NEED, AVOID AND SNIFF Last updated by Roedy Green on 2008-03-11 PURPOSE NEED.COM, AVOID.COM, and SNIFF.COM are a trio of utilities for ensuring the environment is friendly before continuing. They will test the waters for and report back on such things as: 1. Is DESQview running? 2. Is there sufficient conventional, extended and expanded RAM? 3. Is there sufficient free disk space? 4. Are the necessary DOS utilities loaded like QEMM, SHARE, and BTRIEVE? 5. Do you have a sufficiently powerful CPU? and NPX (numeric co-processor)? 6. In this the right day of the month, or day of the week, time of day to run this job? You tell NEED what you want, then it does all the tests then returns a simple GO/NO-GO ERRORLEVEL you can test. If it is 0 all is ok. If it is 1, one or more of the requirements failed. Since MASM source code is provided to registered owners, (see the end of this document for information on registering) and since it was written very modularly, it is very easy to cannibalize routines from it to include in your own code so long as the code is not used for military purposes. NEED, AVOID and SNIFF are copyrighted but may be copied freely and used for any purpose but military. See the end of this document on how to register if you want the latest version or the MASM source code. TYPICAL USE NEED and AVOID are a complementary pair of utilities. NEED is for telling what you WANT, and AVOID is for telling what you DON'T WANT. SNIFF is just for finding out what's out there, without any preconceived notion of how it should be. NEED DESQview DOS3.3- 80386! C:3MB If Errorlevel 1 GoTo Trouble DESQview means you must be running under DESQview. DOS3.3- means you need DOS 3.3 or lower. 80386! means you must have an 386 processor, no more no less. C:3MB means you must have at least 3 MB of free disk space on drive C:. AVOID DESQview DOS3.3- 80387! If Errorlevel 1 GoTo Trouble DESQview means you must be NOT running under DESQview. DOS3.3- means you cannot run on DOS 3.3 or lower. 80387! means you program will not work if there is an 80387 numeric co-processor present. SNIFF DESQview DOS CPU C: Rem Sniff does not use the errorlevel. DESQview means is DESQview is running? DOS means what version of DOS is running? CPU means what kind of CPU do you have? C: means how much space is left on drive C:? SUFFIXES Just skim this section on first reading. It will make a lot more sense later once you have seen some more examples. Some parameters may have a trailing + ! or -. + means "and up" as in "DOS3.3+" - means "and lower" as in "DOS3.3-" ! means "this and only this" as in "DOS3.3!" If you don't specify a suffix, both NEED and AVOID presume !. However, for capacity-type words such as EXP:400K, NEED presumes +. YEAR:1991, MONTH:12, DAY:31, HOUR:23 and MINUTE:59 have a default suffix of !. It never hurts to override the default. Using explicit suffixes will make your BAT files easier to understand. The default suffixes are shown with the documentation on each possible parameter. In other words: NEED DOS3.3 means the same as: NEED DOS3.3! means you want JUST DOS 3.3 and nothing else will do. where: NEED DOS3.3+ means you want DOS 3.3 or higher. NEED DOS3.3- means you want DOS 3.3 or earlier. Similarly: AVOID DOS4.01 means the same as: AVOID DOS4.01! means you want to avoid DOS 4.01, but all other versions are acceptable. AVOID DOS4.01+ means you want to avoid DOS 4.01 and all later versions. AVOID DOS4.01- means you want to avoid DOS 4.01 and all earlier versions. The three suffixes + - and ! make sense for version-type parameters. None of the suffixes make sense for a parameter like QEMM which is either present or not. However, suffixes do apply to CPU and NPX-type parameters like 80386DX and 80387 which can be ordered by power. e.g. NEED 80286+ means you want an 80286 or more powerful CPU. For capacity-type parameters like C:40MB, only + makes sense, which is the default anyway. However, in AVOID, only C:40MB-makes sense. This all sounds much more confusing than it really is. Just experiment, you will catch on pretty quickly. Is all that on suffixes just too confusing? Rejoice. SNIFF ignores all your suffixes. No matter what you do with them it will accept them. GENERAL SYNTAX RULES On first reading, just skim this section. K or KB means "measured in 1024 byte units". For example, to insist on having at least 400 kilobytes (40,960 bytes) of free RAM type: NEED RAM:400KB M or MB means "measured in megabyte (1024x1024) units". For example, to insist on 20 megabytes (20,971,520 bytes) of free space on drive C:, type: NEED C:20MB+ The use of FORWARD SLASH / to introduce a switch is optional. You can say: NEED /DESQview or NEED DESQview If there are no separating slashes, then parameters must be separated by blank space. No spaces are allowed within a single parameter however. The command line is CASE INSENSITIVE. You can put letters in any combination of upper and lower case you like. Numbers may contain optional commas. The commas are ignored. Numbers may also contain decimal points. In Norway, home of the world's most enthusiastic beta testers, the roles of comma and decimal point are reversed. In general the "thousands separator" and "decimal separator" are taken from the DOS Country.Sys information, so comma and decimal are different dependent on your country. Either the comma or point may be used in version type parameters such as /DOS4,01 or /DOS4.01. Parameters have a short form and sometimes various alias and long forms. Intermediate length names are not allowed. If I did allow intermediate forms, then later I might later implement a new parameter that could break existing BAT files by rendering existing use of a an intermediate length parameter ambiguous. You can put as many parameters as will fit on the command line. There is only one output_the ERRORLEVEL which is either 0 for GO, 1 for NO GO, or 4 for syntax error. The program will display messages for each test passed or failed. They can be suppressed with >NUL:. If you want to have individual control for recovery purposes, test only one parameter at a time. The utility is around 8K, so it will not take long to load it multiple times, especially if you have caching. Any syntax error beckons a help display with a brief summary of the syntax. There are three kinds of commands: 1. Plain words that test for the existence of something. e.g. 386MAX 8086 PCDOS EXP 2. Capacity words with a colon followed by a number: e.g. RAM:40K C:2MB EXP:400,000 3. Version words followed directly by a number without a colon: e.g. DOS4.01 PCDOS5.0 Note that some words come in more than one flavour. For example, /EXP tests for the existence of a expanded memory manager, but /EXP:400,000 checks that a certain amount for free expanded RAM is available. /PCDOS checks that any version of IBM PC DOS is running, but /PCDOS3.1 tests that version 3.1 is running. SNIFF is much more laid back than NEED or AVOID. You may optionally leave out the version or the capacity so: RAM RAM: RAM:4K C C: C:100K DOS DOS4.1+ are all equally acceptable to SNIFF. NOTE The suffix shown after each word following is the DEFAULT SUFFIX you will get if you don't specify a suffix. PARAMETERS 386! You require an 80386-DX CPU. 386MAX! You must be running with the 386MAX memory manager active. 