HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: franke@andrej.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Christian Franke)
Subject: New MS-C/C++ bug after PATCHing
Keywords: Microsoft, C, C++
Organization: Rechnerbetrieb Informatik  /  RWTH Aachen
Date: 15 Sep 92 15:50:20 GMT

Hello,

after installing a patch into MS-C/C++ 7.00, the following new bug
appears:

The PWB (now Version 2.1.49) switches "friction" and "factor"
seem to have no longer an effect. On my 486/50, the cursor movement
is incredible fast now. The only way to prevent this is
the "fastfunc:.... off" switch.
But then cursor movement is too slooow.

In the original distribution Version of PWB, this was OK.

Perhaps MS should supply an UNPATCH.EXE program :-)


Regards,

	Christian Franke

	Aachen University of Technology
	Informatik I
	Ahornstrasse 55
	W-5100 Aachen
	Germany
	Tel.: +49.241.80-21111
	E-Mail: franke@informatik.rwth-aachen.de

Xref: sparky comp.os.msdos.programmer:9233 sci.math.symbolic:2370
From: beaurega@ireq.hydro.qc.ca (Denis Beauregard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,sci.math.symbolic
Subject: Re: studying executables
Date: 10 Sep 92 15:05:12 GMT
Organization: Institut de recherche d'Hydro-Quebec, Varennes, Canada

What you want to do is reverse engineering and is usually illegal.
Nobody cares about what you do in your basement, but some will
care about what tools are sold for that purpose.

I think this can you give hint about what to look for (every hacker
probably did some reverse engineering).

As for a good tool to do that, because of the context, you may be limited
to either a good debugger or some hard to find programs.  

-- 
  \_\    Denis Beauregard  *  internet:beaurega@ireq.hydro.qc.ca
 /   \   Genealogiste officiel : Beauregard/Jarret/Jarest/Vincent
J   __>  Un Quebec renouvele dans une Amerique renovee
\_.-===                                                  Opinions ? Et pis non !
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: yogi@cs.ubc.ca (Yossi Gil)
Subject: Re: Another MsDos batch programming challenge
Organization: Computer Science, University of B.C., Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 92 16:30:52 GMT

cctr132@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (Nick FitzGerald, CSC, Uni. of Canterbury, NZ) writes:

>In article <1992Sep4.213842.14734@mits.mdata.fi>, kennu@mits.mdata.fi
>(Kenneth Falck) writes:
>> In article <1992Sep4.032836.7299@cs.ubc.ca> yogi@cs.ubc.ca (Yossi Gil)
>writes:
>>>Yes, I tested it. It works. It relies on the way DOS does batch file:
>>>	
>>>	1. Open file.
>>>	2. Seek in file to current statement. 
>>>	3. Interpret statement. 
>>>	4. Close file.
>>>	5. Execute statement
>>>	6. Goto 1 if not done.
>>>
>>>This is why Batch Programming is so inefficient.

>I missed Yossi's original post on this, so apologies if he covered some
>of the following.

No, I didn't. I was just trying to give a rough idea on what's going
on. I hope that Timo will care enough to include your observations. 

>The actual DOS batch processor is a tad more involved than Yossi's
>outline suggests.  Whilst the following may not seem much different from
>what Yossi suggests, some subtle implications of batch processor
>operations are more clearly apparent from it.  To the best of my ability
>to tell, the following is a more accurate outline:

> 1.  Open file
> 2.  Read first line
> 3.  Note number of -chars- read thus far
> 4.  Parse line (for redirection, etc)
> 5.  Close file
> 6.  Execute command
> 7.  Open file
> 8.  Read to number of chars recorded in 4.
> 9.  Read to next EOL or EOF
>10.  If command is null and EOF goto 12.
>11.  Loop to 3.
>12.  Close file
....

>Copy the following batch files to a suitable directory.  Make a backup
>copy of BATTEST.BAT (say BATTEST1.BAT ).

