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INFOPLUS
Version 1.57 Released to the public domain.
By Andrew Rossmann, 6/26/1993
Originally based on Steve Grant's Public Domain SYSID 4.44.
Syntax:
INFOPLUS [B][D][M][C][F][NP][NV][AP[:filename]][H][?]
where:
B = Write to screen using BIOS (default under Desqview)
D = Write directly to screen memory (default)
M = Use monochrome colors (default under MODE BWxx)
C = Use normal colors (default)
F = Leave 16550 FIFO's enabled
NV = Do not perform VGA chipset detection
NP = Do not read Partition Table
AP = AutoPrint all screens, ask for setup
AP:filename = AutoPrint to a file or device
H or ? = This help screen
ex: INFOPLUS B M NV
Run INFOPLUS using BIOS, monochrome colors, no VGA check.
A system description for DOS-based PC/XT/AT- and PS/2-class machines.
INFOPLUS generates 18 screens of information about the host system and runs
under DOS versions 3.0 and later.
My primary sources of ideas in INFOPLUS were Ray Duncans "Advanced MS-DOS"
and Terry Dettman's "DOS Programmer's Reference." The ideas of Prakash
Chandra,Terje Mathisen,Bob Smith, and others appear in various places. Also
James Howard, John Levine, Mark Aitchison, Jay Caplan, David Tay, Heribert
Eisele, Matthias Heidbrink.
Some of the techniques INFOPLUS uses are not documented or officially
supported by either IBM or Microsoft. Where possible I have followed the
undocumented routine with a comment describing my source for the technique.
The following files are included with the runtime program:
INFOPLUS.EXE - The main program
INFOPLUS.HIS - Changes in each version
INFOPLUS.HLP - The help screens
INFOPLUS.DOC - This file
INFOPLUS.PIF - Windows 3 Program Information File
IP-PIF.DVP - Desqview Program Information File
INFOPLUS.ICO - Icon for Windows 3 Program Manager
PRINTHLP.EXE - Program to print some or all .HLP pages
The following files are included with the source code:
INFOPLUS.PAS - Main file
IFPGLOBL.PAS - Global variables, constants, and types
IFPCOMON.PAS - Routines common to many of the pages
IFPRUN.PAS - General runtime manager
IFPINIT.PAS - Initialization routines
PAGE_xx.PAS - Each of the pages
IFPEXTRN.PAS - Unit for external routines
IFPSCRPT.PAS - Unit for screen printing
IFPHELP.PAS - Unit for help screens
INFOPLUS.ASM - Assembly language procedures
INFOPLUS.OBJ - Assembly routines for linking
PRINTHLP.PAS - For printing out the help pages
MAKEHELP.PAS - Compiles PAGE_xx.INF files into INFOPLUS.HLP
PAGE_xx.INF - Help screen for each page
Using INFOPLUS is easy. Just use the PGUP and PGDN keys to move from
page to page. HOME and END will move to the first and last pages,
respectively. If you hit ENTER, you can then type in the page you want to
go to. If you hit ENTER without typing a new page number, it will re-run
the current page. Hit ESC to end the program. Some pages won't fit all on
one screen, for that you hit the DOWN ARROW key to get more information.
Some pages let you hit UP ARROW to review already displayed information.
If you want to save a copy of the information on a screen, hit ALT-P. A
window will pop up. You can send your output to a File or the Printer. If a
File already exists, you can Overwrite it, or Append to it.
If your printer does not support the IBM 'graphics' characters (such as line
drawing), then choose Normal ASCII.
Lastly, you can optionally add an extra header line to the output. You can
put anything you want there (up to 255 characters.) The most logical is to
put a little information on what computer your using. ie: Betty's Office
If you want a full record, start INFOPLUS using the AP option. This will
send a copy of every screen to a file or the printer. Before the first
page, you will be asked the same questions as for a single page, plus one
new one: Number of screens per page. INFOPLUS will place that many screens
on a page before issuing a form-feed. If you want everything all together,
use 0 to suppress form-feeds.
