SLO BYTES PC USER'S GROUP NEWSLETTER MARCH, 1989 What's New Last month French Morgan presented Check-It, a diagnostics tool for the PC. Included was a handout showing screen shots of other programs similar in nature, such as Norton Utilities, PC Tools Delux 5.0, and Core Disk Performance Test. The last two pages showed graphic representations of CheckIt's Control Panel, Interrupt assignments, and speed tests. See accompanying article for details. Next month, well we're still in the planning stage. I have not received a firm commitment from Executive Systems in San Luis Obispo to demonstrate their menuing system HOT. They're pretty sure they will make it, they just haven't chosen the individual in their company to present the software. The new user's meeting will be conducted by either Nils Sedwick or George Campbell. Nils can not commit until 3 days before the meeting due to workload. I guess this boils down to the fact, either you are going to see George and I performing one or both sessions or you won't see us at all. Don't forget the BASIC language SIG which meets in Fisher Hall 465. We will do our best to have a PC available at that meeting. No overhead projection system but the standard monochrome monitor will be used. If you have a spare pair of binoculars bring 'em along. BITS N' BYTES If you still have an old IBM PC-1 sitting around your house why not upgrade the BIOS so you can increase your memory to 640K and add a hard disk. I came across an ad in Computer Shopper for new upgrade ROM chips, Part #MK36C35N-4, Program #1501476, IBM 81-83 for $40. They're being offered by Mentor Electronics, Inc., 7560 Tyler Blvd. #E, Mentor, OH 44060, telephone 216-951-1884. Here's another good price on external drive enclosures. The particular one featured includes room for 2 half height 5.25" or 3.5" floppy drives. There is also room for a SCSI controller and boxes come with fan and 50W power supplies. $79 seems like a reasonable price to me. The company is located in San Jose. Call Hardtimes @ 408-452-1929. Many thanks to those of you who have been contributing articles to the newsletter, both past and present. This includes Bill Roch, Mark Heyman, Gus Thomasson, Jim Borland, French Morgan, George Campbell, and probably a few others I don't recall. I would encourage others to submit articles. Anything involving computers; it doesn't have to be technical in nature. As one person suggested why not an article on a club member and how they use their computer in business. The personal touch. I have a list of error codes that may occasionally appear on your screen when trouble is brewing within your computer. Unfortunately I do not have these on disk. If someone would volunteer to type this material into their wordprocessor then everyone in the club could benefit. It looks like between one and two hours of typing. While I'm on the subject of typing. I have several articles (15-20) from other user group newsletters that I need typed for use in our newsletter at a later date. Any volunteers? Would save the overworked and underpaid editor some time. If you have a particular shareware software program you would like to see in the library let us know. We now have access to just about anything imaginable through Starlink. We will review all requests and either add the software to the library or suggest an alternative which is already present. Make sure to check out the table of contents in the library blue binders. Although I will not add any disks to the library after the newsletter has been mailed, I may include updates to present programs and demos not mentioned in the newsletter. Several months ago an individual asked me to help him find schematics for an NEC monochrome monitor. Although I was promised the manual by NEC at Comdex I had given up until yesterday (4.5 months later) when it arrived in the mail. Only one problem! I no longer have his name. He is not a club member but has contacted several computer people in the area about obtaining the manual. If someone knows his name please contact me (Bob Ward) ASAP. We have just purchased 720K 3.5" disks for sale at the meeting. These are Sony "Bulk" diskettes. Price $1.45 each. Executive Systems, author of XTree Pro will demonstrate their menuing system, HOT (tentative) 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. Altering 3.5" 720K floppies to 1.44MB format By Mark Heyman, SLO BYTES PCUG Most 3.5" floppies manufactured today are tested only up to their rated capacity, if at all. On the manufacturing floor, I believe both types have the identical capacity and the only difference is in the packaging and perhaps to some degree, the final testing. I had a difficult time locating the High Density (HD) type. When I did, I was surprised to find that the cost was double to triple that of 720K discs. If you cut a notch ( I use a soldering iron with a plastic cutting tip) across from the