Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Path: utzoo!decvax!bellcore!ulysses!ucbvax!USC-ISIB.ARPA!Info-IBMPC From: Info-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA (Info-IBMPC Digest) Newsgroups: mod.computers.ibm-pc Subject: Info-IBMPC Digest V5 #60 Message-ID: <8606120335.AA03395@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: Wed, 11-Jun-86 21:36:39 EDT Article-I.D.: ucbvax.8606120335.AA03395 Posted: Wed Jun 11 21:36:39 1986 Date-Received: Thu, 12-Jun-86 19:10:38 EDT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: INFO-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA Organization: The ARPA Internet Lines: 1060 Approved: info-ibmpc@usc-isib.arpa Info-IBMPC Digest Wednesday, June 11, 1986 Volume 5 : Issue 60 This Week's Editor: Richard Gillmann Today's Topics: 640K on XT Motherboard (2 msgs) DOS 3.1/3.2 (3 msgs) Keyboard Extension Cables How to Make a Null Printer 8 Serial Ports for AT Update of GRAPH Inline Code for Turbo Pascal INT 20H Computer/computer disk read Fate of Davong Software Source Code Control Systems PC/IX - Hercules Mischief STB Graphics Boards The Big SQueeze (3 msgs) Today's Queries: 5.25" Drives for Toshiba T-1100 Wanted Hardcard from Plus (Query) Loading Modules Query Epsilon and Windows Query DisplayWrite3 under DOS 3.1 Query Low-level Hard Disk Programs Query IBM PC Networks Query Serial interface specs needed for NEC Spinwriter Dataflow Diagrams Query Apple Imagewriter Query AutoDex Query Info wanted on Undocumented DOS Calls Jlaser Software Query ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 9 Jun 86 11:48:54 edt Subject: IBM-XT Motherboard Upgrade to 640K From: Billy I got two responses on the 640K motherboard update: From: Tony Brand I installed the 640K motherboard upgrade in my PC portable (i.e.luggable), which has the same motherboard as an XT. It works very well. The XT motherboard DIP switches should be set for maximum memory (256k for an unmodified board) if 640K is installed. I highly recommend this mod it's easy to install even if it does void the warranty. Tony Brand Trenton State College, NJ From: Steve Ligett When upgading an XT motherboard to 640k, the switches should be set to indicate "256k installed". The switches really indicate how many banks of memory are installed. (You can also do a 64k downgrade - four banks of 16k chips - and leave the switches set for "256k".) Steve ------------------------------ To: INFO-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA From: "Roger Fajman" Date: Tue, 10 Jun 86 21:13:22 EDT Subject: 640K on XT Motherboard The following describes an easier way to upgrade an XT motherboard to 640K. I've done it and it works fine. Just be sure to get all the chips in their sockets properly. On an IBM Portable PC, getting at the chips requires removal of the disk drives and motherboard, a fairly lengthy process. Roger Fajman BITS and PCs by Jerry Schneider Copyright (c) 1986, Capital PC User Group Inc. This material may be republished only for internal use by other not-for-profit user groups. Published in the March 1986 issue of the Capital PC Monitor. 640K Memory on Your XT/Portable System Board The "User to User" column in the September 1985 Monitor included an article that described how to upgrade an IBM PC-XT or Portable to contain 640K memory on the system board. While that procedure is very effective, it requires that the user solder a jumper wire between two points on trom the Buying Group for around $22 (for each bank of nine chips). ------------------------------ To: kegel@juliet.caltech.edu Cc: info-ibmpc@usc-isib Subject: Re: DOS 3.1 Editing Keys Date: Wed, 11 Jun 86 14:36:14 -0500 From: Mark Colan WAB's comment is wrong. My (unhacked) DOS 3.10 system DOES allow the use of ^U and ^W. I can't imagine it not working on all AT's; it has worked on ALL AT's I've used (and that's many). BTW, these seem to have been removed from DOS 3.20! Mark Colan MIT Project Athena ------------------------------ Date: Wed 11 Jun 86 07:46:31-EDT From: Bruce Hillyer Subject: Patch DOS 3.1 for Ctl-U, Ctl-W ReSent-From: Billy I had sent this patch directly to you some time in the past, but it never made it into INFO-IBMPC. Old versions of pc-dos 3.1 had the control-u and control-w code patched out with nop's; newer versions don't. Here's the patch again; I'm also sending a copy directly to the guy who asked. Here is a patch to make dos 3.1 recognize control-u as line delete, and control-w as word delete (like Tops-20). This patch is for the hidden file ibmdos.com length 27760, date 7-Mar-85 13:43. Using a copy of your dos diskette, do the following. 1. Unprotect the hidden file ibmdos.com . For example, with the Norton utility FH, set not-system, not-hidden, not-read-only. The CHMOD program in the info-ibmpc library may also work. 2. Use debug as follows: A>debug ibmdos.com -u 1db9 ...this should show code like: cmp al,17 nop nop cmp al,15 nop nop ...and the following patch will change it to cmp al,17 jz 1e1b cmp al,15 jz 1e12 -e 1dbb 74 5e -e 1dbf 74 51 -w -q 3. Reprotect ibmdos.com, and boot the system from this dos. After you are convinced it works, you may wish to use the sys command to move the patched system to the hard disk. [Sorry about not including this in INFO-IBMPC the first time, but my DOS 3.1 already had this patch directly from Microsoft. It later appears that some DOS 3.1s have this patch and some don't. -wab] ------------------------------ To: info-ibmpc@usc-isib.arpa Subject: New IBM Keyboard (AT 339) and DOS 3.20 Date: Wed, 11 Jun 86 15:23:17 -0500 From: Mark Colan I recently purchased a PC/AT model 339, ie the 8Mhz 