ProfitPress Mega CDROM2 …eeware (MSDOS)(1992)(Eng)/ProfitPress-MegaCDROM2.B6I/PROG/PASCAL/TSPA2540.ZIP/TSPAS.NWS

Text File | 1991-10-27 | 21.9 KB | 425 lines

News on the TSPAS package by Timo Salmi in reverse order
========================================================

University of Vaasa, Finland, MIPS R2030 workstation garbo.uwasa.fi
has a large collection of PD and shareware PC programs available by
anonymous ftp and mail server. The file /pc/ts/0news-ts contains
news about the TS-programs in the /pc/ts directory (in reverse
order). This text, which you now have, is an extract from the
0news-ts file and the UseNet news.
...................................................................
Prof. Timo Salmi
Moderating at garbo.uwasa.fi anonymous ftp archives 128.214.87.1
School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland
Internet: [e-mail] Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
...................................................................

┌────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Appeal: Let me take up a request for those of you who may have │
│ found my programs or units useful.  As I am not asking for a   │
│ registration fee for the PD versions, would you do me a        │
│ reciprocal favor by uploading at least some of my packages to, │
│ say eg one local bulletin board (BBS), and thus contribute to  │
│ disseminating the *latest* versions of these packages.  And,   │
│ if you distribute these packages, would you PLEASE distribute  │
│ an entire package, not individual programs from within any     │
│ package. This is a request that all of us share who write PD   │
│ programs.                                                      │
└────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Sun 27-Oct-91: I have updated my Turbo Pascal units collection to be
 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tspa2440.arc
 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tspa2450.arc
 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tspa2455.arc
 garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tspa2460.arc
by adding the following routines
  ISANSIFN Has ansi.sys a a similar driver been loaded
  BTEWRDFN Combine two bytes into a single word, inverse of Hi & Lo
  WRDLNGFN Combine two words into a longint
  HIWORDFN The high-order (hi) word of the longint argument
  LOWORDFN The low-order (lo) word of the longint argument

Sun 21-Jul-91: I have updated my Turbo Pascal units collection to be
/pc/ts/tspa24##.arc (where ## = 40, 50, 55, and 60).
   Turbo Pascal 5.0 (and later) introduced some routines which are
not present in version 4.0. My Turbo Pascal units collection (the
4.0 version) includes a TSTPU45 unit which introduces some of the
missing routines also to TP 4.0. I have added FExpand (Expand a file
name into a fully qualified file name) to this unit.
   Occasionally you will want to be able to tell where the standard
input to your program comes from.  Does it come in the normal way
from the keyboard, or does it come from redirection. Likewise, you
may wish your program to know whether its standard output goes to
the screen, or is it redirected to a file or through a pipe. The
new boolean functions in the TSUNTH.TPU unit will give this
information:
  PIPEDIFN Is the standard input from redirection
  PIPEDOFN Is the standard output redirected
  PIPEDNFN Is the standard output redirected to nul
Other new routines in the TSUNTH unit include:
  BOOTDRFN Get boot device name (MsDos 4.0+)
  DATEFMFN Country-dependent date format (MsDos 3.0+)
  NRCYLFN  Number of cylinders on a drive if media present (MsDos 3.2+)
  TIMEFMFN Country-dependent time format (MsDos 3.0+)
  Z2ASZFN  Convert an Asciiz string into an ordinary ascii string

Tue 8-Jan-91: My Turbo Pascal units collection is now available also
for Turbo Pascal 6.0. It is /pc/ts/tspa2360.arc, and is in no other
way different from tspa2340.arc, tspa2350.arc, and tspa2355.arc
except that the units are for 6.0. As you know, Turbo Pascal units
are not compatible across versions.

