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Text File | 1990-09-07 | 13.2 KB | 268 lines

History of changes in SPC ------------------------- SPC 4.6 (Sept 6, 1990) is a minor update, the main point of which is to fix a UART detection bug which prevented the identification of 16450's. The maximum length of an identification string is now increased to 31 characters, eliminating the GAME port readout, which was not reliable for all machine types. SPC 4.5 (August 23, 1990) adds the Modem Response flag for detecting the presence of a modem on the given port. Adds detection of UART to communications section. BIOS data shortened to accommodate the new info on Line 2. Also added 4.77 MHz 80186 benchmark to speed graph. Adds separate boot drive identification under DOS 4, so that BOOT may be distinguished from COMSPEC. CDROM flag is replaced by UNDEF, and the C option is replaced by the E option (Exclude UNDEF from totals). When SPC encounters a drive which returns FFFFh total clusters, it simply reports the drive statistics as read by DOS rather than a CDROM assumption, while marking the drive UNDEF. Fixes certain minor problems connected with Novell network operation. SPC 4.3 (July 14, 1990) fixes a problem encountered while running SPC 4.2 in DOS 4.0 environments in which SHARE is active on a PS/2 Model 70. Runs done under such conditions apparently generate permission denied errors at the point where the NUL device was opened for random access, even though shared mode was specified. Experiments have shown that this problem is not due to DOS 4.0 and SHARE, but appears to be associated with TSRs which may be loaded when SPC is run, or associated with the peculiarities of the Model 70 itself. SPC 4.3 eliminates the use of the NUL device entirely, resulting in a smaller executable and somewhat faster operation. Responding to a problem with Email exchanges, the =Identification commandline option has been added to allow users to put their own names, or other multi-part identifying phrase, on the display output, as a convenient way to employ each redirected display as an identified report. The equals sign tells SPC that everything following it is to be interpreted as an identification string (up to but not including a redirect or pipe symbol). A maximum of 24 characters is available. Line 1 of the main display has been changed to accommodate the identification string. In addition, certain cosmetic changes have been made on the top border of the main display, and on the help screen. A minor problem with truncation of the "No EMS memory" message has been fixed. SPC now reads "No NCP" if there is no coprocessor, instead of reporting blank fields. The format of lines 2 and 3 has been changed: Processor information is now on the graph line, and the speed graph has been shortened to 40 points from 60, while the left half of line 2 is devoted to ROM BIOS information. The ROM BIOS information is shortened to just the model number, bios date, and bus type, if the bios does not support extended information calls. The CPU speed graph is simplified to just four main processor types, to avoid confusion on the meaning of the previously used lower case high speed markers. On the memory line, the Network Type now supports Desqview and DoubleDos detection. Task switching is automatically turned off during certain sections of processing, then turned back on by SPC, if either type of multitasking is detected. This prevents hangs from occurring in DoubleDos environments and prevents SPC interference with file transfers in progress in other active Desqview communications windows. If network type returns a multitasking indicator, SPC does not default to duplicate detection (there is no problem about SUBSTed detection in multitasking environments). Adjustments have been made to improve speed index stability without changing either speed testing time or the basis of index calculation. SPC 4.2 (July 2, 1990) is the first shareware release version of this series, representing a giant step beyond SPC 4.0. This version introduces very fast speed indices for both processor and coprocessor, as well as full keyboard information and readouts on the communications port DTR, RTS, and Carrier Detect lines. It also adds sensitivity to Hercules monitors, Verify and Share status detectors, as well as identification of the type of underlying network in which SPC is run. Most important, however, is that this version solves the old problem of identifying SUBSTed drives by using direct DOS services calls. In addition, SPC 4.2 adds detection of the LASTDRIVE, summary status support for the printer and DOS spooler, and DOS colour preservation support for direct video operation. SPC 4.1a through SPC 4.1m are private debugging versions, not intended for general circulation. SPC 4.0 is a minor update of SPC 3.9, trimming some arrays for disk size and using the continuous line separators indicating a release version, rather than the dashed line separators used in beta versions. SPC 3.9 (April 4, 1990) involves a complete rewrite of the program and uses my most recent version of the buffering function used to display numbers. Cumulative discussion previously used in older documentation(1988) ------------------------------------------------------------------ In versions 3.0 to 3.5, if there is a 'gap' in the drive listing, that is, if no drive is defined for a particular drive letter, and option u was specified, then "Undefined ..." will appear on the screen. SPC 3.7 removes the undefined commandline option, treating gaps in the manner of the preceding paragraph. The data readout on each drive consists of five items: Sector size and cluster size in bytes, and free, allocated and total space in megabytes. This is an improvement over the limited