HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: cl@ukc.ac.uk (C.Lau)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Help needed: programming Int 14H, Microsoft C 6.0
Date: 6 Oct 92 10:04:46 GMT
Organization: Computing Lab, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.

Greetings,

I'm porting a programme involving the use of Int 14H to read
from/write to the communication link. I would like to know is there
any way of testing/confirming whether Int 14H has been set up
properly.

Many thanks.

Christina 
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: esova@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Edward R Sova)
Subject: vi editor for DOS
Organization: The Ohio State University
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 13:59:09 GMT

>>Where can one find vi for the ibm?
>
>>Any unix utils are great please
>>let me know where to find them! also are there any good versions of unix for
>>this type of ibm? (sorry i went waaay off the topic line ;[ )
>
>There's a group called the Free Software Foundation which distributes a
>number of Unix-like utilities as part of the "gnu" project ("gnu stands for
>"gnu is not unix" - a bit self-referential).  Some of those utilities have
>been ported to MS-DOS.  I have, for example, versions of grep, find, egrep,
>head, tail, cat, cut, paste, diff, ls, cp, mv, and rm.  There are more, but
>These programs are available in various places.  I got them through ftp
>from iros1.iro.umontreal.ca, but that site seems to have stopped working.
>They're also at wuarchive.wustl.edu in the /systems/msdos/gnuish directory.
>If you don't have ftp, I think that there are instructions for mail access
>in the news.newusers.questions FAQ list.  You can find other sites using
>the "archie" utility, if your system has it.  (When the public-access
>As for vi clones, there are a couple.  I sometimes use one called "elvis",
>but it's far from perfect.  For some things, it's still better than nothing
>(what I really want is a public domain version of xedit, but with regular
>expressions).  I haven't encountered anything better than elvis. 
>
I have a vi clone for dos called stevie.  Never used it yet.  Supposedly a port
from (atari) ST. vi c
  ___
  \  \      Mr. Ed on rollerblades?  Nah, that's:
  _\  \      esova@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu       Prodigy:CBGX09A
 \_____\       but his friends call him Ed,
 o o o o                    yeah that Ed Sova Kid, he answers to anything.
From: mortenk@dhhalden.no (MORTEN KNUDSEN)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Flicker on vga animation
Date: 27 Sep 92 15:04:36 GMT
Organization: Ostfold College

In article <1992Sep25.070335.20349@news.ysu.edu> af458@yfn.ysu.edu (Jon K. Salmon) writes:
>From: af458@yfn.ysu.edu (Jon K. Salmon)
>Subject: Re: Flicker on vga animation
>Date: Fri, 25 Sep 1992 07:03:35 GMT
>
>mortenk@dhhalden.no (MORTEN KNUDSEN) writes:
>
>> The other day i made an animation (in assembler), a bouncing ball.
>> It works fine, exept that it flickers . I suspect that the
>> VGA's retrayce is the cause of this. I tried hooking the IRQ9 (EGA
>> vertical retrayce), but it doesn't interrupt.
>
>Does your animation method follow this basic algorithm?
>
>  do
>    draw the ball
>    erase the ball
>    adjust the position
>  loop
>
>If so, and given that the ball is bigger than one pixel in size and
>that two successive drawings of the ball overlap, the flicker is
>inherent in the algorithm and can be eliminated by a) page flipping,
>b) syncronization with the vertical retrace, or c) changing the
>algoritm.
>
>a) Whether or not you can flip pages is video-mode-dependent.  For
>example, as far as I know, mode 13h does not support page-flipping
>as it does not have multiple pages.
>
>b) While VGA does not seem to support the vertical blank interrupt,
>you CAN check certain registers as it DOES set a bit when it is
>in a vertical retrace.
>
>c) You could try an algorithm which, instead of erasing the entire
>ball, ERASES only those pixels which will be "off" when the ball
>is next drawn.  And, optionally, only DRAW those pixels which are
>not already set.  Follow me?
>
>-- Jon
>-- 

Yes, my animation method algorithm is exactly like you discrimed, and I am
using mode 13h. I tried checking the status register (I think it was reg. 
3DAh, bit 0) but I still got the flicker. The checking routine looks
something like this:

		MOV DX,3DAH
TRACING:	IN AL,DX
		TEST AL,1
		JNE TRACING
; DRAWING GOES HERE

What am I doing wrong?
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: lipsett@nola.camb.inmet.com (Roger Lipsett)
Subject: Critical Error Handlers and QEMM
Organization: Intermetrics, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 12:31:52 GMT


I am in the process of modifying a critical error handler in various ways,
mostly for my own edification and amusement.  This handler is actually a TSR
that hooks INT24.  It appears to me that such a handler cannot be installed
in the usual way (that is, using INT21 function 25), because when the
program terminates staying resident, DOS restores the old values of the
INT24 vector from the PSP.  Thus, the program must write the address of the
new handler into its own PSP before terminating.  My problem is that I would
like to be able to load the thing high using QEMM (for example), but would
not like to be *forced* to do so.

