HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mulvey@blurt.oswego.edu (Allen Mulvey, SUNY, Oswego, NY)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: MEI tapes
Date: 10 Nov 92 23:07:06 GMT
Organization: SUNY College at Oswego, Oswego, NY

In article <shopsis.25@panther.adelphi.edu>, shopsis@panther.adelphi.edu (Charles Shopsis) writes:
> I'd like to from people who've tried the relatively low priced 1/4 inch 
> data tapes that MEI recently started selling.  I have found their 1.2 Mb 
> floppies to be quite satisfactory.  I'll post a summary if there is 
> significant response.  Thanks.
> 
> Charles Shopsis, Dept. Chemistry, Adelphi Univ.  Garden City, NY

I have been using their DC2120 clones for several months now in Irwin and 
Colorado drives. So far, no problems although Irwin sometimes marks off a 
few 'bad sectors'. I am having problems with 3M tapes in the Colorado. 
After several months they suddenly die. You can't read them or even 
reformat them; however, if I bulk erase them the Irwin will format them 
marking off several bad sectors and they seem to work okay in that machine.

			Allen Mulvey
			mulvey@blurt.oswego.edu
From: jregehr@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (John David Regehr)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: 486 vs. 386
Date: 9 Nov 1992 17:07:45 -0600
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: matt.ksu.ksu.edu

In article <1992Nov9.200839.27999@exu.ericsson.se> exuhag@exu.ericsson.se 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.
>

I think you are correct that the Pentium is a solution waiting for a problem
that few people have yet.  So was the 486, though.  I heard many people
argue that nobody would buy 486s, because "386s are powerful enough", before
they were released.  If Intel prices Pentiums low enough and there is a    
powerful, back-compatible operating system (NT most likely), the 486 will be  
dying in a couple of years.

John Regehr
jregehr@matt.ksu.ksu.edu
Kansas State University
 
 
>--
>James Hague   
>exuhag@exu.ericsson.se


Xref: sparky comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc:14704 comp.unix.sysv386:16488 misc.forsale.computers.d:357 comp.os.os2.misc:36585
From: dic5340@hertz.njit.edu (David Charlap)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.unix.sysv386,misc.forsale.computers.d,comp.os.os2.misc
Subject: Re: Memory chip problems
Date: 15 Nov 92 21:38:54 GMT
Organization: New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, N.J.

In article <1992Nov15.041549.154@weyrich.UUCP> uunet.uu.net!weyrich!orville writes:
>I just got 16 meg of SIMMs from someone on the net and they don't work
>for me. Before I complain, I would like to be sure that I have my facts
>straight.
...
>The old 1 MB SIMMs had 3 chips ( HY514400J-70 * 2 and HY531000J-70 * 1 ).
>The new 4 MB SIMMs that I bought on the net have HY5141000J-70 * 8 chips.
>
>When I installed the new SIMMs, my AMI bios complained of parity errors
>in the first 64KB. So I thought to myself, "I bet these 4 MB SIMMs don't
>have parity, since they only have 8 chips, all the same."

Yep.  8-chip SIMMs don't have parity.

...
>******* Even if OS/2 does run, am I asking for trouble running with parity
>disabled? It is my understanding that some other computers, e.g. Macs,
>never run with parity. ******

It can be a problem, since you won't be able to detect bad RAM.  OS/2
(and Unix) push RAM much harder than DOS or Windows, so marginal
memory is more likely to cause problems under those systems.  Without
parity checking, things will just go wrong on you instead of trapping
and halting the system

BTW, only the older Macs worked without parity.  The newer (and
faster) models use parity-checked RAM.

>I really would appreciate someone giving me prompt advice on this matter
>so that I can get back to the person who sold me the RAM (when I bought
>it, I specified that it was 4Mbit*9 -- I am not sure that is what I was sent).

Exchange those SIMMS immediately and turn your parity checking on.


