• Anyone With A Tandy 1000h

    From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to CHRIS TRAINOR on Thu Jul 26 21:09:00 2012
    An IBM PS/2 286 back in 87 had a base price of $3500 and a 386 started
    >around $7k. So you can see why even an older tech PC at $500bucks would
    >be desired by folks.

    Same stuff still happens now... not everyone runs out and buys a new i7
    >system. Lots of <$500 computers out there with really cut down CPU's.
    >The difference today is that there are 'low end' versions of 'current
    >generation' tech. Back then, there wasn't 10 difference choices of a
    >386. You had a couple speeds, but that's it. The 'cheap' option was a
    >286 or 8088. People were still buying Apple II's back then. :)

    That's where I started.. An Apple II+ Clone. Heck, floppies drives
    were $350 and floppy disks $4 each, and the cost of memory was easy
    to work out.. $1 per kb.. 1 gig of ram for just $1 Million... B)
    I spent about 3 years in 'high end' IBM XT 8088 or 8086 systems with
    a meg of ram (only 760 kb available).. big deal at the time..
    My first hard drive which I got used a couple of years later held a
    whopping 10 meg (who would ever need that much storage ??) sold new for
    about $4800. I still have a monster tower here from a 386 that was worth
    almost $4000. It ended up with a 486DX-100 in it before I moved on.
    I'm still using the keyboard from that system after 21 years, and I mean
    used daily for hours. They don't build things like they used to... B)
    You mentioned not many 386's to choose from. The biggest difference was
    386SX vs 386DX, a huge upgrade back then. Mostly I remember just 25 and
    33 Mhx versions of 386's for speed though.

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  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to JOHN GUILLORY on Fri Jul 27 20:58:00 2012
    For many things, the 8088 could hold it's own with
    > a 80286, or slow 80386sx...
    > But, certain operations will really lag when compared to an 80386.

    The early IBM types could do amazing things with their limited, by
    today's standards, resources. I think all my early IBM XT's had a
    video card rather than anything integrated but some graphics jobs
    were ridiculously slow. I can remember converting a plain 640x480
    image from one graphics format to another and it was, start it going
    and go out for coffee or something because it was going to be chugging
    away at it for the next 30 or 40 minutes. Oh, and running PKZip on
    anything big-sh. I remember a friend getting an early 386DX and I
    was blown away with how fast he could Zip a file...

    Speaking of graphics though, admittedly the first computer graphics
    I ever saw that made me go Wow! was on an Apple. IBM's were still
    mostly CGA with some slightly better options just coming out, Hecules,
    EGA and such, when I saw an Apple system in a shop window displaying
    a picture that had metalic colours in it that looked almost real..
    Possibly it was their first 256 colour adaptor because I'm sure there
    was nothing higher at that time.

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to ROB MCCART on Mon Jul 30 00:08:03 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: ROB MCCART to JOHN GUILLORY on Fri Jul 27 2012 16:58:00

    today's standards, resources. I think all my early IBM XT's had a
    video card rather than anything integrated but some graphics jobs
    were ridiculously slow. I can remember converting a plain 640x480
    image from one graphics format to another and it was, start it going
    and go out for coffee or something because it was going to be chugging
    away at it for the next 30 or 40 minutes. Oh, and running PKZip on
    anything big-sh. I remember a friend getting an early 386DX and I
    was blown away with how fast he could Zip a file...

    In some ways, I somewhat miss those days, when getting a newer/faster system made a big difference in common activities like that. With today's computers, things like compressing a few files or converting a few images takes a split second no matter what. Speed improvements in computers today seem to generally affect larger-scale things, such as video editing & conversion, compressing a larger amount of files/data, real-time graphics realism, etc..

    Speaking of graphics though, admittedly the first computer graphics
    I ever saw that made me go Wow! was on an Apple. IBM's were still
    mostly CGA with some slightly better options just coming out, Hecules,
    EGA and such, when I saw an Apple system in a shop window displaying
    a picture that had metalic colours in it that looked almost real..
    Possibly it was their first 256 colour adaptor because I'm sure there
    was nothing higher at that time.

    I agree, in the 80s and early 90s, I sometimes wondered why IBM compatibles were lagging in the graphics area. Couldn't IBM or some of the graphics card manufacturers at the time have skipped past CGA and hired some of the same engineers who were developing the types of graphics for Apple & Amiga systems and such? :P

    Nightfox


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  • From Chris Trainor@VERT/FLEETHQ to Nightfox on Mon Jul 30 05:37:01 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Nightfox to ROB MCCART on Sun Jul 29 2012 20:08:03

    I agree, in the 80s and early 90s, I sometimes wondered why IBM compatibles were lagging in the graphics area. Couldn't IBM or some of the graphics car manufacturers at the time have skipped past CGA and hired some of the same engineers who were developing the types of graphics for Apple & Amiga system


    Actually there was VGA stuff way back then. the problem was the only
    ones who could afford to pay for it (businesses) generally had no need. Monochrome was fine for them. Some of those early video cards were
    nearly as expensive as the computer. Apple wasn't really any cheaper
    tho, they just marketed it diferently. IBM and PC compatibles were
    marketed mainly as a business machine. Also remember most of those
    apples with the higher end graphics had fairly low resolution. But the
    added color definitely helped with the 'wow' factor.


    --Chris

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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to ROB MCCART on Mon Jul 30 02:23:04 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: ROB MCCART to JOHN GUILLORY on Fri Jul 27 2012 04:58 pm

    away at it for the next 30 or 40 minutes. Oh, and running PKZip on
    anything big-sh. I remember a friend getting an early 386DX and I
    was blown away with how fast he could Zip a file...

    My BBS ran on a AT clone in 1991. Telegard, the software I ran, didn't have a native Fidonet tosser, so I'd need to toss incoming message packets to *.msg format (one file per message) then import those into the BBS. That could take an hour of chugging away so loudly that it woke me up in the other room.

    ---
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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Nightfox on Mon Jul 30 11:40:02 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Nightfox to ROB MCCART on Sun Jul 29 2012 08:08 pm

    In some ways, I somewhat miss those days, when getting a newer/faster system made a big difference in common activities like that. With today's computer things like compressing a few files or converting a few images takes a split second no matter what. Speed improvements in computers today seem to genera affect larger-scale things, such as video editing & conversion, compressing larger amount of files/data, real-time graphics realism, etc..

    Part of the problem is bloat. DOS was DOS, regardless of whether it was running on an XT, AT, or 386. Nowadays, it seems like OS requirements drive hardware development.

    ...And I do miss those days sometimes -- making a disk cache out of XMS memory, tweaking memory with DOS upper memory managers, and combining a mailer, BBS, utilities and more on a box with a fraction of the power of what we have nowadays.

    ---
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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Chris Trainor on Mon Jul 30 11:41:18 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Chris Trainor to Nightfox on Mon Jul 30 2012 01:37 am

    Actually there was VGA stuff way back then. the problem was the only
    ones who could afford to pay for it (businesses) generally had no need.

    I had a friend who splurged for a VGA card, and scoffed when the first thing I did when using his computer was issue the command "sa green on black" to change the text back to green on black.

    ---
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  • From John Guillory@VERT/MAINLINE to ROB MCCART on Mon Jul 30 17:14:25 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: ROB MCCART to JOHN GUILLORY on Fri Jul 27 2012 04:58 pm

    were ridiculously slow. I can remember converting a plain 640x480
    image from one graphics format to another and it was, start it going
    and go out for coffee or something because it was going to be chugging
    away at it for the next 30 or 40 minutes. Oh, and running PKZip on
    anything big-sh. I remember a friend getting an early 386DX and I
    was blown away with how fast he could Zip a file...
    I had a 4.77mHz PC/XT clone with an 8087 Math Coprecessor someone gave me, wanted so badly to find someone to burn my BIOS at the time that had QFresh, SMAX, and several other utilities built in to the BIOS, so that it'd have a speed-up and enhanced drive formatting without any TSR's needed, taking up Zero Memory since it'd be buried into ROM that the computer wouldn't normally use. I'd also typically install both a MDA and CGA card on the computer, such that the MDA would be used as Free RAM for custom programming. I ran a lot of test on it, doing multiple loops of continous multiplacations and divisions, etc. The 8087 would out perform my 80386 DX 40 at the time, and usually the 80486sx! I'd love to use WinRAR to compress a custom data file I'd make by writing 20 megabytes of binary Zeros. I'd rename the file and compress it to something like maindocs.txt, then rename it and compress it as techspecs.txt and compress it in with the same file.... Then rename it to circuit.dwg and compress it. Sometimes get creative and create a EXE header that'd point to a single instruction that'd exit back to DOS with extra baggage of 20 megs, and rename it to setup.exe .... e-mail it to someone and they get this 5-10k RAR file that they open it to view and say "No Way, 20 megs compressed down to 10 bytes?" They can't help but uncompress it.... Yup, it's 20 megs each! WinRAR was right! Oh and it looks like your hard drive is running low on disk space... May want to clear up a little free space.... ;-) You really want to be creative, see how many times you can get away with it... ;-) Take that 20 meg file as 4-5 different names and zip it up into ACAD-CRK.ZIP, WIN31.ZIP, DOS622.ZIP, PSP-FULL.ZIP, and 40-50 other files similiarly named.... Then RAR all of them together as JULYWRZ.RAR and e-mail it to someone.... Tell them you got it off a BBS and haven't had a chance to look at it... ;-)

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  • From John Guillory@VERT/MAINLINE to Nightfox on Mon Jul 30 18:02:30 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Nightfox to ROB MCCART on Sun Jul 29 2012 08:08 pm