Sat 5-Jan-91: I have upgraded my Turbo Pascal units collection at
uwasa.fi archives by making several changes. Most importantly I have
divided the package into three parallel packages:
  tspa2340.arc  for Turbo Pascal 4.0 version
  tspa2350.arc  for Turbo Pascal 5.0 version
  tspa2355.arc  for Turbo Pascal 5.5 version
Thus you'll only need the package concurring with the Turbo Pascal
version you use yourself. With the exception of the differences
inherent to the different releases of Turbo Pascal, the packages are
the same.
   I am expecting Turbo Pascal 6.0, but it has not arrived yet.
   I have added a new unit TSERR.TPU which turn on the verbal
run-time error messages. It is very easy to use. Just include
 uses TSERR;
at the beginning of your main program and you'll have verbal
run-time error messages besides the original, cryptic error codes.
   I have done some cleaning of the old units by omitting some of
the older routines which have a more efficient later replacement. In
particular this concerns the functions for converting values from
one base to another.
   There are also new routines:
  PARSENFN Number of substrings in a string (resembles ParamCount)
  PARSERFN Get substrings from a string (resembles ParamStr)
  FATSFN   Get number of file allocation tables, not XTs
  INTERLFN Get interleave coefficient of a harddisk, not XTs
  LASTDRFN Get last drive of the system, softcoded, not XTs
and the generic power function POWERGFN has been rewritten.

Wed 8-Aug-90: I have updated my Turbo Pascal (4.0, 5.0, 5.5) units
collection to be version (/pc/ts/)tspas22.arc.
   There are several functions which Tubro Pascal 5.0 and 5.5 have,
but TP 4.0 does not.  I have added a new unit tsunt45.tpu which
includes some of these functions such as EnvCount, EnvStr, GetEnv,
and ParamStr0 (giving the name of the program).
   The unit tsunti.tpu can be used to put information into the .exe
file and perform selftests of the .exe.  This unit is now also
available for TP 4.0.
   Turbo Pascal ReadKey lacks the ability to read special keys such
as RightShift, LeftShift, RightCtrl, and so on.  Functions to detect
pressing these keys have been added.
   Turbo Pascal ReadKey also lacks the ability to cope with the full
enhanced keyboard potential. This means that TP ReadKey does not
detect pressing F11 or F12, and that it cannot distinguish between
the numeric keyboard cursor keys and the grey cursor keys. I have
added a RDENKEFN function which has these abilities.

Wed 1-Aug-90: I have updated my Turbo Pascal (4.0, 5.0, 5.5) units
collection to be version (/pc/ts/)tspas21.arc.
   Turbo Pascal version 4.0 does not have the DosVersion function
available in versions 5.0 and 5.5. I have written this function for
version 4.0. Furthermore the lack of this function caused errors in
TP 4.0 versions of my last two units.  This has been put right.
   I have included a new unit (tsunti.tpu) for putting information
into the .exe file, and retrieving the information (not for TP 4.0).
The routines include a method for calculating the direct checksum
for a file (eg for virus checking). This is not as trivial as it may
sound at first sight, because in calculating the checksum, the
checksum constant within the program must be skipped. (Else a change
in the checksum constant would alter the checksum resulting in a
"vicous circle"). Also, the method must be fast enough.
   I have also included a fast a date and filesize checking method
for detecting if the .exe has been pacthed or its size altered. (Of
course, the checksum method is much more difficult to defeat, but it
is more complicated and not as fast). Here I have made an exception
and included the source code. It is in the selftest.pas file within
tspas21.arc.