You can hit F1 during screen displays to get a help screen explaining
what's being displayed. INFOPLUS looks for the environment variable
INFOPLUS, and if found, uses a path given on it to look for INFOPLUS.HLP
(INFOPLUS=C:\UTIL). If no environment variable is found, INFOPLUS will look
in the current directory, then the same directory as the program was found,
then your PATH.
If you have trouble with bad colors on the screen, try setting your computer
to MODE MONO or MODE BW80 before starting INFOPLUS. INFOPLUS will use a black
and white palette if either of these modes are detected. You can also use
the M command line switch. (INFOPLUS M)
If you are in a 40 column mode, INFOPLUS will run in 80 column, but return
you back to 40 columns upon completion. 132 column modes are not supported
because Turbo Pascal's CRT unit only works with standard modes, and I don't
want to give up all the nice features.
INFOPLUS does support more than 25 lines, although most of the pages are set
up to look best at 25 lines. Some display modes do not properly return the
correct number of lines.
For ease of use, a utility named PRINTHLP comes with INFOPLUS. When you
run it, you can have one or all of the help pages sent to your printer (or
any DOS device or file.) Each information page will be paginated any way
you like. Each new page will have a small header giving the INFOPLUS
version it refers to, the page number, and what is on the page.
WINDOWS 3.x NOTES!!!
You can add INFOPLUS to the Program Manager. Open the group that you
want to put INFOPLUS in. Select File, New, Program item. Use whatever
you want for the Description. For Command line, enter INFOPLUS.EXE,
preceed with a drive and directory if not on your PATH. If you hit
ENTER, and end up at the screen, select File, Properties. Hit Change
Icon, and for the file name, use INFOPLUS.ICO. Then OK everything.
Note that when you minimize INFOPLUS, you will see a standard DOS
icon. This can't be changed.
Desqview NOTES:
INFOPLUS runs safely under Desqview, and is 'Desqview Aware.' If DV is
detected, INFOPLUS will write to the screen using BIOS calls unless
you use the D command line switch. This allows windowed screens even
on non-386/486's.
IP-PIF.DVP is a sample setup for INFOPLUS. The settings should be:
Change a Program
Program Name............: Infoplus
Keys to Use on Open Menu: IP Memory Size (in K): 300
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Program...: C:\UTIL\INFOPLUS.EXE <---Change this for your own setup
Parameters:
Directory.: C:\UTIL <---Not needed if you use the environment variable
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Options:
Writes text directly to screen.......: [N]
Displays graphics information........: [N]
Virtualize text/graphics (Y,N,T).....: [N]
Uses serial ports (Y,N,1,2)..........: [Y]
Requires floppy diskette.............: [N]
Change a Program Advanced Options
System Memory (in K).......: 0 Maximum Program Memory Size (in K)..:
Script Buffer Size.......: 1000 Maximum Expanded Memory Size (in K): 16
Text Pages: 2 Graphics Pages: 0 Initial Mode: Interrupts: 00 to FF
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Window Position:
Maximum Height: 25 Starting Height: 25 Starting Row...: 0
Maximum Width.: 80 Starting Width.: 80 Starting Column: 0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shared Program
Pathname..:
Data......:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Close on exit (Y,N,blank)......: [ ] Uses its own colors..............: [Y]
Allow Close Window command.....: [N] Runs in background (Y,N,blank)...: [N]
Uses math coprocessor..........: [Y] Keyboard conflict (0-F)..........: [0]
Share CPU when foreground......: [Y] Share EGA when foreground/zoomed.: [Y]
Can be swapped out (Y,N,blank).: [Y] Protection level (0-3)...........: [0]
The Maximum Expanded Memory setting of 16 allows the VCPI detection to
work. You can set this to 0 if you need to, or 9999 if you want INFOPLUS to
detect it all (INFOPLUS does not actually use EMS at present.) The Maximum
Program Size can also be varied if you wish.