    today's standards, resources. I think all my early IBM XT's had a
    video card rather than anything integrated but some graphics jobs
    were ridiculously slow. I can remember converting a plain 640x480
    image from one graphics format to another and it was, start it going
    I agree, in the 80s and early 90s, I sometimes wondered why IBM
    compatibles were lagging in the graphics area. Couldn't IBM or some of
    the graphics card manufacturers at the time have skipped past CGA and
    hired some of the same engineers who were developing the types of graphics for Apple & Amiga systems and such? :P
    They had a few systems that wasn't as lacking, but because of that, they wasn't as compatible. Herculees made some impressive sounding video cards that did color, but wasn't too popular. Commodore PC Colt came with a 16-color CGA that was quite impressive! As did the Tandy, both was basically the same video card, but the Colt lacked the tandy sound. AT&T had a 640x480 monochrome mode added onto the CGA. Clever hackers every once in a while would use the extra memory to do 4-color graphics in 640x200 mode. Was not documented at all how they did it, complicated as heck from what I saw. Now where the bottle neck occurs is this: Consider the IBM PC/XT. The original processor was 4.77mHz. If I'm not mistaken the original PC/XT bus didn't actually run at 4.77mHz, think it was more like 2mHz, but when the PC/AT came along, cards where designed for 10mHz standard XT speed, and the PC/AT running at 10 mHz had a round a 4mHz bus speed for XT, and think 8mHz for AT when running at 10mHz. Now, even if you ran a 16mHz AT Compatible 286, your bus ran at 8 mHz on 16-bit slots and 4mHz on XT slots if I'm not mistaken. (This has REALLY BEEN A WHILE!) So when the 80386's came along and had AT style bus architecture, you'd slap on a VGA video card and if it was an AT style card (16-bit), it'd run at 8 mHz, if it was an XT style (8-bit), it'd run at 4mHz. Even with your 80386 running 33mHz, the video was still chugging away at 8mHz, so you had to apply 4 wait states, causing the CPU to twiddle it's thumbs when writing to any 16-bit card on the bus. The CPU would use 8 wait states on the XT cards. Now they later used DMA on some transfers for sound, and even occasionally video transfer (especially video), but not your average program. This took a different aproach, instead of the CPU writing to the BUS, the CPU setup the DMA controller, told it what you wanted to do, then allowed it to transfer the memory to the bus, while the CPU goes on processing the next instruction. Great, but not effective for updating 1-2 characters on the screen. Now, with that in mind, we go back to the AT&T 6300. The side of the case has this big massive full-lenght card with a propriatary specialized 16-bit slot that can only be used for the video card. That low-life CGA with 640x480 monochrome had a 16-bit bus to the CPU that was only used for video transfer. It couldn't be removed! It could be disabled, but you needed to add special chips and go through herdles! Video writes was done from a 16-bit 8086 to a 16-bit video card via a propriatary 16-bit bus that unlike the PC/XT slots, this bad boy ran at the speed of the CPU and wasn't concerned with compatibility! That's why when folks like me went from an AT&T 6300 (XT Class running I think 8 mHz 8086) that clocked out equivilent to a 10mHz PC/XT on an 8088, to a PC/AT compatible running 16mHz (whoo hoo! 2 times as fast), the video just really didn't seem to make me jump up and shout! In fact, the CGA monitor with an EGA adapter kinda felt like I downgraded to an Atari 2600. Later, I got a VGA graphics card for it, and even bought some of the top of the line graphics cards. They where faster than the EGA, but still kinda seemed not spectacular for speed. Improving the speed of the CPU bought you a little speed increase, but you still are going through a limited bus speed. VESA bought you even more speed, when it come out, I understand if you was lucky enough to have an EISA, it'd buy you even more speed. But nothing like tossing a direct line from your video-card to your CPU and your memory to your CPU.... You want speed, throw it all on the mother board and you MAKE the standards! Don't go by everyone else's standards! Likewise, that lowly CGA and MGA had the same identical chipset used in a Commodore 64, but since they didn't tie all the ports to the PC, you couldn't swap colors like you could on Commodore in the middle of a character being re-written, or while the border is being drawn, etc. It's kinda about like taking a Porche 911 Twin Turbo, removing the gear shift linkage and gear shift, welding the transmission into the first gear, then selling it on e-bay as an economy car with no reverse.

    ---
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Chris Trainor on Tue Jul 31 01:28:12 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Chris Trainor to Nightfox on Mon Jul 30 2012 01:37:01

    Actually there was VGA stuff way back then. the problem was the only
    ones who could afford to pay for it (businesses) generally had no need. Monochrome was fine for them. Some of those early video cards were
    nearly as expensive as the computer. Apple wasn't really any cheaper
    tho, they just marketed it diferently. IBM and PC compatibles were marketed mainly as a business machine. Also remember most of those
    apples with the higher end graphics had fairly low resolution. But the added color definitely helped with the 'wow' factor.

    That makes sense.
    For monochrome graphics, I thought the Hercules graphics card was fairly good. I had one of those in my first computer, with a Samsung amber monitor. Sharp graphics, and not bad for B&W games. I was happy when I got a VGA card and monitor though.

    Nightfox


    ---
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Poindexter Fortran on Tue Jul 31 01:32:05 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Poindexter Fortran to Nightfox on Mon Jul 30 2012 07:40:02

    Part of the problem is bloat. DOS was DOS, regardless of whether it was running on an XT, AT, or 386. Nowadays, it seems like OS requirements
    drive hardware development.

    That's true. Back in those days, it was good to install the same DOS on a much more powerful machine, knowing you'll get that much more speed & power out of it. These days I've gotten tired of OS bloat. These days, as hardware gets more powerful, it seems that OS developers are compelled to make as much use of it for the OS as possible.

    ...And I do miss those days sometimes -- making a disk cache out of XMS memory, tweaking memory with DOS upper memory managers, and combining a mailer, BBS, utilities and more on a box with a fraction of the power of what we have nowadays.

    I miss that too. I felt quite a sense of accomplishment after optimizing my memory and configuring something for my BBS and getting it all working well. But I suppose the point of all the progress with computers has been to simplify tasks and make things easier, which they have done.

    Nightfox


    ---
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  • From Chris Trainor@VERT/FLEETHQ to Nightfox on Tue Jul 31 18:44:04 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Nightfox to Chris Trainor on Mon Jul 30 2012 21:28:12

    For monochrome graphics, I thought the Hercules graphics card was fairly goo I had one of those in my first computer, with a Samsung amber monitor. Shar graphics, and not bad for B&W games. I was happy when I got a VGA card and monitor though.

    Yeah, I much prefered mono over CGA... CGA's text mode (and the rest
    really) just looked crappy.

    My first VGA I forget the card, probably Paradise, but for ages all I
    had was a mono-VGA monitor. Same rez, just only grayscale. Couldn't
    afford a color VGA for a while. And again, for text the mono-vga looked
    nicer then color... so I kepted the mono one for my BBS and whatnot.

    --Chris

    ------------------------------------------
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Chris Trainor on Tue Jul 31 23:39:45 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Chris Trainor to Nightfox on Tue Jul 31 2012 14:44:04

    Yeah, I much prefered mono over CGA... CGA's text mode (and the rest really) just looked crappy.

    I agree. CGA was fairly low-resolution. It seemed better for simple games than anything else.

    My first VGA I forget the card, probably Paradise, but for ages all I
    had was a mono-VGA monitor. Same rez, just only grayscale. Couldn't afford a color VGA for a while. And again, for text the mono-vga looked nicer then color... so I kepted the mono one for my BBS and whatnot.

    That's cool. I had a mono VGA monitor for a while, which I used on a spare computer. For a while, I wasn't sure what the point was of making a monitor to use with a color graphics standard, only to make it greyscale. But then I saw that those monitors were less expensive.

    My first VGA card was a Trident TVGA9000. It had a small amount of memory (256KB, I think), but it worked well for a while with the games I played. I started to feel the need to get a better card when I wanted to do 1024x768 and realized that the colors were limited in that resolution - I think it would do only 256 colors in that resolution.

    Nightfox


    ---
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  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to NIGHTFOX on Tue Jul 31 21:09:00 2012
    today's standards, resources. I think all my early IBM XT's had a
    > > video card rather than anything integrated but some graphics jobs
    > > were ridiculously slow. I can remember converting a plain 640x480
    > > image from one graphics format to another and it was, start it going
    > > and go out for coffee or something because it was going to be chugging
    > > away at it for the next 30 or 40 minutes. Oh, and running PKZip on
    > > anything big-sh. I remember a friend getting an early 386DX and I
    > > was blown away with how fast he could Zip a file...

    In some ways, I somewhat miss those days, when getting a newer/faster system
    >made a big difference in common activities like that. With today's computers
    >things like compressing a few files or converting a few images takes a split
    >second no matter what. Speed improvements in computers today seem to general
    >affect larger-scale things, such as video editing & conversion, compressing a
    >larger amount of files/data, real-time graphics realism, etc..

    Yes, I think we've reached a point where the software is far behind the
    full use of the hardware so upgrading hardware makes next to no difference exceptt in very limited instances..

    Speaking of graphics though, admittedly the first computer graphics
    > > I ever saw that made me go Wow! was on an Apple. IBM's were still
    > > mostly CGA with some slightly better options just coming out

    I agree, in the 80s and early 90s, I sometimes wondered why IBM compatibles
    >were lagging in the graphics area. Couldn't IBM or some of the graphics card
    >manufacturers at the time have skipped past CGA and hired some of the same
    >engineers who were developing the types of graphics for Apple & Amiga systems
    >and such? :P

    My first IBM 8086 came with CGA and I somewhat later found an early
    VGA (I think.. EGA maybe..) card for it - the video card bigger than
    most computers these days.. I couldn't afford a colour monitor for it
    at the time but found a Black and White that I could set through the
    video card to do 80 character wide (remember 40 character screens?)
    and a 256 level Grayscale which, at the time, I was quite happy with.
    Good enough resolution to tell key colours in the early FPS Games like
    Duke Nukem and Commander Keen. B)

    Picking up computers in the earlier days - 1982 - I watched a lot of
    things evolve quickly as computers migrated from business use only
    (and geek freak) to home use and I sort of felt something was lost
    every time they brought out software to make things easier to use.
    It's not as much fun when everyone can do it... B)
    Ansi graphics before programs like The Draw was a serious skill.
    I wrote my own menu based OS for my first computer which worked
    much better than most things available for DOS. Later there were
    commercial front ends fairly similar to what I had, XT Gold, List,
    PC Valet,.. but those followed a few years later..

    I liked the idea of DOS as a basic OS that did almost nothing and
    you could manipulate it to work the way you wanted. I'm sure that's
    what a lot of the more skilled Linux users must feel like today..
    ---
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to ROB MCCART on Wed Aug 1 11:48:20 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: ROB MCCART to NIGHTFOX on Tue Jul 31 2012 17:09:00

    VGA (I think.. EGA maybe..) card for it - the video card bigger than
    most computers these days.. I couldn't afford a colour monitor for it

    I remember there being some fairly big expansion cards back then.. I remember there being the notion of a "full-size" card, which by definition meant that it was long enough to go to the front of the PC case. I haven't seen any cards that big in a long time.

    Good enough resolution to tell key colours in the early FPS Games like
    Duke Nukem and Commander Keen. B)

    Commander Keen and the first Duke Nukem games weren't FPS, they were side-scrollers.

    Picking up computers in the earlier days - 1982 - I watched a lot of
    things evolve quickly as computers migrated from business use only
    (and geek freak) to home use and I sort of felt something was lost
    every time they brought out software to make things easier to use.

    I've felt that too. Before Windows 95, for instance, I felt like most people I talked to who were into computers had good technical knowledge about computers and had a decent understanding of computers, so it was fairly easy to talk to them about computer stuff. But then, I found that there were some people who owned a computer who I could try talking about computer stuff with, and they looked like they didn't know what I was talking about. One of the most disappointing instances was around 1995 and I told one of my friends that I run a BBS, and he said "What's a BBS?". And 1995 was back when BBSs were still fairly popular..

    Nightfox


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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to ROB MCCART on Wed Aug 1 15:19:19 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: ROB MCCART to NIGHTFOX on Tue Jul 31 2012 05:09 pm

    Picking up computers in the earlier days - 1982 - I watched a lot of
    things evolve quickly as computers migrated from business use only
    (and geek freak) to home use and I sort of felt something was lost
    every time they brought out software to make things easier to use.

    Have you watched the BBS documentary? Some of the older sysops lamented the fact that someone could just install a BBS package and call themselves a sysop without knowing assembler. :)

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  • From Chris Trainor@VERT/FLEETHQ to Poindexter Fortran on Wed Aug 1 21:47:50 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Poindexter Fortran to ROB MCCART on Wed Aug 01 2012 11:19:19


    Have you watched the BBS documentary? Some of the older sysops lamented the fact that someone could just install a BBS package and call themselves a sys without knowing assembler. :)


    Happens everywhere. :) Software engineers whining that the 'new kids'
    only know 'object oriented' and don't know C or assembly.... Web
    developers complaining about folks who use Dreamweaver.... gamers
    whining about those who didn't buy the game new but got it 6mo later at
    the used game rack... etc. :)

    --Chris

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  • From Mro@VERT/BBSESINF to Poindexter Fortran on Wed Aug 1 22:35:50 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Poindexter Fortran to ROB MCCART on Wed Aug 01 2012 11:19 am

    Have you watched the BBS documentary? Some of the older sysops lamented the fact that someone could just install a BBS package and call themselves a sysop without knowing assembler. :)


    i didnt like the bbs doc. i dont know if everyone he interviewed was THAT boring, because he would take these long trips out there and then only show 1-2 mins of the interview on the bbs doc.

    he said he'd but more up on archive.org but i havent seen anything interesting.

