46144,04,03/12/93,MICHAEL CAIN,WARD CHRISTENSEN R/NEW MESSAGES, Ward - Well, I'm now doing what you do, and it's working pretty good. I got to tell you, I miss the convenience of a navigator. This manual navigation drives me nuts. When are you goning to update the software? Will we see a graphical interface here on CBBS? Thanks, Ward. 46244,25,05/13/93,MICHAEL SHARTIAG,ALL FLOPPY COPY PROT & SOLUTION, Today I can not think of a software package that is in the mass market that still attempts to copy protect the floppy disks. However, some of the smaller packages, or captive market products where you don't have an option seen to still employ this. Because no one really does this anymore, people such as Central point have not updated COPYIIPC since 10/90. At this point, one more update to the disk schemes and they are no longer back-up-able. I recently serviced a PC that lost 1 head on the drive, head 1; which made recovery of the disk impossible. Every 9 head changes you were out 36 sectors. There was no way to attempt to transfer the installation back to the floppy. The company charged a nice fee for the provledge of supplying a new disk. In any case where this is all leading to is a hardware card from Central Point call the Option Board which directly takes control of the floppy, and basically reads anything. This image file can also be stored on a hard disk (about 4X as large as floppy capacity) and can then be re-written to a new floppy if needed. An added benefit is that I can now read/write Macintosh disks as well as read as am image almost any floppy out there ( COmmodore/ CP/m), etc.) Has anyone had any experience with these cards and are there programs to allow it to actually do file reads from some of these other formats? These people depend on their computer to run their business and at the same time due to this crap were unable to make usable backups and actually ended up down for 3 days. 46245,17,05/13/93,MICHAEL SHARTIAG,ALL IDE TIMING PROBS. (CONT), To those who have been trying to help in this problem here is what I have foun dout recently: Toshiba licensed their BIOS from Award, but the basic date on the Award code is 1987, (toshiba 1600) which does not have the proper coding to handle fast IDE drives. There is a company in Norman OK that has some sweetheart deal with Award in that they seem to do all upgrades of BIOS for machines and Award voice mail actually directs you to them. Apparently becasue the Toshiba BIOS ( and all laptop BIOS's) contain so many hardware direct modifications, they can not or will not touch it. They made it sound like a legal, copyright problem. As I am only asking them to write-over parts of the ROM would that be a violation? I don't think so. SO that now leaves me a step closer in that I know where the BIOS comes from. Now all we need to do is figure out where the IDE routines are in the BIOS and replace them with newer code.... ANy ideas on whewre or who might be able to do this ??? 46344,01,06/26/93,PAUL STREETER,ANDY SHAPIRO REPLY/ ELECTRICAL QUESTION, My best suggestion is prpare to spend the money for an electrician. 46345,02,06/28/93,MIKE REINHART,ANDY SHAPIRO R/ELECTRICAL QUESTION, Running a wire to the water pipe is ok but get your landlord to have the electrical looked at before the place burns down! 46444,04,09/04/93,BILL MATTSON,ALL KODAK PHOTO CD, Anybody know where to get a utility to read a Kodak photo CDROM? I have one but no way to read (see) the images. Tried all the stuff I have to no avail. Looking for public domain or shareware utility for Toshiba 3401, IBM PC, DOS, OS2, Windows. 46445,19,09/05/93,WARD CHRISTENSEN,MARTY CONROY R/NEW USER, I'll try to talk to Randy Suess, co-founder (with me) of CBBS, to see if he has an answer on your half-DOS half-Unix issue. Ideally, your Unix might have a DOS emulator that allows running DOS directly - though I'm not sure how well they do in a more complex environment - such as I don't think you can run Windows since Unix would already be the "protected mode" op sys in your box. Could you tell me what you mean by "Unix 3.2"? Not sure that's sufficient to know what you have - i.e. is it DELL Unix 3.2, or what? As to internet/usenet, etc, that's a complex issue. One person to contact if you really want that direct access, is Karl Deninger. Here's a signature line from him from a recent message on Chinet, Randy's Unix system. (Hmmm, you might want to get on chinet, a place to ask your Unix questions, etc - the guest access number is (312) 283-0559, I think. But $50/yr helps. Here's that Deninger signature line: Karl Denninger (karl@genesis.MCS.COM) | You can never please everyone except Modem Access: [+1 312 248-0900] | by bankrupting yourself. Voice & FAX: [+1 312 248-8649] | Internet in Chicago; a MCSNET first! Hope that helps! 46544,04,01/04/94,ANDY SHAPIRO,WARD 16 YEARS!!, Ward, is there any way to find out when one first logged onto CBBS? I think I first got on in '84 or '85, but it's been a while :-). In any event, Happy New Year and happy XVIth birthday to the board. 46545,09,01/04/94,WARD CHRISTENSEN,ANDY SHAPIRO R/16 YEARS!!, Uh, I have some old logs - I can scan thru 'em, but I think I have the old ones offline - perhaps on unreadable 800K media, heh - back when you could buy a double-step (80-track) 5.25" low density drive, and pack 10 sectors per track, getting 800K out of it - so I'd have to check how far back I go. I did find a couple logins from Jan '89 including your trying to help someone with a TRS 4P hoping to get some DOS stuff going, you told 'em to find a new home for it and buy another machine. heh. Thanks for the congrats - hope you can make the party.