The Business Master (3rd Edition)

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UTILITIES MICHAEL MEFFORD Vol 9 No. 2 BATCHMAN This issue's utility, BATCHMAN, is designed both to give your batch files significantly more power and to add many of the refinements we all wish DOS provided. You can check the DOS version, available memory, or display type and then branch accordingly. You can create colorful menus that branch on a user keypress. And, among its many other capabilities, BATCHMAN will let you adjust the keyboard typematic rate and tame the grating DOS beep or turn it into a tune. BATCHMAN is actually a collection of 48 batch file enhancement utilities, all rolled into one 6K program. This provides more than convenience: if BATCHMAN's utilities were stored separately, at a minimum one cluster each, they'd take up about 100K of disk space. ERRORLEVELS The key to BATCHMAN's operations is the ERRORLEVEL code, a number that programs can report to DOS when they terminate and that can be acted upon from a batch file. I'll abbreviate ERRORLEVEL as EL for the remainder of this documentation. An EL can have a value between 0 and 255. Each of the BATCHMAN commands returns information as an EL. An explanation of the syntax of each of the BATCHMAN commands and the ELs they return will be found below. The syntax for BATCHMAN is: BATCHMAN [command] [arguments] [/R] Entering BATCHMAN without any parameters (or with an invalid parameter) will bring up a multi-screen display that lists all the BATCHMAN commands. The optional arguments are parameters for any given command. If you add the optional /R switch, BATCHMAN will display the EL returned from the command. The Report option will be most helpful when you are designing and debugging your batch files. Be sure to place BATCHMAN in a directory included on the DOS PATH so your batch files can find it. THE BATCHMAN COMMANDS I will be using the following conventions throughout the article: the commands will be listed first, followed by any parameters they might accept, followed by the EL the command will return. I'll put the EL in curley brackets so no one will think it's part of the command syntax and try to type it in. For example: CLS [nn] {EL=0} If it is entered without the optional nn color argument, the command: BATCHMAN CLS will clear the screen with whatever color it finds at the current cursor position. This provides the most flexibility when you plan to distribute a BATCHMAN batch file to other systems because it retains the user's custom color scheme. If you wish to control the CLS color, just add the color argument nn, where nn is a decimal or hexadecimal value derived from the table in Figure 1. Hexadecimal numbers need a suffix of "h" to distinguish them from decimal. Selecting a color in hex is easier than decimal because each of the 16 possible values for each of the background and foreground colors fits into a single digit: the first digit is background, the second foreground. To clear the screen so that subsequent DOS output will use blue letters on a light gray background, for example, you would enter: BATCHMAN CLS 71h The first number (7) is the background color, and the second (1) is the foreground color. To do the same using a decimal number requires a little math: the background color is multiplied by 16 and added to the foreground. In the above example, the decimal equivalent would be (7 * 16) + 7 = 113, so the equivalent command in decimal would be: BATCHMAN CLS 113 Like its DOS counterpart, BATCHMAN's CLS also homes the cursor to the top left corner. Unlike the DOS CLS, however, BATCHMAN's will clear the whole screen properly in video modes such as the EGA/VGA 43/50 line modes. CECHO [C] [nn,]string {EL=0} CECHO is similar to the DOS ECHO command except you can choose the color of the echoed string. The nn color value is entered in the same manner as with CLS, and again, if you don't enter a color value, BATCHMAN will use the currently specified color. To echo a "Zowie!" to the display in an eye-catching blinking yellow on red, you would enter: BATCHMAN CECHO CEh,Zowie! The C (hex) value for the background color normally displays as orange for a foreground color. When used as a background color, however, it displays as the blinking low intensity counterpart, red. Keep in mind that any high intensity color selected for the background will blink in its corresponding low intensity color value. The optional C parameter shown in CECHO syntax (don't confuse it with the hex C color value in the immediately-preceding example) stands for "no carriage returns." Normally, both CECHO and the DOS ECHO move to the next line after echoing a string. At times this is not desirable. For example, you might wish to echo two strings, with different colors, on the same line. With BATCHMAN you can suppress the carriage return by