NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/comp/sys/ibm/pc/digest/202

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Subject: Info-IBMPC Digest V93 #4
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Date: 10 Jan 93 07:31:53 GMT
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Info-IBMPC Digest           Sat,  9 Jan 93       Volume 93 : Issue   4

Today's Editor:
         Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <[e-mail]>

Today's Topics:
      Administrivia - Missing issues V92 #208 and 209 and V93 001
           ATM problems w/Win3.1 (Siegel, INFO-IBMPC 92.212)
             bar code printer? [Info-IBMPC Digest V92 #210]
                      Chip-Sets, SCSI & other Lore
               DOS and OS2 TSR Programming in 'C' -HELP-
                        3 type and 9 type SIMMs
                         Font Scaling Software
                          I-NET network cards
                   Information about Panasonic CD ROM
                         List of 80x86 Opcodes
                          LZS format? (3 msgs)
                   Mixing 1M and 4M SIMMS... Why not?
                  Newbie Wants Advice on C-Programming
                        PROBLEM WITH FTP - EMAIL
                 Scalable Font Utilities Advice Needed
                     Weird floppy error (V92, #212)
                             fsplit summary

Send Replies or notes for publication to: <[e-mail]>

Send requests of an administrative nature (addition to, deletion from
the distribution list, et al) to: <[e-mail]>

Addition and Deletion requests for UK readers should be sent to:
<[e-mail]>

Archives of past issues of the Info-IBMPC Digest are available by FTP
ONLY from WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL in directory PD2:<ARCHIVES.IBMPC>.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sat, 9 Jan 93, 12:59 GMT
From: Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <[e-mail]>
Subject: Administrivia - Missing issues V92 #208 and 209 and V93 001

Several readers have asked what happened to these issues...  Quite
simply, the mailer here rejected them because if 'invalid' hosts.  I've
since had them queued for re-delivery, but they may not have reached
everyone yet.

Hosts that caused the mailing to be rejected were:
itd.msstate.edu
chmeds.ac.nz
saturn.ucc.umass.edu

Why?  --Dunno--  These issues were rejected.

Although persons may desire to receive the Info-IBMPC Digest directly
instead of via USENET or BITNET when these rejections happen, the
offending addresses are deleted from the mailing list.

Regrets, but ...

Regards,
Gregory Hicks

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 04 Jan 93 11:02:53 -0500
From: Joe Morris <[e-mail]>
Subject: ATM problems w/Win3.1 (Siegel, INFO-IBMPC 92.212)

In INFO-IBMPC 92.212 Stuart Siegel writes:

>Has anyone noticed any problems after installing ATMv2.02?  When I have
>ATM active, I notice some strange behavior in applications when my
>default printer is set to postscript on lpt1.

>* in msword 2.0 -- system resources will go to zero if i open a
>document which has one section in portrait and one in landscape.  the
>drop is slow but steady.

I suspect that this is a problem in the PostScript driver rather than
in ATM.  There's a widely-reported problem of resource cancer in the
driver shipped with Windows 3.1 (version 3.50); the most current
version of the driver I've seen is 3.53.

>* i get a lot of "general protection errors" involving something to do
>with postscript modules (i think) the word "postscript" definitely
>appears.

Same comment as above.

>one other question: why , when i deactivate ATM on the ATM control
>panel, do i still have access to ATM intalled fonts such as TIMES?

Umm...let me guess: the ATM-installed font names still show up in the
font emuneration list boxes, but some other font is actually displayed
on the screen.  Right?

When you install a font with ATM, by default the ATM code also inserts
a line in your WIN.INI file in the appropriate section, pointing
Windows to the font metrics and optionally to the actual PS download
file.  When you delete a font from ATM, this entry is *not* deleted.
The result is that Windows applications still have access to the font
but ATM no longer can generate the on-the-fly screen fonts.

Remember that when you're using a PostScript printer, ATM's only
function is to provide the screen fonts.  It has no effect on the data
stream actually sent to the printer.

The solution to your problem is to manually edit WIN.INI and remove the
lines which point to the font metrics and PS data for the fonts you
wish to evict from your system.  This isn't always trivial because
Adobe (and other font houses) seem to take great delight in thinking up
obscure file names with only a tenuous mnemonic value, but most font
files produced by reputable vendors begin their font files with a text
comment identifying the name of the font.  Don't forget to also
decrement the soft font counter as well.

Incidentally, the current version of ATM is 2.5.

Joe Morris

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 12:24:02 CST
From: Rich Zellich <[e-mail]>
Subject: bar code printer? [Info-IBMPC Digest V92 #210]

Look on wsmr-simtel20 or one of the mirror sites under the PRINTER
subdirectory for the Quick-Zip shareware program.  Look for QZIP.ZIP or
perhaps QZIPxxx.ZIP (where the xxx represents whatever the current
version might be).

