HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: johnboyd@ocdis01.UUCP (John Boyd)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: Low-Level format utility for IDE drives
Keywords: IDE, Low-Level format
Date: 21 Jan 93 21:16:19 GMT
Organization: Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma

In article <C14oB0.Fps@hfglobe.intel.com> kumarr@hfglobe.intel.com (Kumar Ranganathan) writes:
->Can any low-level format utility be used to format an IDE disk ? Or does
      ^^^
No.  Many tools are specific.  I've accessed some, on Winchester
controllers, thru debug (PC platform, obviously).  Many commercial disk
tools disallow this type access when they recognize an IDE drive.  It's a
situation with any possible number of solutions.

->every disk come with a specific Low-level format utility ?

Most of the time, I would imagine that it doesn't come with it.  Since
you're dealing with some pretty low-level (no pun intended) stuff, they
don't want every Tom-Dick-and-Harry messing with it.

>(I also remember reading somewhere that IDE drives are Low-Level formatted
>once during manufacture, but cannot be low-level formatted again - is this
>true ?).
>
I read an article recently that said something about whether the drive was
of fairly late mfr or not having something to do with it.  On my personal
system, I have a Seagate drive on a Winchester controller, and I've done it
thru debug, and everything worked fine.  However, it appears that one can
make no broad, all encompassing statements as to whether this can or cannot
be done.  It would probably be best to contact the mfr of the computer, or
the drive, or the controller, and ask them specifically.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do..
Disclaimer: My opinion represents only me, and sometimes not even that.
Xref: sparky comp.os.msdos.misc:7191 rec.humor:38859
From: dave@frackit.UUCP (Dave Ratcliffe)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc,rec.humor
Subject: Re: *** Floppy disk serial numbers.
Date: 24 Jan 93 23:59:25 GMT
Followup-To: comp.os.msdos.misc
Organization: Data Factory Services, Harrisburg, Pa.

In article <1jjsh1INNm52@ope001.iao.ford.com>, jjhoxsey@knight.ta.ford.com (Major Lee Obvious) writes:
> 
> 	A simple question that I thought of while preparing to backup
> my hard drive.
> 	Where does the serial number come from when MS-DOS formats a
> floppy disk?

A small portal into the 4th dimension admits a tiny portion of matter.
The radioactive decay rate (which is different for each sample in the
4th dimension as EVERYONE knows) is used as the seed for a random number
generator based in the 5th dimension. This generates a unique serial
number which is passed to FORMAT.COM for use as the disk label. 

Really!

:)

-- 
 vogon1!compnect!frackit!dave@psuvax1.psu.edu            |  Dave Ratcliffe  |
 - or - ..uunet!wa3wbu!frackit!dave                      |  Sys. <*> Admin. |
                                                         | Harrisburg,  Pa. |
From: YOUNG@tattoo.cs.widener.edu (Rob Young)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: GIF display for DOS/Windows
Date: 21 Jan 1993 23:59:36 GMT
Organization: Widener News/Mail Gateway
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: tattoo.cs.widener.edu
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20


	I am posting this for a friend that doesn't have net access (yet).
	Thanks in advance for your replies.  I believe he is referring to
	something in the Public Domain.


	I have a program (off the Net) which loads the GIF image of my choice
into the root window of my VAXStation.  I have a friend who has an MS-DOS
or MicroSoft Windows machine, who would like to do the same thing.  Are you
aware of any programs out on the Net which will accomplish this?  Thanks!


                                                     young@tattoo.cs.widener.edu
"Men are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most 
 luxurious.  They are conservatives after dinner."
	--Ralph Waldo Emerson	 
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: amead@s.psych.uiuc.edu (Alan Mead)
Subject: COMPLETELY amazed!  How is it done?
Organization: UIUC Department of Psychology
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 06:56:57 GMT

I thought I knew a thing or two about how VGA fonts work on the IBM
PC...

Then I happened to invoke a little programmer's tsr while in WordPerfect
5.1 .  All the letters that the tsr used were strange greek, foreign,
etc, symbols.  (This is while the prefectly normal charscters show on
the screen.)

I know how to change a font, but how do you make more than 256
different chars appear on the screen?  And why would WordPerfect remap
the normal a..zA..Z to something else?

Thanks.  I'll be able to sleep again when I know.

