thru Alt-F10 emulation by pressing <Shift> and the digit corresponding to the function key number. NOTE: the shifted symbols above the numeric keys must correspond to those at an IBM keyboard, for the digits to match the function keys. The IBM keypad [PgUp] and [PgDn] are now emulated after <Ctrl><F> by the <-> and <+> terminal keys. 4. Expanded the number of functions available to the external programmer. The VMiX Application Programming Interface resides in the files SYSGATE.ASM and SYSGATE.OBJ. 5. Added a software simulated cursor to VMiX graphic modes. 6. DPATH.EXE, program to set data file serach paths from inside VMiX, has been fixed. It was not working correctly in version 1.41 VMiX Release 1.41 Notes ----------------------- 1. Added the extended memory 'swap' command. A process can be swapped out of conventional memory to high memory, where it will remain suspended until swapped back. Swapped processes need not be suspended. They can also be multitasked, if the scheduler is set to allow this, with the 'set system -s' command. The present extended memory swapper is not yet perfect. Recommend use caution only when more than 1 of several currently active VMiX tasks is in a swapped state AND 'set system -s' is ON. Swapping when 'set system -s' is FALSE (manual task switching) is fine with more than one task in a swapped state. Type 'set system' and VMiX will display the state of all system flags. Extended memory can be reserved for other uses, like caches, etc., so that VMiX swapping will not interfere. Use the 'assign memory' command, before any swapping, to assign extended memory above 1 MegByte in 64k blocks. 2. Added the 'set dos -m' command. This command makes the VMiX shell emulate the MSDOS shell, making the 'exec' prefix unnecessary for MSDOS commands. 3. VMiX multitasking is now faster by a factor as high as 100%. An I/O idle process does not waste execution cycles, as before. 4. The 'set debug' command has been renamed 'set system', a more appropriate name. 5. The cursor will now blink in the active window, after a <Shift><Tab> window switch. 6. The 'examine process' and 'examine pool' commands have been moved out of the VMiX debugger shell and are now performed by the utility MONITOR.EXE. This allowed the size of VMiX to remain 123k bytes. 7. Debygger shell commands can now be executed from the root shell directly, without preceding them with the token 'debug'. 8. When executing a program that uses a COMM port, make sure VMiX is not configured to accept logins at the same port, by using the 'set remote -l ????' command, where ???? represents a non-interfering port (1, 2, 3, or 4). VMiX Release 1.33 Notes ----------------------- 1. Fixed a bug in EGA video modes (13, 14, and 16) which froze the screen during scroll. 2. Expanded the terminal function key emulation mode (enabled by pressing <Ctrl><F> from the terminal user keyboard) to allow the <Shift> key to emulate the IBM PC <Alt> key during Alt-Char sequences. 3. Corrected the interface to MSDOS commands ('exec' and 'dosjob'). You can now have 2 or more processes doing 'dir' or 'type' style DOS commands at the same time. 4. Added the debugger command 'set process -h' to toggle granting hardware priviledge to a user process. Normally, programs do not have the priviledge to change the console video mode. With hardware priviledge they will be able to change the video mode. The previous video mode is restored upon program exit. 5. From a terminal, <Ctrl><S> to pause and <Ctrl><C> to abort, now work better. 6. The debugger command 'examine process -m ????' will now update correctly the (-m) monitored process code segment, flags, and instruction pointer registers. VMiX Release 1.32 Notes ----------------------- 1. Added Enhanced (8 x 14) font for EGA, VMiX video mode 16. This font, like all VMiX fonts, can be used with any of the graphics modes (4, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, and 16). to set EGA 640 x 350 graphics mode use 'set video -m16' to set Enhanced font use 'set font -t2' 2. The default console start-up mode is now video mode 3, alphanumeric text. 3. The VMiX status line will now display correctly on MDA, CGA, EGA, or VGA video controllers for all video modes supported. On CGA the status line still displays at line 26, on all others it displays at line 25. 4. Added security to the 'kill' command. root and su (super user) can still kill any process, other shells are only allowed to kill processes they own. 5. 'su' is now a reserved login name for a non-console super user with root privilege. 6. The new root shell command 'rshell' will start or nest a new VMiX shell. This will eventually allow a remote session to be started on another PC running VMiX. For now, a nested shell can be started with the command 'rshell' or a separate concurrent shell can be started with the command 'dosjob /rshell'. All rshell's presently execute at the host PC, only. 7. Fixed a bug which caused the system to freeze when processes were deallocated in a different order than that in which they started. Memory deallocation is now done correctly. 