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Windows NT Super Tune-Up Kit
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PIE-WindowsNTSuperTuneUpKit-1997.iso
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DIAGNSTC
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BSCAT25E
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MANUAL.DOC
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1996-03-03
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└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
The program and all the documentation files are
Copyright (C) 1989,1996 Manuel González Martínez.
All Rights Reserved.
═──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────═
Copyright 1989,1996 by
╓─╖ ╖ ╖ ╓─╖ ╓─╖ ╖
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╙──╜ ╨ ╨ ╨ ╨ ╙─╜ ╙─╢ ╙─╜ ╙──╜ ╙─╜ ╙ ╙─╜ ╙─╨─╨ ╙─╨ ╨ ╙─╜
╙─╜ (TM)
═──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────═
WHAT IS BRiNDYS CAT─┐
└──────────────────┘
BRiNDYS CAT is a fully original application, easy to use, developed by
Manuel González Martínez between 1989 and 1996.
It is mainly designed to explain to the user some facts about the data,
such as commenting the format and contents of the files, revealing the
maker, serial number, etc. of your hard disks, the maker, application and
title of CDROM discs...
This application is a collection of many others, built into one file
that is intended to replace about twenty data inspecting utilities,
including the DIR command, compression companions, drive analyzers, file
finders, recovery information systems, directory describers, and others.
Also BRiNDYS CAT is the first utility program able to display the names
and information about long filenames created within the Windows 95
environment, but without Windows 95 needed to be running nor installed at
all in the system. It is now possible to see the long filenames of a
Windows 95 disk under even a MS-DOS 3.30 system, without more problems!
Designed not only to replace those utilities, but to enhance them,
CAT includes these general features:
° Shows a brief description of each file, identifying its internal file
format, giving if possible the name of the application that created it,
the title of the contents, dimensions and number of colours of images,
duration for multimedia, version and part numbers, and many more,
depending on the format of each file,
° Shows the long filenames of any file, but Windows 95 is not required
for that matter, as the drives are physically accessed,
° Technical information about the drives is given, including free space
on them, total size, the serial number, the real name, and if detected
the name and version of the formatter used to initialize them. This
may prevent some users to write on a disk that need a resident module
to be installed before writing on the disk (i.e., FDREAD, 2M, ...)
° Hard disks can be analyzed to know the name of the maker, IDE serial
number of the drive (the DOS Serial Number is not the same) the model
and any information that were stamped on the IDE record of the drive.
° For CD-ROMs, CAT shows the total used space on the disc. This is a
must-be-checked index for some magazine's CDs, that sometimes use to
store less than 500 Megabytes on each disc.
° For networked drives the real location of the drives is shown, and
also for local drives with network redirection or SUBSTed drives.
° Able to show deleted files information, including its long filenames,
and all the typical information shown by UNDELETE or UNERASE
° CAT has a set of command line parameters that allows the user to make
a flexible use of it. Some users don't want to see their hidden files
all the time, and others want the listings shown in two columns; there
is a place for all of them. Also, the command line options can be SET
predefined with the SET CAT=... DOS internal command.
LEGALITIES─┐
└─────────┘
The entire contents of this software package, including all files are
copyrighted 1995 by Manuel González Martínez.
All rights are reserved world wide. You may not disassemble or
otherwise reverse engineer or modify it in any way. You may freely copy
and distribute the package under the shareware concept as long as all
files are included in unmodified form and no fee is charged beyond a
reasonable ammount for the media and handling.
This copy is a shareware version of a commercial software package. You
may make personal, non-commercial use of it during 69 days free of
charge, but if you appreciate the program and wish to support further
developement of it and other fine software products from BRiNDYS
Software, you are encouraged to register it. Please see the "How to
Become a Registered User" chapter for more information.
In return for registration, you will receive a serialized copy of the
full commercial version of CAT for MS-DOS and Windows 95, which has all
the capabilities of the program.
In addition, you will be notified of all major updates to the program
and given the opportunity to recieve any update for a minimal amout, plus
the cost of the media, shipping and handling.
If you wish to make commercial use of BRiNDYS CAT, you must purchase a
commercial license from BRiNDYS Software.
Holders of commercial licenses can have their copies of CAT personalized
with the inclusion of thier own business advertisements and other special
features. Please contact BRiNDYS Software for further information.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. MANUEL GONZALEZ
MARTINEZ DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE SOFTWARE
WILL MEET LICENSEE'S REQUIREMENTS OR THAT THE OPERATION OF THE SOFTWARE
WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY
AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE IS WITH LICENSEE.
