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Windows 95

To: <ct-user@contesting.com>
Subject: Windows 95
From: steve.steltzer@paonline.com (steve.steltzer@paonline.com)
Date: Thu, 19 Oct 1995 16:06:00 -0700
>Disclaimer - I have not run CT with Win95.  I use DOS and Win NT...
>
>Warren - I strongly recommend NOT going to Windows 95.
>There are many reasons, but the two most significant are it's lack of
>maturity and stability and the inability to (easily) set it up to dual boot
>with DOS/Win.

>I work in the PC business and follow it and other OS issues closely.

>If you want a new OS, go to Windows NT V3.51.  You can dual boot with DOS
>(and Windows 3.1) as a fallback.  Microsoft didn't bother to make dual boot
>available with Win 95 so there is no easy fallback.
>(Note: There is a complex way of installing Win95 for dual boot that
>requires gymnastics to switch (copying entire directories around, etc.)).


        Without going into myriad details, it IS possible to maintain a
multiple config boot setup with 95. ie: you will still have the multiple
choice menu calling different sections of autoexec.bat and config.sys,
without the above hassles.  In my case, I had this setup prior to the
installation of 95, and only had to make a few mods to autoexec.bat to keep
it from automatically calling Windows. If I recall correctly, 95's install
program appended 'win' as the last entry in autoexec.bat, so you need to add
another label before the 'win' and a GOTO 'labelname' in the windows
section. SEE THE DOS 6 MANUAL - section on multiple configurations. So far,
I have run CT in the CQP, and NA in the Pa QSO pty using the DOS setup via
the boot menu and had no problems. The TSR's on one of em, I don't remember
which now, caused an immediate crash when I tried running directly from 95.


>Also, none of the OS's are real time oriented, so that sending CW
>is problematic.  I have not tried NT in this respect, but it has a good
>chance, as the priority of an individual task can be set very high.
>
>73, John, K1FWF

As for this, one of the (very) few things I like about 95 is they have
solved the timing problems running DOS programs. I have a cw keyboard in a
logging program I wrote (write? is a program EVER finished?) that would not
work under 3.1 (it would speed up and slow down as windows checked for msgs
and events) that runs fb under 95 at the default multitasking settings. The
only glitz is when windows is doing something at the initial calling of the
timing calibration routine, and that just throws the speed off slightly from
what the program shows, it doesn't make it unuseable. Also Rufz (a cw
contest trainer-game, for those of you not familiar with it) runs fine under
95, with the same limitation as above, which throws the score off when it
occurs. (I estimate about 1 in 8 to 10 runs.) 
        They also fixed the memory leakage problems with resource
deallocation. My recomendation on upgrading? Wait a year till they fix the
rest of the stuff!



Anyone who doesn't have access to a DOS 6 manual can email me directly and
I'll send you my autoexec.bat and config.sys to use as examples.
                                                         73, see ya in SS cw.
                                                         Steve - WF3T

*\*  steve.steltzer@paonline.com (WF3T)  *\*
*\*       "NO FEAR" = "NO BRAINS"        *\*


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