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- ExtraDOS Toolbox (tm)
- _______________________________________
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- Users Manual
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- Copyright (c) 1985-93 Foley Hi-Tech Systems (ASP) All Rights Reserved
-
-
- Introduction
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
- ExtraDOS Toolbox is a compilation of tools useful to Microsoft DOS
- users. I originally wrote the first version of ExtraDOS under MS-DOS
- because I found a need for them and there were no commercially
- available products that provided these functions. Some ExtraDOS tools
- were designed to enhance programs already found in MS-DOS. Other
- tools were familiar to the Unix world, but were not available in
- MS-DOS. Over the years this collection has grown into large group of
- very useful tools. Some of these utilities are duplicates of those
- found elsewhere, but often provide much better features or reduced
- memory overhead than similar utilities found elsewhere. In addition,
- ExtraDOS complements PC-Tools and Norton Utilities with added tools
- these programs do not provide.
-
- Over thirty of the ExtraDOS Toolbox utilities have been selected by
- Paul Somerson, former Executive Editor of PC Magazine, for Bantam
- Books', DOS Power Tools, 2nd Edition, Revised and Expanded for DOS
- 5.0. Many of the ExtraDOS Toolbox utilities are now appearing in many
- popular DOS books that feature shareware enhancements for DOS.
-
- I hope you find these tools useful and convienent. Any suggestions
- for enhancements, improvements or additions are welcome. Please
- contact use with your comments.
-
-
- David R. Foley
-
-
- License Agreement
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
- This software is protected by both United States' copyright law and
- international treaty provisions. Therefore, you must treat this
- software "just like a book," with the following single exception.
- Foley Hi-Tech Systems authorizes you to make archival copies of the
- software for the sole purpose of backing up our software and
- protecting your investment from loss. By saying, "just like a book,"
- Foley Hi-Tech Systems means that this software may be used by any
- number of people and may be freely moved from one computer location
- to another, provided there is absolutely no possibility of it being
- used at one location while it is being used at another. Just as a
- book cannot be read by two different people in two different places
- simultaneously, the software may not be used by two different people
- in two different places simultaneously.
-
- You may not make copies of the software documentation or disk,
- except as described above. You may not distribute, rent, sublicense,
- or lease the software or the documentation. You may not alter,
- modify, or adapt the software or documentation, including but not
- limited to translating, decompiling, reverse assembling, or creating
- derivative works. You may not use the software in a network,
- timeshareing, multiple CPU, or multi- user environment unless each
- user is licensed by Foley Hi-Tech Systems.
-
-
- EXTRADOS TOOLBOX
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
- LIMITED WARRANTY
-
- Upon notification of defects in material or workmanship,
- within the warranty period of 45 days from the date of purchase,
- Foley Hi-Tech Systems will, at its option, replace the defective
- diskette or refund the license fee. If you need to return a product,
- call the Foley Hi-Tech Systems Technical Support Service Department
- to obtain a return authorization number. The remedy for breach of
- this warranty shall be limited to replacement or refund and shall
- not encompass any other damages, including but not limited to loss
- of profit, and special, incidental, consequential, or other similar
- claims.
-
- Foley Hi-Tech Systems specifically disclaims all other warranties,
- expressed or implied, including but not limited to implied
- warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose
- with respect to defects in the diskette and documentation, and the
- program license granted herein in particular, and without limiting
- operation of the program license with respect to any particular
- application, use, or purpose. In no event shall Foley Hi-Tech
- Systems be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial
- damage, including but not limited to special, incidental,
- consequential, or other damages. This statement shall be construed,
- interpreted, and governed by the laws of the State of California.
-
-
- TRADEMARK INFORMATION
-
- ExtraDOS Toolbox, TurboBAT, SpeedRAM, Screen Manager, Profiler,
- WizLabel, CDBS, Press Gate Manager, ExtraWindows Toolbox and Safety
- Disk are trademarks of Foley Hi-Tech Systems.
-
- MS-DOS and Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation.
-
- Norton Utilities are a trademark of Symantec.