IN NO EVENT WILL MANUEL GONZALEZ MARTINEZ BE LIABLE TO LICENSEE OR ANY
THIRD PARTY FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST PROFITS, LOST SAVINGS OR
OTHER INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR SPECIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE
OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE EVEN IF MANUEL GONZALEZ MARTINEZ HAS
BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
By using or copying the Software, Licensee agrees to abide by the
copyright law and all other applicable laws of the U.S. including, but
not limited to, export control laws, and the terms of this license.
Manuel González Martínez shall have the right to terminate this license
immediatelyby written notice upon Licensee's breach of, or non-compliance
with, any of its terms. Licensee may be held legally responsible for any
copyright infringement that is caused or encouraged by Licensee's failure
to abide by the terms of this license.
SHAREWARE─┐
└────────┘ (This definition is copyright ASP)
"Shareware is an exciting marketing method which allows you to try
top-quality software before you pay the author. With Shareware, you
cannot be disappointed spending money for a program that's not right for
you. The small fee you pay to Shareware distributors covers only the
duplication and distribution costs and permits you to evaluate the
program.
If you continue to use the program, you must send the author an
additional payment which may entitle you to technical support, bonus
programs, and more. Your payment supports authors, allowing them to
continue writing newer and better Shareware software."
FILES INCLUDED IN THE PACKAGE─┐
└────────────────────────────┘
BSCAT25E.ZIP The whole package in Info-ZIP format, or with
║ the alternative name CAT_E.ZIP
║
╠═README Information for extracting the EXE file
╚═BSCAT25E.EXE Self-installing RAR volume, menu driven
║
╠═ CAT .EXE BRiNDYS CAT v2.50 executable file
╠═ CATSP .EXE Spanish version of BRiNDYS CAT
╠═ MANUAL .DOC Manual file, formatted for browsing or printing
╠═ FILE_ID .DIZ Description file, for identification purposes
╠═ ENGLISH .ANS BRiNDYS Software logo in ANSI text format
╠═ REGISTER.DOC Registering information
╚═ ORDERFRM.DOC Ordering form ready to be printed out
Once installed, you will only need to maintain the main ZIP file and the
files under your installation directory (C:\UTIL by default). Then you
can delete the following files, as you already have copies of them inside
the main ZIP):
README
BSCAT25E.EXE
CAT is fully operative as an independent file. You can use the CAT.EXE
file alone to access all the program capabilities.
USER MANUAL─┐
└──────────┘
CAT obtains listings of any directory on any drive (such as floppy
drives, hard disks, virtual disks, CD-ROM or anyone detected by the
Operating System).
It is a DIR compatible command, with special parameters, converting it
into a powerful tool to the day-by-day work.
The listings have complete information about the files present on the
directories, including hidden, system, volume labels, directory entries,
read-only and any possible combination of them; also reports about
special attributes (like Windows 95, bit 6 and bit 7 combinations).
For every file processed, the following information is shown:
* Name and extension (identifying names created with the 437 and 850
code pages transforming any accent and special symbol to be readable with
the active code page in your system).
* Size (in bytes). Also measured in Kilobytes when the file is too big,
to simplify the reading (the number of bytes is always visible).
* Used space on disk by the file, in Kilobytes. Also, if the file is any
kind of directory entry, the size is refered to the whole branch,
including the size of all files inside the directory and all its
sub-directories. It is possible for a file to waste 2Kb in a drive, but
8Kb in another one, depending on the minimal allocation space defined for
that drive. With this information you know the real space used by a file.
* Date and time of file creation. Shows the day of the week, and allows
dates of the next century (year<=2099). The seconds are shown in the time
field. All those fields aren't supported by DIR. Detects invalid dates
and partially ones, displaying with a different color the files created
in the last hour and those created today, for a fast identification on
long listings.
* File attributes. Shown next to the file date. Files can be filtered
for any combination of attributes.
* File comments. Internal file contents analysis!, extension analysis
4DOS' descriptions and Windows 95 long filenames are displayed in this
field.
In the header and footer of the listings you get:
* Volume label (with date and time of creation).
* Serial number, operating system information, disk maker.
* Disk name. For MS-DOS 4.00 or greater. It's not the same as volume
label. Disks have name, stamped on the boot sector, and volume label,
stored in the root directory.
* Shows listing creation date and time, and the filters under which the
listing is being done. Useful when the listing is being redirected to a
file if you plan to read it in the future. For example:
CAT C:\ /e:g /t >graph.lst
would create a file with a description header.
* Reports the total sum of bytes of the shown files, the total used
space by them (in Kb). When the file allocation unit is 512 bytes, the
sizes are shown as rational numbers, never truncated (4 ½ Kilobytes).
* Displays the file allocation unit in bytes. This field reflects the
way the operating system clusterize files.