I liked it enough playing with the database-size-restricted public
version that I ordered the full shareware version from the author.

It handles addresses, return addresses, or both and can print different
formats (I got it for the option that prints an address label with the
postal bar code on the bottom edge of the label.

Cheers,
Rich

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jan 93 12:05:20 GMT+0100
From: "Alexander Majarek, Sascha, SAM"  <[e-mail]>
Subject: Chip-Sets, SCSI & other Lore

For the SCSI-adapter I only can recommend the ADAPTEC. If you are using
DOS, no problems with others. But with OS/2 and NT things change.
Adaptec controllers are quiet popular all over the world, so if an
operating system supports any SCSI it will probably support ADAPTEC.
Another reason is that they are reliable and FAST.

Caching is important, no question, but is it *really* good to cache on
the controller-board? IMHO these controllers aren't worth their money.
They take off a little of the CPU-load when searching for data in the
cache, but the produce much more CPU-load when transfering data from
the Controller-Cache to CPU-Memory (RAM). So my advice is: Buy a
controller without cache and spend the saved money in additional RAM
and use Caching software. Software has an additional advantage: They
normally fit better to the operating system than a generic cache
routine on the controller (Efficency!).

HTH (flames directly to my E-mail-address, constructive critizism to
the list)

Greetings,
SAM

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 09:41 EDT
From: "MATTHEW E. PEARSON" <[e-mail]>
Subject: DOS and OS2 TSR Programming in 'C' -HELP-

I am looking to program some TSRs for OS2 and DOS/Windows... but here
is the problem.. I cant find ANY libraries to help me out!

What I want to do is.. make a tsr that monitors the COM port for
certain signals.. then on those signals output data to a port.. like
anothe COM, LPT etc.. monitor.. whatever...

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Matt

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 12:45:11 CET
From: "P. Rovers" <[e-mail]>
Subject: 3 type and 9 type SIMMs

> Again, why not mix the different sizes?
Yes I'd like to know too. I had some trouble with mixing them on an old
motherboard (386-SX/16 from 1988) but now they work perfect (486-DX/33
from 1992). I have 4 Mb of 3 chip SIMMs in bank 0 and 4 Mb of 9 chip
SIMMs in bank 1.

Now I read somewhere (OS/2 FAQ probably) that 3 chip SIMMs are not very
reliable. Can somebody comment on this????

> (And I really don't mean to be facetious or belabor the point, but I'm
> trying to figure what COULD happen.  Am I setting myself up for trouble
> later on?)

Well, I think you can expect the problems I had with the old
motherboard: parity errors, and not enough memory being displayed (at
one time my BIOS thought I had a whopping 64K machine :-) ) Maybe your
machine won't even boot, I don't know, but I'd like to know what I'm
stepping into as I'm planning to expand my memory some more.

|Perry Rovers                 |          Your dream is               |
|Tilburg University           |           my reality                 |
|Internet: [e-mail]     |               -                      |
|Bitnet  : PROVERS@HTIKUB5    |           Sanitarium                 |
|DECNet  : KUBVX1::PROVERS    |                                      |

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 15:48:51 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Font Scaling Software

    I would like to ask if anyone has had any experience with the
various font scaling utilities for DOS (non-Windows) systems, such as
PrimeType, TrueType for DOS, FaceLift for WordPerfect, etc. I am
primarily interested in their ability to provide scalable printer fonts
for Wordperfect and particularly interested in your opinions as to
performance, ease of installation, font installation and conversion,
etc. My target system will be an XT with a Panasonic laser printer. I
will summarize any responses for the group.

Thanks,
Robert Brickman   <[e-mail]>
   - The opinions expressed here are my own and in no way reflect the the
opinions, policies or practices of my employer...

------------------------------

Date: 4 Jan 93 10:30:00 EST
From: "Jay Morris" <[e-mail]>
Subject: I-NET network cards

Recently I picked up at auction a couple of network cards that I am
trying to figure out.  There are two network interface cards with about
a 50 foot cable.  Connectors are 15 pin.  It's called I-NET and is
manufactured by IDS.  The problem is that the host software requires
119K.  What I'd like to do is run something with less memory requirment
but the manual doesn't say if these are real ethernet cards or what.
Anybody have any experience with these?

j
[e-mail]
CIS:73007,3107

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 3 Jan 93 21:28:27 BOL
From: "Enrique F Villareal B. " <[e-mail]>
Subject: Information about Panasonic CD ROM

Hi,

I own a Panasonic CD ROM, I didn't have any problem installing the hardware,
but the software is not compatible with DOS 5.0.