8. The 'dosjob' command can now be used with the optional '-W' (upper case) argument. This option will start the new process with access to the FULL screen, not in a window. Useful for programs that by-pass the video ROM. Other tasks, already in screen windows will be overwritten, but will still be there when you switch the keyboard to them by pressing <Shift> <Tab>. The screen is not saved, unless the application itself is using a different active video page. Pressing <Shift> <Tab>, to switch the keyboard to a different dosjob task, however, will switch the active video page to the one in use by the keyboard-active task. 9. VMiX now displays its kernel start-up sequence and configuration. 10. The first line of the display is now available to other programs. 11. A type of semaphore called interlocks is now being used to implement inter-process communications in VMiX. 12. The 'exec path =' command will now set the path correctly and 'exec path' will display the current path. The command syntax is: exec path[=][path specification] 13. The console, when windowed, now handles scrolling and clipped areas somewhat different. 14. A new version of DPATH.EXE is included. This program, like PS.EXE and DSTAT.EXE, uses the VMiX Application Programming Interface. Therefore, it will only execute from within VMiX. 'exec dpath' allows the user to specify the search path for DATA files, in the same way 'exec path' sets the search path for executable files. dpath provides additional options, use 'exec dpath -h' to display dpath help information. The command syntax is: exec dpath[=][path specification] [options] 15. VMiX can now start multiple 'dosjob' tasks from its command line. VMiX Release 1.31 Notes ----------------------- 1. Rewrite of VMiX for new compiler. 2. Corrected a Version 1.22 bug with BASIC, BASICA, and Microsoft WINDOWS. These should now execute correctly from within VMiX. No need to invoke these with the $$ prefix, programs receive protection automatically. 3. The shell command 'exec -l<size in K's>' has been replaced by the new command 'exec -m<size in K's>, where <size in K's> now refers to the maximum partition size a .COM or .EXE program can occupy (including data). The user can also use this command from the vm_boot command line. If your system has 640K memory then the command 'exec -m192' will only let programs take memory to a maximum of 196K each. If what you want to do is execute MSDOS commands, like 'exec type <filename>' or 'exec dir', then setting 'exec -m128' should provide enough memory for about 4 or 5 MSDOS shells. The command can be used as many times as needed to change the memory partition size before separate program starts. 4. The preemptive scheduler round-robin algorithm has been improved. The scheduler works in cunjunction with the command 'chprio' which will adjust the base priority of any process in the range (0 - 31 high). All VMiX processes start with the default priority of 4. Priorities adjust constantly in VMiX, within the range 2 thru the assigned base maximum. When you use 'chprio', you merely set the base maximum that the current priority of a process is allowed to float within. VMiX uses this float range, for example, to 'up' the priority of a process when the keyboard is pressed. Task switching also adjusts the current priority. A process with a base priority of 8 will execute twice as fast as another at 4, all other things being equal. A process with priority 1 will not execute at all. It will sleep until you up the priority to 2 or above. 5. The total maximum number of concurrent processes allowed has been reduced from 16 to 10 to conserve memory. 6. When VMiX detects a process using the MSDOS stack, it now saves the stack contents and some data areas of INT 21 to improve reentrancy during multitasking. 7. When VMiX returns from a 'dosjob' that has changed the video mode, it restores the video mode as it was before the 'dosjob' command. VMiX Release 1.22 Notes ----------------------- 1. VMiX will now attempt to release unused memory, taken by a .COM or .EXE program, when a second program requests memory space. VMiX can only release memory when none of the tasks have placed their stack at top memory. 2. Version 1.22 enhances the environment protection provided by the scheduler to multiple executing tasks. This prevents, to some degree, changes effected by one task to the system interrupt service routines from interferring with the interrupts expected by a second task. To request protection for a special program, precede the filename and PATH with the characters '$$'. Programs using protection will execute slower. Some programs like BASIC/BASICA and WINDOWS, automatically receive protection. The command syntax is: exec $$[drive:][path]filename or, dosjob $$[drive:][path]filename 3. The debugger shell command 'set process -m' has been replaced by 'set process -n' The 'm' has been changed to an 'n' for consistency. This command sets the maximum number of times that the MSDOS INT 21 System Service can be nested, before the next request is placed in wait. 4. The new debugger shell command 'set process -s' will toggle VMiX system environment protection (memory swapping) ON/OFF. 5. The Alt-w, hot key combination has been changed to Shift-Tab to reduce compatibility problems with other programs, and to conform with Windows 386 convention. 