subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
Tony Hill wrote:

keeping it on topic, i kinda like this:

<"Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we
   call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all
   about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie
   potential forms of consciousness entirely different.  William James
   (1842-1910), U.S. psychologist, philosopher. The Varieties of
   Religious Experience, Lectures 16-17, "Mysticism" (1902)">

best, bill


author: Franc Zabkar

subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Mon, 20 Jun 2005 01:09:55 -0400, Tony Hill
<[email]> put finger to keyboard and composed:

I'm including the time taken to familiarise myself with totally
foreign hardware, and the time taken to make up a cable. The actual
commands I used were PRINT on the source machine and EDIT on the
target machine. I needed to consult the online help to find out how to
place the target machine's text editor into insert mode. IIRC, the
subcommand was "I" which *is* intuitive.

- Franc Zabkar


author: chrisv

subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
keith wrote:

I know.  It's like "Now how do I work one of these things again?  Oh
yeah.  6737 minus 1498 equals.  Yuck."


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Wed, 22 Jun 2005 13:59:07 -0400, keith <[email]> put finger
to keyboard and composed:

It took me less time to learn the Hangul alphabet. RPN was even
easier, but then I already understood a little Polish.

... and spelling and grammar.

I just showed the HPites my TI59's magnetic card reader, its ROM
modules (eg stats, engineering), its printer interface, and its vastly
superior program memory. The HP97 didn't come close, not even at twice
the price. HP calculators had the glam (for reasons that escape me),
but TI had the grunt.

- Franc Zabkar


author: Nate Edel

subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
Alexander Grigoriev <[email]> wrote:

It came out in 1993, sometime around the end of the summer or the fall.

NT 3.1 (which was the first released) raised the requirement shortly before
the release date from 8mb to 16mb.  I got 16mb of non-brand ram for about
$500

Then it turned out that it didn't support Plus hardcards, and I had to get a
new hard drive and controller to run it.

It's not much better on 64.  The real running footprint of just the OS is
about 80MB, so 96MB is the practical minimum to do *anything*.


author: Tony Hill

subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Sun, 19 Jun 2005 21:03:49 GMT, "Alexander Grigoriev"
<[email]> wrote:

Ugg, I couldn't imagine trying to use Win2K with only 32MB of memory.
A while back at a summer job I had a computer that ran Win2K with 64MB
of memory and that was painful enough!  I got a fair bit of swapping
by just booting the OS, let alone running any applications.

Of course, I was still WAY happier with this solution vs. the other
option of using Win98.  I'd much rather due things slowly once than
having to do them quicker but re-doing my work all the time due to
Win98 crashes.  I know some people claim that they can run Win98 for
weeks on end without it crashing, but for me it would crash nearly
every day (often multiple times in a day) on *EVERY* PC I've ever used
it on.

As for Linux, I've run it in a variety of configurations with a wide
range of memory sizes.  One of the real nice points of Linux is how
flexible it is, on one system I could run a really trimmed down
version and it'll work just fine on 16MB (might even be able to
squeeze into 8MB).  On my main system I've got 512MB so I load it up
with all the features, full KDE GUI, etc.

Honestly though,I don't think there's any point in talking about
"bloatware" these days.  1GB of memory costs only $100 and that's
plenty of memory for 99% of users out there today.  Hardware has
pushed ahead much faster than software.  If you ask me, I'll take the
bloat any day if it results in better features.  New hardware is
dirt-cheap, if the problem requires another 512MB of memory, I'll
gladly spend the extra $50 to get that 512MB of memory when the
alternative is less functionality from the software.  Now obviously
bloat without adding functionality isn't going to help anything, but
so long as the software is improving, I'm all for it.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca


author: Alexander Grigoriev

subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
Man, you should not torture yourself with Gnome. This crap is as bad as
OpenWin.

"A Jones" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...


author: George Macdonald

subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 16:26:44 -0500, willbill <[email]> wrote:

The way it's stored, the file names and where files are stored has changed
considerably though - in that sense it *is* more complicated.

There are recent versions of the principal system files stored in the
%SystemRoot%\repair folder but their use/recovery is less simple than
Win9x... and the user registries are stored in the "Documents and Settings"
folder structure.  Besides the Restore Points, it is also a good idea to
use the built-in Backup utility to do a backup of the "System State"
regularly... preferably to a folder/file in a separate partition (Note:
partitions are still a good idea for other reasons too).

I've never had to do a serious repair on WinXP yet so I have no experience
but if you can't boot from the hard disk to any maintenance mode, the only
option is to boot from the WinXP CD-ROM and choose Repair.  There are also
various utilities kicking around as well as loads of Web sites with
"advice" so.... Google.  The ability to boot *and* login to a Win2K/XP
system is definitely much more fragile than the old DOS-based systems and
recovery is always a PITA - it's really very scarey.:-)

I'll add here that I rarely did backups with Win98SE - once a year or so,
using a version of Seagate Backup which came with a CD-R/RW drive.  With
WinXP, it didn't take me long to figure I needed to backup more often.  I'd
recommend that you disburse $30. (at NewEgg) for Backup MyPC or get one of
the packages you might want which includes it, like Roxio Easy Media
Creator.  I generally get about 1.6:1 compression ratio on my mix of files
which includes many .ZIPs... so about 6GB per DVD+R but "differential
backups" take only a few minutes and very little space.

That 443MB is a "System State" which includes "boot" files (many program
and .dll files) and the COM+ Class Registry as well as system and all user
registries and a bunch of .log files.  I haven't found a way to actually
see the file names from WinXP's Backup utility but Backup MyPC does show
them.

Yep and with the price of HDDs so low and RAID being on nearly every mbrd
now, I'm seriously considering a mirror setup for home.  I have a Promise
hot-swap mirror setup on our Win2K office server and it's worked great - no
HDD failures yet but when I manage to F/U the system during err, "upgrades"
I can always go back.


author: Jason Gurtz

subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On 6/29/2005 17:26, willbill wrote:

Not really. XP home is just a subset of XP Pro.

You should investigate "Bart PE boot CD" for working on failed systems
with NTFS partitions.  DOS based OS's(Win98) on boot disks have no hope of
reading NTFS.  Also see sysinternals.com and may want to check out the
acronis utils.

~Jason


author: keith

subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 09:23:03 -0500, chrisv wrote:

...and then you find that you really meant 'minus 148', or wanted to do
other things with '6737' that you hadn't anticipated.  Arethmetic
calculators are for the feeble-minded.

...got a good RPN calculator for Linux?


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:42:55 +1000, Franc Zabkar wrote:

Idiot!

Spelling and tupos sure, <blush>,  but there is nothgin wrong with the
grammar.  I've not had a problem with thinking, like some others here.

Idiot.  The HPs ran circles around the TIs without cheat-sheets.  Only a
true idiot would defend the TIs of the '70s.  Yes, I understand that you
fit the mold perfectly.


author: willbill

subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
George Macdonald wrote:

XP is clearly a *lot* more complex

and therefore when things go wrong
they are more screwy and often off
the chart (even when compared to 98SE)

my hunch is that when it happens (to you)
it's gonna be your worst nightmare ever.
sorry to say that, but as you can tell,
i'm less than impressed with XP Pro/SP2

if anything, i'm way more impressed with
Win 2000/SP4

i'm at the point were googling may take
some really advanced insight, so kindly
be kind and give me a clue if you can:
when i boot XP with my external mocem
turned off the damn thing won't work
no matter what i do and no matter what
i do in trying to "start" a service
that isn't started.  :(

with Win2k i was able to figure it out
without too much of a nose bleed

with "wonderful" Win XP Pro there's no
clue that i've been able to find

the only solution that works is to
turn my external modem *on* and
restart fucking Win XP from scratch!

trust me, i have insight on computers
in general (my life profession) and
also with screwy/flakey PC computers

i used to think Linux was screwy/flakey,
but XP now appears to me to be the worst.  :(

any clue on how i could "restart" (?) a modem
service (without restarting fucking XP with
the external modem turned on) will be
very very appreciated!

tia, bill


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
George Macdonald wrote:

agreed on it being less simple

i've used a DOS zip from the Unix community (Info Zip
over PKZip coz PKZip ran out of memory when it got
to 700 or 800 files) to compress my c: partition
(along with a DOS long file name saver); that and my
registry backups have literally saved my butt on
3 occassions that i can recall

any reason you use +R discs?  i mean, is +R
more reliable for data?

at this point i simply do it and
hope the registry is in there and hope
(and pray) that if there's a problem
i'll be able to get to it and actually
do something useful with it.  :)

the low price made me rethink zipping my c:
partition to simply buying two backup boot HDD

with about 15 GB of data on the 4 partitions of HDD#1
my last disk-to-disk DOS Ghost backup of my boot
drive took 7 minutes.  :)

i've used both W.D. JB (160GB PATA) and
Hitachi DeskStar (250GB PATA, 3 platter and
also the new 2 platter).  The Hitachi's
are noticably faster for the backup.  i mean
roughly 60 percent faster (i swapped out the
WD's for my sister's machine so the comparison
is very recent)

i have a three connecter 18" round cable with
only the boot drive on it.  i have the cable
positioned so that i only have to move it
a tiny bit to get the middle connecter
just over the bottom lip of the case
where i can plug in the backup HD and
do the backup.  when i get the 250GB disk
more full, i may have to put a fan on the
backup disk to keep its temp down, but so
far it's no worries

Win98SE-DOS boots just fine when the extra
disk is plugged in (even though it has
an active boot partition on it!)

i've got a Silicon Image 3114 raid chip, and my HDD#2
is a raid1 (mirror).  like you, i'm so far impressed

afaik, a good case with well placed
large ball bearning fans (80mm and up)
are the ticket to keeping HDD failures
to a minimum

bill


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On 6/30/2005 21:47, George Macdonald wrote:

All good points...

Bart PE is your friend.  Also, the Recovery Console that can be optionally
(G.O.K. why it's optional!) installed can be a huge help if it's just some
missing or corrupted system files, or bad drivers. chkdsk and friends all
run in there and U can copy files around and configure services.

It's also a good idea to learn how to make an NT Boot disk.  This is
useful for when the ntldr or boot block is slightly hosed but the rest of
the system is A-OK.  After booting, then you can then use fixboot or
fixmbr (last ditch, may be dangerous) utilities

Yea, this is true.  Then again, the more times you have to recover the
less of a PITA it is because you can remember what you learned before.
Any broken system is scary, esp. when there's no backup!