Mon 23-Jul-90: I have updated my Turbo Pascal (4.0, 5.0, 5.5) units
collection to be version (/pc/ts/)tspas20.arc.
   One problem area that has intrigued me for some time is finding a
technique for storing information within an executable file and
updating that information. I've looked into it and written a couple
of relevant procedures. USECOUNT keeps track of how many times the
program has been run and stores the result within the .exe file.
BRANDEXE is a more general, but also a more complicated procedure
for .exe file handling. As an example I have a demonstration how to
tell the previous time when the program was run.
   The function checking the on-line status of the printer
(prnonlfn) has been rewritten to work without Turbo Pascal's Crt
unit. And an alternative printer on-line status function, LTPONLFN,
has been added. This one should be more robust, because it actually
tries to send a carriage return to the printer, and observes the
resultant success of the operation to define the on-line status. Of
course this is achieved by {$I-} {$I+} IOResult testing, but the
real trick here is make to system respond immediately rather than in
the default response time of up to one minute. A new procedure
PRTSCR sends the current screen to the printer. The new routines
GETPRTFN and SETPRT get and set respectively the number of printer
default retry times before a timeout.
   TICKSFN is a simple complement to the TIMERFN already in the
collection. TICKSFN gives the number of clock ticks (there are 18.2
per second) since midnight.
   A new LASTDMFN returns the number of days in a given month and
year. DATEOKFN tells whether a date is a valid, existing date.
ZELLERFN lets you compare which of the two dates is earlier,
calculate the number of days between two dates etc.
   A new FIXEDFN returns whether a drive is a fixed disk or not.
MATHCOFN returns if a math coprocessor is present. RS232FN returns
the number of serial ports. PARPORFN returns the number of parallel
ports. COUNTRFN returns the country code. CHIPFN returns the type of
the processor chip.
   There are new keyboard routines. SCRLONFN gets the current
ScrollLock status. CAPS, NUMLOCK, and SCRLOCK respectively set the
CapsLock, NumLock and ScrollLock on, or off. They take the desired
status as a boolean argument.
  CLS sets 25*80 text mode and clears the screen and CLS40 does
likewise for 25*40. Crt is not required.
   So far none of the routines in the TSPAS collection have included
any inline code. Starting from tspas20.arc this no longer holds. I
have tried to understand some assembler and have included also
inline code. Be warned that I cannot give any guarantees that the
inline coded routines won't cause confusion.  Where inline code has
been used, I have stated so. The first function to utilize this is
LOWCASFN which is the exact opposite of Turbo Pascal's own UpCase
function.
   WARMBOOT simulating alt-clr-del, and COLDBOOT reboot with memory
tests are new, inline routines.
   A couple of routines have been moved from one unit to another.

Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
From: [e-mail] (Timo Salmi)
Subject: Redirecting writes to the printer
Organization: University of Vaasa
Date: Sun, 22 Jul 90 03:58:00 GMT
(*
About half a year ago several posters wanted to find a way to direct
all output to the printer. (To enable a documentation of students'
programming tasks.) For some reason nobody of us then found a simple
working solution, which is outrageously elementary, after fact.
There are, of course, alternative solutions, the most complicated
being writing a new device driver. An intermediate (easier) solution
is to juggle with certain TP predefined constants. I have two
procedures USECON and USEPRN (in /pc/ts/tspas19.arc tpu collection)
which when placed anywhere within the program will change the output
device. But below is an example the the easiest alternative needing
no accessories.
*)
program HowToRedirectAllOutputEasilyToThePrinter;
{$DEFINE printit}
begin
  {$IFDEF printit}
  assign (output, 'prn');
  rewrite (output);
  {$ENDIF}
  :
  writeln ('From Timo Salmi: Hello world, and whatever else');
  :
  {$IFDEF printit}
  close (output);
  {$ENDIF}
end.  (* thus endeth the escapade *)

Thu 14-Jun-90: I have updated my Turbo Pascal (4.0, 5.0, 5.5) units
collection to be version (/pc/ts/)tspas19.arc. The function INDRIVFN
in tsuntg.tpu tests whether a device is present in a drive. If you
defined an invalid drive (such as '1'), a run time error occurred in
my earlier versions. - Tsunta.tpu has a new function HIGHTFN, which
gives the height of the screen by resolution (25, 43 or 50). -
Tsuntf.tpu has a third enhanced readln with line editing, recall,
insert toggle, and clean break potential. - Tsunth.tpu includes a
new function ISDIRFNto test whether a name is a directory. -
COPYFILE procedure copies a file from within a Turbo Pascal program
and returns a success status code. I have seen postings in the
(InterNet) news about problems with copying files in Turbo Pascal,
but I hope that this one should do the trick. - OPENEDFN function
indicates whether a text file has already been closed within the
program, or if it is still open. This is particularly convenient for
procedures aborting your program. - Tsuntd includes a new procedure
called AUDIO. It is an enhanced version of Turbo Pascal's own sound
procedure. It takes frequency and duration as parameters, and it
does not need the presence of the interfering Crt unit. Audio was
written in collaboration with Ari Hovila ([e-mail]). - And
since I am often asked the question, sorry, no, dear fellow users,
the sources are not available, only the units and their documented
interfaces.