>-----------------------  BATTEST.BAT  -----------------------
>echo off
>echo Batch test 1
>copy battest2.bat battest.bat
>echo Batch test 1

>-----------------------  BATTEST2.BAT  -----------------------
>echo off
>echo Batch test 2
>copy battest2.bat battest.bat  dir
>echo Batch test 2

>NOTE:  The "dir" on line 3 of BATTEST2.BAT is preceded by -TWO- spaces. 
>It is most important that both are included (but more won't hurt  8-) ).

>Change to the directory where these batches are, and execute BATTEST. 
>Your output should look something like:
....

I guess the above example could be used to generate more robust
self modifying batch files.
--
Joseph (Yossi) Gil                 {alberta,uw-beaver,uunet}!ubc-cs!yogi
Dept. of Computer Science          yogi@cs.ubc.ca (cs.ubc.ca=137.82.8.5)
6356 Agricultural Road., Univ. of B.C.,             Tel: +1-604-822-8175
Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 1Z2, Canada.       Fax: +1-604-822-5485
From: Jon Freivald <jaf@jaflrn.UUCP>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Recommendation on editor for C / Brief only $99 now
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 92 23:30:01 EDT
Organization: The Wizzard's Cave, East Meadow, NY

levin@world.std.com (Levin F Magruder) writes:

> Brief is on sale from Borland now.  I'd still rather not spend
> the $99, but if it's as good as its reputed to be, I guess
> I'd take the plunge.  
> 
> My main criteria is that it can automatically handle braces, etc.
> (You'd think that would be simple enough, but I've never been
> pleased with the way any editor does it...) and have a quick to
> learn and flexible macro language.  And work under Desqview.
> 
> Those of you who use brief, does it meet these criteria?  Other
> suggestions are welcome, bearing in mind that I begrudge even
> $99 expense.  I am not a professional programmer, I write little
> filters and things like that.

It meets all of the above, is exceeding powerful and wonderfully
flexible.  I've used it for ~4 years & wouldn't think of programming
with any other editor if given the choice...

> An example of how I write follows.  I think it's pretty standard
> and auto formatting should be able to indulge my preferences...

[code deleted...]

Almost, here's your sample code entered with Brief's "smart indenting":

int proc(char *arg)
{
        char localc ;
	char *cp ;

	while(*cp !=arg)
		{
		dothis(*cp) ;
		getanother(cp) ;
		eflag = estat (*cp) ;
		}

	return(something) ;
}

This has always done me quite well, so I've left it as-is.  If you don't
like it, it's also customizable by editing and recompiling a macro file.

> I would like to be able to make it autoexpand ); to ) ; and
> }\n to }\n\n if the first non-white char after } \n is not }.

Brief supports regular expression translates (search/replace) that can
be quite complex.

Hope this helps you make up your mind.  If you have further questions,
I'll be happy to answer them e-mail.

Jon

=============================================================================
		   Jon Freivald ( jaflrn!jaf@uunet.UU.NET )
	 Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it.
=============================================================================
Xref: sparky comp.os.msdos.programmer:9265 comp.os.msdos.misc:5171 comp.os.msdos.apps:4701
From: swami@ncrclm.ClemsonSC.NCR.COM (Krishnaswami)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,comp.os.msdos.misc,comp.os.msdos.apps
Subject: Apps not preserving 32 bit registers when they use them
Date: 10 Sep 92 18:18:32 GMT
Reply-To: swami@ncrclm.ClemsonSC.NCR.COM (Krishnaswami)
Distribution: world
Organization: NCR E&M CLEMSON Liberty, SC


   I have recently run into problems with some applications like
Lotus 123 release 3.1 and Novell Nondedicated Netware 286 that do not
preserve the 32 bit registers on 80486 system when they use them,
assuming all DOS PCs will use only 16 bit registers.  These usually
happen when these programs grabbed the system Timer interrupt, used 
32 bit registers and giving control to the BIOS and the BIOS returned
to the application that was using 32 bit regiters.  Novell seems to have a
patch for this problem.

  Send me an email if any of you know of such problems with any
popular software.  I will post the results.

Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: brown@NCoast.ORG (Stan Brown)
Subject: Re: The Box-Drawing Charachters
Organization: Oak Road Systems, Cleveland Ohio USA
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 00:33:39 GMT

In article <Bu9Lv8.6pL@ireq.hydro.qc.ca> beaurega@ireq.hydro.qc.ca (Denis Beauregard) writes:
>
>There is a lot of standards.  EBCDIC is available on many FTP site
>if you transfer text files using BINARY more.  ASCII is standard if
>under 0x80 and not over.  IBM-ASCII is available on DOS machines.
>ANSI-ASCII is available in DOS Windows (and it does not match IBM-ASCII)
>and in many UNIX systems.  MAC-ASCII is also different (Macintosh).
>Names (i.e. IBM-ASCII) are not the official ones (if they exist).

A recent number of PC Magazine talks about Unicode, a 16-bit scheme that
intends to cover all characters from a great many languages.  ECMA
Latin-1 and ASCII would be saubsets of this.

And an ISO standard for 32-bit character codes is in the works, good for
about four thousand million characters (if my mental arithmetic is
right).  The Unicode would be a subset of that standard, though the
article suggested that the ISO standard was a long way off because of
politicking on the committee.
-- 
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems                      brown@Ncoast.ORG

"Never try to teach a pig to sing.  You'll only waste your time and annoy the
pig." --Samuel Johnson (Thanks, Steve Martindill, for identifying the source.)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: How do you Untar a unix Tar under dos?
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 05:23:02 GMT

In article <16862ACDC.SDENARO@vm.poly.edu> SDENARO@vm.poly.edu writes:
>Looking for a PC program to untar a UNIX tar under DOS.

Covered in one set of Frequently Asked Questions
112730 Jun 13 12:23 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tsfaq29.zip

"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.  For the Asian users there is the NCTUCCCA.edu.tw
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.os.msdos.programmer
From: rhaksi@engr.UVic.CA (Ryan Haksi)
Subject: Re: Why ms-dos is non reentrant
Reply-To: rhaksi@engr.UVic.CA
Organization: University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 22:33:15 GMT

>In article <1992Sep4.061954.24900@zooid.guild.org>, ross@zooid.guild.org (Ross Ridge) wrote:
>}Do you think any of MS-DOS 4.00 will make it in to a future multitasking
>}MS-DOS or will they just ignore it? 

> and then Ross Brown wrote:
> Given that MS wants to sell windows I doubt it 

mmm... actually, last I heard MS was planning on releasing a DOS 6 would be
a pre-emptively multitasking, multithreaded etc etc environment (386 only)
thus providing an environment capable of implementing the full win32 specification
granted this now could be out of date cuz we all know how MS is..... (win32s - the
s standing for Subset - will run on top of dos 5, in win32 there are a bunch of
 priority, threading etc related calls which dos5 makes impossible)

The plan being to have windows run on High(NT), Middle(DOS6&windows4) and low(dos 5 &
windows 3.x) platforms thus allowing MS to establish global dictatorship... (whoops
that just kinda slipped in there... ;-) )



---
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------/
Ryan Haksi             |   "Ha, You're bluffing you allready fired six shots!"
rhaksi@sirius.uvic.ca  |      -famous last words
                       |   "I re-loaded....."  -the rebuttal
/-----------------------------------------------------------------------------/

Xref: sparky comp.os.msdos.programmer:9117 comp.os.msdos.misc:5073
From: amichiel@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Allen J Michielsen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer,comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: Disk Drive Purchase?
Date: 6 Sep 92 17:07:06 GMT
Organization: Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY

In article <Bu34nA.3FB.2@cs.cmu.edu> ralf+@cs.cmu.edu (Ralf Brown) writes:
...I wrote...
>} IDE (systems) could already be windows 32 bit disk access compatible. 

>They probably are, since they emulate the WD-1003 controller that the Windows
>32-bit disk code was written for.  I'm not sure I'd want to be the first
>person to try it, though.

  Windows is pretty good about this.  Select the box in the 386 enhanced menu
amd unless you are able to 'save' the configuration (on exit), the 32 bit
selection will 'disappear' next time it starts...

> IDE won't max out for a while...if the drives themselves keep getting faster

   I don't see how the drive can get much faster.  Good access time are already
around 10 mS, and we are talking physics.  Mechanical parts, moving...

