SLO BYTES PC USER'S GROUP Newsletter - January, 1989 =============================================================================== WHAT'S NEW By Bob Ward The last meeting started out at 1:30 with our trusted president, George Campbell giving the audience a brief exposure to BASIC programming, its good points and not-so-good points.... and should most computer users really get into programming. He then fielded all those questions about other computer related problems we seem to generate from month to month. After a short intermission, your's truly demonstrated two computer packages; one shareware and one commercial. First was the newest creation and upgrade by Buttonware, PC FILE: dB. This program is compatible with dBASE III+ and contains other enhancements. For example PC FILE: dB now supports unlimited records, 1 billion to be exact, an easier labelling program and enhancements which may be used with an EGA monitor. It is very easy to convert documents from PCFILE + and since most of the screens are similar to the older version, the learning curve for a user of the earlier versions is short. Documentation is on disk and is 148 pages in length. It appears complete except for the exclusion of the table of contents and index. Registration is $89.95. The second program I demonstrated was Wordlink by M/H Group. This program converts documents from one word processing format to another. Formats supported include the latest versions of MultiMate, DisplayWrite I-IV, WordPerfect, MicroSoft Word, Office Writer, WordStar, PFS:Professional Write, and ASCII. The program can be run virtually without looking and the documentation as the menu's are complete and easy to understand. I feel the program is a bit overpriced at $149.00 but may be indispensable for individuals running a wordprocessing service. Next month George Campbell will demonstrate Dr. Halo III. He has used this program several times in the past to set up his demonstration screens on different topics. It creates LARGE letters on screen and has other graphing capabilities which you will see. This is a commercial program and comes packaged with many mouse systems. It is relatively inexpensive when purchased without the mouse. Oh yes, we're not going to work him into the ground. I will be taking the early meeting. My topic of demonstration will be EDLIN. No it is not in the league of a desk top publishing package, but everyone gets it with DOS and it does have some features worth discussion. FOR THE NEW USER by Rich Kendrick, Modesto PCUG When I buy a new television or piece of stereo equipment (or something similar), I get it home and immediately rip open the box, toss the instructions aside, and hook it up. Usually, I'm successful at using it on the first try. Once I have satisfied the initial urge to play with my new toy, I then sit back and study (or at least glance at) the manual. For most of us, the average piece of electronic equipment is pretty straight-forward. The situation is entirely different for the personal computer. It's not that it is so much more difficult to use, but it's the lack of prior experience and knowledge that hampers us. On top of that, there's just more to know about a PC than there is even considering the most complex stereo receiver (or whatever). So what happens? Well, you bring it home and rip open the box, tossing the manuals (yes, I said manuals) aside, and you are immediately confronted with your first problem... how to hook up all the cables. Here comes your first frustrating lesson. You are about to find out that the manuals are written by engineers for engineers. (Happily, this has improved a little in the last couple of years.) So, you finally get it hooked up and turn it on and you get your second lesson in frustration... you can't make it do anything. Back to the manuals! A couple of hours later you realized that there is something called DOS they keep referring to, so you finally get the right disk in the right drive and the PC shows some signs of life. By now it's dinner time and you're wondering just what you've gotten into. After dinner, you figure maybe you'd better read the Disk Operating System manual since that seems to be what this beast feeds on. Lesson number three in frustration... the manual is full of information, but there seems to be no beginning, no introduction for the novice, just lots of very advanced information. Now, you figure that you really bought it to do word processing (and so forth) so maybe you should move onto that instead. So you pull out the word processing software you bought with the machine and look at the manual. Well, thank goodness, it's a little clearer than the ones that came with the machine. Within just two hours you've managed to get the word processor loaded and you've even typed a few lines. Of course, you can't get it edited quite the way you want it to appear, but, hey, it's just the first day! And the printer won't print it intelligibly at all... something to do with a printer configuration file says the manual. It's now 2AM and it's hard to give a damn about such things. It's also hard to exit from the program, so you just turn the whole thing off and head for bed wondering if this whole thing was