write-protect tab (see sketch), the drive will think it is a HD disc and format it accordingly. I have used about 70 discs in this manner without media failure. You should check your operating system, disc drive and controller to insure that the 1.44MB format can be implemented. DOS HELP! by Bill Roch, SLO BYTES PCUG Why would anyone in his right mind spend money for a DOS HELP program when there are a jillion of them in Shareware libraries around the country. The reason is that the commercial program does a better job, is easier and faster to use and is more inclusive. There are several shareware HELP programs on the market. TUTOR is fine for learning, while HELP and PCHELP are too simplistic - somebody copied a DOS manual and wrapped a display program around it. When you need to know a command you need it NOW. That's what DOS HELP! is best at. First of all DOS HELP! can be run as a memory resident on-line program which means that you have a manual and quick reference guide any time you want it just with the tap of a hot key (the hot key may be changed). Alt-H brings up the main menu so you can select from DOS Commands, Command Groups, or Summaries; Glossary, Subject Index, Introduction to DOS, Beginners Command Subset, How to use DOS HELP! and Exit. At this point you can thumb your way through the various menus until you find what you want. If you know the command you want just enter the name of the command followed by a ALT-L such as 'copy Alt-L' and information about the COPY Command is displayed. Each page of the DOS HELP! on-line manual contains one or more selectable topics. The second selectable topic under COPY is RAM DISK. Hit the return and the ram disk information comes up with the first topic being DEVISE. Continuing on you get The ANSI SYS Driver, then ANSI Escape Sequences, CONFIG.SYS, boot disk, AUTOEXEC.BAT, batch file, internal commands, command search path then it loops back to batch file. I don't think they missed anything - it includes nearly three hundred screens of commands covering up through DOS 3.3, and they even included EDLIN and DEBUG. Syntax examples are included for each command together with explanations, hints and comments. The comment about EDLIN is "Get yourself a good text editor ... Life is too short." Obviously the folks that put DOS HELP! together did something right because it won Best On-line Tutorial of the year (1985 and 1986) by the Computer Press Association. DOS HELP! is a product of Flambeaux Software and is available from Elliam Associates, P.O. Box 2664, Atascadero, CA 93423, (805) 466-8440. The price is $34.95. The EXEC-PC BBS system By George Campbell, SLO BYTES PCUG EXEC-PC is another commercial BBS, along the lines of GEnie or CompuServe, but with a difference. It's a lot cheaper. They charge $5/month as a flat fee for access. That fee entitles you to 8 hours per week of access time on the system. That's plenty for most purposes. Here's the drawback....their access number is long-distance. The best way to access the system is through STARLINK. For more information on Starlink, see the file STARLINK.ARC on this BBS. Why should you care? Here are a few reasons: 3+ gigabytes of files for downloading. The complete PC-SIG library on-line for downloading. Conferences and message areas. They advertise over 70,000 files available. Excellent text search routine for finding files. YMODEM, ZMODEM, etc for batch downloading. Automatic logoff after downloading option. Excellent support and new files daily. It's an exciting service, and I may just change completely over to it. You can sign up on line by calling their normal number: 414-964-5160 They have about 120 lines, so no problem getting on. The first time you call, you can download some files, but signing up gets you access to all their files and other services. Oh yeah, they insist on 8,N,1, which isn't surprising. Access up to 9600 baud. Give 'em a call! A Bit of History The following is a letter initiating the beginning of SLO BYTES PCUG: December 2, 1983 Dear Fellow Computer bug: You were on a list I compiled regarding the group purchases of IBM personal computers. You should have heard from Rick Racouillat regarding our bid response by now. I am now contacting you to see if you would like to join a local personal computer club. I have talked to some of you about sharing informtion and gaining future discount prices as a result of membership in such a club. If you are interested, I have arranged a first meeting scheduled as follows: Date:Thursday, December 8, 1983 Time:5:00 until 6:00 p.m. Place:SLO County Employees Association Office 2nd Floor, 1009 Morro Street Downtown San Luis Obispo I hope you can come - but if not and you're still interested, please leave a message for me at my home - 466-2834 Sincerely, s/n Tom O'Malley Modem Interrupts Many users find difficulty in installing an internal modem in their computer because of the