HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: sknkwrks@mayall.cs.unlv.edu (Scott Alfter)
Subject: Re: Has anyone heard of Floptical drives?
Organization: Skunk Works Software Co.
Date: 10 Nov 92 19:10:45 GMT

In article <esl1.721378256@crux1.cit.cornell.edu> esl1@crux2.cit.cornell.edu (Eric Lambert) writes:
>I read in a magazine yesterday about a new (?) disk for IBM's.
>It is the size of a 3.5" disk, but optical, so the TPI is
>somewhere over 1000.  It stores 21MB of data, and each disk costs
>about $25.  The drives are standard size 3.5" drives and can
>read/write to 720K. 1.44meg, and 21meg Floptical disks.  All for
>about $500.  Is this new?  Does it work?  Does anyone have one?

There's been quite a bit of talk about these drives in
comp.sys.apple2...it all started two or so years ago, but it's only
been in the past year that drives have become available.  Insite had a
booth at the last Fall COMDEX where they were showing it off; I have a
spec sheet for the drive somewhere.  It's a low-profile (1") 3.5"
drive that should fit in any drive bay.  It uses a SCSI interface and
should be usable with any machine that supports SCSI (that's why
there's Apple II interest in the drive).  I don't know what'd be
involved in getting the drive to work with an IBM clone (other than
getting a SCSI card for it)...but on the Apple II, people are trying
to debug controller ROMs to get the drive to work properly (as a
removable-media device) with the RamFAST, a popular caching SCSI
controller.

  _/_   Scott Alfter                             Internet: sknkwrks@cs.unlv.edu
 / v \  Call the Skunk Works BBS today!           Ask me about SoftDAC--digital
(IIe (  (702) 894-9619 300-14400 V.32bis          audio for your Apple IIe/IIc!
 \_^_/  If Bill Clinton is the answer, it must've been a damn stupid question!!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Telecommuters, Remote Workers
From: 9138827a@levels.unisa.edu.au
Date: 4 Nov 92 21:07:14 +1030
Organization: University of South Australia

This item has been cross-posted to comp.windows.x, and
comp.os.ms-windows.apps
=====================================================================

I am undertaking postgraduate study at the School of Library and
Information Management, University of South Australia, Adelaide, on
the particular information needs of telecommuters - those who perform
job-related work at a site away from an organisation and communicate
electronically rather than commuting physically.
 
I would be very interested in, and would greatly appreciate a response
from those who are telecommuters, to the following questions. If you
are not a telecommuter but know of others who are it would be
appreciated if you could pass this on to them:
 
 
Q1      Does the organisation to which you telecommute provide any
        library and information services which are accessible to you
        online? (eg catalogs, reference assistance, databases, literature
        searches, document delivery services, organisation information
        such as daily bulletins and administrative gazettes.)
 
        If yes:
 
        (a) What services are provided?
        (b) How useful are these services to you?
 
Q2      (a)     What is the nature of the organisation to which you
                telecommute?
 
        (b)     If you sometimes commute physically to your organisation,
                how frequently do you do this?
 
Q3      What are the particular information needs that you have as a
        telecommuter?
 
Q4      What basic information services do you consider should be
        provided by an organisation for its telecommuters? (see Q5 for
        additional and desirable services)
 
Q5      What additional information services would you perceive as being
        highly desirable for an organisation to provide for its
        telecommuters?
 
Q6      Are there any further comments you wish to make regarding the
        information needs of telecommuters?
 
Q7      Would you like a summary of the results of this survey E-mailed
        to you?
 
Respondents can be assured that individuals and organisations will not
be identified in any report or summary of this survey.
 
Please E-mail your response to my Internet address:
 
9138827a@ntx.city.unisa.edu.au
 
Thank you for your cooperation
 
Bronwen Strong
From: jav2d@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Jason Adams Vanvalkenburgh)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: AMI BIOS ext. cache
Date: 10 Nov 92 03:04:14 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia

Your sales rep is incorrect, although not too badly.  
The cache in DOS is for disk read and writes.  It stores
often-accessed information in memory to speed up disk
i/o.

