MiniSport Laptop Hacker (TM) - Vol #26.  December 1994 
To discourage pecuniary interests, Copyright (c) 1994 Brian Mork 
 
>>> ADMIN 
Index issue follows!  Compendiums of all issues are available from  
ftp.cs.buffalo.edu as \pub\ham-radio\mlhackXX.zip, or on SimTel archives  
(eg. oak.oakland.edu) as \SimTel\msdos\packet\mlhackXX.zip.  The XX in  
the filename indicates the last issue number, and replaces the previous  
convention of using mlhacker.zip for all compendiums. 
 
The 1995 astronaut class has been selected.  My previous aircraft  
commander made the cut.  Nineteen people out of thousands.  I'm  
extremely happy for him, but the announcement finalizes the fact that I  
wasn't selected this round.  The next round starts (for active duty  
military) in April '95, with potential final announcement November-ish.   
Wish me the best this time around. 
 
I have a Linux 1.0.9 kernel up and running on my main system's boot  
drive.  I used the Slackware 2.0.0 distribution from Internet.  Any  
other Linux users out there?  It's been a *long* time since I've messed  
around with Unix.  I kind of feel like I have the bases covered:   
486DX/66MHz Unix (better than the college computer I learned on), a 1MHz  
64K RAM, CP/M computer, and Minisports in between. 
 
>>> MORE DISK SPACE 
I've received confirmation from the field that Stacker works great on  
the Minisport.  Jim Harvey has done some extensive testing on a 2MB  
Minisport.  I managed to get the whole deal onto my 1MB Minisport.   
Results on the 2MB were two RAM drives: 150K and 2.5M.  On the 1MB,  
you'll get one 560K drive rather than one 349K drive.  Jim's notes  
follow. 
 
----- cut here ----- 
Adventures with Stacker. 
 
I bought a closeout copy of Stacker 1.12 for five bucks at a computer  
show this past weekend and thought I would share the results of my  
experiments on the Minisport ZL-2 ram disk. 
 
Stacker creates a big hidden file on your hard drive which contains the  
compressed data.  It loads a driver in the CONFIG.SYS file which  
intercepts disk I/O and routes it to the compressed pseudo drive. The  
conventional (under 640k) memory overhead for the driver is about 40k. 
 
I decided to swap the D: (uncompressed) and E: (compressed) drives as  
described in the Stacker documentation.  I backed up my ram disk and  
tried the standard Stacker install program.  It worked, but then had  
trouble booting because of a problem in a special AUTOEXEC file it  
created.  I had to delete most of the files on the ram disk anyway to  
make working room for Stacker.  The compression in place (Incremental  
method) worked but was less than satisfactory, as most of my data had to  
be saved and restored anyway, the Stacker files ate up most of the space  
gained, and the standard install program only takes space in whole  
megabyte increments which left a large part of the D: drive  
uncompressed.  On the Minisport, the choices are one meg or none.  
 
I decided to try installing the program manually to tweak the  
compression.  A couple of hours of experimentation later, I arrived at  
the following procedure for a minium Stacker installation (aren't all  
Minisport owners Minimalists?) 
 
1.   FWL the Stacker files to a Minisport floppy. 
2.   Back up everything on your ram disk to floppys or via FWL to a PC. 
3.   Format your D: ram drive.  Reboot to flush any TSRs out of memory 
     that could interfere with Stacker. 
4.   Insert the Stacker floppy into the Minisport drive.  Log on to the 
     A: drive. 
 
5.   Enter the command: 
          SCREATE D:STACVOL.000 /S=1.2 /M 
             
6.   When the compressed drive file has been created, copy the stacker 
     drivers to your D: drive with the following commands: 
          COPY A:STACKER.COM D: 
          COPY A:SSWAP.COM D: 
 
7.   Now you must create a CONFIG.SYS to install the Stacker drivers.  
     The following entries will do this... 
          COPY CON: D:\CONFIG.SYS 
          DEVICE=D:\STACKER.COM  D:\STACVOL.000 
          DEVICE=D:\SSWAP.COM D: E: 
          ^Z 
 
     That last line is a Control-Z character.  If you previouly had 
     other setup commands in a D:CONFIG.SYS file, you can add them now 
     or edit them in later.  These two device commands are the minimum 
     to get Stacker going with the compressed drive swapped to D: 
 
8.   Reboot.  You should see Stacker installing, then the E: and D: 
     drives swapping places.  You will be asked if you want to set time 
     and date, this is because there is no AUTOEXC.BAT file on the 
     compressed drive yet.  Just hit the return key for now. 
 
9.   CHKDSK will show you a D: drive with about 2.5 megs available, and 
     an E: with about 150k available.  Restore all your backed up files 
     including any AUTOEXEC.BAT.  Reboot and all should be normal. 
 
There are several Stacker utilities that you may want to keep on the D:  
drive besides the two drivers.  I'd recommend SCHECK at least, it gives  
compression statistics on the new pseudo drive.  If you put these or  
other utilities on the E: drive, you should add E:\ to the PATH  
statement in your AUTOEXEC.BAT on D:.  Remember that the E: drive is the  
uncompressed one after SSWAP.COM flops the letters. 
 
The above is based on Stacker 1.12, not exactly the latest version, it  
dates from early DOS 5.0 days.  But this should encourage other  
Minisport owners to try compression programs and report the results. My  
experiment yielded about a 1.1 meg increase in available ram disk with,  
to me at least, an acceptable overhead in loading time and low memory  
usage. 
 
I have obtained five copies of Stacker Version 1 as described in the  
article.  I will sell these for $8.00 including shipping.  Jim Harvey,  
18538 Inkster, Redford, Mich 48240 
----- cut here ----- 
 
Jim's steps worked great for me.  On the 1MB Minisport, I used /S=0.3 on  
the command line to SCREATE.  That leaves just enough room for the  
STACKER.COM file, AUTOEXEC.BAT, and a CONFIG.SYS.  There will be  
literally 0 bytes left, so there's no room for the SSWAP.COM.  My  
AUTOEXEC.BAT file moves over to E:, and makes the path search E: and C:. 
D: is left pretty much out of the picture, because there is simply no 
room for anything.  Even, for example, if you edit your AUTOEXEC.BAT  
file, you'll probably have trouble because with the old file left as  
a .BAK file, there will be no room to save the new file! 
 
Please provide feedback!      * Direct data 1-509-244-9260 
                              * ARO Net KA9SNF@ka7fvv.#ewa.wa.usa 
                              * Internet bmork@opus-ovh.spk.wa.us 
73, Brian                     * 6006-B Eaker, Fairchild, WA 99011 