486! You require an 80486-DX CPU. 4DOS! You must be running under 4DOS. If you are running under COMMAND.COM under 4DOS this will still be considered as running under 4DOS. 80186! You require an 80186 CPU. 80188! You require an 80188 CPU. 80286! You require an 80286 CPU. 80287! You need an 80287 numeric coprocessor. 80386! You require an 80386-DX CPU. 80386DX! You require an 80386-DX CPU. 80386SX! You require an 80386-SX CPU. 80387! You require an 80387 numeric coprocessor. 80486! You require an 80486-DX CPU. 80486DX! You require an 80486-DX CPU. 80586! You requere a Pentium CPU. 8086! You require an 8086 CPU. 8087! You require an 8087 numeric coprocessor. 8088! You require an 8088 CPU. A20 You require that A20 addressing line be active for high memory access. AND Since multiple conditions are combined with an implied AND, this word is never necessary. You just include it to make things clearer when you are using a mixture of ANDs and ORs. e.g. NEED C:10MB AND RAM:300K. see also OR. ANSI You require that ANSI.SYS be loaded in your CONFIG.SYS. Some other drivers may partially simulate ANSI.SYS, and will appear to NEED/AVOID as if they are ANSI.SYS. If you use redirection e.g. SNIFF ANSI > TEMP.TXT under DOS versions prior to 4.0, then the ANSI test will not work. Under old versions of DOS, Windows in real mode also interferes with the ANSI test. APPEND You require the DOS APPEND command to be active. ASSIGN You require the DOS ASSIGN command to be active. AT You require a AT style BIOS. See /BIOS. BIOS+ NEED BIOS is a synonym for NEED EXOTIC+. AVOID BIOS is a synonym for AVOID EXOTIC-. SNIFF BIOS means "What kind of BIOS do I have?" Exotic, XT, AT or PS2? The test depends on the machine id byte at location F000:FFFE in the ROM BIOS. If your machine is a non-standard "exotic" clone, SNIFF cannot tell which kind of BIOS you have. SNIFF will report the non-standard machine-id code. Please report it to me and details about your machine, so I can teach SNIFF to recognize it. BIOSes are ranked so that you can say: NEED XT+ meaning EXOTICs will not do, but XT, AT or PS2 is ok. When NEED says you have an AT, it simply means you have an AT BIOS. This has nothing whatsoever to do with your CPU. It might be a 286, SX, 386 or 486. When it says you have an XT BIOS, you might even have even have an Intel Inboard 386. If it says you have a PS2, there is a good chance you don't have a PS/2 microchannel machine. You simply have a BIOS of the style used by PS/2 computers. BTRIEVE You require the Novell BTRIEVE Btree indexed file manager to be loaded. BUS NEED BIOS is synonymous for NEED ISA+. It normally only makes sense with SNIFF to tell what kind of BUS you have, ISA, MCA, or EISA. C:3MB+ there must be at least 3 MB of FREE disk space on drive C:. You may use drives A: through Z:. Note SNIFF C: will tell you the amount of UNUSED, FREE, UNALLOCATED, AVAILABLE space on your drive. IT DOES NOT REPORT THE *TOTAL* AMOUNT OF SPACE ON YOUR DRIVE. Only unallocated disk space is of any interest or use to programs. CPU+ This does not make much sense in NEED or AVOID though you may use it. In SNIFF it means "What kind of CPU do I have?" Run these tests under DOS. OS/2 or Windows can interfere with the determination. D:1+ There must be at least one free byte of disk space on drive D:. This could be used to detect the presence of drive D: DAY:31! means you can only run this program on the 31st of the month. /DAY:28+ means you can only run it on the 28th, 29th, 30th or 31st of the month. Beware of using /DAY:31 since in many months it never happens. DESQ You must be running under DESQview. DESQ2.31! You must be running under DESQview version 2.31. DESQview ou must be running under DESQview. DESQview2.31! You must be running under DESQview version 2.31. DOS10.0! You must be running in the OS/2 compatibility box which is considered as DOS 10.0+ DOS2.1! You must be running under DOS 2.10. DOS3! You must be running under DOS 3.00. DOS3.00! You must be running under DOS 3.00. DOS3.31! You must be running under DOS 3.31 DOS5.0! You must be running under DOS5.0. NT simulates running under DOS 5.0. DOS7.0! You may specify any version number, not just those listed here. NEED/AVOID can tell DOS4.00 and DOS4.01 apart even though DOS4.01 lies about its true identity. In theory, this is impossible. How does NEED do it? Register and peek at the source code. DPMI You must be running with a DOS Protected Memory Interface manager (DPMI). There is NO matching DPMI:40K test for determining how much DPMI RAM is available since running such a test would require entering protected mode. The only time this test will ever come up true is if you are running under Windows 3.x in enhanced mode. DRDOS You must be running under Digital Research DRDOS, any version. Both DRDOS and DRMDOS are treated as equivalent. DRDOS5.0! You must be running under DRDOS 5.0. You can specify any version. Internally DRDOS pretends to be Compaq DOS 3.31. DV You must be running under DESQview. DV2.31 You must be running under DESQview version 2.31. DX! You require an 80386-DX CPU. EISA You must have an EISA bus. EMM You must have an expanded memory manager active. EMM is an alias for EXP. EMM:100,000+ You must have 100,000 free bytes of EMM RAM EMM is an alias for EXP. See /EXP for more details. EMS You must have an expanded memory manager active. EMS is an alias for EXP. EMS:1MB+ You must have 1 megabyte of free expanded RAM. EMS is an alias for EXP. ENV:300+ You must have 300 or more FREE bytes in the SET environment. ENV is an alias for ENVIRONMENT. ENVIRONMENT:1K+ You must have 1024 (1K) or more FREE bytes in the SET environment.D OS tacks the current program name onto the end of the SET environment. SET considers the area used by the program name as free. So you should ask for a little extra to give DOS room. Please note SNIFF /ENVIRONMENT will NOT report the total size of your environment just the REMAINING FREE SPACE. This is what is of interest to programs wanting to fill it up with SET commands. EXOTIC AVOID EXOTIC means stay away from non- standard BIOSes. See /BIOS. EXP You must have an expanded memory manager active. EXP is an alias for EXPANDED. EXP:400K+ You must have 400 or more free bytes of expanded RAM controlled by