Night Owl 9/Night Owl CD-ROM (NOPV9) (Night Owl Publisher) (1993).ISO/015a/spc58.zip/SPC.DOC

Text File | 1993-05-04 | 15KB | 279 lines

                               SPC 5.8

                     Integrated equipment utility

                                  by
                               Bob Eyer
                             [73230,2620]

                              May 4, 1993

     ┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
     │                                                                │
     │     Like  the  idea  of a BBS program that works at a basic    │
     │     level with no configuration  at  all--a  miniature  BBS    │
     │     which  can  be  made  as sophisticated as you like, but    │
     │     which can be run as a simple utility if you forget  how    │
     │     to use it?  Try HOSP.  Lots of people like it.  And you    │
     │     can  have  a  copy  for  only  $25 (the basic shareware    │
     │     charge plus $5).  That contribution pays  for  HOSP  as    │
     │     well as some four dozen plus additional utilities, many    │
     │     of  which  cover  territory nowhere else reviewed.  See    │
     │     SHARE.TXT for details.  For preview,  try  most  recent    │
     │     version  of  HOST  in  Library 1 of Compuserve's IBMBBS    │
     │     Forum.  (Search for MINIATURE in Lib 1)                    │
     │                                                                │
     └────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

     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.

     Fuller  documentation  is  available  on  request,  if   you   are
     registering SPC specifically.


     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

     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  is  in
     the DOS path at the host).

┌ Sunday 04-02-1993  18:49:29 ────────────────────────────── SPC 5.8  ┐
│ 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 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.  SPC does not provide a memory map
     for versions lower than DOS 4.

     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