really a good idea at all. Oh, well, tomorrow is another day! The above is a little exaggerated, but illustrates several points. One that I'm constantly dealing with is expectation. Many new users are not prepared for the complexity of their new toy. Pc's are several orders of magnitude more difficult than any other household gadget you may have. Their use is not particularly intuitive. The information about how to use them is available but requires some digging on the part of the user. To say the least, it requires many hours of reading not just manuals, but books on computer usage. It also requires practice or experimentation at the computer keyboard to develop good facility with its use. In your search for new sources of information, you will probably go back to the computer store where you bought the machine. There you will present your friendly sales person with your list of questions. Here comes your next lesson is frustration... the sales person is a real expert in selling the machine, but not using it. He will be able to answer some of your questions, especially those related to setting up the machine and getting it going. He will be somewhat less helpful about some application program that you bought. In general, after you've had the machine a week or so, you will know more about it that the sales person. (My apologies to those sales people and dealers who are truly power users, and who are really helpful to their customers. I certainly wish all computer dealers were like you. Unfortunately, they are not.) You next stop in your search for computer knowledge will be to join a computer club like ours. Good for you! You eagerly go to the first meeting knowing that you will drink in all this new information and come home ready to make the computer sing. Well, everyone at the meeting is certainly friendly, but they are speaking a foreign language. You hear terms like ASCII and non-document mode, serial ports at 2400 baud, RAM and ROM chips, and all sorts of scary stuff. You begin to think I don't belong here, these folks are all advanced users; I'm in over my head. Hopefully two things occur at this point before you get up and walk out. First, some one mentions that there is a SIG (Special Interest Group) for new users, a group of people helping each other learn how to use their new machines. Secondly, you will look around and notice that there are a few other people looking a little timid and unsure about what's going on. Yes, there are other people just like you feeling just the same way. These are the friends you will make at the new users' SIG meeting when next they meet. When you go the the beginners' SIG, you soon feel quite relaxed. You quickly realize there are lots of people who are at your level and even some who may know less than you do. There's hope! The SIG leader talks about stuff right at your level. He's answering exactly those questions that have plagued you since you first got your machine. It's all becoming clear. There's so much to learn, but it looks like it really is possible to master this stuff. Your next lesson is frustration comes the next time you sit down at the computer. Now how did the SIG leader say to copy all those files from one directory to the other? It was all so clear when he explained it, but now you either get "Bad command for file name" or "0 files copied". What's wrong? Nothing! It's just that anything worth learning takes some effort and practice and study. Becoming a power user doesn't happen over night and it doesn't happen just by going to the SIG meeting once a month. Learning the nuances of operating your machine takes time and experience and study. I want to really stress the need to study the basics of MS-DOS. This is your foundation. You'll learn it by using it. And you'll use it correctly by listening to the SIG leader, taking notes, and reading about all the in's and out's of DOS. DO NOT read the DOS manual that came with the computer. It is a reference manual, it is not to teach you how to use DOS. There are many good books available on how to use DOS. I strongly recommend two books. They are both by Van Wolverton and published by Microsoft Press. The first is called "Running MS-DOS" and the second is "Supercharging MS-DOS". The first is for beginners and takes you up to the intermediate to advanced level. The second is for advanced players who really want the squeeze the last drop of power out their machines. At least get the first book (or an equivalent) and rally read it. Sit down at the computer and actually DO the examples. This locks them into your brain so the next time around they come more naturally. If you do some reading, you'll be amazed at how much more you get out of the next SIG meeting. None of the above is meant to be discouraging. Quite the contrary. We were all beginners once. And we all had the same frustrations and doubts about our ability to deal with this complex new toy on our desks. But with some perseverance and a little help from our friends (in the SIG), we mastered our machines just as you will yours. Our permanent meeting place through June, 1989 is Fisher Hall 286. The library will remain in Fisher 292. Check the billboard in the patio for directions. Our