SLO BYTES PC USER'S GROUP NEWSLETTER -- JULY, 1987 CLUB INFORMATION The SLO BYTES Newsletter is a monthly publication of SLO BYTES of the Central Coast of California (San Luis Obispo) an IBM/compatible personal computer user's group. Information found in this Newsletter is derived from magazine articles, manuals, books, other PC user group newsletters, and our own members. The purpose of this publication is to inform our members of meetings, their program content, and other information related to the use of IBM-PC's and compatible computers. Dues to SLO BYTES are $18 per year. As a member you will receive a membership card, an updated membership list, SLO BYTES monthly newsletter, and free use of our Public Domain Library. Contributors are asked to submit articles for the next issue by the 10th of each month either in writing or on disk (ASCII format preferred). Address all correspondence to SLO BYTES PC USER'S GROUP, % Bob Ward, 2100 Andre' Ave., Los Osos, Ca. 93402. Phone 8am-5pm 546-2164, after 5pm - (805)528-0121. Other user's groups have permission to publish any material found in this newsletter. Have a computer related item to sell? Tell the editor and we will put it in our newsletter. For further information call Bob Ward @ (805)528-0121 eves. ****************************************************** Meetings are held the 4th Thursday of every month, unless noted otherwise in the newsletter calendar, at 7:15 pm. New users SIG 6:15 to 7 pm. Meeting place: Cal Poly University Biology Department, Science North, Room 215. Effective with the meeting September 3rd, 1987 the club will meet on the 1st Thursday of each month. All submissions must be to the editor by the 15th of each month. There will be no meeting in August due to the transition in meeting times. ****************************************************** DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$-DI$COUNT$ Discounts usually apply only to regularly priced merchandise. Ask a salesman to make sure. You must present your membership card to receive a discount. Paradise Computers 5% - all computers, peripherals, 441 Marsh St. and software. San Luis Obispo 10% - Ribbons, paper, disks & 544-7127 other expendable items. Star Computers 5% - any software in stock. 655 Morro Bay Blvd. Morro Bay 10% - paper, ribbons, cable & 772-7827 other supplies. Computer Logic 10% - off list - all computers, 973 Foothill Blvd. software, computer periphe- Store #4 rals and products. Contact San Luis Obispo Bruce, Paul, or Dave for 544-8347 your discount. WITCO Computers 10% - off already discounted 3563 Sueldo, application software. Building B Special prices on group San Luis Obispo purchases of peripherals. 549-0811 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ CALENDAR July 23rd Computer applications in Medical Imaging by Barry Mayer. *** MEETING CHANGED TO 1ST THURSDAY OF EACH MONTH *** *** MEETING CHANGED TO 1ST THURSDAY OF EACH MONTH *** September 3rd WordStar Version 4.0 by Jules Lieber. October 1st Poly Windows & 1st Choice by Britt Morris. November 5th Both Witco & TLC computer stores will demonstrate their computer lines. ====================================================== CREATING BOOTABLE GAME DISKS By George Campbell If you are like most SLO BYTES members, you have probably accumulated a collection of public domain games from the SLO BYTES library. If you are tired of sorting through a pile of disks to find the games you like, here is a quick solution: Put the all the games you play regularly on bootable disks. They will be available to use whenever you want, and you can simply insert the disk in Drive A:, and turn on the computer to get started. The process is simple, and worth doing. For games which have a .COM or .EXE extension, follow the steps given below: 1. Format a blank disk, using the /S switch. This copies COMMAND.COM and the hidden system files to your new disk. On a two-drive system, type FORMAT B:/S at the A> prompt. 2. Copy the games onto the new disk. Some games require that data files also be copied onto the same disk. Generally these files have the same name as the game, but with a different extension. Check your original game disk for such files. 3. Create an AUTOEXEC.BAT file to call up the directory on your new games disk. At the A> prompt, type: COPY CON B:AUTOEXEC.BAT ECHO OFF CLS DIR/W Now press the F6 key and press again to write the AUTOEXEC.BAT file to the disk. Now, when you want to play a game, just insert this disk in drive A:, and turn on your computer. After booting, you will see a directory of the files on the disk. Type the name of the game you want to play and press . At times, your computer will already be running when you want to play a game. Why not set up a batch file which will call up the directory? If you have already created the AUTOEXEC.BAT file above, enter the following command: COPY B:AUTOEXEC.BAT B:GO.BAT Note: Use another drive letter if your game disk is not in drive B: This creates the file GO.BAT, which is identical to the original AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If your computer is on and the A> prompt is showing, just insert the game disk in drive A: and type GO, then press . The same directory will appear, and you can choose a game to play. (GAME DISKS) Games which run under BASIC require a little more to load the program. You can recognize these games by their .BAS extension. In order to play a BASIC game, you need to copy your computer's version of basic onto your working disk. Here's the procedure: 1. Create a bootable disk in the same way you did before, with the FORMAT/S command. 2. Copy either BASICA.COM or GWBASIC.COM to your working disk with the DOS COPY command. 