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Shareware Overload Trio 2
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Shareware Overload Trio Volume 2 (Chestnut CD-ROM).ISO
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WHATSNEW.TXT
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1993-04-27
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13KB
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250 lines
WHAT'S NEW?
IMPORTANT: Caching floppy drives slows POLYCOPY's performance. If you
are using SMARTDRV.EXE, use the following syntax to disable
floppy caching:
SMARTDRV A- B-
The statement above assumes you have two floppy drives. Other
cache software should have similar options if floppy caching
is supported.
[VERSION 3.00] - Up to 30% speed improvement. This was accomplished by doubl-
ing up on the block size of each disk read or write. A very
positive side effect was to reduce the XMS handles requirement
by 50% over previous versions. Faster computers show the most
significant improvement. For example, on a 33Mhz or faster
computer 1.44MB diskettes copy in about the same amount of
time as 720K's.
- New simplified syntax. In earlier versions of POLYCOPY, image
file syntax was a bit confusing. The new syntax vs. the old
is as follows:
OLD: POLYCOPY [src<:>] [tgt<:>] [/i<s|r>:fspec] [/f] [/x] [/t] [/v] [/r]
NEW: POLYCOPY source [target] [/f] [/t] [/s] [/r] [/x]
EXAMPLES OF NEW SYNTAX:
D>polycopy b: /f
C>polycopy a: b:
C>polycopy d:\temp\disk1 b: (default = ".FLP")
C>polycopy e: disk1.flp
C>polycopy /r (print registration form)
As compared to the old syntax, image file handling is now much
more intuitive. Simple, type SOURCE and TARGET and POLYCOPY
will determine whether each is a disk or image file
automatically.
- Improved formatting. With the new format capability (MS DOS
4.01, 5.0 and 6.0 only), there is no longer any need for human
intervention during the format operation. No doubt about it,
the additional carriage returns and having to respond to
"Format another (Y/N)" was a real pain. This and other such
ambiguous prompts have been removed.
- Reduced XMS handles requirement. This version requires half
as many XMS handles as all previous version to copy the same
number of cylinders. It should only be necessary to set the
maximum number of available XMS handles to 64 now, rather than
128 as before.
- Support for 2.88 MB floppies (untested).
- QEMM Detection. Useful if you like knowing what is active
during copies.
- Disk counters. This version keeps track of the number of
diskettes read and written, so you don't have to. The numbers
appears in the following form:
Source disk -------, ,------- Target disk (always "1")
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100 percent of disk 4-1 read ==>
75 percent of disk 2-5 written ==>
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Source disk -------' '------- Target disk
where the number "1" or "3" is replaced by the actual diskette
currently being read or written to.
- Beep tone. Using the environment variable POLYSOUND, you
may now tell POLYCOPY whether or not to produce an audible
beep after each diskette has been processed. It defaults to
being turned on. Use the following syntax in you AUTOEXEC.BAT
or from the DOS command line to turn it off always:
SET POLYSOUND=OFF
You may also use the "/S" command line option to toggle sound
on or off. Like "/T" for toggling TrashGuard, "/S" sets sound
to on if it is already off (or off it is is already on). For
example, if the environment variable POLYSOUND is not init-
ialized, a "/S" will turn beep sounds off -- except for
warnings.
- Reduced RAM overhead when copying any floppy smaller than
1.44 MB, or when the "/V" verify option is not selected.
Dynamically allocated sector buffers, rather than static,
make this possible.
- Improved image file path correction. In previous versons if
you specified an image file with a filename larger than the
eight characters allowed by DOS, POLYCOPY didn't not display
the truncated path as it was actually used. This primarily
affects what is displayed rather than what is used.
- Improved exception handling. Earlier releases attempted to
format diskettes regardless of the nature of errors detected
during disk writes. Now, POLYCOPY tests for specific errors.
For example, if a diskette is write protected, a "Disk write
protected" error will be displayed and no format will be
attempted.
- Input character checking. When prompted for keyboard input
for things such as "press ENTER" or "(Y/N)?", this version
of POLYCOPY beeps until a valid choice is selected. Older
release would accept almost any character, sometimes with
unpredictable results.
- Converted to use DOS' built-in VERIFY capability, rather
than hard-coded. This reduces .EXE size and RAM overhead, and
makes POLYCOPY even easier to operate than ever. The "/V"
option has been removed; however, you can turn verify on or
using using the regular DOS syntax:
C>verify on
or
C>verify off
NOTE: Disk writes are much faster with write-read-verify
turned off. Most of the time it is not necessary to
perform this extra testing.