Sun 25-Feb-90: I have gotten repeated requests from the users for a
Turbo Pascal 5.5 version of my Turbo Pascal units collection. I now
have finally got the 5.5 compiler, courtesy of University of Vaasa,
because it was felt here that this international interaction is
important enough to warrant the expense. (As I have told many of the
users who have contacted me in this matter, I am not yet interested
in OOP myself). Hence I am in a position to oblige. The new version
is called tspas18.arc. There is only one new function in the
collection this time. The main point was providing the TP 5.5
versions of the units. Thus there are now three versions of each
unit in this new release: TP 4.0, 5.5, and 5.5. - It is true that
Borland has made excellent products for the PC community, but the
incompatibility between the TPUs of the different Turbo Pascal
versions has many of us users disgruntled.

Wed 6-Dec-89: Updated the Turbo Pascal 5.0 (and 4.0) units
collection to be version /pc/ts/tspas17. The new procedures include
WHEREXFN and WHEREYFN which locate the cursor position without the
Crt unit. As you will recall Crt unit includes a WhereX and a WhereY
function. The reason I have prepared alternatives to Crt functions
and procedures in this, and the earlier releases, is because with
some incompatible PCs the Crt unit causes problems, and redirection
requires special measures with the Crt. - KEYPREFN is a replacement
of KeyPressed and READKEFN for ReadKey. - CLUSIZFN gives the cluster
size on a device. ALLSIZFN gives the true total size allocated to a
file instead of the size shown on ordinary directory listings. -
INKEYFN is a Basic-like timed input.

Tue 28-Nov-89: Some time ago there was a lively discussion in the
InterNet news group comp.lang.pascal how to redirect all write and
writeln statements to the printer without having to change the
statements. I now have a solution to that problem for Turbo Pascal
4.0 and 5.0. The procedures USEPRN and USECON are part of update
/pc/ts/tspas16.arc of my Turbo Pascal 5.0 and 4.0 units collection.
The new procedures/functions also include WEEKNRFN function in the
TSUNTE unit. It gives the weeknumber for a given date. REVCOLOR in
TSUNTC reverses (toggles) text colors. And there are many other new
routines making up a new unit TSUNTG.

Thu 26-Oct-89: I have a private mailing list for emailing these
update news. Especially, if you have my programs downloadable at
your site or your BBS you are welcome to ask for inclusion on this
list.

Wed 18-Oct-89: Released update /pc/ts/tspas15.arc of my Turbo Pascal
5.0 and 4.0 units collection. New procedures/functions include BINFN
in TSUNTB for fast conversion of decimal words to binary and HEXFN
for fast conversion to hexadecimal. LBIN and LHEX convert long
integers fast to binary and hexadecimal respectively. POWERLFN
raises a longint to a power, fast. BORDER in TSUNTE changes the
border color for CGA or VGA. All the rest of the procedures and
functions remain unchanged.

Tue 26-Sep-89: Released update /pc/ts/tspas14.arc of the Turbo
Pascal 5.0 and 4.0 units collection. The package contains units from
tsunta.tpu to tsuntf.tpu. Tsunte.tpu contains a new function
cmdlnfn, which gives the entire command line in a program call. The
input line-editing procedure edreadln in tsuntf.tpu now has a recall
option (CursorUp) and the insert key toggle. I have preserved an
edrdln procedure for line-editing without recall and insert. Tsuntd
has new ParamCount and ParamStr like functions for obtaining
substrings from a string.