When loading high using QEMM, one actually runs the LOADHI program, which
exec's the program being loaded high.  LOADHI then terminates staying
resident after the loaded program does.  Thus, DOS restores the INT24 vector
from LOADHI's PSP.  So, if being loaded by LOADHI, I need to modify LOADHI's
PSP.  I can find that by threading through the undocumented offset (80, I
think) in my PSP.  My problem is, though, how do I *know* whether LOADHI (or
whatever its equivalent is in other memory managers) is being used?  How
about memory managers such as HIMEM.SYS which, as I understand it, don't use
a separate program to accomplish this function?

Note that this kind of problem doesn't arise with normal TSR's, as they
simply hook an interrupt vector via INT21 function 25.

Any help (including help of the form "you're really doing this quite all
wrong") would be appreciated.

Roger Lipsett
Intermetrics, Inc.
Cambridge, MA 02138

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| internet:	lipsett@inmet.com	      | Voice:	617-661-1840 |
| uunet:		uunet!inmet!lipsett   | Fax:    617-868-2843 |
|    or:          lipsett%inmet@uunet.uu.net  |                      |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: VESA
From: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams) 
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:17:00 GMT
Reply-To: dave.williams@chaos.lrk.ar.us (Dave Williams) 
Distribution: world
Organization: The Courts of Chaos * 501-985-0059 * Public Access Usenet


-> Where can I find a copy of the VESA spec (or at least the part of it
-> I'll need to have my program support VESA-compliant video
-> adapters)?

 You call  or FAX VESA at:

VESA                                fax 408-286-8988
Video Electronic Standards Association  408-971-7525
(extended VGA specification)

 If you have a BIX account, you can download some of the specs by
joining the vesa conference, or you can get the specs from chaos, but
it'll cost you the phone call.  The stuff may be on simtel; since chaos
doesn't have ftp I don't keep track.

=======================================================================
can you help me...help me get out of this place?...slow sedation...
ain't my style, ain't my pace...giving me a number...NINE, SEVEN, EIGHT
(Nazareth)               XJ900 TURBO at 15psi          DoD# 978  KotFAQ
=======================================================================
From: aeldridge@p473.f150.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Alan Eldridge)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Test aeldridge@psycho.fidonet.org to dj@ctron.com
Date: Sun, 04 Oct 92 12:39:56 EDT
Organization: FidoNet node 1:3603/150.473 - Carrie's Living Roo, Largo FL

To: dj@ctron.com

Testing testing .... Hello DJ??? DJ??? I know you're there, I can hear you breathing....

Alan

--  
Internet: aeldridge@p473.f150.n3603.z1.FIDONET.ORG
UUCP: ...!myrddin!tct!psycho!150.473!aeldridge
Note:psycho is a free gateway between Usenet & Fidonet. For info write to
     root@psycho.fidonet.org.
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer
From: jmh@coyote.datalog.com (John Hughes)
Subject: Need tech info on DOS's share utility
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.programmer
Keywords: share dos wierdness
Organization: Random, at best.
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 19:00:21 GMT


Lordy I hope this ain't an FAQ... the last thing I need right now is
a ton of flame mail.

I'm building a dbms using a non-standard engine (Citadel's CBase), and
it won't run without share installed. OK, no problem, the app. is going
to run in LAN environments anyway so what does it matter? Well, I don't
normally load share, so what I've been experiencing is something of a
surprise to me. First off, I was told that join and share don't get along
well. Second, ever since share was loaded, with or without a join active,
the FAT on the primary drive (C:) gets scrambled at odd times. Cross-
linked files, invalid cluster allocations, all that good stuff. Take
share off, the problems seem to go away. I'm using MS-DOS 3.3 on one of
the dev. systems, and I don't think it's realistic to insist that a
commercial product only run on DOS 5.0 or DR-DOS 6.0. It's the 3.3
machine that's having all the grief. I have a modest technical library
with the standard items (Duncan's book, DOS tech. ref., etc.) and I
know how to get at share via the multiplex interrupt, but nowhere can
I find any technical info. which describes its behaviour in sufficient
detail to allow me to diagnose this wierdness. Also, running the DOS
version of "strings" on the share executable doesn't turn up a version
number. All I know is that it came with the version of MS-DOS 3.3 that
I have.
 
