HELP\HELP.51  ·  51  ·  2.9 KB  ·  1991-01-01  ·  from PCPlus_Issue-52_Jan-1991_FluxEngine-360Kb
F1 for HELP - SuperDisk 51 (November 1990)

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Problems that have been noted with SuperDisk 51 primarily revolve around
configuration differences: now with so many manufacturers producing PCs,
and with so many DOS (or DOS-like) operating systems, there are bound to
be some slight differences between versions.  Even amongst DOS versions
calling themselves 3.30, there are several of these.  In recent months,
SuperDisk seems to have fallen into the habit of tripping over these
differences.  Among the most pressing ones is the following command - quite
correct in most manifestations of DOS, but not all - is:
                CD ..\
        In theory, this says 'back up one level of directory nesting', but
some versions of DOS object to the '\' at the end, which is strictly
unnecessary anyway.  I know you can't do anything about PCPLUS.COM (a .BAT
file that has been converted to a program), but if you find you get
'invalid directory' messages running any SuperDisk, look through the .BAT
files for occurrences of 'CD ..\'.  You should find that changing the '\'
to a space will get you going.  DO NOT CHANGE OTHER CD STATEMENTS - only
those with the two dots!  We will try to weed out all occurrences of this
'semi-faulty' syntax in the future.

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If you have to (or want to) use PKUNZIP manually (to unpack a .ZIP file),
rather than rely on the SuperDisk to do the job for you, please note that
this program will normally unpack the whole .ZIP into the current directory:
that is, wherever your DOS prompt is lying.  There is a way to direct it to
another destination, but think of it working a little like COPY does when
there is only one operand - namely, the "from" operand.  There is also a
special way to tell the instruction to organise things into subdirectories
(if this was available in the original data): a '/D' must be added on the
end of the command line.  Let's take an example from last month's SuperDisk:
Suppose we wish to unpack SCRPAINT.ZIP: first we must note a few things..
        (1) SCRPAINT.ZIP is in the A:\SCRPAINT directory
        (2) PKUNZIP.EXE is in the A:\INTRO directory
        (3) we want to create a new directory, C:\SCRPAINT (for example)
The following instructions will create the directory and expand SCRPAINT
into it: this will result in a nest of subdirectories being created within
C:\SCRPAINT, each with data and/or programs:
                C:
                MD \SCRPAINT
                CD \SCRPAINT
                A:\INTRO PKUNZIP A:\SCRPAINT\SCRPAINT /D
If you do not know whether the packed data has been organised into
subdirectories, don't worry - just use the /D option anyway!

*****

Note that SCRPAINT is actually larger than supplied with SuperDisk: in the
documentation there is mention of data files that were NOT included on
SuperDisk: never fear, you have all the operating capabilities of the
package: just some demo displays, etc., were removed.