CLUB INFORMATION The SLO BYTES Newsletter is a monthly publication of SLO BYTES of the Central Coast of California (San Luis Obispo) an IBM/compatible personal computer user's group. Information found in this Newsletter is derived from magazine articles, manuals, books, other PC user group newsletters, and our own members. The purpose of this publication is to inform our members of meetings, their program content, and other information related to the use of IBM-PC's and compatible computers. Dues to SLO BYTES are $18 per year. As a member you will receive a membership card, an updated membership list, SLO BYTES monthly newsletter, and free use of our Public Domain Library. Contributors are asked to submit articles for the next issue by the 10th of each month either in writing or on disk (ASCII format preferred). Address all correspondence to SLO BYTES PC USER'S GROUP, % Bob Ward, 2100 Andre' Ave., Los Osos, Ca. 93402. Phone 8am-5pm 546-2164, after 5pm - (805)528-0121. Other user's groups have permission to publish any material found in this newsletter. Have a computer related item to sell? Tell the editor and we will put it in our newsletter. For further information call Bob Ward @ (805)528-0121 eves. ****************************************************** Meetings are held the 4th Thursday of every month, unless noted otherwise in the newsletter calendar, at 7:15 pm. New users SIG 6:15 to 7 pm. They are hosted by the Biology Department and located at Cal Poly University, Biology's Science North, Room 213. Effective with the meeting September 3rd, 1987 the club will meet on the 1st Thursday of each month. All submissions must be to the editor by the 15th of each month. ****************************************************** DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$ Discounts usually apply only to regularly priced merchandise. Ask a salesman to make sure. You must present your membership card to receive a discount. Paradise Computers 5% - all computers, peripherals, 441 Marsh St. and software. San Luis Obispo 10% - Ribbons, paper, disks & 544-7127 other expendable items. Star Computers 5% - any software in stock. 655 Morro Bay Blvd. Morro Bay 10% - paper, ribbons, cable & 772-7827 other supplies. Computer Logic 10% - off list - all computers, 973 Foothill Blvd. software, computer periphe- Store #4 rals and products. Contact San Luis Obispo Bruce, Paul, or Dave for 544-8347 your discount. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ RELOADING COMMAND.COM Reprinted from the September, 1986 issue of PC-NEWS from the Alaska Computer Society. Are you annoyed every time you have to re-insert a COMMAND.COM disk after you have run a program? Well if you use a RAM disk then you can be free from this irritating nuisance forever! Assuming your DOS disk is in the A: drive and C: is a RAM disk, make the following commands the last lines on your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. copy COMMAND.COM c: (ret) SET COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM (ret) COMMAND /C:COMMAND (ret) Note: No PATH command will be active until an EXIT command is given. At which point the computer will restore the old PATH and start looking on drive A: for command.com again! Since there is an upper limit of 127 characters in COMMAND.COM, this is a problem to all us hackers used to UNIX. But, with the help of DOS 3.1 and some real hacking, up to 25 directories can be specified. The only restriction is the number of disk/RAM/other drives that you access. The SUBST command (available in DOS 3.10+) allows you to use the drive designator A: through Z: as abbreviations for a directory pathname. Now, since most of us use A:, B:, C:, maybe D: and E: for RAMdisks, I start at F: and go Z:. Thus: path=C:\;C:\COM;C:\EXE;C:\USERS\FOO\BAR\APPLICATION can be redone as: SUBST F: C:\COM SUBST G: C:\EXE SUBST H: C:\USERS\FOO\BAR\APPLICATION PATH=C:\;F:;G:;H:; The only other modification is in CONFIG.SYS, the line LASTDRIVE=Z should be inserted. This allows the system to acknowledge all those bogus "drives". The time spent as SUBSTing is far outweighed by the advantage of having the path long enough for almost anyone. (note from SLO BYTES) Since SUBST is an external command make sure it is in the ROOT directory where DOS resides. Also if you designate a subdirectory not found on your hard disk, the whole application "bombs". ====================================================== *FORSALE**FORSALE**FORSALE**FORSALE**FORSALE**FORSALE* SAMSUNG Amber TTL Monitor + monochrome graphics board. 