>The more immediate limit to IDE (and ESDI) is likely to be the size of the
>drive.  If (as I suspect), the WD-1003 only permits 16 heads, then the
>limit on IDE is 504 MB (1024 cylinders * 16 heads * 63 sectors/track); even
>if a full 64 heads are available, the limit is less than 2GB--a size which
>is already readily available even if not yet cheap ($3000+) in SCSI

The WD-1003 spec does max out at 16 heads, but that isn't something cast in
stone.  A new backwards compatable standard shoud be in the near future...
The 1024 cylinder limit is a dos limit, ide and esdi controllers don't
have that same problem because the actual drive geometry is hidden
(same as scsi).  This makes the standard max size up around
1024 cyl x 1024 heads x 1024 sectors 

Even then, the sisze of drives is limited to the growth in systems.  A whole
new approach will ne needed soon...

al



--
Al. Michielsen, Crouse Hinds School of Management, Syracuse University
 InterNet: amichiel@mailbox.syr.edu  amichiel@sunrise.acs.syr.edu
 Bitnet: AMICHIEL@SUNRISE
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: OEM String
From: phys169@csc.canterbury.ac.nz
Date: 7 Sep 92 15:35:32 +1200
Organization: University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand

In article <17rastINNb02@matt.ksu.ksu.edu>, danodom@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Dan Odom) writes:
> How do I figure out what the "OEM string" is in MS-DOS 5.0?  Neither of
> the "standard" services for discovering version stuff (30h and 3306h)
> returns it, and I can't find a reference to it anywhere in the programmer's
> reference.  

Well, there is a field at the start of diskettes (8 bytes starting with the 4th
byte) that may contain the name of the OEM disk name.  Some OEM diskettes still
call it IBM or sometimes MSDOS, though.  But there is also the OEM number, for
versions of DOS that aren't generic MSDOS, returned by the Get Version function
call... if you want to convert that number into a name look at Ralf Brown's
interrupt list for a few (I had a list somewhere, that included a few more,
like Data General's version of MSDOS for the DG10, and something like VCCP
DOS). OEM versions of DOS isn't common since DOS 3. DRDOS doesn't use a special
OEM number (although there are OEM versions of DRDOS, e.g. RDK); you can tell
if you are running under DRDOS either by looking at the environment variable
"OS" or by interrupt 21h/AX=4412h, as explained in Ralf's interrupt list
(available by anonymous ftp from all sorts of places)....

----------214412-----------------------------
INT 21 - DR-DOS 5.0 - DETERMINE DOS TYPE
        AX = 4412h
        CF set
Return: CF set if not DR DOS
            AX = error code (see AH=59h)
        CF clear if DR DOS
            DX = AX = version code
                1060h = ???
                1063h = DR-DOS 3.41 ???
                1065h = DR-DOS 5.0
                1067h = DR-DOS 6.0
Note:   this call is identical to AX=4452h
SeeAlso: AX=4452h


> Also, is there a DR-DOS programmer's reference?  Is it worth getting or 
> should I use the MS one?

There is, apparently.  All of the interesting extensions seem to be in Ralf's
interrupt list and, as Frotz posted recently, the Novell/DRDOS people are
working on making sure it is up to date.  Basically, though, if you look at the
interrupts for MSDOS 3.3 you won't be far out - there are a few added to find
and set the extra access rights (actually Multi-user DOS's system with Group
and Owner, I think it was, ignored). There are a few calls to device drivers
that come with SuperStor and SuperPCK that might also be interesting, again a
lot seem to be documented in Ralf's free interrupt list. 