~Jason


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
Jason Gurtz wrote:

really?

it may be a subset, but whatever MS
did in pruning XP Home down added
additional loopholes.  i mean
i saw at least one error writeup on
the MS Knowledgebase that appeared to
be specific to only XP Home and not Pro

  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

are the Acronis utils part of Acronis True Image 8.0?
or are they a separate package by some other name?

bill


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 20:08:42 -0400, keith <[email]> put finger
to keyboard and composed:

I just knew it wouldn't take long for an RPN snob to show his true
colours.

BTW, the correct spelling is "arithmetic", and the correct terminology
is "algebraic" notation. *All* calculators are "arethmetic" (sic).

- Franc Zabkar


author: Robert Redelmeier

subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
keith <[email]> wrote:

Google?  http://www.linuxfocus.org/English/January2004/article319.shtml

-- Robert


author: Felger Carbon

subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
"keith" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...
do

Feeble-minded?  Did I hear my name called?  Once upon a time I was
enormously infatuated by the computer language Forth, because I could
understand how it worked, because it could work "close to the metal",
and because it ran very well on my then-favorite CPU.

Alas, my feeble mind was never able to think in a Forth (RPN) fashion,
despite extensive efforts to re-educate myself (' a couple days of
re-education may be required').  And I was never able to make sense of
HP calculators, even though I recognized their obvious value.  To this
day I don't use Forth (never have) and I use TI calculators (34s
scattered around the house).

Felger Carbon
feeble-minded non-RPN person


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Sat, 25 Jun 2005 20:45:43 -0400, keith <[email]> put finger
to keyboard and composed:

What do you mean by "cheat-sheets"?

- Franc Zabkar


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
keith wrote:

The TI's had crappy keyboards, as well.  You could pretty much count
on them going bad on you after a year or so.


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Sat, 25 Jun 2005 20:45:43 -0400, keith <[email]> put finger
to keyboard and composed:

Arethmetic (sic) calculators require no "thinking". Why is it that
they cause difficulties for you?

- Franc Zabkar


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Thu, 07 Jul 2005 17:31:23 -0500, willbill <[email]> wrote:

Yes, I got on quite well with Win98SE -- even managed a couple of
mbrd/chipset swaps without a reinstall -- though latterly things got worse
as new software came along.  A silent install (WTF - why do they do this ?)
of IE 5.5SP2 along with some application software I bought was one event
which increased general flakeyness - still wondering if that was
intentional by M$ to sink Mozilla, which is my preferred browser.  Then
Adobe Acrobat 5.1 caused lock-ups regularly on exiting the damned thing -
in the end I was glad to get away from it.

That's one of the reasons I do backups more regularly.  Backup MyPC has,
err, claims to have, a disaster recovery procedure where you can recover a
complete system.  Even then a few days of loss could mean important e-mails
lost.

The lack of a free download of the Pro Resource Kit is a major annoyance
there.  Tools are mentioned in the M$ KB which are only available in that
kit.  My experiences with Win2K Server have not been that good - I just
found out the other day that a Restore of System State does not appear to
properly restore "junctions".

You mean the modem doesn't work or WinXP doesn't boot properly?  I assume
the former.  Is it a RS232 modem on a COM port?

It's been a while since I used a serial port modem but does the modem
appear in Device Manager when you start WinXP with it powered off?  Have
you tried a Scan For Hardware Changes from the Action menu of Device
Manager?  Was it found through Plug 'n' Play with Win98SE and/or Win2K?

Does the modem service show in Services, but in "stopped" state, when you
startup with it powered off?


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Sat, 02 Jul 2005 02:50:15 -0500, willbill <[email]> wrote:

Well I'm not sure I trust RW anything and +R is supposed to be a better
recording technology than -R.

I just realized that there's an option on the NTBackup, from the Advanced
button, on the dialog you get when you click Start Backup, where you can
select to not include "System Protected Files", which reduces the size of
the backup by ~200MB... they say.


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Fri, 01 Jul 2005 17:36:46 -0400, Jason Gurtz <[email]> wrote:

I guess they figure running it from the CD is err, "suitable" - they tend
to treat the average user -- i.e. anybody who hasn't taken the M$ CSE
course -- as a moron.  There are also a bunch of utilities which you only
find out are downloadable *after* you need them.  Now it appears they're
going to do a proper CLI but it would not surprise me if they limit its use
to people who are "qualified".

I'll take a look at Bart PE - thanks.

Oh I've had quite a few tangles with Win2K Server and there always seems to
be some twist I haven't seen before or I've forgotten from the last time.
This was a system which was upgraded from WinNT Server and the contortions
I've gone through with it over its evolution from legacy workgroup server
to Active Directory Domain Controller have about driven me nuts.  IOW I'm
quite familiar with the cold sweat that breaks out when you've been up all
night and you still have a broken server at 7a.m.:-)


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On 6/30/2005 09:53, willbill wrote:

I think they are all separate products tho now they may have some sort of
bundle.  Besides the things from sysinternals I really don't need much in
the way of utils.  who's locking maybe.

~Jason


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 17:42:56 +1000, Franc Zabkar wrote:

Snob?  No, just stating the obvious.  You _are_ feeble minded, as has been
shown here many times.

Wow!  I'm impressed.  <what a loon>


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 15:04:18 +0000, Robert Redelmeier wrote:

Hadn't been interested enough, yet.  Though the calculator in the dirtro
sucks.  I see there is a PalmOS calculator in there too.  Cool.  Thanks.


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Fri, 24 Jun 2005 18:29:18 +0000, Felger Carbon wrote:

Sure.  I've been known to summong the spirit of the grand Felger before.  ;-)

Apple II?

Case closed.  ;-)


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:17:46 -0500, chrisv wrote:

I'd forgotten about that difference (TI's and their users weren't to be
taken seriously). The HPs had the "cricket" for tactile feedback, sorta
the Model-M of the day.  ;-)


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Tue, 28 Jun 2005 12:17:46 -0500, chrisv <[email]> put
finger to keyboard and composed:

Thirty years ago when I was earning $56pw pumping petrol, I paid $250
for a TI59. For an additional 4.5 weeks wages I could have bought a
HP97 with half the features and half the performance, but this
engineer-to-be decided that an additional month of drudgery was much
too high a price to pay for the dubious promises of superior tactile
feedback and superior UI. Even today, when I can afford to buy
anything I want, I still remain one of those unassuming people who
buys a watch that indicates the time rather than one's social status.

- Franc Zabkar


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 14:08:32 +1000, Franc Zabkar wrote:

Because I have a brain and use it, though you've pin pointed
exactly why you can't figure out RPN.  You're too easy, kid.


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
Franc Zabkar <[email]> wrote:

Because unlike you, I am not capable of not thinking!

My problem with parentheses (and it applies just as much to long
FORTRAN formulae) is that they can be hard to place-and-match.
Particularly from traditionally written equations where there
are implied groupings in radicals and hrizontal division bars.
I look at such a formula, see the parts and their origins, then
know how to group them even if the parentheses are wrong.

RPN supports this understanding-based inside-out
formula entry.  Algebraic does not natively.

-- Robert


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
George Macdonald wrote:

   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

i can believe that

i'm still hoping that XP Pro will be more
stable than 98SE, but i'm off to a rough
start with it.  :(

even standby is more flakey than 98SE,
at least with a game like Planetscape Torment.
i've had XP totally freeze up twice after
playing Torment and then going into standby. :(

plays havoc with the XP Sil Image 3114 raid
utility (250GB NTFS extended partition) and
puts it into a blue funk which takes a 2+ hour
recheck of it).  :(  (i'm in 98 at the moment
and can't provide the key word/term for it.
but it's so far still ok & all is still well.  :)

keith likes "winblows" and i may start
calling XP just that

i'm soooo happy i'm not doing sysadmin
on any group with winblows.  :)

my real experience (with 2k vs xp) is
at best limited

what is clear is that xp is more complex
than anything in the past (with the likely
exception of 2003 server)

XP boots fine, provided i give it at least
75 seconds (after the login screen) shows up

fwiw, if i log in before that my SATARaid
utility fails!!

(GFC, i'm starting to HATE XP!)

it's a very recent (from Newegg) external US
Robotics v.92 modem (roughly 80-85$)

really nice suggestion george!  :)

i thoutht i thought of everything...

except that!

so i booted into XP (with the modem off), and then
turned it on and went into control-panel/find-new-hardware

and sure enough that solved the problem!!

winblows; keith is right

bill


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
George Macdonald <fammacd=!SPAM^[email]> wrote:

Actually, -RW/+RW is phase change material, and in theory will last longer
on the shelf once written than write-once disks.

I've had better luck with reading +RW in conventional DVD-ROM drives than
-RW, but -R and +R have both had basically no difference in compatibility
from what I can see - never had any trouble with reading either in data
DVD-ROM drives, and relatively little problem with either on video DVDs.


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On 7/1/2005 18:55, George Macdonald wrote:

Right now, you just have  to supply an email and address in order to
download it and use it.  OTOH, the bash shell has been available for years
via the cygwin project.  Then there's 4NT.

My only complaint with the new shell so far is that the command syntax is
*extreamly* verbose.  Thankfully they've remembered to implement aliases!  :)

~Jason


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
Franc Zabkar wrote:

Perhaps you should read what I wrote again, about the TI keyboards
going bad.  This is not the same thing as having inferior tactical
feedback or a lower prestige value.


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 11:08:24 -0400, keith <[email]> put finger
to keyboard and composed:

How does your RPN-only "brain" cope with algebraic engineering
formulae?

RPN has never been a problem for me. If RPN calculators had been
competitively priced, I would have used them. Unlike you, I'm no snob.

My only contention all along, until you accused me of being
feeble-minded, was that algebraic UIs were intuitive whereas RPN UIs
were not. Clearly this is supported by your own excessively lengthy
learning curve, and by another post which refers to "inside-out"
thinking.

Here is a dictionary definition:

 intuition n.  immediate apprehension by the mind without reasoning

 intuitive a.  of, possessing, perceived by, intuition

If you are indeed an engineer, then you will appreciate that the aim
of a successful designer is to produce an intuitive man-machine
interface, all other things being equal. OTOH, if you prefer to handle
simple jobs in a complicated way, then try something like this:

 http://www.rube-goldberg.com/html/pencil_sharpener.htm

- Franc Zabkar


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Sun, 26 Jun 2005 16:36:58 GMT, Robert Redelmeier
<[email]> put finger to keyboard and composed:

I've never seen *any* scientific formula expressed in RPN. They are
*all* written down in algebraic notation, parentheses and all. The
correct, or incorrect, placing and matching of parentheses in a
formula has absolutely *no* bearing on the relative suitability of one
calculator UI over another.