-- 
  |)  David Charlap          | .signature confiscated by FBI due to
 /|_  dic5340@hertz.njit.edu | an ongoing investigation into the
((|,)                        | source of these .signature virusses
 ~|~
From: dlow@pollux.svale.hp.com (Danny Low)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Significant price rise on RAM?
Date: 12 Nov 92 21:30:18 GMT
Organization: HP LOVECRAFT DIVISION

>(Steve Warren) 
>In article <4690045@pollux.svale.hp.com> dlow@pollux.svale.hp.com (Danny Low) writes:
>>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
>
>No, there is only one way to price goods: "How much would someone be willing
>to pay me for this thing???"

That is what MARGIN is all about. It is the seller's best guess as to how
much people will pay for the item. If the margin is negative then it
is time to close shop.

			   Danny Low
    "Question Authority and the Authorities will question You"
	   Valley of Hearts Delight, Silicon Valley
	     HP CPCD   dlow@pollux.svale.hp.com
From: RFowler@kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov (Robert A. Fowler)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Can software be 486-specific?
Date: 12 Nov 92 17:13:43 GMT
Article-I.D.: kelvin.RFowler.393
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory

In article <BxL9qH.M45@utdallas.edu> goyal@utdallas.edu (Mohit K. Goyal) writes:

>Hello.

>I have heard/read that Windows NT & NeXTSTEP 486 will *require* 486 chips.

>Is it really possible to write software that will run on a 486SX that
>will not run on a 386DX(or SX)?

>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.

Remeber that the 2 or 3 opcodes that are different between a 386+387 and a 
486 are for MULTITASKING OPERATING SYSTEMS, and MULTIPROCESSOR support. 
Therefore, it kind of makes sence for a new 32bit operating system (
NeXTSTEP) to require an i486 processor.  Windows NT, by the way, requres a 
386-25 or grater, not a 486.
    _________________________________________________________________
                        
                        HONDA -- The only way to fly
    o          
  _/\_>   -A proud owner (just wish they were made in the USA)
 O,> / O   [with all respects to Ohio MINE were made in Japan]
           
                           CM400T/XL500R/VF500F
                             '79   '82    '84
                           
     Slower trafic keep right (SUCKzukies, HDs, etc.) ->->->->->->->
    _________________________________________________________________
From: splee@pd.org (Seng-Poh Lee, Speedy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Help! How to get tar to read UNIX archives??
Date: 11 Nov 92 15:08:02 GMT
Organization: Public Domain Inc., Atlanta, GA
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Conor McMenamin (mppu3@syma.sussex.ac.uk) wrote:
> Hi,
> 	Does anyone out there use Unix tar on 1.44Mb floppies to
> transfer files to a PC? If so could you tell me how to do it, because I

There is a set of tools for Unix called 'mtools' that will read and
write PC format disks.  This might be a better solution than tar. It
compiles under Sun, Xenix, and a bunch of other *nixes. Available at
all major sites.

--
Seng-Poh Lee    <splee@pd.org>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: tmetro@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (Thomas Metro)
Subject: How do you adjust Allocation Unit Size?
Followup-To: poster
Organization: Venture Logic, Newton, MA
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 08:48:42 GMT

Is it possible to specify the size of the allocation units (clusters) used
by a hard drive?

I used to have a 120MB drive that used 2KB allocation units, but when I
upgraded to a 210MB drive the allocation units were increased to 4KB. The
problem with this is that 9% of my drive (about 18.7MB) is going to waste.

Obviously there is an algorithm that tries to maintain about the same
number of allocation units regardless of the size of the drive (within
certain upper and lower limits). I would assume this is to to keep from
running out of bits in the FAT, but MS-DOS 5.0 can handle up to 2
gigabytes, which is an order of magnitude larger than my 210MB drive
(although then I'd guess you would end up with 32KB allocation units). 

