European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 19, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Ways and Means to achieve the almost possible by Jerry Kidder a amps computer technician a i to Aming your computer is sometimes an i almost possible task. Did i mean in i possible no just what i wrote an Al most possible task. You will probably never get total control of your machine and As you expand your knowledge continue to try new ways and Metli ods As Long As you have the computer. The use of subdirectories on your hard disk was a first step in starting to logically create and control your system. A a a a a a a a. A a a a a. The exercise in the last column was just to Start you thinking about How and Why. Now that we be prepared the hard disk and loaded Dos onto its subdirectory and maybe a word processor and whatever else we wanted we Are ready to Start  on the computer and what happens on my computer i get a message telling me which bios version i have in rom. Remember this is the program which comes loaded on a memory Chip and  for the computer about dealing with its input and output devices then my computer checks its memory with a program which is also  a Chip read Only memory or rom. This is followed by a request for Date and time and then the computer tells me which version of Dos i have loaded. Then the Dos prompt. Now we Are ready to compute. It does get a Little tiresome filling in the Date and time every time we Start. Isnit there a better Way of course there is otherwise 1  have written anything about it right Back to the Good old Root directory. This is the starting Point to All adventures we might undertake. In the Root directory there should Only be a few important files. First there Are the two hidden files Dos needs to operate and the  file which we loaded alter preparing the hard disk. A \ a do a cd change directory to your Dos subdirectory and execute a cud so command. You have to be in the Dos subdirectory because this is not an internal command and needs a pro computers Gram loaded from your Dos system diskettes. Cd in ask is a command which Calls a program to Choc your disk. It will Check the directory and file allocation table areas of your disk and report disk and memory status. It will also report and repair errors in the checked areas. We just want the reports right now. The first thing you read is the size of your disk followed by the number of hidden files. We said that there were two hidden files in Dos but the cud so has found three. This third file was a mystery to me until i found the answer in a Good Book from pc mag a Ine called Dos Power tools. It has All sorts o. Good answers and includes two diskettes with Many useful Utility programs to help understand and extend Dos. Anyway the third hidden file is the disk volume Label which also is stored in a Small hidden file. The other information from cud so in eludes number of directories files and a report. On How much space you have left on your disk. This last bit of information will become important As you fill your disk. Also in your Root directory you will want to in elude two More files that will make your system work for you and allow you to do a Little More taming of the system. A the first file is called  and will contain information the system needs to recognize a certain devices and set certain parameters it needs. The Basic  file will contain two entries file sex and Buffer sex. Of course thex a arc numbers that will vary from system to system and from program to program. Certain programs will instruct you to change the numbers or will automatically change the numbers when you install the programs. The files entry tells  How Many files can be opened by a program at a Given time. For instance a data base file will need More than the default of eight files and will require you to change this entry. The buffers entry is the number of disk read buffers areas where the system stores the data it reads from the disk while waiting to find out what to do with the information that a system will use. This is also different from program to program and will affect the Speed of your system. Do not specify too Many files or buffers because it will also slow your system Down to have to Wade through lots of areas which it does no to need. Start with 15 in both entries and change them As your programs or needs require. In versions of Dos prior to v4.0, Dos would Only support up to 33 megabytes of hard disk. Larger disks were driven by things called device Drivers. Disk manager was a program supplied with Many larger hard disks. Disk manager had a device Driver called  to take care of the larger drive. This device Driver is loaded into . Some mouse devices can use device Drivers. These Are Only examples. There arc Many More and you should be Able to follow instruct Lions provided with the devices in setting up your . We have run out of space again and will get into  and just How to create these files next  6 a sunday. May 19. 1991