-alan
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: aa682@Freenet.carleton.ca (Norman Henderson)
Subject: Dvorak keyboard in DOS 5.0
Organization: National Capital Freenet, Ottawa, Canada
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 05:00:58 GMT


I need a means to map the keyboard to the Dvorak layout in DOS -
the obvious way would be by an appropriate mod to KEYBOARD.SYS
(e.g. sacrificing an unneeded layout such as DK - Danish - and
replacing it by Dvorak).  However I can't find documentation on
the KEYBOARD.SYS data structures and dumping them didn't reveal
an obvious keyboard table.

I did find a book with a TSR for keyboard substitution but (a)
the TSR was written for DOS 2.0 and (b) I don't want to pay for
the book!  Anyway it would seem much cleaner to use a solution
based on KEYB.COM/KEYBOARD.SYS.

Any guidance would be very much appreciated!  I talked my
daughter into a science-fair project using the Dvorak keyboard,
and then discovered that we couldn't use it on the old laptop-
only on the "big" WIN3.1 system!  Dad's in danger of serious 
trouble!

-Norm Henderson, Ottawa, Ontario
aa682@Freenet.carleton.ca
fax (613)745-1280
-- 
Norm Henderson, Ottawa
aa682@Freenet.carleton.ca
fax: (613)745-1280
From: beaurega@ireq.hydro.qc.ca (Denis Beauregard)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Unerase - how does it wor
Date: 23 Jan 93 21:06:23 GMT
Organization: Institut de recherche d'Hydro-Quebec, Varennes, Canada

In article <dmurdoch.321.727411814@mast.queensu.ca> dmurdoch@mast.queensu.ca (Duncan Murdoch) writes:
>In article <markus.403.727387680@clement.info.umoncton.ca> markus@clement.info.umoncton.ca (PAULIN MARC) writes:
>>In article <C111JG.H5q@ireq.hydro.qc.ca> beaurega@ireq.hydro.qc.ca (Denis
>>Beauregard) writes:
>
>>>Now, about the poster question.  How does UNERASE to retrieve the chain?
>>>It guesses.  A sequential written file (i.e. after saving a text file)
>>>will use the sequential available clusters and the "erased" file entry
>>>still contains the 1st FAT entry position.  
>
>>        Es-tu sur?  It guesses?  You mean it guesses the file position on 
>>the disk?  I doubt it.  What if the file is fragmented?  That's not 
>>sequential.  
>
>Denis was right.  It's easy enough to prove it to yourself:  create two 
>badly fragmented files by writing a program that writes lines to them 
>alternately.  Make sure they're both big, say 100K.  Erase both, and then 
>see if they can be unerased.  Norton will attempt it, but will get them 
>all mixed up.
>
>Your only hope is if you've loaded one of the unerase-helper 
>TSRs or some other program that makes a separate record of erasures
>or of the FAT.
>
>Duncan Murdoch

It is not the only hope.  If the erased file is structured and the
unerase program is intelligent enough, it can guess and improves on
probability of a full unerase.  For example, a dBASE file is made of
columns in which most data is written from the left side of columns.
Using this, a unerase file for a dBASE file can more likely select
the right next cluster.  However, I am not sure if such programs exists.
Don't forget a database will often grow randomly.  In other words,
the "next cluster" may be located before the previous one i.e. file
can be at location 100, 102, 101 while a sequentially written file
would be at 100, 101, 102 or 100, 105, 121.  I took the dBASE example
because it is a common format, usually for a large file, and 
more than the average used by computer illiterate, thus a likely
candidate for an "intelligent" unerase.