So, what to do? I don't know, short of dissassembling share to see how
it really works. Any ideas, positive suggestions, or references to
tech. info would be greatly appreciated. Hold the flames, thank you :-).
In the continued interests of net.bandwidth.harmony, please respond via
e-mail. IF I get more than one or two responses, and IF this is not
an FAQ, I'll summarize and post back in a couple of weeks. Also, note
the follow-up line in the header.

Thanks.

-John

ps. the sooner I can get this resolved, the better. The project is
currently in a holding pattern on account of it.


-- 
|     John M. Hughes      | "...unfolding in consciousness at the            |
| datalog.com!moondog!jmh | deliberate speed of pondering."  - Daniel Dennet |
| jmh%coyote@noao.edu     |--------------------------------------------------|
| jmh%moondog@datalog.com |   P.O.Box 43305      Tucson     AZ       85733   |
Organization: Penn State University
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 11:37:40 EDT
From: <GNR100@psuvm.psu.edu>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: assembler/dissassembler

     Could someone tell me where to find the above type of program?

         gnr100@psuvm.psu.edu
From: dedgar@mta.ca
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: MS-Mouse Button #2 doesn't work???
Date: 5 Oct 92 21:36:10 GMT
Reply-To: dedgar@mta.ca
Organization: Mount Allison U, Sackville, N.B. Canada

Hello All

Just a question I thought I would throw out to the collective wisdom of the
net.  I am writing a program (in assembler) that uses the mouse, I set
my own user defined mouse handler and ask it to send me notification of
button down presses for the right mouse button.  Heres the problem:

With a microsoft mouse I don't ever get any notification about presses on
the right button (left button no problem).  With a $25 no-name
clone mouse in microsoft mode both buttons work fine.  The MS mouse 
will change its primary button between left and right just fine when 
the cpanel setup program is used.  So my question is - is there some
trick I am missing here? some undocumented "feature" needed to make
true microsoft mice report their right button status. Or have I just
got a dud mouse/driver.  It is a genuine microsoft one - sez so right
on it.

All help gratefully appreciated

							Dale Edgar
							Cybernetic Control Inc.
							DEDGAR@MTA.CA
Xref: sparky comp.os.msdos.programmer:9640 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:25548
From: yawei@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (~{QG9p~})
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: VGA programming poser
Summary: writing color pattern in one pass challenge
Date: 29 Sep 92 00:55:14 GMT
Organization: Indiana University


I've been thinking about how to write a color pixel pattern to VGA
screen AND setting the background color in one pass, so I am posting
this as a challenge.

Objective: write a bicolor pattern to a rectangular area on a VGA
  graphic screen according to a bitmap, where a bitmap value of 1 
  denotes a pixel color of COLOR1 and a bit value of 0 denotes color 
  COLOR0, using the smallest possible number of access to the video 
  memory.

You may make the following assumptions:
  (0) the screen is in 16 color mode;
  (1) the rectangular area does not cross byte boundary;
  (2) the pallette registers are BIOS default, which means you can
use the color values directly as map masks if needed;

Do not make any assumption regarding the actual values of COLOR1
and COLOR0.

You can use everything the standard VGA spec provides, but probably
should restrict yourself to the following registers: map mask, set-reset, 
enable set-reset, data rotate, (write) mode, bit mask and latch.

You probably don't want to post anything that requires two writes
for each 8 pixels for that would be too easy (unless you think it
is genuinely creactive.)

Let the net be the judge (and the work be the reward.)