... which of course confirms my original point that RPN is
counter-intuitive.

OK, so I have to add two sets of parentheses, one for the numerator
and one for the denominator. No big deal, I can handle a little bit of
"thinking". In any case I'm still working from left to right, in an
intuitive way, which was the only point I had intended to make until
some RPN snob accused me of feeble-mindedness.

- Franc Zabkar


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Tue, 05 Jul 2005 11:37:10 -0700, Nate Edel wrote:

I'm interested in why you say this.  Regions that are forever broken seem
to me to be more stable.

Dunno. I have a buchh of both and use +Rs becasue they work better with my
old crap.  I'll keep the -Rs for digital things.  Is there a solid reason
for this, no.  ...just a *little* experience.  I don't see a reason to buy
more -R media though.


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Tue, 05 Jul 2005 11:37:10 -0700, [email] (Nate Edel) wrote:

I'm not sure there's anything intrinsically better there - a phase change
material which is changed by application of light energy is just as likely
to drift around with age, whether by temp cycling or incidental light.  By
it's nature there is less "contrast" between the two states of the
medium... +RW has always been considered a flakey medium.  Some "experts"
will not use it for archival purposes.

+R is a better technology.  It can also, in most recorders, be set during
record to appear to a reader as a plain read-only DVD if there is any
question of reader compatibility.


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 13:07:00 -0500, chrisv <[email]> put
finger to keyboard and composed:

Fair enough.

- Franc Zabkar


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
Franc Zabkar wrote:

But Frank, we've already explained that we think the RPN interface is
better.  B e t t e r.


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
Franc Zabkar <[email]> wrote:

Nor have I seen any scientific formulae expressed in linear
sequential algebraic notation when the idea was to competently
express complex formulae to humans.  To machines, sure.
In poorly typeset papers, sure.

But competent journals go to considerable trouble typesetting
equations with various flavors of parentheses, long horizontal
division lines and radical roofs.  Why do they go to the trouble?
It is much easier type the formula as linear algebraic FORTRAN-style
(((((((1+X)/(((.....  They go to the trouble because people do
_not_ understand formulae linearly.  They understand them by
building up terms, mostly from the inside-out.

Left-to-right may be the way english is read (and right-to-left
other languages), but I do not understand formulae in any such
linear fashion.  I _understand_ formulae and can usually rebuild
them from first principles.  This understanding is based on terms,
and usually works from inside-out.  Sometimes from outside-in
when terms have been refined.

I personally find RPN _far_ more intuitive for calculating formulae,
especially long, complex ones.  It works by calculating out terms.
Algebraic calculators may be simpler for people who just want a
cookbook recipe.  Check the brackets are matched and pray when
they hit = .

-- Robert


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
On Wed, 29 Jun 2005 13:03:58 -0500, chrisv <[email]> put
finger to keyboard and composed:

You and Robert are welcome to think what you like and how you like. I
have used both UIs and find no significant benefit in RPN. In any
case, I never intended to argue about the relative merits of one over
the other, except to state the obvious, namely that one is intuitive
whereas the other is not.  I n t u i t i v e.

- Franc Zabkar


subject: Re: New DOS shell for Windows coming

text:
Franc Zabkar <[email]> wrote:

It depends on how you think -- or don't.
I find RPN intuitive.  I find Algebraic literalist.

-- Robert


author: PaulG

subject: RB Roadmap (5.0)

text:
Hi,

Does anyone know what the Road Map for RB is?  From what I read on this
forum some time ago, 5.0 is supposed to have a new code compiler that will
optimize code better and produce drastically smaller code (yes!).  I think
it was stated that it will be based off the RBscript engine of some sort
(?).  Is this still the case, and is 5.0 going to hold true to the previous
versions being released every 6 months or so.  Are we going to see 5.0 by
the end of the year or by MacWorldSF 2003?  I am still running 4.0 now, and
maybe a subscription upgrade would be the most economical choice, that is if
5.0 is going to be released at least in the next 12 months.

Regards,

PaulG


author: Joe Strout

subject: Re: RB Roadmap (5.0)

text:
In article <[email]>, PaulG <[email]>
wrote:

No!  The new compiler will not at first do any code optimization, and
when it does, that may well cause the code to be bigger rather than
smaller.  It's a new linker that could reduce the size of the runtime,
and that will not appear in 5.0.

This part is true.

We make no promises, but that's the standard schedule and we have a very
good record of sticking to it.

Yes, I would agree.  And that way, you get the benefits of 4.5
immediately while waiting for 5.0.

Cheers,
- Joe

,----------------------?ï¿½------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout         Check out the Mac Web Directory:     |
|    [email]           http://www.macwebdir.com             |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'


author: Benoit

subject: Re: RB Roadmap (5.0)

text:
When this new linker will appear ? With RB 5.5, RB 6.0 ?
Do you plan to add a Cocoa runtime in future releases ?

Thanks,
Benoï¿½t


author: Christian Schmitz

subject: Re: RB Roadmap (5.0)

text:
Benoit <[email]> wrote:

When it's ready?
(RS doesn't give dates normally)

I think they can, but currently I would say this is a waste of
resources. Better Java, Linux or Palm as target.

Mfg
Christian


subject: Re: RB Roadmap (5.0)

text:
In article <[email]>, Benoit <[email]>
wrote:

One of those, or something else, or never.  I can't discuss possible
future features.

I can't discuss that either, but I'm curious why you care?  The runtime
you're using now already contains a mixture of Carbon and Cocoa APIs
inside.  How would a "Cocoa runtime" benefit you?

Best,
- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout         Check out the Mac Web Directory:     |
|    [email]           http://www.macwebdir.com             |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'


author: Mars Saxman

subject: Re: RB Roadmap (5.0)

text:
Benoit <[email]> wrote in message news:<[email]>...

We just sent out the first RB 5 alpha earlier this evening - it's far
too early to be talking about future versions. As a rule, we don't
announce upcoming features until they're ready to test, so the best
approach is simply to sign up for the beta list and keep an eye on the
release notes.

Mars Saxman
REAL Software


subject: Re: RB Roadmap (5.0)

text:
In fact, I'm interested about the possibility to write declares to Cocoa
APIs within REALbasic instead of having to use a plugin. I thought that if
REALbasic can compile a Cocoa application, it can naturally handle Cocoa
declares... Not sure, just wondering.

Benoï¿½t


subject: Re: RB Roadmap (5.0)

text:
In article <[email]>, Benoit <[email]>
wrote:

Ah good!  Always better to request what you want than to request
something that you think will let you get what you want.

In this case, the two are totally separate: we could support Mach-O
declares from a CFM app just about as easily as from a Mach-O app.

Cheers,
- Joe

,------------------------------------------------------------------.
|    Joseph J. Strout         Check out the Mac Web Directory:     |
|    [email]           http://www.macwebdir.com             |
`------------------------------------------------------------------'


subject: Re: RB Roadmap (5.0)

text:
Benoit <[email]> wrote:

Well, my plugin collection includes a plugin with a SoftDeclare class
which let's you do declares to Framework from Realbasic.

Mfg
Christian


author: matthew j. schutt

subject: need help finding a printer driver

text:
I just bought a Canon BJC-250 color bubblejet printer, but, of course,
can't find a printer driver for my Amiga 3000 with Workbench 2.0 to print
graphics.  Does a driver for this printer even exist?  If so, is there an
FTP site I can go to download it from?  Please help if you can!!!  :)

							maTT
...............................................................
. Matthew J Schutt                      Wayside Entertainment .
. [email]               P.O. Box 751 .
. [email]		   Hollywood CA 9OO78 .
.             http://www.waysideentertainment.com             .
...............................................................


author: Bond

subject: computer shuts off automatically after 4 seconds

text:
The problem started a month ago when playing Half Life 2. Out of no
where I could play the game for about 15 minutes before it would boot
me out and then restore to the desktop.  So I decided to try a
different game like Need for Speed Underground 2 to see what would
happen...  and of course the same thing did happen; it would kick me
out of the game after about 10 minutes to the desktop.  I can do
anything else on my computer other than play games.  I have a roommate
so I decided to try his video card in mine (his video card is
equivalent to mine) and still got the same results...  tried his ram
and even in different slots, still nothing different.  Oh, and I also
tried these combinations after reformatting my computer.  Finally after
talking it over with some friends we thought maybe it could be a power
shortage of some sort.  So i decided to try a different (working) power
supply.  Then a new problem occurred where the computer would boot up
and then restart after about 4 seconds. After checking the comuter for
loose connections I still had the same problem, therefore I decided to
put my power supply back into the computer and well, it still would
shut off after 4 seconds.  I thought maybe the motherboard was touching
the case so i took it out and made it more secure using more screws...
still nothing...  then I decided to start taking parts out until I had
the motherboard out of the case with only the RAM and Video Card
connected but still would shut off after 4 seconds.  Now I'm thinking
my processor or motherboard is screwed.
So does anyone have any ideas or suggestions up to this point?

I'm thinking that I might have to buy a new motherboard or processor
but I'm not sure which to buy.  For some reason I was thinking that I
wouldn't be able to buy one without the other.  Reason behind this is
because if I buy a new processor and the motherboard is bad, it could
just damage the new processor... and vice versa, if i buy a new
motherboard and it ends up that the processor is bad, the processor
could damage the new motherboard... not sure if this logic is true...
if not, where should I go from here?

Well, thanks to all that attempt to help me out.


subject: Re: computer shuts off automatically after 4 seconds

text:
the problem was that too much dust had collected in the heatsink...
therefore it was overheating to quickly...  plus my power supply was a
little screwy.  Don't understand that since I tried a different one
that also wouldn't work on mine...  but I was told some power supplys
will not work on some machines.  meh, it works now!  Thanks to all that
provided feedback.


author: Al Dykes

text:
In article <[email]>,
Bond <[email]> wrote:

IMO your heatsink isn't installed properly.


text:
then why was everything working before and just now it stopped working.
 Do you think that the processor is dead now because it just couldn't
take the punishment of overheating?   or are you saying that the
heatsink isn't installed properly and therefore as a safety issue the
computer will not boot because of this (which I couldn't see being the
problem since everything was working before and I didn't screw around
with the processor).


text:
a 4-pin supplemental 12V power connector?  Never heard of doing this
before...  I've ever only had the one main connector from the PSU to
the motherboard.


text:
I have the one 20 pin connector for the motherboard.  Is there another
connector you are talking about?  I mean I know I have to connect at
least one haha...  but if there is another, please let me know.


text:
ok...  after looking at my roommates computer, I know what you are
talking about.  He has it connected to his motherboard and I don't
because my motherboard doesn't have a spot for it.    I have an ASUS
A7N8X-X


text:
Nothing has been overclocked...  The computer i currently getting a
dignosis from a compputer technician.