-- 
  \_\    Denis Beauregard  *  internet:beaurega@ireq.hydro.qc.ca
 /   \   Ge'ne'alogiste des familles : Beauregard/Jarret/Jarest/Vincent
J   __>  Un Que'bec renouvele' dans une Ame'rique renove'e
\_.-===  Ope'rateur de "Racines du Que'bec" (514) 922-9636 BBS/Genealogie
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: sasres@ocelot.unx.sas.com (Ron Stogner)
Subject: Re: Wanted : Borlands "getimage" format for graphics
Originator: sasres@ocelot.unx.sas.com
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 20:03:44 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <1jkrh7INNopp@escargot.xx.rmit.OZ.AU>, rcskb@minyos.xx.rmit.OZ.AU (Kendall Bennett) writes:
|> sasres@ocelot.unx.sas.com (Ron Stogner) writes:
|>
|>
|> >EGA and VGA have four bit planes (i.e. 4 bits per pixel.).  Borland
|> >basically stores scan lines from each bit plane and then repeats this
|> >until all scan lines are done.  They include three extra words (if
|> >you call "imagesize" for a region you will find that the amount of
|> >memory is three words larger than the required memory for the image).
|> >Two of these words are the x and y size (in pixels) of the region.
|> >These are the first two words of the image.  I never could figure out
|> >what the third word was for (but it didn't seem to matter).  My guess
|> >is it is reserved or used for other video cards and didn't matter for
|> >VGA and EGA.  I can't remember if this word was at the end of the image
|> >or after the x,y words.  I think it was at the end.
|>
|> This mystery word is probably a bit mask for the last byte in each line
|> of the image, so that it will be correctly clipped when it is drawn. At
|> least this is what I use it for in my graphics library :-) You only need
|> a single byte for this, but by using a word value, you can ensure that
|> the image data in system memory will be aligned on a word boundary (since
|> malloc always aligns the memory), which under the correct circumstances
|> will make things faster.
|>

Kendall:

Thanks for the info.  That makes sense.  One thing, however, since the
image can be "clipped" on both ends you probably do need both bytes,
one for the first byte on each line and one for the last.  I'll have
to play with it sometime and see.  If I could only find my old code...

Ron Stogner
(sasres@unx.sas.com)
From: olivierp@fwi.uva.nl (P.Olivier)
Subject: Dos-extenders: The Complete Story ?
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 11:05:50 GMT

Although there have been a number of postings about dos-extenders 
recently, I still have a couple of questions. 

- ISN'T THERE A FAQ ABOUT THIS TOPIC SOMEWHERE ON THE NET ????

- The Phar Lap dos extender seems to come in two varieties:
  16 bit and 32 bit. can both types be used with the Borland C++ 3.1
  compiler ? 
  And with Microsoft C (6.0) ?

- What other good (commercial) dos extenders exist ? 

- What kind of porting problems can one expect when switching to a 
  dos extender ?

An answer to any of the above questions will be very much appreciated.

   Thanks for your time.

-- 
"Steve Jobs said two years ago that X is brain- | Pieter Olivier
 damaged and it will be gone in two years. He   | olivierp@fwi.uva.nl
 was half right." -- Dennis Ritchie.            |
=============================================================================
From: hartung@crl.ucsd.edu (Jeffrey P. Hartung)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Wanted : Borlands "getimage" format for graphics
Date: 21 Jan 93 05:46:09 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

The first two 16-bit words contain the image width and height.  The remaining
bytes are (if I recall correctly) one byte-per-pixel color index values
corresponding to the image's pixels left-to-right, top-to-bottom.


-- 
 --Jeff Hartung--  	
 Disclaimer: My opinions only, etc., etc., BLAH! BLAH! BLAH!...
 InterNet - hartung@crl.ucsd.edu    	 BITNET - hartung@ucsd
 UUCP - ucsd!crl.ucsd.edu!hartung
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From:  master@scanlar.msk.su (Smirnov Sergey S.)
Subject: Group of experienced programmers from Russia is looking for job
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 16:05:05 GMT
Reply-To: master@scanlar.msk.su
Organization: scanlar ltd
Date: Saturday, 23 January 1993 22:51:26 EST
X-Mailer: TMail version 1.14R
From: "Tim Triemstra" <empath@ais.org>
Organization: Empath Software
Subject: Re: C++ text mode windowing packages (Summary)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Distribution: world

In <1993Jan23.030119.3861@engr.uark.edu>, hbj@engr.uark.edu (Bernard Johnson)  wrote:
   >Zortech C++ Window Library
   >--------------------------
   >   File:        Commercial
   >Version:        ??
   >  Price:        ?? (comes with Zortech C++)
   >
   >* I only compiled the sample source code for a couple of program.  It had
   >  very simple looking windows.

From my experience with the Zortech libraries, they are essentially only good
for research purposes.  Although it is feasable to write a good application
with them (the Zortech install program was written with it and appears quite
nice with no apparent bugs) but the code is EXTREMELY cryptic for general
use.  I guess the biggest problem is that the code is interdependant - fully.
IE:  It is very hard to use a formatting command without dragging in half
a block worth of other code.  It really doesn't seem worth the hassle.