* Displays the disk total capacity, its kind (if virtual, hard, network,
network redirected, CD-ROM, tape, high density floppy, et-cetera) and the
total free space on drive (also in CD-ROM!).
Files can be filtered by attributes, using - to exclude and + to include
attribute groups, as in: CAT +r-s (shows read-only, but not system)
Below you have the filter code names allowed by CAT:
A: Archive (file) this attribute is suppresed by backup programs
R: Read Only means that the file cannot be erased nor modifyed
H: Hidden not to be shown (CAT do shows them by default)
S: System integrating part of the operating system
D: Directory a disk directory or an improper directory (. and ..)
V: Volume disk volume label, the disk identification string
6,7 this attributes are reserved by MS-DOS and are not used
E: Erased files that were deleted from the drive (but CAT doesn't
assure that they could be recovered: use a recovery tool)
The environment string CAT can hold predefined attributes by default. It
is possible to predefine that, for example, we want the listings not to
pause on each screenful, brief descriptions (just one line per file),
executing:
SET CAT=/PR or also SET CAT=/R/P
For 4DOS users, it is recommended to define with the ALIAS command a new
value for DIR, so when typing: DIR (or D alone) CAT is executed, and
*DIR will execute the usual DIR command. For so, type:
ALIAS D*IR=C:\Util\Cat.EXE (replace your path value)
Also the following options can be used to modify the behaviour of CAT,
both as command line parameters and predefined with the environment
variable CAT:
/T Shows technical information. Shows IDE characteristics, directory
branch size, ... Without this option, the listings are shorter and
faster.
/E Filters by kind of files, showing only executable files (with
extension BAT, COM, EXE or BTM). BTM is a kind of batch files used
by the 4DOS' command shell. Useful in long directories, to find the
files you can execute easily.
By default, the filter used is the one for Executable files, but can
be changed to another filter, such as Compressed files, Temporals,
Graphics, Source files...
The parameter should be written like this:
/E:P or /E P for Programs (default) (EXE, COM, BTM, CMD...)
/E:U or /EU U for companion files (OVL, DAT, BIN...)
/E:C or /EC C for Compressed (ZIP, RAR, ARJ, CAB...)
/E:G or /eg G for Graphics (PNG, GIF, JPG, TGA...)
/E:D or /eD D for Documents (TXT, DOC, DIZ...)
/E:T or /Et T for Temporal files (BAK, $$$, OLD...)
/E:B or /eb B for DataBase-Worksheets... (DBF, WK1, WKS...)
/E:M or /e:m M for Musical files (WAV, MID, SND, MOD...)
/E:S or /es S for Source files (ASM, PAS, C, H,...)
/F Supresses headers and footers.
/X Shows the set of file extensions present in a directory (or branch
with the /XS combination). Useful to discover unwanted files, like
obsolete files, forgotten compressed volumes, files that were thought
to be erased, et-cetera. For example, type:
CAT \ /SX
to show information about all extensions on the drive.
/P This option avoids the pause on each screenful of text. With
SET CAT=/P
you can force CAT to never do the pause; in that case, if you type:
CAT /P
the pause will be performed (one /P deactivates a previous /P).
For example, if you type CAT /P/P it will be equivalent to just
typing CAT without parameters.
/K When in a directory there is a compressed volume file created with
ZIP, RAR, ARJ..., this option treats the compressed volume as if it
was a subdirectory, showing the contents of the volume as a
subdirectory branch. It will not be necessary to be used if you are
displaying just one volume file, like in this example:
CAT foo.rar
because CAT will show the contents of FOO as if you had the volume
expanded in a directory automatically. This process will not work if
you use wilcards in the name ( CAT bar*.zip ), to be DIR-compatible.
In that case you should type: CAT bar*.zip /K
/S Subdirectory inclusion. Similar to the DIR equivalent parameter,
shows the contents of all subdirectories. See also /K for volumes.
/H Avoids internal file analysis. By default, CAT shows information
about the internal structure of the files (its file format), but as
this detection needs to access the file data, CAT may work slow on
older computers.
With this option the speed is increased, but you will not have
commented the files.
The following are all valid modifiers, in order of descending speed:
/H:N tries never to check internal file format (the fastest, similar
in speed to the DIR command)
/H:R checks internal file format only in fast drives (hard drives,
virtual disks, etc) avoiding the analysis in CD-ROM and floppy
drives. This is the default option.
/H:E analysis of all files, without file extension checking, for
identification in ambiguous formats; the information shown is
more accurate than without /H
Really this option only has meaning with a couple of ambiguous
file formats, not more than 10, where CAT will not look at the
file extension to assume the format.