meetings are held on the first Sunday of each month. New user's SIG will start at 1:30 pm with the general meeting starting at 2:30 pm. The library will be available for copying at 12:30 until closing. Come early or stay late and avoid the rush to copy disks. COMMANDS WE LIVE WITH by Lynn L Kauer Saginaw Valley Computer Association It's interesting how we, as humans, progress thru our lifetimes giving and accepting commands. Some of you will remember when your first child was born how exciting it was to see them stand. We began training the child with simple commands such as, "Come on, you can do it, stand up now." Then as they got a little older and they began to crawl and finally take their first steps we continued to issue the encouraging command, "Come to Daddy (Mommy), you can do it, that's it! See, you can walk!" Finally the babbling of the baby sounds began to sound a little more like words and we again issued a command, "Say DaDa, say MaMa, that's it, you can talk!" At last the child is walking (running), talking, and doing all those things we had hoped to see and we again issue the command, "Shut up and sit down!" Why is it that in the beginning all our commands are positive and then when we get what we want they turn towards the negative? I've noticed the DOS books are a lot like that. When you start reading the book there are lines in it such as "This manual is written so as to allow the new user to completely understand the proper usage of the commands in the reference section" and then a few pages later - WHAMMO - it becomes Greek or a mixture thereof. The intent of this article is to offer some degree of understanding to the Greek language used in the DOS reference manual. Consider the simple copy command as it is illustrated in the IBM DOS manual: COPY [[/A][/B][d:][path]filename[.ext][/A][/B][d:][path][filename[.ext]][/A][/B][/V] For some strange reason the writer of the book thought the above command was very simple and easy to understand. I didn't find it that easy when I started to operate these tin lizzies but after a while, and much frustration, a light bulb does come on and what the book is really saying is simple. Let's dissect the command line a bit. COPY is a command word which is easy enough to understand. Notice that it is followed by a space. The [ bracket only acts to enclose the entire command line and serves no purpose toward understanding the syntax except if you will notice there is a ] bracket which follows the [.ext]] toward the end of the command line (13 characters from the right). Think of it as a bracket enclosing an algebraic equation and it will start to make sense. Actually the [ ] brackets serve to separate the real command characters and are not part of the command line at all. The [/A][/B] command characters can be ignored if you choose as they act to serve as option switches. The ( / ) forward slash is the first hint that it is an option switch. These options tell your machine how to treat the files when they are copied. The /A causes the file to be treated as an ASCII (text) file. The /B causes the entire file to be copied. It's simpler to ignore these options as it is unlikely the average user will ever have to use them. The next confusing element is the [d:]. When I first looked at this I thought the writer was telling me to use the D: drive. The only problem was I only had drives A and B. What the [d:] means is (d)rive. It represents any drive you specify from A thru Z. ![path] means the subdirectory name where the file you want to copy exists. If you are copying from a floppy disk without any subdirectories you can ignore the path. The machine automatically assumes the path as the directory you are in. In your case the path would be the root directory of your floppy disk as that is where the file resides. filename[.ext] means the name of the file you want to copy with its extension. For example: You have a file called THISDUMB.TXT. filename represents THISDUMB and [.ext] represents .TXT. Finally the command lines asks where you want to put the new file. Think of command lines asking FROM WHERE (drive) AND FROM WHAT (name of the file) TO DESTINATION (drive) and TO WHAT (name of the file). Up to this point the command line looks like this with the option switches /A /B ignored: As the manual explains it: COPY [d:] [path] filename[.ext] [d:] As you would type it: COPY C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM A: To simplify: [d:] means the same thing as C: [path] means the same thing as \DOS filename[.ext] means the name of the file COMMAND with the extension COM. { COMMAND.COM } And finally [d:] as it is used at the end of the command line means the destination drive such as A: . If you were going to copy the file from one subdirectory (DOS in our example) to another subdirectory we will call IMA you would have to specify the [path] so the machine would know where to put it. Otherwise you would be telling it to copy itself on top of itself and that doesn't make any sense so the machine will give you a message FILE CANNOT BE COPIED ONTO ITSELF DUMMY. (Sometimes DUMMY is implied.) In the manual the command line instructs the user to specify the filename with the extension to