Thanks!


author: Ghostrider

text:
Bond wrote:

Since this problem surfaced after swapping PSU's, there could
be the issue of forgetting to re-insert the 4-pin supplemental
12V power connector to the motherboard. A short delay is normal,
usually for the hard drives to spin up, before the CPU starts.
But if this 4-pin connector was not replaced --- and this is a
common oversight, even amongst experienced builders ---, the
symptoms as described would appear. Open the computer case and
check the leads from the PSU.


text:
Bond wrote:

In this case, there is good possibility that the AMD CPU
has been fried. Was this motherboard over-clocked, in order
to play games? Get the CPU checked. If working, then the VIA
chipset would then be suspect.


author: Bob I

text:
As the front button will typically power off the PC if held for 4
seconds, perhaps it is shorted or jammed?

Bond wrote:


author: Araxes Tharsis

subject: Help - JSP Sessions

text:
In a JSP very simple page (no JavaBeans) I create a session variable with:
    session.setAttribute("username", user);

to be read in another JSP page with:
    session.getAttribute("username");

Everything works fine, but if I close the browser and open another one, I
can STILL read the session variable...
This is strange to me (I worked a little with ASP): shouldn't the session be
destroyed when the browser was closed?
How can I force the session to terminate when the browser closes?
Isn't this a security problem?

Thank you very much,

Araxes Tharsis


author: Andy Flowers

subject: Re: Help - JSP Sessions

text:
When you say read the variable, do you mean that you get the same value out,
or that the call succeeds with no error ?

If you check the return from session.getAttribute("username") does it have
the value set in the previous session, or is it null ?

Can you post some code that illustrates the problem, and can you also post
details of your JSP/Servlet environment.

"Araxes Tharsis" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...
be


subject: Re: Help - JSP Sessions

text:
"Andy Flowers" <[email]> wrote in message news:<DMnta.3273$[email]>...

I get the value defined in the previous session, without errors.

It has the value set in the previous session...

I don't have the code here, but will post it tonight.
The environment is JDeveloper v.2.2.3 using the JSP engine included with it.

Thank you very much,

Araxes Tharsis


subject: Re: Help - JSP Sessions

text:
Here is the code if someone has the time to look it up...
It is a simple Login page created in JDeveloper 3.23 and tested in it's JSP engine.

Login.jsp Page:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<%@ page contentType="text/html;charset=WINDOWS-1252"%>

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252">
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Oracle JDeveloper">
<TITLE>
Login Page
</TITLE>

JSP Login Page

<%
    if (request.getParameter("txtUsername") == null)
    {

%>

    <FORM method="POST" action="Login.jsp">
        Username:&nbsp
        <INPUT type="text" name="txtUsername" size="20">

        Password:&nbsp
        <INPUT type="password" name="txtPassword" size="20">

        <INPUT type="submit" value="Submit" name="btnSubmit">
    </FORM>

<%
    }
    else
    {

        String user = request.getParameter("txtUsername");
        String pass = request.getParameter("txtPassword");

        if (user.equals("PMaia") && pass.equals("UAL"))
        {

            session.setAttribute("username", user);
            response.sendRedirect("Welcome.jsp");

        }
        else
        {

%>
            Login invï¿½lido...
            <FORM method="POST" action="Login.jsp">
                Username:&nbsp
                <INPUT type="text" name="txtUsername" size="20">

                Password:&nbsp
                <INPUT type="password" name="txtPassword" size="20">

                <INPUT type="submit" value="Submit" name="btnSubmit">
            </FORM>
<%
        }
    }
%>

Welcome.jsp Page:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<%@ include file="TestLogin.jsp" %>

<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=WINDOWS-1252">
<META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Oracle JDeveloper">
<TITLE>
Private JSP Site
</TITLE>

Bem-vindo ï¿½ ï¿½rea privada <%= session.getAttribute("username") %>!

TestLogin.jsp Page:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

<%
    if (session.getAttribute("username") == null)
    {
        response.sendRedirect("Login.jsp");
    }
%>


subject: Re: Help - JSP Sessions

text:
Well I've tried it out in JBuilder 7 using Tomcat 4.0 and Internet Explorer
6 and it all works as expected.

If I start the web application then use Internet Explorer to log in it
functions as expected, errors for invalid username/password and welcome
message for correct ones.

I then close Internet Explorer and restart it and again I am prompted for
login information which indicates the session has gone.

What version of Tomcat are you using, and which external browser ? The
internal, built in browser is always running whilst the web application is
running and as such will always maintain its session until the session times
out at the sever.

"Araxes Tharsis" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...
JSP engine.
----
----
----


subject: Re: Help - JSP Sessions

text:
I tried it with Tomcat 4.1, IE6 and, you're right, it works fine. The
problem is the way that the Oracle JDeveloper JSP Test Engine deals
with sessions... I will not use JDev again for testing JSPs, and will
go directly to Tomcat.
Andy, thank you very much for your time and effort!

Araxes


author: mathieu

subject: catching exit

text:
Hi there,

  I am trying to reuse a piece of code that was designed as an
application. The code is covered with 'exit' calls. I would like to
reuse it as a library. For that I renamed the 'main' function into
'mymain', but I am stuck as to what I should do for the 'exit'.

  AFAIK there is no portable way to catch the exit. The only thing I
can think of is atexit, but that does not work since 'exit' is still
called afterward.

  What I am thinking now is that I need to replace all exit(val) with
longjmp(env, val). And make 'env' global.

Comments ?

Thanks
-Mathieu


author: Richard

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
Antoninus Twink <[email]> writes:

I would have thought it could be shortened to

"Please do not post to my private playground as you are a silly,
clueless fool who constantly makes a tit of himself"


author: Antoninus Twink

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On 15 Aug 2008 at 13:54, James Kuyper wrote:
[same old same old]

Maybe CBF just assumes everyone else has the same problems he obviously
does with basic reading comprehension.


author: CBFalconer

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
mathieu wrote:

My reaction is UGH.  I suspect writing your function from scratch
will be easier.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On Aug 15, 8:26 am, CBFalconer <[email]> wrote:

As I said before it's is called 'PVRG JPEG 1.2.1' you can google for
it. Or see my integration in GDCM:

http://gdcm.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/gdcm/trunk/Utilities/pvrg/

And yes there are *plenty* of exit all over the place (read: in
functions other than the original 'main').

$ grep exit\( * | wc
     75     152    2479

Which are spread in different files:

$ grep -l exit\( * | wc
      8       8      68

And no this code is not easy to follow (slightly easier to follow than
IJG, since less complex)

-M


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On Aug 14, 6:48 pm, Keith Thompson <[email]> wrote:

Correct.

:(

ok

pure genius ! I actually happen to be using this you-shall-not-name
language you are talking about. This definitely solve the issue with
the 'exit' calls. But as Eric (see early posts) mention, this is only
the visible part of the iceberg. The code is also covered with globals
that are randomly initialized in different places.

alright, I am convinced.

Thanks all for your time,
-Mathieu


author: Willem

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
mathieu wrote:
)   I am trying to reuse a piece of code that was designed as an
) application. The code is covered with 'exit' calls. I would like to
) reuse it as a library. For that I renamed the 'main' function into
) 'mymain', but I am stuck as to what I should do for the 'exit'.
)
)   AFAIK there is no portable way to catch the exit. The only thing I
) can think of is atexit, but that does not work since 'exit' is still
) called afterward.
)
)   What I am thinking now is that I need to replace all exit(val) with
) longjmp(env, val). And make 'env' global.
)
) Comments ?

Do you have some form of fork() in your implementation ?

If so, you could fork the process and call mymain() from there, and in the
main process, wait for the exit status.  This is the midway solution
between having the code in the same executable, and using system().

Depends on how portable you want the code to be, of course.

SaSW, Willem


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On Aug 14, 10:23 pm, Keith Thompson <[email]> wrote:
[...]

It's all there: http://gdcm.sourceforge.net

So far I have only been dealing with GCC/Linux, VC/Win32 (no Win64 so
far), GCC/MacOSX. So it's not that difficult indeed... Well
theoretically.

<OT>
One of the main feature people like about this toolkit, is that it is
wrapped in Python (using swig). One of my user started using 'py2exe'
which basically gathered all the python modules + a lightweight python
interpreter in a fake executable (AFAIK). So I am now concerned that
within this py2exe executable, it would be like being in a chroot
environment and I might not even have access to a shell to execute a
system call.
But that's a different story, in a far far away newsgroup.
</OT>

<OT #2>
I am also concerned on how I am supposed to find the executable from
my python module since the exe might not be in the path. I have played
a little with GetModuleFileName (win32) and /proc/self/exe (proc
system), but this is again something with lots of #ifdef not easily
portable.
</OT #2>

-Mathieu


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
[email] wrote:
... snip ...

Yes it will, provided that the calling function does those things.
I.e. the calling code is something like:

      err = newfunct(...);
      if (err & BADBITS) {
         cleanupwhatever();
         decidewheretogonext();
      }
      else {
         alliswellwithnewfunct();
         ...
      }

It may be a pain in the butt to write 'cleanupwhatever' and
'decidewheretogonext'.  There is no problem replacing the calls to
exit with returning something, since the OP obviously has the
source code.


author: Richard Heathfield

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
mathieu said:

Eric has already given you some excellent advice, and there is no point in
duplicating it, obviously.

My comment is more in the nature of a smug, satisfied grin, I'm afraid. You
see, I don't use exit() - or at least, if I do, I consider it to be a bug
that has to be fixed. I've just searched my personal code base for exit()
calls. I found 24 altogether in 14 different C files (out of - well,
thousands), dating back in some cases to the mid-1990s. That's 24 bugs I
have to fix, which isn't too huge a job, really.