6. Added support for the EGA video modes. EGA mode 16 with VMiX font type 1 allows up to 58 screen lines. 7. Added more reentrant support to the MSDOS disk driver. This should allow for fewer situations where concurrent disk access by multiple tasks will crash the system. Precautions should still be taken, with frequent backups... 8. The debugger command 'examine process' has been expanded to include the switch '-m'. This command will continuously display a task's registers until the user presses the <Esc> key or <Ctrl> <Break>. The command syntax is: examine process [ -m ] [process id] 9. Since, presently, only one default current directory is maintained for all VMiX processes, the user must Set the PATH for all directories that will be used to locate executables. The utility DPATH has been added, so that you can also set the path for data files. It is recommended that both PATH and DPATH be done before running VMiX. (use 'DPATH /H' to display usage) VMiX Release 1.21 Notes ----------------------- 1. Fixed a problem with the console task switching hot key, Alt-w, which froze the keyboard, if pressed repeatedly or during disk i/o. 2. Added the command line switch '-r'. When VMiX is invoked with this switch (ie., vm_boot -r), the protected mode routines are not used, when executing VMiX in an 80286. VMiX will assume that the environment is an 8086 in real mode. This option allows VMiX to be used with some 286 compatibles, which can not run VMiX protected mode functions. The command syntax is: VM_BOOT [-r] [ [ command ] /... ] where the -r option forces 8088 (real mode) operation on 80286/386 cpu's. VMiX Release 1.20 Notes ----------------------- 1. Added enhanced multitasking support. The new token 'dosjob' is intended for multitasking, at the console or terminal. Up to four dosjob's can run comfortably in the background, within their own screen windows. 2. Added the switch '-W' to the debugger command 'set video'. Note that the switch is upper-case not '-w', which already exists. The console screen will be automatically partitioned into up to four windows by the new command, depending on the number of channels the user has assigned to the console. 3. Added the hot key, Alt-w, to move the keyboard from one windowed task to the next, in round-robin fashion. The active task controls and responds to the console keyboard. The remaining tasks still execute concurrently within their windows. Used in cunjunction with 'dosjob'. 4. Added a field to the console status line that indicates the current active keyboard channel. Note that channels 0 thru 4 are pre-assigned by VMiX, so additional assignments to the console, COMM = 0, will begin at channel 5. 5. Added extended buffering beyond 15 characters (now the default buffer size is 128, for the console keyboard). 6. A spawned channel will now be deassigned at process termination. Previously, ownership of the channel would revert to the father process. VMiX Release 1.16 Notes ----------------------- 1. Added support for VT-100 terminal emulation (VMiX terminal type 4). 2. In previous releases, MSDOS screen I/O was not conforming to VMiX window bounds, if the screen was in video mode 3, alphanumeric text. VMiX screen window bounds now override BIOS screen drivers in both hires graphics and alphanumeric text. With VT-100 terminal emulation and this fix, windows can now be created at a terminal. 3. Added support for COM3 and COM4 in conjunction with MSDOS 3.3. The debugger command 'set remote -l', can now be used with channels 1, 2, 3, and 4 (which correspond to COM1, COM2, COM3, and COM4). If the host does not have a COM3 or COM4, the command 'set remote -l3' will in effect disable all VMiX login polling, thus freeing COM1 and/or COM2 for exclusive use by applications (ie. a bulletin board, or other communications software). VMiX Release 1.15 Notes ----------------------- 1. Added the token 'kill' to the available root shell commands. It is now possible to terminate a remote login or executing image from a separate user/process. 2. A terminated or terminating shell will not clear the screen as in previous versions. A termination message is displayed, instead. 3. COM2 terminals are now respawn correctly after a logoff(quit). 4. The debugger 'set pool' command now allows full manipulation of MSDOS's and VMiX memory control blocks, including allocate/deallocate and PSP ownership. 5. The debugger 'set process' command now allows the user to set the allowed MSDOS INT 21h level of nesting, before a Wait-on-DOS trap is fired. 6. If debugger messages are enabled ('set debug -m'), a 'spawn' will display the process id (pid) of the new child process spawned. You will need the child's pid if you ever need to 'kill' the job. 7. Added the command line '&' operator. If a user puts an ampersand after a command, the shell does not wait for the command sequence to complete, but returns to the prompt line immediately. Consequently, the command is executed asynchronously as a background job. Use of ampersand assumes that what you want to execute in the background IS NOT interactive (will not require keyboard input). 8. The VMiX manual has been expanded. It now resides in file MANUAL.DOC within the distribution archive.