the destination drive or subdirectory. Unless you wish to rename the file you can ignore this step. To conclude let's look at the command line whereby we copy the file COMMAND.COM from the DOS subdirectory to another subdirectory we have called IMA. It would look like this: COPY C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM C:\IMA If you wished to copy the file to ROOT DIRECTORY of the A drive it would look like this: COPY C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM A:\ In this case the \ following the A: signifies the root directory of drive A. There is one option I would like to discuss in a little greater detail. You will notice in the DOS manual there was a [/V] option. What this option tell the machine to do is to verify that the file is copied correctly. It is a good habit to get into to use this option. The correct syntax for use of this option would be: COPY C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM A:\ /V Now for one last command. SHUT UP, SIT DOWN, AND PRACTICE! CHOOSING A LAPTOP Dana B. Snow Utah Blue Chips Newsletter, August, 1988 When selecting a laptop, just like any other computer, the primary consideration must be the programs you intend to run on it. Most prospective purchasers quickly define their primary needs, then entangle their decision with the applications they "might" want to run. A few benighted souls confuse themselves even further by worrying about total compatibility in the year 2000. These individuals should invest heavily in desktop units and a good hand-truck. There are only three reasons for purchasing a laptop computer. They are, having more money than you know what to do with, a burning desire to impress your friends or a practical need for an easily transported computer. I am only prepared to address the latter issue. The single most important criterion is whether or not you want the ultimate in portability, battery powered operation. The use of batteries places constraints on the type of display and imposes serious limitations on the use of hard disk drives and modems. Units with illuminated displays, hard drives and modems pay a penalty in the battery weight required to support them for any reasonable period. Most "loaded" units can achieve, at best, around two hours of operation before recharging or battery replacement is necessary. Simpler units, on the other hand, can operate for up to five or six hours. The second criterion is functionality, that is, processor speed, memory, disk storage and display/adapter. Virtually any standard PC option is available in a laptop configuration, either internally or as an external attachment. This includes the use of full-sized PC Buss add-in cards, math co-processors, facsimile/modems, LAN adapters, EGA/VGA graphics and a range of drives. Support for external monitors, keyboards, key-pads, and drives are built into many units. Virtually all have internal expansion capability, some PC standard, most proprietary. Proprietary expansion is usually limited to memory and a single modem, LAN or facsimile device. Special attention should be paid to the keyboard and display. If possible, spend some time with a machine before you buy it. Many laptop keyboards are awkward to use. They either fail to support or require convoluted keystrokes to generate the special key combinations needed by some programs. The display's aspect ratio (height vs width), resolution, legibility and supported video attributes such as bold, underline and color (gray scale) will limit the usefulness of some machines for some applications. Eyestrain and confusing or dysfunctional keyboards can be serious hazards to your health and sanity. The third criterion is weight and size. Question: When is a laptop not a lap- top? Answer: When you can't keep it on your lap or your leg falls asleep. In many respects weight and size should be the second consideration. Even the 6.4 pound Toshiba T-1000 becomes a noticeable burden in an airport concourse, an 18 pound unit will qualify you for a leading role in a horror movie. I suggest, pun intended, that prospective purchasers weigh this aspect carefully. How do you plan to use your laptop? If your primary justification is the journey from office to home, you'll be better off putting your money into two desktop units. The price of portability can be double that of an equivalent desktop unit. Line powered units will meet your need for computing power at summer homes, hotel rooms, regional offices or customer sites. The unfettered freedom of battery powered units is great for airplane trips, luncheon meetings, ad hoc sales presentations or an afternoon in the park. How much power do you really need? I do not ask this question lightly. My desktop machine is a '386 with VGA graphics, 49MB drive and oodles of memory. My laptop offers little more functionality than the original two-drive IBM PC with a monochrome monitor and 512K. I love it, it does everything I want to do on the road and weighs less than 7 pounds, including the internal modem and case. A battery operating life of 3 to 4 hours, serial, parallel, external drive and CGA/Video monitor ports make it a viable "only machine" option for many users. In this case and for my