4 months old. $80.00 Call Jim @ 772-1607 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ CALENDAR May 28th Word Processing and Data Entry filing systems by Larrie Ciano. The new Norton Utilities Advanced Edition by George Campbell. June 25th ON GUARD A hard disk access control program will be demonstrated by a representative from United Software Security, Inc. July 23rd Computer applications in Medical Imaging by Barry Mayer. *** MEETING CHANGED TO 1ST THURSDAY OF EACH MONTH *** *** MEETING CHANGED TO 1ST THURSDAY OF EACH MONTH *** September 3rd WordStar Version 4.0 by Jules Lieber. October 1st Poly Windows & 1st Choice by Britt Morris. ====================================================== CREATING DOS MENUS FOR THE IBM-PC & COMPATIBLES by George Campbell If you are using an IBM-PC or a compatible computer, learning to create DOS menus can speed up your daily computing chores, and simplify your procedures. Whether you use floppies or a hard disk, you can have your computer let you know what is on any disk, at boot-up, then make your selection from a simple menu. The key to this process is the effective use of batch files. For those of you not already familiar with batch files, here is a quick rundown on these short, but very useful programs. Whether you know it or not, you are probably using a batch file every time you boot up a commercial program. If you boot a program disk and the program starts automatically, a batch file called AUTOEXEC.BAT is at work. Every time you boot up, DOS looks for an AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If it is present, it runs automatically. When a batch file runs, one line is executed each time the DOS A> prompt appears. If that line calls up a program on the disk, that program runs until it is finished. After the program executes, the A> prompt reappears and the next line of the batch file executes. This process is what you see on the screen during the execution of an AUTOEXEC.BAT. The A> prompt appears, followed by a command, which executes automatically. CREATING BATCH FILES As with any program, you need to know what you want your batch file to do before you begin writing the program. To create a menu, a batch file system must be created which: 1. Lists the programs which can be called. 2. Provides a key character for the selection. 3. Calls up another batch file containing the command which calls the program selected. 4. Returns to the menu after exiting the chosen program. You can create batch files using any word processor which can produce pure ASCII files. For most word processors, this means simply saving the program in an unformatted form. Give the file a name, such as MENU.BAT. If your word processor automatically saves files with a special extension, such as .DOC, you will have to rename the file. To do this, type REN [DRIVE:]{OLDFILE} {NEWFILE} at the A> prompt. Leave out the brackets. You can also use the DOS command COPY CON to create batch files, especially short ones. For example, to create a batch file called GO.BAT on drive B:, containing a single command, type the following at the A> prompt: COPY CON B:GO.BAT (ENTER) [COMMAND] (ENTER) (Ctrl)+(Z) (ENTER) As you type each line, you can edit that line, using the backspace key to erase unwanted characters. Once you ENTER the line, however, you can no longer change it. When you enter (Ctrl)+(Z), holding both keys down at the same time, the file is copied onto drive B: with the filename GO.BAT. Before creating a typical menu batch file, you need to know about two DOS commands you may never have used. The first is ECHO. This command allows you to place text on the screen without DOS considering the text as a command. It also allows you to remove prompts and commands from view. Use the command this way: ECHO OFF (Hides prompts and commands from view) ECHO ON (Restores prompts and commands to the screen) ECHO Statement (Displays everything after ECHO) The other command is PAUSE. When this command appears in a batch file, DOS displays the message: "Strike a key when ready..." then waits for input before proceeding. Now, we can create a typical menu system. As an example, we will assume that you have a disk with four programs on it. We can call them WRITE.COM, BUDGET.EXE, ADDRESS.EXE, and PHONE.COM. Since the batch file will be short, we can write it with COPY CON. Place your DOS disk in drive A: and the disk containing the programs in drive B:, then type the following. Press ENTER after each line. COPY CON B:MENU.BAT ECHO OFF ECHO To choose a program to run, type the corresponding ECHO letter, then press ENTER. ECHO A. WRITE (word processor) ECHO B. BUDGET (bookkeeping program) ECHO C. ADDRESS (mailing list) ECHO D. PHONE (communications program) ECHO E. EXIT (returns to DOS) Ctrl + Z As written, the menu will appear in the upper left corner of the screen. You can customize the appearance of the Menu, however. Use the Tab key to space the screen messages from left to right. If you want spaces between lines, use the line: ECHO (Alt + 255) for each line space. The statement in the parentheses means to hold down the Alt key while you type the number 255 on the numeric pad. cont next page.... DOS Menus cont.... Once the MENU.BAT file is written, create a separate batch file for each of the programs on the disk. Here is an example, once again using COPY CON: COPY CON B:A.BAT ECHO OFF PAUSE (Waits for key input) WRITE (Calls the program) MENU (Returns to the menu after exiting WRITE) Ctrl+Z (Copies A.BAT to drive B:) For each program, write a separate batch file, substituting the correct letter and the command needed to load the program. The EXIT command needs another type of batch file, shown below. This batch file returns the A> prompt to its usual position at the top of the screen. COPY CON B:E.BAT ECHO ON CLS Ctrl + Z If your programs are on a bootable system disk, you can call up the menu automatically including an AUTOEXEC.BAT containing the single command MENU. Write this as follows: COPY CON B:AUTOEXEC.BAT MENU Ctrl + Z Any of the commands which call a program can contain path and drive information. Just