Utility Disk #1 for Model LS-DOS 6.3 - Product Description

Our first utility disk provides tools that are common in more sophisticated operating environments, but have been missing in the TRSDOS/LS-DOS 6 environment until now. See the review in TRSTimes!

Several of the utilities are clones of popular commands available on BSD and derived *NIX systems. Minimal implementations of a few of these utilities have been available for TRSDOS/LS-DOS 6 before, but never full-blown versions, with all the features that make them truly useful!

Here are some of the utilities that are included:

MORE displays files a screen at a time, can search through files skipping undesired output. Able to switch back and forth between numerous files.
LOOK will examine any diskette and determine what format it is recorded in. Have you ever inserted a disk and tried to do a DIR of it, and the operating system locked-up because the disk was in an alien format? By using LOOK, you can avoid that. LOOK is able to recognize over two dozen diskette formats, and you can easily tell LOOK about any that we missed! If the disk is in TRSDOS/LS-DOS 6 or LDOS 5 format, LOOK also displays tables showing exactly where each file resides on the disk. LOOK can even identify disks that are recorded in high-density formats and disks that have never been formatted at all. A great tool for the person who uses different operating systems and doesn't always remember to label diskettes.
MAPMEM displays all the drivers, filters and other memory modules that are present in high or low memory. Mapmem also organizes the modules by type and displays an understandable description of each module. You can easily customize the descriptions and add any new ones that your system may need.
LS displays the files in directories in numerous formats and sorting orders. The output can be directed to the screen, printer, a file, or even through the MORE program.
WC reads the specified files and counts the number of characters, words and lines that are in the files.
PIPES allows the output of one program to be passed to another as input. Almost any program can be used with 'PIPES', even existing system utilities such as 'DIR'.
OOPS provides a command line editor which can grab any line on the screen, edit and re-submit it as a command. Great for correcting those tiny errors in long commands.
FORCEHI allows you to force drivers and other memory modules into high memory if you don't want them to reside in low memory.
XLR8SET is for use with systems that have the XLR8er accelerator CPU card installed. Instead of permanently patching the operating system with the patches this card requires, XLR8SET installs a compact version of the patches in memory each time the system boots, saving critical memory for other tasks, such as being able to boot directly from a hard disk drive.

All the utilities on the disk that manipulate files will accept full wild-card file specifications. Output can be sent to the printer or a file, and the ability to specify default options is provided. Most commands also have a built-in help menu that can be displayed.

Over 25 pages of printed documentation fully describe all of the parameters and options available in each utility. Examples are also provided on how you can adapt each utility to your system and to your personal work habits. An electronic version of the documentation is also provided. Samples of the documentation can be found by clicking here.

Notice: OOPS, XLR8SET and FORCEHI are included with this utility disk. Older versions of these programs are included with other M. A. D. Software products.

Note that most of these utilities work under TRSDOS 6. However, they were written for LS-DOS 6.3.1, and that is the only operating system we provide support for. TRDSOS 6.x was replaced with LS-DOS 6.3.0 in 1986. LS-DOS 6.3.1 appeared in 1989. LS-DOS 6.3 is a superset of TRSDOS 6 and all programs that ran under TRSDOS 6 work on LS-DOS 6.3.
In 1997, LS-DOS 6.3.1 was released to the public domain, you should upgrade to 6.3.1 if you have not done so already. You can freely download the LS-DOS 6.3.1 system from several sites on the Internet. M. A. D. Software also makes Model 4 format diskettes available with LS-DOS 6.3.1 already installed. Click here for more information on obtaining LS-DOS 6.3.1.

To order, specify:

M. A. D. Software Model 4/4D/4P Utility Disk #1 Specify 4G6UT01 $8.00

How to place an order with M. A. D. Software.