HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: fei@media.mit.edu (Fei Hai Chua)
Subject: Local Bus for UNIX?
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 19:09:43 GMT


I am getting a 486/33 with local bus, and I intend to run UNIX in half a
year. Is this a fine move? Or should I get pure ISA 16 bit instead? How
much speed differece do i really get with a local bus?

I have been asking several vendors but they couldn't seems to be certain
about the speed for their local bus.

Any help appreciated, preferably by email. I have to make my decision in
three days time.

Thanks

-- 
======== Fei Hai Chua =========================== Computer Science===========
        fei@media.mit.edu            (W|H)     fhchua@athena.mit.edu
    Systems  Programming  Group        |         3 Ames Street #120
     E15-473 (617) 253-3641            |  Cambridge 02142 MA. (617)225-6161
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.os.msdos.apps
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: Spell Checker Needed (PD/Shareware preferred)
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 12:18:02 GMT

In article <1992Aug20.231544.6177@hubcap.clemson.edu> chrisb@hubcap.clemson.edu (Chris Behrens) writes:
>I know this has been asked before.  I need one that is a stand-alone
>application to check standard ASCII text files.  (Would _like_ it
>to be able to "learn" new words, but that is minor.)

Take a look at
 67370 Sep 29  1991 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tschek14.zip
and
 32785 Aug 17 11:45 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/pd2/review09.zip

(Incidentally, you might be interested to hear there is also a
special newsgroup for asking about finding PD & shareware MsDos
material, comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted). 

"If you do not know how to go about getting this material, users are
welcome to email me for the prerecorded garbo.uwasa.fi instructions
(long, circa 29Kb).  North American users are referred to the garbo
mirror on wuarchive.wustl.edu.  Australian users are referred to the
archie.au mirror.  The mirrors may lag occasionally, or might not
have all the files.  If you do not receive my reply within five
days, please ask your own site's system manager to construct a
returnable mail path for you". 

..................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi
Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous FTP archives 128.214.87.1
Faculty of Accounting & Industrial Management; University of Vaasa
Internet: ts@uwasa.fi Bitnet: salmi@finfun   ; SF-65101, Finland

Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Subject: Re: Modem Problems with Windows 3.1
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 1992 20:47:25 GMT

In <1992Aug12.171034.15226@athena.cs.uga.edu> cstripli@harpo.dev.uga.edu (Cletus Stripling) writes:

>In article <q2aDPB1w164w@buscard.fidonet.org> sharky@buscard.fidonet.org (Gary Sciacca) writes:
>>Anyone know why I would modem problems with windows and
>>not in DOS. I have 2 com ports and 1 internal modem at
>>com 3. The mouse is working fine as com 2 in windows
>>but I'm having flacky probs with and windows application
>>that uses a modem. Hangs system, with faults, download 
>>problems. If I use the internal modem with Procomm
>>under DOS 5.0 only, everthing works fine. Do I have some
>>kind of interrupt conflict maybe ?? Windows does use
>>the mouse and the modem at the same time where Procomm
>>wouldn't. Didn't seem to have many problems under windows
>>3.0. I'm running a 286 system in case that matters.
>>
>>Thanks,
>>Gary
>>
>>
>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>The Business Card (BBS), Lawrence, Massachusetts - Data: (508) 682-5329
>>SysAdmin:  murph@buscard.fidonet.org / ...!ulowell!wizvax!buscard!murph

>Choose Control Panel under the main window or group, open up the icon for
>ports and make sure that under the settings you have the address 03E8
>entered as the base port address.  Also make sure that the Interrupt request
>is set for 4.  Initially both of these options may be set to "default".
>When I've had problems in the past this has seemed to clear them up.

No, this won't help.  I suspect his problem is that his modem on COM3
is set to use IRQ4, which is where COM1 lives.  He needs to change the
IRQ that the modem is using ON THE HARDWARE.  There should be a jumper
for this.  Switch it to IRQ2 (possible EGA conflict) or IRQ5 (LPT2
conflict).  Then tell Windows where COM3 lives, using the method
described above.


-- 
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
 in the real world."   -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred.McCall@dseg.ti.com - I don't speak for others and they don't speak for me.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: unruh@physics.ubc.ca (William Unruh)
Subject: Re: .Z files
Organization: University of British Columbia, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 00:27:15 GMT

wbennett@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (William F Bennett) writes:


>     I am new to the IBM world and when I was perusing the ftp sites I ran 
>across some files that I wanted that had a .Z extender. Can someone tell me 
>what the  unarchival prog is for this extension and where to find it.

