NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19/NN_1992_19.iso/spool/comp/sys/ibm/pc/digest/156

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Subject: Info-IBMPC Digest V92 #137
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Date: 22 Aug 92 21:11:29 GMT
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Info-IBMPC Digest           Sat, 22 Aug 92       Volume 92 : Issue 137

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

Today's Topics:
                   About trying to access UK.AC.CITY
                    FDFORMAT and TIMESET under OS/2
                            Formatting disks
                             Glare Screens
                           Hard drive errors
               Low Level Format Model 30 PS/2 Hard Drive
                    Info on INTELs P5 AKA 80586 CPU
                     Kermit - What is is good for?
                            MS Winword Apps
                           Multiple COM ports
                          PC  Bulletin Boards
                  SSTOR reports wrong Stats for drive
                           Upgrading a 286 AT
       upgrading old Zenith 286 512 --> 640 + 384 w/ Zenith part
                     Was Freeware Windows Snapshot?
          Windows 3.1 and DR-DOS 6.0 (V92 #114, #128) (2 msgs)

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

Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 00:16:22 BST
From: Anthony Naggs <[e-mail]>
Subject: About trying to access UK.AC.CITY

Paul Robinson, Contractor  ([e-mail]) sayeth:
> In a message by Mr. Lee:
>
> >I got a message from a list like uk.ac.city'  but the my mail
> >daemon told me that 'Host unknown'.

I have never heard of the microhouse CD-ROM, but as I have an account
at city (see .sig) I can confirm that 'uk.ac.city' is the UK Janet
address & should be left <-> right reversed from Internet,
'[e-mail]' should help.  (UK net addressing evolved at the same
time as other nets and an arbitary decision was made that gave the
variant addressing.  Polite people [such as myself] include Janet &
Internet forms when giving addressing info.)

The other problem I often find is that the SUNs at city often don't
accept my telephone/net logins.  Sometimes an immediate retry works,
this appears to be a problem with lines not hanging up correctly, this
may now change as they have just upgraded the OS version used.

Regards,
--
Anthony Naggs                    |  MAN I say what it occurs to me to say when
Janet:    [e-mail] |      I think I hear people say things.
    or    [e-mail]       |      More I cannot say.
Internet: [e-mail] |
       or [e-mail])      |  (from The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

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

Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 11:42 EDT
From: "John K. Duchowski" <[e-mail]>
Subject: FDFORMAT and TIMESET under OS/2

Hello Everyone,

   I was wondering if anyone knows where I can find an OS/2 version of
two very useful programs FDFORMAT/FDREAD and TIMESET.  The former
allows to increase the capacity of floppies (360 K to 820 K, for
example) and the latter sets the computer clock by synchronizing it to
either the NIST or the Naval Observatory Atomic Clock.

   Both of these worked wonderfully under DOS but FDFORMAT/FDREAD seems
to do something bizzare under DOS Session - the screen scrolls for some
time and then a whole bunch of illegible characters show up follwoed by
a beep.  I haven't tried reading the FDFORMATed diskettes yet so I am
not sure how this will work, but the initial results are somewhat
disconcerting.  TIMESET on the other hand just locks itself up in a DOS
Session and requires the CTRL-ESC style termination.

   I would really appreciate it if someone could let me know where to
find the updated versions of these programs or if it is possible to get
them to work in OS/2.  My system is i486-33 EISA, 8 Meg. RAM, OS/2 2.0
all HPFS on the hard disk.  Thanks !

John Duchowski

 :---------------------------------:-----------------------------------------:
 | OFFICE:                         | PHONE:     [phone]               |
 | Pall Corporation                | FAX:       [phone]               |
 | SLS West Coast                  | BITNET:    morro@DRYCAS                 |
 | 330 Turnbull Canyon Road        | INTERNET:  [e-mail] |
 | City of Industry, CA 91745-1093 |                                         |
 :---------------------------------:-----------------------------------------:

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

Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 12:26:12 EDT
From: Dick and Jill Miller <[e-mail]>
Subject: Formatting disks

In Info-IBMPC Digest V92 #114, you write...
>>FORMAT A: /U /F:1000
>>I wonder, is it possible to format this diskette to its declared
>>capacity?

>You can use a full megabyte if you don't need a file system on the
>diskette.  So there isn't much point to it.  Some of the diskette
>capacity is used up when you format it.  They really will nominally
>hold a megabyte, but a diskette without a file system isn't
>generally useful.

