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Text File | 1991-01-16 | 21.3 KB | 471 lines

SPC 5.0 The integrated multidrive equipment utility Copyright 1991 by Bob Eyer [73230,2620] Jan 16, 1991 Syntax: SPC [? H A F E D S port] [=identification] [>file/PRN/COMx] Options (any order, any case, any combination) ---------------------------------------------- ? or H or HELP - Brief help screen. Default is no help. A - Use standard ASCII character set, to accommodate Epson compatible printers. Default is to use extended ASCII character set for display. F - Include drives A: and B: in drive report. No include is the default. E - Exclude UNDEF drives from totals. See Appendix on drive measurement for details. Default is to include drives flagged as UNDEF in totals. D - Force DUPlicate detection instead of SUBSTed detection in drive report and net duplicates out of the totals. The default is SUBSTed detection, unless a supported network is detected, in which case SPC defaults to DUPlicate detection. The D or S options are used for overriding these defaults. For details see discussion below and the Appendix on drive measurement. S - Force SUBSTed detection instead of DUPlicate detection in drive report and net SUBSTed drives out of the totals. = - Identification string. SPC puts your identification string on the right half of Line 1 of the display, overriding the author credit, if you use '=' followed by your selected identification information. SPC looks for the occurrence of the equals sign on the commandline and interprets everything following it (up to but not including redirection and piping symbols) as an identification string rather than as an option. SPC no longer converts your ID string to upper case. Maximum length is 31 characters. Default is to display author credit. Use of SPC options ------------------ SPC options are provided largely to supply fine-tuning in SPC applications as well as solutions to specialised problems which few users will have. For example, only network operators who are not using the network types which SPC can detect will find it necessary to use the D option. Generally, use of SPC's options will not be needed. To get help on the use of SPC options, just enter SPC H EXPLANATION OF THE MAIN DISPLAY ------------------------------- Much of what an SPC display means is fairly self-explanatory. However, it is useful here to identify systematically all the parts of the main display, so as to avoid confusion. The following is a hypothetical display, showing all equipment connected, a scenario in which SPC is run remote via communications in a shell to a node connected to a small netbios LAN. The node in question has VGA, a 3 button MS compatible mouse, and so on. (Command: 'SPC =Lan remote') ┌ Monday 01-14-1991 20:47:11 ────────────────────────────── SPC 5.0 ┐ │ DOS 3.20 VGA Color 1 PAR 3 MB ID: Lan remote │ │ FC (01/15/88) ISA - K R 8259 - E-CNS 1 SER/1: 16450 MR TR RS CD │ │ 80386 36.8: X....1.......2.........3.*.....4............. 80387 │ │ VER SHARE PC LAN 655360/204144 - EMS 4.0: 1524/934 1 │ │ Drv ── Status ─ Sector ─ Cluster ─── Free ─ Allocated ─ Total ─ Drv │ │ C: BOOT 512 2048 3.119 23.515 26.634 C: │ │ D: 512 2048 9.329 17.313 26.642 D: │ │ E: 512 2048 15.020 11.622 26.642 E: │ │ ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── │ │ Z: Totals less DUPlicate drives: 27.468 52.450 79.918 Z: │ └─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ Let's take this apart line by line. Line 1 (DOS, peripherals, and ID string) ----------------------------------------- This line, with the exception of the DOS version, is devoted to peripheral equipment, type of adaptor (now supporting identification of 8514 terminals and EGA adaptors used with CGA monitors), color/mono, number of PARallel ports, number of MS-compatible Mouse Buttons, and the optional identification string. Line 2 (ROM bios information, keyboard, and communications) ----------------------------------------------------------- The dash ("-") is used throughout SPC to indicate logic low, zero, or that the feature is not installed. FC (01/15/88) ISA - K R 8259 - E-CNS 1 SER/1: 16450 MR TR RS CD ─────────────────────────────── ───── ─────────────────────────── BIOS motherboard information Keybd Communications In order, within each category, the information is as follows: BIOS info - --------- Model number (e.g. FC) BIOS release date (e.g. 01/15/88) Bus type (MCA or ISA) Wait for