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COPYQM Quick Multiple Format/Copy/Verify For Diskettes Copyright 1987, 1988 Sydex. All Rights Reserved. Version 1.62, December, 1988 Sydex P.O. Box 5700 Eugene, OR 97405 (503) 683-6033 NOTICE THIS IS NOT FREE SOFTWARE and may not be sold without the author's express written permission. If you have paid a "public domain" vendor for this program, rest as- sured that not one bit of what you paid ever gets back to the author. If you use this program, YOU MUST REGISTER. Sydex will not answer technical support in- quiries from unregistered users. This document is protected by copyright. Any copying, adaptation, distribution, public performance or public display of this document without the express written consent of Sydex is strictly prohibited. The receipt or possession of this document does not convey any rights to reproduce or distribute its contents. Some of the terms used in this document are trademarks of the following firms: International Business Machines, Sony, Microsoft, Lotus Development Corp., Intel Corporation REGISTRATION INFORMATION The non-commercial single-user registration fee for COPYQM is $15.00 US. The commercial and multisystem site fee is $50.00 for COPYQM. Send a check or company P.O. for the appropriate amount to: SYDEX P.O. Box 5700 Eugene, OR 97405 Please indicate what product you are ordering and if you have a requirement for 3.5" media. We normally ship 5.25" 360K dis- kettes, but will furnish 3.5" 720K media upon request. DISTRIBUTION NOTICE This is "user-supported" software. You are hereby granted a license by Sydex to distribute this evaluation copy of COPYQM and its documentation, subject to the following conditions: 1. COPYQM may be distributed freely without charge in evalua- tion form only. 2. COPYQM may not be sold, licensed, or a fee charged for its use. If a fee is charged in connection with COPYQM, it must cover the cost of copying or dissemination only. Such charges must be clearly identified as such by the originat- ing party. Under no circumstances may the purchaser be given the impression that he is buying COPYQM itself. 3. COPYQM must be presented as a complete unit, including this documentation. COPYQM's documentation may be not amended or altered in any way. 4. In granting you the right to distribute the evaluation form of COPYQM, Sydex does not acknowledge you as the owner of COPYQM in any form. Any other use or distribution of COPYQM is expressly forbidden without the written consent of Sydex. WHAT IS COPYQM? COPYQM is a utility written to fit a distinct need for multiple copy production. Those with Formasters or other automatic duplication equipment are lucky - the rest of us usually have to suffer with FORMAT, DISKCOPY and DISKCOMP. Well, no longer. We now have COPYQM. COPYQM: * Reads all allocated tracks from a DOS diskette and saves the data in local memory. * Formats a blank diskette "only" on the allocated (used) tracks, copies the data from the original source, and verifies the copy. * Optionally formats the rest of the blank diskette. COPYQM uses a "Look Ma - no hands!" method where the PC keyboard is never used during the copy process; diskette changes are simply "sensed" by the program. A graphic display of what's going on makes for quick and easy operation. WHAT WON'T COPYQM DO? COPYQM will not handle non-DOS diskettes or DOS diskettes with copy protection. Nor will COPYQM handle master diskettes with errors, or diskettes formatted in non-standard formats. Other- wise, COPYQM will copy all standard IBM PC-DOS formats, provided that you have enough memory of some kind available to hold the data contained on the master. COPYQM requires a PC XT-, AT- or PS/2-compatible computer to run. It wil not work with the Tandy 2000, IBM PC Jr. or similar non- compatibles. GETTING STARTED... COPYQM reads all of the data from the master diskette and stores it away. If you're copying a relatively full 720K, 1.2M or 1.44M diskette, this means that you'll have to have some sort of additional memory available, be it EMS (expanded memory), ex- tended memory (on the PC-AT) or hard disk storage. 