The analysis is always done having in mind that the extension of
the files may have been lost or renamed into a false one, even
without /H:E You may discover that many commercial program files
with unknown extensions like .SDX are in reality, for example,
just FLIC (.FLI) animations, for example; or that a .ZAK file
is really a Windows True Type font, free just by renaming it!
/M Multiple colour configuration. Use this option to redefine the
colour scheme used to show the different kinds of files. There is
only one valid modifier:
/M:N stops using colours on listings. Use it if you have problems
reading the listings with colours in your monitor
To define the colours to use in the new scheme, you have to put
hexadecimal values in a string like this: /M:9361BA Each cypher
defines the colour for a particular kind of files. To know the kind
for each cipher, use this table:
Cipher # 1 Directories 2 Green
Cipher # 2 4DOS descriptions 6 Brown
Cipher # 3 Reserved, leave it as 7 Light gray
Cipher # 4 Executable files F White
Cypher # 5 Companion files C Light red
Cypher # 6 Images and Pictures D Light magenta
Cypher # 7 Temporal and Backups 4 Red
Cypher # 8 Compressed & Self-Extractors A Light green
Cypher # 9 Document files B Light cyan
Cypher # 10 Work sheets, DataBases 9 Light blue
Cypher # 11 Musical, Sounds 5 Magenta
Cypher # 12 Source Files, Code B Cyan
Cypher # 13 Long filenames 8 Light gray
Cypher # 14 Erased, Deleted files 1 Blue
This list shows all the valid colours and their cypher values:
Black.........0 Light Gray.......8
Blue 1 Light Blue 9
Green.........2 Light Green......A
Cyan 3 Light Cyan B
Red...........4 Light Red........C
Magenta 5 Light Magenta D
Brown.........6 Yellow...........E
Light Gray 7 White F
/J Avoid showing 4DOS file descriptions. With this option you can get
internal file format information about files that have been commented
by JP Software's 4DOS command line interpreter (or many more programs
like QPEG/QPV image file viewer, and CAT) that use DESCRIPT.ION files
to store its comments. Without /J the comments take precedence over
the file analysis, so you will get the comments without analysis.
/R Show long descriptions, allowing them to use up to two lines; without
this option, descriptions will be truncated to fit into one line,
making listings to be smaller. Its meaning can be reversed by
repeating the parameter two times; this is useful for predefined
values in the environment string CAT. You can set this variable with
SET CAT=/R and when you use CAT all the descriptions will have two
lines, and when you want to truncate the description you can invoke
CAT with the parameter /R and the truncation will be performed (the
description will use only one line). Another parameter with effect
inversion is /P explained before.
/G Updates the DESCRIPT.ION file (or files with /S), storing in it the
comments about all the files present in the directory. This option is
recommended to be used on all your hard and network drives, because
after its use the speed of CAT will be notoriously improved, being
as fast as the DIR command. Once the comments are stored on disk,
CAT doesn't need to analyze the files any more, it will only analyze
newer files created after using /G
Anyway, the /G option is activated by default. There is a set of
options that can be used to fine-tune the description generation:
( please read the manual for this particular, or type CAT /? )
Use:
CAT C:\ /GS
to comment the whole drive C: or
CAT C:\ /GSJ
to full recreation, destroying all previous descriptions (use with
caution !).
/INFO
Shows important information about the author of the program, and the
different posibilities to register CAT.
/Z Uses the MS-DOS funtions to access drives. As the program will not
read the drive physically, long filenames will not be available. This
option is for compatibility with non-standard drives.
When CAT shows a file, it will represent its attributes with a set of
letters meaning:
A - Archive R - Read only, protected against deletion
H - Hidden S - System file
6 - Reserved, bit 6 active 7 - Reserved, bit 7 active
E - Erased (deleted)
When the file is a volume label or a subdirectory, this text will be
shown as 'Volume' or '<Direc>' next to the name.
On return CAT gives an ERRORLEVEL code, to be controlled by batch files:
0 No Error. Code returned on satisfactory execution.
1 Syntax error. When invalid parameters or options are detected.
2 Execution Error. If an execution error occurs.
3 Invalid Format. Damaged volumes, disks that require special drivers.
10 Internal Error. It will never happen :)
The program controls all possible execution errors, at the BIOS level,
at the Operating System level and at user level. If a low level disk
error happens (for example, if the disk is not correctly formatted or a
sector is not found) the program will retry, and if CAT cannot avoid it,
will show the corresponding error message, aborting execution, but
without asking with the annoying message:
"Retry, Ignore, Cancel, Abort"
Execution can be broken with the <Esc> key at any moment. Thanks to an
internal control, the user is allowed to type in before command
completion ( for example to start typing the next command ), and this
doesn't mess with the possibility of pressing <Esc> in first place to
abort.