purposes, less is more. Price, within limits, should be your last consideration. Laptops are available from local dealers and through mail-order houses. You must decide how much local service and support you are willing to pay for. Look for bundled specials or accessory "discount with purchase" offers as accessory costs can approach that of the basic laptop. Shop carefully, for you and your laptop, if well matched, will spend many happy hours together. Think twice about the manufacturers options, third-party manufacturers can often deliver the same performance for a fraction of the price. The range of third-party options is astounding and grows every day. These include memory upgrades, 12 Volt Auto Adapters, facsimile, modems, hard-drives, external drives, printers (small, battery powered) and cases to keep everything together and organized. An excellent source of information on laptops and accessories is the "Portable Computer Review", a quarterly publication from IDG Communications. Look also for buyers guides and reviews in the mainstream magazines such as PC and PC World. Avoid books on the subject, the industry is changing too fast for any book to be current. Industry "experts" predict that laptops will comprise twenty to fifty percent of the PC market over the next few years. Purchase for today, tomorrow will bring ever lighter and powerful machines. NEWS FROM OUR LIBRARY The following disks have been added to the library for the month of January, 1989: #298 Games, Games and more Games - Monopoly v 6.0, Keno, and Dr. Sleeptite and the Nightmare Factory. All require CGA or better. + the solutions to Leisure Suit Larry Version 2! #299 Two application programs: Surveyor - a program for surveyors and Purchase Order System. #300 SLED - Slick Little Editor, and City Desk, another editor with a little more bells and whistles. UPDATES #234 - BibleQ, the Bible Trivia game COMPUTERUS CONFUSICUS Patrick J. Smith Utah Blue Chips Newsletter, November, 1988 You're probably aware that the microcomputer industry has developed its own technical terminology as a way of distinguishing the experts from the typical ignoramuses. Doctors and lawyers do the same thing. They attempt to shift a common mundane conversation to a level so complicated that you can't get along without their expertise. Your latissimus dorsi has an inflamed prima facia habeas corpus. Likewise, in the PC industry, if you want to talk intelligently about PC's, you have to have a firm grasp on the terminology. As opposed to Latin, the PC industry loves numbers and acronyms. "My IBM 286 has 1.2K RAM, 40 meg hard disk, 360k floppies, 20 Mhz CPU, 2400B modem, and an EGA. Another sign of an expert is that he doesn't call his PC a PC. He calls it his machine, somehow endowing it with more power and features than everybody else's, which are just toys. A long, long time ago (about three or four years), if someone talked to us in microcomputer lingo, or computerese, we were either bored or impressed (or both), but we almost never had the slightest idea what they were talking about and we weren't ashamed or embarrassed to say so. We might have walked by a group of technical types when one of them was telling the punch-line of a joke: "... and then he said, 'that wasn't a duck, that was an IBM 286!'" --and everybody except us roared with laughter. But, the good thing about several years ago was that most people unfamiliar with computers never led anyone to believe otherwise. A typical dialogue went like this: I just bought a new personal computer. Oh, really? An IBM? Of course, what else? Is it pretty powerful? Oh yeah; it's got an 8088 chip running at 4.77 megahertz with 256k on the motherboard and CGA color graphics. Uh, I don't know much about computers, but one of these days, I've got to learn how to use one of those things. But nowadays, PC's are more universally accepted not only as the domain of the technical and nerd types, but also as an important tool for the manager and the executive. Nobody would disagree with this assessment. However, many of us still don't know anything about PC's. The difference now is that instead of admitting that we're PC illiterate, and risking embarrassment by being ignorant about a now-common business tool, we try to fake it. That's right. We listen, and nod, and go along with conversations about PC's without having the slightest idea of what they're talking about. The dialogue now goes like this: I just bought a new PC. Oh, really? What kind? A LugWeight ProDesk Turbo XLGT WYSIWYG. I've heard those are pretty powerful machines. Hey, it's a screamer. It's a '386 with VGA, running at 30 Megahertz and I've got a 160 Meg. drive and 1.44 Meg. floppies. I've been thinking of getting one of those myself. In both cases, we had no idea what the other guy was talking about. But nowadays we'll lose face if we let on that we don't know a 40 Meg. drive from a 300-yard drive on the par 5. Some people will go one step further. They'll initiate the conversation, trying to use all of the PC lingo on others even though they don't even know what they're talking about. They just hope the other guy doesn't know either. I'm thinking of buying a PC. What kind? Hey, it's got the 