PsL Monthly 1993 December

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U2-04: Operating System Utilities ------------------------ 1346 DOS Command Editors Small Programs Disk ------------------------ For an understanding of what DOS Command Editors do, read the CED writeup first. CED (and the others) are similar in some ways to key macro programs and "shorthand" utilities which allow you to type in just part of a word and the computer fills in the rest. For more on these utilities, see the Keyboard section. Note: Many BBS's and libraries still carry DOS-EDIT even though it is a pirated program and not public domain. DOS-EDIT was sold by IBM in its Personally Developed Software series under the name RETRIEVE. Besides DOS-EDIT not being public domain, CED is much better anyway. To further confuse things, PC Magazine also came out with a similar utility with the name DOSEDIT. CED is still better. Command EDitor (CED) Dunford, Christopher J. $0 is a TSR that improves command line editing in DOS, lets you scroll back through previous commands to edit and/or re-execute them, lets you create the equivalent of in-memory batch files, -command scrolling: you can use the up and down cursor keys to scroll back through previously entered commands in DOS. If you are doing repetitive tasks while in DOS, this keeps you from having to retype the same lines over and over. -use of the cursor keys: now if you make a mistake while typing in DOS, you can use the cursor keys to go back and correct it instead of having to erase what you have already typed. This feature combines nicely with command scrolling. For example, if you want copy the file DATABASE from drive C: to drive A: and then to drive B:, at the C> prompt you would enter COPY DATABASE A: and when it was done, press the up cursor. This redisplays the last command and leaves the cursor at the end of the command so that all you have to do is press the left cursor key twice change the A to B and press Enter. -recall of program parameters (PCALL): after you have run a program once, the next time you call the program, CED will insert the same parameters for you. For example, if you enter link myprog+module1+module2+module3+module4+module5+module6 the next time you run LINK, all the rest of the line will be entered for you automatically. -synonyms: have you ever typed in DUR or DRI instead of DIR? No sweat. Just tell CED that when it sees those popular typo's, to treat them as DIR. DOS-Edit referred to these as Aliases. A simple CED synonym definition is set up like this: CED SYN DUR DIR. This tells CED that if you type in DUR, to substitute the word DIR in its place before passing it along to DOS to act on. Nice, but where the power of synonyms comes into play is that you can use variables the way you would in batch files, and you can chain a series of commands to be assigned to one synonym. Example: CED SYN EDIT CD \WP^WS %1^COPY %1 A:^CD\ Now if you enter EDIT LETTER.TXT, the current directory will be changed to WP, your word processing subdirectory, WordStar will be called and told to edit the file LETTER.TXT. When you finally exit WS, the file LETTER.TXT will be copied to a backup disk in drive A:, and you will be returned to the root directory again. -MANY OF YOUR BATCH FILES ARE NO LONGER NEEDED. On a hard disk, a small batch file to do the job that the synonym above is doing would take up the drive's minimum allocation of space, which may be as much as 8,000 characters. If you have many of these little batch files, they can use up and enormous amount of disk space. Now you can make them into synonyms and free up that disk space. -SYNONYMS RESIDE IN MEMORY and execute at RAM speed instead of disk speed. If you have a floppy based system, you no longer have to switch disks to use a batch file, and the speed increase is remarkable. Cedsyn 1.02 Modak, Anand $? creates CED Synonyms for changing directories. (See write-up of CED, above.) CEDSYN reads your hard disk and creates a SYN of a "2" followed by the directory name for each directory. Then when you want to change directories (say, for example, to C:\WP\LET), you would just enter "2LET" and the CED SYN will execute the command CD\WP\LET. After CEDSYN has added the synonyms to your CED file, it does not have to be run again. AI 2.1 Toft, George $24 is an artificially intelligent command line interface that corrects your typing errors in DOS by learning what you really meant based on your previous mistakes and corrections. It also allows the use of cursor keys on the DOS command line. CShell is a COMMAND.COM replacement. It implements unix-like shell commands such as ls, mv, fgrep, rm, chdir, chmod,etc. It also allows recalling and editing previous commands. DOSinp 1.0 Mercie, Kenneth J. $10 is another one of those memory resident programs that provide DOS command line editing. Along with the editing features, DOSINP will let you recall the previous 20 command line entries; display a window with the available previous commands; delete unwanted commands from the command window; program the 10 Function keys; flush the typeahead keyboard buffer, at any time; remove TSR's from memory. At only 8k of DOS RAM used for DOSINP, this is a very attractive alternative to similar utilities. (res:8k) Edicom-12 (EDC) Edicom Systems $26 is a DOS command processor and more. It will recall up to 12 previous commands entered in DOS for easy changing and re-execution. It lets you execute commands with a single keystroke, find files, page through text files, and prevent accidental overwriting of files - all without slowing you down while working in DOS. History Rubenstein, Michael M. $? is a DOS command recall and editing utility with a nice touch - the ability to recall a previous DOS command line without scrolling back through them all by entering the first few letters and pressing Ctrl-L. History is interesting in that most of the command and editing function keys are also executable as control key combinations, for those who don't like to pick up their hands from the keyboard. Another interesting feature is the History's ability to search the command buffer for a line that matches the first few characters entered. (res:5.5k) LogOut 1.71 Messer, Greg $0 is a 1k TSR that will send keystrokes to the keyboard after a specified period of system inactivity has passed. The result is the same as if you manually typed the keystrokes. You may specify that "system inactivity" be determined by monitoring any combination of the keyboard, disk, printer or screen. LogOut could be used to save work, close files, exit a program, log off a network, etc, when a system is not used for a period of time. Up to 127 keystrokes can be stored in a file for passing to the keyboard. Recall 2.1 g.r.a.m. Associates $? permits the user to retrieve any one of up to 50 unique DOS commands previously issued by the user. Once retrieved, the command may be executed as is or modified by the user via the normal DOS line editing keys. Show (SHOW-DT) Toedt, D. C. $0 is a batch file that allows beginning users to easily execute many common DOS commands without having to remember the syntax. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #1346 -------------------------------- ---------------------------- 12014 DOS Command Editors #2 Small Programs Disk ---------------------------- PC-Shell is a command processor for IBM-PC's and compatibles that emulates some of the more desirable functions of the Berkeley UNIX* C-shell. In addition, it implements PC-DOS versions of some of the common UNIX* commands such as ls, mv, cp, etc. It also allows "history substitution" which saves retyping of long command lines. It allows you to do things like re-execute the last command, re-execute the last command but redirect output to a file, or execute a new command with arguments from previous command lines. The last 20 commands are saved, and can be reviewed by typing the 'history' command. Previous commands can be referred to by their number, or relative to the current command's number. Parameters from previous commands can be seperated out and used individually. Recall 1.0 (R-CALL) CompuTech $33 is a 10k TSR which will pop up a window to allow you to recall, edit and reexecute commands previously entered at the DOS prompt. Commands can also be marked for play-back at a specific date and time. Stack 2.4 Bergl, Shane $? allows you to recall commands that were typed in DOS and to edit the DOS command line using the cursor keys. While there are several similar utilities around, this one lets you view a list of the commands that are in the stack and assign them to function keys. Toddy 5.11 Tauck, Eric $10 is a 2k TSR utility that enhances the built-in DOS line editing and provides a command scroll-back, similar to CED and the old DOS-EDIT. Other features include chained commands and macros. Macros and the command history may be saved and loaded from a file. DOS editing keys are supported, and much more. Viper 3.11 (VIPERBF) Freshour Software $20 is a DOS command line editor. It remembers keystrokes typed in at the DOS prompt and provides a visual window to view, edit and select previous DOS commands for re-execution. Other features include mouse support, trashcan file deletion, function key assignments, digital battery watch for portable computers, high memory management compatibility and more. --------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #12014 --------------------------------- Anarkey Calwas, Steven $34 #1827 is a command-line editor that will significantly reduce the number of keystrokes made when entering DOS commands. Features include retrieval of previous DOS commands, multiple commands per line, a 255-character command line, environment editing, and support for LIM EMS memory. Other features include pop-up windows to retrieve past commands, complete filenames, edit environment variables, or display program help; full support for enhanced keyboards; special support for Windows 3.0 in 386 Enhanced mode; and mouse support. ------------------------------- 0276 DOS Access and Environment Small Programs Disk ------------------------------- 0276 DOS Access --------------- ED 3.0 (ED-SG) Genusa, Stephen V. $20 is a very handy way to edit the DOS environment (where you can easily modify your DOS path, for example), your CONFIG.SYS file and AUTOEXEC.BAT file. It also reports some basic system information such as memory installed (standard ram, extended & EMS), ports installed, and more. HotDOS Best, Robert $20 allows any currently executing program to be temporarily suspended so that a second copy of COMMAND.COM can be loaded and run in the background. ShRoom 2.0a Augustine, Davis $25 is a utility that gives you more room when Shelling to DOS from an application. It works by swapping the application to disk, freeing up all but 6k of memory. When you Exit the Shell, it automatically swaps your application back again. SWAP 1.2 (SWAP-NM) Mak, Nico & Mansfield Software Group $0 frees up DOS RAM when you have shelled to DOS from some program by swapping the memory the program is using to EMS, extended memory or a hard disk. For example, if you are programming in an editor and want to shell to DOS to compile, you may find that the editor is taking up too much DOS RAM to allow the compiler to run. All you have to do is run SWAP and the editor's area of DOS RAM will be swapped out, allowing the compiler access to nearly all of DOS RAM. When you quit the second program, the first program is swapped back into memory. TST Microsystems Software, Inc. $10 is a 6k (or less) TSR that lets you run any program while in another program, including those using graphics, a mouse or a coprocessor. It works by swapping the programs back and forth to disk, so a hard disk is recommended. 0276 DOS Environment Utilities ------------------------------ AddPath Quillen, Ed $0 extends the DOS path string beyond 127 bytes. Requires DOS 3+. Edenv 1.5 Bovee, Bill $? allows modifying the contents of the DOS environment, such as the defined PATH. EE2 Graham, Keith P. $? is a DOS Environment Editor. Since the "DOS environment" contains such goodies as where DOS should look for COMMAND.COM and the PATH and PROMPT configurations, none of which DOS allows you to edit, EE can really save you a lot of time and trouble. With EE, all you have to enter is the new subdirectory name. ENV-Read displays strings in the environment. EnvCount displays the number of bytes used in the DOS Environment space. EnvirCat 1.2 Gardner, Mark $0 allows concatenation of environment strings to form arbitrarily long strings. It is useful for generating long path statements beyond the 128 character maximum imposed by the DOS command line format. ESET 1.2 Babulic, Mike $0 is a replacement for DOS's SET command. ESET makes it easier to edit and enter variables in the environment. Pascal source code is included. NewPath Lacobie, Kevin $0 lets you insert a subdirectory name into a PATH definition or delete one with one quick command. While EE2 is more powerful overall, Newpath is quicker and easier to use for the tasks it performs. Path Editor 