The listing can be stopped pressing the <Pause> key, but it is better to
use the /P parameter.
COMMAND LINE SYNTAX─┐
└──────────────────┘
To execute CAT use the following syntax rules:
CAT [filters/options] [drive:][path][wildcard] [filters/options]
SET CAT=[filters/options]
The fields inside brackets are all optional.
Some valid combination of filters and options are:
/T Shows technical information
/F Supresses headers and footers
+D Shows only directory entries
/TE Shows technical information and executable files ( or /E/T )
-V Doesn't list the volume label as an archive
-RHS Doesn't list read-only, hidden nor system files
+A-D Only Archived files, but not directories
Common uses:
CAT Shows the current directory listing
CAT /T Shows also complete information about the disk
CAT /? Shows the program brief help
CAT /?? Shows the program online manual
CAT .txt Shows all files with .TXT extension (as *.TXT)
CAT *nam* Lists the files that have NAM in their names
CAT *.sys +s Shows all system files with .SYS extension
CAT \ /E Lists executable files in the root directory
CAT GRAPH\ /E:G Lists graphic files in the GRAPH directory
CAT JPEG\*.JPG /C Compares a list of images to detect duplicates
CAT B: -f >listing Creates the file LISTING with the files in B:*.*
CAT C:\ +r /S Shows all read-only files present in drive C:
Set CAT=-s Sets that CAT don't have to show system files.
Set CAT=/HN/PR CAT will not comment files internally; it will
pause on each screenful and will not truncate
long descriptions.
Set CAT= Restores default configuration of CAT
An execution example can be:
CAT D:\TEXTS
that will produce the following listing:
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│Volume in D: is BRiNDYS (Windows '95) created Monday 12 March 1995 13:42:56│
│Disk serial number is 6996-6996 and its name is Hello │
│Directory or D:\TEXTS\*.* Real: //NET1:\TEXTS\ │
│ │
│. <Current Dir> Mo 12Sep94 19:57:38 D:\TEXTOS │
│.. <Parent Dir> Mo 12Sep94 19:57:38 D:\ │
│Dontknow.Zip 90210 Mo 20Sep93 11:23:42 ar ARJ Volume Important_Data_Here│
│Descript.Ion 30 Tu 13Sep94 12:17:20 a h 4DOS Description File │
│Info .Doc 1023467 Sa 24Sep94 21:08:44 ar Text: "Technical Information" │
│Irene .Jpg 12394 Th 19Mar95 10:10:22 a JPEG image 640x480 Color "The │
│ girl of my life" │
│Cocomasy.Dll 9810 Fr 14Oct94 18:11:54 a Win: Colour code mapping syste│
│Archiv~1.Doc 490 Sa 24Sep94 21:18:24 a Archive from Windows 95.doc │
│ │
│There are 5 files with 1.071½ Kb. │
│Hard disk with 542 Mb. Total 165.452 Kb. There are 2.768 Kb free. │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
This listing means that the directory D:\TEXTS of the BRiNDYS disk has a
file called INFO.DOC that lengths 1.023.467 bytes created the Saturday 24
of September 1994, has active the Archive and Read-Only attributes, with
technical information about some particular, Dontknow.ZIP is not really
compressed by PKZIP, it is really an ARJ volume with a long name called
IMPORTANT_DATA_HERE.ARJ, IRENE.JPG is a VALID image called "The girl of
my life". The last file, ARCHIV~1.DOC has a long file name under Windows
95, and is shown correctly capitalized.
FIGHTING AGAINST VIRUSES─┐
└───────────────────────┘
I suggest you to use CAT /i to test whether the executable has been
tampered or not. If you get "Check .... <OK>", the executable is valid,
and if you get "Check .... <>" then (you guessed it!) the executable has
been modified (due to a virus infection, data errors, ...)
REVISION HISTORY─┐
└───────────────┘
v0.01ß 1-Oct-1989 ∙ First release of CAT under MS-DOS 3.30.
v0.04ß 15-Dec-1989 ∙ Better control of seconds and rare timestamps.
v0.10ß 8-Jan-1990 ∙ Support for wide display and multiple columns.
∙ Support for GIF graphic file formats.
v0.20ß 20-Aug-1991 ∙ Support for internal file analysis.
v0.50ß 10-Feb-1992 ∙ Support for EXEcutable files.
v0.70ß 16-May-1993 ∙ Added support for 4DOS' descriptions,
∙ Syntax compatibilized to be similar to 4DOS' DIR,
∙ Support for describing many temporal, secondary
and companion files.
v1.00a 1-Apr-1994 ∙ Initial shareware release,
∙ Support for PCX, TIFF and other graphic formats,
∙ Added error support (including invalid drives)
with precise text descriptions.
v1.20a 1-Sep-1994 ∙ First public distribution, for beta testers only.
v1.50a 1-Jan-1995 ∙ Floppy analysis added to recognize the formatter
program used to initialize the disk,
∙ Networked drives support.
