Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL!Info-IBMPC From: Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.digest Subject: Info-IBMPC Digest V7 #54 (Part 1) Message-ID: <8811201708.AA28791@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Date: 19 Nov 88 21:12:21 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Reply-To: Info-IBMPC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.mil Organization: The Internet Lines: 383 Approved: info-ibmpc@walker-emh.arpa Info-IBMPC Digest Sat, 19 Nov 88 Volume 7 : Issue 54A Today's Topics: Typewriter/Printers 120 Meg floppy drives AT Memory & Maximal Floppy Usage Finding the beginning of the DOS memory chain Review on DISK Manager-N and Miniscribe 6128 Hard Disk Keeping up with whats new in MSDOS collection Salient Difference (DOS 3.2/3.21/3.3) Today's Queries: WORDSTAR Printing Problems Downloading ARC files using 3270-plus and kermit Apple joysticks on an IBM DOD Zenith Contract(248) - New Daisy Wheel Printer Kermit for OS/2 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Nov 88 15:08 LCL From: "James H. Foggin" Subject: Typewriter/Printers Thanks for your response to my query on this. I'll look into the Diablo 1630. Of course, one of my concerns is the price. The level of use I will give it precludes an expensive machine. You mentioned that you had used it aboard ship, and from that I assume that you are in or attached to the Navy. I rode a destroyer for several years MANY years ago, and have some idea of the beating that equipment (particularly electronic) can take. It sounds as though it is good machine. Jim Foggin Marketing, Logistics and Transportation Department College of Business Administration University of Tennessee, Knoxville [This message is in response to a query Mr. Foggin had on typewriters and printers. I mentioned I had a Diablo 630 printer since early '81, had it aboard a destroyer I was assigned to for two years, had used a 1630 (same printing mechanism but with keyboard), and had it aboard the destroyer as well, and have not one maintenance problem with it in all the time I have used it. (Whoops! I did have it cleaned and oiled once two years ago... the case was fairly dirty.) Pointed out cost then (about $3,200) and now (about $600-$900). The printer is definitely not the fastest (My Epson is faster in draft mode.) but, as you would expect, the quality of print is excellent. Use it daily. Disclaimer: Just another satisified user. If anyone has any preferences on a good quality typewriter/printer, please forward to both of us. I'll summarize for the Digest. --gph] ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Nov 88 18:19 EST From: V058NMBP@ubvmsc.cc.buffalo.edu Subject: 120 Meg floppy drives >A normal 5-1/4 inch floppy drive has a circumferential density of >approximately 5500 flux reversals/inch on the inside track, and a radial >density of 48 tracks/inch. Similarly, a high density 5-1/4 inch floppy >has a circumferential density about 9600 flux reversals/inch on the inside >track, and a radial density of 96 tracks/inch. Thus the circumferential >density appears to be about a factor of 100 (one hundred) above the radial >density, and it means that 99 PERCENT of the potential space on a floppy >disk gets wasted between the tracks. Surely the manufacturers of floppy >disk drives must be able to utilize the remaining 99 percent of the radial >capacity. This could lead to 40 megabytes on a regular floppy, and 120 >megabytes on a high-coercivity (so-called IBM-PC/AT) floppy disk, without >changing the media at all. > >ps: Computer tape had a similar problem with a very low information >density because of the nine tracks. Now Video Tape technology has solved >that problem, and the density at right angles to the tape is approximately >the same as the density along the tape. This is a challenge to you >engineers, I want my 120 megabytes on a standard IBM-PC/AT floppy disk... There are a few inherent limitations which prevent such a high track density as you desire. (1) The read/write head must be of a minimum width to allow the core 'gap' to be of sufficient size for the recording bandwidth. Hard disc drives can have smaller heads because the media spins at least 10 times faster than a floppy, and that is possible because there is no direct head/media contact. Faster media give more bandwidth to work with. (2) Modern positioning mechanisms for direct media/head contact type drives (i.e. floppy drives) also have a finite resolution. 96 TPI is VERY good considering the price of these floppy drives. State of the art has given us 135 TPI in the new 3.5" drives. More is not impossible, just terribly cost ineffective. Hard disc technology is more practical and cheaper. (3) Last but not least is demand. Who would want a 120 Meg drive that takes almost as long as a tape drive to access the data and costs $10,000? Better to get a Bernoulli Box. Video recorders get away with high width/length density ratios because the heads are made to spin at an angle to the direction of tape movement. That does not lend itself easily to circular media. Also, I don't know how long you've been in the microcomputer world. But I remember when we used to pay $1000 for a SSSD 5.25 floppy disk subsystem which gave us a whopping 82K of online storage... I'll take a $150 1.2Meg setup over that anyday! Amardeep S. Chana V058NMBP@UBVMS.