The only manual I have is the readme file, that explains the instalation.
The software is for DOS 3.30.
The instalation requiers a path, that when run it, display the following
message: "Unespected DOS Version".

I will really appreciate if s.o. knows s.th. about it.

Greetings!

Enrique.

PD. It's the first time I'm using this media.

------------------------------

Date: 4 Jan 1993 23:29:38 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Harald Zappe (Hinze))
Subject: List of 80x86 Opcodes

In digest <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:

>I spent most of this morning and afternoon adding the 186/286/386
>instructions...

>; Instruction assembly file;  by Joe Tamburino.  9/12/89

>;MNEM    | 1st BYTE  | OPERAND TYPE          | 2nd byte

>AAA      | h37       | NO_OPERAND            |
...
   til

>XOR      | b0011010w | IMMEDIATE,AL/AX       |

>Paul Robinson -- [e-mail] -- These opinions are mine alone.

You can add the following "unknown opcodes", available on all CPUs (8086
I don't know), but never documented officially by Intel, MS or Borland:

SPLIT    | hd4       | I B                   | h10
         |           |                       | split nibbles from AL to AH:AL
PACK     | hd5       | I B                   | h10
         |           |                       | pack nibbles from AH:AL to AL
CARRY    | hd6       | NO_OPERAND            | if Carry set, AL=hFF, else AL=0
         |           |                       | (no flags modified)

286 only:

LOADALL  | h0f,05    | ---                   | load complete CPU-state
         |           |                       | from (!) 0:50 (!) BIOS-Area

386 only:

LOADALLD | h0f,07    | far-address           | dto.

The additional 486 opcodes are:

BSWAP    | h66,0f,(hC8+reg)    | exchange byte[0]:[3] and [1]:[2] of a
         |                     | 32-bit-reg, to get 680x0-representation
         |    h0f,(hC8+reg)    | byte[0] := byte[3], byte[1] := byte[2]
         |                     | byte[2], byte[3] unchanged (undoc'ed)
XADD     | h0F,C1,(mod/reg/rm) | exchange and add
CMPXCHG  | h0F,A7,(mod/reg/rm) | compare and exchange (eg. semaphores)
INVD     | h0F,08              | invalidate cache
WBINVD   | h0F,09              | write behind & invalidate cache
INVLPG   | h??                 | invalidate page
----------

Try it,
Harald

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------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 10:25:18 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Andrews <[e-mail]>
Subject: LZS format?

Archive Format?:
hi... I've got a document that has an LZS extension.... now i've heard of
arc, zip, lzh and WHOLE bunch of others... but not LZS.  Is it a unix
compression?... I want to decompress the doc but have NO idea how to get
at it.  the closest i came was a prog. called RV247.zip from wuarchive.
Running RV247 I get a message saying that.. yup.. the file cocntains one file
...and thats all... Can anyone help?
Paul Andrews: Health and Welfare Canada, Ottawa, Ontario
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 5:25:20 EST
From: Gregory Hicks - Rota Spain <[e-mail]>
Subject: LZS format?

From file simibm.idx:
Name          Size   Date   Description
PD1:<MSDOS.ARC-LBR>
RV244.ZIP     57459  920516 RView v2.44:ZIP/ARC/LZH/PAK/ZOO/LZS dir lister

PD1:<MSDOS.PCMAG>
VOL10N02.ZIP  123824 910112 PCMag: FOXIDX,HPNOTES,LZSELECT,MOVBYTES,QPRINT

Don't know if these will do the trick or not, but...

You also might try asking Archie.  I'll send info seperately...

Regards,
Gregory Hicks
Editor, Info-IBMPC Digest


------------------------------

Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 08:01:24 -0500 (EST)
From: Paul Andrews <[e-mail]>
Subject: LZS format?

Gregory Hicks...
I've aleady grabbed the RV244.zip.. the prog. recognizes the format.. but
says there is only one file in the archive... thats all.. RV244 is not a
extraction prog. but just enables one to look at the files thats have been arved.
Paul andrews: Health and Welfare Canada

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 1 Jan 93 17:54:38 CST
From: "Timothy F. Sipples" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mixing 1M and 4M SIMMS... Why not?

Gregory:

The advice about mixing SIMM types is really just a recommendation; it isn't
a hard and fast rule.  Some of the newer (and particularly third -- or lower
-- tier clones) have trouble when mixing SIMM types or SIMMs of different
(or inadequate) speed.  The FAQ List is merely pointing out a possible area
where problems may occur.  If you get TRAP 2 errors, this is one place to
look.  If you don't get TRAP 2 errors, just keep computing.