∙ New parameter /T to show technical information
v1.70a 1-May-1995 ∙ Sort options, including - + and combined sorts,
∙ Support for ARJ and HD-COPY's IMG volume files,
∙ Support for Windows files description.
v2.00a 9-Oct-1995 ∙ First release translated into English,
∙ CD-ROM support including total used space,
∙ First Internet WWW distribution version at:
(in English)
http://www.fiv.upv.es/alumnos/a2917347/cat_e.html
(in Spanish)
http://www.fiv.upv.es/alumnos/a2917347/cat_s.html
∙ Added support for RAR, JPEG, 2M, HD-COPY formats,
∙ First release of the documentation (a bit late!),
∙ IDE drives internal data description.
v2.10a 20-Dec-1995 ∙ Direct access to drives added when possible to
enhance drive recognition,
∙ Added Long Filenames support for Windows 95 drives
on any DOS version: doesn't need to have Win 95
installed to show the long filenames!
∙ First Internet FTP distribution at:
maduixa.finf.upv.es (Valencia, Spain)
garbo.uwasa.fi (Vaasa, Finland)
∙ Internet WWW distribution in Valencian language:
http://www.fiv.upv.es/alumnos/a2917347/cat_v.html
∙ Enhanced detection of 2M/UF disks, HD-COPY disks,
∙ Documentation translated into English, Spanish and
Valencian language.
v2.50a 27-Feb-1996
∙ CD-ROM now is low-level read, showing formatting
data (date, title, name... when available) with /T
∙ Automated description generation, updated /P /G
and /H parameters
∙ Corrected support for Sun/NeXT AU and Mac/SGI AIFF
sound files. (AU were confused with NeXT .SND),
WAV shows correct frecuence and time (had errors
with 8kHz, 44kHz, stereo.
∙ Supports PK-Zip backups
∙ File reading speed DOUBLED with an internal
memory cache
∙ Shows .MPG MPEG dimensions height x width
∙ Windows help are now taken as Document files
∙ TTF TrueType reduced to only show format
∙ Corrected confussion about "IMG Gem VDI" and
"TTF TrueType" file formats
∙ Corrected problem under SUBSTed A: B:\ drives,
saying "Non standard format [F9-1]"
∙ Windows GRP files are now described with titles
∙ LZW compressed GZIP files (.Z) now detected some
files created under Unix not recognized before
∙ Detects Borland Pascal EXE files, NE, LE and PE
executables. DLL libraries are now identified as
libraries, not as executables.
∙ Added support for 2M GUINNESS disks, both under
logical drives as under physical drives, telling
the user if the 2MGUI.SYS driver is required
∙ Enhanced access to 2M disks (faster detection of
2M.COM driver requirement). When the 2M disk has
no label, the formatting date/time is shown.
∙ Detects FDFORMAT v1.8 disks (CAT 2.10 only
detected FDFORMAT v1.6)
∙ Now, after the internal file format description,
it is shown the long filename, for the files
that do not have 4DOS' description. With /J the
long filename is always shown, and with /Z there
is never long filename.
∙ Shows descriptions under FILES.BBS files, present
under many CD-ROM discs.
∙ Description file generation is now done at the
end of the listing, avoiding the possibility of
breaking the file with Esc.
∙ New graphic formats supported: .SUN-.RAS-Sun
Raster, .PIC Pictor, .THN Thumbnail from Graphic
Workshop, .BGA from OS/2 Warp, .FIT FITS Flexible
Image Transport, .TGA Targa, Corel Paint!, Corel
Draw! preview, SouND eXchange SOX .SNDX..., TIFF
∙ Enhanced image files detection: GIF, ICB, JPEG.
Also PCX (True Color showed as 256)
∙ New compressed file formats: Symantec compressed
volume self-extractor, Macintosh compressed
volumes BinHex and Compact Pro.
∙ Detects music compact discs, avoiding to stop
them if playing when possible.
∙ CD tray is auto-closed. If empty, it is opened,
and if it is blocked a warning appears (if so the
tray will not be opened nor closed). Detects
CD-ROM drives able to write.
∙ Detects mixed PC and Mac CD disks.
∙ Detects Apple Macintosh disks and shows its label.
