PC-Test Pro/PCTESTPRO.iso/disktool/35sec/entp/35doc.txt

Text File | 1995-09-21 | 12.8 KB | 272 lines

NOTE:  This program is *NOT* compatible with enhanced mode Windows with
─────┘ virtual memory in use.

  Common knowledge says, that it is possible to speed-up installation process
of big programs by copying installation disks on hard-drive. It's good thing
to do, because when you speed-up installation two times (by this trick), you
can save up-to half an hour. (Yes. There are programs, which took 60 minutes
to install.)

  35sec package offers something even better: With 35sec floppy-disk
accelerator it is possible to read/write floppy-disks on background - You'll
save even more time and you will not need any hard-disk space.

  And 35sec provides even more...
  You are working in your favourite text editor, when friend comes with
1.44MB of texts, you are interested in. You will not stop working with
text-editor, you just press some sequence of key combinations (^^Q 1 ^^W 1 in
case that disk fits into B:) and continue working with editor. Disk is being
read on background. After 35 seconds, computer beeps, indicating you
that disk's memory image is ready. Now you can decide, if you want to see
tthat texts (access to them is now as extremely fast - as fast as
ram-drive). If you decide to do some changes, you can, but before removing
floppy you need to save them back. You can do also other things: for example
you can make diskcopy of that disk without need to read it again.

                             35 seconds package
                             ══════════════════╝
                                Version 1.20


                  The ultimate floppy-disk caching program

  35sec disk accelerator is able to read floppy disks completely on
background. It is nice feature, which can save you lot of time. Computer is
slowed down only by some 10%, difference is unnoticeable (when not running
benchmarks). You can even remove floppy from drive (if disk is error-free).
You can work on it, and it is as fast as ram-drive.  You can even make changes
on it. Than you can write memory image onto floppy, you can decide to discard
changes, can make copies of that disk, everything completely on background.

  When there are some problems with reading floppy, remember to leave it
inserted in drive. When 35sec is not able to read something (it will tell you
after reading), you should leave floppy inserted. BIOS may still be able to
read that data. Be sure to retire such floppies, as they became slow and
unreliable.

                             35sec.com - kernel
                             ──────────────────┘
  35sec.com should be loaded from your autoexec.bat file. It is resident and
takes about 3KB of RAM. It may be loaded high by your memory manager in order
to save memory. 35sec.com contains kernel, which is responsible for doing all
low-level operations. This kernel provides services to other programs from
35sec package. Interface between 35sec.com and other programs is described in
35tech.txt. If you decide to use that interface, please let me know. Note,
that you can't distribute 35sec along with your own programs (see 35lic.txt).

                   35secW.com - Windows compatible kernel
                   ──────────────────────────────────────┘
  35secW.com is equivalent of 35sec.com, except that it is compatible with
Windows with one exception: This program is *NOT* compatible with enhanced
mode Windows with virtual memory in use. Disable virtual memory or switch to
standard mode before using this program.

  When running 35secW under Windows, make sure *NO* dos application is running
at same time.

  This is because Windows with virtual memory just can not handle moving data
to virtual memory during hardware interrupt. If you know how to do that,
please mail me. Only solution I see is rewrite completely big part of Windows
- and I'm not going to do that.

  35secW is worse than 35sec - it needs more memory and has bigger overhead.
This is because windows refuse to lock XMS memory.

                       35cache?.com - cache interfaces
                       ───────────────────────────────┘
  After loading 35sec.com, you need some program to call its services. You can
select from 3 versions of this program (called 35caches.com, 35cacheo.com and
35cacheb.com). All these shells should be loaded from autoexec.bat. They have
all same keyboard controlls - they differs only in responses they give to you.

  35cacheb.com - gives information by beeps. Problem about this is, that it
may be hard to recognize what information does it want to give you. Generally,
two same beeps mean that something is O.K. and accepted, two (or more)
different beeps mean that something went wrong. It is the smallest one.

  35caches.com - gives information in text form only. Window in center of
screen pops up informing you on what happend. Then, you are expected to press
Alt-RShift to continue. The message pops up even if you are in graphics mode
(and you will not be able to see it), so this is not recommended to install
when you use graphics mode application frequently.

  35cacheo.com - gives information by beeps and in text form. Text message
appears after you press report last message (^^C) combination (see below), so
there are no problems with graphics modes.

  All 35cache? programs require single word to be passed on command-line as
flags, so you'll have to install them with "35cache? 0000" - one space between
command and parameters, four characters. Use 35cache? without parameters to
get help. Parameter allows you to use something else than default
Ctrl-Alt-????.

  Buffer selection        Deselect
 ┌───┬───┬───┬───┬         ┬───┬
 │1  │2  │3  │4  │         │0  │
 │   │   │   │   │         │   │
 └┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬        ┴───┴


  └┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬
   │Q  │W  │E  │R  │
   │   │   │   │   │  B:
   └┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬
    │A  │S  │D  │F  │
    │   │   │   │   │  A:
    └┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬
      ^   ^   ^   ^
      │   │   │   │
      │   │   │   └─ Write whole memory image onto floppy
      │   │   └─ Write chaged parts of memory image onto floppy
      │   └─ Assign buffer to drive
      └─ Read buffer from drive

     └┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬──┴┬
      │Z  │X  │C  │V  │
      │   │   │   │   │
      └───┴───┴───┴───┴
        ^   ^   ^   ^
        │   │   │   │
        │   │   │   └─ Cancel current operation
        │   │   └─ Report last message (not in 35cacheb)
        │   └─ Report progress of current operation (not in 35cacheb
        └─ Free buffer

  Commands are Ctrl-Alt-Letter (Ctrl-Alt-??? can be overriden to something
else on command line) followed by buffer number (if required).