A few calculations show that if I'm limited by a 16-bit FAT I should still
have enough "address" space to reduce my allocation units to 3KB. Can this
be done? How?

Soon I might be upgrading to a 340MB drive. Then I'll be stuck with at
least 5KB allocation units unless DOS bumps that up to 8KB. I wonder if
DOS 6.0 will bost the FAT up to 24 or 32 bits...any third party software
to do this?

 -Tom

tmetro@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu
From: wilken@plains.NoDak.edu (Scott Wilken)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Can software be 486-specific?
Date: 12 Nov 92 17:26:33 GMT
Article-I.D.: ns1.BxM5s9.EHB
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computing Network

In article <BxL9qH.M45@utdallas.edu> goyal@utdallas.edu (Mohit K. Goyal) writes:
>
>I have heard/read that Windows NT & NeXTSTEP 486 will *require* 486 chips.

This is true of NeXTstep, but I think that Windows NT will run on a 386
(someone please correct me if im wrong on that point)...

>
>Is this possible?

Very possible...  The 486 has several instructions that the 386 doesnt
have.  If the programmers use them, then of course the program wont 
run on lesser processors...

>If so, does it apply to 486DX or DX & SX?

Both..  The SX implements the complete DX instruction set, execpt for the
floating point instructions...

>Is it really possible to write software that will run on a 486SX that
>will not run on a 386DX(or SX)?

As I said, you betcha.....

>hotcakes, & mathco's are cheap, it would seem silly to exclude this
>market, the whole 386 market in fact, from you product.

Now that statement I dont agree with.   If programmers refused to take
advantage of the technology available to them, they are dooming us, the
users.  Of course those of us who own 386's may be left in the cold
on rare occasions, but its worth it in my mind.  

What would have happened if all programs continued to run on an 8088
based machine?  I dont think we would be seeing a windows nt...
(assuming NT ever gets released to us :) :) :) :) :)

Scott
-- 
Go FAST!            |  Internet:  wilken@plains.nodak.edu   |     AMA #587126 
Take Chances!       |     UUCP: ..!uunet!plains!wilken      |     DoD #0087 
VF700F Interceptor  |        Bitnet:  WILKEN@PLAINS         |   
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: hcp@csx.cciw.ca (H.C. Pulley)
Subject: Re: increasing memory...
Organization: Canada Centre for Inland Waters
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 19:02:59 GMT

First of all, I know this has been beaten to death on this group lately but
this posting shows that some people still don't quite have it:

In article <denaumow.721323289@vela> denaumow@vela.acs.oakland.edu (David Naumowicz) writes:
>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.
>
>I can think of 2 choices...
>
>Stacker (either software version only or with a card for better
...
>However, I am not sure if it will work on a 286 machine (I don't see
>why not - but you might want to check into it...)

Works fine on a 286.

>DR DOS 6.0 - Also does on-the-fly compression and decompression, but
...
>Both are Commercial Products.
>
>There are many other commercial products out there - but I believe
>these 2 to be the best.
>
>Also, since you are only running a 286, the performance hit for any
>on-the-fly compression program will probably be significant.  I only
>have a 386SX-16, and do not want to deal with the loss in performance.

No.  You will probably see an improvement in disk performance, not a loss.  The
time needed to uncompress 512 bytes of data is less than the time needed to 
read another 512 bytes.

The main problem with a 286 is the conventional memory requirements of these 
programs.  Unless you have a chipset which allows you to use shadow RAM (and
thus load the de/compressor driver high) you may be tight for conventional RAM.

With a 386sx you can load drivers high so you should be OK.

>My suggestion would be, if you can affoard it, to bite the bullet and
>purchase another harddrive.

I have two hard drives and Stacker too.  Never enough disk space...