  Ya-Gui Wei
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: mortenk@dhhalden.no (MORTEN KNUDSEN)
Subject: Re: Port for keyboard indicator lights needed
Keywords: AT keyboard indicator lights LEDs
Organization: Ostfold College
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 20:19:09 GMT

In article <1992Sep27.230227.19249@wam.umd.edu> castanos@wam.umd.edu (Jose Alberto Castanos) writes:
>From: castanos@wam.umd.edu (Jose Alberto Castanos)
>Subject: Port for keyboard indicator lights needed
>Keywords: AT keyboard indicator lights LEDs
>Date: 27 Sep 92 23:02:27 GMT
>
>
>Hello,
>
>  I need to know which port to write to in order to get the keyboard
>indicator lights to go on and off.  I've looked in several books, but 
>the closest I've gotten is a vague reference to port 66h (?).  Some
>books that would be likely candidates to have this information are
>out of the library :-(.
>
>  Also, is the port the same for all IBMs after the AT (the first in the
>family to have the indicators).  Thanks in advance!
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Jose A. Castanos       | Computer Science Dept. |"If a person never contradicts
>(castanos@wam.umd.edu) | University of Maryland | himself, it must be that he 
>                       | College Park, MD       | says nothing." -M. de Unamuno
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The keyboard indicator lights can be controlled by setting and resetting
bits in some byte in the bios-data-area (or whatever it's called). You'll
find it in Ralph's Interrupt listing. The BIOS updates the lights 
automaticly. For programming the keyboard directly, look in the HELPPC21
file (garbo and simtel).
Xref: sparky comp.os.msdos.programmer:9725 comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.misc:2365
From: RVK@psuvm.psu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.misc
Subject: Editor to find and replace hidden chars, strip controls?
Date: 4 Oct 92 22:40:11 GMT
Organization: Penn State University

Where can I find an editor that can find and replace hidden characters,
strip control characters and linefeeds?  Essentially, I need to strip a
large number of linefeeds from a data acquisition file.  Thanks in advance.

Atul Ramani
PSUVM
===========
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,comp.os.msdos.misc
From: themos@umbc5.umbc.edu (Mr. Themos Pentakalos; ADMIN-COMP)
Subject: INVENTORY, PHONEBOOK, etc.
Organization: Univ. of MD, Baltimore County
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 17:55:21 GMT

Hi everyone.
I am looking for the following types of public domain PC software.
Any information that you can give me is greatly appreciated.

1) an Inventory program
2) a phonebook program with alphabetic storing, addresses, etc.
3) an accounting program
4) other business programs

Thank you very much and please reply to:   themos@umbc5.umbc.edu

Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: jfh@netcom.com (Jack Hamilton)
Subject: Re: hints needed for using vi editor within application
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 92 04:27:20 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
Distribution: usa

[Followup-to: changed from "Poster" to comp.os.msdos.programmer.]


In article <1992Sep29.025135.21101@leela.cs.orst.edu> mohrc@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU 
writes:
>
>Where can one find vi for the ibm?

An IBM PC, you mean, running MS-DOS or PC-DOS?  Where I work, "an IBM'
means a mainframe. 

>I am new to the ibm world so anyone with
>pointers towards some good pd sites please email me! I am/have getting/gotten
>a 386/40 (DX) w/4 meg mem and 125M seagate.

I guess you do mean a PC.  4 megs of memory and a 125 meg hard disk
probably wouldn't hold the I/O system on a 390. 

>Any unix utils are great please
>let me know where to find them! also are there any good versions of unix for
>this type of ibm? (sorry i went waaay off the topic line ;[ )

There's a group called the Free Software Foundation which distributes a
number of Unix-like utilities as part of the "gnu" project ("gnu stands for
"gnu is not unix" - a bit self-referential).  Some of those utilities have
been ported to MS-DOS.  I have, for example, versions of grep, find, egrep,
head, tail, cat, cut, paste, diff, ls, cp, mv, and rm.  There are more, but
I didn't think I'd find them useful, so I didn't get them.

These programs are available in various places.  I got them through ftp
from iros1.iro.umontreal.ca, but that site seems to have stopped working.
They're also at wuarchive.wustl.edu in the /systems/msdos/gnuish directory.
If you don't have ftp, I think that there are instructions for mail access
in the news.newusers.questions FAQ list.  You can find other sites using
the "archie" utility, if your system has it.  (When the public-access
system I use announced that it was going to get ftp and telnet access, and
raise the rates, I though "What good is that going to do me?"  Lots of
good, it turned out.) 

As for vi clones, there are a couple.  I sometimes use one called "elvis",
but it's far from perfect.  For some things, it's still better than nothing
(what I really want is a public domain version of xedit, but with regular
expressions).  I haven't encountered anything better than elvis. 