Why don't I use exit()? Well, it's a style thing, I suppose. I like to
think of big chunks being made up of little chunks, and that means that
little chunks have to behave like little chunks and not take arbitrary
decisions like "quit the program", leaving those decisions to bigger
chunks. And whilst I will grant a big chunk (think "main()") the right to
make such a decision, it is easy to revoke it (think "edit and rename one
function") if that big chunk becomes a mere part of an enormous chunk.

Unfortunately, it is not always possible to persuade other people of the
advantages of this kind of modularity. In 1994-5, I was working at V, and
the code I was working on was littered with mallocs, which were never
freed. (No, it wasn't me that did that, and I didn't have time to fix it
because I was too busy doing other stuff.) It was no big deal, said the
principal culprit, because the memory was in any case released when the
program exited. In due course, I left, and went on to work at W, X, and Y.
And then I was hired by Z, who had bought the code from X. And guess what?
They had to do precisely what you need to do - turn a program into a
function. And suddenly all these leaks mattered a great deal.

Fellow regulars in comp.lang.c often smile indulgently when I wax lyrical
about my strange stylistic habits - such as one entry point and one exit
point for each function and each loop, always initialise, always give
control back to your caller, and so on. But I have my reasons, and they
are good reasons. In this case: if the original programmer had been me,
your task would have been trivial, and we would never even have heard
about it because you wouldn't have had to ask.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, think about it the next time you write
a program. What if, one day, you need *this* program to become a function?
How hard would it be to do that? How can you make it easier?


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On Aug 14, 9:55 am, Richard Heathfield <[email]> wrote:

So to paraphrase you, I should have said:

...
 While working at X, I am trying to reuse a piece of code that was
designed by
 Y as an application, in mid 1990. The code is covered with 'exit'
calls...
...

:)

Anyway to put names, I am talking about the PVRG JPEG library (google
it if needed). And it is producing a bizarre JPEG compression for 16
bits lossless that I simply *cannot* reproduce using IJG (google). So
the only way I can support those damned lossless JPEG is to link to
PVRG. I am not very keen on 'system' call, as I do not know how
portable they are. So yes I am stuck on reusing this piece of code,
and my goal is to spent little time as possible.

-Mathieu


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
mathieu wrote:
... snip ...

That wasn't clear to me.  Since the only things you can (portably)
return from main is EXIT_SUCCESS and EXIT_FAILURE (and 0), you have
much more latitude in a function.  So simply return from the
function, returning a status, and let the caller decide what to do
about it.  I see no point to the exit calls.  Maybe you do.


author: Keith Thompson

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
mathieu <[email]> writes:

The real problem, I presume, is that you have exit calls from
functions other than main().  In the original version of the program,
each such call terminates the main program; in your bigger program
with main renamed to mymain, you want to terminate mymain, not your
new main.  Right?

Keeping it as a separate program and invoking it with system() might
be your best bet.  The behavior of system() is largely
implementation-defined, particularly its return value, but if you're
only targeting a limited number of systems you can deal with that with
a few #ifdef's.

If you want the resulting code to be portable to all conforming
systems, things are a bit more difficult.  On any one system, you
should be able to tell from the result returned by system() whether
the invoked program did an exit(EXIT_SUCCESS) or an exit(EXIT_FAILURE)
(or some other system-specific value), but there's no portable way to
do that.

You'll also need to take some care to ensure that
system("existing_program") actually invokes what you want it to
invoke.  The details are system-specific, but at least for Unix-like
and Windows-like systems, think about PATH settings.

<OT>
Here's another possibility.  I happen to know that there's another
language, whose name is that of our local favorite language with a
couple of plus signs appended to it, which supports the kind of
control flow you're looking for.  Rather than calling exit, you can
"throw" an "exception" and "catch" it at whatever level you like
rather than letting it propagate out and terminate the program.  It's
not inconceivable that you could recompile this program using a
compiler for this Other Language and make use of the OL's features.
This approach could be fraught (fraught, I say!) with peril.  There
are subtle differences between C and the OL, some of which may prevent
valid C code from compiling, and some of which may silently change its
behavior.  And if you take that approach, we can't help you here, but
the folks over in comp.lang.thatotherlanguage or
comp.lang.thatotherlanguage.moderated will be glad to do so.
</OT>

But still, I think that system() is your best bet, requiring no
changes to the program and (probably) just a little bit of
system-specific scaffolding.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On 14 Aug 2008 at 12:10, CBFalconer wrote:

I think it's patently clear who's lacking knowledge here.

Your belief is incorrect, as a cursory glance at the first post in this
thread would have told you if you'd bothered to read it before getting
on your high horse and galloping a mile in the wrong direction as usual.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On 14 Aug 2008 at 12:24, CBFalconer wrote:

Well done. You've just surpassed Heathfield for the most arrogant and
patronizing post I've ever read in this newsgroup.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On 14 Aug 2008 at 17:21, Kenny McCormack wrote:
[a strategy to prevent stupid posts from CBF]

Yes... but I'm not sure about this bit:

Of course, by this stage every single reply should have been deleted,
but just in case one slips through I'd recommend changing this to

(3) Now send any undeleted replies to /dev/null.


author: [redacted]

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer wrote:

No, it's not that simple. Replacing

           exit(status);

with

          some_global = status;
          return;

will not handle any of the numerous complications that have already
been mentioned elsewhere on this thread: memory leaks, files that were
not closed, at_exit() handlers (admittedly not a common problem). In
general, the kind of person who uses exit() doesn't merely ignore
memory leaks and unclosed files; such a person generally is actively
relying on exit() to handle those details. Such things can usually be
found in any program that calls exit().

Furthermore, the calling function may have been designed based upon
the assumption that the called function would only return if the
termination condition didn't come up. Since the termination condition
did come up, replacing "exit();" with "return;" may require an
extensive re-write of the calling function. Been there, done that
(quite recently) - it was not simple, it was not easy, it kept me very
busy for several days, and I finished it that quickly only because I
realized that I did not have the time I needed to perform the complete
re-design that I should properly have performed.


author: Eric Sosman

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
mathieu wrote:

     If you can change the source of the application, you can replace
exit() calls with myexit() calls and then do what you like, including
calling longjmp() to transfer back to a "wrapper."  But that's not
likely to solve everything, unless the application has already cleaned
itself up before calling myexit().  If it hasn't, there may still be
open files and un-free()d memory hanging around ...

     If the application uses atexit(), you're going to have to decide
what to do about the functions it's registered and that it thinks are
going to run when it calls exit().  Should they run even though the
application isn't really exiting?  Should they run only when the whole
wrapped program exits?  Either way, you've got some work to do: You'll
probably need a myatexit() that registers functions that myexit() can
run (and de-register), or a myatexit() that recognizes double-registered
functions when the wrapped application re-runs and suppresses the extra
calls to atexit().  (This carries some risk of changing the semantics,
by the way: exit() runs the functions in reverse order of registration,
so if the application registers f() and then g() the first time, but
g() and then f() the second, it's not clear what should happen.)

     Yet another thing to beware of is "run-once" code that initializes
something the first time a function is called.  These things often
test a local static variable inside the function to see whether this
is the first call, and your problem is to figure out which of these
should really be "run-once" and which should be "run-once per cycle,"
and to make arrangements to reset the triggers of the latter.

     ... and there's probably some other gotchas I haven't thought of.
This has the potential to become a very messy job indeed.

     One alternative is to rewrite the code, keeping in mind that it
will be invoked multiple times in the new framework and writing
accordingly.  This might be a lot of work, but it will be less work
than writing the code from scratch took (because you can study the
old code while you write the new), and it might turn out to be less
work than trying to hack the exit() calls.

     Another possibility is to leave the code as it stands, and run
it as a separate program.  You could use the system() function to
launch the application and wait for it to finish, possibly preparing
input files for it first and reading its output files afterward.

     Changing a program's "framework" is seldom easy.  Good luck!


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
mathieu wrote:

Just leave it calling exit.  The result is as follows:

  7.20.4.3  The exit function

  Synopsis
  [#1]
          #include <stdlib.h>
          void exit(int status);

  Description

  [#2] The exit function causes normal program termination  to
  occur.   If  more  than  one  call  to  the exit function is
  executed by a program, the behavior is undefined.

  [#3] First, all functions registered by the atexit  function
  are called, in the reverse order of their registration.239)

  [#4] Next, all open streams with unwritten buffered data are
  flushed,  all open streams are closed, and all files created
  by the tmpfile function are removed.

  [#5] Finally, control is returned to the  host  environment.
  If   the  value  of  status  is  zero  or  EXIT_SUCCESS,  an
  implementation-defined  form  of   the   status   successful
  termination   is  returned.   If  the  value  of  status  is
  EXIT_FAILURE, an implementation-defined form of  the  status
  unsuccessful  termination is returned.  Otherwise the status
  returned is implementation-defined.

  Returns
  [#6] The exit function cannot return to its caller.

  ____________________

  239Each   function  is  called  as  many  times  as  it  was
     registered.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On 13 Aug 2008 at 21:33, CBFalconer wrote:

Brilliant.

Remind me never to use any library you write.

Oh, yes, hell would have frozen over first anyway, even without this
latest idiotic post.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On Aug 13, 8:17 pm, Eric Sosman <[email]> wrote:

Hi Eric,

  Thanks for your input, esp. the issue with globals. This is
something I have not thought about.

  As a first step, I'll replace exit with myexit+longjmp. Then as a
second step, I'll rewrite the portion that is doing the initialization
of the globals (within a func). Calling this init func will simply
reproduce the old behavior. Hopefully the library is simple enough so
that I can get rid of all leaks quickly (thanks to valgrind).

Thanks, that was very helpful !
-Mathieu


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On Aug 13, 11:33 pm, CBFalconer <[email]> wrote:

Thanks I also know how to read the man page of exit :)

-M


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
mathieu <[email]> writes:
[...]

Yes, there are some important points that I missed in suggesting the
"Other Language" solution.  C program startup and shutdown provide
some additional functionality that you don't get in a function call.

On startup, objects with static storage duration are initialized
(explicitly or implicitly), and the standard I/O streams are opened.
On shutdown, allocated memory is *typically* deallocated (the standard
doesn't guarantee this, but it's common enough that it's likely this
program relies on it), the standard I/O streams are closed, and
probably some other stuff happens.  If you turn the program into a
callable function, you'll have to perform some of these implicit
actions explicitly.

Good luck.

Out of curiosity, how portable does your final program need to be?  If
all you need to worry about are, say, Unix-like and Windows-like
systems, dealing with the vagaries of system() shouldn't be very
difficult.  If you can restrict yourself to POSIX, you're in even
better shape.  If you want your code to compile and run on the DS9K,
it's going to be trickier.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer <[email]> writes:
[...]