This version of INFOPLUS was compiled using the following equipment:
Hardware:
Gateway 2000 386/25 (Micronics ASIC motherboard w/ 64K cache)
4 Meg RAM
Microscience 110M ESDI, 3.5" HH
Ultrastor 12F ESDI controller w/ 32K cache
Seagate ST251 40M MFM
Seagate ST21R controller
ATI Graphics Ultra Pro ISA w/ 2M RAM
ProAudio Spectrum 16 Rev C
Software:
MS-DOS 6.00 Rev A
QEMM 6.00
4DOS 4.02 Rev B
Hyperdisk 4.60
Turbo Pascal 6.0
Turbo Assembler 2.0
Turbo Debugger 2.0
KEDIT 5.00D1
Windows 3.10
Desqview 2.40
My primary sources of ideas in INFOPLUS were Ray Duncans "Advanced MS-DOS"
and Terry Dettman's "DOS Programmer's Reference." The ideas of Prakash
Chandra,Terje Mathisen,Bob Smith, and others appear in various places. Also
James Howard, John Levine, Mark Aitchison, Jay Caplan, David Tay, Heribert
Eisele, Matthias Heidbrink.
Some of the techniques INFOPLUS uses are not documented or officially
supported by either IBM or Microsoft. Where possible I have followed the
undocumented routine with a comment describing my source for the technique.
Much of the additional info came from Ray Duncan's "Advanced MSDOS
Programming" second edition (a must get book for anyone interested in
low-level stuff.) Also, additional information on the DOS 4 boot sector
format came from "The Norton Troubleshooter." A book that comes with The
Norton Utilities 4.5.
Even more information comes from Ralf Brown's interrupt list, which lists
hundreds of goodies. It's available via BBS's, and resides on SIMTEL20 and
many other public access UNIX sites. It's also available on the Infoplus
BBS. The name is INTERxxy.ZIP, where xx is the version, and y is the part
letter. (This version of INFOPLUS used INTER32.)
Additional information on XMS and DPMI came from the book 'Extending DOS'
by Ray Duncan (and others.)
Information on additional partition values came from numerous people of
which I never wrote down their names!!
Information on detecting VGA chipsets came from "Advanced Programmer's
Guide to Super VGAs" by George Sutty and Steve Blair. Published by Brady.
(NOTE! Beware of bugs in the detection routines in the above book!!)
Some extra VGA chipset detection help came for the source code for
Fractint 16.11.
Information on reading the CMOS came from a program posted by Mark
Aitchison on USENET.
Information on detecting UART types came from David Tay and David Nugent
(david@csource.oz.au)
More information on VGA chipsets came from "Programmer's Guide to the EGA
and VGA Cards, Second Edition" by Richard F. Ferraro. Published by
Addison-Wesley.
Information about how dangerous it is to pass too many flags, and info
about OS/2 came from Heribert Eisele (heribert@caen.engin.umich.edu)
How to detect the Tandy 1000, and some models digital sound, came from
Frank Durda IV (uhclem@nemesis.lonestar.org)
Information about a bug in the LONGCALL routine came from Michael Holin
(HIMH%DCZTU1.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu).
Information about problems with Trident VGA chipsets came from MANY
people.
Information on the Gravis UltraSound came from Tran of Renaissance and
Joshua Jensen.
If you have any questions, bug reports, or suggestions, I can be
reached at the following places:
Internet : andyross@infopls.chi.il.us
Unix : uunet!infopls!andyross
CompuServe : >INTERNET:andyross@infopls.chi.il.us
Infoplus BBS : (708)537-0247 (14400/9600/2400/1200 v32bis/v42bis/MNP)
This is my own BBS. You can always get the latest version here. Just log
in as INFOPLUS, and follow the instructions on screen.
Beacon : (708)615-0845 (2400/1200)
Andrew Rossmann
Wheeling, IL
From Steve Grant:
Both the source and object code of SYSID are hereby released into the
public domain. Neither version carries any warranty, expressed or
implied, of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Comments, suggestions, and questions may be addressed to:
BIXMail: sjgrant
CompuServe: 71101,706
Steve Grant
Long Beach, CA
January 13, 1989