360K dis- kettes on a 512K PC usually will manage to fit all of the dis- kette data into available memory. To use COPYQM, enter a command of the following form at the DOS prompt: Page 1 COPYQM drive: drive: parameters Drive: is the name of a diskette drive or drives which will be used for the copy operation, for example A: or B:. If you have two or more drives and you want to alternate copies ("flip-flop") between the drives, you need to specify both drive names. The drives should be of the same type; that is, two 360K drives or two 1.2M drives, although COPYQM will do its best to accommodate itself to your configuration. Upper- and lower-case letters are treated as being equivalent by COPYQM. SPECIAL NOTE: If you have added an external drive which is not part of the normal drive sequence (A: or B:), and you use the DRIVER.SYS configuration file to provide ac- cess to it, you need to read this. Drives not part of the "base" configuration of your machine are specified by their physical drive number. For example, suppose you had installed a 720K 3.5" drive on your PC-XT clone's two present 360K drives. You probably added a statement like the following to your CONFIG.SYS file: DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS /D:2 COPYQM would be told about this drive by specifying it as drive "2:" (note the /D:2), rather than by the drive letter with which it is associated. Parameters refers to additional fields directing COPYQM to per- form certain special actions: Q specifies "Quick" copying. Suppose you wanted to copy a diskette which is only half filled with data. Nor- mally, COPYQM would copy this data and then format the remainder of the target diskette. "Quick" mode omits formatting the rest of the diskette, thereby saving time. However, since there will be no format pattern present on the resulting diskette, a surface copy will fail if you attempt to use DOS DISKCOPY to copy it. Similarly, any attempt to add data to the copy will fail with a diskette write error. However, a normal DOS file COPY will work just fine. "Quick" mode can save a lot of time copying diskettes which contain relatively little data, but keep in mind the aforemen- tioned restrictions on the resulting copy. E specifies that Expanded Memory should be used to hold data that will not fit into your computer's main memory area. Expanded memory is also referred to as EMS, EEMS, or LIM (Lotus/Intel/Microsoft). Do not confuse this with the additional memory present on an 80286 (AT class) machine. It is helpful to remember that the "E" stands for EMS. Page 2 X specifies that Extended Memory should be used to hold data that will not fit into your computer's main memory area. Extended memory is that 384K out of the 1 Megabyte space on your PC-AT that can't be used for normal program memory. As there is no formal mechanism to manage this memory, take care: If you have already allocated your Extended Memory for use as a RAM Disk or have used it for other purposes, COPYQM will not know this and will overwrite whatever you previously had placed there. H specifies that your hard disk should be used to hold data that will no longer fit into your computer's main memory area. You need to specify which disk will be used by placing the drive letter of this disk im- mediately after the "H" in this option. For example, HC specifies that data will be diverted to disk C: when memory is filled. The file used to hold COPYQM's data is created in the current directory and is deleted when COPYQM terminates. N specifies that no verification of the copied data is to be performed. This is one that we accept no respon- sibility for. Still, if you have a batch of unusually reliable diskettes and are willing to take a change, this will trim some of the time off of a copy opera- tion. # specifies that a "serial number" should be added. This is a rather specialized option, and is discussed in the section "Inserting Serial Numbers". If this option is specified, it must be the last on the command line. K specifies that a fixed number of copies should be made. The format of this parameter is: K number where number is an integer between 1 and 9,999. If the K option is present, COPYQM will produce the specified number of copies and then exit to DOS. Z specifies that the diskette controller density setting should not be changed. This option is useful on some computers with non-standard diskette controllers, such as the Toshiba T3100. V specifies that tracks formatted after the end of the data area should also be verified. This is useful if the disk will later be written to, rather than being used as a "read only" master. Page 3 It is possible to specify more than one type of "overflow" memory. COPYQM makes use of any specified additional memory in the following order: 1. Extended (X) Memory. 2. Expanded (E) Memory. 