corresponding conflicts that may arise while using several serial ports and interrupts. Mark Heyman, SLO BYTES member, offers the following configuration for your modem while using MS DOS: SERIAL PORT INTERRUPT COM1 IRQ4 COM3 IRQ4 COM2 IRQ3 COM4 IRQ3 You may have to change jumpers on your serial ports to make room for the COM port used by your internal modem. TO ZIP or UNZIP I Guess We'll Do Both! It seems that most bulletin boards and user groups are accepting Phil Katz new PKZIP and PKUNZIP with open arms. This is his old PKARC program made over due to SEAWARE's legal action against him under the "look and feel" concept. He was forced to start over and create a completely new product. In reality this might have been fortunate for both him and those who use his product. With new algorithms the files can even be "squeezed" tighter than with the old PKARC. And you have a choice of 4 compression methods, all user defined. By using compression method 4 we can squeeze another 10 - 15 percent out of our hard disk storage space. By the time you receive this newsletter all files on the club bulletin board will probably have the extension .ZIP. PKZIP and PKUNZIP were added to our library as disk #308, updated as of 3/12/89. It also appears on the bulletin board as PK092.EXE. The BBS file decompresses automatically when typed. Luckily George has a program that will automatically change .ARC to .ZIP files, place them in the respective subdirectories and update the BBS software. The library is not as fortunate. To change all our .ARC files to .ZIP would be a monumental task as both the README statements and LOCATOR disk would have to be edited to reflect the change. Nothing automatic about this. We will though, starting with disks added to the library this month, be "Zipping" the files when necessary rather than "Arcing" them. You say, "great, they're changing horses in midstream, and now I have to learn new commands all over again." Not true! The basic commands for Zipping or Unzipping a file are the same or very similar to Arcing or Unarcing. When in doubt just type PKZIP or PKUNZIP and all the options will appear before your eyes. Thanks to the author of PKZIP for making everything so simple. Please also note when you look at the "switches" there is a small paragraph at the bottom about shareware and registration. As with all disks in the library that have an .ARC file, those disks with a .ZIP will also have PKUNZIP and the file GO.COM to explain how to unsqueeze these files. The hard disk FILE LOCATOR disk will not change to .ZIP format in the near future and this would involve changing many batch files on my hard disk, all of which "do something" to create the locator "monster file." OPTune - Hard Disk Optimizer Review of OPTune (Gazelle Systems) By Mark Heyman, SLO BYTES PCUG OPTune is another Norton Utilities, PC Tools, Disk Optimizer, kind of software maintenance package that seems to work as well as the others. The manual is well written and things work as stated. I presently use the optimizer within PC Tools and found little difference in speed or ease of use. OPTune allows the testing of the inter-leave factor, PC Tools 5.0 does not. I use a Miniscribe 44MB disc with a 1:1 interleave configuration; the OPTune program reported the same. The Interleave Factor refers to how the sectors are arranged during the formatting process. In my case, the second sector starts one sector's width after the start of sector one. In a 3:1 situation, the second sector starts three times the width of one sector after the start of sector one. I have looked at four AT clones and all have had interleave factors of 1:1. In the OPTune program there is a reference to "Delay Time" as it relates to the interleave factor. The program stated that the best interleave for my system is 1:1 and rated my "delay time" at 58 at a 1:1 ratio. I found it ODD that the "delay time" remained constant (58) while the program continued processing other interleave scenarios (2:1......10:1)........... The book defines "Delay Time" as the number of clock ticks it takes to complete the interleave test (approximately 1/145 of a second). OPTune does the standard in the defragmentation, re-magnetization, lost cluster and optimization. It is difficult to judge speed as you would need two hard disks equally fragmented which is beyond the scope of this review. OPTune Gazelle 42 N. University Ave., Suite 10 Provo, UT. 84601 $99.95 On a much different subject.... ......Maintenance costs for computer systems in smoking-permitted environments are 20-30% higher that those in non-smoking environments. So - NEVER smoke in the same room where your computer is. One particle of cigarette smoke can destroy data. Also, smoke carries a small electric charge, which can harm most of the components of your system. (Quill Newsletter Dec. '88) TREASURERS REPORT Teri Sorgatz, treasurer, has reported the following