home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
Fish 'n' More 1
/
FishNMoreVol1.bin
/
more
/
misc_utils
/
kramden
/
kramden.doc
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-10
|
11KB
|
321 lines
Kramden Utilities
=================
NOTE: These utilities can only be used from CLI. We have provided a
CLI Icon for your convenience on this disk.
v2.0 - 10-Sep-89
This is the latest installment of the Kramden Utilities. The original
release of these tools were inspired (if not directly ripped off) from a
certain set of hitherto unnamed MS-DOS utilities that have been known to
be real _life_savers_. This new release contains utilities that are
more of a departure from the original plan (i.e. to release a set of
tools similar to the MS-DOS tools) since they have no counterpart in the
MS-DOS world.
New for this version:
. new utilities
. Clk - yet another title bar clock (based on Mike Meyer's
mclk)
. Meter - yet another memory meter (sort of based on GfxMem)
. SetCon - allows you to modify a shell window's size,
position, and font.
. Stat - a system status utility that lists tasks, fonts,
libraries, devices, resources, etc.
. propaz.font - a proportional version of topaz.
. revisions to original Kramden utilities
. FF - new display modes
. SI - new information and format
. the correct spelling of Kramden (used to be Cramden) thanks to TV
Guide
All of the utilities use Arp release 3 (v39 of arp.library must be in
your LIBS: directory). If you don't have Arp release 3 you can probably
get it from wherever you got this file.
Utilities
=========
Clk - Title Bar Clock
---------------------
This program displays a clock in a window in the Workbench title bar
just to the left of the screen depth gadgets. It bases its position on
the actual size of the Workbench screen (for MoreRows users).
syntax:
Clk
This program is based on Mike Meyer's mclk program. It now
self-detaches and displays only date and time (memory display was
removed).
FF - Find Files
---------------
This utility is used to find files with a particular file name or pattern
in any directory on a disk.
syntax:
ff <filespec>... [Short|Quick]
<filespec> - any AmigaDOS (Arp actually) wild card pattern
Short - lists files like "Dir all"
Quick - makes a listings suitable for using with "Zoo aI"
examples:
ff
ff *.c
ff sys:*.info
ff include:#?.(h|i) *.[hi] quick
ff quick | zoo aI ram:foo
Example 1 lists all the files starting at the current directory and
proceeding through all subdirectories. Example 2 lists all files that
are suffixed by .c (like a.c, ff.c, etc) in the current directory and
all subdirectories. Example 3 finds all icon files on the volume named
"sys:". Example 4 lists all files suffixed .h or .i on include: and in
the current directory and all subdirectories respectively. This example
also shows a couple of Arp synonyms for AmigaDOS wild cards. Example 5
shows how to collect the contents of the current directory and all subs
into ram:foo.zoo. This example requires using a shell that supports
piping (like the Arp ASH).
NOTE: Real sorry about the name conflict between this and Charlie
Heath's FastFonts utility (now found on Workbench v1.3 disks). I don't
plan to change this since chances are you'll run this more frequently
than FastFonts. I therefore recommend that you rename the FastFonts
"FF" to "FastFonts" (and fix your startup-sequence) prior to installing
the Kramden FF in your command directory.
Meter - Memory Meter
--------------------
This memory meter displays a bar graph in a window in the upper left
corner of the Workbench screen.
syntax:
Meter
This program self-detaches. If propaz.font/8 is in the current FONTS:
directory, Meter will use it. Otherwise topaz.font/8 is used.
This program is sort of based on GfxMem but vastly improved (at least
from the code standpoint).
SetCon - Set Console
--------------------
This program allows the user to sets the dimensions and font used by a
shell console window.
syntax:
SetCon [left top width height] [Relative]
[Font name/size] [Report]
left, top, width, height
- New dimensions for the console window.
Relative - Indicates that dimensions specified are
relative to the current window dimensions.
Font name/size - Permits a new font to be used within the
console window (topaz.font/11 for example).
Report - Forces displaying the current console
settings. When no other arguments are
present, this happens by default.
examples:
SetCon - reports the current shell console settings
SetCon 0 20 328 80
- makes the shell console window a small window
in the upper left corner of the screen.
SetCon font topaz/11
- sets the current shell font to topaz.font/11.
The font management is sort of a kludge. The font opened by SetCon will
never be closed (use "Stat fonts" to see open count). If you place a
SetCon command in your shell-startup file that always use the same font,
this shortcoming won't cause much trouble since only one instance of the
font will reside in memory.
SI - System Info
----------------
This can be used to get a quick spec sheet on your Amiga. It tells you
things like operating system version number, 68xxx chips in your
machine, video mode, memory configuration, and computing performance
index (my favorite).
syntax:
si
The display sizes and pixel aspect ratio are printed X x Y and X:Y
respectively. The pixel aspect ratio is based on the Dot/Meter values
found in GfxBase and differ between NTSC and PAL machines. For NTSC
machines this value is 1:1.166 which means that the pixels are just a
little taller than they are wide.