a LIM EMS EMM memory manager. EXP is an alias for EXPANDED. EXPANDED You must have an expanded memory manager active. EXPANDED:70K+ You must have 70 K of free expanded RAM. Note SNIFF /EXPANDED will tell you the amount of UNUSED, FREE, UNALLOCATED, AVAILABLE expanded RAM. IT DOES NOT REPORT THE *TOTAL* AMOUNT OF EXPANDED RAM. Only unallocated RAM is of any interest or use to programs. EXT:3MB+ You must have 3 or more megabytes of free extended RAM. EXT is an ALIAS for EXTENDED. EXTENDED:100K+ You must have 100K or more free extended RAM. The RAM can be any type_XMS, VDISK or INT 15. If you want to measure only the modern XMS RAM, use /XMS. Note SNIFF /EXTENDED will tell you the amount of UNUSED, FREE, UNALLOCATED, AVAILABLE extended RAM. IT DOES NOT REPORT THE *TOTAL* AMOUNT OF EXTENDED RAM. Only unallocated RAM is of any interest or use to programs. Often all your extended RAM has been converted to EXPANDED so that explains why there is none left. FRIDAY! It must be Friday. Sunday is considered the first day of the week if you use + and - suffixes. HANDLES:15 You must have at least 15 free file handles. File handles are needed to open more files. There are three limits, the global limit for all programs combined, which you set is the CONFIG.SYS HANDLES=30. There is also the per task limit (normally 20). However, HANDLES measures how many FREE handles are left in the current task_in other words, how many more files could you open safely. Some clever progams may be able to increase the per task limit, and thus go beyond what HANDLES considers the limit. Some other programs might close some files, which again could increase the limit beyond what HANDLES thinks is correct. The main way you chew up handles is by loading TSRs that fail to close the unused standard handles. ISA You must have an ISA bus. HELP Displays a short syntax summary. You need this manual though to get all the possible commands. PLEASE DO NOT PASS THIS PROGRAM ON WITHOUT THIS MANUAL. It is too complex for on-line help only. If you vandalize this package and pass it on without the manual, I might even be tempted to do something illegal and unpleasant to you. HIMEM You must be running under Microsoft's memory manager, HIMEM.SYS that comes bundled with DOS. HOUR:23! This means you may only run this program in the between 11PM and midnight. Uses 24 hour time. see also MINUTE and TIME. KEYB You must have KEYB installed. It may or may not be configured to a non-American layout. LAN You must be actively attached to a LAN. It works by testing to see if any of drives C: to Z: are remote. CD-ROM drives are detected and specially handled so they do not count as LAN drives. LIM You must have an expanded memory manager active. LIM is an alias for EXP. LIM:0.7MB+ You must have 0.7 MB of free expanded RAM. LIM is an alias for EXP. MCA You must have a MCA (PS/2-style) bus. MIN:59! This means you may only run this program in the last minute of the hour. see also MINUTE, HOUR and TIME. MINUTE:59! This means you may only run this program in the last minute of the hour. see also MIN, HOUR and TIME. MONDAY! It must be Monday. Sunday is considered the first day of the week if you use + and - suffixes. MONTH:12! This means you may only run this program in December. /MONTH:2- means you could only run it in January or February. /MONTH:10+ means you can only run it in October to December. MOUSE! You must have a mouse operational. MSDOS You must currently be running some version of Microsoft's MS DOS. See PCDOS for warnings on difficulty telling PC and MS DOS apart. When it does not matter, just use the /DOS4.01 command. MSDOS3.3! You must currently be running Microsoft's version of MS DOS version 3.3. NCACHE You require Norton NCACHE disk cacher to be loaded possibly as a device driver in config.sys or as a TSR in autoexec.bat. NETBIOS You must have a NETBIOS type LAN active. NPX You must have some sort of numeric processor installed. There are individual commands for the various types: /8087 /80287 /80386 and /80486. Note the /80486 CPU always has a built in processor. In SNIFF /NPX just displays your numeric coprocessor type. OR Allows you to do several groups of tests. Only one group needs to succeed to be considered as overall success: e.g. NEED 80387 80386 OR 80486 This means you must have BOTH and 80387 and an 80386, OR an 80486 which has a built in numeric co-processor. See further hints on logical combining later and also the AND command. PCCACHE You require Central Point's PCTools PCCACHE disk cacher to be loaded. Note there is no dash in the name. It has been tested with version 4.4 and 6.0. I do not yet know if it works with other versions, in particular 7.1. PCDOS You must currently be running some version of IBM PC DOS. NEED has a difficult time telling PC DOS apart from MS DOS, and in many cases will confuse them. NEED works by asking DOS which drive is the Boot drive. In versions prior to 4.00, DOS does not know, so NEED just guesses the same as the SET COMSPEC=C:\DOS\COMMAND.COM:. Then it looks for the hidden, system read-only file called IBMBIO.COM. If it finds it, it presumes PCDOS, otherwise it assumes MSDOS. You can see the many ways this test could fail to operate properly. 1. Olivetti MS DOS calls their file IBMBIO.COM instead of IO.SYS. 2. If you booted from A: with PCDOS 3.3, and set your COMSPEC to C:, NEED will not know to look on your floppy. 3. You have installed DRDOS on top of your PCDOS. It leaves the IBMBIO.COM file in place. Normally you should use plain /DOS5.0 when it does not matter if you have PC or MS DOS. I have discovered the following MSDOS versions masquerade as PCDOS: Compaq, Wyse, DRDOS, Corona, possibly Northgate. See /MSDOS. PCDOS4.00! You must currently be running version 4.00 of IBM's PC DOS. PCMOS You must be running the PCMOS multitasking operating system. PENTIUM You must have a Pentium (586) CPU. PERI You must be running under the Periscope debugger. PERI5.1 You must be running under Periscope 5.1. PERISCOPE You must be running under the Periscope debugger. PERISCOPE5.1 You must be running under Periscope 5.1. Works for any version. PS2 You must have a PS/2 style BIOS. Note there is NO slash! This test is NOT for detecting microchannel computers. See /BIOS. QEMM You must be running under the control of the QEMM memory manager from Quarterdeck. QRAM You must be running under the control of the QRAM memory manager from Quarterdeck. RAM:500K+ There must be at least 500K free conventional RAM. NEED automatically adjusts the figure to be what you would have if NEED were not running. NEED gives you the size of the largest free chunk into which you could load a program_not the aggregate size of all the little free RAM fragments. Note SNIFF /RAM will tell you the amount of UNUSED, FREE, UNALLOCATED, AVAILABLE conventional RAM. IT DOES NOT REPORT THE *TOTAL* AMOUNT OF conventional RAM. Only unallocated RAM is of any interest or use to programs. Often all your conventional RAM has been eaten up by TSRs, so that explains why there is so little left. REAL You must be running in REAL mode, i.e. not under a virtual memory manager or any DOS extender that runs in protected mode. If you were running under Windows in /r mode, but had QEMM working, you would be in virtual mode. If you were running under Windows standard or enhanced mode you would be in virtual mode. If your run in the OS/2 compatibility box, you will be in REAL mode, even if you have an 80386 or 80486. If your are running under QEMM, you will always be in virtual mode. SATURDAY! It must be Saturday. Sunday is considered the first day of the week if you use + and - suffixes. SHARE You must have DOS SHARE active. If you are running in Windows Enhanced mode, Windows acts like SHARE to help the various multi- processing tasks stay out of each other's hair, and so it will appear as if the SHARE utility itself is loaded. SLOW SLOW forces any sensitive subsequent tests to be done the slow duddy, inaccurate, mundane, Windows way. You would use this if, for example, you had an ancient version of QEMM that was interfering with the CPU type determination tests. NEED automatically uses the SLOW tests when it detects Windows in enhanced mode. If your virtual monitor is interfering with a test and exploding, try using SLOW. e.g. NEED SLOW SX SMARTDRIV! You require that the SMARTDRIV.SYS caching program be loaded. Other brands of cacher that mimic SMARTDRV may give false positives, however NCACHE and PCACHE will not since there are special checks for them. SUNDAY! It must be Sunday. Sunday is considered the first day of the week if you use + and - suffixes. SX! You require an 80386-SX CPU. THURSDAY! It must be Thursday. Sunday is considered the first day of the week if you use + and - suffixes. TIME:13:00! This means you may only run this program in the 60 seconds following 1 PM. Uses 24-hour time. To allow to run between 1PM and 1:30PM you would write: NEED TIME:13:00+ TIME:13:30- There is an implied AND between the two parts. To allow to run between 11:30 PM and 1:30 AM you would write: NEED TIME:23:30+ OR TIME:01:30- Alternatively you could write: AVOID TIME:01:31+ AND TIME:23:39- TUESDAY! It must be Tuesday. Sunday is considered the first day of the week if you use + and - suffixes. V20! You require a NEC V20 CPU. V30! You require a NEC V30 CPU. VCPI You must be running under the control of a Virtual Control Program Interface (VCPI). If you have QEMM or 386MAX you will see VCPI active. It will remain active under Windows real and standard versions but will disappear under Windows enhanced since Windows enhanced mode cannot tolerate programs that use protected mode, unless they are specially coded to run by Windows rules. VCPI:500K+ Your require at least 500K free RAM under the control of a Virtual Control Program Interface (VCPI). By now you get the idea. SNIFF /VCPI reports FREE VCPI RAM, not total VCPI RAM. A program like DESQView might take it all to parcel out to support its windows. WEDNESDAY! It must be Wednesday. Sunday is considered the first day of the week if you use + and - suffixes. WEEKDAY+ This does not make much sense in NEED or AVOID, but in SNIFF it can be used to display the day of the week e.g. Sunday. WIN2! You must me running under Windows 386 version 2.x WIN3E! You must be running under Windows 3.x in Enhanced mode. When you are in enhanced mode, you will find the DPMI manager becomes active, and Windows suddenly thinks it is impertinent to ask about VCPI. If you do, she will give you a protection violation. SNIFF just says VCPI is not there if WIN3E is present. WIN3R! You must be running under Windows 3.x in Real mode. If you have QEMM running the Microsoft Windows test reports Windows in real mode as if it were in standard mode. Since the machine is in REAL mode, you will never see any DPMI protected mode RAM. WIN3S! You must be running under Windows 3.x in Standard mode. Since the machine is in REAL mode, you won't see any DPMI protected mode RAM. WFWG! You must be running under Windows For WorkGroups. WIN95! You must be running under Windows 95 WINDOWS+ You must be running under control of some version of Windows (even version 2 is ok). In SNIFF it displays the version of Windows you are using if any. Versions order include: WIN2 WIN3R WIN3S WIN3E WFWG and WIN95. If you run under DOS under WinOS2 that will be considered as NOT running under Windows. Similarly if you run in a DOS box under Windows/NT emulation, it will not be considered running under Windows. XMS There must be an XMS extended memory manager active. XMS:400K+ There must be at least 400K of free extended RAM managed by an XMS memory manager. Sniff /XMS reports only FREE XMS RAM, not total XMS RAM. If you have less than you think you should, consider that with QEMM, XMS and EXP memory are drawn from the same pool. An EXPANDED memory user may have gobbled up your XMS RAM. Many programs quietly eat up EXP RAM -- 4DOS, BTRIEVE, . . . If you are running under DESQView, you control the amount of XMS RAM available to a window with the [Maximum Expanded Memory Size in K] option. QEMM treats XMS and EXP as if they were almost the same. XT You require an XT style BIOS. See /BIOS. YEAR:1992! This means you can only run the program in the year 1992. If you used /YEAR:1992+ you could only run it starting in 1992 and in subsequent years. Note you MUST specify /YEAR:1991. You cannot just say /1991. Z:10.0MB+ Drive Z must have 10 MB or more free space on it. TROUBLE SHOOTING Wrong Amount of RAM, Disk Space, etc Many users have reported a "bug" that NEED, AVOID and SNIFF are calculating the free memory or free disk space incorrectly. These programs are designed to calculate **FREE** space_NOT TOTAL SPACE! In other words they calculate how much room is LEFT. NEED and AVOID are the advance guard who go in to see if it safe for more delicate programs to follow. These application programs don't give two hoots how much RAM you have or how much disk space you have in total. What they care about is how much RAM or disk space is AVAILABLE that they can USE. In addition users are alarmed when SNIFF reports NO free XMS RAM or no free EXPANDED RAM. Often, the reason there is no FREE RAM, is because some program is USING all of it. This is good. Otherwise you would be WASTING it. Under DESQview no XMS, EXPANDED or EXTENDED memory is available unless you edited the PIF to tell DESQview to allot some. Also merely having Extended or Expanded RAM hardware is not enough for it to be usable by your programs. For expanded RAM you must have an expanded memory manager of some kind. For extended RAM you must have an INT 15 or XMS or VDISK style memory manager. Usually the expanded and XMS drivers are loaded as part of CONFIG.SYS. Int 15 should supported as part of your AT BIOS. If you don't have an appropriate memory manager, the memory is not usable and so SNIFF will report 0 bytes available. Canned Bat Files I have included a sample file called SNIFFTST.BAT that exercises SNIFF to tell you everything it knows about your machine. You can use that as a model to create your own works using SNIFF. Make sure SNIFF.Com is on the path or modify the file to use explicit directory names on SNIFF.COM. I have also included a sample file called NEEDTST.BAT that exercises NEED. You can use it to model your use of NEED.COM. There is also a file called AVOIDTST.BAT that exercises AVOID.COM. Tracking the Cause of errors NEED and AVOID are not very helpful in their error messages. If you are having trouble figuring out what NEED or AVOID are complaining about, try your tests separately rather than putting many on one line. However, by looking at which tests on the line it has completed, you can guess which command it is choking on. Perhaps you have inserted some invalid space. Particularly watch /DOS4.01, not /DOS_4.01. Perhaps you have applied a suffix +, ! or - that does not make sense in that context. Perhaps you are using one of the parameters that has not been implemented yet. You might be trying something like /QEMM:5.12. There IS no version support test for QEMM yet. Possibly you have found a bug in NEED/AVOID/SNIFF. This is most likely if you are using an older version of DOS. I personally have only tested with MS DOS 4.01 and DOS 5.0, though my beta testers have tried it on quite a variety of machines. You can try the SLOW parameter if your machine is hanging on the CPU type determination tests. e.g. try: NEED /SLOW 486 NEED /SLOW SX Care With Colons Be careful with colons. Sometimes they must be present. Sometimes they must be absent. Check the list of supported combinations. Note the following: NEED DOS4.01 *NOT* NEED DOS:4.01 NEED MSDOS *NOT* NEED MSDOS: NEED C:40K *NOT* NEED C40K NEED MOUSE *NOT* NEED MOUSE2.0 NEED EXT:1 *NOT* NEED EXT INVALID SUFFIXES You and I may have a disagreement about which suffixes make sense on which parameters. If NEED rejects your command line, try removing suffixes. Note the following is ILLEGAL. Even if it were legal, it would not mean what you think: NEED DESQview- Instead, to insist DESQview to be absent, say: AVOID DESQview Even though I don't show it in the manual, actually the ! suffix is always allowed, so the following is LEGAL. NEED DESQview! And Versus Or_Logical combining When you combine tests they are combined with an implied AND. You can override the usual meaning with OR. To make things clear you may also insert an explicit AND. The most likely error you will make is this: NEED 80286 80386DX This will always fail. What is says is your CPU must be simultaneously both an 80286 AND and 80386. It cannot, so the test always fails. All the tests on the line must pass. To get the effect of 80286 OR 80386 you could handle this in several ways: NEED 80286 OR 80386DX If you wanted to include the SX too, you would have to say: NEED 80286 OR 80386SX OR 80386-DX You could also handle it by testing one at a time: NEED 80286! >NUL: IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO OK NEED 80386! >NUL: IF NOT ERRORLEVEL 1 GOTO OK :TROUBLE ECHO Neither 80286 nor 80386 ... :OK ECHO Is an 80286 or an 80386 The >NUL: hides the error messages that NEED would generate. Note the spelling of >NUL: with one "L". If you said >NULL DOS would try to direct the output to a file called NULL. On a LAN this might not be legal. You could handle it another way_using AVOID. AVOID 8086- 80486+ This says avoid any CPU the equivalent of an 8086 or lower, and an 80486 or higher. Anything else should be an 80286, SX or 80386. You are likely to make a similar same error this way: NEED Monday Wednesday Friday That will not work because NEED is so pea-brained it thinks you mean it must be Monday AND Wednesday AND Friday all at the same time, today_which can never happen. You need to say: NEED Monday OR Wednesday OR Friday Note that ALL those ORs are needed. You CANNOT say: NEED Monday Wednesday OR Friday Dinosaur-brained NEED thinks you mean NEED (Monday AND Wednesday) OR Friday. Note that NEED does not understand parentheses or the word "AND"_just the word "OR". You can use NEEDs insistence on redundancy to your advantage. If you say: NEED C:4MB EXT:1MB OR C:5MB This means you need 4MB free on C: AND a megabyte free extended RAM, or failing that 5 MB free on C:, or both. It a good idea to leave a few extra spaces before and after the word OR to make the meaning clear to your readers. NEED does not need the extra space. TIME requests usually have a combined pair: To allow to run between 1PM and 1:30PM you would write: NEED TIME:13:00+ TIME:13:30- There is an implied AND between the two parts. You could put the AND in explicitly if you wanted like this: NEED TIME:13:00+ AND TIME:13:30- In the current version ther is no contraction to avoid typing the word TIME twice. To allow the program to run between 11:30 PM and 1:30 AM you would write: NEED TIME:23:30+ OR TIME:00:30- Alternatively you could write: AVOID TIME:00:31+ AND TIME:23:39- Watch out with AVOID. The wordings are not so intuitively obvious as with NEED. AVOID C:10MB- AND D:10MB- means don't run unless both C: and D: each have 10 MB free. The AND is implied and could be left out. AVOID C:10MB- OR D:10MB- means don't run unless one of C: or D: or both has 10 MB free. In other words, all is ok if even one of the expressions separated by ORs is ok. DESQview If you are using DESQview, run NEED, AVOID and SNIFF at protection level 0 (set on the second page of PIF options). NEED does some tricky instructions to find out what sort of CPU you have, and if you have the protection turned up DESQview/QEMM will freak. If you have a very old version of DESQview or QEMM you may have to use the SLOW parameter. DESQview will provide no extended, expanded or XMS RAM to a program running under it unless you set the Maximum Expanded Memory Size in K on the second page of the CP (change program) screen. That one number provides a pool of RAM from which expanded or extended RAM can be carved. Windows Windows is full of bugs and interferes in many ways with NEED, SNIFF and AVOID. I did the best I could to defend these programs against Window's meddling. I had to revert to some extremely SLOW, inaccurate tests in place of the normal ones to avoid invoking Window's wrath. In addition, Windows interferes with ANSI.SYS. Under older versions of DOS, in REAL mode ANSI.SYS