2.0 (PED-RD) Dittmeier, Ray $7 is an easy PATH editor for both experts and novices. Novices will like the full-screen mode in which all directory names in your PATH/drive are displayed for easy selection of a directory to delete/add. Experts will like the fast command-line option and the ability to specify multiple directory-PATH changes at once. Post (POST-DS) Sessions, D. C. $0 is a filter that will reversibly alter the DOS environment based on the contents of a file, which may be created by POST. Especially useful in conjunction with tools which make heavy use of environment variables, in particular multilingual development environments. A side-benefit is that POST accepts longer (1024 byte) strings than does COMMAND.COM's SET command (128 bytes max). ShowEnv DOS System Utility $0 displays a list of your environment variables. Does not work under Windows. Sit Corry, Davidson $0 is a utility program for creating, modifying or deleting strings in the MASTER copy of the DOS environment. For example, if you run DESQview or run a program that shells to DOS, you are working in a secondary copy of the Command Processor. Issuing a PATH command at that point would not effect the master copy of COMMAND.COM. Issuing a SIT PATH command WILL effect the master copy and not the secondary one. It also adds several features to DOS's SET command. Use Haley, James $0 are two utility programs to add and remove directories from the path. USE will add a directory to the path without disturbing the rest of the path, and UNUSE will remove a directory while leaving the others alone. We have had similar utilities that did not work quite as well. We have already added this pair to our Utility subdirectory. XPath 1.0 Babulic, Mike $0 is a utility for changing the environment PATH variable. Xpath works with DOS 2 and up. Pascal source included. 0276 Emergency Help ------------------- Abort loads into memory, stays there until needed, and purports to get you out of some program lockups and back to DOS. Whether programs like this work depends on what kind of lock-up you have. If the system has crossed so far over into the Twilight Zone that it no longer is noticing the keyboard, your pounding on Abort's "hot keys" will do you no good. However, there are many lockups Abort will save you from and it does not take much memory, so it's worth having there for when it does work. (res.: 400 bytes) CBoot Graham, Keith P. $? is a resident utility which lets you get out of some system lock-ups or out of programs that won't let you gracefully exit. Last Resort 1.0 (LASTRES) Sawada, Dr. Masaaki $10 gets you out of those system lock-ups which normally make you do a Ctrl-Alt-Del. It cannot get you out of the hard lock-ups of the type which even ignore Ctrl-Alt-Del and make you turn the power off and back on (or hit Reset) to reboot. We have had utilities of this type before which did not work well, but LastResort seems to work fine. In cases where it might not be able to let you exit a program gracefully, it will also let you copy files from a RAM disk to other disks so that you don't lose them if you have to reboot. This feature could be useful even apart from system lock-ups. Another useful side benefit is that LastResort traps the PrtSc key such that while you can still continue on and do a Print Screen, if pressing the key was an accident and you do not have a printer hooked up, it will let you escape without hanging the system. Luther Cross, Kissimmee, FL: "When I type LASTRESO I get the help list, when I type LASTRESO.RUN I get then message "Bad command or filename". PsL: You should just type LASTRESO RUN with a space between the words. By putting a period there, DOS thinks you are trying to execute a file with the extension of ".RUN". Resq 3.2 (RESQ32) 09-93 CD Yarus, Mike $10 is a utility which allows recovery of text otherwise lost in the computer. RESQ saves buffered text, left in your computer's RAM before it was written to disk. If you've ever lost hard-won text due to a word-processing glitch, or forgotten to save that text file you just downloaded, or had to use the fire exit while testing a new program, or given the wrong answer to "Abandon current version?", you can use RESQ. Safari Hummel, Robert L. $0 keeps you from crashing out of a program by intercepting DOS error messages such as "Abort, Retry, Ignore" and handling them more genteelly. Tested in PC-DOS 2.0 to 3.31. (res:3k) Spray Angel, Dave $0 is designed to let you capture the contents of memory to a disk file. One purpose of such a utility would be to salvage text that you were entering into a text editor which, for example, you quit without saving. Assembler source is included. Watchdog 1.0 (WATCHDO) Sykes, Ken $0 watches PS/2 Model 50-and-up computers for system lockups and returns control to the keyboard when one occurs. This allows you to do a warm reboot (Ctrl-Alt-Del) rather than having to power the machine off and on. Assembler source code is provided. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #0276 -------------------------------- ------------------------------- 1945 DOS Command Line Utilities Small Programs Disk ------------------------------- Execute 1.5 MAH Software Services $10 allows you to execute multiple commands from one DOS command line. Our first reaction was that this was something that could be easily duplicated with batch files or CED synonyms, but after some effort, we had to concede that Execute provides the most efficient means of executing multiple commands/programs on the fly. It will run up to 50 internal or external DOS commands, programs, or batch files unattended one right after another. You may also specify a certain amount of time to lapse before the programs begin executing, and you can elect to be prompted before each command/program is executed. Feed is used to feed MS/PCDOS text files into a filtering pipeline. FileC Morearty, Mike $? provides filename completion similar to that done by some versions of the Unix C Shell (also called "Tenex-style" completion). The purpose of filename completion is so that the user doesn't have to type in long filenames when the first few characters would be enough to distinguish a filename from all other files in the directory. Fly Halsall, Bob $? lets you execute several commands from the DOS command line with one entry. It does this by creating a temporary batch file "on the fly" to execute the commands and deletes it when done. Launcher 2.21 (LAUNCHR) Steenburgh, Chuck $0 allows you to quickly start application programs by bypassing the opening/file selection screen. It lets you select from a list of data files, then starts the application with the selected data file preloaded. It works with any application that accepts file names on the command line such as WordPerfect, WordStar, Quattro Pro, and others. Data files are sorted alphabetically, and up to 127 menu color combinations may be used. No lets you exclude a program from an operation that uses wildcards. For example, if you wanted to list all the files on this disk other than those that have an ".EXE" extension, you could say NO *.EXE DIR *.* /W. PramJam (PJ) a program that lets you pass parameters to programs that normally do not accept parameters from the DOS command line. PJ works by creating a loader program for each program that you want to call with the parameters you want to pass to the program. Other utilities in the library to accomplish the same task, but in a more flexible and less initially complicated manner, are STACKEY and KBSTAK. PJ is presented here for times when these other programs don't do the job. Rep Knowledge Based Solutions, Inc. $? is a prefix that allows DOS commands to be repeated. Dummy parameters can be defined on the DOS command line and replaced according to the contents of the standard input file (STDIN, see DOS manual, pg 10-4 to 10-7). The STDIN may be entered via the keyboard "redirected" from a data file, or "piped" from another command. A facility is provided which allows STDIN and STDOUT to be redirected for the DOS command also. Wild Lazo, Charles III $0 lets you use wild card parameters with programs that normally do not allow wild cards. Recall 2.2 (RCALL) Patri-Soft ASP $15 is a file selection aid. It will scan your directory and provide you with a list of all files sorted in descending date order (newest to oldest). When you locate the file you wish to process, the program will either exit and spawn the desired application, invoke the desired application as a sub-task, or generate a batch file. Use 1.1 (USE-LH) LAN Helpers $10 lets you pass multiple file names to a program or batch file. It also has a NOT parameter. For example: to backup all files except *.BAK and *.OLD, you would type USE NOT *.BAK *.OLD ; BACKUP C:\*.* A: /S Xstream Pharis, Mark $0 executes a program on each member of a list of file names. This program receives a list of filespecs either by way of expanding the wild card parameters given by the user on the command line, or by way of a pipe from another program. It then executes whatever program the user specified on the command line, using the stream of file specifications as parameters to the executable program. `C' source included. 1945 CHKDSK Replacements ------------------------ Ckfrag Randolph, Donald $0 is a hard disk defragmentation aid. It executes CHKDSK *.* against all the directories of a volume. It lists all fragmented files and sets the DOS errorlevel to the count of files (or blocks) involved. Turbo Pascal source code is included. DFall Wallace, Jack $0 displays the amount of disk space for multiple drives or partitions, as well as total and free DOS RAM memory. `C' and assembler source code are included. Dstats 3 Lazo, Charles III $0 provides disk space information whose output listing can be user-designed. It is smaller and faster than CHKDSK. Free 1.1 Perkel, Marc $0 shows free disk space in absolute amounts and percentage, DOS memory, and EMS memory. It is much faster than using CHKDSK. GrafDisk (GRAFDSK) OSCS Software Development, Inc. $0 reports free space on drives using a very attractive graphical interface. Memsum2 Richmond, Jerry $? reports how much memory is being used and is available for use. Faster than CHKDSK. Newchk Meier, Brian $0 is a CHKDSK replacement which graphically displays disk usage with a 3-D bar graph and cylinder. EGA required. PCstat Woeger, Robert $? shows you disk space and memory statistics similar to CHKDSK, but much more quickly on a hard disk. For example, CHKDSK on a 30meg hard disk took over 25 seconds while PCSTAT took as little as half a second. The differences are negligible on floppies. The author is no longer at the address provided in the documentation. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #1945 -------------------------------- ------------------------- 2462 DOS Utilities, Other Small Programs Disk ------------------------- Config RSE Incorporated $0 allows you to easily change the hot keys and colors of those utilities that do not have configuration programs. DT Woodward, Woody $0 is just a little utility that shows the system date and time, which can also be redirected to a file. ETime 1.04m Kerber, George $5 is a non-memory-resident timer for DOS. It stores the time in a file with a name specified on the command line and the second time you run it with the same name, it calculates and displays the elapsed time. You can specify as many different names as you wish, allowing you to time multiple events at once. A hard disk is recommended. FixColor is a patch to get COMMAND.COM to set your choice of screen color on startup. Information is given for all versions of DOS from 2.0 to 3.3. Incr 1.03m Kerber, George $5 is a simple, but useful utility for maintaining one or more counters. It can be used to keep track of how many times a program has been run or a computer booted. INT(ernal) 1.0 (INTERNL) Masaki, David $0 modifies COMMAND.COM to disable, restore, and rename internal DOS commands such as DEL, DIR, ECHO, CLS, CD, DATE, TIME, PROMPT, PATH, VOL, etc. This could be done with a file editor such as Norton's Utilities or PC-Zap (U1-05: 0283), but INT is much more convenient. An example of how INT can be used is to disable DEL and rename a verify-delete utility like DLT to DEL. Then whenever you (or someone using your machine) types DEL *.EXE you get a verify-delete instead of having all your EXE files disappear without warning. MoreHandles 2.0 (MOREHAN) Computer Tyme ASP $28 is a 9k TSR which allows you to open more than 20 file handles in a single DOS program. Nosy Prompter (NP2) Nelson, Russell $0 loads into memory and thereafter warns you any time you have shelled to DOS from some program. NP warns you by adding the names of any shelled programs to the end of your DOS prompt. We were ready to add NP to our AUTOEXEC.BAT as soon as we saw it. Too many times have we shelled to DOS, forgotten that we had done so, and then forgot to go back and save our work or tried to load another program and run out of memory. Asssembler source code is included. Requires DOS 3+. (res:5k) NoTime 0.1 Sawada, Dr. Masaaki $10 prevents people from using your computer facilities (keyboard, diskette, video, serial port and printer port) at specified times to prevent unauthorized tampering. (res:3k) QT tells the time is a casual way: "It's about twenty to four." RamMap 1.0 Perkel, Marc $0 displays what is in memory and can free up some minor amounts of wasted memory. Share RainTree Computer Systems $0 is a text file describing why you need SHARE with DOS 4.01 and the risks that you run by not using it. SlowPC 1.0 Sawada, Masaaki $0 slows down a fast PC, primarily for playing older games. Smart Prompt (SPMPT) Lazo, Charles $15 is a 3k TSR that lets you add system information to your DOS prompt. Information available includes the amount of free DOS RAM, the time in a.m./p.m. format (rather than 24-hour format), the name of the program you have shelled out of, if any, and the particular AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS pair that you booted with. DOS 3.0 or later is required. Tad sets system time and date on IBM AT's. Tee lets you view output that is being PIPE. (See your DOS manual for info about PIPING.) TextMODE 1.0 Microsystems Software, Inc. $10 solves the problem that most TSR's are text-based and will not pop up over a graphics-based program. You pop up TextMODE first and it saves the necessary graphics data and puts the screen into the text mode so that you can pop up a text-based TSR. TextMODE takes 7k of DOS RAM, 1.2k if you have expanded memory, 0k if you load it high. Timer times the execution of a program. X 1.15 (X-JR) Rubin, Jon $10 brings up a menu of up to 16 executable files in the current directory and lets you pick one with a single keypress. This would be good for a Games or Utlities directory, though the 16-file limit could be restrictive. Xmore is a replacement for DOS's MORE command. YourTurn 1.0 (YOURTUR) Sawada, Dr. Masaaki $10 restricts the access of files with certain file extensions for open, delete, rename, etc. It produces a log file with the date, time, and a record number along with the name of the file accessed and the type of access which was allowed or denied and the password owner who accessed it. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #2462 -------------------------------- ----------------------------- 12350 DOS Utilities, Other #2 Small Programs Disk ----------------------------- 6th Sense 2.0 (6THSENS) Tay-Jee Software ASP $15 is a set of utilities for DOS 6.0. It includes front ends for DIR and FORMAT. There is also a collection of DOSKEY macros included. It features menu-driven selection of command options, support for environment variables and more. BestBat Montaron, Daniel $0 is a set of DOS utilities: add a directory to an environment string (eg: change LIB=C: in the environment to LIB=C:;C:\TEMP), add a directory to the defined PATH, verified deletion of a list of files, and more. DOS5Ed Zachary, Allan $0 patches a copy of the DOS 5.0 editor so that it will list all the files in the current directory instead of just files with the TXT extension. DOSTrace 2.0 (DOSTRCE) Bridges, Steve $25 is a TSR that will trace DOS calls your programs are making. It will show you open files, what's in memory, and allow you to display and edit main memory. It also has a primitive memory protection option. Requires 286+. May be incompatible with 4DOS. HelpCOM 1.2 (HC) Friesen, Geoff $0 lets you add a help screen to any .COM program. You simply prepare a help screen in straight ASCII (text) and use HelpCOM to append it to the program file. Then when you type the program name followed by a question mark, the help screen will be displayed. This is great for those little utilities which don't offer a help screen of their own. L. P. Thomason, Jacksonville, FL: "This is a good little program but there's a small problem. The help text of the program itself is in excess of 24 lines, and scrolls of the screen when used. I wrote the following batch file and now it works fine." HELPSTOP.BAT @ ECHO OFFCLS %1 /? | MORE Quick Run (QRUN) Leithauser, David $5 displays a 5-column list of executable files in the current directory, and lets you run one by clicking on it with a mouse. Batch files are shown in red, COM/EXE files in green. For some reason, if the screen gets full, you are asked to press the space bar and half the screen scrolls away before you get a chance to select a file. Normally, this will not enter into play. SmartPrompt (SMARTP) Gibson, Steve $0 is a TSR SmartDrive DOS prompt suspender. It helps prevent drive partition corruption in DOS 6.0 systems. SYSLog 1.2 Solid Oak Software $15 is an 8k TSR that automatically keeps a log of all programs run, files copied, files deleted, files created, and files opened, as well as the date and time that each activity occurred. --------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #12350 --------------------------------- -------------------------------- 2006 Specific Computers, Speaker Small Programs Disk -------------------------------- 2006 Speaker ------------ Bell changes the sound of the beep your PC makes when it is displeased with with your performance. Now it's more of a loving coo. Bells 1.4 Sapphire Software $? allows you to change the sound of the *beep* that your computer makes. You can change it to a little song or a unique sound effect very easily with the BEEPINS program. No musical or computer expertise is required. (res:1k) BellsTD 1.5 Donnelly, Tom $0 replaces your computer's BEEP with a special sound effect or tune of up to nine notes. It is easy to change the beep or tune. TSR: 1k. Fixbeep Blaszczak, Mike $? lets you change the frequency of the beep in DOS to a less piercing tone of your own choosing. Silence disables the speaker. Silencr 2.1 Fallen, Dave $0 silences programs that insist on making a lot of loud, unwanted sounds. Unlike some utilities that work on a hardware level to silence the speaker, Silencer lets you silence one particular program without disabling the speaker for other programs. It actually creates a new program file (leaving the original unchanged) in which any calls to the speaker (OUT 61,AL) are NOP'ed out. Basic source code is included. StopIt Moritz, Rowena $0 stops the speaker when some program has left it beeping ceaselessly. Tran Neely, Stephen $0 is a text-to-speech program. It can read text files or take input from the keyboard, translate normal English spelling to phonemes, and sound out each phoneme through the speaker. There are several options that allow you to adjust the timing and pitch to your machine, save the phoneme translations to a file, and more. Frankly, we could not understand a word it said, but it might do better on other machines and the ability to save the phonemes could be useful for other applications. VidVoice (VIDVOIC) Graham, Keith P. $0 will echo letters to the speaker port. Specific Computers: ------------------ 2006 AT ------- CM Graham, Keith P. $0 is a quick and dirty AT CMOS date and time utilities. FixDsk 2.0 prevents disk errors when running at 8 mhz. Fast-AT is a text file that tells you how to change crystals and speed up an AT. (on disk #0279) Num_Off Arment, Homer $? may be used from your autoexec.bat file to turn the num lock key off on your PC-AT. ROMU Graham, Keith P. $0 is an AT ROM disk type utility for ROM Burners. 