>          Thanx in advance.
>-- 
>*******************************************************************************
>Bill Bennett              Dept of Radiology           The Ohio State University

>*********************  wbennett@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu  ********************

It's the old Unix compress with it's mate uncompress.
The referenc efrom the compress man page

 A Technique for High Performance Data Compression, Terry  A.
      Welch, computer, vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1984), pp. 8-19.
From: yev_g@athena.mit.edu (Yevgeny Gurevich)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Is there anyway one run a program in the background?
Date: 14 Aug 92 15:57:50 GMT
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In article <1992Aug13.231518.18981@sequent.com> georged@sequent.com (George Dolbier) writes:
>I'm sorry you must have DOS confused with an operating system. DOS lacks
>MAJOR functinoality that would allow anyone/anything to run in parallel.
>Some of the functionality being parallel process support, and virtual memory 
>management.

You are correct here.

>Please remember that dos is just a very well written system monitor. If
>you want multi tasking for your pc, try unix or windows/NT.

Windows/NT might be difficult to try since it is still in alpha.
Although you can get it, it might be useless without ANY installed
base of NT applications.  DOS support, as I understand it, is still
very buggy.

>(Don't nobody give me any flack about windows or os/2 they just don't cut it)

Windows is OK for running DOS programs in the background, but it
certainly doesn't make a GOOD multitasker.  OS/2 is rather stable, and
I am surprised to hear that it "doesn't cut it".  I have used OS/2
v1.3 for a while and it is a very robust operating system.  You can
easily start a process in the background by launching it from the
manager or a command prompt.  You can also detach processes which
don't require user input to run in the background just like the Unix
&.  OS/2 v2.0 extends some of this functionality to DOS.  Although I
don't think there is a DETACH command which works with DOS apps.

Could you describe some of the failings you see with OS/2 ?


--
yev_g@athena.mit.edu   500 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA.  [ Yevgeny Gurevich ]
Xref: sparky comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc:11532 comp.os.msdos.misc:4761 comp.os.msdos.apps:4357 comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted:5588
From: tgpt_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Tom Guptill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.os.msdos.misc,comp.os.msdos.apps,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.wanted
Subject: Re: Need help with old program
Date: 15 Aug 92 23:24:55 GMT
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York


Thanks to everyone who responded.  I didn't entirely explain my problem to
begin with:

	- The program _is_ copy protected, and you _can't_ fool it into
installing itself onto a floppy disk.

	- Installing it on the HD of the machine in question is not an
option.  It needs to be able to run from a floppy.

	- It's currently on what NDD identifies as a 320K diskette. (8
sectors/track) with some unreadable (i.e. copy protected) sectors. 
CopyWrite will copy it.  Diskcopy will not.  COPYIIPC will not.  ANADISK
will not.  CopyWrite doesn't recognize 3.5" media.

	- I've gotten in touch with IBM customer service (who were VERY
helpful.  I was pleasantly surprised.)  Apparently after production was
stopped but before rights to the program were returned to PFS (now owned by
Spinnaker) they released a 3.5" version to run on the PS/2.  I'm currently
trying to hunt down this program through IBM dealers in the area.  

I'm still looking at all possible solutions, so if somebody comes up with a
really cool solution, drop me a line.  (If nothing else, I've heard all
kinds of creative ways to circumvent copy protection :-)  )  Thanks for all
of the help.
-- 
|Tom Guptill           | tgpt_ltd@uhura.cc.rochester.edu     |
|CPU Box 277445 U of R | tgpt_ltd@db1.cc.rochester.edu       |
|Rochester, NY 14627   |                                     |
|(716) 274-0351        |                                     |
Xref: sparky comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc:11512 comp.os.msdos.misc:4732
From: gstoltz@usdsd1.DaytonOH.NCR.COM (Gregory D Stoltz)
Newsgroups: comp.ibm.pc.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: Optimizing 386SX-16's for Windows
Keywords: n
Date: 14 Aug 92 13:53:29 GMT
Reply-To: gstoltz@usdsd1.DaytonOH.NCR.COM (Gregory D Stoltz)
Distribution: na
Organization: NCR USG Data Services Division

In article <1992Aug13.035324.24260@nntp.uoregon.edu> johnm@cajal.uoregon.edu
(John Martin) writes:
>In article <Bsu89r.3K6@cs.dal.ca>, goldrick@ug.cs.dal.ca (Majeed  Goldrick)
writes:
>
>>They are using monochrome monitors (!!!).I would like to get them going on
>>some Windows applications, but it would seem to me that this would be 
>>extremely slow in the current setup.  The question is - how can I optimize
>>these machines for Windows at a reasonable price.  Do I:
>
>
>I realize that I am treading on dangerous ground here (I will probably catch
>it from the Windows zealots), so I am donning my asbestos underwear...