Are you (still!) assuming that the existing calls to exit are only
within the main function?

exit() could be called from anywhere within any function within a very
large existing program.  Calling exit() terminates the program.  If
the program is changed into a piece of a new larger program, keeping
the same semantics means terminating the function containing the call
to exit, and the function that called it, and the function that called
*that* function, up to *but not beyond* the function that was formerly
called "main".

Replacing the calls to exit with returning something is decidedly
non-trivial.


author: James Kuyper

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer wrote:

He didn't tell us how many different functions there were that called
exit(). He also didn't tell us how many different places in the program
that those functions are called from. However, if he's seriously
considering a myexit() function which calls longjmp(), I suspect that
there are probably at least a dozen such calls. If I understand what
you're suggesting properly (which is far from clear), he'll have to
figure out, at almost every place on the call chain connecting main() to
exit(), what the equivalent of cleanupwhatever(), decidewheretogonext()
and alliswellwithnewfunct() should be; in general, it will be different
at each of those locations.

It's certainly possible (I just recently got through doing something
similar), but I don't see how it can be described as "easy".


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
mathieu said:

<snip>

s/should/could/

Yes - it's the same problem, just in a slightly different form.

The function itself is portable, insofar as any hosted implementation is
required to support the call - but the meaning of the return value is
implementation-defined (unless you pass it NULL, in which case the value
is 0 if there is NO command processor available, otherwise non-zero), and
of course the semantics of the executed command depends on the system -
for example, system("PAUSE") is well-defined on Windows, but pretty
meaningless on Linux (unless you happen to have a program in your path
named PAUSE, which of course might be a video game, or a word processor,
or anything, really).

Then system() is probably the way to go - but of course you'll need to
ensure that the command that you invoke has the identical meaning in all
relevant ways on all target systems.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer wrote:

I don't quite follow the point of your criticism. The exit() calls were
not put into the code by mathieu. He's trying to figure out what to
replace them with. What did he say to make you think he didn't
understand how exit() works? Are you assuming that the exit() calls are
coming from within main() itself? That's the only way I can make your
objections seem to make sense, but I can't figure out why you'd assume that.


author: David Thompson

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:48:44 -0700, Keith Thompson <[email]>
wrote:

On the evidence seen so far, concur.

That will give you the nonlocal jump -- like setjmp/longjmp already
discussed, in a slightly nicer form -- but it won't help clean up
resources allocated the C way (malloc, fopen, etc.), which the
existing code presumably uses given it is C. You would have to convert
to OL-style 'RAII' manager classes. And rewriting the now-library to
that extent is almost certainly more work than just rewriting it in
library-friendly C.

- formerly david.thompson1 || achar(64) || worldnet.att.net


author: Kenny McCormack

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
In article <[email]>,
Antoninus Twink  <[email]> wrote:

Aye - as someone else posted in one of these threads today - there is
always room for improvement.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer <[email]> writes:
[C standard's description of the exit function snipped]

And how does this answer the OP's question?

He has a main program; a call to exit terminates the program.

He wants to turn this main program into a function within a larger
program.  Wherever there's a call to exit, he wants to terminate the
function, not the entire (now larger) program.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
James Kuyper wrote:

I didn't criticize, at least I don't think so.  I made suggestions
about how to perform his port.  If some of my assumptions about the
(never shown) code he wants to replace are false, then some of the
suggestions are pure blooey.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
Keith Thompson wrote:

If that's what he wants to do that is another case.  But the
previous effect was to terminate the program, whch is what exit
does.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer wrote:
...
...

I think that the your comment cited above sounds fairly critical.

He gave us a link to the code at <http://gdcm.sourceforge.net> on Thu,
14 Aug 2008 13:53:51 -0700 (PDT).

I don't know for sure what assumptions you made, but it has seemed to me
during this discussion that your comments made sense only if you were
assuming that all of the exit() calls were from within main(). I don't
think that assumption was ever plausible, given that his very first
message asked about the feasibility of solving his problem by replacing
exit() with longjmp(). That he asked that question doesn't prove that
exit() was being called from a subroutine - but it does make it pretty
likely. If he was just thinking about about using longjmp() to move
around main() itself, then replacing setjmp() with a statement label,
and longjmp() with a 'goto' would be a lot simpler.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer said:

<snip>

No, it's the original question. To avoid making such mistakes in future, I
recommend that you save up your replies for an hour or so, and then:

(1) Re-read the original question, and then re-read your original reply. At
this stage, it will sometimes become clear that your reply was based on a
mis-reading of the question which your second reading makes obvious.
Solution: delete your reply without sending it.

(2) By this time, there may well be one or two other replies to the
question, by people whose opinion you respect. Read them.

If they are, in essence, the same as your own reply, delete your reply
without sending it, since it would be pointlessly duplicative (unless your
reply adds something useful that was overlooked by the others).

If they are *not* in essence the same as your reply, consider seriously the
possibility that you have mis-read the question. Read their replies, and
the original question, again, and find out why they have replied as they
did. If you genuinely interpret the question differently to them, then
edit your reply so that it says something like "I've read A's and B's
replies, and they've assumed you meant such-and-such. If so, fine. But it
seems to me that you might mean /this/ instead. If so, then my advice
is..." Then, having changed your reply, save it up for an hour or so, and
then start back at (1) again.

(3) Now send any undeleted replies.

I suggest that using this strategy could save you from a huge amount of
embarrassment.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer wrote:
...

No, that's the original case, not another one.

And he made it abundantly clear, I thought, that the point of his
question was about not wanting to terminate the program.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer <[email]> writes:

He knew that.

If he wanted the existing exit calls to terminate the program, why
would he have asked what to do about them?


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
James Kuyper wrote:

Good lord.  You consider "That wasn't clear to me." to be
critical?  I am amazed.


author: Richard Harter

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:31:46 +0000, Richard Heathfield
<[email]> wrote:

Would that everyone followed that policy, even me.

Richard Harter, [email]
http://home.tiac.net/~cri, http://www.varinoma.com
Save the Earth now!!
It's the only planet with chocolate.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
In article <[email]>,
Richard Heathfield  <[email]> wrote:
...

This is a keeper.  Well done, Mr. H!


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
James Kuyper wrote:
... snip ...

Which is easy.  Simply set an error flag visible in the caller, and
return.  That value may be the value returned by the function.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
In article <[email]>,
Keith Thompson  <[email]> wrote in a splendid little chick fight
leading up to:
...

Looks like Keith is getting caught up in his own little web.

Are you guys beginning to see how pointless these little pedantic
quibbles are?  How silly it looks when all you are doing is redefining
OP's questions to suit your own petty little agendas?


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
Keith Thompson wrote:
... snip ...

Well, you read the OP post as showing more knowledge than I did.
If the original code was in the main function (which I believe it
was) it could probably have simply used 'return'.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer wrote:

That depends upon the thing you're not clear about. In this case, you
were not clear about whether he had basic reading skills and a
sufficiently strong understanding of C to use those reading skills to
understand the man page for exit(). In this group, suggesting that
someone might be lacking such elementary skills constitutes criticism,
at least, even if it doesn't quite qualify as an outright insult.
Someone who's even thinking about using longjmp() had better have a much
higher skill level than that.


subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer <[email]> writes:

Yes, that *would* be easy, and again the OP probably wouldn't have
bothered to post here.

Here's the situation as I understand it.

The OP has a fairly large program, consisting of a main() function and
some number of other functions, along with whatever other external
declarations there might be.  He wants to turn the whole mess into a
*library* (he actually used the word "library").  The problem is that
there are calls to exit, not just in the main() function, but in
*other* functions as well.

He wants to call the main function (now renamed to mymain) and have it
behave as it did when it was a separate program.  The problem, of
course, is that a call to exit will terminate his new larger program;
to keep the same semantics, he needs it to terminate only the mymain
function.

He's already considered and rejected the use of atexit, and I think
he's currently considering setjmp/longjmp.

I figured all that out by reading the original post.  I think you
could have done the same if you'd been a bit more careful.


author: santosh

subject: Re: catching exit

text:
CBFalconer wrote:

I thought that the original post was pretty clear about the poster's
problem.

No. He (the OP) is having to use a program written by someone else as a
*function* in his program. Unfortunately the program is littered with
calls to exit() which he'll obviously have to avoid if he intends to
use the program as a routine.

This sort of transformation is very difficult with a program composed of
tightly coupled routines, which were never written for independent use.


author: Anthony

subject: Windows Explorer to Microsoft Access?

text:
I have a few hundred CD's with old radio programs on them.  It is almost
impossible to locate a particular radio show from among the hundreds of
cd's that I have.  What I would like to do is somehow create a database of
all of my radio shows so that I can find them quickly.

What I "SHOULD" have done was each time I created a cd, entered each
episode into a database so that I would only have to list 50 or so
episodes at a time into the database doing this one disc at a time.
But I never did that.  Now, if I did one disc a day it would take me
nearly a year to finish the project.

All of my shows are organized uniformly.  On each CD, the directory is the
name of the program.  Then each episode is listed by date and title.

For example:
d:/Suspense
 470814 - Smiley
 470828 - Double Ugly
 470911 - The Twist
 470918 - The Visitor

Each date is the last two digits of the year, the two digit month and
the two digit day of the month.  The first example is the program
Suspense from August 14, 1947 entitled Smiley.

Is there a way to convert the directory listing of these CD's from Windows
Explorer into an Access Database with the three fields: Program - Date -
Episode?

Has anyone done anything similar?  I appreciate any replies.
Thank you very much.


author: Don Leverton

subject: Re: Windows Explorer to Microsoft Access?

text:
Hi Anthony,

I use this method to populate a table with filenames (of graphics),
displaying them as they are "imported".
I also added (mostly for your use) a way to read the CD's Volume Label...
(You said you had 100's of CD's...)
You should be able to use this code pretty much "as is", after downloading
Terry's API as mentioned below.
You could probably "lose" the Form's OnCurrent code, as I'm sure you wont
have an Image control on your form.

***********************************************************
Private Sub cmdImportFileNames_Click()
On Error GoTo Err_cmdImportFileNames_Click

'This code uses a bound form's RecordsetClone to populate a table with a
list
'of files, in this format -- Drive:\Directory\Filename.ext, then uses string
'manipulation to populate the other fields with "Filename" and "ext" only.