----------

== Is it just me, or are these "my time is so much more valuable than
== yours that I expect you to read this newsgroup so that you can see my
== incredibly interesting postings, and then supply me with the requested
== information via e-mail so that I don't have to soil myself by actually
== reading your grotty little newsgroup" type of postings annoying?
== 
==                              Blaine Gardner 

-- 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Hamilton   jfh@netcom.com   P. O. Box 281107   SF, CA   94128-1107
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: ming@shiva.trl.OZ.AU (Ming H Chan)
Subject: borland compiler tbl limit
Summary: how to get around the compiler table limit in borland C++?
Keywords: borland compiler table limit
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 01:08:56 GMT

I ran into an error saying "Compiler table limit exceeded"
using Borland C++ 3.0. What I have is a small module which contains
a macro with some inline assembly statements in it, which is
then invoked quite a few times. I know I can turn the macro into
a function but I want straight line code. Is there a way to get
around this problem? Thanks.

___________________________________________________________________________
Ming Chan                                     Internet:    m.chan@trl.oz.au
Telecom Research Laboratories                    Voice:      +61 3 253 6774
P.O. Box 249, Clayton, Vic, 3168, Australia        Fax:      +61 3 253 6352
From: menglund@unpcs1.cs.unp.ac.za (menglund)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: How can I determine the clock frequency on an 80xxx machine??
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 13:42:48 GMT
Organization: Dept. Computer Science, UNP
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: pc044.cc.unp.ac.za

I am wanting to know how to determine a machines clock frequency dynamically
within a program. (eg: 8MHz, 16MHz ect).
Purpose:
        I need to know this to program the timer chip (8253) correctly on an
        Analog to Digital card. The boards Timer derives its frequency from the
        mother-boards clock. To make my program portable to different speed
        machines (80xxx architecture) I have to determine what the mother-boards
        clock frequency is!
Using:  - Dos 5.00
        - currently 80386sx
        - PC30 analog to digital card.
Any information or methods will be appreciated.
                          Many Thanks
                           Mark Englund.
                           Department of Computer Science
                           University of Natal
                           Pietermaritzburg
                           South Africa
You can email a response to me at:
menglund@unpcs1.cs.unp.ac.za
OR
englund@unpsun1.cc.unp.ac.za
From: pynq@quads.uchicago.edu (George Jetson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Recommendations and opinions solicited
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:33:52 GMT
Article-I.D.: midway.1992Sep29.163352.15098
Reply-To: pynq@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: D. J. Dougherty & Associates

In article <1992Sep29.135335.2625@exu.ericsson.se> exuhag@exu.ericsson.se writes:

>I've been a registered used of A86 since 1988 and it is an excellent
>product.  Some people have a thing against Mr. Isaacson's "attitude"
>but I agree with him in almost all cases, so this has never bothered
>me.  In fact, I applaud his changes to and simplifications of things
>which have been blindly perpetuated by every other company.

Agreed on all counts.  I *love* his attitude.

>A86 can create either COM files (linking is not necessary) or OBJ
>files.  The OBJ files are linkable with every language I've tried:
>Turbo C, Turbo Pascal, and Stony Brook Pascal+.  No problems.

This is a real plus.  I think the standard instructions for creating .COM
files from assmbler source are rediculous.
(MASM ...;link ...;exe2bin ...;del foo.exe) -> Yuck!

>There is a downside to this, though.  If you buy a Borland product,
>which most people seem to these days, A86 is usable but doesn't
>integrate well into the "Borland scheme of things."  That is, you
>can't use A86 to process the assembly code produced by Turbo C

True, but not all that big of a deal.  A86 went to some pains to provide
Turbo C compatibility, but it broke somewhere around the release of
Borland C++ 2.0.  My feeling is that if you need to use the Borland
products, you pretty much have to use TASM, but no biggie, because TASM
is included in most of the Borland packages, so it's not like you have
to buy something extra.

A86 is *real* good for learning and using pure assembler.
That is its calling.  I think of MASM/TASM as languages that exist to
support other languages (i.e., the HLL products of their respective
companies), not as languages that anyone would actually program in.

************************************************************************
A note to new readers:  the weasely :-) symbol is frowned upon in this
group.  Any questions, see Phil Gustafson who will gladly rearrange your
diodes for you.
			- From the AFU FAQ -

	- pynq@quads.uchicago.edu, who is still costing the net
	  hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars, every time he posts -
************************************************************************
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer