European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - June 16, 1991, Darmstadt, Hesse Thanks for the memories or. A a a a a a a a. It 1a a a a How to store the by Jerry Kidder a amps computer technician. -. F the mysteries of my computer my a is How it keeps track of All the things b i i attach to it and How it keeps track of where i put things because quite often i done to know myself. Two responsible for putting a bit of order into my disorder. They Are Call . And , when the system is turned on the bios the input output system stored in read Only memory checks for a group of devices it knows about and allocates space and indicators in memory so that disk operating system will. Know about them. These devices Are Dos. Standards such As / lpt1-4 Printerscoml-4 serial port disk drives a a and a couple of others. There arc other devices that the bios cannot identify and they require special handling. These devices require special software device Driver programs and must be listed in a special program called configuration to identify them to Dos on Start the system to operate in a Way that i die Tate a second file is required for the Start up procedure. This file is called and tells the computer what to Load after the operating system remember the two hidden files and that make up this system has loaded and How certain things should look. Remember that if you make any changes in or , the changes will take place Only after you restart the system and that they must sit in the same directory As the file. I. Several things happen As the system starts. Blocks of memory Are set aside by Dos for storage system parameters. The location and name of the command processor is. Stored in a location called com spec. A list of directories where Dos will look for files when i ask for them and have probably forgotten where i put them is called the path. The Way the Dos command line looks is defined with prompt. This group of information along with other stuff is called the environment to vie a your environment Type Stit on the Dos command line after your system has started. The default size of your environment is 160 bytes. This May be hard to envision but get the strange message out of environment space you will have reached the limit. A the size of the environment can be changed and will have to be for Many programs arid application but that is a subject we will leave for now. When you Start playing with your path or prompt entries and get them too complicated you will run into this problem. Try to keep your entries Short you will understand More of this when you Pul every directory and subdirectory into your path command and Dos prompt say a Good morning How arc you this morning? up on these entries and play with them. Its fun and you can to really hurl anything. If you get the space message from your computer go Back and rewrite your entries in your . Again done to make the environment bigger than you need because you Are eating up command of Back biting personal screen. 1 a r. V a a a a r by Dave Barry Knight Ridder it a it 1 pc j t without question the most import / Tant invention in human history. Next to Frozen Yogurt is the com y y Puter. Without computers it. Would be virtually impossible Forus to now Gyc of amp ,. Hold it. There seems to be a keyboard problem Here. Let me just try plugging this Cable into error error error All files have been destroyed you stupid Yazoo Thead a considering what a wonderful invention computers Are they certainly have a Way of making. You sometimes feel like pouring Coffee into their. Private parts and listening to them scream. You should not do this. The first Rule of data procession is a never pour hot beverages in to a computer unless it belongs to somebody else such As.= your employer a. For Many of up the first a hands on Quot experience with computers occurs in the workplace. This was certainly True in fhe newspaper business. One Day we reporters came to work and discovered that our old Slowi horse drawn been replaced by sleek efficient / computers with keys that said mysterious scary. Things like Quot break Quot and a unum , we were trained by highly computer personnel who spoke to English a be fore you Macro your Asci you have to format your ram a they would advise us in a tone. A clearly suggesting that any member of the vegetable family should know this instinctively. So we reporters were wary at first. But after just 175 weeks of training we discovered that instead of writing on Clumsy old fashioned paper we could Creale lengthy stories entirely on the computer screen and then simply by pushing a Button Send them to the planet Zumbar or maybe even farther. We definitely find them anywhere in the building. A a where the hell is my Story Quot we. Would say shaking the computer personnel by their necks the lost stories always turned out to be our own fault. We had invariably committed some Basic Bonehead data procession error such As a you arc going to laugh when. I Tel you this failing to Modem our rom bios via Megahertz Cache. -. -.-. A a ,. A a a a a a gradually we got the hang of it and today we journalists routinely use highly sophisticated multimillion Dollar computer systems to perform a function vital to the survival of a free society. Namely sending personal messages to each other. Walk into a newspaper and you la Sec see rious looking journalists clattering away on their keyboards. It looks As though they re writing important stories about the plight of the kurd but in fact they re sending each other the joke about what the male Giraffe said to the female Giraffe in the bar. In the old Days journalists had to transmit jokes . A also computers have a a spell checkers Quot which enable us to catch and Correct misspellings such As a Quot. There Are problems. You have probably read about computer a viruses Quot which computers gel when they re left uncovered in draft rooms. This is bad because if you re working on an infected. Computer it will periodically Emit electronic. Sneezes which unfortunately Are not detectable by the naked Eye a the Yord a a a too appears on the screen for less Millionth of a second a and you la be showered with billions of tiny invisible pieces of electronic phlegm called. A bytes a which penetrate into your brain and gradually make you stupid v. This is definitely happening to me. Ill sit Down at my Home computer to write a thoughtful column about say foreign policy and ill Type a in View of the recent dramatic changes in the world 1 geopolitical situation its time to play some my computer has a solitaire playing program on it probably invented by tie japanese in an Effort to sabotage the american Economy. I a a -. A. Is amps Sharon Kilday used to think solitaire was Boring but now that my brain is clogged with computer boogers i find it More fascinating than say the sistine Chapel. I spend hours moving the Little blew ironic cards around staring at the screen with the same facial expression As a Mullet while the computer sneezes on me. None of this was possible 15 years ago. A. A a v. The computer is also a great teach King tool for Young people. For example my Home computer has an educational program that enables you to. Control an entire simulated planet its ecology its technology its. Weather Etc. My .10-Ycar-Oid-son and his friends use this program a lot. We Veall Learned important ecological lessons the main one being never Ever put l year old boys in charge of a planet. A a let a see what happens when you have volcanoes and nuclear War Quot so if you done to already have a Home computer i strongly recommend you get one. Before you buy you la want to know the answers to pertinent questions especially what did the male Giraffe say to the female Giraffe in the bar the answer a this la a the Higdow Oij. Of amp Kyj Fojo a mid error error error june. 16,-1991 sunday i Page 7