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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Chris Trainor on Wed Aug 1 23:17:41 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Chris Trainor to Poindexter Fortran on Wed Aug 01 2012 17:47:50

    Happens everywhere. :) Software engineers whining that the 'new kids' only know 'object oriented' and don't know C or assembly.... Web developers complaining about folks who use Dreamweaver.... gamers

    On the flip side, there are also valid arguments to be made for using newer technologies rather than sticking to older technology only because one feels better with it. As a software engineer, I can program object-oriented or functional (with C, etc.), but I prefer object-oriented because I think it produces cleaner and more organized code. Also, newer programming languages and technologies often offer programmers to be more productive, and when working for a company, time is money. That said, much of my programming experience has been with C++. I have done some C#, though, and I think it is a good language, and I'll admit I feel more productive using C# than C++.

    Nightfox


    ---
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  • From John Guillory@VERT/MAINLINE to Nightfox on Thu Aug 2 13:51:38 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Nightfox to Chris Trainor on Tue Jul 31 2012 19:39:45

    My first VGA card was a Trident TVGA9000. It had a small amount of memory (256KB, I think), but it worked well for a while with the games I played.
    My first VGA card was a RealTek 640x480x16 VGA card. I went from an AT&T 6300 (640x400x2, 640x200x2, and 320x200x4) to an EGA with a CGA monitor (640x200x16 max) to a VGA w/ VGA monitor (I think it could do 800x600x16, but that was about all it did non-standard VGA at the time). Later, went to Trident, then Paradise, then the Mac Daddy of them all... The ATI All-In-Wonder! Then this video card that had a big blue thingy for the video input/output for TV and stuff, then nVidia

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Roach Guts -- kingcoder.net
  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to JOHN GUILLORY on Wed Aug 1 22:51:00 2012
    The 8087 would out perform my 80386 DX 40 at the time

    I can't see that since the 8087 was 2 generations slower and 1/8 the
    cycle speed of 386DX which, correct me if I'm wrong, HAD a math
    co-processor built in. The 386SX was the 386 without a math co-pro and
    the 386 SLC was effectively a 286 (IBM AT) that could read 386 code.

    I'd love to use WinRAR to compress a custom data file I'd make by writing 20
    >megabytes of binary Zeros. I'd rename the file and compress it to something
    >like maindocs.txt, then rename it and compress it as techspecs.txt and
    >compress it in with the same file.... Then rename it to circuit.dwg and
    >compress it. Sometimes get creative and create a EXE header that'd point to
    >single instruction that'd exit back to DOS with extra baggage of 20 megs, an
    >rename it to setup.exe .... e-mail it to someone and they get this 5-10k RAR
    >file that they open it to view and say "No Way, 20 megs compressed down to 10
    >bytes?" They can't help but uncompress it.... Yup, it's 20 megs each!

    I've seen files purposely designed to compress from a huge file into
    a tiny archive file designed to mess up people's drives when uncompressed..
    So you were basically creating Malware?..

    ---
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  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to NIGHTFOX on Wed Aug 1 22:38:00 2012
    Back in those days, it was good to install the same DOS on a much
    >more powerful machine, knowing you'll get that much more speed &
    >power out of it.

    Ha.. yes I remember upgrading from I think a 4.77 mhz 8088 to an
    8 Mhz 8086 or something and games that I'd been using would suddenly
    run so fast they were unplayable. Little utilities came out to slow
    down your computer so you could still use them.. Science takes a
    giant step backwards.. B)

    ---
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  • From John Guillory@VERT/MAINLINE to ROB MCCART on Thu Aug 2 23:46:05 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: ROB MCCART to JOHN GUILLORY on Wed Aug 01 2012 18:51:00

    I can't see that since the 8087 was 2 generations slower and 1/8 the
    cycle speed of 386DX which, correct me if I'm wrong, HAD a math
    co-processor built in. The 386SX was the 386 without a math co-pro and
    the 386 SLC was effectively a 286 (IBM AT) that could read 386 code.
    You're referring to the 80486DX with a math coprocessor and the 80486SX not having one. The 80386DX was a 32-bit CPU with a 32-bit BUS. The 80386SX was a 32-bit CPU with a 16-bit BUS and missing certain features of the DX version. The 80386DX had no Math Coprocessor, unless you purchased a 80387DX. The 80386 could Emulate an 80387, but not at the speed of an 80387 or even at the speed of the 8087. The 80386SLC was a Low Powered 80386 made for Laptops. The SLC being an SX low powered. The Intel 80386DX processors only went upto 33 mHz, while the AMD 80386DX went upto 40mHz. Cyrix 80386's tended to have Cx in front if I'm not mistaken.

    I've seen files purposely designed to compress from a huge file into
    a tiny archive file designed to mess up people's drives when
    uncompressed.. So you were basically creating Malware?..
    I prefer to call it "Test-ware", as the data files where not released to anyone besides myself, all data files remained on my hard drive as well as the RAR files. For the record, I still to this day have my doubts on the effective speed of the built in math coprocessor compared to a seperate math coprocessor.
    Just seems to make sense if you have a seperate math coprocessor on a seperate bus, it has to be faster than built-into the CPU, and using a CPU that's allready using clock-multiplying techniques. The 80386DX was the last of what I like to consider the real processors. After that, they started using clock doubling and clock trippling, and quadrupling technology to appear like a faster rate, though in reality, depending on what you was doing, you really didn't get improved speed unless you was doing single-task, very basic math calculations, etc. like just adding a bunch of numbers, or doing shifts. Start accessing memory, and your not getting the effects of what the processor was supposed to be able to do. Now if you want a true clock doubled processor, put you 2 80386DX-40's running simultaneously with 2 80387DX-40's and compare to a 80486DX2-100 Bet it the 80486DX2-100 desiring a lot! I never was one to buy Intel's hype on their clock doublers....

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Roach Guts -- kingcoder.net
  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to ROB MCCART on Thu Aug 2 23:29:44 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: ROB MCCART to NIGHTFOX on Wed Aug 01 2012 18:38:00

    Ha.. yes I remember upgrading from I think a 4.77 mhz 8088 to an
    8 Mhz 8086 or something and games that I'd been using would suddenly
    run so fast they were unplayable. Little utilities came out to slow
    down your computer so you could still use them.. Science takes a
    giant step backwards.. B)

    I remember that being a fairly common issue, and I believe that was a main reason why PCs used to have a "turbo" button; normally the computer would run on the fast speed, but the turbo button would let you slow down the PC to play games that were too fast at the normal speed. Interesting that that isn't a problem anymore - most games these days must implement an algorithm to keep things going at a "normal" speed even on a really fast computer.

    Nightfox


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  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to JOHN GUILLORY on Thu Aug 2 20:58:00 2012
    I had a 4.77mHz PC/XT clone with an 8087 Math Coprecessor....

    Oops.. just realised some of what I said yesterday was in error..

    The 386sx was a 16 bit chip and the 386dx was a 32 bit chip, not
    one including a math coprocesor. It was the 486 line where the
    difference bewteen the sx and dx models was a built in math copro.

    It suddenly struck me last night that my first 386dx had a second
    processor on the motherboard marked 387..

    ---
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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to John Guillory on Fri Aug 3 14:42:00 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: John Guillory to ROB MCCART on Thu Aug 02 2012 07:46 pm

    You're referring to the 80486DX with a math coprocessor and the 80486SX n having one. The 80386DX was a 32-bit CPU with a 32-bit BUS. The 80386SX was 32-bit CPU with a 16-bit BUS and missing certain features of the DX version.


    Saved for historical reference - that was a great summary of several years of CPUs. Those were interesting times for hardware; I was working at a game company and we burned through hardware in 6-12 months.

    ---
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  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Nightfox on Fri Aug 3 14:44:02 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Nightfox to ROB MCCART on Thu Aug 02 2012 07:29 pm

    I remember that being a fairly common issue, and I believe that was a main reason why PCs used to have a "turbo" button; normally the computer would ru on the fast speed, but the turbo button would let you slow down the PC to pl games that were too fast at the normal speed.

    Ironic that instead of people using the switch to speed up the system, it was really left on and used to slow it down at times. I think the marketeers would have rather sold a TURBO button than a COMPATIBILITY button any day. :)

    ---
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Aug 3 22:39:44 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Poindexter Fortran to Nightfox on Fri Aug 03 2012 10:44:02

    Ironic that instead of people using the switch to speed up the system, it was really left on and used to slow it down at times. I think the
    marketeers would have rather sold a TURBO button than a COMPATIBILITY
    button any day. :)

    That's true. :) I sometimes used to think it was odd that it was called a "turbo" button when it was always in turbo mode by default.

    Nightfox


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  • From John Guillory@VERT/MAINLINE to Poindexter Fortran on Sat Aug 4 02:26:21 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Poindexter Fortran to John Guillory on Fri Aug 03 2012 10:42:00

    Saved for historical reference - that was a great summary of several years of CPUs. Those were interesting times for hardware; I was working at a
    game company and we burned through hardware in 6-12 months.
    Funny thing about that.... During the time, I was helping a friend who had
    a computer business. I'd help him do cleanings, repairs, upgrades, etc. Basically was volunteer work, didn't get paid... But was mainly doing it to help him out. He'd hire this guy who was lucky to know what a computer was to do "Sales". He'd butcher it so badly, and a friend caught him good on it. He advertised we sold a 80386DX-40 with an Intel Processor. My friend had no problems with it, my other friend working for free said "They don't make an Intel 80386-DX 40!" Would you believe, 2 months later, PC Magazine had an article where they talked about the differences, and company names, etc. The crazy thing is they mentioned only AMD had a DX 40, Intel had the DX-33. A bunch of the low-powered chips got kinda confusing, especially when you bring in Cyrix (very weird chip naming schemes!), and there was a few other companies.... Seems like it started with a T.... Texas Instruments maybe? Not a popular one, but it went dirt cheap.... On the 80386's, they where all pretty much pin-compatible. You buy a motherboard, they all worked with any company, though personal experience, Cyrix gave me more problems. Probably because they tended to run a little hotter, and there was a few compatibility issues on the CPU its self. (made for easy detection). The AMD's tended to be the choice for quality up till the Pentium series. I was an authorized AMD reseller for the longest time. AMD would send me tons of reference books, litature, posters, etc. Later, around the Pentiums, they slacked off and stopped helping the resellers so much, and forgot who made them famous. There's also the CPU I never really actually got to see.... Heard a lot about it, maybe someone here can help you out... You see, something happened with the DEC Alpha processor. Intel wanted it, but there was a conflict thingy that said for them to get it, 4-5 other companies had to have equal parts of the technology. AMD was the #2 contender for it. I think this is the chip modern CPU's are designed from. This was a serious work horse that was designed from ground up to do like 5 task at a time with serious multi-processing and number crunching cabibility. I think it was a RISC based CPU, contrary to Intel/AMD offerings. Until the split-up the CPU was only used for I believe UNIX SCO or something like that, no other OS could really take advantage of the CPU till then... Definitely something for running a FTP server or something....