hangs up unless you give it a prod by hitting a key when NEED asks for a cursor position report during the ANSI test. Windows and Himem.Sys If you use Windows with Himem.Sys, here is what to expect: Type of in Win in Win in Win Ram /r /s /3 expanded no no yes extended yes no yes XMS yes no yes VCPI no no no DPMI no no yes REAL mode yes yes no Please note: There is NO VCPI ever and NO DPMI except in /3 enhanced mode. This is NORMAL. About ten people have reported it as a bug. In WorkGroups For Windows and Windows- 95, there is an implied /3 option. There are no real or standard modes. Windows and QEMM If you use Windows with Quarterdeck's QEMM.Sys, here is what to expect: Type of in Win in Win in Win Ram /r /s /3 expanded yes no yes extended yes no yes XMS yes no yes VCPI yes yes no DPMI no no yes REAL mode no no no Please note: Windows gobbles up all the XMS RAM in /s mode. The XMS driver is there, but all the RAM is gone. Because QEMM provides both EMS and XMS from the same pool of RAM, effectively Windows in standard mode then gobbles up all the expanded RAM as well. QEMM does its memory mapping magic by using the PAGING (virtual memory) mapping registers. To do this it puts the machine into virtual 86 mode. That is why Windows /r (REAL mode) shows up as virtual. Crashes Sometimes NEED, SNIFF and AVOID will just hang up or make the machine go crazy. In those cases you can try the SLOW parameter to use the less accurate, slower tests. For example try: SNIFF SLOW CPU NEED SLOW SX+ Here are the tests that most likely might give you trouble if you run with a meddling virtual monitor (such as Windows, Compaq memory management, QEMM, 386MAX etc.). A VM is a sort of mother program that slaps your wrists any time you use "interesting" instructions. What follows is tech-talk. Don't worry if it makes no sense. REAL vs Virtual Sniff does an smsw instruction that mother might not like. Other tests may do a REAL test as a side effect. 286 vs 386 Sniff used to do an SGDT instruction, but windows meddled and made everything look like a 286. Sniff no longer ever uses this test. The code for it is available as part of the registered version, as commentary. SX vs 386 Sniff tries to toggle bit 4 (the ET bit) of register CR0. If you have an SX, 386 or 486, this test will be used. This bit tells which kind of NPX you have. 386 vs 486 Sniff tries to toggle bit 18 (the AC alignment check bit) in the extended flags register. Some virtual monitors will not let you. If you have an SX, 386 or 486, this test will be used. Reporting Bugs The following people helped test out about 15 versions of NEED/AVOID/SNIFF before we let it loose on the world at large. They go by the Bix handles (@bix.com) of: aGurski, aRog, Blaszczak, bQuerry, bStrauss, dSparks, Fred.Robinson, gChicares, hGessau, instantel, JeBarr, lFirrantello, Ligo, M.Love, macbeth, Mike123, mReay, pRoub, rbabcock, rlis, sSchneider, terjeM, tron and wlMoore. Even more, they helped write the code and research the code. After 3.0 went out, these people reported and helped track down more bugs: avi, making, rCharney, tfrost, tjeffries and yendor. Frank Pearsall of Indiana University suggested the LASTDRIVE and CURRENT checks. They found all kinds of problems, especially when testing on older or oddball machines. There is still a good chance you might get to have the joy of finding a bug for yourself. If you do, please report it. PLEASE LABEL FILES WITH YOUR NAME. When you send me code, messages or bug reports, please label everything with your name and a way to contact you (e.g. your BIXid) INSIDE THE FILE. I receive so many downloaded files, I have no way of remembering who sent me what. I WANT to give you credit. PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT YOUR MACHINE. There have not been any bugs in quite a while I could reproduce on my computer or any of the computers in my office. The bugs you find are most likely specific to your machine. I need to know as much as possible about your machine so I can code around whatever is making the code fail. Please tell me at least: Manufacturer and version of DOS, CPU chip Type, BIOS maker, anything unusual about your machine. If you have any assembler debugging experience, please let me know that too. I have tested all of this code many times. It works fine on MY machine and on about 25 other people's machines. If it does not work on yours, it is most likely because there is something different about your machine and mine. So if you baldly tell me the XXX test does not work, that gives me no clues to track it down. To avoid embarrassment, check the notes in this manual on the parameter you are reporting on and the TROUBLE SHOOTING section. It might be I deliberately designed the program to behave differently than you expected, or there is a bug I already know about that I cannot bypass. And finally TELL ME WHICH VERSION OF NEED you are using, every time you report a problem. I don't have records of which versions each of you are using. I have been putting out sometimes three versions a day, and you may be reporting a bug that was already fixed, or you may be reporting an old one that has resurfaced in a new form. To find out the version just type NEED, SNIFF or AVOID by itself on the command line. To make it very clear what the bug is, tell me exactly what you typed_preferably only ONE TEST ON A LINE, what result came back, and what result you were expecting. Sometimes people send me long lists of what look like perfectly valid test results. They forget I don't know anything about what the results SHOULD look like. Unfinished Business ANSI Windows in real mode has a bug that interferes with cursor position reporting. This interferes with the /ANSI test in old versions of DOS under Windows. If you use redirection, the fallback ANSI test (only used in old versions of DOS) will not work. SX vs DX Windows interferes with the normal test so I have to use a less accurate test that takes an obscenely long time to run. 386 vs 486 Windows interferes with the normal test so I have to use a less accurate test. PCDOS vs MSDOS I have not been able to find a completely reliable way to tell IBM PC DOS apart from Microsoft MS DOS. Part of the problem is vendors deliberately broke the rules to make their products look more like IBM PC DOS than they were supposed to. IDEAS FOR FUTURE VERSIONS 102KEY You have a PS/2 type keyboard 83KEY You have an XT type keyboard 84KEY You have an AT type keyboard CANARY A utility that runs the tests in order of difficulty. It would run the easy ones first, then the ones that require greater compatibility. It would die part way through. Your rank before death is your canary compatibility rating. You would use it to test a clone before you bought it. I would add tests not part of the current suite. CGA Original IBM CGA card or anything capable of emulating it, e.g. EGA, VGA CHIPSET Detect which motherboard chipset you have, e.g. Ares, Mercury, Neptune, Saturn, Triton, Opti-Viper CP:134 Ensures a given code page is loaded. CURRENT:C! Ensures current drive is C: EGA EGA card present FCBS How many free FCBs for opening DOS 1.1 style files. This might be impossible to code without interfering with your TSRs. GRAYSCALE Grayscale VGA HERC Hercules or Hercules-Plus card present HERCPLUS Hercules Plus card present INCOLOUR Hercules Incolour card present LASTDRIVE:G+ Ensures that LastDrive in Config.Sys is set to G or higher. MONO IBM Monochrome, Herc, Herc-Plus, EGA or VGA available_something capable of emulating mono text. PCKWIK Super PCKwik cache present. PCI Detect PCI bus. RZ-1000 Does your machine have this faulty EIDE controller chip? VGA VGA card present If you have ideas on how to code any of the above, or better tests for any of the existing NEED commands, please let me know. MODIFYING NEED AND AVOID NEED and AVOID are written in MASM. Registered users get the source code to use as they like. You may simply want to pick through it to cannibalize ideas or routines for your own programs. You may just want to satisfy your curiosity how I did some of the tests. The heavily commented code was written to make this as easy as possible. In addition, in each routine I give references to textbooks and essays where I figured out how to write the code, so this can be a starting point for your own more clever routines. If you want to add your own tests to NEED, all you need to do is write an assembler routine that does the test and returns the result in DX:AX. It may trash any registers. There are four basic kinds of test: 1. implied: e.g. /DESQview. Your test routines test returns 0 for not present and 1 for present in AX. The implied "level of presence" desired is 1. Just ahead of the routine you must fill in a table entry that tells the name of your new command, the name of your test, and set of flags on which Suffixes are permitted. You don't have to make any adjustments to the program, just add your routine. 2. Capacity: e.g. /RAM:604K. In this type your routine returns the amount of RAM or whatever in DX:AX. The user specifies the amount of it desired after the colon on the command line. 3. Version: e.g. /PCDOS4.01 The version number follows the command name without any separating punctuation. In this case your routine returns the version number multiplied by 100 in AX. e.g. DOS3.01 becomes 301. 4. Time: e.g. /TIME:23:59. In this case the result comes back in minutes since midnight in DX:AX. The best way to add a command is just to find a parameter you understand, similar to the one you want to add, and use that as a model. You don't have to understand any of the general purpose parser. Everything you have to do is localized in one place. You also have to write a display routine that display the result of your test. There are a number of subroutines you can use to make that easier. Your display routine expects the value in DX:AX and may trash any registers it pleases. e.g. it might display "DESQview detected" when passed 1 in DX:AX. NEED, AVOID and SNIFF are so similar, they use the same source code. You simply change one equate called GENERATING, then you can generate a copy of NEED, AVOID or SNIFF. Usually I do this automatically with the /D parameter on the OPTASM assembler. VERSION HISTORY 1. What's New In Version 6.4 2. detect Windows-95 WIN95. 3. convert documentation to Word For Windows 6.0 What's New In Version 6.3 1. detect new 486s than are retrofitted with the Pentium CPUID instruction. 2. yet another improvement to ANSI test. 3. HIMEM.SYS detect. What's New in Version 6.2 1. improvements to ANSI, SMARTDRV and PENTIUM tests. What's NEW in Version 6.1 1. - /TIME /HOUR /MINUTE. More docs on logical combinations. 2. AND operator. More docs on using AND and OR 3. improvements to ANSI and PENTIUM tests. What's New In Version 6.0 1. source is now included. 2. test for the Pentium processor. 3. tests for the ISA, MCA and EISA busses. What's New In Version 5.0 1. another attempt to fix the bug in the LAN detection logic when CD-ROMS are present. What's New In Version 4.9 1. detects PCMOS multitasking operating system. What's New In Version 4.8 1. detects non-standard Phoenix ATs that use FC:81 model id. 2. HANDLES now properly documented. WHat's New In Version 4.7 1. BIOS test now works even if the BIOS fails to support the INT 15 equipment determination interrupt properly. What's New in Version 4.6 1. LAN test had a problem with a DOS bug. DOS uses int 2f function 1500 for both detecting CD-ROMS and Graphics.Com. CD-ROM drives masquerade as LAN drives. I have tried a new method to get around the bug. Reginald Charney reported this bug. 2. Phoenix 486 computers were using a new machine id code, rather than duplicating one of IBM's. I added code FC 03 as an AT code. Reginald Charney reported this bug. What's New in Version 4.5 1. 4DOS presence test What's New in Version 4.4 1. NCACHE to detect presence of Norton Disk cacher. 2. PCCACHE to detect presence of PCTools cache. 3. SMARTDRIV no longer gives false positives for NCACHE and PCCACHE. What's New in Version 4.3 1. SMARTDRV test for caching program. 2. fancier QEMM test that would not be fooled by a file of the same name as the device driver. What's New in Version 4.2 1. bug in ASSIGN test fixed. What's New in Version 4.1 1. released to BIX 1991 June 25. 2. KEYB documented and fixed to work under DOS 5.0. 3. QEMM serious bug in test, just exits. Now fixed. What's New in Version 4.0 1. released to BIX 1991 June 14 2. mostly fixes in the documentation. References to DOS 5, Share, Windows problems. What's New in Version 3.9 1. released to the Vancouver PC User Society What's New in Version 3.8 1. code changed in the HANDLES test to make it DOS 2.1 compatible. What's New in Version 3.7 1. both fast and slow 386 vs 486 test. The fast test works fine under Windows but fails under some virtual memory managers such as Compaq's expanded memory manager. 2. the generic /DOS5.0 test now properly displays DR DOS when run under DR DOS. What's new in Version 3.6 1. detect more types of PS/2 BIOS and discriminate them from AT BIOSes with the same model type. 2. added parameters so you can request or avoid PS2 and EXOTIC. 3. added version checks on many interrupt calls to not even try the call unless the DOS version is high enough. This should make the code as a whole more robust on old DOS versions. 4. use of documented ASSIGN test rather than undocumented one. 5. This should make the test more robust on non-standard DOS versions. 6. consistent wording_NOT DETECTED used throughout rather than "NOT PRESENT" since many tests can give false negatives. 7. Fixed bug in the test for PCDOS Version. (I inadvertently deleted two lines of the routine.) 8. new test to discriminate WIN3R from WIN3S. What's new in Version 3.5 1. new HANDLES:15 parameter to ensure there are sufficient file handles. 2. ALL.BAT to compile the SNIFF, AVOID and NEED automatically. 3. divide overflow bug fixed. The Divide-by-10 routine failed to consider dividing 640K by 10 would trigger overflow. 4. command line of all blanks now treated identically to a null command line. 5. the CPU type determining tests that measure the instruction pre-fetch queue (PIQ) length are now done four times, hopefully to sidestep some of the random effects of DMA refresh. 6. even better code to detect a non-functioning BIO int 15 during the extended RAM test. What's new in Version 3.4 1. new DEBUG command to turn on debugging register dumps. 2. new PCDOS test that should not be confused by DRDOS. 3. better code to guard against non-functioning BIOS routines in the extended RAM determination. What's new in Version 3.3 1. this version has debugging code to dump registers at various points during the NEED C: and NEED EXP:40K commands. The intent is to track down the source of division overflow and freezing up in Compaq DOS and DR DOS. 2. new DOCs warning people of the difference between FREE RAM and total RAM. What's new in Version 3.2 1. credits added in the source code for all the methods used. 2. new cleaner Btrieve Test. 3. new MSDOS test that does not get confused by the presence of DRDOS. What's new in Version 3.1 1. fix problem with 486 appearing as an SX. Reported by Tfrost. 2. change word "prefix" to "suffix" in the docs. 3. fix bug in test for ASSIGN installed. Reported by MKropp. 4. new way of testing BIOS_using machine model bytes. Should fix problems with exotic clones with strange CMOS. Problems reported by aGurski and tFrost. 5. two new BIOS types: EXOTIC and PS2. What's new in Version 3.0 1. first version released to the public. 2. new QRAM test. 3. new parameter SLOW to force slow tests. 4. shorten the SX test under windows. What's new in Version 2.5 1. better PCDOS discrimination test. Now uses SET COMSPEC to guess the boot drive. What's new in Version 2.4 1. code to avoid crashing in BIOS-deficient machines. 2. commas and decimal points now work, even when your DOS has bugs and does not support the Country separators. 3. more sensitive BIOS type test to avoid false positives on XT. 4. It now checks that the month in CMOS is in the range 1..12 for Ats. 5. tweaked code so that NEC V30 and V20 detected even when DMA refresh interferes with the test. What's new in Version 2.3 1. yet another new improved DESQ test. We now detect DESQ version. What's New in Version 2.2 1. better test for DESQview. Some DOSes sneak around the old one. 2. new way of handling the default suffixes for AVOID so that things like AVOID WINDOWS gives the effect you intend. What's New in Version 2.1 1. detect DRMDOS as /DRDOS 2. new ANSI.SYS detector for Olivetti, fix Agurski's bug. 3. simpler /WINDOWS test 4. remove debug code 5. better /486 test. 6. SNIFF to display without having to specify what you want. 7. new tests BIOS, CPU, NPX, WINDOWS and WEEKDAY primarily for SNIFF. 8. more sensitive PC vs MS DOS test. What's New in Version 2.0 1. better /80286 test 2. better SX vs DX test, however, we still use the old test under Windows 3.x extended. 3. run the SX vs DX test longer under Windows trying to average out the time slicing effects. 4. Separate tests for Windows and non-Windows. 5. Faster /REAL test that does not do a full CPU determination. 6. add code for XT BIOSes that have no INT 15 support whatsoever so that EXT:1+ gives 0. Fixes M.Love's bug. 7. inadvertently cleared up Agurski's /DESQview bug. What's New In Version 1.9 1. - /WIN3E erroneously reported as version 4, now fixed. 2. VCPI test now returns 0 if running under WIN3E to avoid crashing. Windows does not like programs asking about VCPI. 3. new test to discriminate an 80286 from an 80386 that works even under Windows enhanced mode. Windows enhanced mode interfered with the old test. 4. NEED no longer turns off DMA refresh. It caused some machines to freeze. What's New In Version 1.8 1. XT vs AT test now works at all times of day. It used to think ATs were XTs after 6 PM at night. (It turns out the clock is coded in BCD and I thought it was coded in binary). What's New In Version 1.7 1. insert manual DMA refresh while automatic DMA turned off. 2. Correct a bug in QRAM that caused freezing on some machines. 3. Correct a bug in VCPI: test that caused freezing on some machines. 4. try CMOS test without High bit, to see if it works on Terje's machine. 5. Guess C: as boot drive when boot drive unknown, in attempt to tell MS DOS and PC DOS apart. What's New In Version 1.6 1. add begin/end critical section on CPU timing loop to stop DESQview from meddling during tests. Should more accurately discriminate SX DX 486 CPUs. 2. experimental code in Test for DESQview to it if it bypasses DOS bug giving false positive tests. 3. new ANSI.SYS test that should detect things like DVANSI.SYS and ANSI.SYS in pre-DOS 4.00 that eluded the earlier test. 4. safer VCPI test, tests for EMS driver first. 5. turn off DMA refresh during queue length and SX timing test for more accurate results. 6. DRDOS version number test added. 7. - /XT and /AT to test BIOS type. 8. LAN test no longer fooled by CD-ROM drives masquerading as remote LAN drives. What's New In Version 1.5 1. EXT:400K now includes two kinds of VDISK extended RAM, INT 15 RAM and XMS RAM in its calculations. 2. PERI or PERISCOPE now detects presence of PERISCOPE DEBUGGER 3. PERI5.1 or PERISCOPE5.0 now detects periscope version. 4. NEED now does reports on the success or failure of all the tests. You can get rid of this with output redirection. 5. OR allows you to continue if any one of a group of tests work. 6. 80386-DX and other parameters with dashes in them were changed since the parser got confused by the dash, thinking it was a suffix. 7. more relaxed rules on which suffixes are allowed. 8. deleted /P1 /P2 /P3 CPU classes. 9. Avoid has more complex defaults for suffixes. They are now specified on an individual basis for each command. What's New in Version 1.4 1. ANSI detects presence of ANSI.SYS. 2. MOUSE detects presence of a mouse. 3. SX 386 and 486 now should be properly discriminated. 4. Numeric co-processors should be correctly identified. What's New in Version 1.3 1. /VCPI:400K test to test amount of Virtual Control Program Interface RAM. 2. /QRAM to detect Quarterdeck's QRAM. 3. /MONTH:12 to check for December. 4. /YEAR:1991 to check for year. 5. /DAY:31 to check that running an a given day of the month. -30-