What's New in CopyQM 3.24 Sydex, Inc. P.O. Box 5700 Eugene, OR 97405 (541) 683-6033 email: info@sydex.com March, 1996 We've made some Windows 95 optimizations, using the Lock Physical Volume MS-DOS request to improve diskette access. If you're running CopyQM in a DOS window, the application title now reflects copying progress. Plus owners should also note that the copy-protection feature has been slightly modified to make it more useful. Please consult the on-line documentation for details. Another change is that the combination of GO and NOPAUSE options will cause immediate exit from CopyQM if a master read error occurs. Self-extracting files also use the Win95 drive management code for better performance. If you're a heavy user of self-extracting image files, please note that Sydex offers alternative extractors for Windows and OS/2, as well as for Windows NT. Contact us for more details. What's New in CopyQM 3.23 A small tweak has been added for Plus creators of self-extracting files. The self-extractor uses the original drive type as a basis for selecting the target drive. Thus, if you've recorded a 1.2M format on a 1.44M drive, the self- extractor will attempt to use a 1.44M or 2.88M drive in preference to a 1.2M drive. A second change was made in the situation where a record filespec is used with ? in certain positions. The "Press any key." message after the file is written would slowly "shrink" starting with the end characters. This has been fixed. What's New in CopyQM 3.22 We often get asked about what kind of diskette is suitable for holding copies of DMF-formatted software. The answer is that ordinary DSHD 1.44MB diskettes work just fine. What's New in CopyQM 3.21 Some more small tweaks in DMF diskette copying were performed. If your system required more than about 3 minutes to make a DMF copy, try this version for better performance. What's New in CopyQM 3.20 We took care of a small bug that would occasionally cause CopyQM to report 81 cylinders instead of 80 when reading certain formats. The pricing currently in effect has also been extended to 1996. As projected, DMF files can now be made to be self-extracting when using CopyQM Plus. What's New in CopyQM 3.19 Self-Extracting Image Files (CopyQM Plus only) ---------------------------------------------- We've beefed up features in self-extracting image files, which now come in two distinct varieties. The first uses DOS calls to extract the image and is the same as you've been accustomed to. The second uses BIOS calls and can handle a very wide range of non-DOS formats. However, the BIOS version examines only the first two diskette drives for compatibility (i.e., only drives A: and B:). Either self-extracting file type now retains SKEW and INTERLEAVE infor- mation specified when the file was recorded. MAKESXD has also been adjusted to choose between the two self-extracting file types. You may suppress the password prompt during recording by specifying OMITPASSWORD (or just OM) on the CopyQM control line. A "no password" case will be assumed. Image File COMMENTS ------------------- By specifying IMPORTCOMMENT (or just IM), information from ASCII text files can now be imported as comment text when creating diskette images. The filename of each text file must have the type of "TXT", but otherwise have the same name as the image file being recorded. Thus, to import comment text for the file MYFILE.IMG, simply edit an ASCII file with comment text and name it MYFILE.TXT and specify IMPORTCOMMENT on the command line. Imported comment text may be edited; to suppress the editing display, use IMPORTCOMMENT with the NOCOMMENT switch. Imported text will be used "as is" with no operator intervention. The ICOMMENT utility will accept the /IMPORT command-line switch to produce the same effect. SKEW and INTERLEAVE ------------------- INTERLEAVE and SKEW are now part of each image file, so if they've been specified when recording, they will be used when playing back or self- extracting (CQ+ only) the image. Either INTERLEAVE or SKEW may be explicitly specified during playback, just as before, and the newly- specified values will override the ones in the image file. Microsoft DMF copiers need not specify SKEW=3 explicitly--CopyQM has "smartened up" when it comes to DMF diskettes and now assumes SKEW=3 when a DMF diskette is copied. This can be overridden, however, by explicitly specifying SKEW. There are a very (VERY) few double-sided formats in which skewing is performed on a side-by-side basis, rather than on a cylinder-by-cylinder basis. To specify side skewing, rather than cylinder skewing, add ",S" to the SKEW specification. For example, SKEW=3,S results in side 1, cylinder 0 being