Digest Articles Dark Poqet Screen (was Re: Digest poqetpc.v001.n076) by Bryan Mason From: Bryan Mason Subject: Dark Poqet Screen (was Re: Digest poqetpc.v001.n076) Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 15:25:04 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 11:45am on 24 Feb 97, you wrote: >I had a Tandy M100 and a calculator that blacked out in lots of sun also. Weird Poqet Trivia #243: Take the Poqet out on a bright day and use it with your back to the sun. If your shadow covers part of the screen, one half of the screen will turn black (the part that is exposed to the sun), and the other half will look normal. Very weird, until you know what's going on. Happened to me once. -- Bryan ______________________________________________________________________ Bryan Mason, Menlo Park, California, USA, Earth e-mail: Poqet PC Home Page: Poqet PC Mailing List: Re: What's the secret? -Reply by Bryan Mason From: Bryan Mason Subject: Re: What's the secret? -Reply Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 15:25:03 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 01:07 PM 2/24/97 -0500, you wrote: [--- snip ---] >Even with >this, running my minimum Windows 3.0 configuration >(which I call WINMIN) I still get a "divide >overflow" DOS error message!! Wot the hell does >that exactly mean?!?! [--- snip ---] One thing interesting about the Poqet is that it needs the NMI (Non-Maskable Interrup) on the processor to do it's power management. Now the NMI is used for other things, like floating point emulation in some libraries, like Borland's -- which is why you can't develop programs for the Poqet PC using some versions of Turbo Pascal -- it needs the NMI to do floating point emulation. Anyway...if Windows expects to have the NMI vector all to itself, this might cause problems such as you describe above. Well, maybe...I'm not that sure, but it's possible. -- Bryan ______________________________________________________________________ Bryan Mason, Menlo Park, California, USA, Earth e-mail: Poqet PC Home Page: Poqet PC Mailing List: Re: What's the secret? -Reply by Bryan Mason From: Bryan Mason Subject: Re: What's the secret? -Reply Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 15:25:02 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 1:07pm on 24 Feb 97, Bill wrote: [--- snip ---] >Brian, you also gave an answer on how to make a >bootable a:SRAM card provided you got another >system (laptop) that uses PCMICA drives. but me no >got. I am guessing that it takes a specialized >program to SYS.COM a SRAM card than a regular >floppy. Am I right? If so, will using this >program (specialized SYS.COM) on a system without >a PCMICA drive work for me??? > >If this works, then I might be able to use >DriveSpace which, of course, will to so many more >possibilities!! (heh, heh) The SYS.COM program is the standard program that comes with any DOS installation (any DOS after 3.3, at least -- I assume it was on earlier versions as well). But you've got to have the PCMCIA drives on the machine that is booted into the other version of DOS that you want. SYS takes the system files (IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, COMMAND.COM and the boot sector) from the host computer, and transfers them to the drive that you specify (which in this case would be the PCMCIA slot with the SRAM card). I can think of one other way to do this where you wouldn't need a PCMCIA slot. If I formatted an SRAM card on my system (which has PCMCIA slots) and then made an "image" of that card -- a byte-for-byte copy of the SRAM card, and then put that image into a file, I could send the file to you and all you'd have to do is copy the image file to your Poqet and then find a way to get the data from the image file into the SRAM card. I suppose I could write a program to do the image file transfer on the Poqet. If anyone else has any other ideas about this, please feel free to chime in. -- Bryan ______________________________________________________________________ Bryan Mason, Menlo Park, California, USA, Earth e-mail: Poqet PC Home Page: Poqet PC Mailing List: Re: Word Processors by hope & bengseng From: hope & bengseng Subject: Re: Word Processors Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 08:24:23 -0500 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT -- [ From: hope & bengseng * EMC.Ver #2.3 ] -- Hi, I was told that WordStar 4.0 or earlier is one of the best word processor programme for a small DOS machine like Poqet. It has word wrap, page formating, no limit on the size of the file (I think?) and its small. I used it long time ago before moving on to WP51 and then to M$Word6. I sure wished I had kept a copy of that programme. Apart form the small header, the rest of the file is entered in ASCII. Is anyone out there still keeping a copy of this programme and would be willing to share? Do you think that recycled software company mentioned sometime ago would have such an old programme? If yes, how much should we pay for it?!? Thanks, Chan BS Re: RAM and file doublers ? External PS/bigger bats ? by Domingo Diaz-Vazquez From: Domingo Diaz-Vazquez Subject: Re: RAM and file doublers ? External PS/bigger bats ? Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 14:30:32 GMT On 1997-02-24 poqetpc@xxxxxxxx said to ddvteach@gatecom.com >Has anyone tried RAM doubler type software with the Classic ? As far as I know, RAM doublers take advantage of a special feature that is unique to Windows. Therefore you will not see it for DOS. >Has anyone tried on-the-fly file compression-decompression software, >as Stacker, DiskDoubler, Doublespace or the shareone, DIET, with the >Classic ? I compress all my executables with WWPACK. It works better than all the other exe compressors I have tried. I use DIET to compress data files that are too large and not used all the time. Both work very well. The other programs mentioned above are meant to compress whole drives, not just certain files. Plus they take too much space. Doublespace is DOS version dependent. >The Poqet Classic is certainly unusual, and philosphically >internally consistent in design, with allowing only replaceable AA >battery batteries (pun intended) for power. However, is there any >reason not to use an external small power supply brick, or even a I and several others use a power supply connected to the battery connectors. I modified the connector, not the Poqet. It is possible to modify the Poqet. You need to be careful not to give the Poqet more than 3 vols, as low an mA value as you can get (my adapter gives 300 mA, which works ok, but less probably would be better), and most important of all, the polarities have to be right or you'll toast your Poqet. I use a volt-ometer each time, which is a hassle, but better safe than sorry. Domingo Net-Tamer V 1.07X; Beta - Test Drive Re: What's the secret? -Reply by Domingo Diaz-Vazquez From: Domingo Diaz-Vazquez Subject: Re: What's the secret? -Reply Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 14:30:39 GMT On 1997-02-24 poqetpc@xxxxxxxx said to ddvteach@gatecom.com >X-Sender: lolen@xxxxxxxx >Bill, >I have a couple of Poqets. Took one to China >another to Bosnia and they worked great. I >discovered a way to capture maps via Paintbrush in >Windows, reduce their size and with the help of >Z.exe (a viewer listed with the Poqet shareware) >transfer them to the Poqet. >All the above is just to try to impress you into >sharing your secret for using some Windows >programs on the Poqet. >I would love to be able to use Notepad from >Windows on the Poqet. It is no secret. The trick is fitting the CGA drivers and all the program you want into a 2meg card (or 1meg is possible). The following is the content of my 2meg card with windows in it: Directory of A:\WINDOWS [.] [..] [SYSTEM] CALC.EXE CLIPBRD.EXE CLOCK.EXE CONTROL.EXE CONTROL.INI PBRUSH.DLL PBRUSH.EXE PROGMAN.EXE SYSTEMTO.GRP SETUP.EXE TASKMAN.EXE WIN.COM WIN.INI WINFILE.EXE WRITE.EXE WINDOWSA.GRP WINFILE.INI PROGMAN.INI SYSTEM.INI DIGITAL.FON 22 file(s) 1,005,896 bytes 56,832 bytes free Directory of A:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM [.] [..] CGA40WOA.FON CGA80WOA.FON COMM.DRV COURE.FON WIN87EM.DLL SETUP.INF GDI.EXE HELVE.FON KERNEL.EXE KEYBOARD.DRV LZEXPAND.DLL MODERN.FON MOUSE.DRV ROMAN.FON SCRIPT.FON SOUND.DRV SWAPFILE.EXE SYSEDIT.EXE SYSTEM.DRV USER.EXE WIN.CNF WINOLDAP.MOD PROPRN24.DRV LANGSPA.DLL COURA.FON COURB.FON COURC.FON COURD.FON COURF.FON CGA.DRV HELVA.FON CGASYS.FON CGAOEM.FON CGAFIX.FON CGALOGO.LGO CGALOGO.RLE CGA.GR2 VDDCGA.386 NOMOUSE.DRV 41 file(s) 997,564 bytes 56,832 bytes free To the above listing I added DIGITAL.FON, which was needed to run the clock program. This list can be greatly trimmed according to your needs, but I did not try for too long since I found running Windows on the Poqet only cool, not useful, particularly since there was not enough memory to run Write after starting Calculator. Real mode Windows is a pain, IMHO. >program to SYS.COM a SRAM card than a regular >floppy. Am I right? If so, will using this >program (specialized SYS.COM) on a system without >a PCMICA drive work for me??? >If this works, then I might be able to use >DriveSpace which, of course, will to so many more >possibilities!! (heh, heh) AFAIK, there is *no* way to run SYS.COM on a PC card without a PC card drive. I remember attempting to compresses a 2meg RAMdisk in my desktop pc, only to be told that the space was too small. Sorry guys. Domingo Net-Tamer V 1.07X; Beta - Test Drive Re: Word Processors -Reply by bmoy@xxxxxxxx From: bmoy@xxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Word Processors -Reply Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 11:04:05 -0500 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Received: (from daemon@xxxxxxxx) by lists1.best.