| Saturday,
May 20, 2000 Another day of short
shrift, I fear. But the letters pile up and they are interesting and if I
wait until I can comment "properly" then I never get done...
Jerry,
Been following Chaos manor for years! Thanks for all
your "User's Views" that have always been so helpful.
Regarding your recent trouble with defragging Win98,
here are two tips I've found useful--to help prevent the continual
"restarts" that plague Win98 defragging.
1) The BEST method is to place your WinSwap file on
a disk other than C:. If you only have one drive and one partition, try
Partition Magic to take some of the extra space from the top and create a
D: partition of several hundred megs.
2) If you only have one disk in the machine, and
choose not to add a second partition, then control the size manually,
rather than letting Win98 automagically grow and shrink it. For example,
set it to always be at least 200 MB. That should help--but not eliminate
the restarts.
HTH,
Mark Smith
Indeed, and that's advice I have given for years,
although using Partition Magic to create a separate partition isn't
entirely trivial. But it's probably worth doing. For Windows 98 VOPT
98 is still the best one I know, but it can take FOREVER with really
big drives. But then so will any other good defrag program. Big
drives don't suffer from fragmentation as much as smaller ones, but when
they do, it's a beast to clean up.
Dr. Pournelle;
Turbo Prolog did not die, Borland gave it back to
the original developers in Denmark. It is currently available as Visual
Prolog.
I have it on a CD that came with the April 1999
issue of the British magazine PC Plus. It has version 5.1 of the personal
version for Windows 9x/NT, OS/2, Win 3.1(!) and Linux. The documentation
is in Word format.
The web site is www.pdc.dk
- I could not find the price of the professional version on the site, you
are not allowed to distribute executables made with the personal version,
I believe that there is a banner that comes up when you run them. I'll
have to play with this. I had forgotten that I had it. You can also
download the program from the web site (about 20 Meg.)
Rolf Grunsky
rgrunsk@ibm.net
Thanks!
Dr. Pournelle,
I wondered what your thoughts are on the subject of
the Dvorak Keyboard layout? Seems to be more efficient, at least according
to its pundits. I've considered making the switch to Dvorak for efficiency
and ergonomic reasons. This question also goes out to any of your readers.
Best regards,
-Paul Bench
I've told this story many times. I was marginally
involved with the keyboard in that I worked with August Dvorak (PhD, Cdr
USNR Ret) at the University of Washington in the 50's. It is more
efficient, but you will never learn TWO keyboards, and switching from one
to another will drive you mad. Two-finger typists don't care (it
does nothing for them) and touch typists work much better with the Dvorak
but have real problems faced with a conventional keyboard, which is
ubiquitous. I doubt it has a real future.
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
I saw mention of the Dvorak keyboard in Chaos Manor
Mail, and wish to add my own experience. I went to some expense and
trouble to add a Keytronics Dvorak keyboard to one of my Texas Instruments
Professional Computers back when that computer was current. I kept the
QWERTY keyboard on the second one. The Keytronics keyboard was massive and
comfortable, matching the solid construction of the computer. A poor touch
typist, prone to looking at the keys, and switching between two types of
keyboards, I probably received minimal benefit from the Dvorak layout.
The Keytronics Dvorak board had two limitations. It
had no pause key, and I needed a tip from a magazine to find the right key
(Ctrl-NumLock, I think). Also, these were the days of MS-Dos 3.3,
available for the TIPC, and usable with a patch available in the Dallas
area. MS-Dos programs tended to use key combinations for various control
activities (Remember Word Star?), but these key combinations were worked
out on a QWERTY keyboard. They were horrible on Dvorak. Nevertheless, I
liked the Dvorak board and used it until it broke beyond repair (my fault,
not the manufacturer). It was fun, interesting, and easy to use, but
QWERTY keyboards have been cheap or free for years. I never bought a
replacement.
regards,
William L. Jones, PE wljones@dallas.net
Hi, Jerry:
I know you just bought some keyboards, but I ran
across this today. http://www.netseller.com/northkey.htm
I certainly like the feel of the old Northgates.
Thanks! I seem to be well supplied with keyboards for a while...
Given your bad adventures with Real Networks, I
thought you might be interested in the sole item in the 18 May Privacy
Forum http://www.vortex.com/privacy/priv.09.15
Real is now packaging something called
"Download Demon" with its downloads. Apparently the Download
Demon silently installs itself as the default FTP agent in your browser(s).
It then reports to Real the URL of every file you download.
Wade L. Scholine
I had heard something of this. Thanks.
And two more comments on nuking
the moon...
I'm not carrying any briefs for the nuke-the-moon
story. However, it should be pointed out that Len Reiffel has published
his version of the story about Air Force Project A119 in the 4May2000
issue of the journal "Nature" (p. 13)--hardly the place to stake
one's reputation on a speculation.
Julie Woodman
Jerry,
The "Nuking the Moon" story may have
originated with a study the Soviets did very early in the space race
called "Project E-4." The primary aim of the project was to
prove to the whole world that a Soviet spacecraft had really reached the
surface of the Moon by doing something (i.e. exploding a bomb) that could
be observed by telescope from earth. The full story has been posted by
space historian Sven Grahn at:
http://www.users.wineasy.se/svengrahn/histind/E3/E3orig.htm
The Soviets rather quickly decided that the project
was both too expensive and _way_ too risky (what if the booster doesn't
work right?). Also, I suspect that it was soon realized that a simple
radio beacon on the spacecraft would be enough to track a spacecraft all
the way to the moon.