Harry
-- 
          hcp@csx.cciw.ca           | This message    | It takes all kinds,
    hcpiv@grumpy.cis.uoguelph.ca    | released to the | and to each his own.
------------------------------------| PUBLIC DOMAIN.  | This thought in mind,
 Stay away from the DOS side, Luke! |                 | I walk alone.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: bwong@beach.csulb.edu (Bradley Wong)
Subject: Re: Significant price rise on RAM?
Organization: Cal State Long Beach
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 14:33:11 GMT

In article <4690045@pollux.svale.hp.com> dlow@pollux.svale.hp.com (Danny Low) writes:
>>(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?
>

  According to an article in InfoWorld, the Korean mfg's have to
  place $1 in an escrow account for every $1 of RAM the sell (one
  assumes this is $1 wholesale, not retail).
  The final decision is supposed to be made in March, so they
  will either get their money back or forfeit it for tariff.
From: dpn2@po.CWRU.Edu (Damien P. Neil)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: PCTools v8 Ships FAST!
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 06:00:56 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University
NNTP-Posting-Host: b63519.student.cwru.edu

In article <kwg3.720895818@Isis.MsState.Edu> kwg3@ra.msstate.edu (Kevin W. Gregg) writes:
>>More importantly, is it fully debugged.  v7 has  TON of bugs and I doubt
>>I was experiencing incompatibilities since I was running it on a true
>>blue PS/2 55SX.  Thanks.
>
>>Gerald Sylvester
>
>Gimme a break, on the opening screen with the default 2 windows (graphics
>showing) in the little blocks where little trees and branches are shown
>to subdirecotries/folders, in about 50% of the places there is a '4'
>where one of these little branches should be.. or is this just me?

Err...that '4' belongs there. It is telling you how many branches deep that 
section of the tree it.
+-------------+------------------+---------------------------------+
| Damien Neil | dpn2@po.cwru.edu | Case Western Reserve University |
+-------------+------------------+---------------------------------+
From: ma90alb@brunel.ac.uk (Ashley L Brandwood)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: ftp site for DOS programs
Date: 13 Nov 92 09:46:27 GMT
Organization: Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Another place is Archie.AU, and micros.hensa.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: QEMM386 v6.0 and STACKER 2.0
From: Sleight of Hans <HCM100@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 09:36:48 EST
Organization: Penn State University

Does anyone know an ftp site with instructions on how to run the
QEMM386 v6.0 OPTIMIZE program under Stacker2.0?  My copy of Stacker
only came with QEMM 5.x instructions...

Thanks....

| O |                                                                   | O |
|   | Hans C. Masing          "By all means marry: If you get a good    |   |
| O | HCM100 @ PSUVM.psu.edu   wife, you'll become happy; if you get    | O |
|   | HCM100 @ CBA1.psu.edu    a bad one, you'll become a philosopher." |   |
| O | Penn State MIS Dept.                           - Socrates         | O |
|   |                                                                   |   |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: cosham@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au (Mark Cosham)
Subject: Re: EMM386 ==> 92kB UMB ???
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 05:57:09 GMT

In <BxB105.J1B@clss1.bangor.ac.uk> te1002@sees.bangor.ac.uk (Martin Lukasek) writes:

>Can anyone help me with EMM386. If I install it in CONFIG.SYS in line
>device=c:\dos\emm386.exe noems
>i get 92kB UMB free. I want only 64kB UMB ! How to do it ?

>Thank for reply to te1002@sees.bangor.ac.uk 

The only way I know to do this are to exclude some of the areas using
the exclude parameter.  Why do you want to do this though?

Mark Cosham
-- 
 Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.
-----------> <-------> <-------> <-------> <-------> <-------> <-----------
 Mark Cosham   Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
    cosham@yoyo.cc.monash.edu.au
From: ma90alb@brunel.ac.uk (Ashley L Brandwood)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Olympic Technology users ?????
Date: 5 Nov 92 09:54:13 GMT
Organization: Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]


I purchased a 386-33 from them last December, and have had no problem with the  machine,  It appears reasonably well built and well thought out inside.