∙ First Internet FTP distribution at:
- WinSite (EE.UU.) http://www.winsite.com/pc/win95/sysutil/
- The Shareware Shop http://www.biondo.com
- Universidad de Lleida ftp.udl.es
- Universidad Politécnica Valencia maduixa.finf.upv.es
∙ Catalog and Web Browsers:
- The Shareware Shop http://www.biondo.com
- Yahoo http://www.yahoo.com
- Excite http://www.excite.com
- Lycos http://www.lycos.com
THE AUTHOR─┐
└─────────┘
You can get in touch with the author of CAT at the following address:
Manuel González Martínez
Avenida de Peris y Valero, 122 - 7
46006 Valencia
Spain, Europe
Phone number: ++ 34 - 6 - 374 25 96
Internet e-mail: a2917347@maduixa.finf.upv.es
World Wide Web: http://www.fiv.upv.es/alumnos/a2917347/english.html
HOW TO BECOME A REGISTERED USER VIA THE INTERNET─┐
└───────────────────────────────────────────────┘
You are using the shareware version of CAT. Due to the shareware
concept, I encourage you to give copies of CAT to all of your friends.
To register CAT, simply get in contact with BRiNDYS Software by mail or
Internet, as shown:
- If you have access to the World Wide Web (with a client like Netscape
Mosaic, Lynx, DOSLynx...), contact to:
The following is the address of the BRiNDYS Software Home Page:
http://www.fiv.upv.es/alumnos/a2917347/english.html
and also in Spanish:
http://www.fiv.upv.es/alumnos/a2917347
and in Valencian:
http://www.fiv.upv.es/alumnos/a2917347/valencia.html
The following is the address of the BRiNDYS CAT Home Page:
http://www.fiv.upv.es/alumnos/a2917347/cat_e.html
If the previous addresses were invalid, you can try the following to
find my Home Page. Connect with the "Universidad Politécnica de
Valencia" server, site at: http://www.upv.es and look for "Recursos
Internet Ofertados desde la UPV", then "Webs", then "Facultad de
Informática" (you should be at the URL http://www.fiv.upv.es and look
for "Páginas de los Alumnos", there you will find my name: "Manuel
González Martínez".
- If you have an Internet electronic address, then send me an e-mail,
asking for information about my programs and how to register them.
My e-mail adress is: a2917347@maduixa.finf.upv.es
HOW TO BECOME A REGISTERED USED WITHOUT INTERNET─┐
└───────────────────────────────────────────────┘
To make registering CAT as painless as possible, an order form is
included with this package which you can use if you have a printer
available to print it out with. If you don't have a printer available,
just write the necessary information on any piece of paper that you
have handy. Then mail both the order and a check made out to Manuel
González Martínez to the following address:
Manuel González Martínez
Avenida de Peris y Valero, 122 - 7
46006 Valencia.
Spain, Europe.
Please read the companion REGISTER.TXT file to get instructions about
how to fill in the order form.
FOOTNOTES─┐
└────────┘
CAT needs your help to grow and become a great utility for everyone.
Please tell me any idea you have to improve CAT. Specially, I'm looking
for information about file formats not covered (or badly) by CAT, and
about any special kind of boot sectors, et-cetera.
Thank you for your time to evaluate CAT. Soon you will not continue
using the command line without CAT. Sure!
Sorry about my bad English. I would be very grateful if any of you could
contact with me to help me translating correctly the documentation of CAT
to any language (including English). I think that free registrations will
be good for those of you that decide to help me. Thanks for that matter
to Irene Saiz Leal, who helped me with the English translation, and also
to Ferran Gonzàlez i Martínez, who is about helping me with the Valencian
translation.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS─┐
└───────────────┘
· Miguel Martínez Juan. He is one of the first beta-testers of CAT. Many
enhancements were designed by him.
· Cándido Zuriaga García. Another beta tester, that has made a good job
discovering bad behaviours of command line processing, new file formats
to describe, and moral support.
· Roberto Paredes Palacios. Mate of mine and creator of the ICB graphics
compression package. The actual header format of the ICB files has been
added to CAT after having designed it we both to be upgradable in future
revisions of the format.
· Oliver Frömme. Author of HD-COPY and QPEG/QPV. Thanks for your IMG file
format, your boot sectors and your enhanced DESCRIPT.ION fields. Danke
schön! (he is German :)
· Ciriaco García de Celis. Author of 2M (a great and reliable floppy disk
formatter), for such program and for having put it into public domain (I
would have done it with CAT if I had more economic power!). His new
standard disks are really fantastic. ¡Muchas gracias!
