Night Owl 9/Night Owl CD-ROM (NOPV9) (Night Owl Publisher) (1993).ISO/015a/sw200mar.zip/README.1ST

Text File | 1993-05-12 | 13KB | 460 lines

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                        Stop Watch version 2.00

                      A DOS utility to time events









                         Table of Contents for
                            Stop Watch (SW):

 A    Support for Stop Watch
 B    Introduction to Stop Watch
 C    How to use Stop Watch
 D    Stop Watch Help screen
 E    Advantages of Stop Watch
 F    Results from Stop Watch
 G    Required Files
 H    Possible problems with Stop Watch
 I    Corrective Action with possible problems
 J    About Stop Watch
 K    The way Stop Watch works
 L    Measured Results for Crystal
 M    Graph of Crystal
 N    The DOS Tick
 O    Limits Explained
 P    Disclaimer
 Q    Credits for Stop Watch



┌─┬────────────────────────────┐
│A│▒▒ Support for Stop Watch ▒▒│
└─┴────────────────────────────┘
  Please remember that Stop Watch 2.00 is not free software.  Stop Watch is
  Shareware.  If you continue to use Stop Watch beyond the 21 day trial,
  you must purchase Stop Watch.

  Support and encourage your shareware programmer by sending:

                                $4.00

  to:                ╔═══════════════════════════╗
                     ║        Marco Ramos        ║
                     ║  3073 North Service Road  ║
                     ║ Burlington Ontario Canada ║
                     ║          L7N 3G1          ║
                     ╚═══════════════════════════╝

  Supporters of Stop Watch 2.00 will be entitled to:
        1) Make requests for other DOS utilities, by Marco Ramos.
        2) Make suggestion for enhancing Stop Watch 2.0


┌─┬────────────────────────────────┐
│B│▒▒ Introduction to Stop Watch ▒▒│
└─┴────────────────────────────────┘

  Stop Watch (SW.exe) is a DOS utility to time events.

  SW is accurate to:              1.0    DOS Tick or roughly:

                               1/18.2    Second or about
                                 54.9    Milli Seconds or
                                  0.0549 Seconds




  SW maximum limits:        2,147,483    DOS Ticks or about:

                              117,993.57 Seconds
                                1,966.56 Minutes
                                   32.78 Hours
                                    1.37 Days


┌─┬───────────────────────────┐
│C│▒▒ How to use Stop Watch ▒▒│
└─┴───────────────────────────┘

  Issue the SW command first followed by your usual DOS command,
  to a maximum of 128 characters.

  SW command [parameters] [switches]
    Examples:
                SW VER
                SW CLS
                SW DIR
                SW DEL *.BAT
                SW COPY C:\TEMP\*.* D:\TEMP /V
                SW CHKDSK
                SW CHKDSK D:
                SW XCOPY C:\TEMP\*.* D:\TEMP /S/E/V
                SW WP.EXE
                SW MENU.BAT
                SW <enter>  then type  EXIT <enter>  at DOS prompt.
                SW ?


┌─┬────────────────────────────┐
│D│▒▒ Stop Watch Help screen ▒▒│
└─┴────────────────────────────┘

  There are 6 ways to display Help for Stop Watch 2.0

        SW ?
        SW h
        SW H

        SW /?
        SW /h
        SW /H










┌─┬──────────────────────────────┐
│E│▒▒ Advantages of Stop Watch ▒▒│
└─┴──────────────────────────────┘

        1) Displays results in two formats:
                - Seconds and
                - Minutes & Seconds

        2) Pass up to 128 characters as parameters

        3) Automatically exits TSR mode  ie.  SW ver

        4) Manually exits TSR mode       ie.  SW <enter>, then type
                                              EXIT <enter>

        6) Times internal DOS commands, like (DIR, COPY, CLS)

        7) Times external DOS commands, like (CHKDSK, XCOPY)

