1. Interface to DOS info
Hello All
and welcome to the list.
I have been programming in Euphoria for a month or so. I am writing
a program that will install network software. This is my first
major DOS project: I am normally a mainframer.
I would like to collect a bit of info about the DOS machines: I can get
the DOS version, hard drive size, amount of conventional memory
by using interrupts. From contents on the hard drive I can determine the
existence of Win31. I can not find anyway to determine
extended memory size (I can trap the output of the MEM command
but that assumes the existence of the MEM
command. The format of the output from MEM
changes from one DOS release to another.)
Processor (I can use P.D. SNIFF, I'd like to get it
directly from inside euphoria)
processor speed (I don't have anyway to get this)
Manufacturer
Model
Thanks for any ideas,
John Kinne
Miami University
2. Re: Interface to DOS info
John Kinne
Thanks for work on the listserv. It is so far a lot of fun :)
>I would like to collect a bit of info about the DOS machines: I can get
>the DOS version, hard drive size, amount of conventional memory
>by using interrupts. From contents on the hard drive I can determine the
>existence of Win31. I can not find anyway to determine
I know of many shareware programs that will dump the settings of your system
into a text file (or can be tricked into doing so by using DOS piping commands
to reroute text screen display to file). The problem with these programs is
that they do not tend to be right most of the time. One computer program thought
my P-90 was a 486SX.
I know some Assembler programmers can get the information by reading the
BIOS data somewhere, but being Assembler-illiterate, I do not know how to do
that.
Hope this helps
David Gay
3. Re: Interface to DOS info
>>I would like to collect a bit of info about the DOS machines: I can get
>>the DOS version, hard drive size, amount of conventional memory
>>by using interrupts. From contents on the hard drive I can determine the
>>existence of Win31. I can not find anyway to determine
>
>...
>I know some Assembler programmers can get the information by reading the
>BIOS data somewhere, but being Assembler-illiterate, I do not know how to do
>that.
>
>...
>
Yes, and the Euphoria PEEK instruction would let me read data
directly from memory. Being a mainframer, I expect that DOS keeps
lots of interesting data in memory - like my mainframe systems
do. My mainframe systems come with logic manuals that detail
what is kept in memory, and how to find it. When I took on this
project I expected that reporting the model number of the machine
the program is executing on would be trivial. Not so.
X-Mailer: MailBook 95.01.263
I have found very generic descriptions of how DOS uses memory.
But as far as I can tell, it is up to each manufacturer of each
model PC to store a byte here or there that might indicate what
model machine this is. Very different than the tight adherence
to standards to which I am accustomed.
Not to slam the technology! It is just a bit of a challenge.
Thanks for the note.
John Kinne