The idea of detonating a nuclear "flare"
on the moon probably occured to someone in the US, but I doubt it was ever
seriously studied. However, I do remember that in "Space Cadet"
(written in the 1950s) the author apparently didn't know that radio works
just fine over planetary distances. Somebody may not have thought that
radio transmissions from the Moon could be picked up.
-- Tom Durrant
Given when this happened, I guess I would not
necessarily have known about it; it was a few years later that I was
involved with evaluating odd proposals and systems concepts and such like.
But I still find it hard to believe that it got much above the brigadier
level. Generals are not really stupid despite the stereotypes. Not THAT
stupid.
View for Tue 16 May 2000 says, among other things,
"Larry Aldridge of PC Power and Cooling, is very fond of the Tyan
Trinity board. I have one in use and love it too."
But the Tyan site http://www.tyan.com/products/html/product_selection.html
lists several boards in the Trinity family:
S2380 Trinity K7 -- Slot A for AMD Athlon
S1857 Trinity 371 -- Slot 1 for Pentium II/III
-- has 3 submodels
S1854 Trinity 400 -- Slot 1 for Pentium II/III --
has 2 submodels
S1857 Trinity 371 -- Socket 370 for Celeron -- has 3
submodels
S1854 Trinity 400 -- Socket 370 for Celeron -- has 2
submodels
S1598 Trinity ATX -- Socket 7 -- has 2 submodels
Is it safe for readers to assume that Mr. Aldridge's
enthusiasm, and yours, extends uniformly over all members of the Trinity
family?
Or is there a way to find out which particular
member(s) of the family you have used successfully?
Or am I just being a pain in the extreme lower back,
by asking such a picky question?
Thanks!
Not unreasonable questions. I'd have to go look,
but the one I am using has both super 7 and slot 1 so you can put in
either a Celeron or a P-III; I've done both. It's doing a Windows
2000 Professional machine with a P-III of some hideous speed and all is
well with it. Indeed.
Jerry,
I have been running Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4.0 on
Windows 2000 Professional with no problems at all. I suggest you get the
upgrade it is well worth it, the interface is improved and the performance
is better than the 3.5 version
I am going to go back to WIN98 on my main machine as
I am having too many problems getting drivers to work on my peripherals.
Mustek does not have a Windows 2000 driver for my scanner. ATI's DVD rom
driver for Windows 2000 has severe performance issues, and therre in no
driver for the ATI TV Wonder card. All of my fun toys won't work on
Windows 2000 so I'll have to take a step back.
Good Luck with the CD-RW Sofware
Mike Fried
Thanks. I have been using 3.5 on Windows 98 (Mohican,
a machine built to be the last W 98 machine but alas it will not be)...
I read your May 15, 2000, article regarding your problems with
'Squirrel', and offer the following suggestion concerning problems with 'defrag.exe'
completing its work.
Ii'm sure you have considered this alternative, but thought your many
readers might benefit from this alternative solution, to be used before
the reinstallation of Win98 SE.
I made the following change to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM.INI:
========================================
Original SYSTEM.INI: ..... [boot] Shell=explorer.exe .....
========================================
Revised SYSTEM.INI: ..... [boot] ; Next line is default per original
Win98 installation shell=explorer.exe ; This line is to be substituted
when running DeFrag only ; shell=defrag.exe .....
========================================
When I want to run DEFRAG.EXE, I simply open up
system.ini, put the [;] before 'shell=explorer.exe' and Remove the [;]
from the line 'shell=defrag.exe'.
Then I reboot Win98 SE and when it loads, the only
Win98 program running is defrag.exe, and it runs without Interference
until completion. I have never had it fail to complete.
When it is completed, I then reboot, and during
reboot, exit to a command prompt, and then restore SYSTEM.INI to the
original state, by deleting the [;] from the 'explorer' line, and
restoring the [;] to the 'defrag' line. I then reboot a final time.
Having said this, I also have had problems over a
long period of time and came to the same conclusion that you did -- to
reinstall Win98 SE -- which seems to clear up the major problems. It is
too bad that Microsoft can't write the software in such a manner to avoid
this continuing problem.
I tried Win2000 Professional, and it seemed much
better with regard to these type of problems, but later reinstalled Win98
WE for the same reasons you mention -- the difficulty in using CD-RW
CDRom's. I am using a HP 8200e external USB drive, and after many delays
and missed deadlines, I now note that their web site says my drive is now
considered 'compatible' with Win2000, without any driver modifications --
so I will install it again and try it to see if it works.
Thanks for your many interesting articles in BYTE
Magazine in the past. I am glad that you are continuing on the web!
Joseph L. Fribley Retired Circuit Judge State of
Illinois
Dear Jerry,
An user from Autrslia told me about your 'User's
Choice Award' for IrfanView.
Thank you very very much! :-)
The current IrfanView version is 3.17
Greetings, Gruesse, Pozdrav,
Irfan
Irfan Skiljan, EMail:
e9227474@stud1.tuwien.ac.at Author of IrfanView, FREEWARE image viewer for
Win9x, WinNT and Win2K On Internet: http://www.irfanview.com
"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto"
= "I am human, therefore nothing human is strange to me."
Great program. Everyone ought to know about it.
TOP
|
CLICK HERE for
a Special Request. 