2006 AT&T 6300 -------------- ATTclock (ATTCLOC) is a resident alarm clock for the AT&T 6300 that will display the time in the corner of the screen and optionally wake you up for lunch and when it's time to go home. 2006 Compaq ----------- Compaq will tell you how to increase 64kb to 640kb on a Compaq computer Config.286 tells how to put a Compaq-286 into the dual-monitor mode on bootup. CPQ386 is a text file containing the results of various "benchmark" (performance timing) tests on the Compaq 386 computer. DPU allows you to set various options for the Compaq Deskpro (and presumably other Compaq's) from the DOS command line (and more usefully) from batch files. The options which can be set are CapsLock, NumLock, ScrollLock, Clock Speed (slow or fast) and Keyclick volume. SpeedV and SpeedC let you check the speed setting on a Compaq 286 and change the speed setting. 2006 Toshiba ------------ Readclk Gordon, Guy $? reads the BIOS date and time (INT 1Ah) and sets the DOS date and time. It is used to set the system time to match that of an internal clock/calendar. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #2006 -------------------------------- ------------------ 0436 TSR Utilities Small Programs Disk ------------------ "TSR" stands for "Terminate, Stay Resident". A TSR is a program that stays in memory once you load it and can be popped up or can perform some task while you are running other programs. The utilities on this disk are for working with TSR's. ChkTSR 1.01 Dunford, Christopher J. $0 tells you whether or not a specific program is currently resident in memory. An errorlevel is returned for use in batch files. CHKTSR may be useful in situations where a batch file or other process requires that certain programs, primarily TSRs, be resident (or not resident). DOS 3.0 or later is required. Files 1.01 (FILESJR) Ritchey, J. P. $0 will, in conjunction with Quarterdeck's QEMM-386, allow more files in High Memory, freeing up more low memory for application use. Fix 2.7 Graham, Keith P. $0 reclaims wasted space used when memory resident programs are loaded by returning their environment block to the memory pool. The amount of space saved depends on the size of your environment and the number of TSR's you use. HILoad Shannon, Larry $0 will load TSR's into what should be unused parts of memory. The documentation has a very good explanation of how memory is used and what memory should be available to you. Instal lets you remove resident utilities from memory. Memres 4.1 Jordan, Ed $0 lets you remove resident programs from memory. MemRes will now display the vector numbers which are being replaced from the backup copy of the table. In addition, the name of the memory resident program will be displayed. Assembler source code is included. Min-Mem 2.0 Biologic Company $39 is a 15k TSR that will free up memory used by a large TSR by swapping it to your disk. For example, if you have a TSR that takes 120k, it can be swapped to disk and all of its memory will be freed for other applications, except for the 15k used by Min-Mem itself. Overhead (OVRHDED) Ross, Ed $? has the CPU execute a bunch of instructions (no I/O) and tells you how long it took. The purpose is for you to see how much overhead your resident utilities is adding to your processing time, so you run it once with all your usual TSR's loaded and once without and compare the times. Testing on a Compaq 8086 with and without over 200k of TSR's was a real eye-opener. Rather than dumping all of your TSR's cold turkey, we suggest that you just compromise by removing them from memory (see Mark-Release) before running programs that are CPU-intensive. PMap 2.10 Dunford, Christopher J. $0 displays memory usage statistics for both DOS RAM and EMS. We use this primarily as a quick way to see what TSR's are in memory and how much space they take, as well as to see if we have shelled to DOS from some program and forgotten about it. Features allow you to display only DOS memory, display device driver info, and display only expanded memory and show the segment address of the environment. You can also specify which TSR names to look at by entering the first letter of the name. For example, PMAP S* would give info about Sidekick (assuming it is in memory). The maximum allowable number of files, buffers, and FCBs is 255. ResDel & Tablev Jordan, Ed $? lets you remove resident utilities from memory. Resdel works a little differently than the Mark/Release utilities already on the library in that the latter will remove all TSR's back to the last Mark and Resdel will let you strip out one at a time without having to "mark" each one first. It also provides a means to remove all TSR's at once, but the procedure for creating the necessary "vector table file" was not clear to us. SeeMem 2.0 Housh, Tedrick A. Jr. $0 will display information about all TSRs and the current use of DOS memory by the operating system. This includes upper memory blocks, high memory area, XMS extended memory and expanded memory. It makes full use of the new memory facilities provided by DOS 5.0 and provides information similar to that provided by the DOS utility MEM. Support is also provided for DR-DOS 6.0 and 4DOS 4.0. Showmap 2.0 Kuri, Carlos $10 is a pop-up utility that displays a map of memory similar to PMAP, except that it does not show expanded memory. It does let you view the environment for any block and to page through memory and the PSP. (res:9k) ShowTSRs Gilbert, Tom displays the map of memory blocks and interrupts, including EMS memory. The display can be scrolled up and down for easier viewing. The 65k assembler source code is included. TSRCOM 3.4 ("Mark/Release") (MARKREL) Kokkonen, Kim $0 is a group of programs useful in managing memory-resident utilities. TSR stands for "Terminate and Stay Resident". MARK.COM and RELEASE.COM are used to remove memory-resident programs from memory, without the usual problems of creating holes in memory or leaving interrupts dangling. DISABLE will disable a TSR without actually removing it from memory. EATMEM helps solve system problems cause by the specific location of memory of a TSR. MAPMEM shows you where TSR's reside in memory and how much memory each one consumes. MARKNET is like MARK, but saves a more complete picture of system status. RELNET removes TSR's marked with MARKNET. DEVICE shows what device drivers are loaded. DOS 5 compatibility is provided, and will work with programs loaded into high memory. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #0436 -------------------------------- ---------------------- 12165 TSR Utilities #2 Small Programs Disk ---------------------- GrowP 2.0 (GROWP) 09-93 CD Tessler's Nifty Tools $0 is a 2k TSR which visually indicates in the DOS prompt how many copies of COMMAND.COM are invoked in the current chain. It is easy to shell to DOS from a program and later forget that you are shelled. With GrowP, you won't forget. MarxPop Marc Perkel $25 lets you turn any program into a pop-up TSR loaded into high memory. Up to 10 different programs can be loaded. Unlike Fast Load which only stores programs in high memory for running from the DOS command line, MarxPop can bring up a program by pressing a hot key. PopUp 1.12 RC Software $29 turns any program into a TSR using only 6K of DOS RAM. It supports swapping to EMS, XMS, and disk, and can pop up when you are at the DOS prompt and pop up over 43-line EGA and 50-line VGA displays, in addition to the normal 25-line mode. WorkTSRs 3.1 Tom Gilbert $0 lets you manage resident ("pop-up") utilities. This is a version of Kim Kokkonen's Mark/Release set of utilities that has been rewritten in assembly language. A unique feature allows menu selection of TSR's for installation or update. Assembler source is included. Wrapper 1.0 Gardner, Philip B. $25 lets you load programs (including TSRs) in CONFIG.SYS, even though they are not device drivers themselves. For example, a programmer could load a debugger in CONFIG.SYS and trace/debug the initialization of device drivers they have written. Or you could load a TSR disk cache before Stacker in CONFIG.SYS in order to get better performance. --------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #12165 --------------------------------- 4DOS J. P. Software ASP $69 #7589/1890 [2 disks] is a complete replacement for COMMAND.COM, the command processor that comes with DOS. 4DOS is a much more powerful command processor, offering more powerful versions of typical DOS commands and adding numerous new commands. 4DOS also has on-line help for its commands, and "normal" command line editing. There is a complete ASCII table, support for non-English characters in filenames, environment variables, and aliases. Batch files can be nested six levels deep. Environment variables return the day of the week, screen rows, and screen columns. If you seldom work in DOS, none of this may mean much to you, but anyone who tries much pd/shareware software probably spends enough time to make the power and flexibility of 4DOS a worthwhile addition to your system. It can load its resident portion and/or the master environment into DOS 5 Upper Memory Blocks, and supports swapping to XMS extended memory. Network support is included, and enhanced wildcards let you specify lists or ranges of characters to include or exclude. A command history can be viewed and executed from a pop-up window as well as at the command line. The program is compatible with DESQview, DR-DOS, and Windows 3.0. A hard disk is required. 4Zip Weinstein, Iram J. ASP $15 #7589/3857 is a utility for 4DOS that saves file descriptions along with the files as they are compressed. It is used with the file compression program PKZIP (#1705). ------------------------ 7589/3276 4DOS Utilities Small Programs Disk ------------------------ 4Edit 1.1 Weinstein, Iram J. ASP $15 provides a full-screen editor for creating and editing 4DOS description files. 4Files 3.01 Hand-Crafted Software ASP $20 is a multi-purpose file management tool. Features include file annotation; file browsing and editing, file finding and archive listing; and directory tree navigation. File notes of up to 40-characters can be created and edited in the 4DOS format. Editing features includ cut-paste, left/right justification, cursor controls and more. Sorting by file extension, size, date/time, and file-note are available on-the-fly or via command line switches. Requires CGA or better video. CED24DOS 0.90 (CED2-4D) Huras, David $5 reads in a file of CED synonyms and converts them into 4DOS aliases. -------------------------------- END OF SMALL PROGRAMS DISK #3276 -------------------------------- DiZk4D Unicorn Software Limited ASP $25 #3125 is a disk cataloger and labeling program for use with 4DOS. With this program, you can read a floppy into memory and save data; enter a 21 character title, four-digit Disk number, three-character code and two lines of remarks up to 65 characters each; print labels, listings, and catalogs; perform searches on any filename, description, date, title, disk number, code, or remarks; use auto numbering; create a dBase compatible data file; disk sleeve printing and more. DiZkND Unicorn Software Limited ASP $29 #3762 is for cataloging and labeling floppy disks under NDOS. It lets you enter a 21-character title, four-digit disk number, three-character code and two lines of remarks up to 65 characters each. The program can also print a variety of disk labels that include file names, or file names and descriptions. 