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- News on the TSUTIL 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 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: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: gado::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun
- ...................................................................
-
- Sat 30-Nov-91: Updated my first utility collection to be
- garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tsutil35.zip by making the following changes.
- Added mouse detection to SYSINFO.EXE. Corrected a bug in the
- recursive option of DIRectory Wide DIRW.EXE program which caused
- problems when recursion started from a subdirectory given as a
- parameter to DIRW.EXE.
-
- Tue 10-Sep-91: Updated my first utility collection to be
- garbo.uwasa.fi:/pc/ts/tsutil34.arc. Corrected a bug in the
- SYSINFO.EXE program in the case of MsDos 5.0. Made the directory
- paths of the format C:\SUBDIR and C:\SUBDIR\ equivalent in the
- directory programs in the package.
-
- Sun 21-Jul-91: I have updated my first utility collection and it is
- now /pc/ts/tsutil33.arc.
- I have changed the summary format of the dirw.exe (v1.8)
- directory replacement for MsDos dir /w (dirw.exe gives more
- information), and omitted the /a and /f switches which regulated the
- format of the summary. It is now uniform.
- I have updated my system information program sysinfo.exe in the
- package. Instead of trying to give the interleave of the drives on
- page three it now gives the number of cylinders. Also a minor change
- in the redirected format.
-
- Sat 15-Jun-91: I use the following batch at regular intervals to
- catalogue the contents of my harddisk. The ds.com and dirw.exe
- programs are at my path:
- c:
- cd \
- ds en /s (ds is Norton's old directory sort)
- del c:\direc\c.dir > nul
- dirw /a /s >> c:\direc\c.dir (dirw is from /pc/ts/tsutil32.arc)
- I have updated this dirw.exe program, which is similar to MsDos
- dir/w except that it shows file attributes and scans optionally also
- the subdirectories. It now has a new switch /a to show allocated
- bytes of the directories instead of the free bytes. On a recursive
- scan of a hard disk this information is more interesting that the
- repeated information about the free bytes and the drives total
- capacity.
- Since dirw.exe is a part of the first of my utility collections,
- I have updated it to be /pc/ts/tsutil32.arc.
-
- Wed 20-Feb-91: I have updated the first of my utility collections to
- be /pc/ts/tsutil31.arc.
- SYSINFO.EXE version 2.0 gives information about your PC. I have
- rewritten the entire code, because much of my original code dated
- back to my early days of Turbo Pascal programming. Part of this
- rewriting is invisible to the user, and is for my own edification.
- The visible changes are: (1) The free memory information has been
- completely rewritten. The result now agrees exactly with the result
- that is given by eg mapmem.exe memory mapper from tsrcom29.zip. (2)
- I have added a routine to search the memory above 1008k for bios
- identification string, and give the information. (3) The video mode
- identification recognizes more video modes than before. (4) The
- country specific format information has been augmented with new
- items. (5) The program call has now optional switches /h, /r and /s.
- (a) Switch /r makes redirection possible. Use SYSINFO /r > prn or
- SYSINFO /r >> your.log. (b) Switch /h (or ?) gives a trivial help.
- (c) Switch /s suppresses the program's virus selftest. (6) There is
- now multi-line information on each of the disks, including as new
- items the volume label, the interleave factor, the number of fats,
- and the maximum number of file entries in the root directory.
- I'm well aware of the much more comprehensive ifp1p146.zip
- InfoPlus system information program (in /pc/sysinfo directory at
- garbo). Nevertheless, I've wanted again to look into system
- information retrieval with my own routines, and arrange the output
- of the information in a concise manner.
- STACK.EXE version 1.2 is a small program that tells the amount of
- the free memory. (I should have called it FRE.EXE). The free memory
- should now be given accurately, and tallies with what standard
- memory mappers give. The memory assessment is based on the
- information extracted from the PSP (program segment prefix) of
- stack.exe.
-
- Wed 1-Aug-90: I have updated the first of my utility collections to
- be (/pc/ts/)tsutil30.arc. It contains my (partly experimental) early
- utilities geared towards directory information, system information,
- and usage logging.
- SYSINFO.EXE gives information about your system. I have added a
- few items, including the recognition of the processor. Also it now
- has a simple selftest against tampering (or simple viruses). If the
- file size or the file date have been altered, a warning will be
- issued, and the program halted.
- DTETIMAL.EXE is a simple but useful utility for checking (best
- from autoexec.bat) that your system clock has not failed, by
- comparing the system clock year and the parameter you give to
- DTETIMAL.EXE. The program is (hopefully) more compatible than before
- (the code uses no more Turbo Pascal Crt). Furthermore, DTETIMAL now
- performs (optionally) a triple (checksum, size, date) selftest
- against viruses and other tampering.
- DIRW.EXE is the same as MsDos dir /w with two notable
- improvements. DIRW displays the file attributes (including hidden
- files), and it can (optionally) be used recursively to list a
- directory and all its subdirectories. Corrected a bug that made it
- list a wrong directory under special circumstances.
-
- Fri 13-Jul-90: ... Another question that came up was a utility
- listing the drives and their capacities in a PC. Many system
- information programs do this, including sysinfo.exe in
- /pc/ts/tsutil29.arc.
-
- Sun 11-Mar-90: I have a collection of four utility packages called
- tsutil, tsutlb, tsutlc, and tsutlb. Since I quite often get
- requests, from users who do not have anonymous ftp capability, to
- email programs to them (sorry, I will not accommodate the emailing
- requests for practical reasons), I am considering submitting these
- programs to the binary postings in comp.binaries.ibm.pc. In the
- process I have updated (/pc/ts/) tsutil28.arc to tsutil29.arc.
-
- Tue 7-Nov-89: I have released updated utilities /pc/ts/tsutil28.arc.
- This is first of my four utilities packages. The system information
- utility SYSINFO.EXE includes some new items, and should be better
- compatible. - The date utilities now also show the week number and
- the day number. The week number algorithm was kindly provided to me
- by Seppo Pynnonen, Ph.D. - I have moved the two .bat botch (pardon,
- batch) files which were previously in the tsutil package to the new
- /pc/ts/tsbat11.arc collection.
-
- 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.
-
- Sun 2-Jul-1989: Updated again two of the utility packages:
- tsutil26.arc --> tsutil27.arc and tsutlc14.arc --> tsutlc15.arc. In
- tsutil27.arc I have tried to make the programs work also with the
- less compatible PCs. (Technically, I have skipped using direct
- writes to video memory whenever possible.)
- And my thanks again to those who have given me valuable feedback
- on these programs. If you send me email, please remember to include
- your email address and your affiliation. This is especially
- important if you send email from outside of Finland because the
- return path is not always enough for sending a reply.
-
- Sun 25-Jun-89: Updated the first utility package to be tsutil26.arc.
- Among the updated utilities are directory comparison programs
- dirs.exe and dird.exe, grapinfo.exe detecting graphics hardware,
- scopy.bat for copying when only a single diskdrive is available, and
- stack.exe telling the free available memory. In addition the package
- still contains date utilities day.exe, dtetim.exe, and so on. There
- is also the timelog.exe utility for logging program usage, and
- sysinfo for obtaining information about your computer. The previous
- version, tsutil25.arc, appeared in spring in comp.binaries.ibm.pc.
- (Notice: scopy.bat has been later moved to the tsbat collection.)
-