_NOTE:_ This program is _NOT_ compatible with enhanced mode Windows with virtual memory in use. Common knowledge says, that it is possible to speed-up installation process of big programs by copying installation disks on hard-drive. It's good thing to do, because when you speed-up installation two times (by this trick), you can save up-to half an hour. (Yes. There are programs, which took 60 minutes to install.) 35sec package offers something even better: With 35sec floppy-disk accelerator it is possible to read/write floppy-disks on background - You'll save even more time and you will not need any hard-disk space. And 35sec provides even more... You are working in your favourite text editor, when friend comes with 1.44MB of texts, you are interested in. You will not stop working with text-editor, you just press some sequence of key combinations (^^Q 1 ^^W 1 in case that disk fits into B:) and continue working with editor. Disk is being read on background. After 35 seconds, computer beeps, indicating you that disk's memory image is ready. Now you can decide, if you want to see that texts (access to them is now as extremely fast - as fast as ram-drive). If you decide to do some changes, you can, but before removing floppy you need to save them back. You can do also other things: for example you can make diskcopy of that disk without need to read it again. 35 seconds package ÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÛ Version 1.3 The ultimate floppy-disk caching program 35sec disk accelerator is able to read floppy disks completely on background. It is nice feature, which can save you lot of time. Computer is slowed down only by some 10%, difference is unnoticeable (when not running benchmarks). You can even remove floppy from drive (if disk is error-free). You can work on it, and it is as fast as ram-drive. You can even make changes on it. Than you can write memory image onto floppy, you can decide to discard changes, can make copies of that disk, everything completely on background. When there are some problems with reading floppy, remember to leave it inserted in drive. When 35sec is not able to read something (it will tell you after reading), you should leave floppy inserted. BIOS may still be able to read that data. Be sure to retire such floppies, as they became slow and unreliable. 35sec.com - kernel ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ 35sec.com should be loaded from your autoexec.bat file. It is resident and takes about 3KB of RAM. It may be loaded high by your memory manager in order to save memory. 35sec.com contains kernel, which is responsible for doing all low-level operations. This kernel provides services to other programs from 35sec package. Interface between 35sec.com and other programs is described in 35tech.txt. If you decide to use that interface, please let me know. Note, that you can't distribute 35sec along with your own programs (see 35lic.txt). 35secW.com - Windows compatible kernel ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ 35secW.com is equivalent of 35sec.com, except that it is compatible with Windows with one exception: This program is _NOT_ compatible with enhanced mode Windows with virtual memory in use. Disable virtual memory or switch to standard mode before using this program. When running 35secW under Windows, make sure *NO* dos application is running at same time. This is because Windows with virtual memory just can not handle moving data to virtual memory during hardware interrupt. If you know how to do that, please mail me. Only solution I see is rewrite completely big part of Windows - and I'm not going to do that. 35secW is worse than 35sec - it needs more memory and has bigger overhead. This is because windows refuse to lock XMS memory. 35cache?.com - cache interfaces ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ After loading 35sec.com, you need some program to call its services. You can select from 3 versions of this program (called 35caches.com, 35cacheo.com and 35cacheb.com). All these shells should be loaded from autoexec.bat. They have all same keyboard controlls - they differs only in responses they give to you. 35cacheb.com - gives information by beeps. Problem about this is, that it may be hard to recognize what information does it want to give you. Generally, two same beeps mean that something is O.K. and accepted, two (or more) different beeps mean that something went wrong. It is the smallest one. 35caches.com - gives information in text form only. Window in center of screen pops up informing you on what happend. Then, you are expected to press Alt-RShift to continue. The message pops up even if you are in graphics mode (and you will not be able to see it), so this is not recommended to install when you use graphics mode application frequently. 35cacheo.com - gives information by beeps and in text form. Text message appears after you press report last message (^^C) combination (see below), so there are no problems with graphics modes. All 35cache? programs require single word to be passed on command-line as flags, so you'll have to install them with "35cache? 0000" - one space between command and parameters, four characters. Use 35cache? without parameters to get help. Parameter allows you to use something else than default Ctrl-Alt-????. Buffer selection Deselect ÚÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÂÄÄÄ ÂÄÄÄ ³1 ³2 ³3 ³4 ³ ³0 ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ÀÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁ ÁÄÄÄÁ ÀÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁ ³Q ³W ³E ³R ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ B: ÀÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁ ³A ³S ³D ³F ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ A: ÀÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁ ^ ^ ^ ^ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ÀÄ Write whole memory image onto floppy ³ ³ ÀÄ Write chaged parts of memory image onto floppy ³ ÀÄ Assign buffer to drive ÀÄ Read buffer from drive ÀÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁÂÄÄÁ ³Z ³X ³C ³V ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ÀÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÁ ^ ^ ^ ^ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ³ ÀÄ Cancel current operation ³ ³ ÀÄ Report last message (not in 35cacheb) ³ ÀÄ Report progress of current operation (not in 35cacheb ÀÄ Free buffer Commands are Ctrl-Alt-Letter (Ctrl-Alt-??? can be overriden to something else on command line) followed by buffer number (if required). For ilustrative pictures, run README.bat. 35mon ÍÍÍÍÍͼ 35mon is event-driven utility that allows you to view state of 35sec floppy accelerator. It can send commands to 35sec, so you could use instead of 35cache? interfaces. It can be controlled from command line, use 35mon /? to get help. Mount and UnMount batches are examples of 35mons usage. 