adding a solitary C as the first argument. For example, to display a red on yellow blinking "Zowie!" followed by a normal red on yellow "Batchman!" on the same line your batch file would consist of: ECHO OFF BATCHMAN CECHO C CEh,Zowie! BATCHMAN CECHO 4Eh,Batchman! You can suppress the carriage return to prevent the display from scrolling when you echo to the last line of the display. This feature makes full screen menus feasible, whereas echoing to the last line with the DOS ECHO command causes the screen to scroll, spoiling any previous display layout. SETLOOP [n] {EL=0} . . DECLOOP {EL=SETLOOP-1} You use the SETLOOP and DECLOOP commands when you want to repeat a set of batch file commands. SETLOOP sets a loop counter to the n argument, which can be a decimal number between 0 and 255. Once the counter is set, the BATCHMAN DECLOOP command will decrement the counter each time it is executed and return the new value of the loop counter as an EL. The short batch file: ECHO OFF BATCHMAN SETLOOP 10 :HERE BATCHMAN CECHO ZONK! BATCHMAN DECLOOP IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO HERE will echo "ZONK!" to the display 10 times before terminating. The batch processor will branch to the HERE label as long as EL is 1 or greater. Programmers may wonder where the loop counter is stored while other commands are executing. For the SETLOOP and PUSHPATH commands (PUSHPATH/POPPATH will be discussed below) BATCHMAN creates a small TSR of approximately 500 bytes. The loop counter uses one byte for its storage; the balance is reserved for path strings. When the loop counter becomes zero, the BATCHMAN TSR data area is returned to the system memory pool (unless PUSHPATH is also using the data area). Note that since the loop counter is only one byte, you can not do loop nesting. If you exit a batch file before SETLOOP has decremented to zero, the TSR data area will not be released. You should construct your batch files so that any early exit from a loop will execute a SETLOOP 0 to force a recovery of the TSR data area. BATCHMAN is smart enough not only to find its previous TSR data, but will prevent the creation of another if you try to enter two SETLOOP commands. QFORMAT [d:] [N] {EL=0 if successful; EL=1 if not.} QFORMAT is designed to wipe out all the files and subdirectories on a floppy disk at a single stroke. To keep you from accidentally trashing your hard disk, the command will only accept A: or B: as drive arguments. All other drive requests are ignored, and you can omit the drive argument only if A: or B: is your current default drive. As a further precaution, QFORMAT warns you that all data will be lost and requires that you press Y and Enter to confirm. Any other keypress will abort the process. If you don't want BATCHMAN to pause and ask for your approval, however, you can add the optional N argument to the command. The N stands for No Ask. Use this option with caution! QFORMAT will work only on diskettes that have already been formatted by DOS. The DOS FORMAT command puts vital information about the media type, number of clusters per FAT, and so forth, in the boot sector of the disk. BATCHMAN's QFORMAT command uses this information to find and place zeros in the FAT and root directory sectors of the disk. The reason why QFORMAT can be so fast is that it doesn't have to do the same work as the DOS FORMAT command. FORMAT not only does a low level format, but also writes over the entire data area of the disk. It's the low-level-and-data -format process that takes forever. A low level format really needs be done only once, and QFORMAT blithely skips that step. QFORMAT is sophisticated enough to preserve bad sector information, however. PUSHPATH {EL=0 if successful; EL=1 if not} . . POPPATH {EL=0 if successful; EL=1 if not} PUSHPATH saves the current drive and directory, which can then later be restored with POPPATH. Typically, a batch file that executes an application includes a DOS CD command (often a change of drive as well) move operations to the place where the application resides. After the application terminates, it's usually desirable to return to the original path. By way of example, to run Lotus 1-2-3 on drive D: and then return to the default path afterwards, your batch file would look something like this: BATCHMAN PUSHPATH D: CD \123 123 BATCHMAN POPPATH PUSHPATH saves the current path in a TSR data area, just as the SETLOOP command does. While only one byte is reserved for SETLOOP's loop counter, however, BATCHMAN's TSR data area allows stacking up several paths with PUSHPATH. Subsequent POPPATH commands will retrieve the paths in a LIFO (Last In First Out) stack basis. Suppose, for instance, that you're currently in your directory and you issue the following commands: BATCHMAN PUSHPATH CD \DOS BATCHMAN PUSHPATH CD \PCMAG BATCHMAN POPPATH BATCHMAN POPPATH In this