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) id FAA24375 for poqetpc-errors@xxxxxxxx; Wed, 26 Feb 1997 05:27:07 -0800 (PST) BestServHost: lists.best.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Sender: poqetpc-errors@xxxxxxxx Errors-To: poqetpc-errors@xxxxxxxx Reply-To: poqetpc@xxxxxxxx -- [ From: hope & bengseng * EMC.Ver #2.3 ] -- Hi, I was told that WordStar 4.0 or earlier is one of the best word processor programme for a small DOS machine like Poqet. It has word wrap, page formating, no limit on the size of the file (I think?) and its small. I used it long time ago before moving on to WP51 and then to M$Word6. I sure wished I had kept a copy of that programme. Apart form the small header, the rest of the file is entered in ASCII. Is anyone out there still keeping a copy of this programme and would be willing to share? Do you think that recycled software company mentioned sometime ago would have such an old programme? If yes, how much should we pay for it?!? Thanks, Chan BS <<<<<<<<<<<<<<< Yur in luck, Chan BS, I acquired a full copy with the manual recently and I am willing to SHARE/give/sell (that's to protect me, just in kase!). I have not installed it yet, so I don't know if it runs. One problem is that it's on 5 1/4 floppies and I don't have that type of drive on my system. If you're on the internet, please ocheck out VDE -it's WoNdErFuL shareware and it is packed with features including wordwrap AND it's highly WordStar compatible; and it's registered version includes a spell checker! You can track it down from the Poqet Web Page (search "poqet"). VDE is very small, probably more than WordStar 4.0. The program itself is only (hold on, I'm checking...) 78044 bytes! If you still need WordStar 4.0 contact me, we'll set something up! Az alwayz, always ready to help out a person in need... -Bill Re: Word Processors by Psychotic Don't-you-dare-tickle-me Elmo From: "Psychotic Don't-you-dare-tickle-me Elmo" Subject: Re: Word Processors Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 13:05:38 -0600 (CST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In-Reply-To: <199702261327.FAA24375@xxxxxxxx> >I was told that WordStar 4.0 or earlier is one of the best word processor >... Jameco Electronics has a WordStar package (donno what version,e tc.) for about $5. ------------- clip here with virtual scissors -------------- ************************************************************ Send any interesting roadkills to honge@xxxxxxxx! Keyboard stuck error. Press F1 to continue. Fax (402) 593-8975 Just say "Your lights are on" to DRLs ************************************************************ Re: RAM and file doublers ? External PS/bigger bats ? by Psychotic Don't-you-dare-tickle-me Elmo From: "Psychotic Don't-you-dare-tickle-me Elmo" Subject: Re: RAM and file doublers ? External PS/bigger bats ? Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 13:30:03 -0600 (CST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In-Reply-To: <199702261430.GAA18365@xxxxxxxx> > >Has anyone tried RAM doubler type software with the Classic ? > As far as I know, RAM doublers take advantage of a special feature > that is unique to Windows. Therefore you will not see it for DOS. Hee hee! More like special "deficiency!!" Windows 3.x has this 64KB RAM chunks that it uses for household works, like storing menu text, window positions, etc. 64KB can be used up quickly, hence RAM Doubler to the rescue. I hear Windows 95 has expanded to 640KB which lessens the chance of overflow. > I and several others use a power supply connected to the battery > connectors. I modified the connector, not the Poqet. It is > ... So you're using something like alligator clips instead of permanent modification on the Poqet? ------------- clip here with virtual scissors -------------- ************************************************************ Send any interesting roadkills to honge@xxxxxxxx! Keyboard stuck error. Press F1 to continue. Fax (402) 593-XXXX Just say "Your lights are on" to DRLs ************************************************************