However, this review is from a v3.04 user with 3.1 coming in the mail.  I've
been told by people that the 3.1 Class libraries are much better documented
and slightly rewritten (I'm not sure in what way however.)

This is just a little more opinionated info I thought I might feed into the
hulk known as the net - maybe someone will disagree and tell me how to better
use the product that I've already paid for....

Tim.

-------------------------------------------------------
| When the end comes, there will be two men standing: |
|   Me, and the guy I gotta kill.   - Gosh I'm EVIL   |
------ Tim Triemstra ------------- empath@ais.org -----
From: ski8032@tamsun.tamu.edu (Suman Kumar Inala)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Help! Borland C++ 3.x conflict with EMM386.EXE
Date: 23 Jan 1993 00:14:46 -0600
Organization: Texas A&M University
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: tamsun.tamu.edu
Summary: switch keyboards?
Keywords: bc emm386

Thus spake price@serum.kodak.com:
>
>The nature of the problem is that the IDE is very slow to respond
> to keystrokes, and while cursoring through a file, it sporadically
> starts "Mark"-ing blocks of text or inserting numeric characters into 
> the file.  I haven't tried to compile or run 
>anything from the corrupted IDE environment because I'm afraid of 
> what it might do to my hard disk.

Hmmm..  I thought I was the only one with this problem, or my
father at least.  We got the same sporadic marking & numbers that
you describe, though we hadn't traced it to emm386 since it had
always been active.  What we did is switch keyboards; apparently
if you are using an old kbd it sometimes doesn't like it.

>-Kevin Price		price@serum.kodak.com             

-- 
Till next time,                \o/   \o/
                                V \o/ V     email:pinky@tamu.edu
<>  Sam  Inala  <>                 V

Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: byrial@daimi.aau.dk (Byrial Jensen)
Subject: Format of COUNTRY.SYS and KEYBOARD.SYS files?
Keywords: fileformat MS-DOS COUNTRY.SYS KEYBOARD.SYS
Organization: DAIMI: Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Denmark
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 09:52:57 GMT

I am going to implement a new character set not supported by
MS-DOS at my PC and would like to use the MS-DOS programs for
national language support and thus define a new code page.

But I am missing information about the format of two data files
I have to change as they contain code page informations:

COUNTRY.SYS  - containing among other things the mapping
               between lowercase and uppercase letters and            
               collating sequence.
KEYBOARD.SYS - containing keyboard information used by KEYB.COM.

I would be very glad if someone can give a reference where the
format of one or both of these files are described. In advance
thank you very much for any help.

Byrial Jensen
From: gordon@cpg.trs.reuter.com (Gordon Aspin)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: A powerful Debugger
Date: 21 Jan 93 16:42:08 GMT
Organization: Reuters Client Site Systems, Oakbrook,IL

In article <1993Jan19.192908.26497@rei.com> fox@rei.com (Fuzzy Fox) writes:
>koenig@ufrima.imag.fr (KOENIG gerald) writes:
>
>>I would like to find a debugger which is better than TD from borland
>>and can debug everything. Can you email me where can i find it.
>>thanks
>
>As far as I can tell, Borland is the best.
>What features are lacking in it?
>
How about breakpoints on IO ? - Soft-ICE from Nu-Mega reigns supreme.
From: achristo@pons.uio.no (Alf Christophersen)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Streams for TV and Windows, are they compatible?
Date: 21 Jan 93 12:32:44 GMT
Organization: University of Oslo


I'm at spare time programming on a program for Windows which in
future also will be implemented for TV. The program store all its
data on streams. But I'm wondering how I should in future convert
these datastreams when I'm going to transport the data to a
parallell TV implementation. Is the ID for TCollection the same
for both TV streams and Windows streams?


At the same time, when BP 7 came, it had introduced pChar also
for the Turbo Pascal v. 7, but why hasn't the stream mechanism
introduced the pchar strRead and strwrite mechanism? The only
mechanism available is the ReadStr and WriteStr that use pString.
What about the TStrCollection of Windows, why wasn't this
introduced in TV? It seems to me like TV for TP7 was released 90%
ready.