Mark Aitchison, University of Canterbury, New Zealand.
From: beaurega@ireq.hydro.qc.ca (Denis Beauregard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: The Box-Drawing Charachters
Date: 8 Sep 92 15:04:20 GMT
Organization: Institut de recherche d'Hydro-Quebec, Varennes, Canada

In article <la5apvINN8kb@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM> falk@peregrine.Sun.COM (Ed Falk) writes:
>In article <1992Aug31.184726.1583@mits.mdata.fi> kennu@mits.mdata.fi (Kenneth Falck) writes:
>>>and if so how are the ordered?
>>
>>You know, it'd be interesting to find any intelligent order for
>>the entire extended IBM ASCII character set... The characters
>>seem to be organized by groups of 32's, but there are still
>>some very strange symbols among the accented characters, and
>>you can't even dream of finding some sort of organization 
>>inside these groups. (I wonder why they included only some
>>characters of the Greek alphabet etc...)
>
>Go look at IBM's EBCDIC character set (where, for example, '~' comes
>between 'r' and 's') and ask yourself if you'd dream of finding some
>sort of organization in their extended IBM ASCII character set.
>
>		-ed falk, sun microsystems
>		 sun!falk, falk@sun.com
>	"Towards the end, the smell of their air began to change"

There is a "natural" method of sorting according to which language
(i.e. French, not Basic :-)  ).  DOS sort in recent versions takes care
of that.  The method is quite simple (no idea if they do that, but I
do that in my own qsort-based psort program) : if under 0x80, keep it
as is (lowercase or lowercase if needed), if over, using a table lookup,
remap the character.  Obviously, it is a bit faster if you use a 256
characters table instead of a 128 entries with checking for 8th bit.
In my program, I duplicate the sort key (I use a 8000 line table with
one pointer to original line and possibly extended memory address, and
onepointer to re-coded line [I have a lot of re-coding schemes] ).

In your case, only use I see for giving a logical order is for sorting.
Otherwise, you could use a table to re-code.

There is a lot of standards.  EBCDIC is available on many FTP site
if you transfer text files using BINARY more.  ASCII is standard if
under 0x80 and not over.  IBM-ASCII is available on DOS machines.
ANSI-ASCII is available in DOS Windows (and it does not match IBM-ASCII)
and in many UNIX systems.  MAC-ASCII is also different (Macintosh).
Names (i.e. IBM-ASCII) are not the official ones (if they exist).


-- 
  \_\    Denis Beauregard  *  internet:beaurega@ireq.hydro.qc.ca
 /   \   Genealogiste officiel : Beauregard/Jarret/Jarest/Vincent
J   __>  Un Quebec renouvele dans une Amerique renovee
\_.-===                                                  Opinions ? Et pis non !
From: jas37876@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (John A. Slagel)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: C++ vs Quick BASIC : HELP NEEDED
Date: 9 Sep 92 20:23:17 GMT
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana

chad@quality.ta.ford.com (Chad Childers) writes:

>>I was wonding what the 'pros and cons' are with Microsoft Quick BASIC and
>>C++ (Borland). I need to buy a language I can use to create a flexible
>>string based data base (as well as for general programming). I can only buy
>>one and would like to know what would best suit my needs.

    I used to swear by Basic 7.1 -- It handled strings effortlessly,
    *NO* developement environment is easier to use, it compiles faster
    than C in the environment, Press F2 and a list of subroutines in
    the program comes up, you pick the one you want, so you don't
    have to scroll through code.

    But-- There is no question that C makes faster code. I had some
    numeric calculation routines that I wrote in Basic and C and the
    C version ran up to 5 times faster.

    Another problem-- Once your application gets big, you start running
    out of memory, even if you use the overlays in Basic. So, if you don't
    plan on it getting too big, and developement time is more important than
    speed, then I would recommend Basic. 

    Another plus-- Basic 7.1 has built in ISAM support that is a very fast
    database manager, which works very nice inside of Basic.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
 John A. Slagel     "My old man used to tell me, before he left this
 j-slagel1@uiuc.edu  shitty world, never chase buses or women- you
                     always get left behind." -The Marlboro Man
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: lipsett@lido.camb.inmet.com (Roger Lipsett)
Subject: Borland/Microsoft object formats
Organization: Intermetrics, Inc.
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 12:36:08 GMT


Do the Borland and Microsoft C/C++ compilers and assemblers generate
compatible object module formats?  Is either or both of them compatible with
Intel's OMF?  And, in any case, where can I find documentation regarding the
object module format(s)?

This is kind of a rush question, so I'd really appreciate any responses via
email.  Thanks in advance, and I'll post back to the net if it seems
warranted.

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,comp.lang.c++