HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: linville@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (John W. Linville)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: OS/2 2.0 Question
Date: 16 Apr 92 13:15:30 GMT
Organization: NCSU CATT Prog

In article <1992Apr16.075734.11949@athena.mit.edu> wanderer@athena.mit.edu (Opus) writes:
>I think the minimum you need for os/2, *without* dos and windows support,
>is 15 megs.. if you want the dos and windows, it will take up 30... I
>wouldn't bother trying it on a 40 meg hard drive....

Not exactly true.  :-)  The DOS/Windows support does not require 15 Mb, only
about 5 or so.  A lot of the extra space is taken up by the optional utilities
and applets.

John W. Linville

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  John W. Linville                Amateur radio:  KD4KHC                  |
|  #include "std_disclaimer.h"     E-mail:  linville@catt.ncsu.edu         |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: tom@incom.de (Thomas Staudte)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: Passing parameters
Date: 16 Apr 92 06:37:59 GMT
Reply-To: tom@in.sub.org
Organization: Thomas Staudte EDV-Beratung, Germany

In article <german.65@nd.edu> german@nd.edu (chad.w.german.1) writes:
> At the command prompt if I type this set command trying to pass the "a" 
> and "p" parameters everything is fine:
> 
> set G_TEL=c:\gopher\telapp.exe %a %p
> 
> BUT if I include the above set command in a .BAT file  
> the problem occurs:
> 
> 1) I execute the .BAT file
> 2) type "set"
> 
> The result on the set command is:
> 
> G_TEL=c:\gopher\telapp.exe p
> 
> Any suggestions...........
> Thanks.... Please send reply to chad.w.german.1@nd.edu or post to the  
group

I'm wondering how you got the direct statement to work, as parameter  
passing with the %-character works _only_ in batch-files, not from the  
command line.

Anyway: to use environment variables in a batch-file these variables must  
be _enclosed_ in %'s, as in

set G_TEL=c:\gopher\telapp.exe %a% %p%

or

SET PATH=C:\FOO;%PATH%

Remember that if you want to express a real %, you have to double it.
For example a direct command like 'for %f in (*.foo) do del %f' would need  
to be 'for %%f in (*.foo) do del %%f' in a batch-file.

HTH
Tom
---------------------------------------------------------------
            Thomas Staudte                Voice  +49 6074 43230
DP Consultant - Development - Training    Fax    +49 6074 43298
Roemerstrasse 2,  FRG-6075 Dietzenbach    NeXTMail tom@incom.de
---------------------------------------------------------------
I am an independent DP Consultant and in no way associated with
any company possibly mentioned above,  unless stated otherwise.
From: jclei@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Jason Lei)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Is it safe to use 4x8 SIMM for 386/40 motherboard?
Summary: How safe is it to use SIMM without parity chip?
Keywords: RAM, 4x8 SIMM, parity check
Date: 13 Apr 92 22:04:54 GMT
Article-I.D.: mentor.45231
Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Organization: Purdue University Computing Center

Sorry for the cross posting here, but I did not get any response from the
hardware newsgroup.  Thought some clevers in this group could help.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Someone posted in a forsale newsgroup that he can sell new 386/40 motherboard
with 16 (not a typo) Mb RAM (4 4x8 SIMM) for $350.  I am wondering if anybody
has experience with this type of SIMM.  Is it safe since there is no parity
check?  Any comments would be much appreciated.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


Jason Lei


========= DON'T KNOW HOW TO CREATE A SIGNATURE YET ==========
Xref: sparky comp.os.msdos.misc:3102 misc.forsale.computers:17139
From: jh40+@andrew.cmu.edu (John Hudak)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc,misc.forsale.computers
Subject: Re: An incredible deal
Date: 9 Apr 92 13:46:51 GMT
	<1992Apr8.164142.13609@samba.oit.unc.edu>
Organization: Computer Engineering Center, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA

Its so much of an April Fools joke that its written up in Newsweek...don't
you guys/gals read????  This twit (the prankster) is turning computing into
the equivalent of driving tie-dyed VW bugs (the Newsweek article had a
picture of him with his tie-dyed and semi-camo colored PCs.)  Lets
forget this twit and stop wasting bandwidth, and quit wasting everybodys
valuable time.
Is everybody extremely gullable?  