external event installed (E or -) Keyboard intercept used (K or -) Real time clock installed (R or -) Second 8259 installed (8259 or -) HD BIOS uses DMA channel 3 (3 or -) Keyboard info - ------------- Enhanced keyboard (E or -) Insert mode (I or -) Caps lock set (C or -) Num lock set (N or -) Scroll lock set (S or -) Communications info - ------------------- Number of serial ports (1 SER, 2 SER, - SER, etc) Port selected on command line (1 or 2) default is 1. UART on port card (8250, 16450, 16550, 16550A, or -) If no communications card available for designated port, UART will return logic low. Modem Response (MR or -) If modem not connected to designated port, or is defective, this will be logic low. Data terminal ready (TR or -) Should be TR (logic high) if communication in progress. Request to send (RS or -) Should be RS (logic high) if RTS/CTS hardware handshaking needed. Carrier detect (CD or -) Required (CD) for communications connect. Items needing comment: - Model number specifies a species in the genus "IBM compatible computer" which in fact identifies the main type of basic input/output system (bios) used in the machine. For example, IBM's main list goes as follows: FF - IBM PC FE - IBM PC-XT FD - IBM PCjr FC - IBM PC-AT FB - IBM PC-XT(rev 1) FA - IBM PS/2 Model 30 F9 - IBM PC Convertible F8 - IBM PS/2 Model 80 - MCA means microchannel (for PS/2 models) while ISA refers to the standard IBM compatible architecture. The keyboard intercept refers to scancode interpretation automatically performed by the BIOS, if supported. Real time clock (R) means the real time clock is on the motherboard, not on a multi-i/o card. Advanced motherboard architectures use a second programmable interrupt controller (8259) to achieve 16 interrupt levels for smoother processing. And some BIOS types use DMA channel 3 for hard disk i/o. BIOS fields following the bus type (MCA or ISA) are replaced by blanks for BIOS versions which do not support extended information recovery. Line 3 (The processor line) --------------------------- Line 3 presents 4 pieces of information, left to right: The processor type, the Norton-based CPU speed index, a graph of the speed index and the coprocessor. The speed graph is a 45-point one-line logarithmic scale which enables display of the position of a specific computer's processor within the spectrum of processors actively in use today. (80386 36.8: X....1.......2.........3*......4............. -) 80386 36.8: X....1.......2.........3*......4............. 80387 Benchmark Processor ----------- ------------------------- X 1.0 8088, 4.77 MHz, (IBM XT) 1 2.0 80186, 4.77 MHz 2 7.0 80286, 6 MHz 3 29.0 80386, 16 MHz 4 94.0 80486, 16 MHz [486 criterion] * 36.8 This machine (386/20) The relation which SPC uses to map the CPU speed index to a specific point in this 45-point scale is: Point # = 1 + 6.838 * LN (index) 1 corresponds to the CPU index value of 1, while Point 45 corresponds to the value of 579.2 for the index. Thus, this graph will probably be able to handle representation of the speed of 80586 machines when they are produced. Line 4 (Verify/Network/Memory Line) ----------------------------------- The fourth line is devoted to memory - what critical software is loaded, how much standard memory, how much extended, and so on. (VER SHARE PC LAN 655360/204144 - No Expanded Memory) VER SHARE PC LAN 655360/204144 - EMS 4.0: 1524/934 1 ─── ──────────── ──────────── ────── ──────────────────────── C Net/MTask RAM EXT Expanded memory C info - ------ The C field indicates whether DOS VERify is set. Net/MT info - ----------- SHARE status (SHARE or -) Network/multitasking status (type active or -) RAM info - -------- Total RAM available in bytes Free RAM available in bytes (New feature: previous SPC versions only displayed RAM in thousands of bytes) EXT info - -------- Total Extended memory available (in 1000s) Expanded memory info - -------------------- EMS version number Total EMS memory (in 1000s) Free EMS memory Number of EMS handles in use Items needing comment: - Unlike other equipment programs, SPC displays numerical information in decimal format, rather than mixed decimal/binary. - Three network types are supported - PC LAN, MS/LANtastic/3Com, and Novell Netware; as well, SPC supports identification of two multitaskers - Desqview and DoubleDos. there a network is present, the network id overrides any multitasking indicator. (However, the presence of a network does not