First off I'm not a windows zealot so you can be assured that my comments are
completely unbiased :-).
>
>Doesn't the fact that you have to optimize the hardware to make a given
>piece of software run with acceptable speed raise questions in anybody's
>mind?  This immediately raises a warning flag in my brain that perhaps
>the software in question is not the best answer to the problem!
>Especially when there are better solutions on the market.
>
>Please, I am interested in discussions on this, but send your flames
>to /dev/null.

Why does optimizing a given hardware setup send up any warning flags?  Every
software package out there has a minimum configuration and places different
demands on a system.  Windows is a rather demanding (overblown, overhyped...)
shell, however, its requirements are not that unreasonable.  Unless we are to
stay in the stone ages, advanced software applications will require
investments in hardware.

Should every software package written work with 8 bit processors and run in
64k of RAM??????

But then what about PC GEOS?? The GUI that runs fine on XT class PCs,
but that's another discussion.

regards
Greg
--
From: charlesr@wspcrd.PeachtreeCityGA.ncr.com (Charles Rutledge)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: How hot can the 486-50 cpu run ?
Date: 17 Aug 92 20:46:09 GMT
Reply-To: charlesr@wspcrd.PeachtreeCityGA.ncr.com (Charles Rutledge)
Distribution: usa
Organization: NCR WSPC Peachtree City, Georgia

The spec that I saw said the 486 runs at about 133-degrees F, give or take.
If you are conserned about cooling, I suggest you check out the various chip
fans (yes, fans that mount on the chip) for the 486.

-- 
Charles Rutledge  /  NCR Test Program Development   | 
Internet: Charles.Rutledge@PeachtreeCityGA.NCR.COM  |  Standard Disclaimer: ON
ATT: (404) 487-7000 Ext 7523 / Fax: (404) 487-7089  |
From: rspangle@tazdevil.llnl.gov (Randy Spangler)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Optimizing 386SX-16's for Windows
Date: 12 Aug 92 21:51:11 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

In article <1992Aug12.121839.12941@uni-paderborn.de> hosp@uni-paderborn.de 
(Holger Spangardt) writes:

%Though Windows is an graphic-oriented-shell the speed of the
%graphiccard is not important, a Herculescard might be faster than a
%vga-card, but a colorscreen makes more fun working with Windows.(of
%course expensive)

The speed of the graphics card is very important, in certain situations.

1)      CASE WHERE IT ISN'T:

On my 386DX-16, going from a Paradise Pro (mid-speed non-coprocessed)
to a Video-7 VRAMII (high-speed non-coprocessed) only got me a 10%
speed increase (even though the card could theoretically accept data
700% faster than the Pro).  The problem here is that the 386 simply
couldn't render the graphics fast enough.

2)      CASE WHERE IT IS:

Using an accelerated (around $200) or coprocessed ($500+) video card
takes some of the load of calculating graphics away from the 386,
allowing it to do other things with its time.  This WILL provide a
substantial speed increase.


%The best way to tune the system with Windows is to buy as much RAM as
%possible.  A Cachecontroller makes the system much faster,too, but
%this is not very cheap.

Holger is correct that Windows runs much faster with more memory.  I
consider 4MB the bare minimum.  And at $30 or so per MB, it's a pretty
cheap solution.