sequence, the first POPPATH puts you back into the \DOS subdirectory, and the last POPPATH restores you to the root directory from which you started. The number of path layers that can be stored will vary with the length of each path pushed onto the stack. BATCHMAN's TSR area reserves 408 bytes for paths, which allows for 6 levels of nested paths if each path is the maximum 65 characters allowed by DOS. Shorter path names will allow nesting greater than 6 levels. If necessary, you can change the storage size by modifying the DIR_COUNT equate in the assembly listing. BATCHMAN returns an EL of 1 if it finds the stack too full for another PUSHPATH or if the stack is already empty with a POPPATH. Otherwise, the EL returned is zero. When the last path is popped off the stack, the TSR data area is discarded and returned to the DOS memory pool. ANSI {EL=0 if ANSI found; EL=1 if not found} This BATCHMAN command is designed simply to determine whether ANSI.SYS is or is not installed. If the EL is 1 you can then branch around any ANSI.SYS escape sequences contained in your batch files. BATCHMAN is smart enough to detect not only ANSI.SYS, but my own ANSI.COM alternative (see our January 31, 1989, issue), but it will not find other ANSI.SYS emulators, such as DesqView's DV-ANSI. BEEP [m,n[;m,n]...] {EL=0} The BATCHMAN BEEP command gives you a great deal of flexibility in controlling the frequency and length of the sound DOS emits in response to a Ctrl-G character. The m,n beep arguments are decimal numbers and are used in pairs, separated by a comma. The m value represents the frequency (in Hz.), and n is the number of 1/18th second increments that comprise the duration. The frequencies of various musical notes can be found in the table in Figure 2. The command for a middle C beep of a 1/2 second, for example, would be: BATCHMAN BEEP 262,9 By separating the argument pairs with semicolons, you can produce a series of tones with the same BEEP command. You might, for example, find it interesting to try: BATCHMAN BEEP 392,3;523,3;659,3; 784,3;10,3;659,3;784,12 The lowest valid frequency is 19, a very low buzzing sound. You can use a value less than 19 to create pauses between tones: no sound will be emitted, but the duration argument is executed, effectively producing a programmable delay between notes. If you omit all arguments, BEEP defaults to 1046,1--a C note for 1/18 of a second. The DOS Ctrl-G beep is a frequency of 886 that lasts for one second. Musically, a frequency of 886 is an out-of-tune A, which probably explains why it grates on so many ears. WAITTIL hh:mm[ss] {EL=0 if successful; EL=1 if aborted} WAITTIL provides a convenient way to pause until a certain time of day. The hh:mm:[ss] argument is the time in hours, minutes, and optionally seconds. BATCHMAN will wait until the specified time arrives, but you can manually abort the wait by entering any keystroke. A typical application for WAITTIL would be to execute an electronic bulletin board communications program that would automatically download messages late at night when rates are lower. WAITFOR [mm:]ss {EL=0 if successful; EL=1 if aborted} WAITFOR simply pauses for a specified number of minutes (mm) and seconds (ss). You can omit the minute part of the argument if you desire. As with WAITTIL, the WAITFOR delay can be over-ridden by pressing a key. CURSORTYPE [m,n] You can use CURSORTYPE either to create a cursor size that suits your taste or to restore the normal underline cursor after an application alters it. Entering CURSORTYPE without any arguments will default to the standard underline cursor. To create a custom cursor, you supply the m,n arguments as the start and stop line values. These values can be either decimal or hex; for hex input, add an "h" suffix to the number. The top of the character box is logical line zero; successively-numbered lines increment downward. The valid scan line values used for m and n are 0-7 for a CGA, 0-13 for a monochrome or EGA, and 0-15 for a VGA. The default underline cursor start/stop lines are 6,7 for a CGA, 11,12 for a monochrome or EGA, and 13,14 for a VGA. To set an EGA solid block cursor, for example, enter: BATCHMAN CURSORTYPE 0,13 Note that the EGA BIOS on some video boards will attempt to override your selections. BATCHMAN temporarily turns off this BIOS EGA emulation logic for all video boards when the cursor type is set, and this seems to work for most systems. However, if entering CURSORTYPE without arguments does not give you the normal default underline cursor, you can explicitly request an underline cursor that fits your display. You may need to do this for video modes other than the normal 25 line modes. A "wrap around" cursor, in which the stop line has a lesser value than the start line, is supported by the hardware of only some video systems. BREAK {EL=0 if OFF; EL=1 