skewed by 3 sectors; side 0, cylinder 1 by 6 sectors; side 1, cylinder 1, by 9 sectors and so on. What's New in CopyQM 3.18 October, 1994 After getting a few calls from customers wanting to copy the new Microsoft DMF 1.68MB diskettes, we decided to come out with a CopyQM release to do this. Although no special arguments are necessary, you'll probably want to specify SKEW=3 on the command line to optimize performance of the copy. Copying DMF diskettes is about 50 percoent slower than other "normal" formats, due to the implied 2:1 sector interleave. In connection with this, we've introduced two new command-line options: INTERLEAVE (abbreviated IN) allows the specification of a physical sector interleaving on all tracks. Normally, INTERLEAVE=1 and sector numbers follow consecutively. However, if INTERLEAVE=2 were to be specified for a 9-sector format, the sector numbers would be placed on each track thus: 1,6,2,7,3,8,4,9,5. It can be seen that two revolutions of the diskette are necessary to consecutively read all sectors on a track. When copying Microsoft DMF distribution diskettes, INTERLEAVE=2 is implied. SKEW (abbreviated SK) allows the specification of a track "skew". That is, the track format is offset by a specified amount on each cylinder. Specifying SKEW=3 with a 9-sector format would place sectors as 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 on the first cylinder, and 7,8,9,1,2,3,4,5,6 on the second, 4,5,6,7,8,9,1,2,3 on the third and so on. Note that the CONTENT of the disk is not affected, but access time may be improved somewhat. SKEW normally defaults to zero (no skew). A new CONVERT format has been added: 1.68M or 1680M, which is similar to the Microsoft DMF, so now you can make your own DMF diskettes. CopyQM Plus users please note: As yet, CopyQM does NOT support DMF in self-extracting image files. We hope to have this handled in CopyQM 3.20. Please consult CopyQM's online help for more information. Use the command COPYQM /HELP to display detailed information. What's New in CopyQM 3.17 CopyQM's diskette I/O routines now support IRQs from 2 through 15, instead the previous 2 through 8. This allows 16-bit controller cards that can use the higher IRQ numbers, such as the Adaptec SCSI cards to operate as secondary controllers with CopyQM. A new command-line keyword, "GO" has been added. This keyword will suppress the "Re-insert Master Diskette" message that appears when reading the first diskette of a session. If a diskette is in the source drive, CopyQM will immediately begin processing it. This is useful when a diskette has just been created and needs to be processed immediately without operator inter- vention. When the RECORD=/ASK keyword is used, a filename with "?" characters may be used in response to the file name prompt. The effect is the same as if the filename were given directly with the RECORD=filename keyword. That is, for a file name of A???, files named A001, A002, A003... will be created. When the PLAYBACK=/ASK keyword is used, file names with "?" and "*" characters may be used in response to the file name prompt. The effect is to play back all image files satisfying the file specification, then request a new file name. Files are accessed in alphabetic order. A small bug in the self-extractor was corrected in CopyQM Plus. What's New in CopyQM 3.16 You can now copy diskettes containing flawed areas by specifying the FLAW keyword on the CopyQM command line, or by selecting the "Ignore master data errors?" choice with CQMenu. Please note that the data content of erroneous sectors is NOT repaired, but as much data as possible will be recovered from the bad sectors. Consult the on-line help for more information. The self-extracting file processor in CopyQM Plus has a bug repair. If an unusable destination diskette was used when executing a self-extracting image file, the "Make another copy?" processing would not recover correctly and an "Image file corrupt" message would result. Note that the self- extracting file would operate correctly the next time it was executed. CopyQM Plus users can now invoke SHELL or OVERLAY procedures when an image file is being written. The sequence of events is exactly the same as when diskette copies are being produced. What's New in CopyQM 3.15 CopyQM now supports writing on up to twelve (!) destination drives. You must have an EGA or VGA display card when more than six destination drives are being used. In RECORD= mode, CopyQM now checks for a pre-existing file of the same name as the image file to be written. If one exists, a prompt is issued, giving you the opportunity to exit CopyQM before overwriting the file. The first master diskette in a session is prompted for