The cache on your motherboard (ie computer) does the same
exact thing except for MEMORY read/writes.  It stores often
accessed memory in the cache to speed up precessing time.
The cache ram is significantly faster than your conventional
memory, so the cache also frees up the computer from having
to wait for the memory to refresh (sidebar: it takes time to
write to memory; the system has to wait for the memory to catch
up, hence the "wait states" that some computers have to perform.
This just idles the processor for a cycle (after each cycle the
processor performs) to allow the RAM to catch up.  The 
cache alows the computer to run at less or zero wait states,
therefore allowing your computer to run as fast as it is 
capable of).

Hope this helps.  Someone else may have a clearer answer.

--
					Jason A. vanValkenburgh
					University of Virginia '95
					jav2d@virginia.edu
From: mccall@mksol.dseg.ti.com (fred j mccall 575-3539)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: 486 vs. 386
Date: 10 Nov 92 21:33:27 GMT
Article-I.D.: mksol.1992Nov10.213327.9439
Organization: Texas Instruments Inc

In <1992Nov9.200839.27999@exu.ericsson.se> exuhag@exu.ericsson.se (James Hague) writes:

>Derek Schott writes:
>>
>>After watching the market trend, I have the funniest feeling that
>>everything has about hit rock bottom. A lot of people keep saying 
>>that the introduction of the i586 is going to severely cut the
>>prices of both the 386 and 486 machines. Although it might drop
>>the prices at first, I don't see why it is going to cut them so
>>much.

>Not to mention that very few people actually need a 586 (aka Pentium).
>How many people--excepting ray-tracing fanatics and people who do
>serious number crunching--have had any speed problems with a 33 MHz
>486?  For the mass-market, the Pentium is a solution waiting for
>a problem (like CD-I).  I can't see people scrambling to buy them,
>unless they are one of the rising number of buzzword addicts.

Unless, of course, it's the only way to get decent performance out of
Windows/NT or Windows 4.0.  Hey, when the 386-25 came out I remember
hearing the same sorts of things.  "Hey, nobody needs that much
computer on their desktop!"  Well, surprise.  If the hardware exists,
someone will make software that soaks up the performance.

-- 
"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: macster@iastate.edu (Michael C Mccarty)
Subject: Humdrum Conundrum...
Summary: yes
Keywords: DX2, Overdrive chips
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 18:43:11 GMT

I have a fairly basic question that I want to make the answer clear to myself
and possibly others.

Why should I buy a 486SX-25 or 486DX-25 or 33, when I can buy a 386DX-33 for
the same money or much cheaper and later upgrade to a 486DX2-66?

This is, of course, with the understanding that:
	a. I am of limited budget.
	b. That I don't need the incredible speed at this point in my life.

I keep hearing all of this propaganda that I should buy a 486SX-25 or even a
386-40 and all I can say is 'why?'  If I buy a 386-40, just what can I upgrade
it to?  If I buy a 486SX-25, I can only upgrade it to a 486DX2-50.  Where is
the advantage to buy these machines?

"Oh, but the 486SX offers 2 to 3 times the speed!"  Yeah, but who cares...  The
software today is slow on any machine and I don't see the software of tomorrow
being any better.  That increase in speed and increase in price with the
decrease in upgradability just does not justify the cost. 

Oh sure, there are the luxuries of local-bus video and such associated with the
486's, but the way the video cards are optimized around Windows (Windows must
die!!!), who knows what kind of benefits, if any, you are going to get from the
extra couple hundred of dollars spent for it. 

All I'm trying to say is if you are one of the many in the market for a PC,
don't get caught up in the 486 hype and just be sure that you know what you
really need and what you really want to do with the machine in the future.


				Mike.
Xref: sparky comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc:14657 comp.os.ms-windows.apps:4836
From: pmacfar@eis.calstate.edu (Paul MacFarlane)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.os.ms-windows.apps
Subject: Re: PC Tools 8.0-No Windows apps!
Date: 13 Nov 92 03:20:41 GMT
Organization: Calif State Univ/Electronic Information Services

joe@morton.rain.com (Joe Moss) writes:
> pmacfar@eis.calstate.edu (Paul MacFarlane) writes:
> >rick@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Richard M. Warner) writes:
> *HOWEVER* on the *back* of the order form across from the "No Postage
> Necessary if ...." stuff it states:
> 
> 		Special Note: Version 8 is designed
> 		      for DOS environments.
> 	     Version 8 was designed to be a DOS only
> 	product.  Please note that Windows applications
> 	contained in Version 7 have not been updated to
> 	Version 8.  To be kept up-to-date on our future
> 	Windows products, please check the Windows
> 	information box on the order form.
Yes, I did find it back there. Perhaps if I had actually ordered the
product I would have taken a closer look.  Still, without trying to flame
Central Point (or anybody else) I don't think it's completely unreasonable
that someone could have missed it while ordering their update.  Just
another case of communications that could have been more prominent, I guess.