John
<just my 2.5cents worth>
Xref: sparky comp.os.msdos.misc:3042 comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc:7267
From: fsspr@acad3.alaska.edu (Sean P. Ryan, Hardcore Alaskan)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
Subject: Help needed on NDOS and LIST
Date: 7 Apr 92 04:32:41 GMT
Reply-To: fsspr@acad3.alaska.edu
Followup-To: comp.os.msdos.misc
Organization: University of Fairbanks, Alaska...no wait, that's not right...
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-a3

I recently installed NDOS for a friend, and I noticed that one of the
utilities that is part of this program is called LIST.  This has caused
me a major headache.  I would much prefer to put Vernon Buerg's LIST on
this machine, however, the command LIST defaults to the NDOS version. 
Even when I am in a subdirectory that contains the Buerg version of
LIST, the command LIST does not allow me access to that program.

Now, maybe I should RTFM here, but what workarounds can I pursue with
this?  I was thinking of renaming LIST.COM to something else and using
that name as the command to access the Buerg program, but are there any
other things I can do?  I couldn't find anything that would allow me to
disable the NDOS LIST, which is my preferred alternative.

Any help that can be offered here would be much appreciated.  E-mail
responses are preferred, as I usually don't read either of these groups. 
Thanks in advance.

************************************************************************
Sean Patrick Ryan, Hardcore Alaskan*****Internet: fsspr@acad3.alaska.edu
WWIVnet: 220@9704*CFN: au414*IRC: RadioKAOS, Aoxomoxoa*Ph: (907)488-8365
BITnet: FSSPR@ALASKA****Snail: P.O. Box 83381, Fairbanks, AK  99708-3381
*Call me Pastor - Pastor - Pastor of Muppets I'm pulling your string...*
I'll do a disclaimer when they pry my cold dead hands from the keyboard.
From: linville@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (John W. Linville)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: OS/2 2.0 Question
Date: 15 Apr 92 13:37:24 GMT
Organization: NCSU CATT Prog

In article <45479@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> jclei@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Jason Lei) writes:
>In article <1992Apr14.225445.25307@ncsu.edu> linville@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (John W. Linville) writes:
>
>>...... other lines deleted......
>>The first Beta of OS/2 2.0 that I ran was on a 386/16 with 5 Mb of ram, and I
>>have run that same Beta on a 386/20 with 4 Mb of ram.  I found it to be quite
>>...... other lines deleted......
>
>My hard drive is only 40Mb in size, other than upgrading to a bigger drive,
>is it possible to install and use OS/2 2.0?
>
>
>Jason Lei

Jason,

I would have to recommend a bigger drive, but it might be possible to survive
on 40 Mb if you didn't require DOS/Windows support and/or you could survive on
the OS/2 applets.  The betas used to require a 60 Mb drive.  I don't know if
that is true about GA or not.

John W. Linville


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  John W. Linville                Amateur radio:  KD4KHC                  |
|  #include "std_disclaimer.h"     E-mail:  linville@catt.ncsu.edu         |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc,comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: dbarker@camins.camosun.bc.ca
Subject: Re: GNU software of MSDOS ?
Organization: Camosun College
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 19:58:36 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.191750.2350@ducvax.auburn.edu>, hank@ducvax.auburn.edu writes:
> In article <1992Apr13.215156.4758@lia>, sgupta@lia (Suchin Gupta) writes:
>> Is there any gnu software (e.g. emacs, gdb) available for msdos.
>> I'm running a 386/33.  
> 
> A good place to start looking is 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------> 
> README file for the GNUish MSDOS project.
> Copyright (C) 1990-1992 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
> Last updated: 92-03-02
> 
> This file is ftp'able as prep.ai.mit.edu:pub/gnu/MicrosPorts/MSDOS.
> ----------------------------------------------
> 
> This is mainly about the GNUish project (GNU software for 286 and up), but it
> has some good pointers. You should also be aware of the emx port by the author
> of emTeX, and the djgpp gcc compiler from Delorie. The doc above contains info
> about finding djgpp.
> 
> --darrel hankerson hank@ducvax.auburn.edu

There is a 386 version of GNU Emacs, called demacs. it works very well
on my system. it is available at, inter alia, wuarchive.wustl.edu
as (I think) /pub/msdos/demacs/*

There are discussions on the comp.gnu.emacs (gnu.emacs?) about demacs.

Sorry, tried to email direct, but the VAX newsreaders mail interface
seems brain-damaged - like the rest of VMS.
-- 
Deryk Barker
Computer Science Dept.
Camosun College,
Victoria, BC
Canada
From: plate@ruc.dk (John Plate)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Anybody hacked AnyKey keyboard?
Keywords: keyboard, Gateway 2000, Anykey
Date: 13 Apr 92 22:57:17 GMT
Organization: Roskilde Universitetscenter, Danmark

The Gateway2000 keyboard AnyKey may be programmed.
Programmes may be transfered to and from a file.
This does not work under Unix.