Sat 19-Aug-89: Released update /pc/ts/tspas13.arc of my Turbo Pascal
units.  I have rewritten the cursor-size routines in a more general
fashion and rearranged the units.
   One of the weaknesses of the readln statement in (Turbo) Pascal
is that it does not allow editing the input-string while giving the
input from the keyboard.  I decided to do something about this, and
wrote an edreadln procedure, which allows to use of LeftCursor,
RightCursor, BackSpace, Del, Home, End, and Esc.  Of course such
routines are very common in input from popup windows.  Edreadln is,
however, more of a readln-type procedure with normal scrolling
capabilities, than a fixed position window routine.  This routine is
included in the new release.

Wed 2-Aug-89: I have released un updated version of the Turbo Pascal
units collection tspas12.arc.  There are new string routines and
detection of the monitor (mono/color) type.


=======================================================================
                  Messages from UseNet news
=======================================================================

From ts Sat Jul 28 09:25:43 1990
Subject: Re: Program selftesting and viruses
To: [e-mail] (Paul Gomme)
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 90 9:25:43 EET DST
In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]>; from "Paul Gomme" at Jul 27, 90 6:19 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL16]
Status: OR

> >     Programmers: Help fighting viruses and patching.
> >
> >Viruses and unauthorized patching are problems which should be
> >fought against by the PC community. This program demonstrates a
> >simple and a reasonably general, fast selftest to detect whether the
> >program has caught a virus, or if it has been amateurishly patched.
> >The code is easily incorporated in any Turbo Pascal source code. The
> >idea is to check whether the file date and size have been altered.
> >Most .exe viruses work by appending their code to the .exe file
> >altering the file size. Trivial patching changes the file date.
> >Either of these is detected by selftest.
>
> While the idea may have some merits, the execution is flawed.
                                                        ^^^^^^
No Paul, not flawed.  Rather not foolproof, nor is meant to be.

> First, it is a minor matter to obtain the creation date of a file.
> Consequently, it is a relatively simple matter to apply a patch
> which doesn't alter the file size, and restore the original creation
> date.  Your technique is subject to such an "attack".

Certainly.  The whole philosophy behind is to have a simple method
which staves off any crude attempts.  The problem with the more
elaborate selfchecks (such as embedded checksums) is that they are
difficult to implement.

> Second, there are often good reasons to patch a file.  Some of these
> reasons are cosmetic in nature.  Some programs even encourage user
> patching.

Also true, and then such patching should take care of the date.  Or
the selftest should have a relevant modification or omission of the
date test.

> From a more philosophical point of view, I wonder if protection
> schemes don't in part encourage those who write viruses.  Surely
> part of the "thrill" is to avoid detection.

Maybe.  It can be looked at as a kind of a game.  Nevertheless,
consider the popularity eg McAfee's virus control programs have
gained.  Throwing one's hands up in the air is not a good solution.

All the best, Timo

=======================================================================

From ts Tue Jul 31 12:07:13 1990
Return-Path: <ts>
Received: by uwasa.fi (4.1/(hh)29May89)
    id AA08907; Tue, 31 Jul 90 12:07:12 +0300
From: Timo Salmi LASK <ts>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: selftest
To: ts (Timo Salmi LASK)
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 12:07:11 EET DST
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL16]
Status: O

Newsgroups: comp.lang.pascal
Path: uwasa.fi!ts
From: [e-mail] (Timo Salmi LASK)
Subject: Re: Program selftesting and viruses
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Organization: University of Vaasa
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 31 Jul 90 08:57:32 GMT

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Fridrik Skulason) writes:
>This program works in most cases - however, it is not effective against some
>of the latest viruses, which fool it by making the program appear unchanged,
>after the virus is in control.

This is certainly true, and the purpose of the code is to easily
weed out elementary cases, which are the most frequent anyway.  One
of the points was to make the code simple to understand and include.
The other alternative is to imbed a checksum in the .exe file.  But
the code is much more complicated, because the checksum (either
direct or crc) constant itself within the program must be skipped
when recalculating the checksum.  Another problem is that the
checksum must be calculated fast.  Else it renders the host program
useless.  I have the code also for calculating and checking the
direct checksum of an .exe file in addition to size & date check.
This should be fairly effective.  This will be included in the
upcoming update of my Turbo Pascal units tspas21.arc.