Paul MacFarlane
Danville, California
pmacfar@eis.calstate.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: gordon@tramp.Colorado.EDU (GORDON ALLEN R)
Subject: Re: fast binary file transfer between Unix - PC?
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: na
Date:  5 Nov 92 15:57:25 GMT

rfinch@water.ca.gov (Ralph Finch) writes:

>I'm looking for a fast binary file transfer program which will work
>with both Unix (Sun Sparc) and DOS/Windows (either/both).

>On the DOS/Windows side I've tried all sorts of [xyz]modem transfer
>routines that come with various modem utilities.  But the only one
>I've found to work with Unix is the kermit that is part of the Windows
>3.1 terminal emulator.  It seems slow, I'd like to get something
>faster.
>--

One way of speeding up the transfer is to use 'set receive packet-length 1024
or set send packet-length 1024 to reduce overhead.  Also use the highest baud
rate that you can set.


-- 
Allen Gordon 		         *If the folly of but one of us was changed to*
Research Associate         	 *intelligence, and divided amongst a thousand*
gordon@tramp.colorado.edu   	 *toads, each would be more intelligent than  *
				 *Aristotle				      *
From: dlow@pollux.svale.hp.com (Danny Low)
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 21:55:07 GMT
Subject: Re: Significant price rise on RAM?
Organization: HP LOVECRAFT DIVISION
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc

>(Wilfred Wong) 
>    Since no duties are currently being collected, the question
>that should be answered is what's the cause of the current price
>increase. Has the Korean manufacturers increased their prices or
>are US distribution channels taking advantage of the situation
>by increasing their prices?

There are two ways to price goods, purchase cost + margin or replacement
cost + margin. When the two costs are the same the two methods are
the same. When you know that there will be a price rise then
replacement cost is the only way to go. Otherwise you may not
make enough money to buy any replacement for the existing
inventory you sell.

			   Danny Low
    "Question Authority and the Authorities will question You"
	   Valley of Hearts Delight, Silicon Valley
	     HP CPCD   dlow@pollux.svale.hp.com
From: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com (Russ Poffenberger)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Interleaving in hard disk
Date: 11 Nov 92 20:24:50 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Schlumberger Technologies, ATE division, San Jose, Ca.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Rick_Michael_Cortese@cup.portal.com wrote:
: $.02, Double check to see if your BIOS supports automatic interleave. AMI on
: my clone does. There's also so PD stuff running around BBS's that'll tell you
: your I/O speed. For instance, I just recently formated an old RLL drive on my
: back-up computer. Reccommended setting was '5, but '7 produced the best
: performance (Hey! it's an ancient computer & drive). Went 5 times as fast
: using 7 vs 6.

This makes sense. The proper interleave for your system depends on your
controller, and how fast the CPU can read the data. If the interleave is too
low, then the CPU or controller is not ready to receive the data, and the
platter must make another full rotation (equivalent to an interleave of 17
on MFM, higher on RLL) before it can read the next sector of data. The correct
interleave is where the next nth sector passes under the disk heads at the
time the controller and CPU is ready to read it. On fast systems with good
controllers, 1:1 is possible. On most AT class machines (286) 2 or 3:1 is
typical. On old PC/XT systems, 6 or 7:1 is typical.