'I also use Terry Kreft's "BrowseFolder" API, which adds to the elegance and
'"ease-of-use" of my app.

'======================================================

'Heavily modified, but based on ideas from these KB articles:
'INF: How to Load OLE Objects from a Folder into a Table
'Article ID: Q158941
'INF: How to Display Image in Form Without Storing It in Table
'Article ID: Q148463

'Terry Kreft's BrowseFolder API:
'http://www.mvps.org/access/api/api0002.htm
Dim VolName As String
Dim SearchFileSpec As String
Dim SearchFolder As String
Dim SearchExt
Dim FoundFile As String

Dim rst As Recordset
Dim fc As Integer ' file counter
Dim Msg As String
Dim CR As String
CR = vbCrLf

SearchFolder = BrowseFolder("Please select folder containing filenames to
import.")
Msg = ""
Msg = Msg & "Please enter a 3-letter file extension..." & CR & CR
Msg = Msg & " eg 'jpg', 'tif', txt, etc" & CR & CR         'OR "wav" in your
case?
Msg = Msg & " OR leave blank for ALL extensions."
SearchExt = InputBox(Msg)

If SearchExt = "" Then
    SearchExt = "*"
End If

' Get the search path.
SearchFileSpec = SearchFolder & "\" & "*." & SearchExt
' Get the CD's Volume Label, so you know which CD the list of files is on.
VolName = Dir(SearchFolder, vbVolume)
' Get the first file in the path containing the file extension.
FoundFile = Dir(SearchFileSpec, vbNormal)

Do While Len(FoundFile) <> 0

    Set rst = Me.RecordsetClone
        With rst
        .AddNew
        fc = fc + 1
        '"import" the existing file name.

        !VolumeName = VolName
        ![FilePath] = SearchFolder & "\" & FoundFile
        ![FileFolderOnly] = SearchFolder

        ![FileNameOnly] = Left(FoundFile, InStr(1, FoundFile, ".",
vbTextCompare) - 1)
        'FileNameOnly returns a string that contains everthing
        'to the left of the dot in the filename.
        'Use the InStr function to determine the position
        'of the dot, then subtract 1 to determine the
        'length of the desired string

        ![FileExtOnly] = Right(FoundFile, 3)

        .Update
        .Bookmark = .LastModified

        Me.Bookmark = .Bookmark
        .Close
        End With

    FoundFile = Dir
Loop

If fc > 0 Then
    Msg = ""
    Msg = Msg & "Succesfully imported "
    Msg = Msg & fc
    Msg = Msg & " file names"
    MsgBox (Msg)
Else
    Msg = ""
    Msg = Msg & "There were no '" & SearchExt
    Msg = Msg & "' files found in " & CR
    Msg = Msg & SearchFolder & CR & CR
    Msg = Msg & "Please try again."
    MsgBox (Msg)
End If

Exit_cmdImportFileNames_Click:
    Exit Sub

Err_cmdImportFileNames_Click:
    MsgBox Err.Description
    Resume Exit_cmdImportFileNames_Click

End Sub
***********************************************************
Private Sub Form_Current()
On Error Resume Next
If IsNull(Me![FilePath]) Then
Me![ctlImageFrame].Picture = "C:\ART\camera.tif"
Else
Me![ctlImageFrame].Picture = Me![FilePath]
End If
End Sub
***********************************************************


text:
On Sun, 18 May 2003 04:44:30 +0000, Don Leverton wrote:

Thank you very much for your help.  It's a little late tonight to try
this, but I will give it a shot tomorrow night.  Finally!  A way to
organizer my mp3's.  Thank you again.


author: Laurence Gilbert

subject: Re: Drivers for Kraft joystick???

text:
Opher Kahn ([email]) wrote:
: I have a cheapo joystick - Kraft (K105).  I lost the drivers.  Does anyone
: have them or know where I can get them?

**** I have that driver, the EXECUTIVE CURSOR CONTROL "for use with the
DRAFT Precision Joystick."

Anybody who would like a zipped file of that disk, can E-mail me at my net
address above.

I will send Opher Kahn the file as an attachment.


author: Prognathous

subject: Measuring HD temperature with an external digital thermometer?

text:
It seems like my WD800JB disk is running a little hot.

I tried to test this with Palick Soft's HDD Temperature v1.0, but alas
I keep getting errors when launching the program.

I do have a photography lab external digital thermometer which is
rather accurate, but since it has a metal probe and I'm afraid to just
insert it in one of the disk's openings - I really don't want to short
anything or cuase other damage...

Is there a "proper" way to do it?

TIA,

Prog.


author: yada

subject: Re: Measuring HD temperature with an external digital thermometer?

text:
Try Dtemp .
http://www.private.peterlink.ru/tochinov/

Prognathous wrote:


author: Rod Speed

text:
Prognathous <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

Use the internal temperature sensor. Not clear if that drive even has one tho.

You dont need great accuracy to decide if its getting too hot.


text:
"Rod Speed" <[email]> wrote in message news:<ak6fa9$1gd350$[email]>...

So what do I do if it doesn't have one, or if I can't manage to make
the diagnostic software work properly?

I agree, I just want to get *any* temperature reading (without
damaging the drive).

Any ideas?

Prog.


text:
Prognathous <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...

Use the external digital thermometer you have and dont worry about
getting the best accuracy. Just put the probe on the metal dome of
the drive where it cant damage anything and see what the temp is.
If the drive is getting too hot, it will be obvious measuring it that way.

The metal top of the drive is quite safe to put a sensor on. Just
make sure that you dont have another drive just above that and
risk shorting out the electronics on that other drive. If you have
another drive just above the WD, try putting the probe between
the side of the metal dome and the bay stack wall if it will fit.

If thats not feasible, maybe move the WD so
its the top drive in the stack or something.


subject: Minolta's customer service

text:
--------------
From: Christopher Albin Edmonds
 ([email])
 Subject: QMS 6110GN-who has a bad experience?
 Newsgroups: comp.periphs.printers
 Date: 2003-01-27 17:50:02 PST

hi- we have a Minolta-QMS 6110GN in my office, loaded with several
options
including additional paper tray, internal hard disk, lots of RAM, etc.
We
also have the service contract on it (performed by IBM actually)

We have had nothing but problems with it, the print quality has been
horrid, and we have had one problem in particular, where any area of
solid color (even a small area) tends to be very blotchy and
inconsistent.
Basically, this makes most color prints look like crap. We have also
noticed that the consumables finish MUCH quicker than they are rated
for, which is a big deal when the toner carts cost several hundred
dollars a pop. Interface is also a little flakey, often have to power
cycle the printer to get it to respond to network jobs. I should
point out that our use of the printer is fairly light- right now
it only has about 2000 faces printed total.

The service guy changed every part he could think of, sometimes the
performance would improve for a little bit but then it would go back
to been spotty.

IN ADDITION, Minolta actually shipped us a BRAND NEW printer after the
first one refused to behave (maybe six months into its life), that
new printer which is now a little less than a year old has the
IDENTICAL issues as the old one. This leads me to think that this is
a serious lemon model, a very expensive one at that.

I am wondering if other people have had similar issues with this
model, as I am considering taking what steps to take to rectify
this problem, including returning the thing to Minolta.
----------------------------

Wow, this is EXACTLY our sob story, except that Minolta refused to
extend the
warranty longer than a year from the date of purchase,
 even though we never had a 100% working printer, and even though they
sent us
a replacement machine 4 months after the purchase.  We had bought
this thing as our primary printer, and was our only option during an
intensive period of need for printing, so we had to endure the bad
quality.
The tech support people were also rude.  This model is a lemon...and
an expensive one.  We are going through
K toner at ten times the rated rate, and most of the time the quality
is
blotchy and streaky.  We will NEVER again do business with Minolta,
except
to buy their ridculously expensive cartridges through third parties
until
we can get enough funding to be able to put this thing out of its
misery.


author: Tom

subject: Re: Minolta's customer service

text:
Bought their 2300DL Color desk laser their tech support don't know their ass
from whole in ground.  Gave me 4 diff specs for ram none will work in
printer?

They suck

Tom
"makk4777" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...


author: Timothy Lee

subject: Re: Minolta's customer service

text:
In message <qdtvc.23768$[email]>,
Tom <[email]> writes
If its any help I sent this to Buffalo regarding the 2200:

"Is your 64meb 100mhz Sdram 168pin unbuffered 3.3v, part number
PC102NSU064 compatible with the Minolta-QMS magicolor desklaser 2200?"

To which the answer was yes.  So you might get a more useful answer from
them.


subject: Re: Minolta's customer service

text:
In message <NISvc.29824$[email]>,
Tom <[email]> writes

Fine until it came to wanting a new fuser unit at which point I decided
to change to a Xerox Phaser, with a much glossier output.


subject: Re: Minolta's customer service

text:
Thanks Tim
I found a module in one of my PCs that it reconized then I emailed the
Company whom made it.

Below is their reply:  What sucks IS MINOLTA could not tell me the
specification for their own printer.  This sounds bad for the future of my
printer.

How did your 2200 hold up???

Tom

The part you have is the C_HIQCTW4VU507G.  For a spec sheet, please visit
http://www.centon.com/sdramdimmu.ht m.

The equivalent of the C_HIQCTW4VU507G available for sale from our website is
the C256M/IJUN.

The retail equivalent of this part varies by retailer.  Please see below....

Retail model            So ld at              ;

256MBPC100            AAFES

            &nbs p;              ;    Micro Center

256MBPC133           Circuit City

            &nbs p;              ;    CompUSA

[Note:  model 256MBPC100 is a PC100/PC133 compatible memory module.]

[Note:  Please do not purchase any product designated as "133ONLY" or
"Special Value Edition" as these parts are high-density solutions with
limited compatibility.  For more information on "133ONLY" memory, please see
the FAQ titled "What is the difference between PC133 and PC133ONLY Memory?"
at http://www.centon.com/faqmemory. htm#q50.]

"Timothy Lee" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...
ass


subject: Re: Minolta's customer service

text:
Tim

  Did you ever refill any toner cartridges??  I'm using this for home and
want to keep expenses down.  It sucks being a fulltime 44 year old college
student.  Besides this was only a $$569 printer.  But now I'm wondering if I
should have bought the new Brother Color model.  I have had good luck with
their BW printers

Tom

"Timothy Lee" <[email]> wrote in message
news:iXX5nLBq7CwAFw$[email]...
my


author: Hecate

subject: Re: Minolta's customer service

text:
On Fri, 04 Jun 2004 19:08:07 GMT, "Tom"
<[email]> wrote:

You'd probably be better off with an HP. or even a Samsung. Can't
comment on Brother as I haven't used them.  Kyocera are excellent, but
I don't think they do a colour laser in your price range (they are
much cheaper to run, however).