think of the commands in your batch file as a way of typing the command automatically. Enter the command in the batch file just as you would from the keyboard. Experiment with these menu files, and you will soon be creating customized menus for all of your program disks. In addition, you will gain valuable experience in using batch files. Other applications will soon come to mind. ====================================================== COMINGS & GOINGS Last month Bryan Johanson district manager from WordPerfect gave us a fantastic demonstration of WordPerfect 4.2. No wonder this wordprocessor is the leading seller in the nation with over 1/3 of all wordprocessor software sales. He put it through the test and there was very little this program couldn't do. I just want to touch on a few of the unique features of this program. WordPerfect supports files created from most other wordprocessors; and when finished with them will change them back into a file readable by the other wordprocessor. I liked the SORT feature found in WordPerfect. Suppose you have a column of names within the text file you want alphabetized. Mark that block, push a few keys, and within your file the marked block is now alphabetized. It is one of the few wordprocessors that support multiple column format which shows on the computer screen.... a great feature for creating newsletters and multiple column files. The text automatically "snakes" around to the second column right before your eyes. Most other wordprocessors create a single column which must be formatted for double column printing. You never see the result until it is printed. I was impressed by the 115,000 word spelling checker. As an example type in COMPAT-B-LITY and it will list all word combinations with the dashes replace with letters. No longer do you have to wonder if it is spelled with an i or an e. WordPerfect comes in 9 foreign languages including Icelandic. No wonder WordPerfect is the official wordprocessor of Iceland. WordPerfect has an extensive on-line help menu. Your a few keystrokes from help, no matter where you are in the program. The manual is complete and very readable. WordPerfect's MathPlan is a spreadsheet which integrates with the wordprocessor through the WordPerfect Library shell. Using the "Library" keeps many programs memory resident for ease of switching between different applications. If you create a large number of memos and letters on your computer this next meeting is for you. Larrie Ciano, from Cal Poly's computer support services, will briefly show us the method she uses to keep all those files in order. Following her presentation, George Campbell, will demonstrate some of the finer points of the new NORTON ADVANCED Edition. It seems both Norton and Mace Utilities have been head to head in many recent magazine reviews. Both have many similarities. We will see how Norton has "advanced" over their last version. ====================================================== BITS N' BYTES *** A funny thing happened to my mailbox the other day. UPS delivered a large box to my front door from Master Control Systems, Inc. in Chesapeake, VA. It contained 100 boxes, each with 4 disks, advertising their program LinkMasterTM and various other programs. This series of disks will not work without first signing up for their servuces with your modem. They have an E-MAIL system which allows the user to leave messages on the SOURCE, COMPUSERVE, or any other major system without being a member of these groups. The most unique feature of this service is the use of commercial software on a pay-as-you-use basis. First you download your favorite commercial program onto your computer. Then call back and the "key" file is loaded which activates the program (this takes 8 seconds) and you use the program as long as you wish. Although the program may be saved to your computer, it requires the "key" for each use. When you call for the key, you are automatically charged at that time. Cost for this service is about $8.00/hour (1200 baud) on line time and about 25 cents access fee to receive the key each time. What a great idea if you're looking to buy a program but would like to try it before purchase. Documentation is the user's problem I was told. Other features include shop-by-mail and travel reservations. They have another service coming in about 6 months. Although it is a secret, I was told there is nothing like it today on the market and it was FANTASTIC! Makes one wonder. *** Britt Morris will need some help if his idea of a computer fair is to become reality. How about it members? If you have some spare time, give him a call and offer your support. *** Our meeting place is still in a state of flux. Where have you heard that before? Since many lecture classes have the halls tied up until after our meeting starts at 6:15, we get what's left. This month we will be back in Science North 213; the lecture hall we were in month before last. *** Another new BBS in town. Try the Pentode at 549- 9104. Since some of our local BBS's are run by Poly students, you may find only a few remaining this summer. Don't fret though, they will be back fall quarter. *** I finally joined the ranks of hard disk owner. A Miniscribe 42 MEG with 28 millisecond average access time. It's so fast it's frightening. Don't think I'll have much difficulty getting