Even PC-users who don't use my company's MMSFORTH may be interested in
how it formats for larger diskette capacities.

MMSFORTH has a nonDOS version which has offered large-format options
since the IBM-PC was introduced in 1981.  On '360K' drives it offers
400K, or 395K plus a conventional boot track; on '720K' drives, 800K or
795K with the boot track.  MMSFORTH can mix and match formats between
diskettes, and its optional disk formats perform reliably on all
flavors of floppy drive.  We use two different space-savers for maximum
capacity: 1024-byte sectoring rather than the IBM-PC's usual 512-byte
sectors, and the option of max.-capacity diskettes without special
areas for file system directories or anything else.  We offer
suprisingly fast and compact database, wordprocessing and other
applications (some with special, smaller and more flexible directories)
which have proved, over the years, that this method is quite reliable
-- although admittedly unorthodox.  A side benefit: these unorthodox,
nonDOS systems on the PC are quite immune to DOS-based viruses (which,
to my knowledge, is all of them!)

I hope you find this of interest, and perhaps directly useful to some.

--Dick Miller

A. Richard & Jill A. Miller            | Miller Microcomputer Services |
InterNet: [e-mail]       | 61 Lake Shore Road            |
Voice: 508/653-6136, 9am-9pm EasternTZ | Natick, MA 01760-2099, USA    |

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

Date: 11 Aug 92 12:28:06 PST
From: Peter Crayne <[e-mail]>
Subject: Glare Screens

My favourite brand of glare screen is by Optical Coating Laboratories,
Inc (OCLI), called GlareGuard. They are glass screens with some magical
mystical coating that reduces glare dramatically. They make molded ones
that fit around the front of your monitor. These are available for most
brands of monitor.  OCLI's phone number is [phone].

IMHO, nylon mesh screens are not worth the cardboard that they are
packaged in. Even if I had a sun lamp aimed right at my monitor, I
wouldn't use a mesh screen.

Peter Crayne
Santa Rosa Junior College
[e-mail]
[phone]

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

Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 17:43:50 EDT
From: Chris Thompson <[e-mail]>
Subject: Hard drive errors

Can anyone provide me with specific info about the following messages?
They seem to alternate when I try to boot my machine (an IBM ps2/30
(8086) running DOS 3.3, only addition a Paradise VGA card):

Fixed Disk Error 1701
     or
Fixed Disk Error 1790

Thanks in advance,

Chris Thompson
Acknowledge-To: <CBTCC@CUNYVM>

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

Date: Wed, 17 Jun 1992 16:05 EST
From: "D.E. \"Dave\" Bloomberg" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Low Level Format Model 30 PS/2 Hard Drive

    Hi All,

    Does anyone out there know how to Low Level Format a stock hard
drive in an IBM PS/2 Model 30??  Its the basic 21 MB model and I have
tried PCTools v7.1, but it tells me there is some type of scheme being
used to get more capacity on the drive....

    The hardware reports one type of encoding, and the software detects
another encoding scheme, so the program suppresses LL format.  HELP!!

    Dave Bloomberg   Systems Coordinator   FAU-Libraries
    BLOOMBER@FAUVAX
    [e-mail]

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

Date: 10 Aug 92 16:49:00 GMT-9:00
From: "1962CG LOGISTICS" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Info on INTELs P5 AKA 80586 CPU

Greg,
    I enjoyed your Excerpt on "Intel's CPU Wars" in the Info-IBMPC Digest
Vol 91:Issue 135.  This article stimulated my interest in the future on
INTEL processors.

    Where can I get more information?  Is there another newsletter I can
subscribe to?

    I haven't received an Info-IBMPC Digest in over a year.  I assume
this is because of budget cuts or because our host kept going off-line.
Either way, I'm interested in reestablishing a connection to the PC
News World.

    Please send a message letting me know what's availible.

Thanks From Japan

Craig L. Smith

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

Date: Thu, 13 Aug 92 8:47:08 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Glauber)
Subject: Kermit - What is is good for?

Hail fellow Pcdiggers:

    Does anyone out there use MSKermit? What are the strong points of
that program? Does it compete with the main sharewhare comm programs
such as Procomm, Telix or Qmodem?

            Glauber

--
Glauber Ribeiro - Wheaton College, IL  (USA)
                  [e-mail]
                  [e-mail]

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

Date: Thu, 6 Aug 92 00:09:00 EST
From: Michael Wexler <[e-mail]>
Subject: MS Winword Apps..