Has anybody found out how the file transfer is triggered
and how the file format is?

-- 

:::::::::::::: John Plate, Roskilde University, Denmark :::::::::::::::
:::::::::::::::::::: Internet: <plate@dat.ruc.dk> :::::::::::::::::::::
:::::::::: Fax: (+45) 31 16 16 07 - Phone: (+45) 31 16 80 80 ::::::::::
From: s902114@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Zen [Stuart Bishop])
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: OS/2 v2.0 - Not as great as I thought
Date: 15 Apr 92 00:16:25 GMT
Organization: RMIT Computer Centre, Melbourne Australia.

wanderer@athena.mit.edu (Conroy Lee) writes:


:)huh? if you use up 30 megs of HD space, you will be able to run all of your DOS
:)and Windows software... and OS/2 multitasks DOS apps better than Windows does..
:)The only problem is that you'd need more than a 40 meg hard drive to do this..

:)Conroy Lee

The only reason I have not switched to OS/2 already is that I only have a 40M
hard drive. This space can be appox. doubled using stacker, which as yet is
unavailable for os/2 (comming I here...). Now.... when I get that other
cheap 40M HD installed...
-- 

 _____                                                                
//  //    __                Two elephants fell off a cliff. Boom Boom.   //
   //    /  \   I\ I                                                    //
  //    (--     I \I  alias            for a good time call            //
 //      \__/   I  I  Stuart Bishop     s902114@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au  //
((___________________________________________________________________//
                  This Student's Views, Not My Uni's
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
From: wanderer@athena.mit.edu (Opus)
Subject: Re: OS/2 v2.0 - Not as great as I thought
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 19:38:29 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.191625.22599@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au>, s902114@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au (Zen [Stuart Bishop]) writes:
|> 
|> The only reason I have not switched to OS/2 already is that I only have a 40M
|> hard drive. This space can be appox. doubled using stacker, which as yet is
|> unavailable for os/2 (comming I here...). Now.... when I get that other
|> cheap 40M HD installed...
|> -- 

right.. I wouldn't even think about trying to install OS/2 on a system with less
than 80 Megs of hard drive space...
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
From: des@frogland.inmos.co.uk (David Shepherd)
Subject: Re: OS/2 2.0 Question
Organization: INMOS architecture group
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 09:11:29 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.225445.25307@ncsu.edu>, linville@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (John W. Linville) writes:
>In article <45423@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> sexonbd@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Benjamin David Sexson (Ben)) writes:
>>I have a question.  Does any one have any idea how OS/2 2.0 would
>>run on my 386sx/16?  I have resinged myself to gettig a new harddrive, 
>>but I only have 4megs, and can't expand any more without a card, of RAM.
>>I wonder if I could run it effectively.  Any help appriciated.
>BTW, I suggest that if you only have 4 Mb of ram you should use the Super FAT
>filesystem instead of HPFS, since the HPFS driver takes a lot of ram and might
>not be worth the tradeoff on a system with low ram.

i've got it on a sx-16 with 5Ms and it feels ok. HPFS is a very definite
no-no with <6Ms (at least). my installation documentation didn't
warn about this so i initially used hpfs (hey, i wanted High Performance)
and it crawled at times.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
david shepherd: des@inmos.co.uk or des@inmos.com    tel: 0454-616616 x 625
                inmos ltd, 1000 aztec west, almondsbury, bristol, bs12 4sq
		"i speak latin to god,   spanish to men,   french to women 
		 and german to my horse."             - charles v of spain
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
From: lindemaj@NeXTwork.Rose-Hulman.Edu (Andrew J Lindeman)
Subject: Re: Qemm 6.02 Optimize and Stacker 2.0
Reply-To: lindemaj@NeXTwork.Rose-Hulman.Edu (Andrew J Lindeman)
Organization: Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 19:29:40 GMT

In article <1992Apr11.191044.28924@cs.rose-hulman.edu>  
lindemaj@NeXTwork.Rose-Hulman.Edu (Andrew J Lindeman) writes:
> I just bought Qemm 6.02 and am trying to install it with my Stacked hard  
drive.   
> My problem is that the document which comes with Stacker, showing how to use  
> Qemm's Optimize, is applicable to Qemm 5.xx. 

In case anybody else has the same problem, I got a reply which pointed me  
toward a new version of sswap (written by Stac.)  It looks for Qemm's messages  
in the config or autoexec and will copy all of the files for you.  It works  
easily and gave me no problems!  The new version of sswap (v2.01 I believe) can  
be found on simtel or a mirror under /msdos/qemm and is named sswap.zip.

