IPAs
28 messages in this thread
I've said it before and I'll say it again: with the exception of the awful
EMM386.EXE, DOS 6.0 works FINE with 3DSr2.01a — even DoubleSpace! A serious
3DS user should have QEMM386 v7 anyway — nothing else even comes close in my
book.
3DS can do its own memory management, so it's actually better to leave
HIMEM.SYS and EMM386.EXE out entirely than to use DOS 6's EMM386.EXE. Of
course, if you use the same machine to run Windows, this is not viable unless
you're willing to use multi-config CONFIG.SYS (reason alone in my book to go
with DOS 6).
Uh…Marion,
You wouldn't want to share your Autoexec.bat and Config.sys file setups with us
would you.
I'm curious how you've seperated everything.
Maybe you don't have as much software as I do but what with Graphics Drivers,
BusLogic controller, SCSI stuff, Sound Card Etc. Etc.
Wellll…. I'm just curious as to how you've seperated this all with DOS 6.0 .
BTW did you get the "Free 6.02 Upgrade" yet?
Also Did you download the Smartdrive Patch to prevent cross linking of files?
<g>
James M. Murphy
We do have graphics drivers, SCSI controllers, sound cards, CD-ROM, and
LANtastic network all on the same machines. Using QEMM 7 with DOS 6's multi
config, we can have 634K of free DOS conventional RAM even with all those
drivers and SmartDrive loaded. We've never once had a problem with
cross-linked files (we use LANcache instead of SmartDrive, since it's a bit
smaller and is able to speed up LANtastic access as well as physical hard disk
access, but the methodology is the same: never power down, reboot, or reset
without first flushing the cache! DOS 6.2 and the SmartDrive patch "fix" this
by defaulting to Write-Back caching off, and we're just not willing to take
that kind of performance hit in the name of safety when we already have that
taken care of).
Marion,
>> (we use LANcache instead of SmartDrive, since it's a
bit smaller and is able to speed up LANtastic access as well as physical
hard disk access, <<
I've got to think about getting a network in here. Took the Novell system
manager 3.11 classes…hated it..tooo much for a small network. Was
thinking bout' Lantastic until I thought I saw someone say you had to
manually load your meshes & possibly some other stuff on each machine that
was going to act as a "Slave" for rendering. Sort-of-a-pain if ya know what
I mean. <g>
Is this true?
Has anyone verified what the Best Small network setup would be?
Say 5 Machines?
I also have an updated copy of PC-Kwik but never tried to load it up
instead of the smartdrive. Any thoughts on Super PC-Kwik version 3.00?
Since I just got in a new demo machine with Dos 6.0 I guess I'll give it a
shot….provided I can beg some assistance from you if I get in to anything
unusual:
Current Configuration:
Diamond MB (486DX2-66MHzz), 256K
Cache includes:
Desktop Enclosure & PS, 1.2 & 1.44 Mb FDD,
Bus Logic IDE/FDD Combo Cont'l, 2s/1p ports,
32MB ram (I'm waiting for the price to drop further!) (going to 128Ram)
101 key keyboard, DOS 6.0,
Local Bus Video-ET 4000, Micropolis 1.2 GB Hard Drive, SCSI Cable Set.
That's for Starters.
We'll be taking out the Video-ET 4000 and replacing it with an
Matrox MGA Power Graphics Card…The Impression for VL Bus with 3MB of
VRAM.
Then…in goes the Illuminator-Pro ILMPRO/CND/4M/A. That's our high end
card with CCIR 601 resolution; NTSC; with DVE, video in a window; TBC
capability; non-interlaced output; 2 full 32-bit graphics buffers.
For Sound the Turtle Beach Multisound card.
Then the Exabyte 8500 with the ASDG Driver.
I need to settle on a good monitor for the Computer side of things…think
we'll get a 17" Viewsonic but I'm open to arguments.
Also not sure our Panasonic NTSC monitor model CT2083Y will be acceptable
in this setup. Open to comments here too!
We'll be plugging in the Sanyo GVRS-950 for a trial run and if not
acceptable go to the Panasonic AG-7750 with the Animation Commander
Controller.
Oh Ya' I'm gonna try and save my wrists by purchasing a track=ball mouse
set up. Ounce of prevention and all that jazz.<g>
I've also been interested in the Pressure sensative tablets but not enough
software supports this as yet.
Also I'll be replacing my current Toshiba CD-ROM with something a bit more
zippyer. As Soon as all the rest of this is in house.