expenses and income as of March 7, 1989: Beginning Balance:$2061.75 Expenses: Newsletter:$121.82 Handouts:$25.03 Postage:$75.00 Hardware:$923.50 Total Expenses:$1145.35 Income:$382.50 Balance:$1298.90 NEWS FROM OUR LIBRARY The following disks have been added to our library during the month of March: #312^ - Utilities - MOTHER.ZIP a friendly DOS shell, ARCMASTER.ZIP upgrade from #258, and LOCKOUT.ZIP, password your computer! #313^ - Inventory programs - QUICKLST.ZIP & RHOASYS.ZIP, home and office. #314^ - Children's Educational Games: KIDMAGIC, Children's Wordprocessor, ABC Fun Keys, Amanda's Letter Lotto, and Mathshop. Most require color graphics. #315^-#316^ - BOYAN, telecommunications package. Good! ^ these disks may be purchased at the meeting for $.90 each. Updates: #88 LIST64A.ARC #202 Add Amy's First Primer - childrens educational #230 Joke Disk - add LOTUSGAG.ARC #258 ArcMaster updated to V4.02. Moved to #312. #289-291 PC-Write 3.02 Fixes minor bugs. #298 Added more Leisure Suit Larry hints #308 PKZIP V. 0.92 Fixes bugs with a couple inhancements added. Added 2ZIP. Converts .ARC & .ZOO to .ZIP automatically. #311 BASSTOUR V 2.5 Now supports CGA, Herc, and EGA. Excellent game! Qmodem 4.0 is on our BBS but will not be undated to the library for one more month. Demo Disks: #017 Managing Your Money V 4.0 (update) Meca #097 Pagemaker (1.2 Meg Disk) Aldus #098 DemoSTat V 2.1 Lars Perner #099 Exact Technical Support Software #100 Backit & QDOS II Gazelle Systems #101 CompuFile Global Software Systems #102 Javelin Plus Javelin Software #103 PC-Globe+ Comwell Systems, Inc. #104 PC-Areacode Left Coast Software #105 Exchequer Left Coast Software #106 PDQHelp Strategic Financial Planning Systems #107 PDQPlus Leverage Software #108 PC Dictionary-10 Edicom Systems #109 Terrific! KD Systems #110 A-B QB/Pro MicroHelp #111 A-B Gallery on Exhibit Hewlett-Packard #112 On Screen Reference Books Geyser Informatics #113 A-B SlideWrite Plus Advanced Graphics Software #114 Apex Database Library Demo Apex Software Corp. #115 3Dgen MIS Software Development Look for a new menuing system on the library computers. Written by Dr. Dos, alias George Campbell, it's a fast, efficient, and to the point. This is no longer a batch file, but a compiled BASIC program. BASIC SIG Report By George Tway Eight people showed up for the first BASIC users group meeting. Experience ranged from "What is BASIC" to "Expert". As this was the first class in the series only the fundimentals were covered, (printing, accepting keyboard input and saving data to a disk file. For the next meeting I hope to cover subroutines and how to create code that is easy to maintain. Perhaps we may even use a BASIC compiler. The BASIC Language SIG meeting starts at 1:30 is located in Fisher Hall 465. Did You Get What You Paid For? or Why Isn't My Computer Working Anymore?) A software review of Check-It by French Morgan, SLO BYTES PCUG Have you ever wondered why you can't get a hardware add-in, like a modem to work? Why can't your computer communicate with the modem or hardware device you just added? Maybe it is just a conflict in communication lines. How to find it? Several retail utility software packages like Norton's Advanced SI, PC Tools Deluxe SYSTEM INFORMATION, Core International's CORETEST, Gibson Research's SPINRITE, Prime Solution's DISK TECHNICIAN and Storage Dimension's SPEEDSTOR offer various utilities for evaluating computer systems. Most established computer companies like IBM, Compaq, and AST Research offer system diagnostic utilities. And there are dozens of public domain and shareware utilities that also preform diagnostic routines, but most give just basic reports of hardware information. If you can collect the good few, free or otherwise, you still need to know which package to use and when. Check-It offers a full range of diagnostic tools and system reporting software. The manual is well put together for the novice or experienced user. But the best feature of Check-It is its ALL-IN-ONE package. What Check-It has that most of the above don't, is a complete user-friendly interface that covers the majority of necessary utilities for system maintenance and diagnosis. Want to learn about your system and computers in general? Both Check-It and the accompanying manual offer more than enough to satisfy most users. The weakest point? Probably the method of (or lack of to be more accurate) keeping a copy of various reports, is the worst part of Check-It. The only method of keeping a report is to use PRINT SCREEN on the keyboard. Not a very clean way of keeping a history of reports. Since Check-It can tolerate a small TSR or memory resident program like Sidekick, it is easy to capture the screen report to disk file for documentation and future reference. But a better method for capturing report information should have been included as part of the program. Good reports are created