   Help!

   We did a stupid thing!  We drew a really nice drawing with MS draw,
and now cannot use it outside of word!  It only exports as a clipboard
bitmap, not a multi-object picture!  I now have Corel and I want my
file back!  I could use the tracer, but that is above my level.  Is
there anyway to get it to export?

  Question two!  How does one use these apps in other applications?
You click on Draw, and it says that it must be called from inside an
app (Why, Bill Gates, Why?).  How does one do this?

Thanks in advance!  Michael WEXLER @ UNC.bitnet

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

Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1992 7:57:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Multiple COM ports

  I am able to use only COM1 and 2 on our COMPAQ 386. Up to now that
has been fine. Now I have installed a modem that was in an AT 286 so
that I cAN use the VGA only browser (GLIS) at the EROS data center via
phone lines. COM1 is linked to our ETHERNET and COM2 is for various
graphical input devices (Kurta pad/mouse/etc) Is there any sort of
workaround for this?

  Reconfiguring the ETHERNET board is not an option. I need something I
can switch back and forth since the GLIS sw package only has options
for COMs 1 & 2.

  Ted ([e-mail])

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

Date: Monday, 10 Aug 1992 13:46:03 EST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: PC  Bulletin Boards

   I'm looking for some bulletin board software that can support the
following features:

      private mail
      conferencing (like netnews)
      access local databases( be able to search local files)
      download files
      advertising (possibly as it's own conference?)

I'd prefer something that runs on a DOS-based PC, and it should support
multiple connections.  I'd rather not have to consider something Unix
based, but I will.

thanks in advance,

          Tom
| Bitnet: TW@UMAB     Internet: [e-mail]     Phonenet: [phone]  |
| SnailNet: 100 N. Green Street, Baltimore, MD  21201                        |

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

Date: Wed, 12 Aug 92 11:16:40 BST
From: Derek Jones <[e-mail]>
Subject: SSTOR reports wrong Stats for drive.

I had another problem with my sstor drive yesterday (grrr). Most of the
time it works just fine. From time to time (it's happend twice now in
the space of a couple of months), a whole directory entry gets munged
and neither sstor's repair facility nor chkdsk will fix it. Now, the
first time it happened I used ndd (even though I know it says you
shouldn't), and it worked very well, recovered the files and dirs,
(followed by unerase).

This time not even ndd would access the directory structure properly.
It offered to move it to another spot, which I accepted, and it then
failed all over.

PCTOOLS (v6) diskfix did the job however (Yeeeaahh!), *BUT* the sstor
stats now appear to be wrong. 8-( . All the data is still on the disk
(100Mb SCSI Harcard, [Time, UK]), but the disk stats report only 13Mb
used, when I know that there's nearly "120Mb" roughly used of the sstor
container. Neither ssutil nor chkdsk report any errors in *anything*.
The system is working (perfectly?!?) happily, and my other 86 Mb IDE
drive is unaffected. (I boot DOS from the IDE drive).

Now, I guess it's something to do with a different cluster size used by
diskfix and sstor.  *ANY GUESSES* ?

Moreover, how do I get it fixed???

(I am running the recompress option on it at the moment, just to see if
moving things around and so forth will help. Can't tell till I get back
home though).

Flood gear at the ready......

Thanks
Derek Jones.

System Manager.
A.I. Vision Research Unit, Sheffield University, Western Bank,
Sheffield.  S10 2TN. U.K.
Tel: (+44) (0)742 768555 X 6551      email:  [e-mail]
FAX: (+44) (0)742 766515

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

Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 12:18:36 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Upgrading a 286 AT

I have recently purchased a second-hand Packard Bell 286 AT and would
like to speed it up.  At work I have a 386 and I like the speed but I
am not sure if upgrading the machine is the route to go or if perhaps
installing a turbo board would solve the problem.  I currently have
Word Perfect 5.1, Lotus 123 Verion 2.2, and Quicken 5.0 installed on
the machine.  I would like to install Windows however I understand that
it really slows it down.   I would appreciate any information you have
on this.

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

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1992 08:57:21 -0800
From: [e-mail]
Subject: upgrading old Zenith 286 512 --> 640 + 384 w/ Zenith part

We have four old ZDF-2237-BK Zenith full-size 286 machines. In January,
we ordered 4 2Mb memory upgrades (the manual said 1.5Mb boards were
available, so I figured we'd end up with 2Mb).