override multitasking detection and SPC's action of pausing task switching during certain critical operations.) The purpose of detecting networks is chiefly to enable SPC to select the proper detection default for drive measurement. See discussion of the Totals Line below. The main purpose of detecting multitasking status is to enable SPC to pause task-switching during sections of SPC's code which are known to cause interference with operations occurring concurrently in other multiplexed windows. This is what makes SPC "DD/DV aware". Line 6+ (drive report) ---------------------- Drv────Status───Sector──Cluster──────Free───Allocated───Total───Drv C: BOOT 512 2048 3.119 23.515 26.634 C: Here, the sector and cluster sizes appear in bytes, whereas the Free, Allocated, and Total numbers appear in megabytes. 5/4 rounding and units place dash replacement for zeroes is used consistently in SPC 5.0 as in previous versions. The Status column indicates the special role a particular drive may play in the overall system. SPC supports BOOT, DUP, SUBST, CSPEC, and UNDEF specifiers. For DOS 4.0+, BOOT indicates from which drive the machine was originally booted, while CSPEC indicates on which drive DOS looks for COMMAND.COM. Where these drives are the same, the BOOT indicator overrides the CSPEC indicator. For earlier versions of DOS, SPC does not distinguish the boot and comspecked drives, but merely labels the drive on which DOS looks for COMMAND.COM as the BOOT drive. DUP means that the given drive has the same total and free space as some other drive listed earlier in the alphabetic sequence (such as a duplicate link in a network), and so is not counted in the grand totals. DUP is not assigned where the drive is reported as UNDEF. SUBST means that DOS sees the given drive as SUBSTed from a directory of another drive, and the numbers associated with the SUBSTed drive are not accumulated in the grand totals. UNDEF means that the number of clusters on the given drive equals 65,535 (FFFFh), indicating that DOS cannot define the number of clusters. The limitation of cluster measurement is due to the fact that DOS represents the number of clusters as a hex word, rather than as a double word. SPC 5.0, however, merely reports the statistics which DOS returns for such drives, while providing a warning to the user in the form of the UNDEF flag that the total and free space numbers may not be reliable. The E commandline option excludes UNDEF statistics from the grand totals at the bottom of the SPC display, otherwise these statistics are included. See Appendix on drive measurement below for further details. Last Line (Lastdrive, Totals Line) ---------------------------------- Z: Totals less DUPlicate drives: 27.468 52.450 79.918 Z: The drive listed at the beginning and end of the line is the value of LASTDRIVE specified in CONFIG.SYS (or which DOS uses as a default). SPC will report a blank for LASTDRIVE in versions of DOS preceding 3.0. The title of the line shows which kind of detection is in force during an SPC run. If DUPlicate detection is active, the title will read "Totals less DUPlicate drives"; if SUBSTed detection is active, the title will read "Totals less SUBSTed drives". These two modes are mutually exclusive. SPC in default mode uses the following set of conditions to activate duplicate mode as the detection default: (1) SPC detects DOS 4+ and a supported network. (2) SPC detects DOS 3+, and either the SHARE condition (for IBM LAN or TAPESTRY-like networks) or a supported network. If neither of these conditions is met (as would typically be the case in standalone environments), SPC defaults to SUBSTed detection. Specifically, even though DOS 4+ requires SHARE, SPC will default to SUBSTed detection, unless it detects a network. However, for DOS levels below 4.0, SPC uses the SHARE condition as indicating the presence of a network requiring DUPlicate detection. The user may override SPC's internal defaulting activity by specifying what mode to use on the commandline. S means SUBSTed detection; D means DUPlicate detection. APPENDIX: DRIVE MEASUREMENT SUBSTed and Duplicate drives ---------------------------- SPC uses DOS Services to identify SUBSTed drives. This method corrects the old bug of not displaying the last real drive in the list, when a SUBSTed drive is defined with a drive letter which is prior to the letter used for the last real drive. The DOS Services approach to SUBSTed drives