if ON} The BATCHMAN BREAK command returns the current state of DOS's Ctrl-Break checking. You can change the state of BREAK with the DOS command of the same name. DRIVEEXIST d: {EL=1 if exist; EL=0 if not} DIREXIST directory {EL=1 if exist; EL=0 if not} These two BATCHMAN commands are used to return an EL of 1 to your batch files if the specified variable exists. ISVOL [d:]volume {EL=1 if exist; EL=0 if not} Similarly, this command returns an EL of 1 if a particular disk volume exists on the named drive. YEAR {EL=year from 1980 (0-199), where 0=1980} MONTH {EL=(1-12)} DAY {EL=(1-31)} WEEKDAY {EL=(0-6), where Sun=0; Sat=6} HOUR {EL=(0-23)} MINUTE {EL=(0-59)} SECOND {EL=(0-59)} This group of BATCHMAN commands returns the system time and date. Note that you can obtain a relatively fine resolution of the time. VIDEOMODE {EL=(0-19)} The EL returned by the VIDEOMODE command allows you to determine which of the possible screen modes listed in Figure 3 is currently being used by your display. ROWS {EL=display rows} COLS {EL=display columns} These obvious but very handy commands return the current number of rows or columns displayed. SETCURSOR m,n {EL=0} By supplying values for m (the row) and n (the column) you can use SETCURSOR to place your cursor at the specified screen location. By using SETCURSOR in concert with CECHO you can precisely control the location of your messages. For example, to display "Gotham City" in blue in the middle of the screen, you would create the following batch file: ECHO OFF BATCHMAN SETCURSOR 12,35 BATCHMAN CECHO 1,Gotham City Be sure to include the ECHO OFF command, both so that DOS won't spoil your display by echoing the commands, and so that the cursor won't return to the beginning of the next line for the CECHO command. A related use of SETCURSOR is to hide the cursor. You can do this by setting the cursor to display on line 26, which is off screen. Be sure to issue a second SETCURSOR command that puts the cursor back on screen once the hidden cursor is no longer needed, or you won't be able to see what you type! If you forget, don't panic. Just press Esc, blindly type CLS and press Enter, and things will return to normal with the cursor homed to the top of the display. E43V50 {EL=0 if successful; EL=1 if not} This BATCHMAN command loads the 8x8 BIOS font for an EGA or VGA monitor. This changes the number of lines displayed to 43 (EGA) or 50 (VGA}. You can use the DOS MODE command to return to the normal 25-line display. PRTSC {EL=0} This command will execute a printer screen dump exactly as if you had pressed Shift-PrtSc on an 83-key keyboard or the dedicated Print Screen key on 101-key keyboard. COMPARE string1 string2 {EL=0 if match; EL=1 if no match} The BATCHMAN COMPARE makes a case insensitive comparison between two strings. For most purposes you'll probably want to use COMPARE instead of the case sensitive DOS batch command: IF string1==string2 With the DOS IF string comparison a non-case sensitive match requires two tests --one for uppercase and one for lowercase. Even this does not guarantee a match if the string is a mixture of upper and lower case, as might occur if a batch file were looking for a person's name, for example. COMPARE solves this case problem. Note that the BATCHMAN COMPARE does not need the double equal signs the DOS IF command uses. CANCOPY filespec [d:] {EL=0 if room to copy; EL=1 if not} Before you copy a file or a number of files to another drive (especially a floppy disk drive), you can use CANCOPY to see if there is enough room for all the specified files. The filespec you supply can use the DOS ? and * wildcards. If you don't specify the target drive, the default drive is checked. Thus, for example, to check whether the collection of PC Magazine utilities you keep in a directory called PCMAG on drive C: will fit onto a floppy, you would enter: BATCHMAN CANCOPY C:\PCMAG\*.* A: BATCHMAN returns an EL of 0 if there is room; otherwise a 1 would be returned. If you enter this from the DOS command line, you'll want to include the /R option to see the EL returned on screen. WARMBOOT COLDBOOT As their names imply, WARMBOOT and COLDBOOT reboot your system. WARMBOOT does the same thing as pressing Ctrl-Alt-Del; COLDBOOT is like hitting the big red switch. A COLDBOOT does a memory check (among other things) that WARMBOOT does not, and it takes a lot more time. Of course, be forewarned that with either of these commands all unsaved data in RAM memory will be lost. Note that WARMBOOT and COLDBOOT may not work on some non-compatible systems. SHIFT ALT | CTRL {EL=1 if depressed; EL=0 if not} This command returns the state of either the Alt or Ctrl key. For example, BATCHMAN CTRL returns an EL of 1 if the Ctrl key is currently depressed. You can use the SHIFT command along with the BATCHMAN GETKEY command without arguments to detect