 --

Hecate
[email]
veni, vidi, reliqui


author: Andy Merrilll

subject: Error - 0403-006 Execute Permission Denied

text:
I am trying to install a program from CD (mounted) and I receive the
error "0403-006 Execute Permission Denied."  I have tried using the
root account and another admin account.  Does anyone know what causes
this?


author: Steve Nottingham

subject: Re: Error - 0403-006 Execute Permission Denied

text:
[email] (Andy Merrilll) wrote in message news:<[email]>...

Does the file have execute permission on user, group or other ?

Steve


text:
[email] (Steve Nottingham) wrote in message news:<[email]>...

Yes, I copied teh files from the CD to a local directory.  I changed
the permissions on everything to be 777.

Andy


author: Eric Bohlman

subject: Re: User configs; was, REALLY limiting <TD>'s width???

text:
Warren Steel ([email]) wrote:
:      Why do some users disable stylesheets?
: 1. Implementations that can make the page illegible even
: under normal configurations, e.g., IE3 or NS4.
: 2. Visual impairment, colorblindness that may make it
: necessary for the viewer to have a narrow range of
: legible text sizes or colors.

I should point out that one's vision need not be anything approaching
"impaired" before one needs to do this.  I find myself frequently hitting
Opera's "Toggle document settings" button simply because the selection of
font, color and background that looked so great to the designer's
22-year-old eyes is murder on my 40-year-old eyes.  The simple fact is
that what looks great to one person may not look that great to another,
even when both people's vision is well within the normal range.


author: carl

subject: Look

text:
Look

http://top100.tvheaven.com            here you will find some nice pictures
and some funny movies, pictures, movies, photos, animals, marine, nature
and all so you will find the new netscape here version 13 fullcircle .(its
a great broswer)


author: Harold A. Climer

subject: How was the HP49 OS written?

text:
I was wondering what the process was for
writing  the HP49 OS and CAS.
  I was also wondering why when one bug is fixed others creep in where
they were not before.( Or seemingly so)
 I remember when I was taking a couple of courses in C++ and Java, how
modular programming was emphasized. Is it possible in the creation of
new code( Or fixed code) for either the OS or CAS to write modules
that always work so that when the whole OS or CAS is re-compiled ,
bugs do not creep in.
	What is the major source of bugs in the 49 OS and CAS. Memory
leaks, trying to use object types that have no meaning to a particular
bunch of code. Error checking of same. etc.


author: M Bunte

subject: Re: How was the HP49 OS written?

text:
Hello,

"Harold A. Climer" wrote:
[...]

This is theory. Do you know any software without errors? Do you know any
software where newer versions with bug-fixes do not have any new bugs? I
do not.
Just look to the big OSes like Windows (tm), Linux (tm) etc. They have
really a lot of memory and they a pretty not more stable than the 49
system. OK, the Linux (tm) kernel ist not bigger than the 49 system but
there are so many modules... ;-)

I think that the calc is really pretty stable - not the first versions
(1.05, 1.10, 1.14-betas) but beginning with the 1.16 ROM we got a well
designed system ;-) Yes, yes, still minor problems, but stable.

Bye Matthias


author: J.R. Chaffer

subject: Re: How was the HP49 OS written?

text:
Gee,  I thought ACO had it all together - new bugs?
Whatever are you talking about?

Let me quote ACO - 'Read your Manual' - you DID receive
that wonderful, comprehensive, complete set of HP
documentation, didn't you ?
jrc

"Harold A. Climer" wrote:


author: Albert Graef

subject: Re: How was the HP49 OS written?

text:
"Harold A. Climer" <[email]> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:[email]...

Just like any other complex software I know, despite all those modern
software methodologies. ;-) There's a limit on the complexity a human brain
can handle. I can only speculate about this (I've written programming
language interpreters myself, but never in such a restricted environment): I
think that the tight memory requirements and low processing speed of a
calculator (as opposed to modern PC and workstation systems) means that you
sometimes have to sacrifice ultimate modularity and high-level "glueing"
concepts for greater efficiency, and that's when things start getting messy.
You know, if the ACO programmers were a bunch of sloppy coders, then the 49G
would have never seen the light of the day, IMHO. :)


author: Steen Schmidt

subject: Re: How was the HP49 OS written?

text:
Writing code in ML or SysRPL is a bit messy by nature. When you program in
such a restricted environment as a calculator, you can afford very little
modularity - everything has to be optimized for speed and size.
This yields very complex code, that is very hard to debug. Since there are
so many object types and so many combinations on the HP49G, and because much
code is used by many clients among the rest of the code, bugs will be
introduced. At a certain point, one oversees the fact that a bug was just
created by fixing some code - a bug that only occurs when dealing with some
obscure case.

This combined with the HP49G users, among whom many are very, let's say,
fiddle-fingered :-)

Regards
Steen


author: Chr. de La Chapelle

subject: Re: How was the HP49 OS written?

text:
M Bunte wrote:

I know one: TeX and LaTeX, written by Donald KNUTH...

LaTeX is first and one of the onliest text editor available on every
platform, Unix, Mac Windows (and certainly DOS...) and so on... a LaTeX
file can be printed on every printer without noticiable difference,
compared with a Word or Wordperfect document that will be printed
differently on two different printers (because of the drivers...)

LaTeX is the best editor ever for mathematical equations...

This guy said: I put 1 cent in a box, each time you find a bug, I give you
what's in the bow and I put the double in it... He lost less than 40 US
Dollars in 20 years....

He also declared, if you find a printer that is able to print someting
smaller than what can be destribec by my dvi (kinda postript...) file, I'm
ready to cut my head... As his dvi file is based on the visible light
wavelength....

Donald KNUTH also wrote the awesome ART OF COMPUTER PROGRAMMING that is the
best programming course ever (awesomely difficult to master also!!!) He
devellopped all algorithms for document printing for non float supporting
processors, and LaTeX can be used as well on the latest Athlon or a 286
(for those who remember how it looked like...)

I'm not writting that against the 49. It's OS might be the best ever on a
so small machine, but it was just to let you guy know about Donald KNUTH
that might be the best programmer of all times...

In fact, only a very few people are able to developp so much complicated
application without bugs... Donald KNUTH is one of these aliens!!!

Regards.

Christophe de la Chapelle


author: Craig Holmes

subject: i smell a whiner!

text:
hey, instead of complaining so much about all the stuff that is wrong with
the 49, why don't you try and fix some of it!  Write your own damn manual
and OS, and if you can't, then quit your bitching!  Remember what your first
grade teacher told you?  If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't
say anything at all.

Chris Holmes
"J.R. Chaffer" <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...


author: Steen S. Schmidt

subject: Re: How was the HP49 OS written?

text:
That must've been 11 bugs, and 20.48 USD, since 12 bugs would've broken the
40 USD limit. Why isn't the saying "less than 30 USD" or "less than 25 USD"
then?

Now, a text-formatting utility isn't in the same league of complexity as an
OS. I'm pretty sure I could write 10 sentences without one spelling error,
but I wouldn't call myself the best writer in the world for doing that trick
:-)

Regards
Steen


author: Wolfgang Rautenberg

subject: Re: How was the HP49 OS written?

text:
Chr. de La Chapelle wrote:

Donald Knuth wrote TeX, not LaTeX, and there are bugs
in TeX, but unnoticable in normal use. Nontheless, if I
were a member of the Nobel price committee and if there
where a Nobel price for software development, I would
appreciate to find the following candidates on the list:

1. Donald Knuth
2. The Corvallis team for the HP48
3. Mika Heiskanen

- Wolfgang


subject: Re: How was the HP49 OS written?

text:
"Chr. de La Chapelle" <[email]> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:[email]...

I saw him once here in Mainz in the Gutenberg Museum where he presented his
TeX system, several years ago. A nice and modest man.

Not to speak of his ground-breaking work in theoretical computer science
(formal languages, compiler theory, algorithms, combinatorial optimization,
...; you name it, Knuth has done it ;-). He's written more than a dozen
books and published literally hundreds of papers. Yes, he must be an alien.
:)

If anybody is interested in his work, he has a homepage here:
http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/


author: Andy

subject: Re: i smell a whiner!

text:
Craig,

When you pay, in some cases, greater than $180.00US for a product, certain
things are expected...a complete, concise manual, and a product that is less
buggy than others.

We have been lulled by some companies that the lack of these things are
'acceptable' with promises of "We'll update you ASAP".  If we required these
things (a complete, concise manual, and a product that is less buggy than
others) as minimums of acceptance from these product providers, and we
wouldn't buy or take delivery or not pay for the product until the
acceptable criteria have been met, we would definitely see better products,
documentation, etc.

Your petty methods of trying to make someone feel bad simply because they
expect more when they spend a lot of money both surprises me and doesn't.
It doesn't surprise me because of some of the other posts I've seen here
clearly shows a bias for the product rather than the ethic.  It does
surprise me because it shows that there are actually people willing to
blindly accept sub-par products (and ancillary materials) as the status-quo
and are unwilling to make the effort to change any policy.

Just like my boss told me:
"If you're not part of the solution, get out of this meeting"

What that means to me is:
If your truly happy with sub-standard equipment (with regard to price), then
you really must practice a little bit of discretion, because there are
people out there who do, rightly so, feel slighted by HP because of the 49G.

Regards

Andy

Craig Holmes <[email]> wrote in message
news:[email]...
first
don't


author: Felix Rosado

subject: Re: How was the HP49 OS written?

text:
On Wed, 11 Apr 2001, Wolfgang Rautenberg wrote:

<SARCASM ON>

Hey why not include Bill Gates on that list?

<SARCASM OFF>


author: Rob Atkinson

subject: Re: i smell a whiner!

text:
Andy, you have valid points. Unfortuneatly none of them apply to J.R.'s
comments or posts.

He has never contributed to the newsgroup or posted a valid complaint, he is
a troll.


subject: Re: i smell a whiner!

text:
PS.....I own an hp 48g+, gx, and a 49....The documentation is out there, its
just not in the box.

"Andy" <[email]> wrote in message
news:ijhC6.22069$[email]...
less
these
products,
status-quo
then
49G.
with
manual
where
how
of
Memory
particular