8088286386 chip running at at least 100 Megabucks with the EGA, VGA, PGA, and NBA, 40 MAG SeaWorld, and a 20 MAG floppy drive. To take this conversation one step further into the lunacy zone, you just need to get two people talking, neither of whom knows what he's talking about, but both go along as though what they're saying is mutually familiar. This soon becomes a spectator sport at its best. NEW MEMBERS The following individuals joined the ranks of SLO BYTE members in the month of January, 1989: Steve Dison 528-1273 Alison Henry Ron Ingalls 481-7707 Michael Marks 434-2220 David Miller 489-1883 Tim Pesce Winn Schey 544-5562 Chang Se Kim 541-5418 EXPIRED MEMBERSHIP If you wish to maintain your membership status, your renewal must be paid by February 1st. Please send checks to Bob Ward, Secretary or Teri Sorgatz, treasurer. Make checks payable to SLO BYTES Corki Henderson Arthur Kennedy Britt Morris Fred Steele, Jr. F. Zinger Prodigy On-Line Service Prodigy, the new joint venture into on-line services by IBM and Sears is now available. A problem with the local telephone number in Santa Barbara has forced an 800 number into service, 800 825-1446. This will make the service available to San Luis Obispo users without a toll charge. The major advantage to Prodigy is a fixed monthly cost of $9.75. This is in contrast to subscription and per minute charges (ranging from .08 to .60 a minute) on other services. This bargain comes at the expense of advertisements placed in a window across the lower portion of the screen. You are constantly given the option to for more information about the given product. They have made it very easy to order many of these advertised products and services. Many of these ads offer information by moving the cursor to a box marked; MORE INFORMATION. After confirmation of you name and address, a brochure is in the mail. The system is simple to install and use. There is an 800 number for help. The installation program will "look" at your system and report back what it has found. It will list memory, monitor, printer and modem type. It will alert you to possible problems caused by incompatible hardware. It uses 512k on memory(!) and requires EGA or VGA for color. CGA support is available, but will appear in monochrome. The Hercules' graphic standard is supported. I would classify Prodigy more like TV via modem than on-line services in the tradition of Compuserv or Genie. The screen is very attractive and colorful. It is always in a large type face mode. (I found it annoying to read large amounts of text and would have preferred the standard text mode for this task.) There are several ways to move around the many areas offered, not unlike a remote control for the TV. It is easy to pop-up an index, cursor to a new subject and go! Like TV, news headlines and short articles are available. The weather of the nation or many regions are displayed quite attractively. Sports features, stats, odds and standings can be viewed. Banking and financial services are also on tap. You can leave messages and there are several SIGs covering a wide range of subjects. Included are PC news, software, wine, cooking, health, advise columns. With many of the special interest areas a reply personal from the author or an expert on the subject, is available. I asked the weather expert a question about droughts. I received an answer the next time I signed on, two hours later! Prodigy has a jump feature that allows you to use a key word to move anywhere in the system. A path command that can be customized to step you to where and what you want to see. Additionally the service offers an index you can page through and select from. This feature offers a great overview of the diverse subjects and offerings of Prodigy. Prodigy has a very extensive shopping system, incorporating the ease of ordering anything before you with a few strokes of the key board. This process is painless and simple, differently designed with the computer phobic in mind. The prices on many items seemed reasonable. There are some real bargains too. A Hayes 2400 baud modem (not a compatible!) for $159.00. Saber is ready to book your flights. Grocery Express will do your shopping and deliver, but only in San Francisco. How-To videos, Bantam books, Chanel perfume, Neiman Marcus, Amana appliances, PC software and products. The list goes on and on. In all Prodigy is colorful, pleasant, very easy to use. It is aimed at those people who have not ventured in the computing via modem before. With this in mind, Prodigy will be a hit for many novice users. In addition, many computer operators that use their computers for only one task and know little about optional software or features will find this service appealing. I must admit the fixed monthly charge is a real plus! Where does that leave the present users of BBS's, on-line service subscribers and power users? Don't turn in you passwords yet. Prodigy limits copying to your printer only and the option is not always available. NO FILES TO DOWNLOAD and you cannot save to disk or send from a stored file. Furthermore you are restricted to the software Prodigy provides. The software takes over the entire system, so forget about SideKick or any other