alternate key presses. (See GETKEY, below, for an example.) NUMLOCK [ON | OFF] {EL=0} CAPSLOCK [ON | OFF] {EL=0} SCROLLOCK [ON | OFF] {EL=0} These three self-explanatory commands toggle the current shift state of the NumLock, CapsLock or ScrollLock keys when used without the ON or OFF options. They explicitly turn the three keys on or off if the optional arguments are supplied. Thus, for example: BATCHMAN NUMLOCK will toggle the NumLock state on if it was off or off if it was on. Entering BATCHMAN NUMLOCK OFF will turn the NumLock state off regardless of whether it is currently on or off. This latter would be a useful line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT if you use the numeric keypad for cursor navigation instead of number entry. Note that on some keyboards the LED indicator lights may not faithfully track changes in shift status. RENDIR old new {EL=0 if successful; EL=1 if not} Long-time users of our utilities will recognize this command, as it performs the same function as the standalone RENDIR utility published in our April 15, 1986 issue. The version presented here will rename a directory, but only on systems using DOS 3.0 or later. To use it simply enter the path of the old directory and the new name. For example, to change the name of a temporary directory named TMP on the C: drive to a permanent name, say, ROBIN, you would enter: BATCHMAN RENDIR C:\TMP C:\ROBIN Be sure to include the complete path for both the old and new directory names if the directory is other than the default. ROMDATE {EL=0} ROMDATE displays the eight bytes of the BIOS date at address FFFF:0005 of the ROM BIOS. Usually, the display will be something like 10/07/87, but some clone BIOSs do not have a date. If no ASCII numbers are found, BATCHMAN displays nothing. GETKEY ['string' n] {EL=scan code if no ['string' n] list; else EL=position in list.} There are probably hundreds of versions of the batch file GETKEY program. They return the scan code of the next key you press as an EL. If you enter the BATCHMAN GETKEY command without the optional (bracketed) arguments, it will do the same thing. Entered without arguments, GETKEY can also be used with the BATCHMAN SHIFT command to detect Alt- or Ctrl- key combinations. The scan code for the "Q" key is 16. To check for an Alt-Q keypress (perhaps as a Quit key command), you would use the following batch file: ECHO OFF :GETKEY BATCHMAN GETKEY IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 16 GOTO GETKEY BATCHMAN SHIFT ALT IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO GETKEY ECHO Alt-Q was pressed. GETKEY's optional key list provides still another kind of functionality with its optional key list. The information you need may not be the scan code of a given key, but rather its position in a string. If you supply the optional 'string' argument to GETKEY, BATCHMAN will wait either until one of those keys listed has been pressed or until you break out of the command with Ctrl-Break or Ctrl-C. An example may helpful here. With the command: BATCHMAN GETKEY 'yn' BATCHMAN will wait until either the "Y" or the "N" key or one of the break keys mentioned above is detected. All other keypresses are ignored, and if the break- out keys are pressed, the EL returned will be 255. GETKEY is not case sensitive, so if either "Y" or "y" is pressed, the EL will be 1, since the "y" is the first character in the string of valid keypresses. For "N", an EL of 2 will return. The string must be enclosed in a pair either of single or double quotes. If you want the single quote included as a valid keypress, enclose it in double quotes and vice versa for double quotes, as in the following example: BATCHMAN GETKEY '"' You can also include the function keys (even the F11 and F12 keys of the extended keyboard) in the GETKEY list. The function key numbers are listed without quotes, (they are designated by the n in the command syntax above), and may or may not be further identified with a leading "F." Multiple function keys are delimited by either a space, comma or semicolon. To add the F1 and F2 as valid keys to the "yn" string example above, you would enter either: BATCHMAN GETKEY "yn" F1 F2 or just BATCHMAN GETKEY "yn" 1 2 If F1 is now pressed, the returned EL will be 3, since F1 is the third entry in the list. DOSVER {EL=(major*32)+minor} DOSVER returns an EL representation of the DOS version in use. DOS version numbers have two parts, the Major version (the number to the left of the decimal point) and the Minor version (the number to the right). For DOS version 3.10, then, 3 is the major and the 10 is the minor. Since the largest EL number is 255, the DOS version number does not fit conveniently into an EL. For DOS 3.10, for example, if the dot is discarded the remaining 310 is too large for an EL. Of course, BATCHMAN could be content to return only