I've also been playing with the idea of getting two AG-1970's with a
Panasonic WJ-MX30 Digital AV Mixer.
It's gonna be a while before I can afford any BetaSP equipment sorta like
AFTER I pay the house off!
Been married 24 years……………… hate to screw it up now! <BG>
James M. Murphy
Just wanted to clear up a possible mis-conception about Networked
Rendering, if I could, James. From what I have seen. NR is as transparent
as it possibly can be. Even on a Lantastic network, you should be able to
access all bitmap-based maps, meshes, or otherwise from a single machine.
The only time things *may* have to be localized would be with SXP's or
other IPAS routines, and that would be VERY easy to implement. I'm sure
Gary will elaborate here if neccessary…
-Alan Iglesias
Basically correct, Alan. We've found that, if you're using Lantastic, you
can probably get away with putting all the IPAS routines on the server if
you write-protect them first. Go figure.
– G
Gary,
>>> We've found that, if you're using Lantastic, you can probably get away
with putting all the IPAS routines on the server if you write-protect them
first. <<<
Could you Clarify this Pleease?
Thank you.
James M. Murphy
Not much more to it than that. One of our beta sites has discovered that
if you set the write-protect flag on IPAS files, Lantastic can manage to
deal with them over the network. Otherwise, it can't deal with multiple
routines being shared at the same time. Of course, this isn't a problem
with Novell, since Netware has such an evolved file-handling system.
– G
PS: If you don't set the write-protect flags on IPAS routines for
Lantastic, everything will still work fine if the routines are on each of
the slaves.
Thanks Alan,
I thought I caught a thread a couple of days ago about someone having to
put all the meshes on each machine.
I'm glad that's not the case.
James M. Murphy
If you're looking for a pressure sensetive tablet, I've got the Kurta XGT,
and there's nothing on my computer that it doesn't work with. I use the
pressure sensetive functions in Fractal Paint, and the Wacom pressure
sensetive emulation mode in Ani Pro. It's GREAT. And the pen setup saves
wrists better than a trackball ever coul, plus it's more natural to create
shapes with a pen than with a thing you hold in your palm. Like the
difference between using a rock dipped in ink, or a fine Waterman fountain
pen to write a letter with!
Regards,
John Tissavary (La Luna cie)
John,
>>> If you're looking for a pressure sensetive tablet, I've got the Kurta
XGT, and there's nothing on my computer that it doesn't work with. I use
the pressure sensetive functions in Fractal Paint, and the Wacom pressure
sensetive emulation mode in Ani Pro. It's GREAT. And the pen setup saves
wrists better than a trackball ever coul, plus it's more natural to create
shapes with a pen than with a thing you hold in your palm. Like the
difference between using a rock dipped in ink, or a fine Waterman fountain
pen to write a letter with! <<<
Great! now all I have to do is rebuild my computer Desk/Table Workstation
so I can go back to drawing left handed!
I just picked up all of Dick Olivers FractalVision Stuff but I don't have
Fractal Paint.
I guess I'll have to take a closer look at it.
James M. Murphy
I, too, have the Kurta XGT. I'd like it a lot better if they used the
full power of the stylus. The stylus is physically capable of sensing tilt
and bearing and proximity as well as pressure (255 levels), but the ROMs in
the tablet only return the pressure information back to the computer.
The Calcomp Drawing Pad II uses the same stylus internal mechanism
(though the exterior of the stylus is somewhat different), and they return
the tilt, bearing, and proximity info as well as the pressure (but only 127
levels of pressure, even though the stylus detects 255).
Both beat the socks off the Wacom, which only returns 63 levels of
pressure.
Fractal Designs Painter can take full advantage of tilt and bearing and
proximity information if the tablet makes it available. At present, the
Calcomp is the ONLY tablet that does.
Re: The Best Small Network…
Hey, I just wanted to get a plug in here for what I think is by far the
BEST small / medium network I've ever seen… It's called Invisible
Network, by Invisible Software. (I don't have any phone ##'s right now,
but I'll get 'em – remind me) Invisible uses semi-proprietary cards, and
software that you only have to buy once. It kicks the crap out of
Lantastic, and Netware as far as speed, and for servers or just plain local
bus machines, it's ever better. Setup is a breeze. I know they all say
that, but this really, really is!
The idea behind Invisible, is that the network is (at your discretion)
totally invisible to your computer. All applications can and will see your
networked mapped drives and printers as local devices. If you like
however, you can have WFW or whatever, see the network as is.