- TrashGuard now defaults to OFF. You may still use the "/t"
command line parameter, or the "TrashGuard=" environment
variable, to turn TrashGuard back ON.
- Enhanced error recovery. In earlier versions, a bad
destinate disk caused POLYCOPY to halt a duplication
session. This has been changed now to give you the
option to make additional copies, thus saving valuable
time.
- Force drive type option. In rare cases, such as with
on systems with more than two floppy drives, it is
necessary to force POLYCOPY to treat a floppy drive as
a particular type. If POLYCOPY has trouble determining
the correct drive type, use the "/DT=n" parameter to
force a type. The drive type codes are (n=1...5):
1 = 360K, 2 = 1.2M, 3 = 720K, 4 = 1.44M and 5 = 2.88M
IMPORTANT: Use this option very carefully. Under
normal circumstances use should not use
this option.
[VERSION 2.81] - Version 2.80 has a bug that keeps it from creating the
ORDER.FRM file, which is now corrected.
- Fixed a cosmetic problem that occurred if the SOURCE and
TARGET drives were not the same. The statement, "Writing to
TARGET disk in drive...," shows up on the wrong line.
[VERSION 2.80] - Corrected pointer problem that's been generating 90% of QEMM
and other TrashGuard errors. Now you can truely use POLYCOPY
and QEMM safely and reliablly together. Just don't forget to
increase the number of handles to 128 (see below).
[VERSION 2.70] - Read/Write elapsed time display. After a comlete disk read
or write the elapsed time for the process is displayed in
the form [XXm XXs], where 'm' is for minutes and 's' seconds.
- TrashGuard<tm> RAM validation protection. Some EMM drivers,
such as QEMM, can make dangerous modifications to DOS RAM
without warning if they are not configured properly for your
system. A change to a single byte will not affect most
programs noticably; however, when you're copying diskettes
a single byte error cannot be tolerated. Enter TrashGuard.
TrashGuard does exactly what it's name implies, it guards
against trashed data. An advanced 32-bit CRC algorithm is
used to detect changes to diskette data while it is stored in
RAM.
- Verify option. In verify mode POLYCOPY does in verify mode
is to read each track written to disk and compare every byte
to insure an absolutely accurate write.
- No more erroneous "Drive not supported or is not a floppy
drive" errors. If you get this error now chances are it is
legitimate.
- Extended drive letters. This version supports any floppy
drive letter -- including virtual drives. Letters such as
those assigned by MicroSolutions' CompatiCard IV (i.e. E: F:).
- DiskDUP (Copr. (C)1990 R. MacClean) image file compatibility.
This version allows you to restore from DiskDUP's image files
that are not compressed.
- Tested with fast, single-pass copies on 600 rpm high-speed
floppy drives.
[VERSION 2.60] - Store to and restore from diskette image files. These disk
images may be archived for modem transmission or simply stored
on you hard drive for diskette recreation without the need for
an original.
NOTE: The image files POLYCOPY creates are completely
compatible with those used by the PC Magazine utility
pair 2FILE/2FLOPPY (C)1991 Ziff Comm. Co.
- DOS 5.0 compatibility
- Added "/u" parameter to the DOS FORMAT shell when DOS 5.0
is detected.
- Added "/x" parameter to disable XMS memory usage. This is
primarily for testing and comparisons, but may also prove
useful if you have XMS problems and don't want to go to the
trouble of removing your HIMEM.SYS driver.
- Removed disk status check when "/f" forced format parameter
is specified. This eliminates the long pause associated
with cross-formatted diskettes, but only if "/f" is specified.
- Fixed bug that occurred when insufficient XMS handles resulted
in a switch to DISK producing a corrupt target. It is still
recommended that you install:
"DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM /NUMHANDLES=128"
for the best possible performance (HANDLES=128 for QEMM).
- Added "/r" parameter so POLYCOPY can now generate its own
registration form. Use the following syntax to print a
POLYCOPY registration form:
C>polycopy /r > prn
[VERSION 2.22] - Earlier versions skipped side one of the last track on high
density diskettes. This has been corrected.
[VERSION 2.21] - Fixed bug that occurred when copying multiple, different disks.
The first disk always copied fine, but the program didn't
reliably free up XMS and RAM prior to starting another disk.
[VERSION 2.20] - XMS memory support!
[VERSION 2.12] - Gives "WARNING!" rather than error when user attempts to make
the default drive equal to either the SOURCE or TARGET drive.
[VERSION 2.11] - Corrects formatting problem, "bad parameter," for DOS versions
less than 4.0.
[VERSION 2.10] - Multiple disk drives supported.