· Timothy J. Gilberts. Author among others of PAWS (The Professional
Adventure Writting System) and DAAD (Diseñador de Aventuras A. D.),
both parsers for conversational adventure writters created in the
eighties for CP/M, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, MSX (I), Commodore C64
and Amiga, Atari ST and IBM PC. He teached me on good programming and
I will always be very grateful for his lessons in C, ASM, VGA, parsers,
women..! He made me love programming. Thank you very much, Tim.
· Ralph Brown. The author of the famous listing of interrupts. A very
good work. There's nothing like having people like Ralph over there to
feel that computer programmers are not alone.
· Andrew Schulman. Writter of Undocumented DOS, and many more good books
that cover all the powerful characteristics of PC computers. Thank you
for sharing your mind with all of us.
· Sir Clive Sinclair. Thank you for introducing me in the magic world of
computer science creating the ZX Spectrum.
· Hobby Press. This Spanish press company edited Microhobby, a magazine
for the Spectrum. They teached me on my first steps in programming. Now
they edit Hot Shareware, PC Manía... with fresh quality shareware.
· Eugene Roshal. RAR is a new compression package, that achieves great
compression ratios. Its RAR Support Service has added BRiNDYS CAT into
their "Applications with Built-in RAR Support List", present in the
"Information Sheet". As you know, CAT supports RAR compressed volumes
internally.
· Marco van den Broek. Recently I discovered his EDIR program (able to
describe files in such a way like CAT does). We will continue in contact
to enhance our programs. See you.
· Juan José Muñoz Falcó. In Spain we say that the world is a handkerchief
( the English version is that it's a small world ). Juanjo and me meet
each other in more than five different places. My cousin and him were
friends in their childhood. He worked with me in Aventuras AD. Miguel
Martínez is a common friend of Juanjo and me (see above). When I was
teacher at INEM -the Spanish Institute for counting unemployed people :)
Juanjo became my pupil. Nowadays, Juanjo is directing the fanzine "CAAD
Club de Aventuras AD" dedicated to the adventure world, including role
playing, general computer science chapters, and many many more. Quite
interesting! He is planning an electronic version of CAAD.
· All underground adventurers! You have made computers to have developed
imagination...
· My father, for encouraging me to put my software productions into the
Internet.
· Francisco González Martínez. My brother, a quite good beta tester! He
uses to say: "For Winning, I Never Negotiate" ¿?
· Ferran Gonzàlez i Martínez. Another brother of mine, that helped me
with the translation into Valencian language. Ferran was also beta
tester of Aventura Original and Jabato. He has made me feel that
computers can do much for our society. Moltes gràcies!
· Irene Saiz Leal. She is my woman, and also my marketing manager :)3
· Inés, Winona, Naomi, Elle and Sandra. I can't get only one...
· To all my fans: (well, happy users of the commercial games I programmed
in Aventuras AD, and some other programs)
· Alex Esteban Simón,
· Miguel Monforte Castelló,
· Sergio Bayarri Gausí,
· José F. Martínez,
· Javier and Julio Ribelles Ascó,
· Miguel Martínez Juan (he couldn't finish the Aventura Original >:),
· Carlos Puebla,
· Héctor Castellote Giménez,
· Pedro Cardona Vilaplana,
· Roberto Paredes Palacios,
· Luis Gascón López,
· Victor J. Buforn Ferrando,
· José María de Vicente Subiela,
· Ramzi Sergio Khamrah García,
· And all of you that are evaluating CAT.
Thanks to all of you.
WHERE TO FIND THE PEOPLE MENTIONED HERE─┐
└──────────────────────────────────────┘
· Cándido Zuriaga García: usufi3@maduixa.finf.upv.es
· Miguel Vicente Martínez Juan: usufi11@maduixa.finf.upv.es
· Roberto Paredes: http://www.fiv.upv.es/alumnos/a2917347/icb.html
· Ferran González Martínez: a2917347@maduixa.finf.upv.es
http://www.fiv.upv.es/alumnos/a2917347/f.html
· Ciriaco García de Celis: ciri@gui.uva.es
http://www.gui.uva.es/~ciri
· Oliver Frömme: fromme@rz.tu-clausthal.de
http://www.tu-clausthal.de/~inof
· Marco van den Broek: mawek@luna.nl
http://www.luna.nl/~mawek
· RAR Support (Dave Carter): davec@sentinel.co.uk
· Sergio Bayarri Gausí: devotee@eui.upv.es
http://andercheran.upv.es/devotee
· José F. Martínez: martinez@csrd.uiuc.edu
http://www.csrd.uiuc.edu/~martinez
· Manuel González Martínez: a2917347@maduixa.finf.upv.es
http://www.fiv.upv.es/alumnos/a2917347
END OF BRiNDYS CAT DOCUMENTATION─┐
└───────────────────────────────┘