Category : Alternate Operating Systems - Quarterdeck DesqView, CP/M, etc
Archive   : QWAUG92.ZIP
Filename : BIX.TEC

ID:BX Technical Support via BIX
(Byte Information eXchange)
Quarterdeck Technical Note #160
by Bob Perry

As the advertisement in BYTE magazine said, "Imagine a setting in which
communal wisdom is on tap. A place that has the fit and feel of a small,
friendly town, yet the sophistication and resources of a global community.
One which you can visit electronically--to increase your knowledge of
computers and their applications, hone your skills, share insights with
thousands of other computer pros, and have fun." Such is the Byte Information
eXchange, or BIX, as it is known.

BIX is a flat-fee subscription, on-line information service. There is a
$156 annual fee, billed $39 quarterly. Telecommunications charges are extra.
You may buy off-peak access via Tymnet at $20 per month or $3 per hour, or you
may buy peak access at $6 per hour (available only in the 48 contiguous
states). Various special interest conferences and vendor support conferences
are available as well as personal BIXmail.

You may subscribe directly through your computer and modem. Set your
program for full duplex, 7 bits, even parity, and 1 stop bit. Call BIX on
their registration-only line: 800-225-4129. In MA call 617-861-9767.
International: NU1310690157800. At the prompt, "login:" you enter BIX. At
the second prompt, "name:" you enter BIX.VILLE.

In August of 1987 Quarterdeck launched its DESQview conference on BIX.
Technical support can be obtained by entering "join DESQview" at the BIX ":"
prompt. Although the conference name is "DESQview", please note that all of
our Quarterdeck products are supported on BIX. Likewise personal BIXmail can
be sent to the moderator of the DESQview conference whose BIXname is
"QOS.REP2." Upon joining the DESQview conference you will see the topic areas
you may choose from within the conference:

Topics are: 'digest', 'bulletins', 'comments', 'tech', 'user'.
Also: 'cbix', 'listings'.
Topic?

Here is a summary of these topic areas:

'digest'= Summary of important threads of historical
value.

'bulletins'= Announcing new products, conferences, READ
ONLY topics of general interest to all.

'comments'= Suggestions and ideas (comments) from users.

'tech' = Primary tech support arena.

'user' = User to user ideas.

Perhaps one of the nicest and most useful features of BIX is its "search"
command. Subscribers that join our DESQview conference can do a "search"
within any topic area. For example, let's say that a user just purchased a
Northgate computer with an Adaptec hard disk controller. At the BIX prompt,
enter "search northgate". Here's a sample (actually taken from the conference)
of what is displayed:

Read:search northgate
Searching from 1 to 2513 for 'northgate'
Msg #520 I've been using DV (2.01) on my Northgate 386, and find
Msg #626 I have a Northgate '386 on which I run DV. My memory i
Msg #657 to retrieve a file's size. Using DV 2.2, QEMM 4.2 on a
Msg #688 i have a northgate 386 and use QEMM 4.2 as well as dv 2
Msg #755 i'm using the new 2.2 and 4.whatever comes with it, on
Msg #957 If you have a northgate 386 and cannot use QEMM.SYS wit
Msg #957 Newest Northgate 386's will have the BIOS fixed so th
Msg #958 Please could I have some more info on this. I have 2 No
Msg #959 apparently fixes the problem. One manufacturer (Northga
Msg #983 TITLE: NOrthgate 386
Msg #983 now that the northgate BIOS has been amended.
Msg #986 northgate bios amended? i have an early northgate 386
Msg #990 Yes if you are using QEMM. The early Northgate 386 BI
Msg #991 Northgate 386 disk from a 5/75 meg partition to 32 32
Msg #993 thanks, jerry, will check w/ northgate re new BIOS.
Msg #1000 My machine is a Northgate '386, and I am quite please
Msg #1004 The machine I got from Northgate was right off the st
Msg #1136 and not to swap. I am running DV 386 on a Northgate w
Msg #1145 and turbo pascal) hangs the computer. I'm using a Nor

Msg #1328 I just bought a Northgate 386, 25MHz, 4MB RAM, DV 2.2
Msg #1334 Northgate (VGA-16 800x600). I've added the X=C600-CA
Msg #1334 with the way Northgate has its memory mapped ?? AArug
Msg #1337 Re: my Northgate & QEMM/Loadhi ... when I was using a
Msg #1544 386 on a northgate 386 with dos 4.0. QEMM switches no
Msg #1995 either VPIC 2.6 or CSHOW 8 on a Northgate 25 Mhz 386
Msg #2242 I'm using a Northgate 386/20 with AMI BIOS version 3.
Msg #2242 BIOS and the graphics card are custom Northgate versi
Msg #2250 Northgate tech support said they thought switch 5 wou
Msg #2368 running on a file server that is a 386 20 Mhz Northga
Msg #2368 This is what the Northgate computers use. Is there a
Msg #2372 Northgate provides a driver - ADAPTEC.DVR (DRV?) - wi
Msg #2400 Northgate with a Video 7 VGA card. I had to set a sw
Msg #2448 I get like 560K windows no problem on my Northgate 38
Msg #2448 through FFFF comes out as mapped ROM; on the Northgat
Msg #2449 On my Northgate, I have the exp mem page frame at E80
Msg #2450 Gee, Greg, I get 576k windows on my Northgate. 🙂
Msg #2464 I just tried to install QEMM-386 on my Northgate 386
Read:

The subscriber may then browse through the list of message excerpts and
select ones that are interesting and applicable to the situation. In our
example, note that Msg #2372 mentions Adaptec. By entering this message number
at the BIX prompt, the message contents are displayed:

Read:2372
==========================
desqview/tech #2372, from geallen, 1120 chars, Thu May 10 00:36:41
1990
This is a comment to message 2368.
There are additional comments to message 2368.
--------------------------
Northgate provides a driver - ADAPTEC.DVR (DRV?) - with their system but do
not normally install it and there is little or no mention of it in their
documentation. I talked to tech support about it and I didn't understand
exactly what it does, but it's something like this - the Adaptec controller
has some intelligence built in to drive a wide variety of disk drives but make
them all look like a Type 1 to the CMOS (or something like that). The
ADAPTEC.DRV (DVR?) either defeats or enables this intelligence. Oh well -even
though the technical details escaped me, the bottom line is that some programs
(MACE+ utilities among them) REQUIRE that driver to be installed to work
properly with an Adaptec controller. I don't know of any others specifically,
but I suspect that any programs doing anything tricky with disk I/O may run
into problems if the driver is not installed.

I don't know of any programs that won't run with the driver installed, so you
might find the file and include DEVICE=ADAPTEC.DVR (DRV?) IN .More.. your
CONFIG.SYS file.

p.s. The confusion over DVR vs. DRV is because I'm too lazy to look it up. No
more unread messages in this topic Hit for next active conf/topic.
Read:

Thus the collective wisdom of many users over the years that our
conference has been in existence can provide the threads of technical support
information necessary to solve almost any problem related to Quarterdeck
products. Users establish a network of persons with similar interests and
products. BIX is more like an extended family or fraternity than most
electronic databases. Join us!


************************************************************************
*This technical note may be copied and distributed freely as long as it*
*is distributed in its entirety and it is not distributed for profit. *
* Copyright (C) 1991 by Quarterdeck Office Systems *
************************ E N D O F F I L E *************************