Andy Lindeman
lindemaj@nextwork.rose-hulman.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc,comp.os.msdos.programmer
From: sgupta@lia (Suchin Gupta)
Subject: GNU software of MSDOS ?
Reply-To: sgupta@paul.rutgers.edu
Organization: California
Distribution: usa
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 92 21:51:56 GMT

Is there any gnu software (e.g. emacs, gdb) available for msdos.
I'm running a 386/33.  

If there is where and how can I get it.

Please reply to sgupta@paul.rutgers.edu

Thanks,

Suchin Gupta
From: linville@garfield.catt.ncsu.edu (John W. Linville)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: Re: OS/2 2.0 Question
Date: 14 Apr 92 22:54:45 GMT
Organization: NCSU CATT Prog

In article <45423@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> sexonbd@sage.cc.purdue.edu (Benjamin David Sexson (Ben)) writes:
>I have a question.  Does any one have any idea how OS/2 2.0 would
>run on my 386sx/16?  I have resinged myself to gettig a new harddrive, 
>but I only have 4megs, and can't expand any more without a card, of RAM.
>I wonder if I could run it effectively.  Any help appriciated.
>
>				later,Ben Sexson
>				sexonbd@sage.cc.purdue.edu

The first Beta of OS/2 2.0 that I ran was on a 386/16 with 5 Mb of ram, and I
have run that same Beta on a 386/20 with 4 Mb of ram.  I found it to be quite
usable under both configurations.  Of course, GA should be a lot faster than
that Beta was, so I would say that you should be able to run it reasonably
well.  However, I would put more ram on my wishlist if I were you.

BTW, I suggest that if you only have 4 Mb of ram you should use the Super FAT
filesystem instead of HPFS, since the HPFS driver takes a lot of ram and might
not be worth the tradeoff on a system with low ram.

John W. Linville


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  John W. Linville                Amateur radio:  KD4KHC                  |
|  #include "std_disclaimer.h"     E-mail:  linville@catt.ncsu.edu         |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
From: wanderer@athena.mit.edu (Opus)
Subject: SIMM speeds...
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 19:50:31 GMT

I was wondering what speed SIMMs a 33Mhz 486 or 386 would need ... I just bought
80 ns SIMMs for my 386/20Mhz and I'm thinking of upgrading to a 33Mhz computer,
and I'd like to keep my memory.. will these work in the faster computers?
From: wijkstra@fwi.uva.nl (Marcel Wijkstra (i87))
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
Subject: 3.5" <S>S DD disks
Date: 6 Apr 92 08:23:09 GMT
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam

I recently "upgraded" from an MSX2 to a 386/33. Since MSX-DOS is just
a <very> stripped down MS-DOS, most of my old programs (in BASIC or Pascal)
and textfiles could be re-used. There's just one problem: my good old MSX
had a Single-sided FDD (allowing me to put 360k on a 3.5" diskette) wheras
I now have a Double-sided (HD) drive. At first sight, MS-DOS reads those
SS-DDs nicely, but when taking a closer look it appears that MS-DOS uses
1-sector clusters (512 bytes/cluster) wheras MSX used 2 (1024 bytes/cluster).
This implies that the FAT-entries point only halfway.

I am told that MS-DOS 3.2 or earlier supports SS-DD disks, but 3.3 does not
any more. And I have 4.01...
Of course, I could try to get hold of an ancient MS-DOS version, but there
should be other possibilities, I guess.

All help will be appreciated.

Marcel.

-- 
/\/\\/\//\/\\/\//\/\\/\//\/\\/\//\/\\/\//\/\\/\//\/\\/\/
 X	   Marcel Wijkstra         (wijkstra@fwi.uva.nl)
|X|	     Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science	
 X	       University of Amsterdam   The Netherlands
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
From: jas37876@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (John A. Slagel)
Subject: Re: Help w/ Joystick Programming
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 19:31:14 GMT

adingus@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Aaron T Dingus) writes:

>Does anyone out there know what DOS/BIOS interrupts
>or function calls and what registers must be sent and
>recieved for me to recieve data from the joysticks and
>buttons?

    On AT computers the BIOS has support for joysticks.

    Int 15H Function 84H
    Call with:
      AH = 84H
      DX = subfunction
	   00H to read switches
	   01H to read resistive inputs
    Returns:
      if function successful, 
	  Carry flag=clear
      and, if called with DX=00H
	  AL = switch settings in bits 4-7
      or, if called with DX=01H
	  AX = Joystick A x value
	  BX = Joystick A y value
	  CX = Joystick B x value
	  DX = Joystick B y value
      if unsuccessful, carry bit set.

Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
From: al919@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Bruce Halco)
Subject: MS BASIC PDS Upgrade?
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA)
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 92 15:46:18 GMT


I recently got an offer in the mail enabling me to purchase MS
BASIC PDS 7.1 for $99, vs list of $495 ans street price around
$300.  I'm seriously inclined to take them up on this (please
spare me the BASIC bashing), but I wonder what's behind the
sudden generosity.  If MS is running true to form, this could
mean that they are about to go to PDS 8.0 or something.  Has
anyone heard anything about this?  I figure they'd be inclined
to remove OS/2 support while they're at it, and this might be
the best chance to get a decent OS/2 compatible BASIC compiler.

Can anyone tell me whether BASIC PDS 7.1 actually takes much
advantage of OS/2, or is the functionality the same as running
under DOS?  Thanks.

Bruce Halco
al919@cleveland.freenet.edu
From: tomc@hpindda.cup.hp.com (Tom Carney)
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 21:52:21 GMT
Subject: Re: How to use dos 5 mode and copy to get data off com port
Organization: HP Information Networks, Cupertino, CA
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc


You might try control Z, that's the normal EOF character in DOS.

Tom Carney

From: gary@hp-ptp.ptp.hp.com (Gary Gross)
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 20:45:54 GMT
Subject: Lotus Ready-To-Run Acctng
Organization: HP Pacific Technology Park - Sunnyvale, Ca.
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc

I would be willing to $PAY$ for a copy of Lotus 1A Ready-to-Run
Accounting. Do you still have a copy hanging around? Thanks in
advance!
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
From: ristad@elan (Eric Sven Ristad)
Subject: natural language front end
Organization: Princeton University, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 02:03:14 GMT



                 REQUEST FOR INFORMATION

What commercial MS-DOS-based software is available as a natural
language front end to a database?  I'm interested in commercial
software that transforms strings of English words (in ascii) to SQL
queries, and in commercial speech recognition software that transforms
acoustic signals to SQL queries (as in the DARPA evaluations).

Reply by email to ristad@princeton.edu
If responses are helpful, I'll post a summmary to the net.

Thanks,
Eric

ristad@princeton.edu


Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
From: Mark Chua <ISC30153%NUSVM.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Subject:      WP 5.1 PRN DRIVER FOR DESKJET 500 COLOR
To: COMP.OS.MSDOS.MISC.USENET
Reply-To: @uga.cc.uga.edu:ISC30153@NUSVM.BITNET
Organization: DEC Palo Alto
Date:         Fri, 10 Apr 92 12:11:09 SST


        Is there any WordPerfect 5.1 printer driver for deskjet 500 color ?
If not, guess I have to switch to some other wordprocessing s/w that can give
me color. Any recommendations? Ami Pro ? Word ?

Mark
chuakhen@nusdiscs.bitnet
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc
From: berger@atropa (Mike Berger)
Subject: Re: Locking a hard drive
Keywords: security
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 7 Apr 1992 15:02:08 GMT

tjones@willamette.edu (Tyler Jones) writes:
>My school (a high school) is having nasty trouble with people messing around
>with its hard drives.  Geeks with minimal knowledge of DOS get in and change
>the Autoexec or Config, and even dumber people just put files (mainly games)
>on the HDs and take up all the room.  In either case, I and the computer
>administration would like to stop this from happening, so what I am asking is:
>   Is there a way to "write protect" a hard drive?
>Since it would be more than impossible to find a way to distinguish between a
>file that does need to go on the HD and one that doesn't, our temporary
>solution is to find a way to keep EVERYONE from putting ANYTHING on the hard
>drives.  Because there may be times when it IS necessary to put something on
>them, however, it must have a way around it, but as long as that method can be
>kept away from the geeks in our computer lab, everything should be fine.  If
>anyone can help us, it would be very appreciated.  Either a command or a
>program, or whatever.  It would be nice if it would beep or give an error
>message when a write to the HD is attempted, either to let people know that
*----
A program won't solve your problem:  Anybody could still boot with a
floppy disk, assuming they couldn't figure out which command activated
the hard-disk write.  Or they could run a program that wrote to the
disk bypassing the BIOS calls.

Some hard disks have hardware write-disable circuits.  If you have
one, you could wire a keyswitch across the contacts.  That solution
wouldn't require any hardware modification, and would be as close to
foolproof as possible.
--
	Mike Berger
	Department of Statistics, University of Illinois
	AT&TNET     217-244-6067
	Internet    berger@atropa.stat.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.misc