3. Hard disk (H) Storage. If you are copying 360K diskettes on a 640K machine, you will or- dinarily not need to specify any additional memory types. If COPYQM runs out of memory, a message will be displayed to that effect when the master diskette is read. Here are some examples of COPYQM command statements: COPYQM A: Copy, normal mode, use drive A: COPYQM A:B:Q Copy, quick mode, use drives A: and B: COPYQM 2:E Copy, use physical unit 2 and EMS COPYQM B:HC Copy, use B: and fixed disk C: COPYQM B:XEHC Same, but use EMS and Extended memory COPYQM A:B: K30 Copy, use A: and B:, make 30 copies If you are copying 360K diskettes on a 640K machine, you will or- dinarily not need to specify any additional memory types. If COPYQM runs out of memory, a message will be displayed to that effect when the master diskette is read. OPERATING COPYQM COPYQM uses a "no keyboard" style of copying. That is, COPYQM determines when a drive has had a diskette inserted or removed and proceeds with the copy operation when a diskette change is detected. The only time you need to touch the keyboard after you have entered the COPYQM command is to terminate operation of COPYQM with the ESCape key. COPYQM is sensitive to "changes" in diskette drive status. When you start COPYQM, you will need to insert the master diskette in the drive indicated by COPYQM, even though you may have already placed the master in the correct drive before entering the COPYQM command. Simply "popping" the diskette out and then in again will be sufficient. On 720K and 1.44M micro-floppies, you may need to write-enable the master diskette before COPYQM will notice it. COPYQM must have a "perfect" master diskette. That is, the master must contain no bad or unreadable sectors. Similarly, COPYQM produces "perfect" copies; that is, the copy will contain no bad sectors within the copied data. In the interest of speed, unused areas of the diskette are "not" verified. Page 4 Operation of COPYQM is simple and can usually be managed by non- technical personnel. COPYQM first prompts for the number of copies to be made. If the ESCape key is pressed, COPYQM will exit to DOS. Otherwise the number of copies to be made (from 1 to 9,999) is entered, fol- lowed by the ENTER key, and the COPYQM status display appears. In this display, COPYQM indicates graphically which drive is ac- tive and the outcome of each copy operation. Error messages are displayed in blinking text (bright red, if you have color) and a count is kept of the number of successful copies made. When either the requested number of copies has been made, or the ESCape key is pressed, COPYQM exits to the display requesting the number of copies to be made. Another number may be entered and another diskette may be copied. This process repeats until the ESCape key is depressed in answer to the copy quantity query. INSERTING SERIAL NUMBERS - THE # OPTION As mentioned above, COPYQM will insert a serial number into any sector already containing data on your copies. The master dis- kette is not affected. The serial numbering option is specified with the # option, which must be the last option on the COPYQM command line. The format of this option is: #SsssOoooLlll=string - or - #BSsssOoooLlll=string The second form is used to specify binary, rather than ASCII decimal increment arithmetic. The meaning of each field is as follows: sss specifies the relative sector on the diskette contain- ing the serial number. This number can range from 0 to the number of sectors on the diskette, minus 1. This number is exactly the same as the relative sector specified in a DOS DEBUG absolute sector read or write operation. Note, however, that is number is decimal. ooo specifies the offset within the sector containing the serial number. This number ranges from 0 to 511 and is also decimal. Page 5 lll specifies the length of the serial number field. This is a decimal number and it, plus the offset may not exceed 512 (the length of a DOS sector). string specifies the actual text of the serial number to be inserted. If longer than the specified length, it is truncated on the right. If shorter, it is padded with spaces on the right. This string may contain any printing characters and extends to the end of the COPYQM command line but does not include the final car- riage return. If specified simply as "?", a prompt for a serial number entry from the console is issued by COPYQM. After each copy is made by COPYQM, the serial number is incre- mented. If you've specified the ASCII decimal arithmetic form of the serial number (#SsssO... etc.), the operation affects only the NUMERIC characters in the number, and proceeds from right to left. Consider the following examples of ASCII incrementing: "1234" becomes "1235" "1239" becomes "1240" "123ABC9" becomes "124ABC0" "UGLY" remains "UGLY" If you've specified the binary arithmetic form of the serial num- ber (#BSsssO... etc.), the entire serial number field is treated as a multi-byte binary number. Consider the following examples