-
- PC-Tools is a trademark of Central Point Software.
-
- ADDCOMM - Add Communications Port Information
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
- ADDCOMM is a utility that allows you to define the address of your
- COM ports in the DOS lower memory segment. This is useful for
- machines whose BIOS doesn't support COM3 and COM4 ports by default.
- In many older machines including early 80386 based systems, the BIOS
- would only setup COM1 and COM2 for DOS. Newer serial cards and
- modems allow you to define COM3 and COM4 on the cards but these
- machines won't allow DOS to see these additional ports unless you
- place the corresponding address in low DOS memory. ADDCOMM will
- place this information in the correct location for you.
-
- ADDCOMM will display the current address values for any COM
- ports that are installed in your system. By placing the ADDCOMM
- statements in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file you can have the machine load
- the correct values without having to intervene. ADDCOMM is not a
- TSR and will not require any overhead memory to setup your ports
- from AUTOEXEC or the DOS prompt.
-
-
- VERSION
-
- 4.00 11/01/93
-
-
- COMMAND FORMAT
-
- ADDCOMM [port] [address]
-
-
- [port] is the COM port to add.
-
- [address] is the address of the COM port being added.
-
-
-
- EXAMPLE
-
- ADDCOMM COM3 3E8 will tell DOS to address COM3 at address 3E8.
-
-
-
-
- ADDCOMM - Add Communications Port Information
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
- NOTES
-
-
- Certain makes of BIOS do not support beyond COM2. This means that at
- the power-up equipment check they do not add COM3 and COM4 to the
- low-memory equipment list and/or do not add the appropriate base
- addresses to the BIOS data area even if you may have a modem or
- I/O card configured as COM3 or COM4.
-
- This same problem seems to occur occasionally because of
- conflicts between various boards.
-
- The equipment list may be incorrect if an internal modem is
- installed as COM2 (or COM3 or COM4) with no COM1 serial port in the
- computer.
-
- The result of all these problems is that any serial I/O involving
- DOS redirection will not work properly. For instance, one may use
- COM3 successfully with a terminal program until "shelling out of
- Host Mode," which often involves DOS CTTY redirection. Another
- symptom would be a "WRITE FAULT ERROR WRITING DEVICE COMx" following
- simple redirection such as "DIR >COMx."
-
- ADDCOMM will write information about your serial ports into the
- appropriate low-memory areas. It may be used to make your system
- aware of your specific serial hardware.
-
- If the COM port is already listed in the low-memory equipment list,
- ADDCOMM will simply change the base address to what you specify in
- the second argument to the command. Typing ADDCOMM alone will show
- what ports are currently in the equipment list along with their base
- addresses.
-
- A typical use of ADDCOMM would be to put the line ADDCOMM COM3 3E8
- in the autoexec.bat file for BIOS versions that do not support COM3.
-
-
-
-
- ADDCOMM - Add Communications Port Information
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
-
- COMMON SERIAL PORT BASE ADDRESSES
-
- COM1 - 3F8 the addresses for COM1 and COM2
- COM2 - 2F8 are pretty much a standard
-
- COM3 - 3E8 these addresses for COM3 and COM4 are
- COM4 - 2E8 are common, though it's sometimes reversed
-
-
- PS/2 SERIAL PORT BASE ADDRESSES
-
- COM1 - 3F8
- COM2 - 2F8
- COM3 - 3220
- COM4 - 3228
-
-
-
-
- TECHNICAL SUPPORT
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
- Often we get calls from people asking questions that can be
- solved easily by checking through the manual before calling tech
- support. We ask that you browse the manual and look for information
- pertaining to your particular problem before calling. This can often
- save you time, as we take a collection of our most common questions
- and try to address them in this manual.
-
- We offer alternative methods besides the conventional phone
- support, such as a multi-line 24-hour BBS system. We also monitor
- most technical conferences in the BBS Interlink and RelayNet
- networks as well as many conferences on the CompuServe
- Information System. You may send messages and questions via any of
- these services.
-
- Currently our Tech Support office is staffed Monday through Friday
- from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time. There is a chance,
- however, that someone is in the office outside this time frame.