        8) Times programs   .COM   .EXE   .BAT



┌─┬─────────────────────────────┐
│F│▒▒ Results from Stop Watch ▒▒│
└─┴─────────────────────────────┘
        For example, at the DOS Prompt you type in   SW CHKDSK D:


  41906176 bytes total disk space
      2048 bytes in 1 hidden files
    190464 bytes in 88 directories
  35213312 bytes in 1421 user files
   6500352 bytes available on disk

      2048 bytes in each allocation unit
     20462 total allocation units on disk
      3174 available allocation units on disk

    655360 total bytes memory
    598336 bytes free

Stop Watch     rev. 2.00                                     0.65 Second(s) or
Marco Ramos (c) May 1993                        0 Minute(s)  0.65 Second(s)


┌─┬────────────────────┐
│G│▒▒ Required Files ▒▒│
└─┴────────────────────┘

  SW200MAR.ZIP
  │ │  │   └──── pkZIP compression utility 2.04G
  │ │  └──────── MARco ramos - programmer
  │ └─────────── version 2.00
  └───────────── Stop Watch


  The 'zipped' or compressed file will contain:

        README   1ST   This ASCII file/manual.
        SW       C     Source listing of  C  program.
        FILE_ID  DIZ   ASCII file, BBS file description.
        SW       EXE   Stop Watch executable.
        DISCLAIM TXT   ASCII file for Disclaimer.
        SHAREWAR TXT   ASCII file describing Shareware.
        SUPPORT  TXT   ASCII file for asking for $4.00
        SYSOP    TXT   ASCII file for System Operators of BBS.


┌─┬───────────────────────────────────────┐
│H│▒▒ Possible problems with Stop Watch ▒▒│
└─┴───────────────────────────────────────┘

  None.  Stop Watch (SW.exe) works GREAT !!!

  So if there are any odd things happening then, it must be the
  the other persons TSR (Terminate & Stay Resident) program or the
  other persons Device Driver.    < ha! >

                  Well, if you want another story.....

  SW has on occasion come up with negative numbers, like:

                                                            -0.65 Second(s) or
                                                0 Minute(s) -0.65 Second(s)


  But this was later traced to the Executable say (XXX.exe) .
  XXX.exe actually changed the DOS time stamp!  See next screen.



┌─┬──────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│I│▒▒ Corrective Action with possible problems ▒▒│
└─┴──────────────────────────────────────────────┘

  Action:

  If you get SW.exe with a negative number, then try:

        1) Writing the following batch file, with MS-DOS 5.0

        2) This will isolate the executable  XXX.exe  that is
           changing the DOS time stamp and NOT SW.exe

                @Echo Off
                Echo. | Time > C:\Temp\TimeTest.Txt
                XXX.exe
                Echo. | Time >> C:\Temp\TimeTest.Txt

        3) Note the start & stop times in TimeTest.Txt




┌─┬──────────────────────┐
│J│▒▒ About Stop Watch ▒▒│
└─┴──────────────────────┘

  One fine day David ask Marco for a simple program to time events.
  Marco was new to programming with  C  and happily took up the challenge.

  Stop Watch (SW.exe) is Written in  C  using Borland 3.1 libraries.

  SW Revision 1.00 thru 1.03 where never released publicly.  They
  where our experimental versions.  We added more features, like:

        - Passing more than 1 parameter to SW
        - Compiling with different Memory Model (Tiny, Small, Large, Huge)

  SW rev. 2.00 was complied using Borland 3.1 C++ large memory model.







┌─┬──────────────────────────────┐
│K│▒▒ The way Stop Watch works ▒▒│
└─┴──────────────────────────────┘

  1) Stores DOS time into a variable called start_time

  2) Reloads Command.com (as a 2nd command processor)

  3) Are there any parameters being passed to Stop Watch (SW) ?

    If Yes, then executes parameters passed under the 2nd command processor,
      then automatically exits the 2nd command processor,
      then SW stores DOS time into a variable called stop_time,
      then calculates and displays the elapsed time.