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Nov 88 23:06:30 EST From: simon@E.MS.UKY.EDU Subject: AT Memory & Maximal Floppy Usage This is a reply to two articles in the last journal: (1) Many people have been asking about a possibly 'wasted' area of RAM in the PC. If you buy a computer with 1 meg of RAM, or install 1 meg when you build one, you are getting 1 meg of usable RAM. The PC splits the installed ramchips around the 640k-1024k block. Video bitmaps and text screens are mapped into the 640k-1024k block. ROM BIOS and ROM BASIC (true blue), as well as the power on self-tests (POST) are stored in this area. Disk and Ega bios sometimes are put here. LIM EMS page frames are mapped into the same place. There is some room for RAM, but it is neither there nor used by dos. Any RAM in excess of 640k is placed starting at 1024k and up. This RAM is called EXTENDED RAM. EXPANDED RAM is implemented with EMS, and pages of EMS ram are swapped in and out of the page frames, which are usually located between 640k and 1024k. (2) Super-High Capacity Floppies: A floppy diskette consists of a set of tracks, each having a certain number of sectors. A 360k dos floppy has 2 sides, 40 tracks per side, and 9 sectors/track, 512 bytes per sector (2*40*9*512 = 360k). This is 4.5k per track, but only 40 tracks across or 80 on a HD 1.2meg. The reason for the low number of tracks is that the r/w head in the drive must stay aligned with the track it is reading, and with 80 tracks across a 1" or so opening, we're doing fair. The 3.5" disks do much better because they are more rigid. I recently read in Byte or PC Tech that a new drive is soon to be available: a 20meg floppy drive. The drive has an incredible number of tracks, it stays aligned by using a cheap laser tracking system. Disks are from Kodak, expected to be about $50 per disk. The drive itself is expected to be around the same price as a st225 hd ~ $300. I don't have the mag handy, but if anyone is interested, I'll dig it out. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Nov 88 10:01:29 PST From: Jim Anderson Subject: Finding the beginning of the DOS memory chain The undocumented DOS function 52H returns a pointer to some DOS internal variables (often called invars) in ES:BX. At offset -2 from this pointer is a word that contains the segment of the first memory allocation arena. I know this works for 3.1 through 3.3. I think it works for all DOS from 2.1 on. mov ah,52h int 21h mov dx,es:[bx-2] ;segment of first mcb to dx ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Nov 88 22:40:15 -0800 From: rtobin@ICS.UCI.EDU Subject: Review on DISK Manager-N and Miniscribe 6128 Hard Disk I have used a product called Disk Manager-N from Ontrack computer to install a non-standard hard disk into a Novell file server. The product worked very well. It enabled me to use a high capacity RLL drive in a true-blue IBM AT as a Netware 2.0a volume. The drive, a Miniscribe 6128 is also performing well. I choose the drive after a bit of research. $945 for 110 MB. The Disk Manager-N installation shouldn't be too hard for people familar with Netware volume installations. It takes about 1 day. Again, thumbs up on both of these products. No connection with the companies, just a satisfied consumer. Roy Tobin ------------------------------ Date: 14 Nov 88 15:47:33 GMT From: crdos1!davidsen@uunet.UU.NET (bill davidsen) Subject: Keeping up with whats new in MSDOS collection In Info-IBMPC Digest V7 #49: | Date: Sun, 23 Oct 1988 08:35 MDT | From: Keith Petersen | Subject: Keeping up with whats new in MSDOS collection | | John, PD1:FILES.IDX is updated on a daily (sometimes several | times a day when a lot of new files are added) basis. It is a | comma-delimited file, without descriptions, suitable for importing ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ | into PC-File+ or dBASEIII. Keith, I have to agree with John. A list without description is of limited usefulness. I can't keep up with all the messages about files, I can't index them myself "in case I ever need a program to do that," an index with a few words of description would be really useful. I generally use the archive when someone says "I need a program to do..., is there one on SIMTEL?" That's when the total description would be useful. Don't misunderstand, what's there is priceless, but more useful for finding a given file by name than the name of a useful file by description. -- bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa) {uunet | philabs}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Nov 88 03:47:08 EST From: boyd@braggvax.arpa Subject: Salient Difference (DOS 3.2/3.21/3.3) Numerous "getting smarter everyday" USERS are beating my staff up frequently to explain the EXACT differences in the most recent versions of MS-DOS. The history/facts of 1.x => 2.x => 3.0/1/2 are generally well known, but the EXACT significant differences of the above versions are not. Any help appreciated.... |My vast investment in books over 6 months old is beginning to worry me.... Thanks, Joe Boyd boyd@braggvax.arpa ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 9 Nov 88 02:08:54 