of binary incrementing: Hex 0000 becomes 0001 Hex FFFF becomes 0000 Hex 34FF becomes 3500 The sector containing the serial number must be one of those copied by COPYQM. Unallocated sectors are not examined by COPYQM. The serial number sector is not examined for valid data or position; the serial number field is simply inserted where specified. During the process of copying with serial numbers, COPYQM dis- plays the serial number for the current copy. For example, the publisher for our commercial software uses COPYQM to mass-duplicate diskettes and put serial numbers on them. When we compile a program, we define a "special" serial number pattern in the source code. The Sydex utility ANADISK is then used to search for the number on our copy master diskette. From this information, we prepare a DOS batch file containing a COPYQM command. The serial number itself is always given as "?", so it can be entered from the keyboard. For example, our COPYQM statement looked like this: Page 6 COPYQM A: B: C: D: #S40O170L8=? MAINTAINING A SERIAL NUMBER LOG In some production situations, it is desirable to keep a record of all the serial numbers that have been issued. If a "?" is specified as a serial number, COPYQM will look for a file named SERIAL.NOS in the current (default) directory. If a file with is name is found, the last line in the file is used as the beginning serial number less one for the current session. At the conclu- sion of the COPYQM session, the will have the serial numbers of all copies produced appended to its end. If a pre-existing SERIAL.NOS file cannot be found, the operation of "?" as a serial number is as described in the preceding paragraphs. As an example, suppose COPYQM.COM is located on the hard disk, drive C:. Further, suppose that a copy operation involving drives A: and B: is to be done. An 8-digit serial number is to be inserted into sector 15, 10 bytes from the start of the sec- tor. Serial numbers are to begin with "00010100". We could use the following statements to do what is required: echo 00010100>SERIAL.NOS COPYQM A: B: #S15O10L8=? The file SERIAL.NOS would then contain a list of serial numbers reflecting the diskettes copied. After this point, every time COPYQM was executed, serial numbering would resume where it last left off. WHAT'S DIFFERENT IN 1.62 In COPYQM 1.62 we've added the "V", "Z" and "K" control statement parameters as well as the serial number logging capability. THE WISH LIST We are always happy to hear from you concerning suggestions to enhance our product's usability. COPYQM 1.62 reflects features requested by our users. Page 7 THE SYDEX PRODUCT LINE SHAREWARE CON->FORMAT - Concurrent "background" diskette formatter. Features "pop-up" operation and "hot key" activation. You've got to see it to believe. Supports all current DOS formats. $15.00 ($50.00 site) registration fee. 22DISK - Transfer files, format, examine and erase files on "foreign" CP/M diskettes on your PC. Includes tips on sup- porting 8" and 5.25" single-density diskettes. Contains definitions for over 200 different formats. $15.00 ($40.00 site) registration fee. 22NICE - A CP/M 2.2 emulation package. Supports the NEC V-series chips or performs emulation by software for both the 8080 and Z80 processors. Includes terminal emulation and diskette handling for common CP/M systems. Includes 22DISK. $30.00 ($75.00 site) registration fee. ANADISK - The compleat diskette utility. Nothing like it anywhere else; scan, edit, repair and copy just about any kind of diskette. $15.00 ($50.00 site) registration fee. TELEDISK - Turn any diskette into a compressed data file and vice-versa. Allows you to send and receive entire diskettes via modem. Even works with some "copy-protected" diskettes. $20.00 ($65.00 site) registration fee. COPYQM - Cheap diskette duplicator. Format, copy and verify multiple diskettes from a single master. Implements "no keyboard" interaction mode and drive "round robin" servic- ing. Supports all standard DOS formats. $15.00 ($50.00 site) registration fee. FORMATQM - Mass diskette formatter - format a box of dis- kettes at a single sitting. Implements "no keyboard" inter- action mode and drive "round robin" servicing. Supports all standard DOS formats. $10.00 ($40.00 site) registration fee. RETAIL SOFTWARE SIM-CGA Plus - Color Graphics Adapter simulation on monochrome (Hercules-compatible) graphics-equipped machines. Available from better software retailers and distributed by CSS, ABCO and American Software Distributors. SIM-EMS - Simulate Lotus/Intel/Microsoft Expanded Memory on PC-AT class machines. Conforms to EMS 4.0 specification. Distributed by CSS and ABCO. Page 8