TSR programs you normally run in the background. Also missing are scripts for automatic logon. The chat feature on many other on-line services is not available at this time. Hopefully, the pricing structure will drive down the price of other on-line services. (Dow Jones News Service recently lowered prices for 2400 baud service.) The features that are not available on Prodigy will keep many experienced users away. Prodigy is the stuff you can show your guests, the ones that say, "What can I use a computer for anyway?" They will dazzled by the graphics, the weather maps, the news headlines, banking and the shopping. After all, these are the things they relate to without a computer. The market share Prodigy is after are new users and those households not yet owning a computer. It most likely will be a hit if they can get enough new computer users to sign up and tell their friends. The low monthly fee will make it attractive to anyone with the desire to have news, weather, business and sports information anytime they need it. If you need an electronic mail box, this is a real bargain compared to other on-lines services. Several BBS's have a Prodigy demo available for down loading. I would strongly suggest having look at Prodigy. DRIVPARM= VS. DRIVER.SYS, Clearing CONFIG.SYS Confusion Reagan Andrews, North Texas PCUG From Greater South Bay PC User's Group - July, 1988 This is the first installment in a series of brief articles designed to clear some of the confusion surrounding use of the DOS CONFIG.SYS file. It was prompted by NTPCUG Member Dave McKeen's "A Floppy Tale" article in the May, 1988, issue of the North Texas PC News. According to IBM's PC-DOS 3.3 manual, "A configuration file (CONFIG.SYS) contains a list of commands that set up your system." Actually, using a CONFIG.SYS file has two significant effects. First, it alters existing system defaults established by either IBM or Microsoft as minimums necessary for PC operation. Second and most important when trying to attach a "strange" device to the PC, it allows adding capabilities to DOS so that the PC can "recognize" and operate the new equipment. This area involves use of "installable Device Drivers" via the DEVICE= command. ALTER VS. ADD CREATES UNEXPECTED PROBLEMS Problems arise when DOS expects the user to alter system defaults via a command rather than adding new capabilities. Unfortunately, DOS documentation often fails to warn the PC user of such subtleties. It is similar to the dichotomy between "internal" DOS commands such as DIR, COPY and TYPE, and "external" commands such as FORMAT, DISKCOPY and other DOS utility programs. Dave McKeen's 3.5" floppy drive installation problems pose an excellent example. He began with DOS 3.2 and attempted to add the drive via the installable device DRIVER.SYS in the CONFIG.SYS command, "DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS/d:1." That seems logical enough. What he didn't know, and wasn't documented in the DOS 3.2 manual was that he should have altered existing DOS drive tables via the command "DRIVPARM= /d:1." Documentation for DRIVPARM arrived with MS-DOS 3.3's manual where Microsoft makes the distinction almost clear. Microsoft prefers that DRIVPARM be used with internal floppy disk drives, either A: or B:, and restricting DRIVER.SYS to external drives attached to the PC. IBM never documented the DRIVPARM command although it does work with some PC- DOS 3.2 versions. (There were actually several.) Instead, IBM suggests using the DRIVER.SYS command for both drive situations. DOS 3.2 and 3.3 actually don't need either to read and write to 720Kb 3.5" floppies - just to FORMAT them. HOW THE DOS DOCUMENTATION SAYS TO DO IT Where to go? If you want to attach or add a 3.5" floppy to DOS 3.2, try the DRIVPARM command first. Proper syntax follows: DRIVPARM= /d:number [/c] [/f:factor] [/h:heads][/n][/s:sectors][/t:tracts] Information in square brackets [] is optional. DRIVPARM sets new defaults that match 720Kb 3.5" drives with two (2) heads, 80 tracks (cylinders) and nine (9) sectors per track. You do need to know the drive number here though. MS-DOS 3.3 documentation provides the following information to fill out the DRIVPARM= command for other devices: Physical drive number can range from 0 to 255 with Drive 0 = A, 1 = B, 2 = C, etc. /c: shows that change-line (doorlock) support is required. The PC will be able to know if the drive door is open or closed, and if open, will assume there is no disk in the drive. (IBM's PC-DOS states this is only meaningful for AT-class PCs.) /f: factor specifies the device type. If not set, the default is for a 720Kb, 3.5" disk. Other available types are: 0 = 160/180Kb (SSDD), or 320/360KB (DSDD) disks, i.e., the standard 5.25" floppy disk drive. 