35monW ÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ 35monW is interface for usage of 35secW under Windows. It is pretty self explanatory, I hope. Remember to select buffers between starting operations. I hope incompatibility with virtual memory is not really critical - you don't need much memory when installing new software (that is probably best time to use 35secW). eXtended Disk Copy ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ eXtended Disk Copy (XDC) allows you to copy floppies (as it's name implies), but it is not its main purpose - 35cache can do that to. It can copy floppies to files and can work with 35sec floppy images. As an example of using XDC, I prepared a batch file ( empty ) which will create empty 1.44MB floppy image for you into buffer 1. You can copy files onto it (works like ramdrive), but if you decide to, you can save it on floppy ( ^^F 1 to save it onto A:). And you can even save only changed areas (using ^^F 1 to save onto A:). Note that you can create your own images of empty diskettes using xdc {source} {filename} /1 , images of full disketes by same code but without /1 , and use such images by xdc {filename} {buffer_number}: [/1] . Compatibility ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ 35sec is compatible with FDformat/FDread. It is not compatible with programs that use other sector size than 512 bytes (such as 2M package). When MS-Windows are loaded, it is not possible to load disk images with 35sec (it reports 'Not enough XMS' error). It can be done with 35secW when Virtual memory is off. 35sec requires some XMS memory manager to be installed. When used with disk caches, load 35sec *before* that cache. If you load 35sec after really (don't do that!) intelligent cache (like hyperdisk), be sure to flush its buffers before reading floppies using 35sec. 35sec requires 386SX or better, with FDC compatible to my FDC, just try it (no-name computers are probably O.K.). Requirement of 386+ is not essential, but I'm too lazy to do 32-bit aritmetics on 286-. If that is problem for you (i.e. you own 286 or even XT), please let me know, but I don't think I'll help you. Please do NOT use 35sec for disks with non-DOS file system (like LINUX disks), it can cause 'Division by zero' in foreground application. Installation ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ Copy all files to hard-drive. Install 35sec.com and one of 35cache?.com (you'll need status flags, 0000 by default) in autoexec.bat file. 35sec.com (or 35secW, if you are windows user) should be installed before any disk-caching program but after XMS memory manager. Example AUTOEXEC.BAT ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ d:\win\xmsmmgr c:\utl\35sec c:\utl\35cacheo 0000 c:\utl\hyperdkx ... Registration ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ After 21 days evalution period, you must register. Registration means, that you will send me $10 and I will send you registered copy of 35sec accelerator. (Just put money into envelope so they are not visible from outside and send it to my snail-mail adress. Send me note if you are able to. Or do you have some better idea how to deliver me $10?) After registering, you'll get much smaller version (even with smaller resident kernel). Pause on start-up will disappear, too. Note for people from Czech republic: Vzhledem k tomu, ze od nikoho z vas neocekavam, ze mi poslete deset dolaru, bude bohate stacit, kdyz mi poslete stopadesat korun, nejlepe slozenkou na nize uvedenou adresu. Note for hackers ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ This program should be un-crackable. Note for advanced hackers ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ This program of course is NOT un-crackable, but don't try that. (Previous line can save much of your time.) Versions ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ There are 3 separate versions of 35sec - first for usage under DOS, second for use under Windows (w/o virtual memory, w/o dos boxes) and third (registered) version for both environments. Table of files and versions ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³Files ³ Shareware ³ Registered ³ ³ ³ for DOS ³ for Windows ³ for DOS & Windows ³ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´ ³35sec .com³ [X] ³ [ ] ³ [X] ³ ³35secW .com³ [ ] ³ [X] ³ [X] ³ ³35caches.com³ [X] ³ [ ] ³ [X] ³ ³35cacheb.com³ [X] ³ [ ] ³ [X] ³ ³35cacheo.com³____ [X] _____³_______ [ ] _____³________ [X] _________³ ³file_id .diz³ [X] ³ [X] ³ [ ] ³ ³35doc .txt³ [X] ³ [X] ³ [X] ³ ³35lic .txt³ [X] ³ [X] ³ [X] ³ ³35tech .txt³____ [X] _____³_______ [X] _____³________ [X] _________³ ³35mon .exe³ [X] ³ [ ] ³ [X] ³ ³35monW .exe³ [ ] ³ [X] ³ [X] ³ ³mount .bat³ [X] ³ [ ] ³ [X] ³ ³unmount .bat³____ [X] _____³_______ [ ] _____³________ [X] _________³ ³readme .bat³ [X] ³ [X] ³ [X] ³ ³pmklogo .exe³ [X] ³ [X] ³ [X] ³ ³35old .exe³ [X] ³ [X] ³ [X] ³ ³35help .exe³ [X] ³ [X] ³ [X] ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ History ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ 1.30 - fixed problem with using A: & B: at same time fixed problem with attempt to read/write when reading/writing added XDC program, create empty floppy images default sector sliding set to 2 for A: & B: buffer for A: is set to 1 and for B: to 2 by default 1.20 - added cancel function added MOUNT / UNMOUT batches added 35mon program added 35monW program, Windows interface for 35sec added 35secW program, Windows compatible kernel hotkey selection allowed 1.10 - added detection of installed disk drives removed problem with freeing memory while reading/writing 1.01 - minor documentation changes 1.00 - first released version Comments ÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ Any comments are welcome, even from non-registered users. This is not version 1.0, but some bugs may have survived. Please report me, if you find one. My adress is: Pavel Machek Volkova 1131 198 00 Praha 9 - Cerny Most Czech republic Phone: +42-2-866 233 E-mail: machek@k332.feld.cvut.cz