    If No, then executes parameters typed under the 2nd command processor,
      then manually exit the 2nd command processor by typing  EXIT
      then SW stores DOS time into a variable called stop_time,
      then calculates and displays the elapsed time.




┌─┬──────────────────────────────────┐
│L│▒▒ Measured Results for Crystal ▒▒│
└─┴──────────────────────────────────┘

                          14.31818MHz Crystal
               from an IBM compatible 80386 motherboard:

                                 ┌───┐
                                 │   │  14.31818 MHz Crystal
                                ┌┘   └┐
                                └┬───┬┘

                ┌─────────────┬────────────────┬───────────┐
                │ Rated Speed │ Measured Speed │   Error   │
                │     MHz     │       MHz      │           │
                ├─────────────┼────────────────┼───────────┤
                │  14.31818   │    14.3183     │  0.0008%  │
                └─────────────┴────────────────┴───────────┘
  Crystal Output:        · Sinusoidal Waveform
                         · 2.5 Volts Peak
                         · 5.0 Volts Peak to Peak


┌─┬──────────────────────┐
│M│▒▒ Graph of Crystal ▒▒│
└─┴──────────────────────┘


                          14.3183 MHz Crystal
               from an IBM compatible 80386 motherboard:


         Volts  +2.5    │   * *
                        │  *   *
                        │ *     *
                        │*       *
                 0.0 ───*─────────*─────────*────   Time (nano Seconds)
                        │          *       *
                        │           *     *
                        │            *   *
                -2.5    │             * *

                                            
                        └─────── 69.84 ──────┘


┌─┬──────────────────┐
│N│▒▒ The DOS Tick ▒▒│
└─┴──────────────────┘

                         18.20 DOS Ticks/second
                      1 DOS Tick = 0.0549 Seconds

  SW is based on the DOS clock and the DOS clock is based on a crystal:
  Note the crystal on the mother board is rated at 14.31818 MHz.

        14.31818 MHz = 14,318,180 Hertz, then divide by 3

         4.77272 MHz =  4,772,727 Hertz, (Remember the old XT speed !)
                                         Now divide by 4

                                         Now divide by 65,536 = 2^16

        18.20651 Hz  which is approximated to:

                         18.20 DOS Ticks/second



┌─┬──────────────────────┐
│O│▒▒ Limits Explained ▒▒│
└─┴──────────────────────┘

  SW maximum limits = 2,147,483 DOS Ticks (over 32 hours).

  Too save on memory usage, (about 20KB versus 80KB) we chose to use
  integers versus floating point.  Thus we have the maximum register size of:

                        2^31 = 2,147,483,648 then divide by 1,000
                             = 2,147,483.


  Why divide by 1,000 ?
    Because we chose to use intergers.
    Stop Watch counts the DOS ticks and divides by 182 instead of 18.20,
    thus a factor of 10.  And we chose to display 2 numbers after the
    decimal point, thus, a factor of 100.
  Thus, a factor of 10 x 100 = 1,000




┌─┬────────────────┐
│P│▒▒ Disclaimer ▒▒│
└─┴────────────────┘

                         DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY


                Stop Watch is sold without any expressed
                   or implied warranties whatsoever.


                    The user assumes the entire risk
                         of using this program.


               The programmer and any assistants will not
                be held liable for any damages direct or
         consequential, caused through the use of this program.





┌─┬────────────────────────────┐
│Q│▒▒ Credits for Stop Watch ▒▒│
└─┴────────────────────────────┘






                           Programmer:  Marco Ramos

                 Assistant Programmer:  Scott Mitchell

            Technical Writer / Tester:  David Wilson C.E.T.















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           ▀▀▀▀   ▀   ▀▀▀▀▀ ▀          ▀▀▀▀▀ ▀   ▀   ▀   ▀▀▀▀ ▀  ▀
                        Stop Watch version 2.00








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