This diskette contains the shareware program Conch, an enhanced command
shell for IBM PCs and compatibles running MS-DOS. The file DOCS.TEX
contains the text of the Conch user's manual. It is composed in the
form of source for Donald Knuth's TeX typesetting program. If you do
not have access to the TeX program, you can:

- get a photocopy of the manual from the manual belonging to the
person who gave you the copy of this program.

- print out the DOCS.PLN file on any 80 column ASCII printer. It
is a copy of the manual with the formatting commands removed.
The output won't be as pretty, but that's life. To print out
the manual, use the command "copy docs.pln prn".

- Buy a copy of the program from the author for $35. It will
come with a hard copy of the manual.

The program is provided with a range of buffer and stack sizes ranging
from small (CONCH.EXE) to extremely large (CONCH4.EXE). The programs will
use between 42K (CONCH.EXE) and 92K (CONCH4.EXE) of the memory available
in your machine. This will reduce the amount available for running other
programs in.

The following files should appear on your diskette, showing the same
sizes and dates.

READ_ME This file
CONCH EXE 31744 9-25-85 9:27p The program in different sizes
CONCH1 EXE 31744 9-25-85 9:29p |
CONCH2 EXE 31744 9-25-85 9:30p |
CONCH3 EXE 31744 9-25-85 9:31p |
CONCH4 EXE 31744 9-25-85 9:33p |
DOCS TEX 45243 9-17-85 9:08p Documentation (TeX Input)
CONCHRC 623 6-22-85 11:17a A sample initialization file
DOCS PLN 35485 9-24-85 9:34p Documentation (Plain ASCII)

If you have purchased the source code to the program, the diskette will
also contain these files in the subdirectory SOURCE. Please remember
that the source code is not shareware, and that you have agreed not to
distribute the source code to any third parties.

BUF_SIZE H 25 9-11-85 9:45p
RSH H 2000 9-25-85 9:23p
RSH C 21928 9-25-85 9:10p
RSH_BUFF C 13108 9-09-85 10:44p
RSH_ETC C 11541 9-09-85 10:41p
REDIR C 9140 6-23-85 9:03p
PIPENAME C 1156 8-22-85 9:34p
JOHN C 7784 8-22-85 8:53p
ANS_IO C 3831 6-23-85 8:40p
LINEDIT C 4691 5-26-85 5:45p
GETKEY C 1028 4-02-85 2:06a
GETKEY H 277 6-13-85 9:15p
MAKE BAT 202 9-11-85 10:26p

These are the source code files which require the DeSmet C compiler
to convert into executable code. The batch file MAKE.BAT contains
the commands necessary to perform the compilation and linking. Note
that the files pcio.o and exec.o are required from the DeSmet package.


Notes on the Minor Upgrade from V1.00 to V1.01
----------------------------------------------

The exit command will now work, even when included as part of a compound
command group.

Previously, if a token was composed of only a virtual device, any
trailing backslash was removed so that things like "cd test:" would
be evaluated properly. It now removes trailing slashes as well to be
compatible with either switchar setting.

Previously, if a command expanded to something starting with "command /c"
the shell would move up a line before execution. This was done because
the command.com supplied with DOS versions before 3.1 would throw in
an extra newline when invoked this way. This made it prettier, but now
the command.com in DOS 3.1 does not have the extra newline, so the
first line of output will overwrite the command line --- ugly. This
has been fixed by a test for DOS version number. In any case, if you
want to stop conch from moving up a line, set your aliases to produce
a specific reference to command.com, rather than letting conch search
the path. i.e. use
alias dir c:\command /c dir
rather than
alias dir command /c dir

than letting conch search
the path. i.e. use
alias dir c:\command /c dir
rather than
alias dir command /c di