I could go on and on about it, but see for yourself! It's about $175 or so
per node, and works peer to peer, or, has a fantastic server called "Ultra
Server" Ultra Server runs in protected mode, and is UNREAL. I've got 12
people who run AutoCAD and windows apps all day, plot and print to the
server (off two LPT ports), and there's never a wait, even during tape
backups of the server.
-/Robert/
I'm glad to hear about your experience with the Invisible Network, Robert.
Very glad, actually. I used to know the guys who created it… Vince Wu
and Mike Barral, years ago… they're both incredibly gifted, and I'm not
surprised that their network is as amazing as it is.
I think I'll have to give them a call and say hi. The last number I have
for them is 415/570/5967…
Thanks!
– G
James,
I'd suggest running Lantastic for a 5 user network. Cheap, simple and
effective. I have 12 486 machines running on a deadicated Lantastic server
(HP 486-66 w/16MB RAM). Works great.
BTW, I just got my HP Pentium last week. I'll report rendering times if
anyone is intrested.
Ken /// CAD Masters
Kenneth,
please tell us your rendering times. The standard benchmark seems to be the
racecar.3ds (comes with 3ds2) at 640×480, phong, high, turbo on, device = null.
Ken,
>> BTW, I just got my HP Pentium last week. I'll report rendering times if
anyone is interested. <<
Please post rendering times. I'd be interested …
Mark
OK, Marion. I believe you 🙂 However, I'm not going to pay money for what I
already have, and this is my point regarding this upgrade. I have better
utilities than those who Microsoft offers me and I don't like double space
programs, because I don't need them. If someone want to buy MS-DOS 5.1… oh,
sorry, MSDOS 6.0, I'll say go for it, but it will not offer you anything new.
If I want to double my space I can do two things, buy a new hard drive, or buy
more MO disks. I know that most base users don't have the budget to this kind
of things, but I think that those users don't want to pay money (like me) for
an "upgrade" that doesn't offer anything beyond scaled down system utilities
which are worse than the utilities they should already have. And if they don't
have buy any computer/operating system yet, my advice will be simple: buy OS/2.
Ana
DOS 6's most important improvements, IMHO, have nothing to do with
DoubleSpace or (gag!) MEMMAKER. Those are, after all, simply utilities.
The most important improvements are built-into the DOS itself. Most
notably, the multiple configuration ability of CONFIG.SYS, plus the ability
of AUTOEXEC.BAT to react to the configuration chosen in CONFIG.SYS as well
as to user input at boot time. Here's an example:
CONFIG.SYS:
[menu]
menucolor=14,1
menuitem=windows,Normal Windows and 3DSr2 working setup
menuitem=render,Maximum EMS/VCPI memory for 3DSr2 rendering (no Windows)
…
menudefault=windows,5
[windows]
device=c:\qemm\qemm386.sys st:m ma:4 ta:4 ram rom
dos=high
…
device=c:\qemm\loadhi.sys /r:3 c:\cdrom\cdrom.sys /d:cdrom01 /e
…
[render]
device=c:\qemm\qemm386.sys ma:0 ta:0 nw3 noxms nohma
dos=low
…
[common]
device=c:\qemm\loadhi.sys /r:1 c:\mouse\mouse.sys
AUTOEXEC.BAT
@echo off
path c:\;c:\dos;c:\windows;c:\qemm; …
prompt $p$g
…
if "%config%" == "render" goto noCDROM
mscdex /d:cdrom01 /e /l:r
:noCDROM
…
if "%config%" == "render" goto noWin
choice /c:yn /t:n,5 Run Windows 3.1 now ("N" in 5 seconds)
if errorlevel 2 goto noWin
win
:noWin
In the above examples, two configurations are set up, one set up for
normal working, and the other for maximum memory for 3DS2 renders. The
former loads a CD-ROM driver, and the latter does not. AUTOEXEC.BAT will,
if it senses that the latter configuration has loaded, automatically NOT
load MSCDEX. It will also not even ask the user if he wants to start up
Windows, since that configuration has the "NW3" parameter specified in its
QEMM386 line so Windows wouldn't be supported anyway. If the user chose
the normal configuration, the MSCDEX would be loaded, and the user would be
asked if she wanted to run Windows.
This is more than enough to justify calling it MS-DOS 6.0 instead of
5.1, IMO.