    ---
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  • From John Guillory@VERT/MAINLINE to Poindexter Fortran on Sat Aug 4 02:32:39 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Poindexter Fortran to Nightfox on Fri Aug 03 2012 10:44:02

    was really left on and used to slow it down at times. I think the
    marketeers would have rather sold a TURBO button than a COMPATIBILITY
    button any day. :)
    I liked the extra light, especially when it was on the button itself.
    Though, I'd allways find other uses for the button.... That, and when
    bored, program the turbo light to go on and off, or use the turbo light
    as a status for my program.... That's what we need next on cases....
    Put about 10-12 LED lights labeled S1 - S12, and have the motherboard
    designed to allow the user to turn them on and off via software....
    Granted, it'd be super easy for Linux and DOS, a royal pain in Windows.


    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Roach Guts -- kingcoder.net
  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to John Guillory on Sat Aug 4 04:03:33 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: John Guillory to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Aug 03 2012 22:26:21

    it to help him out. He'd hire this guy who was lucky to know what a computer was to do "Sales". He'd butcher it so badly, and a friend caught him good on it. He advertised we sold a 80386DX-40 with an Intel
    Processor. My friend had no problems with it, my other friend working for free said "They don't make an Intel 80386-DX 40!" Would you believe, 2 months later, PC Magazine had an article where they talked about the differences, and company names, etc. The crazy thing is they mentioned
    only AMD had a DX 40, Intel had the DX-33.

    I remember that. I used AMD CPUs in my desktops for the longest time, because I felt like they had a better price/performance ratio. I had an AMD 386DX-40 at one time and felt like it was state of the art (or near to it) at the time.

    A bunch of the low-powered
    chips got kinda confusing, especially when you bring in Cyrix (very weird chip naming schemes!), and there was a few other companies.... Seems like
    it started with a T.... Texas Instruments maybe? Not a popular one, but
    it went dirt cheap.... On the 80386's, they where all pretty much pin-compatible. You buy a motherboard, they all worked with any company, though personal experience, Cyrix gave me more problems. Probably because they tended to run a little hotter, and there was a few compatibility
    issues on the CPU its self. (made for easy detection).

    I liked those days and somewhat miss them too. These days, I don't really like how you're forced to choose one slot standard or another when you build a system, but I guess it doesn't make a whole lot of difference.. I used to like the thought of being able to just buy a new CPU and put it in, but these days, computer technology changes so fast that it seems that you might as well build a new computer when you upgrade.
    I also remember hearing about the IDT WinChip (another socket 7 CPU), but that one didn't last very long. I heard it was one of the lowest performing CPUs available. Didn't VIA also make some socket 7 CPUs too? I may be mistaken, but I thought there was another company besides Intel, AMD, Cyrix, and IDT..

    The AMD's tended
    to be the choice for quality up till the Pentium series.

    I had AMD CPUs in my computers for the longest time (from around 1994 to 2011 when I switched to Intel), but after a while I started to hear people say that Intel made the better performing CPUs, mainly due to their FPUs. I'm not sure how true that is though.. but around 2000, I heard that AMD had the upper hand with their Athlon line of CPUs. But it seemed like it was always back and forth between AMD and Intel having the faster CPUs.

    them famous. There's also the CPU I never really actually got to see.... Heard a lot about it, maybe someone here can help you out... You see, something happened with the DEC Alpha processor. Intel wanted it, but
    there was a conflict thingy that said for them to get it, 4-5 other companies had to have equal parts of the technology. AMD was the #2 contender for it. I think this is the chip modern CPU's are designed
    from. This was a serious work horse that was designed from ground up to do like 5 task at a time with serious multi-processing and number crunching

    Was it perhaps a Sun CPU?
    When you mentioned modern CPUs, you reminded me that I had heard that it was AMD who came up with the 64-bit x86 extension that PCs are now using, and even Intel has implemented that instruction set. What used to be called the AMD64 architecture is now called x86-64 because both AMD and Intel implement it in their CPUs.

    Nightfox


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  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to NIGHTFOX on Fri Aug 3 22:40:00 2012
    VGA (I think.. EGA maybe..) card for it - the video card bigger than
    > > most computers these days.. I couldn't afford a colour monitor for it

    I remember there being some fairly big expansion cards back then.. I remembe
    >there being the notion of a "full-size" card, which by definition meant that
    >was long enough to go to the front of the PC case. I haven't seen any cards
    >that big in a long time.

    I still have one or two of them somewhere in the 'junk' I think.

    Good enough resolution to tell key colours in the early FPS Games like
    > > Duke Nukem and Commander Keen. B)

    Commander Keen and the first Duke Nukem games weren't FPS, they were
    >side-scrollers.

    Sorry.. I assumed that the earlier ones just weren't "3D" but that
    if you were shooting guys it was still a First Person Shooter (FPS) game..

    Picking up computers in the earlier days - 1982 - I watched a lot of
    > > things evolve quickly as computers migrated from business use only
    > > (and geek freak) to home use and I sort of felt something was lost
    > > every time they brought out software to make things easier to use.

    I've felt that too. Before Windows 95, for instance, I felt like most people
    >talked to who were into computers had good technical knowledge about computer
    >and had a decent understanding of computers

    You pretty much had to have or you'd never get them running... B)

    One of the most disappointing instances was around 1995 and I told
    >one of my friends that I run a BBS, and he said "What's a BBS?".
    >And 1995 was back when BBSs were still fairly popular..

    Yes.. at the time I was on 7 or 8 of them and some had international
    access. I was 'e-mailing' before Internet was readily available with
    people all over the world. I still have friends I talk to frequently
    in other countries, some on other continents, that I 'met' on a BBS
    20 to 25 years ago.

    ---
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  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to POINDEXTER FORTRAN on Fri Aug 3 22:36:00 2012
    Have you watched the BBS documentary? Some of the older sysops lamented the
    >fact that someone could just install a BBS package and call themselves a syso
    >without knowing assembler. :)

    I haven't seen that yet but it doesn't surprise me. Everyone likes to
    feel like an 'elitist' for a while.. I saw DOS get trashed in the early
    days as being too user friendly for the same reason..
    I still do some stuff in DOS and people who have taken up computers
    in the past 20 years look at it like you're using a foreign language,
    which in a way I guess you are.. just not as foreign as assembler.. B)
    ---
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  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to ROB MCCART on Sat Aug 4 21:25:37 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: ROB MCCART to NIGHTFOX on Fri Aug 03 2012 18:40:00

    Sorry.. I assumed that the earlier ones just weren't "3D" but that
    if you were shooting guys it was still a First Person Shooter (FPS) game..

    ah.. Typically, "first person shooter" refers to 3D shooter games where you have the first person view of the charcater.

    Yes.. at the time I was on 7 or 8 of them and some had international
    access. I was 'e-mailing' before Internet was readily available with
    people all over the world. I still have friends I talk to frequently
    in other countries, some on other continents, that I 'met' on a BBS
    20 to 25 years ago.

    That's cool. I have rarely run into people I knew back in the BBS days.. although I didn't really get to know many people very well from the BBS days. By the time I started using internet services on BBSs (only a couple in my area offered internet services), that was about the time I started using the internet directly anyway (around 1995). I found BBSs to be a little too limiting for internet use, with their daily time limits and such.

    Nightfox


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  • From Chris Trainor@VERT/FLEETHQ to John Guillory on Sun Aug 5 01:23:54 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: John Guillory to Poindexter Fortran on Fri Aug 03 2012 22:26:21

    advertised we sold a 80386DX-40 with an Intel Processor. My friend had no problems with it, my other friend working for free said "They don't make an Intel 80386-DX 40!" Would you believe, 2 months later, PC Magazine had an article where they talked about the differences, and company names, etc. Th


    That's kindof the whole reason Intel stopped simply calling the
    processors by number. You cant copyright/trademark a number. Hence
    "Pentium" was born. That helped in some ways (customer confusion)
    harmed in others (they also came out with custom sockets and such to
    block the easy chip swap).

    --Chris

    ------------------------------------------
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  • From John Guillory@VERT/MAINLINE to Nightfox on Sun Aug 5 20:52:20 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Nightfox to John Guillory on Sat Aug 04 2012 00:03:33

    Was it perhaps a Sun CPU?
    When you mentioned modern CPUs, you reminded me that I had heard that it
    was AMD who came up with the 64-bit x86 extension that PCs are now using, and even Intel has implemented that instruction set. What used to be
    called the AMD64 architecture is now called x86-64 because both AMD and Intel implement it in their CPUs.
    I think it was, and now that you mention it, I think AMD did come up with the first 64-bit insturction set. Though I never really got into the 64-bit instructions. From what I read up on, the SSE instructions seemed to primarily require you to perform the same operation on a group of 8 or more memory locations. At the time, I didn't have a whole lot of need for that, so they where pretty much useless to me as a programmer. I can see were if I had a 3-D object or something and I wanted to rotate the entire object, it'd be useful, but for downloading information off the internet, averaging information, etc. would be totally useless, since you'd be adding to the same memory location, and dividing it by the number of records you received, only 1 variable.... Not like you want to divide the entire bunch by a single number.... Pretty much ended my keeping up with the latest and greatest insturction sets...

    ---
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  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to NIGHTFOX on Sat Aug 4 21:14:00 2012
    Ha.. yes I remember upgrading from I think a 4.77 mhz 8088 to an
    > > 8 Mhz 8086 or something and games that I'd been using would suddenly
    > > run so fast they were unplayable. Little utilities came out to slow
    > > down your computer so you could still use them.. Science takes a
    > > giant step backwards.. B)

    I remember that being a fairly common issue, and I believe that was a main
    >reason why PCs used to have a "turbo" button

    Yes, I have a giant server tower beside my desk here that started out
    life as a 386DX 33 with 387 CoPro and it has a Turbo button on it that
    dropped the speed by 50% I think it was.. I later upgraded the system
    with a new motherboard & 486DX-100 which lost the turbo functionality.

    Interesting that that isn't a problem anymore - most games these
    >days must implement an algorithm to keep things going at a "normal"
    >speed even on a really fast computer.

    Yes, right around the early 386 days they started adding some sort
    of clock tick control on games to regulate the speed.
    Hardware was evolving so fast that games were becoming useless
    almost overnight before that.
    ---
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  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to NIGHTFOX on Mon Aug 6 12:19:00 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Chris Trainor to Poindexter Fortran on Wed Aug 01 2012 17:47:50

    Happens everywhere. :) Software engineers whining that the 'new kids' only know 'object oriented' and don't know C or assembly.... Web developers complaining about folks who use Dreamweaver.... gamers

    On the flip side, there are also valid arguments to be made for using newer NI>technologies rather than sticking to older technology only because one feels NI>better with it. As a software engineer, I can program object-oriented or NI>functional (with C, etc.), but I prefer object-oriented because I think it NI>produces cleaner and more organized code. Also, newer programming languages NI>and technologies often offer programmers to be more productive, and when NI>working for a company, time is money. That said, much of my programming NI>experience has been with C++. I have done some C#, though, and I think it is
    good language, and I'll admit I feel more productive using C# than C++.

    Nightfox,

    A Progidy CD that I have has a Windows 3.x program called C-- on it.
    Have you heard of that one?

    I have always been interested in the inner workings of programs so I
    tried out C-- to see if it would help me learn C. It didn't.

    My programming skills started with Commodore 64 CBM Basic, then to
    GW-Basic and Q-Basic, I've looked at Visual Basic code but couldn't
    get in the groove with it.

    LOGO and PowerC were also some more of my 'programming' experiences with
    the C=64. I did do better with LOGO than PowerC though.

    I tried looking at a Disassembly of several C=64 games to try to see
    what made them work but got in over my head. <GRIN>

    I haven't written a Q-Basic program in a long time.
    I just lurk in here to learn what the folks who know this stuff KNOW.

    Thanks ALL!