1 = 1.2Mb, 5.25" HD floppy disk drive 2 = (default) 720Kb, 3.5" disk 3 = 8" single density disk 4 = 8" double density disk 5 = Hard disk 6 = Tape Drive 7 = 1.44Mb, 3.5" HD floppy disk. /n: specifies a non-removable block device, such as a hard disk, and isn't required for floppy disk installation. /h: heads, /s: sectors and /t: tracks or cylinders are self explanatory. If the PC user doesn't have this information it will not be possible to attach non-standard devices via DRIVPARM. The user may have to play with these values in their version of DOS 3.2. Remember, there are several 3.2 versions and all may not behave the same. DRIVPARM did work with my version of PC-DOS 3.2, however. PC-DOS DOES IT DIFFERENTLY IBM does all this a little differently in PC-DOS 3.3, via DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS installable device driver in the CONFIG.SYS file. In this case the drive is being installed as a logical drive that is really a physical device. Is that confusing enough? But, this apparently strange dichotomy does allow use of DISKCOPY with the new drive. Since you are "adding" a new drive, DOS will assign it a new drive letter even if it is installed as drive B in a two floppy system. You may, or may not, have to change the motherboard system switches to reflect the new, added drive. Command syntax for DRIVER.SYS is identical to that listed for DRIVPARM= above. IBM's PC-DOS 3.3 documentation doesn't list all the device form-factors found in the Microsoft manual, but they probably will work the same. For a 720Kb, 3.5" disk the command would be: DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS /d:2 Again, the default is to the 720Kb 3.5" floppy, and in this case it is being installed as drive C in a two-floppy system with no hard disk. If the user wants to copy to the same disk, this can be accomplished by adding a second, identical command, as below: DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS /d:2 DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS /d:2 This same technique can be used to allow any drive to copy to itself. (Single- drive machines do this automatically.) An example given by IBM is the machine equipped with both a 1.2Mb, HD 5.25" floppy and a 360Kb, DSDD 5.25" floppy drive where the user wants to copy 1.2Mb to 1.2Mb in the A drive. That seems logical enough. DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS /d:0 /t:80 /s:15 /h:2 /c /f:1 Assuming a single-volume hard disk, i.e., "C:," DOS will assign the A drive another drive letter, drive D, and the user can copy from drive A to Drive D using the same physical drive. DOS will issue the appropriate "insert disk in drive...." prompts in the copy process. Syntax can be a problem in CONFIG.SYS files and the commands are no exception. Be ready to try these a number of times before they're "right." THERE'S AN EASIER ROUTE FOR 720KB, 3.5" DRIVES If this all seems a little more than you want to tackle, there's a much easier solution if all you want is to change one of your existing floppy drives for a new, 3.5", 720Kb drive. First you'll need DOS 3.2 or 3.3 if you don't already have it. That'll cost approximately $95. Second, forget all the DRIVPARM= and DEVICE=DRIVER.SYS commands. DOS 3.2 and 3.3 recognize and can read and write to the 720Kb disks once they are formatted. To FORMAT, use one of the public domain or shareware formatting utilities available through most BBSes and Club DOMs. Two very good formatting utilities are Vernon Buerg's QDR.COM, now seen on BBSes as QDR33.ARC, and Jacques Pierson's SDF.COM, also found as SDF.ARC on BBSes. Both are somewhat more thorough than DOS's FORMAT in checking disk media, and both are significantly faster in re-formatting floppy disks. Some PC/AT and AT-clone users may also have to change the CMOS setup file to reflect the new drive characteristics as well. TREASURER'S REPORT Beginning Balance: 1255.45 Expenses: 186.34 Deposit: 396.00 ===================================== Current Balance: 1465.11 as of 01/11/89 World->File Ski Program by D.K. Philbin, SLO BYTES PC USER'S GROUP World->File is, in its own words, a database that gives the skier easy access to an immense wealth of ski and travel information that can be used to plan a ski vacation. After running the program I would have to agree that there is a wealth of ski information within; I'm just not sure most people would find this information useful. The program provides a menu driven environment by which you can select a myriad of options, from the level of skiing difficulty to the available night life. Package details include available air transportation, meal plans, ski rental rates, and more information than you can absorb in one sitting. All this brings me back to my overall impression: is this of any value? Any information that the program provides must be, by its very nature, dated. With air fares changing constantly and new skiing packages offered almost daily, I would want the most up to date information available. This information plus knowledgeable advice and booking services are available to me at no cost through my local travel agent. Why should I pay $14.95 for a service that I can obtain without charge? I may be old style but I feel that if I am going to plan such an elaborate skiing vacation I would first turn to a competent travel agent before I would trust my sanity to a doped bit of silicon. After all if a hitch arises in the vacation (and they always do) who am I going to call, my own modem? If however you wish to impress your friends as to the facilities available in Kitzbuehel or St. Anton (even if you cannot afford to go there yourself) this is the package for you!