  For ilustrative pictures, run README.bat.

                                    35mon
                                    ─────┘
  35mon is event-driven utility that allows you to view state of 35sec floppy
accelerator. It can send commands to 35sec, so you could use instead of
35cache? interfaces. It can be controlled from command line, use 35mon /? to
get help. Mount and UnMount batches are examples of 35mons usage.

                                   35monW
                                   ──────┘
  35monW is interface for usage of 35secW under Windows. It is pretty self
explanatory, I hope. Remember to select buffers between starting operations. I
hope incompatibility with virtual memory is not really critical - you don't
need much memory when installing new software (that is probably best time to
use 35secW).

                                Compatibility
                                ─────────────┘
  When MS-Windows are loaded, it is not possible to load disk images with
35sec (it reports 'Not enough XMS' error). It can be done with 35secW when
Virtual memory is off.

  35sec requires some XMS memory manager to be installed. When used with disk
caches, load 35sec *before* that cache. If you load 35sec after really (don't
do that!) intelligent cache (like hyperdisk), be sure to flush its buffers
before reading floppies using 35sec.

  35sec requires 386SX or better, with FDC compatible to my FDC, just
try it (no-name computers are probably O.K.). Requirement of 386+ is not
essential, but I'm too lazy to do 32-bit aritmetics on 286-. If that is
problem for you (i.e.  you own 286 or even XT), please let me know, but I
don't think I'll help you.

  Please do NOT use 35sec for disks with non-DOS file system (like LINUX
disks), it can cause 'Division by zero' in foreground application.

                                Installation
                                ────────────┘
  Copy all files to hard-drive. Install 35sec.com and one of 35cache?.com
(you'll need status flags, 0000 by default) in autoexec.bat file. 35sec.com
(or 35secW, if you are windows user) should be installed before any
disk-caching program but after XMS memory manager.

Example AUTOEXEC.BAT
────────────────────┘

d:\win\xmsmmgr
c:\utl\35sec
c:\utl\35cacheo 0000
c:\utl\hyperdkx ...

                                Registration
                                ────────────┘
  After 21 days evalution period, you must register. Registration means, that
you will send me $10 and I will send you registered copy of 35sec accelerator.
(Just put money into envelope so they are not visible from outside and send it
to my snail-mail adress. Send me note if you are able to. Or do you have some
better idea how to deliver me $10?)

  After registering, you'll get much smaller version (even with smaller
resident kernel). Pause on start-up will disappear, too.

  Note for people from Czech republic:  Vzhledem k tomu, ze od nikoho z vas
neocekavam, ze mi poslete deset dolaru, bude bohate stacit, kdyz mi poslete
stopadesat korun, nejlepe slozenkou na nize uvedenou adresu.

                              Note for hackers
                              ────────────────┘
                    This program should be un-crackable.

                          Note for advanced hackers
                          ─────────────────────────┘
       This program of course is NOT un-crackable, but don't try that.
                 (Previous line can save much of your time.)

                                  Versions
                                  ────────┘
  There are 3 separate versions of 35sec - first for usage under DOS, second
for use under Windows (w/o virtual memory, w/o dos boxes) and third
(registered) version for both environments.


                         Table of files and versions

 ┌────────────┬────────────────────────────────┬──────────────────────┐
 │Files       │            Shareware           │     Registered       │
 │            │   for DOS    │   for Windows   │  for DOS & Windows   │
 ├────────────┼──────────────┼─────────────────┼──────────────────────┤
 │35sec   .com│     [X]      │        [ ]      │         [X]          │
 │35secW  .com│     [ ]      │        [X]      │         [X]          │
 │35caches.com│     [X]      │        [ ]      │         [X]          │
 │35cacheb.com│     [X]      │        [ ]      │         [X]          │
 │35cacheo.com│____ [X] _____│_______ [ ] _____│________ [X] _________│
 │file_id .diz│     [X]      │        [X]      │         [ ]          │
 │35doc   .txt│     [X]      │        [X]      │         [X]          │
 │35tech  .txt│____ [X] _____│_______ [X] _____│________ [X] _________│
 │35mon   .exe│     [X]      │        [ ]      │         [X]          │
 │35monW  .exe│     [ ]      │        [X]      │         [X]          │
 │mount   .bat│     [X]      │        [X]      │         [X]          │
 │unmount .bat│____ [X] _____│_______ [X] _____│________ [X] _________│
 │readme  .bat│     [X]      │        [X]      │         [X]          │
 │pmklogo .exe│     [X]      │        [X]      │         [X]          │
 │35old   .exe│     [X]      │        [X]      │         [X]          │
 │35help  .exe│     [X]      │        [X]      │         [X]          │
 └────────────┴──────────────┴─────────────────┴──────────────────────┘

                                   History
                                   ───────┘
  1.00 - first released version
  1.01 - minor documentation changes
  1.10 - added detection of installed disk drives
         removed problem with freeing memory while reading/writing
  1.20 - added cancel function
         added MOUNT / UNMOUT batches
         added 35mon program
         added 35monW program, Windows interface for 35sec
         added 35secW program, Windows compatible kernel
         hotkey selection allowed

                                  Comments
                                  ────────┘
  Any comments are welcome, even from non-registered users. This is not version
1.0, but some bugs may have survived. Please report me, if you find one.

  My adress is:
          Pavel Machek
          Volkova 1131
  198 00  Praha 9 - Cerny Most
          Czech republic

  Phone:  [phone]
  E-mail: [e-mail]