PDEXPERT.PRG (C) 1992 DragonWare Software Inc. This Program is a FREEWARE release ALL RIGHTS RESERVED! This file MUST accompany the PDEXPERT.PRG and PDEXPERT.RSC The PowerDOS Expert program will allow you to modify the CONFIGUR file in the POWERDOS folder. PDEXPERT will only modify the first 21 lines of the CONFIGUR file. A user may NOT add or delete ANY lines in this first 21 lines or PDEXPERT.PRG will not work. Functions: Select Node: You can modify any CONFIGUR file on the network by selecting this option and opening that node's POWERDOS folder. This will load the CONFIGUR file into PowerDOS expert for editing. REVERT: This option reverts to the orignal settings for the current node's CONFIGUR file. A Revert will work as long as a NEW node's Configur file has not been loaded. It will work even if you have saved new settings. Make .BAK This function renames the old CONFIGUR file to CONFIGUR.BAK when new settings are saved. If an existing CONFIGUR.BAK exists it will be deleted. Save New Config: This saves the new CONFIGUR file and makes the CONFIGUR.BAK file if Make .BAK file is selected. QUIT: Quits the PowerDOS expert program. POWERDOS VARABLES Task timeslice =50 Task Timeslice, gives length of a process timeslice. Can be 200, 100, 50, 25 or 12. Default=50. system priority=128 Initial system priority. All processes inherit their parents priority. Lower numbers give lower priority, higher numbers give higher priority. Has little effect unless many processes are running. Default=128 RAMTOP K Bytes =50 Memory to reserve at top of ram. This is used to keep memory hog programs from grabbing every available byte. The network requires small blocks of ram to be avail- able at all times. The next variable controls the size of blocks allocated within the reserve area. Size given as *1024 (50=51,200 bytes). Default=0, no reserve. Ramtop Blocks =5 Max size of blocks of ram that can be allocated within the reserved area. This insures that network server processes (which require < 5k each) can have enough memory to run in when all other memory is used by hogs. Size given as *1024 (5=5120 bytes). Default=0. Max program Ram=4 Maximum memory size given to a program. When a program is run, it is normally given all of memory to run in. This memory is divided into text+data+bss+heap, with the first three strictly defined by the program, the fourth (heap) being all the rest of memory. The program is supposed to free what it doesn't need of the heap, but many don't, tying up all of memory. This variable can be used to control the total memory given to a program at startup. Size *1024K. Default is no limit. Maximum Drives =26 Number of drive descriptors created. GemDOS will only recognize 16 drives, A through P, without the MetaDOS extension loaded. PowerDOS has no limit on the drives it can access. It only requires a device descriptor to be created for each drive. This variable lets you set the number of drives from 1 to 26 (setting it to 1 would allow only drive A to be recognized). Note that you would still need a BIOS driver that recognized drives beyond P. Default is 16. Fastloadm Size =32 Number of k of heap to clear on progam load. This is similar to the popular public domain program 'PinHead' by Charles F. Johnson. It controls the amount of memory to clear when a program runs. If not used (default), PowerDOS will clear all of the program's heap, unless the fastload bit is set in the programs header, in which case only 32k will be cleared. If a value is given, then that much heap will be cleared for all programs, and the fastload bit will be ignored. Cache Sectors =200 Number of disk cache sectors to create. A disk cache will greatly increase the speed of a hard drive by storing commonly used sectors in ram. This cache is built into the PowerDOS disk file system, and testing shows it to be the fastest write through cache for the ST (a write cache, like that built into ICD software, is faster for many operations involving writes). Legal values are 50-999. Less than 50 results in a 50 sector cache. Default is no cache. Auto Folder Boot =YES Used to control how PowerDOS handles the AUTO folder on bootup. Since PowerDOS is run from the AUTO folder itself, and replaces GemDOS, which was running AUTO folder programs, PowerDOS must restart the AUTO process itself. After it initializes itself, it runs programs listed in this file. It then searches the AUTO folder for programs, skipping all of them until it finds the name 'POWERDOS.PRG'. It then runs any .PRG it finds after that. This variable alows you to control this process. If this is set to 'NO', then no AUTO programs will be run. If it is set to a number, then that many AUTO programs will be skipped. Setting it to YES means that it will run all AUTO programs. Default is to look for 'POWERDOS.PRG'. Auto FOLDER DRIVE =C: Drive to continue auto folder operations from. The network makes it possible to have a machine with only a floppy disk boot with direct access to hard drives. It is possible, therefore, that by the time PowerDOS restarts the AUTO folder process, that there is a drive C. Normally, however, PowerDOS would look for the AUTO folder on whatever drive it was booted from. This variable allows you to force PowerDOS to look in a different drive for the AUTO forlder. It could even be used to force bootup to continue on another drive completely, like D or E (many programs might fail, though, as they expact to run form A or C). Default is whatever drive PowerDOS boots from. Force Bios Calls =YES Force the use of standard handles from the BIOS. One of the things a network provides is the ability to use the devices of another machine over the network, like a printer. The easiest way to do this is to redirect standard handle number 3 (PRN) to the printer desired. Any printer output using the function call Cprnout will then go to the printer over the network. However, some programs call the BIOS directly for printer support, and so could not be redirected. This variable, when set to YES, will cause these BIOS calls to be re-issued as regular DOS calls, where redirection can be performed. Negitive Force =YES GemDOS provides the ability to bypass redirection of the standard handles by using a negative number. If a program used -3 for a handle, then output would go to the PRN device, regardless of whether handle 3 had been redirected. GFA Basic is one source of programs that do this. This would prevent redirection just like using the BIOS directly. This variable, when set to YES, will force these negative handles to act like the regular handles and perform redirection. END of PDEXPERT.TXT