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Programming: The art of debugging a blank sheet of paper.

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  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to ROB MCCART on Mon Aug 6 12:32:00 2012
    Back in those days, it was good to install the same DOS on a much
    more powerful machine, knowing you'll get that much more speed &
    power out of it.

    Ha.. yes I remember upgrading from I think a 4.77 mhz 8088 to an
    8 Mhz 8086 or something and games that I'd been using would suddenly
    run so fast they were unplayable. Little utilities came out to slow
    down your computer so you could still use them.. Science takes a
    giant step backwards.. B)

    Rob,

    The 486DX33 box I have has a yellow TURBO button to do that.
    I think that's what it's for.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * I tried to play my shoehorn but all I got was footnotes.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From John Guillory@VERT/MAINLINE to Ed Vance on Wed Aug 8 11:37:14 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to NIGHTFOX on Mon Aug 06 2012 08:19:00

    A Progidy CD that I have has a Windows 3.x program called C-- on it.
    Have you heard of that one?
    If I'm not mistaken, c--'s biggest fault is that the limited function set hinders it for any type of useful programs, causing a programmer to get frustrated finding something to put their skills to use with. That, and if your going to learn C, then .... "Learn C", rather than playing around with a C derrivitive. In this age when you can obtain free C compilers and C++ compilers, there is no reason not to learn C or C++. Now I know there's standard C, but despite how hard core you are, and what your goal is, you will rarely use 100% PURE ANSI STANDARD C. with that in mind, you will be forced to learn either Microsoft or Borland libraries. Once you do that, you'll find all C and C++ compilers have libraries that are either compatible with Microsoft, Borland, both, or a sub-set of one or more. I'd seriously look into Borland C++ command line compiler if your wanting to start doing C++ on windows. For Linux, use the GNU C++/gcc/etc. compilers.

    GW-Basic and Q-Basic, I've looked at Visual Basic code but couldn't
    get in the groove with it.
    You should really try PowerBasic 10.0 and PowerBasic CC 6.0! Especially
    Power Basic 10, combined with the SQL library.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Roach Guts -- kingcoder.net
  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to NIGHTFOX on Tue Aug 7 21:07:00 2012
    Sorry.. I assumed that the earlier ones just weren't "3D" but that
    > > if you were shooting guys it was still a First Person Shooter (FPS) game..

    ah.. Typically, "first person shooter" refers to 3D shooter games where you
    >have the first person view of the charcater.

    I see.. makes sense I guess..

    Yes.. at the time I was on 7 or 8 of them and some had international
    > > access. I was 'e-mailing' before Internet was readily available with
    > > people all over the world. I still have friends I talk to frequently
    > > in other countries, some on other continents, that I 'met' on a BBS
    > > 20 to 25 years ago.

    That's cool. I have rarely run into people I knew back in the BBS days..
    >although I didn't really get to know many people very well from the BBS days.
    >By the time I started using internet services on BBSs (only a couple in my ar
    >offered internet services), that was about the time I started using the
    >internet directly anyway (around 1995). I found BBSs to be a little too
    >limiting for internet use, with their daily time limits and such.

    At the time, talking maybe 1989 or so, you could do BBS mail that was
    swapped internationally, but it meant a couple of days turn-around
    You could also request files from the internet through an FTP message,
    sort of robo-sent to you, although I never got into that too much.
    The cost at the time was $50 a year for access but I got it free
    because I moderated the techie conference on the BBS...

    There were also door games and such and I don't recall time limits
    but if you went crazy someone probably had a word with you..

    ---
    ■ SLMR Rob ■ ...so I hit him back first ■
    ■ PDQWK 2.52 #17
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    ■ BgNet 1.0ß12 ≈ Capitol City Online * KY/US * 502/875-8938 * cco.ath.cx
  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to ROB MCCART on Wed Aug 8 23:26:56 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: ROB MCCART to NIGHTFOX on Tue Aug 07 2012 17:07:00

    At the time, talking maybe 1989 or so, you could do BBS mail that was swapped internationally, but it meant a couple of days turn-around
    You could also request files from the internet through an FTP message,
    sort of robo-sent to you, although I never got into that too much.
    The cost at the time was $50 a year for access but I got it free
    because I moderated the techie conference on the BBS...

    The international BBS mail aspect sounds similar to FidoNet. Cool that you were able to get that access for free.

    I didn't even know about the internet until 1995.. And around that time, on a local BBS that was starting to integrate internet services, I heard from other users about how to transfer files from FTP sites to your local BBS account and then download the files from the BBS. I messed with that a bit and thought it was pretty cool. At the time, though, I wasn't really sure what I was doing - I only knew that there were these servers that provided access to files that you could access and download through the BBS.

    Nightfox


    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Digital Distortion BBS - digitaldistortionbbs.com
  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to ED VANCE on Thu Aug 9 21:21:00 2012
    Ha.. yes I remember upgrading from I think a 4.77 mhz 8088 to an
    8 Mhz 8086 or something and games that I'd been using would suddenly
    run so fast they were unplayable. Little utilities came out to slow
    down your computer so you could still use them.. Science takes a
    giant step backwards.. B)

    The 486DX33 box I have has a yellow TURBO button to do that.
    >I think that's what it's for.

    Yes, that was mentioned elsewhere. They should have called it an
    anti-turbo button because it really just slowed the processor down
    from its normal speed..

    ---
    ■ SLMR Rob ■ I came, I saw, and I stepped in it anyway... ■
    ■ PDQWK 2.52 #17
    ---
    ■ BgNet 1.0ß12 ≈ Capitol City Online * KY/US * 502/875-8938 * cco.ath.cx
  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to ED VANCE on Thu Aug 9 21:53:00 2012
    My programming skills started with Commodore 64 CBM Basic, then to
    >GW-Basic and Q-Basic, I've looked at Visual Basic code but couldn't
    >get in the groove with it.

    I followed much the same path although my first system was an Apple II
    rather than the Commodore I almost bought instead, so my first Basic
    language was Applesoft, then GW-Basic. Later I found a Basic compiler
    called APBasic.. (Advance Point Basic I think ?) It used most of the
    standard GW-Basic commands and added a few unique ones of its own and
    you could create stand-alone executable files from it. For a time I sold programming commercially that I created with it and I still use some of
    those programs myself. It would be easier to make flashier looking
    programs using some version of Visual Basic I suppose but I never did
    get too far into that.. Old dog vs new tricks syndrome.. B)

    ---
    ■ SLMR Rob ■ Censorship starts with the Censor's dirty mind ■
    ■ PDQWK 2.52 #17
    ---
    ■ BgNet 1.0ß12 ≈ Capitol City Online * KY/US * 502/875-8938 * cco.ath.cx
  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to NIGHTFOX on Fri Aug 10 22:04:00 2012
    I didn't even know about the internet until 1995.. And around that time, on
    >local BBS that was starting to integrate internet services, I heard from othe
    >users about how to transfer files from FTP sites to your local BBS account an
    >then download the files from the BBS. I messed with that a bit and thought i
    >was pretty cool. At the time, though, I wasn't really sure what I was doing
    >I only knew that there were these servers that provided access to files that
    >you could access and download through the BBS.

    Yes, I mentioned not using the service too much. At the time I had a
    "High Speed" 2400 baud modem so files of any size at all took a long
    time to download. Also, one of the things that landed me at a Kentucky
    based BBS service, eventually the local BBS providing a lot of the
    higher end services shut down and I ended up having to make long
    distance modem calls, at first to Toronto, to do anything on it, and
    this was back before the phone companies greatly increased local
    calling costs to subsidize cheaper long distance. At 2400 baud you were
    looking at an hour to download one meg of data and 43╜ a minute charges
    from the phone company as well.

    ---
    ■ SLMR Rob ■ I can explain it to you.. I can't understand it for you ■
    ■ PDQWK 2.52 #17
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    ■ BgNet 1.0ß12 ≈ Capitol City Online * KY/US * 502/875-8938 * cco.ath.cx
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to JOHN GUILLORY on Sun Aug 12 00:36:00 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Poindexter Fortran to Nightfox on Fri Aug 03 2012 10:44:02

    was really left on and used to slow it down at times. I think the marketeers would have rather sold a TURBO button than a COMPATIBILITY button any day. :)
    I liked the extra light, especially when it was on the button itself.
    Though, I'd allways find other uses for the button.... That, and when
    bored, program the turbo light to go on and off, or use the turbo light
    as a status for my program.... That's what we need next on cases....
    Put about 10-12 LED lights labeled S1 - S12, and have the motherboard
    designed to allow the user to turn them on and off via software....
    Granted, it'd be super easy for Linux and DOS, a royal pain in Windows.

    John,

    I told the fellow who built my ibm-pc compatible in 1994 that I was disappointed that the case he chose didn't have 2 big LED's reading 33
    next to the Turbo button like I saw on a lot of cases in advertisements.

    He put a plastic cover with the name of the company he used to work at in Oklahoma where the LED's could go.

    Later he gave me a Intel 486DX2-66 to replace the Intel 486DX-33 chip
    with, so I put the 33 CPU in the Static Wrap the 66 came in and it sets
    on the shelf behind me.

    The box has a Shuttle 409 motherboard and it still works except for the
    Clock Battery which is soldered to the board.

    I'm not sure if a replacement battery is available.

    I helped a friend with his Gateway 2000, Windows 3.0 computer with
    replacing the Clock battery.

    Gateway 2000 included a 4 AA Battery Holder with a connector to plug in
    two pins on the motherboard, so that was a easy fix.

    It helped me learn what was inside a PC before I had mine built.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Put on your seatbelt. I'm gonna try something new.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to ROB MCCART on Sun Aug 12 00:50:00 2012
    Have you watched the BBS documentary? Some of the older sysops lamented th
    fact that someone could just install a BBS package and call themselves a s
    without knowing assembler. :)

    I haven't seen that yet but it doesn't surprise me. Everyone likes to RM>feel like an 'elitist' for a while.. I saw DOS get trashed in the early RM>days as being too user friendly for the same reason..
    I still do some stuff in DOS and people who have taken up computers
    in the past 20 years look at it like you're using a foreign language, RM>which in a way I guess you are.. just not as foreign as assembler.. B)

    Rob,

    Where I worked the Main Office said for everyone to use Word Perfect
    there.

    I worked in a Field Office and used EDIT to type up some things for
    work.

    One day someone from the Main Office noticed the Blue Background on the
    monitor as I was typing away and asked what I was using, and I said
    DOS EDIT, and he gave me a confused look. ;-)

    I think WP was on that computer but I didn't see any sense in using it
    when EDIT would do the job.

    I still use EDIT at times on this XP box.

    P.S. Thanks for some new to me Taglines.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * BASIC Programmers Never Die, They GOSUB and don't RETURN.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to ROB MCCART on Sun Aug 12 01:23:00 2012
    Yes, I have a giant server tower beside my desk here that started out RM>life as a 386DX 33 with 387 CoPro and it has a Turbo button on it that RM>dropped the speed by 50% I think it was.. I later upgraded the system RM>with a new motherboard & 486DX-100 which lost the turbo functionality.

    Rob,

    When I got my 486 built in 1994 I thought the Turbo Button was to speed
    it up, and I still did until today while reading about it here.

    I checked and the Turbo LED lights up when I turn it on.

    Should I press the button to turn the LED off? Thanks!


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * I think I think, therefore I think. (I think...)

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From Nightfox@VERT/DIGDIST to Ed Vance on Sun Aug 12 04:26:22 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to ROB MCCART on Sat Aug 11 2012 21:23:00

    When I got my 486 built in 1994 I thought the Turbo Button was to speed
    it up, and I still did until today while reading about it here.