on-screen and information agrees with other utilities used for comparison. While the package is priced a little high ($70 to $100, depending where you shop and who you know), it offers fairly complete diagnostics in a single package. While I use many of the mentioned utilities for various reasons, what I like best about Check-It are its reports. Nice and clean, and easy to read. A good software package for all PC users. TouchStone Software 909 Electric Ave., Suite 207 Seal Beach, CA. 90740 Professor DOS Professor DOS By Gus Thomasson, SLO BYTES PCUG Did Uncle Bob actually ask me to review a guide to DOS. Isn't that a little like asking the fox to guard the chickens? I guess the guy is seriously overworked. He is a true DOS MASTER, the only guy I know that needs a water cooled keyboard and buffer to prevent meltdown when he types. In this light, I suspect he would not be an ideal candidate to take a DOS lesson from Professor DOS. Those who really know and use DOS have no need for such mundane utilities as XTree-Pro or Sidekick. After all DOS does it all, for those who know. So how do you find out what there is to know about DOS capabilities without suffering the slings and arrows and humiliations of sitting at the feet of a true DOS master? Come closer, Grasshopper, while I whisper the secret answer, Professor DOS! I evaluate the quality of a software package by three criteria. The first is the ease of installation. This relates to the second, the documentation necessary to install the thing. If the installation is not too complicated, it's not, then that part of the documentation is easily readable and to the point... unlike this article! Essentially you create a subdirectory on your hard disk copy the three disks into it and then type "Instruct" to start the program. Its here where a program shines with the glow of a well tuned machine or putters along like a mistuned and bug ridden old car. The final criteria is how to end the thing. I avoid programs that grab my system and won't let go with out killing the whole thing. Control Q terminates Professor DOS with ease. Professor DOS is, in a word, wonderful. It is intuitive enough to quickly evaluate your system and know if it should be in color or monochrome, then adjust both the color and speed of the screens. Menu system or index driven, take your choice. By menu driven I mean it offers selections from drop down menus which may be selected by keyboard or mouse. The lessons follow the well known Gagne' formula of excellent lesson design. They gain your attention with flashy graphics, then inform you of the objective, which is to learn DOS of course. Selections are automatically related to relevant and related DOS material. Professor DOS presents the material in a stimulating manner and provides structure and guidance for the lessons. It then actually checks for understanding by eliciting responses from the student, gives feed back on your learning while assessing your performance. Retention and usability are reinforced by drill and practice. Its slick. I understand the program even calls your mother if the lessons are not completed in a timely manner. Packaged with Professor DOS is SmartGuide for DOS, an on-line reference guide for any DOS command. It includes helpful ideas on such topics as menuing systems, and the creation logical structures for your hard disk. For uncle Bob and the likes, Professor DOS has an index which allows the expert user to access DOS information directly. It has a file on all DOS commands internal and external as well as the ever popular Batch file lessons. All this information requires slightly less than a megabyte of your hard disk or for those of you who waste your money on food and clothing rather than computers and thus have no harddisk, yes it will run on floppys. By the way, you do read Gagne' don't you? Professor Dos w/ SmartGuide $59.95 Individual Software Inc. 125 Shoreway Road, #3000 San Carlos, CA. 94070 415-595-8855 For Sale Amdek 12" Monochrome monitor & card. $85.00 Xerox 4020 Color ink jet printer $750.00 Contact Art Kennedy in Morro Bay at 772-1914 Higher Prices for 3.5" Disks ??? by Bob Ward, SLO BYTES PCUG Look for an increase of Japanese 3.5" floppy disks - and soon. As reported in the March 20th issue of Microtimes, the U.S. Commerce Department has charged Sony, Hitachi/Maxell, Fugi, and others of dumping 3.5" floppy disks on the American market. The original complaint was levied by Verbatem who now makes their 3.5" disks in Mexico. The companies charged have been required to post bonds equal to the amount of money they are undercharging. The Commerce Department may levy a 30 - 50% tariff within the next couple months. Japanese manufacturers have had strong U.S. sales especially in the bulk diskette market. Looks like floppy disks might go the route of memory chips, but not to the same extent. Do look for higher prices in the future though.