MST From: Gregory Hicks Subject: WORDSTAR Printing Problems To: cps-task@braggvax.arpa A. What version of Wordstar do you use? Wordstar 2000 V3 claims to support over 500 printers and includes lasers. I know it supports the six printers at my site. b. The way you do it is define two printers... Pick the one you want as your default printer to install last. Give the printer definition files unique names... (ie: CITIZEN and JUKI) Do some formats (the .frm files) for the Juki and some for the Citizen... That way, when you edit a file and pick a format, when it comes time to print the file, the program will default to the appropriate printer. You'll probably need to install the ports for each printer. I have an EPSON and a DIABLO. one printer is called EPSON and the other is DIABLO... Epson goes to LPT1: and Diablo goes to COM1: ... Use the WS2INS program to do this... Just before you save, you'll see a series of choices. Pick the one that allows you to re- program printer extras (or some such thing...) When it comes time to finish editing and save the file, type ^QP (for quit and print). If your format file defined the proper printer, accept the printing defaults. If you formatted for the Juki and want to print on the Citizen, don't accept the default (answer the question "No") and choose the proper printer. Good luck. I thought it was quite easy. The WordStar 2000 Reference book, Appendix C, pg 691-692 go over this in detail. As a matter of fact, pg 688-702 cover printers in great detail... Hope this helps. Regards, Gregory Hicks Disclaimer: No, I'm not connected with MicroPro. I'm just a satisfied (mostly) user. There are some quirks with the program I don't like, but on the whole, it's good, works well, and I've been using one version or another since early '84. It's not the only one I use, but ... --gph] ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 15 Nov 88 20:18:29 CET From: Christoph H. Hochstaetter +49 06421/14618 HOCHSTAE@DMRHRZ11.BITNET Subject: Downloading ARC files using 3270-plus and kermit >from: Jans Andries Dear Jans, I had the same problems with Kermit as you have. This is because Kermit does an automatic EBCDIC to ASCII Conversion to all files. You can set your host Kermit to Binary Files, but not MS-Kermit. If you want to transfer files with Kermit, you to use UUENCODED Files. This can be done by using the option UUE with Trickle Servers (e.g.: Tell Trickle at Hearn /pdget idc20.arc (UUE)) Programs to UUDECODE Files are available on most Trickle- Servers in various languages (Source-Code). When you request Source-Code files they did not need to be sent UUENCODED. Also available on Trickle Servers or on Listservs is the Program ARCUTIL, which UUDECODES your files on your host. Another possibility is to use PIBTERM instead of KERMIT. PIBTERM has a binary option for KERMIT File-Transfers. PIBTERM is available on Trickle Servers or other SIMTEL20 access Servers under . With PIBTERM you can re- ceive binary files directly, which saves you much time. At last two little hints. Try also TRICKLE@TREARN, TRICKLE@AWIWUW11, TRICKLE@BANUFS11 and TRICKLE@IMIPOLI. For directory requests I recommend LISTSERV@ NDSUVM1, which supports a full Directory with the commands: Tell Listserv at Ndsuvm1 /pddir pd:*.* 9999 Tell Listserv at Ndsuvm1 /pddir pd:*.* 9999 Another advantage is, that these Directory Listings include information, whether the file is ASCII or Binary. Christoph H. Hochstaetter ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 14 Nov 88 16:53 EST From: Jeff Siegel Subject: Apple joysticks on an IBM I have joysticks and paddles for an Apple II+ and am hoping that there is a simple way of connecting them to an IBM PC clone. They joysticks have the old 16 pin connectors, and I have a game controller card on my PC with a (I suppose) standard 25 pin connectors. Is it a simple task involving only rewiring, or is the basic mechanism in an Apple joystick different from one for a PC (and if this is the case, can it be remedied by connecting resistors in appropriate places)? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Jeff Siegel JASIEGEL@AMHERST (on bitnet) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Nov 88 20:20:13 EST From: boyd@braggvax.arpa Subject: DOD Zenith Contract(248) - New Daisy Wheel Printer Questions for anyone who has bought or researched the item: - Does it have a PARALLEL or SERIAL interface for the PC - What type of PRINTWHEELS does the printer use? (Model type is supposedly a PRIMAGE 90 Daisygrapher, I think!) [I thought it was a Diablo 630... gph] - Has anyone tried it, does it perform as advertised, would you recommend it? - Does it REALLY do both GRAPHICS and also is a DAISYWHEEL? - Does it have "downloadable fonts" and/or various printwheels types for foreign languages/OCR-A, etc.....? - Any help/suggestions/comments appreciated..... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 16 Nov 88 11:22:06 EST From: Dennis Caffi Subject: Kermit for OS/2 I've seen mentioned a few times. If it does exist, how can I get a copy of it. Thanks in advance for the help. Dennis Caffi Computer Systems Analyst Prince George's County Public Schools, Md. ------------------------------ ************************ End of Info-IBMPC Digest -------