T.F.S.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 14:51:12 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Doug V Tran)
Subject: Newbie Wants Advice on C-Programming

In digest <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:


>Is there an MS-DOS Scheme?

Yes, it's called PC-Scheme.  Else, grab Linux and run the real stuff.

>>

later,
doug


------------------------------

Date: Wed, 30 Dec 92 11:16:46 EST
From: Stanley Levine <[e-mail]>
Subject: PROBLEM WITH FTP - EMAIL

I have attempted to use EMAIL to reach FTP thru the [e-mail].

However, I received notification of "connection reset"

I am not clear as to what should be in the subject line

Also, how is a dir command used - DIR PD1:<directory> or DIR directory?


------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 14:45:55 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Brickman)
Subject: Scalable Font Utilities Advice Needed

   I am looking for advice about the scalable font add-ons for DOS (non-
Windows) systems such as PrimeType, TrueType for DOS, etc., and especially
if how well any of these products work with WordPerfect. I would appreciate
hearing about any of your experiences regarding installation, performance,
and font conversion. I will summarize any replies I receive and post them.

Thanks in advance,

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 13:32:41 EST
From: [e-mail] ()
Subject: Weird floppy error (V92, #212)

>Date: 22 Dec 92 04:29:46 GMT
>From: John Fiskio-Lasseter <[e-mail]>
>Subject: *WEIRD* floppy drive error...
>
>I'm wondering if anyone has ever run into this problem before, and if
>so, has anyone ever found a solution:  In the last three weeks, three
>PC's -- a pair of 486SX machines and a 286 -- have come into our repair
>shop with an identical problem.  The 3.5"/1.44 meg drive will not read
>high-density disks.  It reads 720K disks without a problem.  It reads
>1.44M disks, but only when they are write-protected.  If not, the drive
>will crap out ("GENERAL FAILURE READING DRIVE A:", etc.), and the FAT
>and BOOT sectors of the disk are destroyed (interestingly, ViruSafe
>reports that the disks are infected with Michelangelo, although they
>are most certainly not).
>
>What seems to be happening is that every time the drive attempts to
>access a 1.44M disk, it first performs a write operation somewhere in
>FAT and BOOT area, rendering the disk unreadable.  When the disk is
>write-protected, the write operation fails and things carry on as
>usual, except that a floppy isn't much good if you can't write to it.
>
>I am convinced this is a motherboard problem.  I've switched out the
>drive, the cable, the controller, the hard drive, the CPU, and the RAM.
>The power supply connections all tested OK.  Nothing works, and what's
>more, *ALL* of these parts work fine in another motherboard (including
>the drive).  I've even tried replacing the oscillator on one of the
>boards: nada.  Anyone got any suggestions?
>
>Thanks,
>-- John
>
>|John Howard Eli Fiskio-Lasseter  |     "Is obair-la\ to\iseachadh"   |
>|e-mail: [e-mail]   |    ("Beginning is a day's work")  |
>
>
Hi John--

     This could *still* be a virus problem, possibly compounded by a
hardware problem.  Note that viruses like "Stoned" and "Michelangelo"
replace INT13 and cause ALL floppy disk access (reads as well as
writes) to write a copy of the virus the the boot sector.  They also
move the original boot sector elsewhere--sometimes to a part of the
FAT or the root directory, depending on the exact virus and the exact
disk format.

    FIRST, boot from a clean, write-protected floppy and THEN
check for viruses.  While you're at it, check the CMOS setup for the
offending motherboard.

    Then, *closely* inspect the little pushbutton switches that
sense the write-protect and media density holes in the floppy.
Actually, there should be THREE switches, total:  The DISK-CHANGE
switch is probably built in to one of these two switch units.  Make
sure that there actually is *good* continuity with the contact
closed.  Also check to see that the switch is working freely and that
there are no cracks in the printed circuit trace or the soldered land.

    I've come across a similarly weird situation, where the
problem turned out to be those awful little button switches.

Hope this helps,

Moy Wong, PC Specialist
Dept. of Psychology
New York University
[e-mail]


------------------------------

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 21:51:37 EST
From: Jeffrey Marans <[e-mail]>

Subject: fsplit summary

I downloaded the fsplit.c source from the mirrors and changed
the function link to rename.  The source then compiled with
MS QuickC V2.5.

2309 Aug 4 1991 ./mirrors/4.3bsd-reno/usr.bin/fsplit/fsplit.1.Z
5426 Apr 11 1991 ./mirrors/4.3bsd-reno/usr.bin/fsplit/fsplit.c.Z

Thanks to all who replied.
Jeff Marans.

------------------------------

End of Info-IBMPC Digest V93 #4
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