If you CAN add a RAM cache to your 386, it will probably give you a
speed boost of 40-50 percent.  But then again, for the same $200 or
$300 you could get a 386DX-25 motherboard, which would give you an
even greater speed gain.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   Randy Spangler                   |   Get your mind out of the gutter   |
|   rspangle@tazdevil.llnl.gov       |   you're blocking my periscope      |
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.os.msdos.apps,comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
From: rick@sundance.SJSU.EDU (Richard Warner)
Subject: Re: Why do people want PD software?
Organization: San Jose State University - Math/CS Dept.
Date: 21 Aug 92 17:04:16 GMT

reisert@sttng.mlo.dec.com (Jim Reisert) writes:


>Several times a week, someone posts an article to a newsgroup asking
>something like, "What's the best PD/shareware program to do XYZZY?"
>Why don't they just ask, "What's the best program to do XYZZY?"  Why
>is PD/shareware specifically requested?  Is it:

I do not think that the answer is simple.  Most folks are looking
for PD stuff, in my experience, because they do not want to spend 
any money.  I know some folks here that are running old CP/M 
machines that they borrowed from the school, and then wonder why
they cannot get 'xyz' type software for that machine - and of
course they want the software for free.  These are folks with 
relatively high salaries, but they are too cheap to buy a machine and
software.  

There is a discussion in one of the OS/2 groups right now about whether
TeX is past its prime.  One of the posts today tells the story -
to paraphrase the response was maybe I should try FrameMaker, where can
I ftp it from.   

But, again, I think the answer is more complex.  Sure most folks are
looking for getting off cheap, but then there is some exemplary
software out there that is PD or shareware or such - the GNU stuff,
X11, etc.  

I for one use a combination of PD, shareware, and commercial stuff.
Most of my illustration work is done with Corel and or Adobe Illustrator,
but I use a couple of shareware tools for cleaning up bit-map images.
My word-processing software is commercial, but I use a PD text editor.
My communication software is either PD or shareware, my spreadsheet
is commercial, and all of my astronomy software is shareware.  The 
mix I use represents what I have found to be the best tools for my
work. 

>- Jim  

>--
>James J. Reisert                Internet:  reisert@sttng.enet.dec.com
>Digital Equipment Corp.         UUCP:      ...decwrl!sttng.enet!reisert
>146 Main Street			Voice:     508-493-5747
>Maynard, MA  01754		FAX:       508-493-0395
Xref: sparky comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc:11560 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:21994
From: jon@chopin.udel.edu (Jon Deutsch)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Tons 'O questions about fonts/printer drivers, etc...
Date: 17 Aug 92 04:18:58 GMT
Organization: University of Delaware - What state is that in?

In article <Bt3q8r.1Fw@news.udel.edu> jon@chopin.udel.edu (Jon Deutsch) writes:
|>OK, I'm a new PC user, and I just got MS Word for Win 2.0.
|>I also have an NEC P5200 24pin dot matrix printer.
|>
|>I am a *tad* confused about screen fonts, printer fonts, and truetype 
|>fonts.  
|>
|>What seems to be happening is this:
|>Any truetype font (ie: Courier New) that my printer has a built-in font
|>for (ie: NEC Courier), gets automatically made into a printer font.
|>In other words, I am unable to print out any truetype fonts that my
|>printer has similar built-in fonts for!
|>
Well, upon further investigation, this is not true.
What is really happening is that with a few truetype fonts
(ie: Arial, Times New Roman), I get bitmapped fonts to my printer
(ie: ugly).  Why is this?  Other truetypes like Wingdings work
just fine with my printer!


       X-------------------+--------------+-----------------------X
       |  |   |\       |>jon@chopin.udel.edu<|  "For my 2 cents,  |
       | \|on |/eutsch |>>-----------------<<|  I'd pay a dollar" |
       X------+--------------------+--------------------+---------X
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: willimsa@unix1.tcd.ie (Gavin Williams)
Subject: Mem in dos 5.0
Organization: Trinity College, Dublin
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 21:07:55 GMT

Has anyone noticed that the MEM command in dos 5.0 does not work the way the
manual says it should.

In the manual, if you type MEM /C it doesn't seem to show the largest UMB
as the instruction manual says.

Any ideas?


Thanks,
	Gavin
	
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: J056600@LMSC5.IS.LMSC.LOCKHEED.COM
Subject: Re: Modem Problems with Windows 3.1
Organization: Lockheed Missiles & Space Company, Inc.
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 92 17:40:02 GMT

In <1992Aug14.151938.10653@nntp.hut.fi>, Tapio Sand writes:

>In article <q2aDPB1w164w@buscard.fidonet.org> sharky@buscard.fidonet.org (Gary
>>Anyone know why I would modem problems with windows and
>>not in DOS. I have 2 com ports and 1 internal modem at
>>com 3. The mouse is working fine as com 2 in windows
>>but I'm having flacky probs with and windows application
>>that uses a modem. Hangs system, with faults, download
>>problems. If I use the internal modem with Procomm
>>under DOS 5.0 only, everthing works fine. Do I have some

>Ah, the classic question every windows user with a fast (>2400)
>modem asks, sooner or later. The problem is that when a character
>comes in the serial port, it signals with an IRQ that the computer
>should copy the received character into memory. This has to happen
>immediately because the UART (8250 or 16450) has room for one character
>only. With windows running, there is so much activity going on that
>the CPU can't serve the serial port fast enough. This of course
>results in losing incoming charaters.

