Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!egsner!u-word!egs
From: egs@u-word.Dallas.TX.US (Eric Schnoebelen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: DOS query
Summary: DOS sort problems
Keywords: DOS sort
Message-ID: <107@u-word.Dallas.TX.US>
Date: 10 May 89 16:11:45 GMT
References: <21864@santra.UUCP> <1894@astroatc.UUCP>
Reply-To: egs@u-word.UUCP (Eric Schnoebelen)
Organization: John W. Bridges & Associates, Inc., Lewisville, Tx.
Lines: 30

In article <1894@astroatc.UUCP> brown@astroatc.UUCP (Vidiot) writes:
- In article <21864@santra.UUCP> s32935k@taltta.hut.fi (Carl Torsten Stenholm)
- writes:
-< 4. Am I  doing something wrong ?   Whenever I try to sort something big 
-<    enough (>64K), MS-D*S enters the Twilight Zone, never to be seen again.
- 
- Maybe there is s bug in 2.11 that I haven't heard of.  Anyone else?

	DOS sort has a limitation of about 60K of data.  If you pass
it more, it can ( and probably will ) do nasty things.  The versions
included with DOS 3.1 and above simply quietly puked, and returned to
whoever called them ( usually command.com. )   Yes, this bit me once.
I (re)wrote a sort that used virtual memory for the application..

-< 7. Using BIOS windows I sometimes get a boldface "I" on the screen instead
-<    of a <tab> expansion -- this might be and pobably is my mistake ?
- 
- What is BIOS windows?  Windowing is not supported by any BIOS that I know of.
- That is done strictly by user software.

	Well, when I send a tab directly to screen, I get an inverse
diamond.  What seems to be happening is that someone is writing
directly to the screen, and not doing tab expansion.

	Hope this helps
-- 
Eric Schnoebelen,			JBA Incorporated, Lewisville, Tx.
egs@u-word.dallas.tx.us				...!killer!u-word!egs
	"...we have normality"..."Anything you still can't cope with is
therefore your own problem..."	-- Trisha McMillian, HHGG