Russ Poffenberger               DOMAIN: poffen@sj.ate.slb.com
Schlumberger Technologies ATE   UUCP:   {uunet,decwrl,amdahl}!sjsca4!poffen
1601 Technology Drive		CIS:	72401,276
San Jose, Ca. 95110             Voice: (408)437-5254  FAX: (408)437-5246
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (Stefano Pagiola)
Subject: Re: Can software be 486-specific?
Reply-To: spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu
Organization: DSO, Stanford University
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 06:51:55 GMT

Mohit K. Goyal writes
> I have heard/read that Windows NT & NeXTSTEP 486 will *require*
> 486 chips. 
> Is this possible?
> That seems silly, since a 386DX-40 performs about 95% of a
> 486SX-25. (ie-no real world difference) and since 386-40's
> are selling like hotcakes, & mathco's are cheap, it would
> seem silly to exclude this market, the whole 386 market in
> fact, from you product.
> 

I don't know about NT, but here's some info on NeXTSTEP 486 from the  
NS486 Q&A:

: Will NeXTSTEP 486 run on 386 machines?
: No. NeXTSTEP 486 uses several 486 specific features that enhance
: the performance of NeXTSTEP. NeXTSTEP 486 will support any true 
: 486.
: 
: Will NeXTSTEP 486 run on the Cyrix 486SLC?
: No. The Cyrix chip not a true 486.

IMHO, if there are in fact processor-specific advantages to requiring  
a 486, doing so makes sense.  The PC world has long been crippled by  
its need for backward compatibility with early machines.  This seems  
a good point to start with a clean slate (or as clean a slate as  
possible).

--
-
Stefano Pagiola
Food Research Institute, Stanford University
spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (NeXTMail encouraged)


--
-
Stefano Pagiola
Food Research Institute, Stanford University
spagiola@frinext.stanford.edu (NeXTMail encouraged)
spagiola@FRI-nxt-Pagiola.stanford.edu (NeXTMail encouraged)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: tpradeep@cs.tamu.edu (Pradeep K Tapadiya)
Subject: Connecting Ethernet to LocalTalk - Help
Organization: Computer Science Department, Texas A&M University
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 17:16:07 GMT

Howdy netters,

We have a few PCs on ethernet and a few Macs and a laser printer on
Apple's localtalk. I wish the PCs could access the laser printer.
Can someone please tell me if there is any way to connect ethernet
and localtalk?

Thank you for your help.

Pradeep
tpradeep@cs.tamu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: wkwong@lyapunov.eng.ohio-state.edu (Waihon Andrew Kwong)
Subject: Wanted -- Postscript Convertion program
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Electrical Engineering
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 18:34:31 GMT


Greeting,

I'm looking for a document to Postscipt convertion program. I usually
type papers up using wordprefect and I would like to convert the output
to postscript file so that I can print it throught the postscript
printer in school.

Does such a convertion exist in any ftp site?

Please let me know through E-mail,
Thanks in advance,
Andy
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: sct2m@Virginia.EDU (Sean Christopher Timm)
Subject: Out Of This World II?
Organization: University of Virginia
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 23:39:20 GMT

I played Out of This World and it was a very good game.  I
heard rumors that there is a sequel but I have not been able to
find it in any computer stores.  Does anyone know where I can
find it or even if it exists?
From: James.Porter@mechanic.Fidonet.org (James Porter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: My apologies
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 92 17:02:28 PDT
Organization: Mechanic: The Usenet<->Fidonet Gateway oF St. Pete Florida

My apologies to everyone in this conference my offline reader goofed.
___
 X OLX 2.1 TD X All wiyht.  Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?

--  
Internet: James.Porter@mechanic.Fidonet.org
UUCP:     ...!myrddin!tct!mechanic!James.Porter
Note: Mechanic is a free gateway between USENET & FIdonet.
      For information write to chief@mechanic.fidonet.org

Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
From: fox@rei.com (Fuzzy Fox)
Subject: Re: Reclaiming Memory From BIOS setup...
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 23:39:59 GMT
Organization: Recognition Equipment, Inc.

umnoor@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Nasir Ahmed Noor) writes:

>When system starts up, it reports [familiar tick sound and RAM test] only
>7808K. It should, according to my calcs, report 8192K [i.e. 8 Meg].

The missing 384K is between 640K and 1024K.  This is the area where I/O
devices (cards, etc.) put their address space.  RAM can only be made to
appear in this location if you have a Shadow RAM chipset which will put
it there.  It may be that this address space is inaccessible on your
system.