OK Marion, if you see the things that way. I'm very happy with non-built
external utilities and have used dozens of utilities that give me the
startup configurations I want for many years. I think this is more a
question of personal views. For you is right to call it an operating system
upgrade or, if you want, the "NEW operating system that will send you to
heaven" or whatever you like to call the box 🙂 However, for me, and other
people, this is not worth the money (specially when you are about to get a
new dye-sub printer 🙂 or simply, doesn't need it.
Ana
The difference between having CHOICE and Menu-Config built in is that it
doesn't take up more conventional or high RAM like external routines could.
Using the magic of QEMM 7, most of our machines have 634K or more of
available CONVENTIONAL RAM, with the HMA _available_ (DOS=LOW!), WITH
having LANtastic 5 network client software, VESA, mouse or tablet, DOSKEY,
ANSI.SYS, anti-virus, and a wide variety of other TSRs and DEVICE= drivers
installed!
Any of the multiboot utilities I have DON'T use any ram. They work as the
multiboots included in OS/2 or Windows NT. They aren't devices. QEMM is a
very good memory manager. I'm only seeking for the version of DOS that take
it out of my hard drive. And this version won't use any memory manager.
Just plain, good and linear memory addressing "built-in". And at that time,
they could call it MS-DOS v12.0 if they want to.
BTW, I'm not attacking DOS 6.0 (am I crazy of you're taking this as a
personal question?) Only saying that I personally don't need it. I don't
care of what Microsoft do. I simply want my equipment and software up and
running 24 hours a day. And if in the future comes anything that send DOS
to hell and run all my external devices and actual software, I will go for
it. And don't care if it have MS, IBM, Apple, Next, Novell or USS
Enterprise before the name 🙂
Take care, Ana
USS Enterprise? I loved that! Actually, that maybe the only label you would
see in such a product. Science Fiction, that is…
There's no kidding on that. We are know beta-testers of an OS code-named USS
Enterprise.
Ana /Krazy Images
Personally I don't think that the config.sys enhancements is worth
anything. You still have to reboot the PC and it is therefore just as easy
to have a book disk. Now if you could switch the config.sys "on the fly" I
would be impresseed. I still think that MS-DOS 6.0 should only be called
MS-DOS 5.3.
I agree with you about DBLESPACE & MEMMAKER — neither are competitive
against 3rd party products. DBLESPACE is a disaster waiting to happen — if
you value your date, DON'T USE DBLESPACE!
Judy
I repeats: we've been using DoubleSpace for months (we were a DOS 6
beta tester, so we've been using it since before DOS 6 was released) on a
network of six PCs doing lots of disk access and have had NO corruption of
data to date that was traceable to DoubleSpace itself.
The problems attributed to DoubleSpace are actually caused by the
elevator-seeking write-back caching in SmartDrive, and would happen with
Stacker or SuperStor or any other disk compression as well when using any
cache that has elevator-seeking write-back caching. Either turn off the
write-back caching for the compressed drives, or be sure to flush the cache
before powering off ("SMARTDRV /C"), or get DOS 6.2 or the SmartDrive patch
available here on CompuServe which upgrades SmartDrive to do an automatic
write cache flush whenever a program exits to DOS and before you see the
DOS prompt.
I won't sit here and see DoubleSpace blamed for things which are not its
fault. DoubleSpace is FINE. FINE!! So long as you use the same common
sense you would use with floppy disks (don't pull the disk out of the drive
when the computer is writing to it — that's the same thing as turning off
the computer without flushing the cache), it's FINE. By the way, write
caching can also harm NON-compressed drives. It's just more likely to have
serious consequences for compressed ones since the loss of a few bytes can
render the whole volume unusable by trashing the compression directory.
Again, this also goes for Stacker, SuperStor, or ANY other compression
technique! The problems that happen when you don't flush the cache on a
non-compressed drive are usually limited to "lost chains" and maybe a
cross-linked file or two.
No matter what — the code for the OS was not good code.
As for me. I don't use Microsoft products. I avoid them like the plague. I
run PC-DOS 6.1 and prefer products that are well-supported by the vendor. I
don't think patches and bug fixes justify calling it DOS 6.2. They should
have been there to start with. Fixing poor code does not constitute a new
level of the operating system.
Judy
Judy, yes, you have to reboot your computer. Then you press a few keys
and you have a whole 'nother configuration. No "copy config.cd config.sys
| copy autoexec.cd autoexec.bat" stuff. And the resulting menus are very
easy for novice users to actually use. You don't have to hand-hold the
novices in your office telling them how to activate CD-ROM support, or
sound card support, etc.