TSX-32 Version 6.00
Release Notes
Copyright (c) 1999. S&H Computer Systems, Inc.
Table of Contents
1. Y2K compliance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Support for Maxspeed PS8 and PS16 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
3. TSX-32 Windows Integration Kit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
4. Virtual memory limits have been doubled . . . . . . . . . . . 2
5. SWITCH.INI style initialization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
6. Colors customization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
7. New TSGEN setting may enable remote booting . . . . . . . . . 3
8. SET TERM/MONITOR command . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
9. SET NETROUTE enhancment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
10. Support for 4 IDE drives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
11. Enhanced online help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
12. Problems Corrected in Version 6.00 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
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1. Y2K compliance
Version 6 incorporates all Y2K corrections which have been included
in previous releases, and also fixes the SET DATE problem
documented below. We are unaware of any pending Y2K issues with
TSX and emphasize that there has never been a Y2K problem other
than the date being wrong, all of which can be corrected by simply
setting the date.
2. Support for Maxspeed PS8 and PS16
Version 6 includes support for the PCI Maxspeed serial boards PS8
and PS16. The description of these boards in the TSX32.GEN file is
much simpler than previous serial boards since TSX queries the PCI
bus and determines the boards settings. Here is an example:
DEVICE=TT/HANDDEF=LHMXPS8/CONTROLLER=D
UNIT=1/NAME="PS8 #1"
UNIT=2/NAME="PS8 #2"
UNIT=3/NAME="PS8 #3"
UNIT=4/NAME="PS8 #4"
UNIT=5/NAME="PS8 #5"
UNIT=6/NAME="PS8 #6"
UNIT=7/NAME="PS8 #7"
UNIT=8/NAME="PS8 #8"
The PS16 board is specified as two consecutive PS8 boards, just as
the SS-16 was specified as two consecutive SS-8 boards.
3. TSX-32 Windows Integration Kit
The standard TSX-32 networking distribution now includes the TSX-32
Windows Integration kit. This file, TSXW010.EXE, is a self
extracting archive file for Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT
4.0. It is a multi purpose installer, including the network server
for Windows, TSX-TERM for Windows, the TSX-Online Graphical Client,
as well as implementations of some TSX-32 utilties for windows
(including DIR, DIFF, and DUMP).
The network server for Windows permits your Windows computers to
participate in TSX-32 networks. Computers running the network
server for Windows will appear to be TSX-32 nodes to your TSX-32
systems. This means you will be able to copy files to and from
your TSX system, back up your Windows system to TSX, open files on
the Windows system from TSX applications, and more. Customers
wishing to experiment with this should call for a temporary key.
Licensing for this product is similar to TSX-Term in that a single
TSX-32 license supports an unlimited number of remote Windows
computers.
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The Windows version of TSX-Term uses the network to permit TSX-Term
terminal sessions to be run from a Windows computer. No licensing
is required in addition to the standard TSX-Term license to use the
Windows version of TSX-Term for connecting to TSX-32. However, if
you are dissapointed with the telnet program you use under Windows,
consider registering TSX-Term on your Windows computer to take
advantage of TSX-Term's excellent ANSI support in its new telnet
mode.
The Windows port of Edit-32 contains extensive online help and
features a menu bar containing most editor functions. Edit-32 for
the Windows operating system is registered on a per-PC basis.
Registration for the editor also unlocks the TSX utilities such as
DIR, DUMP, and DIFF which have been ported to Windows.
4. Virtual memory limits have been doubled
The maximum virtual memory available to a job, which is controlled
by the setting MAXP0MEM, has been doubled.
5. SWITCH.INI style initialization
The default behavior of all TSX-32 utilities which permit command
qualifiers can now be set using an initialization file. The format
of this file is similar to the Windows 3.11 WIN.INI or the TOPS-10
SWITCH.INI file.
This file can also be used to control the appearance of full screen
utilities such as TSAUTH, FMAN, PMAN, and SYSOP.
To engage the processing of this initialization file you must
create the file and assign the logical name TSX_UINIT to the file.
For example, if the name of your initialization file is
C:\DAN\SWITCH.INI, place this command in your login command file:
ASSIGN C:\\DAN\\SWITCH.INI TSX_UINIT
The initialization file is a plain text file divided into sections
denoted with headers enclosed in square brackets. Any time a
program such as COPY, DELETE, TYPE, and EVENT prepare to process
their command line they check for presence of TSX_UINIT: and, if
found, search for a section matching their name. If they find such
a section records within it beginning with a "/" character are
appended to the command line.