Alf Christophersen
Dep. of nutrition Research
University of Oslo
PO Box 1046 Blindern
N-0316 Oslo, Norway

Tel +47 2 854197  (After 28/1) +47 22 854197
Fax +47 2 854194  (After 28/1) +47 22 854194

Email: Alf.Christophersen@nutri.uio.no
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: rick@mel1.geg.mot.com (Rick Rankin)
Subject: Re: tee for DOS?
Organization: Motorola, Inc. - Scottsdale, AZ
Date: 25 Jan 93 17:33:46 GMT
	<RICK.93Jan24165959@mel1.geg.mot.com> <1993Jan25.092440.15061@uwasa.fi>

In article <1993Jan25.092440.15061@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes:

>In article <RICK.93Jan24165959@mel1.geg.mot.com> rick@mel1.geg.mot.com (Rick Rankin) writes:
>>In article <1993Jan22.233913.19275@uwasa.fi> ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi) writes:
>>>   In article <C19yB0.AJB@vuse.vanderbilt.edu> stst@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Stefan Strack) writes:
>>>   >In article <1993Jan22.184439.27754@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> esova@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Edward R Sova) writes:
>>>   >>Where can I get the Unix tee command for DOS?  You can split redirection and
>>>
>>>   >TEE (as well as Y) are internal commands of 4DOS, the command.com replacement.
>>>
>>>   An equally useful answer surely is that tee is available for Unix.
>>>   (The 4DOSsers never let up :-).
>>
>>The fact the tee is available for Unix is immaterial.  The man asked
>>for tee for DOS.
>
>Of course it is!  I am confident that you must have understood that
>my Unix reference was meant to emphasize the futility of offering
>4DOS as a solution either.  What an ordinary MsDos user usually
>needs is a command.com compatible answer, not the recurring pitch to
>go for another command interpreter, or another operating system.
>
>My serious answer to the user's original question is browsing
>through the list of Unix-like MsDos commands
>9906 Nov 12 10:57 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/unix/0unix.zip
>Another serious answer is the C code that was already given by one
>gentle user.  These are much better answers than implicity
>suggesting changes of configuration.

I apologize if I overreacted.  It seems that so often I see a reply
posted that is esentially useless, i.e., "You want to do _what_ under
DOS?  Why don't you switch to Unix.", or "It's easy to write
yourself.", with nothing more.  (If the poster knew how to write a
short utility, he/she probably wouldn't ask about it.) These are not
generally helpful responses and I'm afraid I saw one more than I could
handle.

--
==============================================================================
| Rick Rankin				|				     |
| Motorola				| Voice: 602-441-5726		     |
| Government Electronics Group		| Fax: 602-441-2919		     |
| 8220 E. Roosevelt St.			| Internet: rick@mel1.geg.mot.com    |
| Scottsdale, AZ 85252			|				     |
| Mail Drop R4246			|				     |
==============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: GORAN@infovox.se (G|ran Bostr|m)
Subject: Does MSDOS destroys interrupt vectors during start?
Organization: Infovox AB, Sweden
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 13:14:51 GMT

I'm writing a device driver using serial communications (i e COM 1 - 4).

As far as I can see the MSDOS systems initializes the interrupt
vectors for COM 1 - 4 __AFTER__ the drivers has been loaded.

This destroys the vectors I've just installed during the INIT-pahase in
the just loaded device driver.

Is this correct? Can I circumvent this?

G|ran.
-----------------------------------------------------+-----------------
G|ran Bostr|m               email: goran@infovox.se  |  We make your
Infovox AB, Box 2069        phone: + 46 8 764 3572   |  computer
S-171 02 Solna, Sweden      fax:   + 46 8 735 78 76  |  talk !

Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: ts@uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Re: tee for DOS?
Organization: University of Vaasa, Finland
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 23:39:13 GMT

In article <C19yB0.AJB@vuse.vanderbilt.edu> stst@vuse.vanderbilt.edu (Stefan Strack) writes:
>In article <1993Jan22.184439.27754@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> esova@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Edward R Sova) writes:
>>Where can I get the Unix tee command for DOS?  You can split redirection and

>TEE (as well as Y) are internal commands of 4DOS, the command.com replacement.
>The syntax is foo | tee logfile | prn. Note that you can roll your own tee
>with just a few lines of code.

An equally useful answer surely is that tee is available for Unix. 
(The 4DOSsers never let up :-). 

..................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi      Co-moderator of comp.archives.msdos.announce
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