The sad story:
1. Our campus store sat on the order for 3 months despite weekly phone
calls; they would not contact Zenith directly because they had many bad
experiences with them and wouldn't talk to them to save their lives.

2. The store manager was sacked, and the new guy, to his credit,
immediately got us some third-party boards (RAMpAT!). Our PC tech folks
spent the next two months trying to get those boards to work without
giving parity errors (has anyone out there succeeded?).

3. About two weeks into number two I called Zenith and got part numbers
for, they said, the appropriate boards, from an authorized distributor
just down the street.

4. The PC tech guys finally gave up, and the machines were declared
"too old to upgrade".

5. I got a refund on the third party board from our store and ordered
the 4 Zenith parts.

6. Meanwhile the store manager -found- two Zenith upgrade boards
(labelled z-405a0, and gave them to us. They worked like a charm.
Backfill plus extended memory.

7. I cancelled the two (now extra) Zenith parts, and took delivery on
the other two. Our PC tech guys installed them.

These 512k boards (part 181-6363) backfill to 640 ok, but the monitor
program (ver. mfm-200) will not set-up/recognize the other 384k of
extended memory. It's not vital right now, but I like things to work
right. Also, it will be easier to correct the situation now, than to
correct it later, when it may be necessary.

I've contacted the Zenith auth. guys, and they say Zenith tech support
says we should get extended memory out of this board. It is configured
correctly (all jumpers on). Anyone know what the problem is? (oh, it's
in slot 5).

Kim Cary, Systems Support Coordinator          | "DOS: 3xSupport =
Function/4"
Pepperdine Univ., Grad. School of Ed. & Psych. | kcary@PEPVAX
My opinions, not those of GSEP or Pepperdine   | [e-mail]

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

Date: Tue, 11 Aug 92 14:50:58 SST
From: HC Eng <[e-mail]>
Subject: Was Freeware Windows Snapshot?

>Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 09:06 EDT
>From: Gordon Oppenheimer <[e-mail]>

>I need to get a screen snapshot of a windows program.  I am looking for
>freeware or shareware that will accomplish this.   Is this even
>possible?

>My goal is to create documentation for our users will pictures from the
>program itself.

Just press your PrintScreen key, and your whole screen, colors and all,
would be dumped to the clipboard, where you can edit with Paintbrush,
save and insert in any serious word processor.

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

Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1992 16:58:01 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Steve Fuller)
Subject: Windows 3.1 and DR-DOS 6.0 (V92 #114, #128)

In digest V92 #128 [e-mail] writes:

>>Date: Fri, 8 May 92 13:22:00 LCL
>>From: [e-mail]
>>

>and make sure you don't put WIN on a superstor volume-- your swap file
>will really get screw up.

The easy solution to this is to partition your disk into two logical
drives and put the Swapfile on the un-superstored partition. I've been
using this combo for over two months and have not had a problem yet...

Steve Fuller         =
[e-mail] =   No witty quote here yet...

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

Date: Wed, 12 Aug 1992 12:45 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Windows 3.1 and DR-DOS 6.0 (V92 #114, #128)

>>From: [e-mail]
>
>DR DOS 6.0 will work fine with WIN 3.1 if you have the April 92 release
>date of the product.  If you don't have it you can get it via
>compuserv, or from Novell if you are a registered user.  The update
>[...]
>and make sure you don't put WIN on a superstor volume-- your swap file
>will really get screw up.
>
>David Bear
>Office Automation

Yes, DRDOS 6.0 will only work with Windows 3.1 if you have the April
release.  You can get it (if you haven't already received it from
Digital Research) from SIMTEL20, too, in pd1:<msdos.windows3>.  The
file is called DR6WIN.ZIP with a file length of 120320.

You can put Windows on a SuperStor drive, but you can't have the swap
disk on a compressed disk.  The easiest alternative is to set aside a
certain amount of disk space when you first compress a disk, and use
that drive as a permanent swap disk.  Another alternative is to
reformat & repartition you hard drive; set aside a partition
exclusively for a permanent swap disk.  This is what I did, and it
limits the problems associated with fragmentation and continuous
blocks.

Paul Caron
McMaster University
[e-mail]

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

End of Info-IBMPC Digest V92 #137
*********************************
-------