The Maximum Display Size horizontal value might look a bit high (I get
466). According to the doc's on GfxBase (where this value comes from)
this value has to do with the dot clock and isn't terribly meaningful to
anyone else. This number is in lo-res such that comparing this value to
the normal lo-res screen width of 320 or overscan width of 352 gives an
estimate of the width of the horizontal blank area. This number changes
to a slightly more reasonable value with 1.4.
In the MS-DOS world the computing performance index is often used to
compare PC clones with one another. The Amiga version of SI contains
two performance index tests. The first is calculated using integer math
operations which is affected mainly by CPU & memory access speed. The
second is calculated using floating point math operations and is
therefore affected by all of the above and the presence of a math
coprocessor or periperal chip. For each test your Amiga is tested
against times for a stock Amiga 1000 (see below for actual benchmark
conditions) and a stock IBM/XT (the Integer test is the very same number
used in MS-DOS circles and is fairly accurate). Essentially these
numbers tell you how many times the computing power your computer has
over a stock Amiga 1000 and stock IBM/XT.
Disclaimers: The Floating Point test results relative to IBM/XT is an
approximation using similar (but not exact) code on an MS-DOS machine.
The reason that I couldn't duplicate the code is that this test on the
Amiga uses mathieeedoubbas.library which doesn't have any real
counterpart on my MS-DOS machine, so I had to rely on my MS-DOS C
compiler's math library to perform the operations. I have no way of
checking the relative efficiency in order to cancel it out of the
performance index.
Also the integer index is easily fooled by instruction caches such that
it will give a higher than accurate result for processors like a 68020
and 68030.
Be aware that the computing performance tests are VERY sensitive to your
current task loading. This is intentional. I could have Forbidden around
the timing code section, but this way you can see the effects of task
loading. If you've got a bunch of other stuff running on your Amiga at the
same time that you run SI, the performance of the task running SI will
probably be lower than if it had the whole machine to itself (depending on
relative task priorities). In fact, if you run SI in two different CLI's
with the same task priority, the performance index values returned should
be exactly half of the values obtained when only one instance is running.
Incidentally, if anyone knows how to detect things like Amiga model
number, or anything else that seems to be missing, please let me know.
Stat - System Status
--------------------
This program reports the contents of a number of system lists.
syntax:
stat [opts] [Sort|Pri] [CIA] [CLI] [Devs] [Fonts] [Libs]
[Misc] [Ports] [Res=Resources] [Sem=Semaphores] [Tasks]
opts - a list of single character shorthands for the other
status keywords (listed below).
Sort keywords:
Sort - lists are sorted by name.
Pri - lists are sorted by priority.
none - lists are sorted by address.
List keywords:
key opt report
--- --- ------
CIA CIA allocations
CLI c CLI's
Devs d Devices
Fonts f Fonts
Libs l Libraries
Misc misc.resource allocation
Ports p Public message ports
Resources r Resources
Semaphores s Semaphores
Tasks t Tasks
examples:
stat - displays CLI's
stat l - displays currently loaded libraries
stat t pri - displays task list sorted by priority
stat f sort - displays fonts sorted by name
Be careful using "stat t" during serial receives. It is necessary to
turn off interrupts while collecting the task list. This may cause the
serial.device to miss receiving a byte. The other status lists are
safe.
Revision History
================
v2.0 10-Sep-89
. added other utilities
. ff
. added Short and Quick display options
. si
. added ECS detection
v1.2 8-Sep-88 (internal release)
. ff
. File lengths of 0 now appear as Empty
. si
. Added MathIEEE.resource detection (thanks to Bill Coldwell of
Creative Microsystems, Inc for the suggestion and detection
code)
. Changed format of report
. Added memory list priority field
. Added floating point math benchmark (to show off your 68881
to your friends)
v1.1 (internal release)
. Corrected spelling of Kramden
v1.0 6-May-88
. Initial release
Copyright & Distribution Rights
===============================
Copyright 1988 Pregnant Badger Software. All Rights Reserved.
These utilities may be freely distributed without profit.
Any contributions (no amount is too small or too large) may be sent to
the following address.
Bill Barton
Pregnant Badger Software
1111 El Sur Way
Sacramento, CA 95864
(916) 487-9472
bix: peabody
plink: peabody
delphi: bbarton
Special thanks to St. Peter, the patron saint of PC's, without whom
these utilities would never have been written.
I'm honestly quite amazed with the rate at which the first version of The
Kramden Utilities has propogated since I initially uploaded it to PLink &
BIX. I've never had one of my files move so far so fast before. What a
thrill!