with the message "Re-insert Master". The second and succeeding masters are requested with the message "Insert Next Master". We've made a couple of bug fixes related to multi-drive copying. One is an out-and-out goof--the display didn't correctly show which drive in a multi-drive set was really writing. The other is a subtle one and is concerned only with 1.2M and 360K drives used to make the same 360K copy--not a good idea, but supported at any rate. CopyQM Plus users will note that the drive speed test now adds one more digit of significance to the reported spin rate. What's New in CopyQM 3.14 If the BLIND option has not been specified and a non-DOS, non-Macintosh diskette is read, a prompt now appears allowing a change to BLIND copying mode. However, you should be aware that the non-DOS error message can also appear when a DOS diskette is infected with a boot-sector virus, such as the "Stoned" virus. Auto-sense for E-Ten Chinese-language display software has been removed due to conflicts with some ATI Technologies VGA display cards. If a restricted character set is desired, the "7BIT" command-line option should be used. What's New in CopyQM 3.13 CopyQM Plus now creates self-extracting image files directly, without the use of MAKESXD. The SELFEXTRACT (abbreviated SELF) keyword, when used with RECORD, causes a self-extracting file to be recorded. When self-extracting files are produced, about 40K of additional base RAM is required for operation. In general, CopyQM requires a base RAM space of at least 350K for execution. Of course, the more memory the better--i.e., faster--operation. MAKESXD now does its work in a single pass, without any additional disk space required for temporary files. BIOS support has been improved to accomodate a few less-IBM-conforming BIOS sets. Code has been added to enabled interrupts at critical points. We've seen some BIOS code that doesn't seem to re-enable interrupts after they've been disabled. Support has been improved for 2.88M drives and controllers. However, CopyQM requires that 2.88M drives be jumpered for auto media-sensing to work with the DIRECT diskette controller access modes. If your 2.88M drives are not not jumpered in this manner, you can either reset the jumpers or use BIOS access. The SCANDISK utility in MS-DOS 6.2 sometimes reports a spurious boot- sector and/or FAT error on diskettes generated with the CONVERT= option, though MS-DOS CHKDSK finds no problem. We've traced this to SCANDISK's insistence on a certain media byte for a given media type. Interestingly, in Microsoft's own words: "Beginning with DOS 2.x, the usefulness of the disk ID byte in the FAT was reduced and it now considered meaningless..." Not being ones to argue a minor point, we now insert the proper media media byte in CONVERT-ed diskettes and SCANDISK is happy. Sigh... What's New in CopyQM 3.12 CopyQM 3.12 contains a few minor changes to version 3.11: 1. Support for the E-Ten Chinese language system has been incorporated. Users who use other double-byte systems can force the use of non-extended codes by means of the /7BIT command-line switch on any of the CopyQM product set. 2. A bug occurred when a BLIND mode copy was attempted where FIRST= did not equal 1. Only one sector per track would be seen when CopyQM was run in Direct hardware access mode. 3. A few Windows API calls have been added to the Direct I/O routines. CopyQM should run as a background task in direct hardware controller access mode under Windows 3.1. However, IBM OS/2's implementation of Windows and their DOS box appear to ignore these API calls, so running as a background task in OS/2 will still result in occasional "DRIVE NOT READY" errors. 4. Normally, CopyQM and its utilities will access the screen memory directly in order to draw displays as quickly as is possible. However, if the following switch is used, CopyQM and its utilities will use the video BIOS to create screen displays: /CRTBIOS This can be abbreviated to /CR. For example, if a copy using drives A: and B: is to be performed, the following command line could be used: COPYQM A: B: /CRTBIOS Similarly, all CopyQM utilities, including CQMENU, CINSTALL, ICOMMENT, MAKESXD (CopyQM Plus only), DRMAINT (CopyQM Plus only) will accept the /CRTBIOS switch. The configuration viewer, VIEWCONF, accepts this switch, but ignores it, as VIEWCONF always uses the CRT BIOS. Text-to-speech translator users may want to experiment with the switches /7BIT and /MONO to reduce the number of non-text characters on the screen. The /7BIT switch forces the use of the lower 128 codes in the ASCII set; that is, line-drawing and character graphics are not used. The /MONO switch forces use of a monochrome display set.