- If so, we will gladly answer your questions outside the normal
- business hours. Registered users are given unlimited technical
- support.
-
- Foley Hi-Tech Systems
- Technical Support Department
- 185 Berry Street
- San Francisco, CA 94107
- (415) 882-1730
- (415) 882-1733 FAX
- (415) 882-1735 BBS
- PCVENB CONF. 13 CompuServe
-
-
-
- CREDITS
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
- This collection of utilities started out as a small set of home
- grown tools that I just could not stand to live without. Many times
- someone would see me using them and ask for a copy. This was a big
- mistake. All of the sudden I had to debug my code. Someone would
- call me up and remind me of some problem with a utility that I had
- written or asked me to just add this one little feature. Six years
- later the package has evolved to its current state. Along the way I
- have had the help of many people in testing and ideas for products.
- I would like to thank all of those people who have of course
- registered these utilities as this is now a new incentive for
- continuing to expand them. More specifically I'd like to thank the
- following:
-
- Kathy Smith
- Jay Wessel
- Roger Cross
- Brian & Tess for Channel 1
- Paul Somerson & Bantam Books
- PC Tech Journal (A Great Loss)
- PC Magazine
- Byte Magazine
- Jerry Pournelle
- Association of Shareware Professionals
-
-
-
-
- PROGRAMMING
-
- The ExtraDOS Toolbox utilties use a wide variety of programming
- tools including:
-
- Borland Turbo Pascal 7.0
- Borland Turbo Assembler 3.0
- Borland Turbo C++ 1.0
- Borland Turbo Debugger 2.0
- Turbo Power Software Object Professional 1.0
- Phil Katz' PKLite Professional 1.13
- Unity Programmers Editor 3.33
- Ralph Browns' Interrupt List
-
-
- Programming by:
-
- Mike Blaszczak
- David Foley
- Joe Halpin
- Bill McKee
- Mike Molloy
- Mike Viens
- Ross Wentworth
- Randall Woodman
-
-
- CREDITS
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
-
- ART
-
- Artwork for the ExtraDOS Toolbox was created using:
-
- Ian Davis' TheDraw 4.01
- Aldus Freehand 2.0
- Electronic Arts Studio/8 2.0
-
-
- Art by:
-
- David Foley
- Noel Gamboa
- Moses Gates
- Shahasp Herardian
- Pat McSween
- Ross Wentworth
-
-
- DOCUMENTATION
-
- Documentation for the ExtraDOS Toolbox was written using:
-
- FHTS SuperEdit 3.04
- Word Perfect 5.1
- MS Word for Windows 2.0
- Grammatik for Windows 1.0
- Aldus Pagemaker 4.0
- Unity Programmers Editor 3.33
-
-
- Documentation by:
-
- Mike Blaszczak
- David Foley
- Mike Viens
- Ross Wentworth
-
-
- Printed Manuals by:
-
- BindCo, Brisbane, CA.
-
-
- LICENSE INFORMATION
-
- CHIMES, EVAL and RAMDRIVE are derivatives of the Nifty James
- utilties by Mike Blaszczak.
-
- FILEATTR, NAMEDIR and SWAPFILE are derivatives of the Fantastic
- Utilities by Mike Viens.
-
-
-
- FHTS Products
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
- Safety Disk (tm)
-
- Safety Disk saves all of your systems vital information and will
- solve most problems due to: Loss of battery power, Loss of CMOS
- information, accidental deletion of boot files, virus damage to boot
- disk.
-
-
- "Use Safety Disk and your PC is Safe.", Computer Shopper, March 1992
-
- "Used in Conjuntion with a conventional backup utility, Safety Disk,
- for $59.95 will provide as bulletproof a backup as you're likely to
- find in the PC marketplace.", InfoWorld, February 10, 1992
-
- "Safety Disk is so deceptively easy to use that it makes hard-drive
- and computer maintenance seem impossibly easy.", PCM Magazine, May
- 1992
-
- "I have discovered the most unique and useful system maintenance
- utility since Spinrite came along.", MBUG PC Newsletter, December,
- 1991
-
-
- ExtraDOS Toolbox (tm)
-
- A large collection of over 50 utilities that DOS forgot. Includes
- many helpful utilities that enhance MS-DOS machines. Featured in the
- DOS Power Tools, 2nd Edition, Revised for DOS 5.0 book by Bantam
- Books.