-- 
#ifdef TRUE        | Fuzzy Fox (a.k.a. David DeSimone)       fuzzy@netcom.com
#define  TRUE   0  |
#define  FALSE  1  |     "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."
#endif             |                                   -- Mark Twain
From: chbl@sbustd.rz.uni-sb.de (Christian Blum)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: increasing memory...
Date: 11 Nov 92 10:27:59 GMT
Organization: Studenten-Mail, Rechenzentrum Universitaet des Saarlandes

paiz@Ingres.COM (Hide the beer, the pastor is here!) writes:
> Hi, I have a 286 with 40 megs on the hd. Unfortunately, I am running out of 
> hd space. Is there a program that will compress or .zip files, but have these 
> files still be available to be accessed normally? I would prefer if it is
> share/free ware.

Currently, I am programming on such a TSR. But it's a tricky job to
do if you don't want to waste DOS memory. Hardest thing is to swap out
programs that occupy all the DOS memory. If I come to terms with it,
I'll surely dedicate it to the public domain and post it, but I don't
think it'll be finished till Xmas...

Chris
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Christian Blum                   Universitaet des Saarlandes, Germany
Friedrich-Ebert-Str. 50          chbl@stud.uni-sb.de
W-6685 Heiligenwald              chbl@sbustd.rz.uni-sb.de
Germany                          Tel (+49) (0) 6821 67476
From: csas400@msus1.msus.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Caching controllers <Was: RE: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc>
Date: 11 Nov 92 09:29:00 -0600
Organization: Minnesota State University System

In article <dpn2.65.721007601@po.CWRU.Edu>, dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil) writes:
|> In article <Bx9ME2.H40@voder.nsc.com> pad@galaxy.nsc.com (Paul Denny x8349) writes:
|> >As a starter I note that caching disc controllers
|> >are supposed to increase the speed of disc intensive
|> >applications but a salesman I spoke to 8^) claimed
|> >that these are flakey designs as a single bad bit
|> >can propogate through your data and corrupt it. He
|> >suggested additional system RAM and partition it
|> >in DOS to have a large cache area. Can anyone verify
|> >or debunk this and provide an explanation?
|> 
|> I do not have the good fortune to own a caching disk controller, but I have 
|> heard only good things about them. Perhaps the RAM would cost more than the 
|> controller, giving the salesman more profits? :-)

  I dunno WHAT the salesman was trying to tell you...but here's MHO on the
  the subject.  Caching controllers are great... but they cost more than
  /standard/ controllers.  What I'd do is buy a /standard/ controller, a
  faster access/throughput drive, and more system ram.  This way YOU have
  control of how the RAM is being used.  For example...if you're using OS/2,
  Windows or UN*X you'll wish you had just a little bit more system RAM than
  you have (no matter how much you have).  If it's locked up on the disk
  controller the disk controller is the ONLY thing that can use that ram.  If
  it's on the system you can decided for yourself if you want it to do disk
  caching or anything else.  To make a long story short "if you get a caching
  disk controller YOU LOSE THE OPTION of where the memory gets used."



  				-Jeffrey E. Hundstad
				AS/400 Sys. Admin.
				Mankato State University
				Mankato, MN USA

<TcpSend Error spelling and punctuation errors may have been inserted.>
From: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se (James Hague)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: 486 vs. 386
Date: 9 Nov 92 20:08:39 GMT
Reply-To: exuhag@exu.ericsson.se
Organization: Ericsson Network Systems, Richardson, TX
X-Disclaimer: This article was posted by a user at Ericsson.
              Any opinions expressed are strictly those of the
              user and not necessarily those of Ericsson.

Derek Schott writes:
>
>After watching the market trend, I have the funniest feeling that
>everything has about hit rock bottom. A lot of people keep saying 
>that the introduction of the i586 is going to severely cut the
>prices of both the 386 and 486 machines. Although it might drop
>the prices at first, I don't see why it is going to cut them so
>much.

Not to mention that very few people actually need a 586 (aka Pentium).
How many people--excepting ray-tracing fanatics and people who do
serious number crunching--have had any speed problems with a 33 MHz
486?  For the mass-market, the Pentium is a solution waiting for
a problem (like CD-I).  I can't see people scrambling to buy them,
unless they are one of the rising number of buzzword addicts.

--
James Hague   
exuhag@exu.ericsson.se