    I checked and the Turbo LED lights up when I turn it on.

    It sounds like something in that machine is set up backwards. PCs always ran at their highest speed by default, so the Turbo LED should be on by default, and first time you press the turbo button, the Turbo LED should turn off.

    Nigthfox


    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Digital Distortion BBS - digitaldistortionbbs.com
  • From The Dark Rider@VERT/DUNDER to Nightfox on Sun Aug 12 14:30:31 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Nightfox to Ed Vance on Sun Aug 12 2012 00:26:22

    It sounds like something in that machine is set up backwards. PCs always ra at their highest speed by default, so the Turbo LED should be on by default, and first time you press the turbo button, the Turbo LED should turn off.

    The only PC we ever had that had the turbo button was my mom's old Gateway, which came with an Intel 486DX4/100. The turbo button/LED was on by default. I thought that's how all of them were, unless the guy did something wrong with that particular unit.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Digital Underground - telnet://sinep.gotdns.com
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to JOHN GUILLORY on Sun Aug 12 21:14:00 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to NIGHTFOX on Mon Aug 06 2012 08:19:00

    A Progidy CD that I have has a Windows 3.x program called C-- on it.
    Have you heard of that one?
    If I'm not mistaken, c--'s biggest fault is that the limited function set
    hinders it for any type of useful programs, causing a programmer to get JG>frustrated finding something to put their skills to use with. That, and if JG>your going to learn C, then .... "Learn C", rather than playing around with a
    derrivitive. In this age when you can obtain free C compilers and C++ JG>compilers, there is no reason not to learn C or C++. Now I know there's JG>standard C, but despite how hard core you are, and what your goal is, you wil
    rarely use 100% PURE ANSI STANDARD C. with that in mind, you will be forced JG>learn either Microsoft or Borland libraries. Once you do that, you'll find a
    C and C++ compilers have libraries that are either compatible with Microsoft,
    Borland, both, or a sub-set of one or more. I'd seriously look into Borland JG>C++ command line compiler if your wanting to start doing C++ on windows. For
    Linux, use the GNU C++/gcc/etc. compilers.

    John,

    I was just asking an obscure question to Nightfox just for the fun of
    it.

    Because the discussion was about C I was reminded of the Prodigy Cd I
    got in 1995.

    I got the CD out and found out the C program wasn't C-- after all,
    it is called CMM and was part of a program called CEnvi that used .cmm
    files in the DOS, Windows 3.1 and OS/2 OS's.

    CEnvi had some nice Tutorials that came with it.

    I played with a lot of C'ish things like CMM but never got all fired up
    about the stuff.

    Batch and BASIC will do for anything I would dream up doing.
    I'll just skip anything that gets too complicated for me.

    Thanks for all that you wrote above about C thingy's.

    I didn't know there were Free C/C++ Compilers, I'll remember that if
    ever the C/C++ language becomes interesting to me. Thanks!

    GW-Basic and Q-Basic, I've looked at Visual Basic code but couldn't
    get in the groove with it.
    You should really try PowerBasic 10.0 and PowerBasic CC 6.0! Especially
    Power Basic 10, combined with the SQL library.

    I checked out the cost of Power Basic 10, I'm too cheap to pay anything
    like that for software. but thanks for the recommendation.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * This phone is Baroque, please call Bach later.....

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to ROB MCCART on Mon Aug 13 03:19:00 2012
    My programming skills started with Commodore 64 CBM Basic, then to
    GW-Basic and Q-Basic, I've looked at Visual Basic code but couldn't
    get in the groove with it.

    I followed much the same path although my first system was an Apple II RM>rather than the Commodore I almost bought instead, so my first Basic RM>language was Applesoft, then GW-Basic. Later I found a Basic compiler RM>called APBasic.. (Advance Point Basic I think ?) It used most of the RM>standard GW-Basic commands and added a few unique ones of its own and
    you could create stand-alone executable files from it. For a time I sold RM>programming commercially that I created with it and I still use some of RM>those programs myself. It would be easier to make flashier looking RM>programs using some version of Visual Basic I suppose but I never did
    get too far into that.. Old dog vs new tricks syndrome.. B)

    Rob,

    I had friends in 1983-1984 who enjoyed using their Apple ]['s and they encouraged me to get one.

    When I looked a ][ costed US$800 with a 80 Column Card.

    I couldn't afford that so I got the C=64 in March 1984 with a 300 baud
    modem and a floppy drive, because I didn't want to start out with the
    cassette drive.

    One of my ][ friends told me he approved of my getting the 64 because it
    was a nice box.

    IIRC both computers used the MOS processor, 6502 in the ][ and a 6510 in
    the CBM box.

    I even had a program to run Apple ][ programs on the C=64.

    It's nice that you could use the ][ to earn its keep by writing programs
    on it for others, I've never sold anything I created.

    I have learned so much from basic programs that the writers made Public
    Domain in BBS echos that all of my basic programs have been Public
    Domain also.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Press any key to continue or any other key to quit

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From John Guillory@VERT/MAINLINE to Ed Vance on Mon Aug 13 12:54:01 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to JOHN GUILLORY on Sun Aug 12 2012 17:14:00

    it is called CMM and was part of a program called CEnvi that used .cmm
    files in the DOS, Windows 3.1 and OS/2 OS's.
    There was a time I'd do anything to get an OS/2 compiler. But now, I've got
    what for my purposes is the cream of the crop of OS/2 compilers. ;-)
    I've now got Borland Pascal with a patched version for making OS/2 console
    programs. For me, it's the easiest way to make quick OS/2 utilities.

    I checked out the cost of Power Basic 10, I'm too cheap to pay anything
    like that for software. but thanks for the recommendation.
    The best I could recommend on that is to check their site out for specials
    on "classic" Power Basic and upgrade like I did. I actually got in on Power
    Basic when 8.0 was the current version. I bought the 3.5 DOS version later,
    got the Console Compiler (5.0), upgraded to 5.5. Later, skipped 9.0 and
    went to 10.0, but got 9.0 while waiting for 10.0. If you buy the PB 3.5 or
    the other DOS version that's really scaled down, they'll put you on the
    mailing list and sign up for the PB Gazette. They often sell the classic
    around $65. Pick it up, wait another year or so and $89 will upgrade you
    all the way up to the latest version. If you love QBasic, you'd probably
    want to check out PB CC 5.0, then upgrade to 6.0 or later when you get the
    money.... Nice thing about PB CC 5.0 is it was released after 8.0 and was
    more around PB 9.0, which I upgraded to 5.5 when 9.0 came out. My PB CC
    is more closer to 10.0 in features than the PB 8.0, so not as big of a need
    to upgrade to 6.0 on it. I will say it's nice in 10.0 to have the static
    libraries, built in resource compiler into the source code! I mean, you use
    #resource statements to keep all your version control, string resources,
    etc. Its pretty friggen nice to have. Multi-threading and the TIX instruction are cool too... You can declare a double variable eg. TM, and then
    use:

    TIX TM
    FunctionTest(1025) TO Result
    PRINT Result
    TIX END TM
    Print "FunctionTest took " + Using$("#####.###",TM)

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Roach Guts -- kingcoder.net
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to NIGHTFOX on Mon Aug 13 10:53:00 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to ROB MCCART on Sat Aug 11 2012 21:23:00

    When I got my 486 built in 1994 I thought the Turbo Button was to speed it up, and I still did until today while reading about it here.

    I checked and the Turbo LED lights up when I turn it on.

    It sounds like something in that machine is set up backwards. PCs always ran
    at their highest speed by default, so the Turbo LED should be on by default, NI>and first time you press the turbo button, the Turbo LED should turn off.

    Nightfox,

    The Turbo LED is ON when I turned the box on.

    I didn't make myself real clear about that in my earlier message.

    Confusion happens all the time around here.

    "when I turn it on." was meant to be about the 486 box, not about the
    Turbo button being pressed.

    Sorry. 8{


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * A bird in the hand is safer than one overhead.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to ED VANCE on Mon Aug 13 22:37:00 2012
    Where I worked the Main Office said for everyone to use Word Perfect
    >there.

    I worked in a Field Office and used EDIT to type up some things for
    >work.

    One day someone from the Main Office noticed the Blue Background on the
    >monitor as I was typing away and asked what I was using, and I said
    >DOS EDIT, and he gave me a confused look. ;-)

    I think WP was on that computer but I didn't see any sense in using it
    >when EDIT would do the job.

    I still use EDIT at times on this XP box.

    Edit was pretty basic but I can see your point. I have 3 or 4 versions
    of MS Office and none installed on my main computer. I (rarely) use
    MSWorks 4 when I need something built into it. For semi-fancy stuff
    there's a little free add-on front end called Jarte which uses the
    Wordpad 'Engine' and works quite well. For quick edits in Windows I
    use Win32Pad, a free Notepad replacement that supports fonts (one at a
    time) and huge files but actually saves in plain text so it can be used
    for any text document you'd normally use Notepad for. If I slip into
    DOS based applications I use QEdit which offers a few more options than
    EDIT did.. (QEdit Advanced v2.15 by Semware - 1991) In fact my SLMR Mail
    reader is set to use QEdit as the reply editor here..

    Windows Edit is likely limited to 64kb files as well.. I never checked.
    Notepad is. QEdit is limited to about 200 kb files.

    Win32Pad I have used for text files over 12 meg in size. It is limited
    only by your system memory.

    P.S. Thanks for some new to me Taglines.

    * BASIC Programmers Never Die, They GOSUB and don't RETURN.

    No prob.. I just swiped this one... B)

    ---
    ■ SLMR Rob ■ Ooops! Get on topic! Here comes the moderator!! ■
    ■ PDQWK 2.52 #17
    ---
    ■ BgNet 1.0ß12 ≈ Capitol City Online * KY/US * 502/875-8938 * cco.ath.cx
  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to ED VANCE on Mon Aug 13 22:27:00 2012
    When I got my 486 built in 1994 I thought the Turbo Button was to speed
    >it up, and I still did until today while reading about it here.

    I checked and the Turbo LED lights up when I turn it on.

    Should I press the button to turn the LED off? Thanks!

    It might depend on the system itself, how it identifies the setting
    but I would expect that the light being on would mean the computer
    is at full speed. It gets confusing because we did say that turbo
    slows it down but it's more that the turbo *option* allowed you the
    two speeds. Mine was quite clear because it stated the speed in
    big LED numbers rather than turning a light on and off.

    ---
    ■ SLMR Rob ■ Please return stewardess to original upright position ■
    ■ PDQWK 2.52 #17
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  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to NIGHTFOX on Mon Aug 13 22:39:00 2012
    I checked and the Turbo LED lights up when I turn it on.

    It sounds like something in that machine is set up backwards. PCs always ran
    >at their highest speed by default, so the Turbo LED should be on by default,
    >and first time you press the turbo button, the Turbo LED should turn off.

    Assuming it doesn't remember the last setting and that turbo hasn't been
    turned off (at the slower speed) all along.. B)

    I think mine always started up at the last speed I had it set to, but
    it also told me the speed so it was clearer what was happening.