3. Copy the game files to the disk. In most cases, you will be able to copy several games, allowing you a choice. 4. Create the AUTOEXEC.BAT and GO.BAT files as in the previous example. Here is a sample file. COPY CON B:AUTOEXEC.BAT ECHO OFF CLS BASICA (Use GWBASIC if you have a clone) Press F6 then press to write the file to disk. When you boot this disk, it will load BASIC. To see a list of the games on the disk, just type FILES and press . To play a game, press the F3 key, type the name of the game, then press . When the OK prompt returns, press the F2 key to run the game. After you finish playing a game and see the OK prompt, type NEW then press if you want to play another game. The FILES command you used before will show you the list. If you want to return to the DOS A> prompt, just type SYSTEM then press Finally, you can use the same technique to make bootable disks for any program you use frequently. Just follow the steps above, replacing DIR/W or BASICA in the AUTOEXEC.BAT with the command which starts the program. You'll think you're using expensive commercial software rather than free software from the SLO BYTES library. ====================================================== BITS N' BYTES *** Yes, our latest local computer store has emerged. Located at 1329 Broad, TLC will specialize in 386 machines, although AT and XT PC compatibles will also be available. This joint venture by Lynne Boisen and Mel Sage will be going national quite soon. Look for their ad in this months Info World. Because of a SLO technicality they will have to sell mail order only, but I was told by someone very high up in their business; they would be happy to show off their product should you just happen by corporate headquarters. Businesses take note, networking is one of their specialties. Phone 549-9027 for further information. If you live over the hill call toll free 1-800-255-8527. Welcome aboard! *** IBM has announced discontinuation of their XT & AT line effective within 60-90 days. If you want IBM computer try their PC2's after that date. But don't worry, I don't think you will find the good ole' PC and XT clones disappearing in the near future. *** Someone has the impression that the DEMO disks may be taken home to try out and brought back at a later time (I hope). After the last meeting it was discovered the following DEMO disks were missing: Kings Quest, XTREE Management program, IBM's StoryBoard, Cruise Control, & Mace/Grasp. We have NO backup copies of these demo disks so when their gone, their gone forever. Do your fellow members a favor, return the disks. We don't want to start a "sign-out" policy with our library during meetings but will do what's necessary to preserve our disks. ====================================================== COMINGS & GOINGS The new user's SIG was chaired by George Campbell in the absence of Byron Smith. George demonstrated the many aspects of the COPY command. I, like many, took this command for granted and didn't realize some of the extra switches one could use to increase its power. Can you use the /V, /A, /B, switches effectively or combine several ASCII files together with the COPY command? If not, you missed it at the last meeting. At least look at your manual; the results may surprise you. The general meeting started promptly at 7:15, give or take 15 minutes. I presented my favorite database, PCFILE +. Menu driven, this program would satisfy the needs of most people who don't need the power of custom configurations as found in dBASE and other such programs. With 175 on-line help screens, the program can literally be learned without the aid of a manual. Turning on the "teach" mode will bring up a help screen each time you enter a new area of the database. Use the ALT(F8) keys from the main menu to turn on this mode and "T" from the main menu to turn it off again. If you prefer the manual, registration is $69.00. As a shareware program users should consider registration anyway if used by you extensively. PCFILE+ does all those routines found in the more ex- pensive models. Sort, create report formats, mailing labels, mail merge with their own wordprocessor, and search string in a field, just to mention a few. Files may be imported or exported to a large number of other databases quite easily. If you tried this program since the meeting and are experiencing some problems (don't we all), bring your questions along with the PCFILE disk and database files. We will try to solve your problems without creating new ones at the next meeting. Our next meeting will diverge slightly from our normal routine of demonstrating software or hardware. We are fortunate to have as a member of our group, Barry Mayer, director of radiology at French Hospital, who will discuss how computers are used in radiology. No he will not be bringing his mega X-ray machine or sophisticated computer, but will show a video tape and discuss how he uses computers when your "under the gun". Time permitting, I will show a 15 minute tape on TEXTRONIX graphics. With the new high resolution graphics, time becomes a critical factor in "painting" the image to the screen. Textronix has come along way in speeding up this process and is heavily used in CAD/CAM industries. Byron will be returning to expound on the finer aspects of DOS at the early meeting. Remember, new users @ 6:15 and general meeting @ 7:15 in Science North 215. ====================================================== NEW MEMBERS A hardy WELCOME to our new members for the month of June: Lynne Boisen 544-1828 Mel Sage 438-1624 Leigh Elfrink 543-7534 Jim Lidberg 528-7350 Sandra Sidah 546-2236 Did you receive your membership card, or new member GUIDE? If not, pick one or both up from Ray or George at the meeting. ====================================================== $$$ 4SALE $$$ 4SALE $$$ 4SALE $$$ HERCULES Graphics Card. Never used........ $175.00 Contact Mike Marchek 238-0350 ====================================================== NEWS FROM OUR LIBRARY This month I spent most of my time doing a little house cleaning in our library. Several disks have been updated, some duplicate files removed, etc. Here is a list of the changes: #009 Added several files including FASTCOPY, HELP, PCBOSS, & SLOCK. Fast copy is one we use in duplicating disks for the library. It reads the whole disk into memory, then makes multiple copies, toggling between drive A & B. PCBOSS is a file management program from Capitol PC User's Group. PC-LOCK locks out your hard disk. SLOCK makes your Scroll Lock key useful, etc. #015 Added LDIR -- displays FAT and DIR area in hex. #028 CHASM (Cheap Assembler) updated. Added COM2DATA -- Converts machine language code to BASIC data statements. BASREF -- Good BASIC crossreference program. #062 Deleted CHMOD.BAS & replaced with CHMOD.COM -- Modifies file attributes. #082 Deleted several duplicate files found elsewhere in the library. #094 Added MOV_SUBD -- moves files between two subdirectories. Deleted MOVE, duplicate file. #122 Updated PKXARC to version 3.5. With new version you may create self extracting ARC files without the need for having PKXARC handy. Everyone should have this disk as several programs in our library have been ARC'd and MUST be extracted before use. #171 Added BANNER -- large block letters on your printer & RWCPM -- moves text files between MS- DOS and CPM. #186 Added documentation to LUE.COM #196 BURN-IN updated & bugs fixed. #198 Added two files ZSQ and SQUEZE squeezing and unsqueezing utilities. NEW disks this month: #204 WORDPERFECT MACROS: A series of WordPerfect Macros to run with your wordprocessor. #205 ShortCut ver 2.05 RAM resident DOS shell. Shareware. ====================================================== VERIFYING COPYING By Gordon White Hawkeye PCUG What happens if you're copying information from one disk to another and you open the drive door before the copy is done? Scratch one disk, right? Not necessarily! In most cases, when you open the drive door while the computer is trying to write to the disk, you'll be greeted with the usual error message to "Retry, Ignore or Abort." If you close the door and press Retry or Ignore, DOS will continue with the disk write operation and you will end up with a totally ruined file. It will show as a disk read error later. Well, there is a little-known (and little-used) way to avoid this problem. Discover the VERIFY command. If you type VERIFY ON during a session, DOS will make sure that the data you intend to write to a disk actually gets recorded properly. It's amazing how well it works. For example, I started copying data from one disk to another with VERIFY ON and I opened and closed the door on the target drive about 20 times. When the copy was finished, it tested out just fine. The simplest way to use this command is in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Just add a line to this file that says VERIFY ON. This command is executed when you boot your computer, and will stay in effect until you shut down the machine. And the VERIFY command is an internal part of DOS, so there isn't any VERIFY.COM or VERIFY.EXE. Nothing is free, of course, and the penalty you pay with VERIFY ON is time. Copying a 68K file from one floppy to another normally takes nine seconds on my PC, but with VERIFY ON the time is increased to thirteen seconds. That's not a real penalty unless you have a lot of copying to do. You can switch back to the regular unverified DOS condition with the command VERIFY OFF. But I'll take the peace of mind I get knowing that my copies are all accurate. ====================================================== COMMAND COM by Greg St.Cyr Brevard Users Group, Satellite Beach, FL Vol 5, #4 When I started to write this article I at first called it "Concurrent Batch Files" but as I got more into the program I had to add the other two additional features that it has. The program COMMAND.COM supplied with your DOS disk is the command processor that enables you to process your batch files. COMMAND by itself will allow you to exit from a batch file and go to DOS and then return back to the batch file when you enter EXIT. AUTOEXEC.BAT DATE TIME COMMAND MENU This file will ask you the date and time and then give you the system prompt. At any time you can exit from DOS and run the program called MENU by typing EXIT at the system prompt. It doesn't matter what directory you are logged to. When creating a batch file you may wish to go from one batch file to another and back again, as you would with a subroutine in BASIC. Normally if you tried it, DOS would let you go to the second file but would not return you to the first file. So to be able to run a second batch file and return to the first you must open a second copy of the command processor. This is done by running COMMAND.COM with the /C option. The following two programs will demonstrate this technique. \Q FIRST.BAT DATE TIME CLS PATH \;\DOS;\DOS\MSDOS1 COMMAND /C SECOND CD\DISCOVER DISCOVER SECOND.BAT SUBST D: C:\WORDSTAR\GREG SUBST E: C:\WORDSTAR\DIANE Once the file SECOND.BAT is finished, you will return to FIRST.BAT, change your logged drive to the subdirectory called DISCOVER, and then run the program DISCOVER. One additional feature of the command processor is with the /P switch. This will rerun the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. When it runs though, it will not reset the programs in RAM. ======================================================