is supported as far back as DOS 2.0. The disadvantage of using SUBSTed detection is that it leads to difficulties when SPC is run in local area networks. Such networks already redirect drives during network configuration, causing drive redirection to have a different meaning than SUBSTed redirection. Therefore, SPC attempts to detect the presence of a network; and the resulting information is used to determine the drive detection default. Where SPC sees that SUBSTed detection is inappropriate, or where the user selects the D commandline option, SPC uses duplicate detection rather than SUBSTed detection. The network detection system is fairly adequate but not complete; and so, the user may find it necessary to employ the D option to override the system default on the commandline if the network environment is not detected by SPC. If SPC does not detect your network properly, then you need to use the D option explicitly; if you use such a network, please let me know about it. In SPC, a drive is said to be a "duplicate" of another drive if, and only if, (a) it occurs later in the alphabetic drive display than its original, and (b) it has the same total and free space as its original. When the D option is used, duplicate drives are netted out of the grand totals at the bottom of the main display. APPENDIX: SPEED MEASUREMENT The speed graph ------------------- The SPC speed benchmark graph, as previously noted, is a 45-point logarithmic scale which shows the position of the test machine in the spectrum of all the main types of IBM/DOS-compatible equipment in use today. Details on the speed index -------------------------- SPC's speed loop contains an imbedded loop; each one of these runs 1000 integer additions. The relation between the number of outer loops executed and the rating is expressed by the following regression formula: RATING = -1.3318 + 0.0628 * LOOPS This formula is determined by plugging loop counts and corresponding Norton SI data into a standard linear regression analysis. The purpose of doing this was to make sure that the index relates to the Norton SI, at least within the range for which the Norton Index was originally designed (XT's and AT's). All of the points used were in the range below SI = 10. Above SI=10, SPC's index will begin to diverge markedly from Norton's, especially for models in the 386 or 486 class. For example, SPC measures the speed of a Micronics 386/20 at about 36.8, whereas the Norton measure is about 22.0. 486 machines are measured by SPC in the 94-240 range, reflecting their enormously greater calculating power, but the Norton measure merely places them, indifferently, in the high 30's. An Apricot 486/25 measures out to 152, while the same machine is measured by the Norton index merely at 38.8. The presence of TSRs, and therefore different versions of DOS, may have a small effect on speed readings. The normal speed of a 386/20 machine operating under DOS 3.20 with no EMS active and no DMA refresh adjustment should be 36.8. CREDITS ------- I wish to give special thanks to Paul Tucker for providing the hint that led to the solution of the SUBSTed detection problem. Thanks to Paul also for providing much testing and debugging assistance as well as certain programming ideas which are used by SPC in the network detection area. Thanks also to Jud Newell and Ian Singer, who tested some versions for compatibility problems in very large Novell networks. Thanks to Lee Perryman who pointed out the problem with running SPC 4.2 on PS/2 Model 70's, and to Rob Campbell who did most of the DoubleDos multitasking experiments. Also I wish to thank Greg Andrews at Compuserve IBMCOM for conveying to me the correct procedure for detecting UART types. And I must also express my gratitude for the fine work done by Hal White in critically reviewing SPC's documentation, and to Ralf Brown, without whose interrupt documentation this program would not have been impossible. DISCLAIMER: ========== This program is circulated as public domain without any guarantee or warranty; and the user, by downloading this program, or any variant thereof or by receiving it or any of its versions in any other form, agrees to accept full responsibility for its use. It is therefore understood that the user accepts this program or any previous version as is. Bob Eyer Compuserve [73230,2620] Toronto, Canada ------------------------------------------------------------------ End of documentation.