-
-
- WizLabel (tm)
-
- Print Sharp Wizard phone listings directly to your SLP Printer
- without having to convert your data.
-
-
- Coach Database System■.
-
- CDBS provides a method for tracking and evaluating NBA teams, NBA
- players, and college players. It supplies a comprehensive report
- generator for building decision support reports on scouted players.
-
-
- FHTS Products
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
-
- Press Gate Manager■.
-
- Software for event organizers. Creates and maintains a database of
- events and guests with the ability to track seating by type,
- location, and person. Produces seating charts and labels for press
- passes.
-
-
- FINDB■.
-
- Financial Database System for tracking shareholders in a company.
- Allows the instant retrieval of information based on any part of a
- persons account id, ss#, zip code etc. Has support for completely
- customized HP Laserjet tax forms. Ideal for generating K1 tax
- reports for limited partnerships.
-
-
-
- EXTRADOS TOOLBOX UPCOMING ADDITIONS
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
- We are constantly adding new utilities to the ExtraDOS Toolbox
- collection. Some are developments of ideas from our customers. If
- you know of a utility that you would find handy or updates to
- existing utilities please let us know about them.
-
-
- BATPLUS Collection of enhancements for DOS Batch files. BATPLUS
- enhancements will also be supported by TurboBAT.
-
- BOOTMGR Boot Manager will allow you to choose from many different
- boot up configurations by displaying a menu of choices
- at boot time. Each configuration can have a seperate
- AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS associated with it.
-
- DIALIT Small TSR that allows you to pop up over any text screen
- and capture a phone number and then dialing with your
- modem.
-
- DIFF Full screen file comparison utility. Will display the
- differences between two different files.
-
- DIRSORT Sort directories by Name, Extension, Date, Time or Size.
-
- DISKTEST Command line utility to perform testing functions on disk
- drives looking for bad sectors or clusters.
-
- EMSX86 EMS 4.0 Memory Manager that converts Extended Memory into
- LIM EMS 4.0 Expanded memory.
-
- FKEYSET Allows you to assign customized values for all the function
- keys.
-
- LQPRINT Allows 9 pin dot matrix printers to print near letter
- quality output by converting text into high resolution
- graphics.
-
- NBSTIME Will set your PC clock to National Atomic Clock time by
- calling NBS with your modem.
-
- PRMPTMGR Prompt Manager gives you access to a library of DOS prompts
- and allows you to create your own DOS prompts.
-
- PRINTCTL Print Controller is a multiple printer spool and configuration
- utility. Supports EMS or DISK spooling and up to three
- printer ports.
-
-
- EXTRADOS TOOLBOX UPCOMING ADDITIONS
- _____________________________________________________________________
-
-
- SORT Advanced SORT utilty for DOS. Features many enhancements o
- over the DOS version.
-
- SPEEDFL Increase access to some floppy disk drives.
-
- SPLITFL Split files into multiples for modem or diskette transfers.
-
- STOPWTCH Stop Watch allows you to time programs at the DOS prompt.
-
- SWAPFILE Swap to file names with the associated files.
-
- XCD Smart CHDIR command. Will accept partial names.
-
- XDEL Advanced delete command. Allows many options and exclusions.
-
- XDIR Updated DIR command with sort options.
-
- ZIPCODE TSR to allow the searching of US Postal Zip Code Database.
-
-
-
-
- The latest versions of the ExtraDOS Toolbox utilities can be found on:
-
- FHTS PC GURU III BBS, San Francisco, CA (415) 882-1735
-
- CHANNEL 1 BBS, Cambridge, MA (617) 354-8873
-
- COMPUSERVE INFORMATION SERVICE PCVENB CONF. 13
-