information provided by the Sassco SPACE program. SPC 3.3 writes directly to the screen in monochrome mode where screen output is not redirected, and uses slower TTY-compatible i/o where SPC is redirected to a file or to a port. If a colour monitor is active, SPC will automatically detect it, and will attempt to preserve the colour attributes before SPC is run. Colour runs are, of course, slower than monochrome TTL runs. Screen output is redirectable in colour mode. In door applications, SPC will not normally detect the presence of CTTY redirection implied merely by the presence of the appropriate CONFIG.SYS driver and the statement CTTY drivername in a batch calling file; and so, in default mode, it will write directly to the screen where video is monochrome. A sysop can meet this difficulty either by using the syntax SPC >COMx: or by using the d command-line parameter: SPC D Here, d means 'doors,' not 'direct.' The disadvantage of redirecting to a COM port is that the Sysop will not be able to see the display, even if he/she is using an IBMAUX or GATEWAY driver. This disadvantage is removed by using the d parameter and by avoiding the use of explicit redirection on the command line. I wrote this program mainly because I couldn't find a hardware readout suitable for inclusion in a BBS door. It is hereby declared to be in the public domain. I just ask that users pass it around with the accompanying DOC file. SPC Revisions (cumulative) -------------------------- 1. CD ROM Fix Version 1.1 fixes a bug in 1.0 which caused spurious listings in the event that one of the drives is CD ROM. There is also a limit on the number of clusters which SPC can handle. Experiment shows that the limit is 65,535. The problem here may be that my routine for counting disk clusters is an assembly module which declares the number of clusters to be integer. I do not have the source. Or it may be a DOS limitation. The new Lxy commandline option permits excluding drives which are so large as to cause SPC to return an error condition. Any single drive whose total space exceeds 65,534 clusters (equivalent to about 134 Meg with a 2K cluster size) will return the message "Drive too large ..." The following is a table showing the approximate limits beyond which this message will appear, if the user does not have the L option active: Cluster size: 1024 2048 4096 8192 12288 Limit: 67 Meg 134 268 536 805 2. Totals Line SPC 1.1 marks the introduction of a totals line at the bottom of the display, largely at the suggestion of Rob Campbell, Sysop of CMIX. SPC 2.0 corrects a bug in the totals line. 3. New Output Buffers SPC 2.0 introduced the use of a buffer to hold all output until program manipulation is finished. Such a buffer eliminates the jerkiness of the video display and improves overall performance. Also introduced in 2.0 is a number buffering function. This function places a number in a field of given length with a given number of decimal places. En passant, it pads with zeroes or blanks where necessary, and assures all rounding to the last digit is done according to the scalar 5/4 rule, rather than the vector rule commonly used elsewhere. If a number is zero, a dash is placed in the units position. I would like to thank Kevin Speicher for testing a logic bug in the number buffering function. 4. EMS/EEMS (LIM) SPC 2.0B corrects a bug in the LIM readout, reported by Kevin Speicher. The ADVBAS* module that generates the readout provides its information in pages, 16k per page in size. The readout is now set to pages*16384/1000, consistent with the byte versus block convention outlined above. 5. Undefined Drives SPC 3.0 adds a last drive detector that is sophisticated enough to allow SPC to identify undefined drives within the total drive report. Previous versions of SPC, as noted by Paul Tucker, simply stopped displaying drives at the occurrence of the first undefined drive. SPC 3.0 also corrects a small arithmetic bug which would be noticed only where there are more than three drives. The undefined option has been removed in SPC 3.7. 6. Door Operation, Additional Parameters SPC 3.1 adds the d and u parameters, in response to tests and comments by Peter Linka and Kevin Speicher. 7. Large Drives SPC 3.2 adds the Lxy parameter, for users who, for various reasons, do not want to total up their largest drives. SPC 3.2 also corrects a fault in the output buffer which prevented the display of drives whose cluster sizes run to 10,000 bytes or more. In SPC 3.7, the Lxyz parameter functions differently than in earlier versions. In this version, the presence or absence of Lxyz determines how SPC responds to drives which have more than 65,534 clusters. 8. Bugged Colour Video The reports I got back from Rob Campbell implied that SPC performed poorly with colour monitors, hanging systems with such monitors occasionally. I have replaced the colour video routine with another one that is about twice as fast, and seems to give cleaner results. 9. Display of SUBSTed Drives At the suggestion of Kevin Speicher, the default mode of SPC 3.3 is not to display SUBSTed drives. Accordingly, the S option has been introduced to display them, where desired. 10. Debugging edition for general release SPC 3.4 introduces a relatively lucid error handler. This feature is unlikely to be noticed, since all the known bugs are now removed. However, the logical possibility of error always exists. Users may now give error reports which are far easier to diagnose and fix than before. Finally, I have encrypted the title line to frustrate hackers, since this version is for general release. 11. SPC 3.8 uses is a much better buffering function for display- ing numbers in formatted fashion. However, overall performance does not differ materially from that of SPC 3.7.