    ---
    ■ SLMR Rob ■ You'll have to bear with me... I'm lexdislict ■
    ■ PDQWK 2.52 #17
    ---
    ■ BgNet 1.0ß12 ≈ Capitol City Online * KY/US * 502/875-8938 * cco.ath.cx
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to JOHN GUILLORY on Tue Aug 14 01:36:00 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to JOHN GUILLORY on Sun Aug 12 2012 17:14:00

    The best I could recommend on that is to check their site out for specials
    on "classic" Power Basic and upgrade like I did. I actually got in on Pow

    ------------snip---------------

    money.... Nice thing about PB CC 5.0 is it was released after 8.0 and was
    more around PB 9.0, which I upgraded to 5.5 when 9.0 came out. My PB CC
    is more closer to 10.0 in features than the PB 8.0, so not as big of a nee
    to upgrade to 6.0 on it. I will say it's nice in 10.0 to have the static
    libraries, built in resource compiler into the source code! I mean, you u
    #resource statements to keep all your version control, string resources,
    etc. Its pretty nice to have. Multi-threading and the TIX
    instruction are cool too... You can declare a double variable eg. TM, and th
    use:

    TIX TM
    FunctionTest(1025) TO Result
    PRINT Result
    TIX END TM
    Print "FunctionTest took " + Using$("#####.###",TM)

    John,

    Thanks for the PB info.

    Those last few lines you wrote in your message about the features of PB
    were way over Ed's Head(TM).


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * If thine enemy offend thee, give his child a drum.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From Chris Trainor@VERT/FLEETHQ to All on Wed Aug 15 17:36:19 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to JOHN GUILLORY on Mon Aug 13 2012 21:36:00

    Just an FYI, I know this thread has gone waaaaay past where I originally started it... but, I did finally find a 1000HX. :)

    With any luck it'll work after UPS juggles it. :)

    Also ordered a CGA->VGA adapter on eBay. That'll make life lots easier
    to make this work.

    --Chris

    ------------------------------------------
    | Chris Trainor - FleetHQ BBS
    | telnet://bbs.fleethq.org
    | http://www.facebook.com/FleetHQ
    | +1-401-949-0465 (V.34/HST/CrankyAtTimes) ------------------------------------------

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ FleetHQ BBS - Greenville, RI
  • From echicken to Chris Trainor on Wed Aug 15 18:08:13 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Chris Trainor to All on Wed Aug 15 2012 13:36:19

    Also ordered a CGA->VGA adapter on eBay. That'll make life lots easier
    to make this work.

    I had a Tandy CM-5 monitor for mine until it sadly blew up one day (quite literally - there were sparks.) From that point forward, I just used its composite output and an old TV.

    echicken
    electronic chicken bbs - bbs.electronicchicken.com - 416-273-7230
  • From Chris Trainor@VERT/FLEETHQ to echicken on Wed Aug 15 19:06:11 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: echicken to Chris Trainor on Wed Aug 15 2012 14:08:13

    I had a Tandy CM-5 monitor for mine until it sadly blew up one day (quite literally - there were sparks.) From that point forward, I just used its composite output and an old TV.

    Yeah, I figured I'd do the same till I plugged in my Coco to my TV and
    saw how crappy it looked on modern TV's. Tho I guess if I pull out my
    old 13" tube it'll be OK. :) The CGA/VGA adapter was $24 shipped, so
    that will hopefully look decent enough and at least let me view the
    glorious PCJr 16 color graphics in 'high rez' :) hah

    --Chris

    ------------------------------------------
    | Chris Trainor - FleetHQ BBS
    | telnet://bbs.fleethq.org
    | http://www.facebook.com/FleetHQ
    | +1-401-949-0465 (V.34/HST/CrankyAtTimes) ------------------------------------------

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ FleetHQ BBS - Greenville, RI
  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to ED VANCE on Tue Aug 14 22:09:00 2012
    I had friends in 1983-1984 who enjoyed using their Apple ]['s and they
    >encouraged me to get one.

    When I looked a ][ costed US$800 with a 80 Column Card.

    I couldn't afford that so I got the C=64 in March 1984 with a 300 baud
    >modem and a floppy drive, because I didn't want to start out with the
    >cassette drive.

    One of my ][ friends told me he approved of my getting the 64 because it
    >was a nice box.

    I was all set to buy a Commodore back in 1982 or 83 when I ran into
    an old friend I knew in school and hadn't seen in about 5 years.
    He was heavily into computers, building his own and such, and he got
    me into that. I said I had an Apple ][+ but what I really had was a
    clone of one. In the also cloned Apple ][ type case I had something
    that looked 'genuine' and was actually better built, gold plated chips
    and military grade eProms, and I set it up with two external floppy
    drives. Basic Commodore 64 at that time was about $1000 and a real
    Apple ][ about $1500. I built mine for $550 and later bought the
    floppy drives for about $250 each instead of about $400 from Commodore.

    I made a point of not getting the floppy drives until I'd learned to
    write my own programs because I didn't want to get buried in playing
    games and lose track of it. Funny, I remembered, even though I was a
    wiz at it, thinking in school how useless algebra/calculus was but,
    at one point, when I was writing some financial programs I looked at
    a line I'd just completed and realised I was using 7 variables and
    13 levels of parentheses and I thought, maybe it wasn't such a waste.. B)

    ---
    ■ SLMR Rob ■ I have no sense of decency - It enhances my other senses.
    ■ PDQWK 2.52 #17
    ---
    ■ BgNet 1.0ß12 ≈ Capitol City Online * KY/US * 502/875-8938 * cco.ath.cx
  • From John Guillory@VERT/MAINLINE to ROB MCCART on Thu Aug 16 01:25:08 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: ROB MCCART to ED VANCE on Mon Aug 13 2012 18:37:00

    I still use EDIT at times on this XP box.

    DOS based applications I use QEdit which offers a few more options than
    EDIT did.. (QEdit Advanced v2.15 by Semware - 1991) In fact my SLMR Mail reader is set to use QEdit as the reply editor here..
    I, myself, prefer qedit for it's macro's. I can mark a column, delete,
    or if I have a comma delimited file, I can record me editing one line,
    then write it to a key command, and just keep pressing that key command
    and I modify the whole file quickly... But... I still need edit because
    when I want to edit a file with a long filename, or create a file new
    file that is going to have a long filename, I need to use edit, then
    do adirectory list to find out the short filename.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Roach Guts -- kingcoder.net
  • From ROB MCCART@VERT/CAPCITY2/CAPCITY to JOHN GUILLORY on Fri Aug 17 20:30:00 2012
    I use QEdit which offers a few more options than EDIR did..
    > > In fact my SLMR Mail reader is set to use QEdit as the reply
    > > editor here..

    I, myself, prefer qedit for it's macro's. I can mark a column, delete,
    > or if I have a comma delimited file, I can record me editing one line,
    >then write it to a key command, and just keep pressing that key command
    >and I modify the whole file quickly... But... I still need edit because
    >when I want to edit a file with a long filename, or create a file new
    >file that is going to have a long filename, I need to use edit, then
    >do adirectory list to find out the short filename.

    I also use quite a few of the special built in options at times.
    Your use of key commands goes a little further than I've done.
    I suppose it depends on what you are doing, whether that's of use
    or not. But copies and paste's and highlighting columns and lines
    and search and replacements make it quite useful. As you suggested
    there are a few things that make using a more modern Windows (or Linux)
    based Editor that can handle fonts and long filenames useful at times
    but I've used this program for 20 years and it's hard to get out of
    the habit.

    ---
    ■ SLMR Rob ■ Toto, I don't think we're in DOS anymore! ■
    ■ PDQWK 2.52 #17
    ---
    ■ BgNet 1.0ß12 ≈ Capitol City Online * KY/US * 502/875-8938 * cco.ath.cx
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to ROB MCCART on Mon Aug 20 02:45:00 2012
    I still use EDIT at times on this XP box.

    Edit was pretty basic but I can see your point. I have 3 or 4 versions
    of MS Office and none installed on my main computer. I (rarely) use RM>MSWorks 4 when I need something built into it. For semi-fancy stuff RM>there's a little free add-on front end called Jarte which uses the RM>Wordpad 'Engine' and works quite well. For quick edits in Windows I
    use Win32Pad, a free Notepad replacement that supports fonts (one at a RM>time) and huge files but actually saves in plain text so it can be used RM>for any text document you'd normally use Notepad for. If I slip into
    DOS based applications I use QEdit which offers a few more options than RM>EDIT did.. (QEdit Advanced v2.15 by Semware - 1991) In fact my SLMR Mail RM>reader is set to use QEdit as the reply editor here..

    Rob,

    I have MS Office on the old 486 DOS/Win3.1 box and used it a bit.
    I never touched the Office 'Trial' that was on this XP box when I got it
    in 2006, but recently I have played some with MSWorks.

    I opened the MSWorks Word Processor and saw version 8 in Help-About.

    I don't often use Wordpad, it's mostly Notepad that gets used when I
    want to C&P something as a URL in Firefox from a text file.

    Copying things in EDIT won't Paste into Notepad or Firefox in XP.

    I just tried opening EDIT and copying a line and then going to the
    Desktop and couldn't Paste it in either Notepad or Firefox, but after I returned to the EDIT screen I could Paste the line just fine.

    Windows Edit is likely limited to 64kb files as well.. I never checked. RM>Notepad is. QEdit is limited to about 200 kb files.

    Win32Pad I have used for text files over 12 meg in size. It is limited RM>only by your system memory.

    Thanks for the maximun file size specs, I never knew that.

    I have tried to open some files in EDIT and it caused EDIT to BURP!
    because the file was too big.

    EDIT handles ANSI and High ASCII characters OK but Notepad and Wordpad
    don't.

    In Notepad I use the Courier New font because I've heard it is a
    Fixed-Width font, so I thought it wouldn't have any trouble displaying
    ANSI or High ASCII so I Opened SLMR's TAGLINES.MR file and found out I
    was wrong.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Only God is in a position to look down on anyone.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to ROB MCCART on Mon Aug 20 03:08:00 2012
    When I got my 486 built in 1994 I thought the Turbo Button was to speed
    it up, and I still did until today while reading about it here.

    I checked and the Turbo LED lights up when I turn it on.

    Should I press the button to turn the LED off? Thanks!

    It might depend on the system itself, how it identifies the setting
    but I would expect that the light being on would mean the computer
    is at full speed. It gets confusing because we did say that turbo
    slows it down but it's more that the turbo *option* allowed you the
    two speeds. Mine was quite clear because it stated the speed in
    big LED numbers rather than turning a light on and off.

    Rob,

    I rarely turn the 486 box on, but I use my XP box all the time.

    I call it my "All Purpose Machine".

    Probably the Turbo LED being ON is the Default setting for running the
    CPU at its Maximum Speed and OFF Slows it down to XT's 4.77 Speed.

    Well I must confess that everything I can do on the XP box I could do on
    the 486 DOS/W3.1 box. Almost.

    I got on the Internet with Dial-Up instead of DSL using Netscape
    Navigator.
    I used a SyQuest EZ-135 Removeable Cartridge Hard Drive (Parallel Port).
    I used a Flat Bed Scanner and a Ink Jet Printer.

    As I said "Almost".

    It doesn't have USB.
    Irfanview probably didn't have a W3.1 version then and I love using
    Irfanview on the XP box.

    Those are just two things different between the 'Boat Anchor' and the XP
    box.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Multi-tasking: Crashing both hard drives at once.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From Corey@VERT/TSGC to Ed Vance on Mon Aug 20 11:35:11 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to ROB MCCART on Sun Aug 19 2012 10:45 pm

    I still use EDIT at times on this XP box.

    Edit was pretty basic but I can see your point. I have 3 or 4 versions RM>of MS Office and none installed on my main computer. I (rarely) use RM>MSWorks 4 when I need something built into it. For semi-fancy stuff RM>there's a little free add-on front end called Jarte which uses the RM>Wordpad 'Engine' and works quite well. For quick edits in Windows I RM>use Win32Pad, a free Notepad replacement that supports fonts (one at a RM>time) and huge files but actually saves in plain text so it can be used RM>for any text document you'd normally use Notepad for. If I slip into RM>DOS based applications I use QEdit which offers a few more options than RM>EDIT did.. (QEdit Advanced v2.15 by Semware - 1991) In fact my SLMR Mail RM>reader is set to use QEdit as the reply editor here..

