#"pure bit" of hell
7 messages in this thread
I'm having a bit of an odd problem. My hard disk recently crashed, and I had
to dump all my info to floppies, reformat and dump it all back.
Upon rebooting, I now see on my screen during boot-up the message
"pure bit not set"
which pops up again about five or six times. It does complete the boot-up,
but I can't figure out what's wrong. My startup_sequence is exactly the same
as before the crash.
What happened?
<Dave>
Dave,
Each file on your disk has a "pure bit" which tells the system whether
the program may be made resident or not. You startup-sequence probably
contains lines such as …
resident c:List
The error you are getting occurs if any of these file in the c: directory
do not have the pure bit set. To fix the problem go the the CLI, and set
the pure bit for each command. In the above example, you would go to your
c: directory and type "protect list +p".
– Andrew
Mucho thanks! It took a bit of time, but it worked like a charm!
Now if I can only figure out why PageStream2 suddenly forgets that I have
"Times" fonts. This one really drives me nuts. I install it on the HD, and
run – no problem! Times is there fine and dandy. I then dump a megaload of
fonts into a *different* directory, and suddenly it forgets about Times! Wha
hoppen?
The only thing I can think of immediately, is that your FONTS: assignment
must have been changed when you installed the other fonts. Type "assign
list" in the CLI and see what FONTS: is assigned to.
– Andrew
Well, that idea won't work, as the *other* fonts in that directory are still
there. Also, after dumping the fonts in, my default font changed from "Times"
to "Tyme". Both seem to be roughly the same font style, but how could the
system just *change* the default settings that I saved before?
<Dave>
Each file has 8 bits of info that describes its "status".
The Bits are "ahsprwed". The RWED bits are the most used, signaling the
READ, WRITE, EXECUTABLE, DELETE status of the file. The other four bits
"AHSP" are more specialized for setting the Archived, Hidden, Script, and
Pure settings.
Pure files, are programs that not only can be loaded into memory, but can
be be re-run without having to be reloaded; they do not modify (corrupt)
themselves.
A pure program could be run several time like COPY or ASSIGN during the
startup-sequence from one copy of each program, running at the same time
or one after the other. This saves the time needed to load the file from
disk when executed.
During the startup, the RESIDENT command attempts to load several of the
commands into memory where they would be availible at all times. But
RESIDENT will only load "pure" programs, recognizing them by checking the
pure bit.
While restoring your HD the P bits of some of the commands appear to have
been "unset".
You can use the PROTECT command to restore the bits. Look at the
startup-sequence, and make a note of every file that is made resident.
The enter:
PROTECT c:<filename> +p
This will add the P bit as being set without touching the other bits.
Ron.
– ap'ing with AP. (Eagles may fly, but weasles aren't sucked
into jet engines.)
@ Andrew Hounsell 100015,3026 Mucho thanks! It took a bit of time, but it
worked like a charm! Thank goodness that I have a place where I can actually
*ask* questions where folks know what they're talking about!
Now if I can only figure out why PageStream2 suddenly forgets that I have
"Times" fonts. This one really drives me nuts. I install it on the HD, and
run – no problem! Times is there fine and dandy. I then dump a megaload of
fonts into a *different* directory, and suddenly it forgets about Times! Wha
hoppen?