🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <50921@shamash.cdc.com> slc@a2.cim.cdc.com (Steve Chesney x4662) writes:
>At my wife's job (a church) she is obligated to use a vintage IBM XT with
>a 10 meg hard disk, color display and IBM PC-DOS 2.10.  
>Since she is used to our 386, it seems slow to her.  Are there any cheap and
>simple upgrades that we could try to alleviate this?

I use PCKWIK's disk cache, screen accelerator, and keyboard
accelerator together on my 1982 PC.  They're packaged together and sell
for a very reasonable price.

Also, I take care in organizing my file sytem.  The first-level
directories on my disk contain only subdirectories or batch files.
For example:

|-----wordproc------- wordperf
                   |
                   |- cgrammar

The batch file to run Correct Grammar might look like this:

@Echo off
Rem - Executes Correct Grammar
Cls
Echo ..Loading Correct Grammar Program
C:
Cd \WordProc\CGrammar
CG.EXE
Cd \Socrates
Cls

(Socrates is the machine's home directory.)  The advantage of the
above is that the PATH variable has few directories, and few files in
each to search.  (Place \DOS last.)

Also, I defragment my disk every other day.  DOG (a shareware program)
is most flexible.

Usually I just place the directories and batch files first on the disk,
for this is most important and fast to do.  But regularly organize the
disk as follows:--

Right after the system files, I place the directories, then the batch
files; then I place the remaining files, grouped by directory.  The
directory \WordProc\CGrammar I may place first, if it needs to access
files from disk as it runs.  Within each directory I sort the files by
filename, for (somedays) I convince myself that this best places files
that will be needed for a single task adjacent to one another on the
disk.  This helps cache them together, if the cache reads ahead.

Finally, I make sure temporary files and swap files are not fragmented
when they're written.  This means placing them away out on the disk by
themselves, if their upper size isn't predictable; or placing them
before the batch files in a region of fixed size, if their size is
pre-determined.  (I crash the program that creates the swap file, move
it where I want it when defragmenting, then--depending on the
program--use attributes or other methods to keep the swap space
intact.)

Many programs for XT's will take advantage of expanded memory, for
swapping to disk is painfully slow.  I installed an Intel AboveBoard
and placed my disk cache there.  It shrinks as applications need the
space.

Bruce (Gypsy Scholar)
-- 
Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
bathurst@phoenix.princeton.edu bathurst@pucc.bitnet !princeton!phoenix!bathurst