For example, if your SWITCH.INI file contains:
[EVENT]
/TIME/DATE
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the EVENT program will behave as if you had typed EVENT/TIME/DATE.
6. Colors customization
The appearance of full screen utilities is controlled by a section
in the "SWITCH.INI" file named COLORS. This can be used to change
the attributes used by programs like PMAN, JMAN, and even the HOST
program file transfer window, all of which may be difficult to read
on some monitors.
Use of this section requires an understanding of how the window
functions work, and is beyond the scope of these release notes.
However, this information is available by typing HELP COLORS.
7. New TSGEN setting may enable remote booting
Version 6 features a new TSGEN parameter, REBOOT0, which may solve
the failure of the BOOT command to successfully reboot some
computers. To try it include this command in TSX32.GEN:
SET REBOOT0 = 1
Regen, reboot, and see if the BOOT command now works. Note: this
parameter ends in the digit 0.
This causes the kernel mode debugger to be invoked and to execute
the command:
DD 4
Some of you may find that other debug commands, such as BOOT, work
while DD 4 does not. If so you can specify which command is fed
into the kernel mode debugger by the BOOT command by setting the
REBOOTCMD gen parameter, as in:
SET REBOOTCMD = "BOOT"
8. SET TERM/MONITOR command
It is now possible to enable or disable terminal monitoring, used
by the TUTOR and SPY programs, on your current line using the SET
TERM/MONITOR and SET TERM/NOMONITOR commands. When SET
TERM/NOMONITOR is in effect, nobody can TUTOR your line or spy on
it regardless of the setting of the TMONENABLE gen parameter or any
privilege.
This command has been added to ensure privacy while running
sensitive programs such as payroll software.
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It is not possible to use the /MONITOR and /NOMONITOR qualifiers to
change the settings of any line other than your own timesharing
line. Hence, while SET TERM/MONITOR and SET TERM/NOMONITOR work,
commands such as SET TTD1:/MONITOR do not.
9. SET NETROUTE enhancment
A /subnet qualifier has been added to the SET NETROUTE command.
10. Support for 4 IDE drives
Version 6 support 4 IDE drives. This can be controlled with the
/ADAPTER and /CHANNEL qualifiers. Specify /ADAPTER=0 for the
primary IDE and /ADAPTER=1 for the secondary IDE. Specify
/CHANNEL=0 for a master drive and /CHANNEL=1 for a slave. You can
omit these qualifiers if you place the DEVICE=DH statements in the
following order:
Primary Master
Primary Slave
Secondary Master
Secondary Slave
11. Enhanced online help
We have added a number of TSX-Onlinen programs, such as SMTPTOSS
and SMTPSCAN, toi the online help. Such utilities do not normally
require that information be passed in through the command line but
various qualifiers for special circumstances.
12. Problems Corrected in Version 6.00
1. A system crash with the message "flkdeq: pbr_numlock bad" could
occur if two sibling forked jobs did record locking on channels
connected to the same file that they inherited from the parent
job.
2. ATTRIB/CREATION_DATE did not set the time stamp on a file if
the date portion of the time/date matched the file even though
the time did not.
3. RESTORE got into a loop reporting errors when hitting end of
data on a tape drive.
4. Message "Negotiating transfer rate" came out at the console
changing the currently selected unit for systems with multi
console adapters
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5. RESTORE did not handle the case when there was a node name
specified in the original BACKUP command, and also a node name
specified for output in the RESTORE command.
6. When TSX detected zero pages the message saying 0 total pages
was overwritten the message "If system hangs check IRQ on
disk". Now, TSX will produce a fatal error warning you that no
memory has been detected.
7. BBS users of FTP could not use file specification syntax which
contained a leading '\' since this implied the real root and
BBS users are restricted to their base directory.
8. The FTP server could not be used with Internet Explorer version
5. IE5 sends some truly interesting CD commands to an FTP
server, which we understand causes trouble with several FTP
servers. We have made various "acommodations" to these
incoming commands.
9. The JMAN program had a problem displaying the list of files
currently open by a process.
10. FTP crashed if a command in the NETRC.NET file had an argument
which was over 100 characters long. This limit has been
increased to 200.
11. BACKUP did not produce a meaningful error message when there
was an error opening an output save set. Instead, the message
read "?MSG-E-NOSUCHMSG, No message exists with code 201F0004.".