used to it though. Now what am I going to do with all those floppies? *** Looks like our new user's early evening group is still going strong. French Morgan will continue on hard disk configuration and Byron will discuss ANSI drivers and print string ($) functions. Help us by bringing your questions if you are having specific problems. Our hats off to French, Byron, and George for helping our new users along. Both new and old users appreciate their effort! Byron will be gone for June's meeting so I thought it a good opportuntiy to introduce the new PCFILE + at the early meeting. ====================================================== THE EDITOR'S CORNER By Paul Stephen Winnipeg PC UG (Reprinted from GS-BUG Newsletter - May, '87) OK... you've got Sidekick and you're running it on an AT. Now bring up the calculator and divide 93,500 by 31,167. Did you get 2.4 as the answer? Get out your pocket calculator and you'll see the correct answer is 3.0 (rounded). So, thanks to Infoworld, you can do this "fix." Put a copy of DEBUG.COM on a disk in your B: drive, put a copy of SK.COM is your A: drive and proceed. A>B: DEBUG SK.COM -r (A table comes up. Note the "nnnn" value following the CX register) -s 100 nnnn 3C 63 76 02 FE C8 (You should see oooo:mmmm 3C on your screen if the code specified above was found) -e mmmm ("mmmm" is the number found in the previous step) (Now press the space bar four times. You should see FE. as the last entry on your screen. Type B0. followed by pressing the space bar once. You will now see C8. on your screen. Type 63 and press the carriage return. NOTE: B0 is B-ZERO, not B-OH!) -w -q That's it. Now you should get the correct value of 3.0 when you run the program. ====================================================== NEWS FROM OUR LIBRARY The following disks have been added to our library for May, 1987: #194 PC-VCO (v 1.31) communications package. Uses (W)indowed XMODEM file transfer for faster downloading. Also includes a "visual" face file conferencing method for PEOPLE/LINK, and other BBs's. #195 TAX-PLANNER Plan your 1987 taxes by estimating taxes by Michael Norris. #196 BURN-IN Work your new computer till it DROPS! This program continuously "works" different parts of your computer while unattended. Great for new computers. Make sure everything works before that short warranty period expires.... by our very own George Campbell. #197 KEYBOARD UTILITIES -- change your keyboard with Soft Touch keyboard enhancer, turn on CAPLOCKS from batch file, and many more. PC SIG #181 + UH3.0. #198 DISK UTILITIES -- change # drives computer designates w/o opening case, fast format, park hard disk head, and more. #199 CP/M EMULATOR -- complete emulation of Z80 object code & of CP/M 2.2 except for hardware specific limitations like inability to read CP/M disks on IBM disk drives. Has debugging software + VT52 terminal emulation. ---------------------- UPDATES: #94 SPEEDKEY #01 SPEEDUP ----------------------- Additions to the PC MAGAZINE disk: XDIR update w/o bugs MAKEBAR.COM and SLASHBAR.COM from Vol 6, No. 10 -------------------- If you tried running AUTODEX (#185) you may have found problems as some of the copies, including the library disk appeared defective. That problem has been resolved. Remember AUTODEX must be run from a disk or directory with the system on it. --------------------- NEW DEMO DISKS ** DATAFLEX Database management system ** PFS Professional Plan Spreadsheet ** Cruise Control Ram Resident Cursor Control Program ------------------------------------------------------ FILE NOT FOUND by Jim Kocis NewJersey PCUG I lost another file the other day. Well, I guess I mean to say I "misplaced" it. But I know precisely where it was. ON MY HARD DISK. Somewhere.... I named it very carefully so I'd remember it. Something like 1OSNE1. I thought it has an extension, but I'd forgotten which program I'd created it with, so I wasn't sure whether the extension was TXT, DOC, BAS, BAK, DBF, WKS, BAT or any of a dozen other helpful identifiers. It wasn't very big. I thought I put it in a sub- directory. Hmmmm. Maybe it was a subdirectory. I looked for it with DIR. I looked for it with DIR/P. DIR/W. DIR/W/P. I SORTed and PIPEd my directories to LPT1. I looked for it with TREE. My tree turned out to be a Banyan, branches flopping down all over the place. (Why, I wondered, is the tree's root on top?). I decided to get systematic about it. When I ran Norton's HardLook, all it said was, "Yecch!" I started windowing my files, TYPEing and DELing like mad. I ran CHKDSK *.* and it found 233 lost clusters and a black hole. Finally, I felt I had to start afresh. I created four new subdirectories, copied *.EXT of what I knew to be good into them and sent the remainder into a new subdirectory: C:\LOOK\HERE\WHEN\YOU\CAN'T\FIND\IT- \ANYWHERE\ELSE. Even with another '\,' an eight-character filename, a '.' and a three-character extension, I had two blanks to spare for DOS's limit of sixty-three characters. No problem. Of course, in the process I accidently DELeted my Lotus drivers, my MultiMate dictionary and my 1986 income taxes. In frustration, I shut my machine off and decided to take a walk to clear my head. And it worked. After a few minutes, I remembered where I saved that missing file... ON MY RAM DISK! ======================================================