30Mb disk version with the NEW keyboard. There has been some controversy over the new keyboard, both from a layout standpoint and from a compatibility standpoint. PC Tech Journal, June 1986, p12 has a good summary on the layout issues. I will underscore the article's points with those that I am the most concerned with: * I hate the location of the CTRL key, and the CAPS-LOCK key. I'm constantly hitting CAPS-LOCK when I really meant CTRL. This is partially because I use a uVaxII and the keyboard is (almost) in the "right" place. I wish that the CAPS-LOCK key would simply go away! I NEVER want to be in upper-case mode, and am frequently annoyed by falling into it. I'm considering prying off the keycap! * I don't like the new location of the function keys, even tho now they are in the "right" place. In particular, chording (like when you want to press Alt-F1) now requires two hands (for most people), and I discover how much I relied on the position of the keys to find them, as in dealing with programs which use the Function Keys for menu control. In order to use the new keyboard, you should probably use DOS 3.20. If you use DOS 3.10, the new cursor keys and the new Home, PgUp, etc keys generate an "alpha" character (ie, the Greek letter) on the screen, rather than having the desired effect. You CAN use the numeric keypad to do the cursor moving etc, but the 339 BIOS, upon powering up, apparently SETS the numeric lock by default, so you have to unset it each time you boot. I use DOS 3.10 anyway, though, because in DOS 3.20 the ^U and ^W keys no longer have the function they did in 3.10, and I can't live without the ^U in particular. (It really blows my mind that the ESC key, the only men compression ratios hover around 33% {compressed file is 66% of original, whereby 'text' is typically compressed a little better, and 'executables' less}. Typical LZW compression ratios average 55% - highest compression is achieved with pixel-information {values of 90% are typical} - followed by 'text' with 50% and executables around 20%. Although the original 'paper' on LZW suggested implementation between CPU and peripheral devices [terminal,disk-drives,mag-tapes] - current usage encompasses file-compression {Unix COMPRESS, MSDOS ARC, CPM UNArc} - highspeed proprietary MODEM-protocols {"LZW in SILICON"} and 'picture transmission' at 1200 baud. Rgds, Bernie ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 8 Jun 1986 22:45 MDT From: Keith Petersen To: Julius Smith Cc: INFO-HZ100@RADC-TOPS20.ARPA, INFO-IBMPC@USC-ISIB.ARPA Subject: SQueezed, LBR, and ARC files Some of the files in the SIMTEL20 MS/PCDOS software libraries have been transformed by using one or another of the standard public domain utilities that either SQueezes, LiBRaries, or ARChives files. This is done to compress the files to minimize download time, and/or combine several related files into a single easily-managed file. These processed files are specially named with a filetype (the last 3 letters of a filename after the '.') that signifies the transformation. These are: .ARC for files archived with ARC.EXE, .LBR for files libraried with LU.EXE, and .?Q? for squeezed files (middle letter is a Q). USQ.COM is used to unsqueeze, or expand files that have a "Q" as the middle letter of the filetype. Such files have been squeezed, or compressed with SQ.COM or something similar. These programs use Huffman Encoding to reduce the size of the target file. Depending on the distribution of data in a file it can be reduced in size by 5% to 60% by squeezing it. If you download a file with a filetype indicating that it is squeezed, you will need USQ.COM to expand it before you can use it. ARC is used to create and maintain file archives. An archive is a group of files collected together into one file in such a way that the individual files may be recovered intact. ARC will automatically compress member files when adding them to the archive, and will expand them upon extraction. For files with the .ARC extension, you must have a copy of ARC.EXE to extract the component files. LU and its relatives (LUP, LUU, LUE, LUT, LU86, LAR etc.), maintain libraries of files. Most LU-type programs do not perform any compression. Because of this, most people will squeeze files before adding them to a library if they want to save space. If you want to remove the component files from an .LBR file, you should have a copy of LUE.COM. This will break up the library into its component parts, and optionally unsqueeze any .?Q? files at the same time. LUU.COM will create a .LBR file. For information on ARChives, see the documentation for ARC. The various LU utilities will explain .LBR's and LUDEF5.DOC explains the layout of these files in detail. For SQ(ueeze) and USQ (unsqueeze) see SQUEEZE.TXT which provides a background on squeezed files. A complete list of the MSDOS files and CRCs is available via ftp as PD:MSDOS.CRCLST. A shorter version with just filenames is PD:FILES.DIR. Both are updated frequently. --Keith ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 9 Jun 86 16:57:17 PDT From: WU%FAR@ames-io.ARPA Subject: VMS SQueezed files to PC To: info-ibmpc-request@isib In reply to the use of SQ under VMS, use SET FILE TYPE FIXED to transfer the file to a PC. Otherwise you lose the two byte record header of a FILES-11 file. Alex. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 7 Jun 86 23:43 UT From: OGASAWARAT%HAW.SDSCNET@LLL-MFE.ARPA Subject: 5.25" Drives for Toshiba T-1100 Wanted Does anyone know if there is an alternate source for 5.25" external disk drives for the Toshiba T-1100 portable? The $400 price tag for the one