The only problem that I know of, is that (in their london address, at any rate) they do not have enough staff to run the shop, and answer the phones.

(luckily this is not that big a problem as they have a toll free phone number.)

I know of two other people with Olympic machines (486-33 & 386-25) and all of us are happy with the machines.


Cheers Ashley
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: runyan@cup.hp.com (Mark Runyan)
Subject: Re: RCS ported to DOS?
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 17:01:02 GMT
Organization: HP, Cupertino, CA, USA
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1.8 PL6]

Mark Runyan (runyan@cup.hp.com) wrote:
: Ralph Finch (rfinch@water.ca.gov) wrote:
: : Does anybody know if RCS has been ported to DOS?
: 
: There was a company (MKS) that sold an RCS for DOS.  They may still
: be about.  I believe MKS stood for Mortan Kern Systems, but don't
: have the address with me.

Oops, the name is Mortice Kern Systems.  On the other hand, GNU may
have ported RCS as well.

Mark Runyan
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
From: hcp@csx.cciw.ca (H.C. Pulley)
Subject: Re: 486 vs. 386
Organization: Canada Centre for Inland Waters
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 21:28:59 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.200839.27999@exu.ericsson.se> exuhag@exu.ericsson.se 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.

No...  I think that UN*X and Windoze NT need every CPU cycle they can get.

Every time the CPU speed increases (and memory and hard disk sizes, etc.) the
software requirements increase to fill the gap.  It never fails!

If you don't ever change your software, I guess you'll never need to upgrade 
your hardware either (unless your usage increases, but that's another story).
If you have version X of a piece of software you can bet that version X+1 will
need more CPU time, and more memory, and more disk space...

Harry
-- 
          hcp@csx.cciw.ca           | This message    | It takes all kinds,
    hcpiv@grumpy.cis.uoguelph.ca    | released to the | and to each his own.
------------------------------------| PUBLIC DOMAIN.  | This thought in mind,
 Stay away from the DOS side, Luke! |                 | I walk alone.
Xref: sparky comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc:14466 comp.os.msdos.misc:6050
From: ci922@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Duane A. Paulson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: Looking for a 'day of week checker' batch program
Date: 7 Nov 1992 05:14:48 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH (USA)
Reply-To: ci922@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Duane A. Paulson)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu


In a previous article, don@chopin.udel.edu (Donald R Lloyd) says:

>
>
>     I need to track down a small program for use in batch files that
>will check to see if it is a certain day of the week and call a 
>program or batch file if so.
>     For example, when the user comes into work in the morning and
>boots up, a line in the autoexec would do something along the lines of
>
>   "is_day tuesday tues.bat",
>   
>    so if today is tuesday it will call the batch file 'tues', otherwise
>the line will be ignored.  
>
>     Anyone know if a program such as this exists, or will I have to 
>track down a compiler somewhere and roll my own?
>
>

Cut the following and save to is_day.scr. From the dos prompt, type
"debug < is_day.scr" to construct is_day.com. There is one blank line before
the line containing "rcx" that must be included. The following dos functions
are used:
   2A -- get date function. Returns day of week (0=Sun...6=Sat) in al.
   4C -- exit to system with errorlevel in al. (Therefore, errorlevel =         day of week.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
n is_day.com
a 100
mov     ah,2a
int     21
mov     ah,4c
int     21

rcx
8
w
q
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

-- 
Duane Paulson
ci922@cleveland.freenet.edu
duane.paulson@pcb.batpad.lgb.ca.us
From: goyal@utdallas.edu (Mohit K. Goyal)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Re: Can software be 486-specific?
Date: 12 Nov 92 15:53:50 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Texas at Dallas

>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).
>
I figure that a 386 is the best cut-off point. (a la OS/2 2.0)

A 486 program can't offer that much speed advantage over a 386 program,
and their are a ton of 386's out their.