    Rob,

    I have MS Office on the old 486 DOS/Win3.1 box and used it a bit.
    I never touched the Office 'Trial' that was on this XP box when I got it
    in 2006, but recently I have played some with MSWorks.

    I opened the MSWorks Word Processor and saw version 8 in Help-About.

    I don't often use Wordpad, it's mostly Notepad that gets used when I
    want to C&P something as a URL in Firefox from a text file.

    Copying things in EDIT won't Paste into Notepad or Firefox in XP.

    I just tried opening EDIT and copying a line and then going to the
    Desktop and couldn't Paste it in either Notepad or Firefox, but after I returned to the EDIT screen I could Paste the line just fine.

    Windows Edit is likely limited to 64kb files as well.. I never checked. RM>Notepad is. QEdit is limited to about 200 kb files.

    Win32Pad I have used for text files over 12 meg in size. It is limited RM>only by your system memory.

    Thanks for the maximun file size specs, I never knew that.

    I have tried to open some files in EDIT and it caused EDIT to BURP!
    because the file was too big.

    EDIT handles ANSI and High ASCII characters OK but Notepad and Wordpad don't.

    In Notepad I use the Courier New font because I've heard it is a
    Fixed-Width font, so I thought it wouldn't have any trouble displaying
    ANSI or High ASCII so I Opened SLMR's TAGLINES.MR file and found out I
    was wrong.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Only God is in a position to look down on anyone.


    have you tried dosshell from msdos 7.1?

    "Practise safe Lunch, Use a Condiment"


    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Three Stooges Gentlemens Club - Las Vegas, Nv - tsgc.dyndns.org
  • From The Millionaire@VERT/PARKAVE to Ed Vance on Mon Aug 20 16:46:29 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to ROB MCCART on Sun Aug 19 2012 10:45 pm

    I still use EDIT at times on this XP box.

    Edit was pretty basic but I can see your point. I have 3 or 4 versions RM>of MS Office and none installed on my main computer. I (rarely) use RM>MSWorks 4 when I need something built into it. For semi-fancy stuff RM>there's a little free add-on front end called Jarte which uses the RM>Wordpad 'Engine' and works quite well. For quick edits in Windows I RM>use Win32Pad, a free Notepad replacement that supports fonts (one at a RM>time) and huge files but actually saves in plain text so it can be used RM>for any text document you'd normally use Notepad for. If I slip into RM>DOS based applications I use QEdit which offers a few more options than RM>EDIT did.. (QEdit Advanced v2.15 by Semware - 1991) In fact my SLMR Mail RM>reader is set to use QEdit as the reply editor here..

    Rob,

    I have MS Office on the old 486 DOS/Win3.1 box and used it a bit.
    I never touched the Office 'Trial' that was on this XP box when I got it
    in 2006, but recently I have played some with MSWorks.

    I opened the MSWorks Word Processor and saw version 8 in Help-About.

    I don't often use Wordpad, it's mostly Notepad that gets used when I
    want to C&P something as a URL in Firefox from a text file.

    Copying things in EDIT won't Paste into Notepad or Firefox in XP.

    I just tried opening EDIT and copying a line and then going to the
    Desktop and couldn't Paste it in either Notepad or Firefox, but after I returned to the EDIT screen I could Paste the line just fine.

    Windows Edit is likely limited to 64kb files as well.. I never checked. RM>Notepad is. QEdit is limited to about 200 kb files.

    Win32Pad I have used for text files over 12 meg in size. It is limited RM>only by your system memory.

    Thanks for the maximun file size specs, I never knew that.

    I have tried to open some files in EDIT and it caused EDIT to BURP!
    because the file was too big.

    EDIT handles ANSI and High ASCII characters OK but Notepad and Wordpad don't.

    In Notepad I use the Courier New font because I've heard it is a
    Fixed-Width font, so I thought it wouldn't have any trouble displaying
    ANSI or High ASCII so I Opened SLMR's TAGLINES.MR file and found out I
    was wrong.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Only God is in a position to look down on anyone.

    Qedit and MSWorks rocked in those days. :-)


    $ The Millionaire $
    Park Avenue Place
    Surrey, B.C., Canada █ ♠ █
    the.millionaire@parkave.synchro.net



    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Park Avenue Place - parkave.synchro.net
  • From Poindexter Fortran@VERT/REALITY to Ed Vance on Mon Aug 20 15:45:02 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to ROB MCCART on Sun Aug 19 2012 10:45 pm

    In Notepad I use the Courier New font because I've heard it is a
    Fixed-Width font, so I thought it wouldn't have any trouble displaying
    ANSI or High ASCII so I Opened SLMR's TAGLINES.MR file and found out I
    was wrong.



    Try Lucida Sans Unicode.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ realitycheckBBS -- http://realitycheckBBS.org
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to ROB MCCART on Mon Aug 20 15:31:00 2012
    I had friends in 1983-1984 who enjoyed using their Apple ]['s and they
    encouraged me to get one.

    When I looked a ][ costed US$800 with a 80 Column Card.

    I couldn't afford that so I got the C=64 in March 1984 with a 300 baud
    modem and a floppy drive, because I didn't want to start out with the
    cassette drive.

    One of my ][ friends told me he approved of my getting the 64 because it
    was a nice box.

    I was all set to buy a Commodore back in 1982 or 83 when I ran into
    an old friend I knew in school and hadn't seen in about 5 years.
    He was heavily into computers, building his own and such, and he got
    me into that. I said I had an Apple ][+ but what I really had was a
    clone of one. In the also cloned Apple ][ type case I had something
    that looked 'genuine' and was actually better built, gold plated chips RM>and military grade eProms, and I set it up with two external floppy RM>drives. Basic Commodore 64 at that time was about $1000 and a real
    Apple ][ about $1500. I built mine for $550 and later bought the
    floppy drives for about $250 each instead of about $400 from Commodore.

    Rob,

    All 3 pieces of my C=64 setup cost less than $500 USD.
    I just waited a year later to buy mine when the price came down a bit.

    That was BIG MONEY to me in those days, and then in 1994 I had a MS-DOS
    5 IBM Compatiable built for a bit more than $2000 USD.

    I had a hard time convincing the wife about my getting that box.
    She felt the same about my getting the C=64 too. ;-)

    BTW. It was a ][+ I was talking about in my earlier message, I forgot
    about the + sign after the ][ symbol when I was talking about the
    800 USDollar figure.

    I made a point of not getting the floppy drives until I'd learned to RM>write my own programs because I didn't want to get buried in playing RM>games and lose track of it. Funny, I remembered, even though I was a
    wiz at it, thinking in school how useless algebra/calculus was but,
    at one point, when I was writing some financial programs I looked at
    a line I'd just completed and realised I was using 7 variables and
    13 levels of parentheses and I thought, maybe it wasn't such a waste.. B)

    Some time in the mid or late 1980's (or 1990's) a local bank was selling
    their Apple ][ computers because they had started using IBM pc's.

    Two people that I told about the sale bought them, one of them later on
    told me the ][ wasn't working because something happened to their Boot
    Floppy Disk.

    A person at the bank gave me another boot floppy disk for them.

    When I started writing this I was thinking that a ][ wouldn't work
    without a Disk Drive, but now I'm thinking that you could still turn it
    on and type in a program and use it until the ][ was turned off just
    like I could do with the C=64 if I didn't have any Storage Device to
    Save my work on.

    I suppose the Boot Floppy Disk had to be used to Load AppleDOS into the
    ]['s memory so the drive could be used.

    HELLO was the programs name IIRC.

    I didn't have to do that with the C= FDD since it had the DOS in a ROM
    chip on the circuitboard to boot from, flip the power switch to ON, wait
    for the Red LED to blink and use it. ;-)


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * In matters of conscience,the law of majority has no place

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to COREY on Fri Aug 24 14:12:00 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to ROB MCCART on Sun Aug 19 2012 10:45 pm

    have you tried dosshell from msdos 7.1?

    Corey,

    I have PC-DOS 7.0 on my 486 box and just typed DOSSHELL on it and the
    Microsoft DosShell program Opened and started reading the C: drive.

    I can't remember if Windows 95 or 98 included DOSSHELL in them, too long
    ago.

    This XP box can't run DOSSHELL, I just tried and XP doesn't even know
    about it.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Don't open the darkroom door; it lets all the dark out.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to POINDEXTER FORTRAN on Fri Aug 24 14:18:00 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to ROB MCCART on Sun Aug 19 2012 10:45 pm

    In Notepad I use the Courier New font because I've heard it is a Fixed-Width font, so I thought it wouldn't have any trouble displaying ANSI or High ASCII so I Opened SLMR's TAGLINES.MR file and found out I was wrong.



    Try Lucida Sans Unicode.

    Thanks Poindexter,

    I'll have a look at that Tagline file using Lucinda Sans Unicode to see
    if High ASCII/ANSI show up correctly in that Font.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Let not the sands of time get in your lunch.

    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938
  • From Corey@VERT/TSGC to Ed Vance on Sun Aug 26 23:20:48 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to COREY on Fri Aug 24 2012 10:12 am

    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to ROB MCCART on Sun Aug 19 2012 10:45 pm

    have you tried dosshell from msdos 7.1?

    Corey,

    I have PC-DOS 7.0 on my 486 box and just typed DOSSHELL on it and the Microsoft DosShell program Opened and started reading the C: drive.

    I can't remember if Windows 95 or 98 included DOSSHELL in them, too long ago.

    This XP box can't run DOSSHELL, I just tried and XP doesn't even know
    about it.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Don't open the darkroom door; it lets all the dark out.


    dosshell from msdos 7.1 works on my xp sp3

    "Practise safe Lunch, Use a Condiment"


    ---
    ■ Synchronet ■ Three Stooges Gentlemens Club - Las Vegas, Nv - tsgc.dyndns.org
  • From Ed Vance@VERT/CAPCITY2 to COREY on Mon Sep 3 19:58:00 2012
    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to COREY on Fri Aug 24 2012 10:12 am

    Re: Anyone With A Tandy 1000h
    By: Ed Vance to ROB MCCART on Sun Aug 19 2012 10:45 pm

    have you tried dosshell from msdos 7.1?

    Corey,

    I have PC-DOS 7.0 on my 486 box and just typed DOSSHELL on it and the Microsoft DosShell program Opened and started reading the C: drive.

    I can't remember if Windows 95 or 98 included DOSSHELL in them, too long ago.

    This XP box can't run DOSSHELL, I just tried and XP doesn't even know about it.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Don't open the darkroom door; it lets all the dark ou


    dosshell from msdos 7.1 works on my xp sp3

    Corey,

    Oh, I see, You put dosshell from something like Win95/98 on the XP box.

    My dosshell on the 486 came with MS-DOS 5.0 and PC-DOS 7.0 didn't remove
    it when I put it on the box, so it can still be used if needed.

    I'd have to look to see if dosshell came with W95, but I'd have to drag
    out the box to have a look-see to do that.

    I never thought to try to use dosshell back in 1998 when I got the w95
    box.


    * SLMR 2.1a #T348 * Virus Scan...Windows 95 found: Remove it? (Y/N)

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    ■ Synchronet ■ Capitol City Online - telnet & http://cco.ath.cx - 502-875-8938