the major number, truncating anything after the dot, or even the first digit after the dot. But that would be less than sufficient for some applications. So instead, the DOSVER command compresses the version number by multiplying the major number by 32 and adding it to the minor number. With DOS 3.30 the result will be (3*32)+ 30=126; with DOS 4.00 it would be 128. If there had been a DOS version 3.32 we would have a problem of course, since this would also return 128. Historically speaking however, we are safe here. MAINMEM n | R {EL=0 if enough} EXPMEM n | R {EL=0 if enough} EXTMEM n | R {EL=0 if enough} The arguments for these three memory commands can be either a decimal number, n, or an R. The decimal argument is used to check whether the desired amount of memory (in KB) is free. If BATCHMAN finds that there is enough free memory to meet the request, the EL will be 0. Thus, if an application needs 512K bytes of the 640K maximum possible with DOS, you would enter: BATCHMAN MAINMEM 512 The EL will return 0 if there are at least 512K bytes free; otherwise, a 1. Your batch file can then branch to an error message if there is not enough memory to run the application. Note that these memory commands do not allocate the memory. They only check if it is free. The alternative R argument stands for Report and will display the current free memory of the type requested on the screen. To see how much free expanded memory you have, for example, enter: BATCHMAN EXPMEM R The report option of the three types of memory will go nicely with BATCHMAN's ROMDATE command in a system information batch file. DISPLAY {EL=display type} The DISPLAY command will report on the type of display your system has installed. The values returned by DISPLAY as EL codes are: 1=MDA 2=CGA 4=EGA color 5=EGA mono 6=PGS 7=VGA mono 8=VGA color 11=MCGA mono 12=MCGA color CPU20 {EL=CPU type} Similarly, the CPU command returns an EL that indicates the microprocessor used by your machine. The specific EL numbers are: 1=8086/8088; 2=80186; 3=80286; and 4=80386. WINDOW m,n,w,h[,c,b] {EL=0 if successful; EL=1 if not} The powerful WINDOW command displays screen boxes. It provides several parameters and options. The first two decimal numbers (m,n) are the row and column of the top left hand corner of the window. The next two decimal numbers (w,h) are the desired width and height of the window (including the border characters.) The smallest size that WINDOW allows is 2 characters in width and height. The optional fifth parameter, c, can be either a hexadecimal or decimal number for the color of the window. If no color argument is supplied, the current color of the screen is used by default. The last parameter, b, sets the type of border used to surround the window. If no parameter is found, spaces are used. If you enter a minus sign for b, a single-line box character will be drawn. An equals sign for b will produce a the double-line box character. In all cases, the center of the window is cleared with spaces of the chosen color. For example, the command BATCHMAN WINDOW 1,1,80,25,17h,= will create a blue window with white double line box characters that will fill the entire screen, making a nice menu frame. Text could then be added with the BATCHMAN SETCURSOR and CECHO commands. TYPEMATIC [m,n | N] {EL=0 if valid parameters; EL=1 if not} m=typematic rate (0 - 31); larger m=faster rate n=initial delay (0 - 3); larger n=longer delay N=normal: m=20; n=1 default: m=25; n=0 TYPEMATIC works only with keyboards that support adjustable typematic (automatic key repeating) rates at the BIOS level. That includes most machines, starting with the AT, but not for all clones. The first optional decimal parameter, m, is a number between 0 and 31 and represents the desired typematic rate. The larger the m value, the faster your keyboard will repeat keystrokes. The second parameter, n, has a range of 0-3, and sets the initial delay. This delay is the length of time you must hold down a key before it begins repeating. The larger the delay value the longer the delay. The delay parameters are in increments of 1/4 second, with 0=1/4 and 3=1 second. The typematic parameters are divisors and cannot be easily be translated into fractions of a second, however, and so should be thought of only as a gradient scale. If you don't enter any parameters, TYPEMATIC defaults to what I consider ideal, a repeat rate of 25 and a delay of 0. The 25 translates into about 17 characters per second with an initial delay of 1/4 second. You can restore the typematic 2rate to the normal hardware defaults (11 characters per second with a 1/2 second delay) by using the N parameter. Just enter: BATCHMAN TYPEMATIC N and the normal values of 20, 1 will be used. Once you try adding a little zoom to your keyboard, however, I don't think you'll ever go back to the hardware defaults.