5.25" disk sleeves can also be printed. Other features include Extended and Expanded memory support, auto-numbering, search capabilities, and much more. On-Call Forest Hill Software, Inc $25-$55 #7064/1184 manages memory-resident (TSR/pop-up) programs. By swapping the programs to a disk drive until they are needed, On-Call can limit the memory required by all of your TSR's to that required of the largest TSR plus the 40k that On-Call uses itself. For example, if your largest TSR is 100k and you would like to use four smaller TSR's that total another 200k, On-Call will swap the smaller ones in and out of memory until needed, using just 100k for the largest and 40k for itself. This swapping only works if the TSR's are the kind that only do something when you pop them up, such as Sidekick, not the kind that must always be active to monitor the system, such as a keyboard macro program or a screen blanker. ALT Instinct Software $73 #7064/1665 [2 disks] is a very powerful, professional quality, memory-resident system that includes task swapping (being able to leave one program active while swapping into another partition to run another program). In addition, it includes excellent versions of the standard desktop type of programs: rolodex, file manager, a word processor that will edit any size file, three types of calculators, an appointment calendar, cut and paste, a screen clock with hourly chimes, keyboard macros and more. The program supports DOS 4.0, task switching with EGA and VGA graphics screens, and a mouse. A few features have been limited in the "shareware" version: only two swapping partitions are allowed, only one of the three types of calculators can be used, the rolodex is limited to 20 entries, and some other minor limitations exist. Normally, we do not accept crippled programs, but even with its limitations, the functionality of ALT is significant. A hard disk and 70K are required. DOS 5.0 is supported. Back & Forth Professional Progressive Solutions, Inc. $70 #7568/2373 [5 disks] is a program-swapping utility that should make you think twice about getting Software Carousel. B&F will let you load up to 20 different programs (spreadsheets, word processors, DOS windows, whatever) at once and move around them with the press of a key. Setup from start to finish is extremely easy - much easier than Software Carousel. It easily passed our usual test of setting up the program and using it before looking at the docs. TSR partitions are easy to setup by defining a program with the "STAY AT DOS" option. B&F supports swapping of programs to hard disk, RAM disks or expanded memory and takes only 12-15k of memory itself, and can even be reduced to as little as 1K. It supports a mouse, CGA and VGA screens, most EGA graphics screens, and Ultravision. It also supports ANARKEY, Ventura, PCED 2.0, and Vstack. A cut/paste module is available with an auto dialer, as well as a background clock. Support for running programs on networks is also included. Support is provided for all known extended text modes of various EGA/VGA boards, and for most VGA chipsets up to 1024x768. A TSR is included to handle EGA screen problems. Additional features include support for DOS 5's DOSKEY and CED command line; a multifunction RPN calculator and a simple tape calculator; a Desktop editor, Rolodex, and appointment book/calendar/schedular; graphic screen blanker; support for DOS 5's UMB style memory; support for UltraVision's UL (underline) utility; and much more. DVAP Menu (DESQview Application Program Menu) Stewart, Gregory $0 #1828 provides nested menu support for the DESQview environment. In other words, it lets you open windows that are not listed on the main DESQview ("DV") window list. (See Retail Products for DV.) DVap Menu is invoked from the DESQview Open Window menu, reads a menu definition file and displays a program selection menu which looks very much like the DESQview Open Window menu. Programs are started from this panel by selecting them via mouse or keyboard in the same manner as from the Open Window menu; otherwise, windows are treated the same as any other DV window (eg: windows may be zoomed, moved and closed from the DV window). Swap Utilities Innovative Data Concepts ASP $25 each #1797 reduces the RAM needed by specific TSR's to only about 10k. Offers 6 programs to reduce RAM need by SideKick, SK+, Tornado, Metro, MemoryMate, PCTools Shell, PCTools Desktop, PC Tool Deluxe, and the Norton Guides and SwapDOS. SwapDOS lets you run a second program without having to save and quit the first one. The memory used by the first one is swapped to expanded or extended memory or to a disk file, thus freeing up DOS RAM for the second program to use. An example would be to swap out of a text editor to run a compiler. Requires DOS 3+. DesqView is supported along with support for EGA/VGA cards. TSR-Select Quadrant Computer Systems $45 #3953 lets you run any program from within any non-graphic program. When popped up, it displays a menu of up to 15 different programs which you can run. It works on networks too. TSR-Select uses just 8K of DOS RAM. VMiX 386 2.87 [VMIX] 09-93 CD Borras, J. Anthony ASP $59 #1206 is a multi-tasking system for advanced users. It will allow up to four tasks to be executing at the same time. It is ideal for hooking multiple terminals up to a single computer. Other features include protected mode memory, task management, virtual devices to DOS, support for DOS 5.O, interrupt driven services to the COMM ports, support for 115.2 Kbaud, a utility for linking two VMiX hosts serially with a virtual terminal session, support for programs that make direct video writes at remote COMM port terminals and support for HIMEM.SYS and other resident XMS drivers. Multitasking can be controlled completely from the keyboard via hotkeys. Remote log-in passwords and scripts are supported. Three other utilities are provided, including a remote utility for linking two or more VMiX system, an upper memory TSR loader for 386 computers, and a setup utility. Format Converters Sydex $? #7262/2545 This disk contains utilities for reading and writing disks from other systems that are not DOS compatible. Included are utilities for the Apricot, the DEC Rainbow, the Eagle, and the HP 150. Also on this disk is: RWAll ZIS Software $15 #7262/2545 will allow you to read and write Amiga and Atari ST floppys with your PC. Z80MU Computerwise Consulting Services $150 #7262/482 allows you to run most CP/M 2.2 and Z80 software on PC's. 22Disk 1.39 Guzis, C. P. and Sydex $28 #7262/1404 is a media conversion utility for converting data from CP/M disk formats to DOS or vice versa. The 22DISK disk conversion package offers user-defined CP/M formats in addition to the standard support for single-, double-, and quad-density formats. It also features custom keyboard mapping. Also included is a Z-80/8080 CP/M 2.2 emulator, 22NICE, which will emulate 8080/8085/Z-80 processors with or without NEC V-series chip installed, provide terminal emulation for most common CP/M machines, support CP/M user number to DOS subdirectory translation, allow use of DOS pipes and utilities with CP/M programs, support a complete set of BDOS and BIOS function interfaces, including direct disk read/write, and is invisible to the user. Warren Norwood, Weatherford, TX: "You need to include a warning that this software will not convert CP/M-80 disks used on Apple II's with CP/M cards." ]]]]]