>Solution: replace your serial port UART with a 16550. This has a 16 byte
>buffer, so that the serial port can hold 16 characters before starting
>to lose data. This has solved all my friend's problems similar to yours.

>How to find out what UART you have? There must be several programs
>that can report this. The one I know of is Port Finder v2.7
>You can get it via FTP from SIMTEL20 from msdos' sysutl directory
>named  pf270.zip.

Upgrade the serial port? Even for an *internal* modem on COM3?  I was under the
impression that the UART on the serial ports were only important to external
modems running from COM1 (or COM2 if there are 2 serial ports).  When I
inquired about my upcoming upgrade to a 9600 or 14.4k *internal* modem, I was
told that an internal modem would use a 16550 on *its own card*.  Is this the
case?  Am I understanding this correctly?  Am I misinterpreting something??

I was under the impression that internal modems don't use the serial port...


Tim Irvin   j056600@lmsc5.is.lmsc.lockheed.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: nectar@world.std.com (Jacques A Vidrine)
Subject: PC Support/400 on clones?
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 18:02:23 GMT

Has anyone had any experience running PC Support/400 from IBM on 
a vanilla clone?  

I have tried to run PC Support on three different brands of clones
and I have met with failure each time.  For those familiar with
PC Support, the component that fails is STARTRTR.  Just as soon as
you hit enter after this command, the machine hangs.

IBM tells me it's hardware.  Vendors say it's software.

I tend to believe it is software, since my other network applications
(TCP/IP, Novell Netware) work without a hitch on all the clones.

This is a Token Ring environment, BTW.

Any information will be welcome!
-- 
Jacques A. Vidrine 		|	What did the Zen Buddhist	
nectar@world.std.com		|	say to the hot dog vendor?
				|	"Make me one with everything."
Request my PGP public key	|
From: long@vax.ox.ac.uk (Neil J. Long)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: WANTED: Info on: SEMPER (a graphics and image processing package)
Date: 19 Aug 92 09:11:25 GMT
Organization: Materials Department, University of Oxford

In article <1992Aug11.113634.1@evax0.eng.fsu.edu> falcon@evax0.eng.fsu.edu writes:
>From: falcon@evax0.eng.fsu.edu
>Subject: WANTED: Info on: SEMPER (a graphics and image processing package)
>Date: 19 Aug 92 07:19:47 GMT
>Hi 
>I would really appreciate it if somebody on the net would tell me 
>anything about a graphics and image processing program called SEMPER.
>The information I am after are things like
>(a) Manufacturer of this program
>(b) Address of the manufacturer if possible.
>(c) Cost of the package.
>(d) Machines on which this program can be run
>Thanks in advance
>----shankar
>email to shankar@evax0.eng.fsu.edu

As a very satisfied user for many years here is the info
a) Synoptics Ltd
271 Cambridge Science Park
Milton Road
Cambridge
CB4 4WE
tel UK (44) (0)223 420023
fax                420020

in USA
Synoptics Ltd
400 Amherst Street
Nashua
New Hampshire
03063
USA
tel (603) 881-7035
fax           7078

c)
The cost varies depending on the host machine (i.e. number of simultaneous 
users)

d) It is available on stand alone PC using VGA card
better is a PC with hardware framestore
better still PC with i860 processor (fastest thing I ever saw - beats a sun 
hands down)
Also Silicon Graphics family, Sun workstations, HP, IBM, etc, etc.
They are a very professional outfit and generally there is an annual release 
with new options. Current version is Semper 6.3 (6.4 is in beta).

We use it for general image processing - FFT's and acquire spectroscopic 
data in a Semper data format for dsiplay and manipulation.

Semper is also extendable - which means you can write your own routines and 
re-link them into the main code - there is very good documentation to 
support this.

Give 'em a call 

Neil