Removal & reinstallation – Measurement Computing Personal488 rev.3.0 For DOS & Windows 3.Xi User Manual

Page 138

II. SOFTWARE GUIDES - 8. Driver488/DRV

8O. Utility Programs

Personal488 User’s Manual, Rev. 3.0

II-123

The

sets the primary IEEE 488 bus address of IEEE 488 interface card. Every IEEE 488 bus

device, including the controller must have a unique IEEE 488 address in the range of

(decimal)

. The default address for the interface card is

, but must be changed if any IEEE

Peripheral uses the same address. For example, the command:

IEEECOM IEEE21 /B00

sets the interface card bus address to

so that

COM1:

may be redirected to an IEEE 488 bus device

with an address of

Removal & Reinstallation

Driver488/DRV is a special type of terminate-and-stay-resident (TSR) program that controls
Power488, Personal488, and LAN488. When

DRVR488.COM

is executed, it installs itself permanently

into memory and connects itself into DOS so that it appears to be a standard device driver that can be
used to control IEEE 488 devices. Normally, Driver488/DRV is present in memory whenever the
computer is operating, even if it is not being used. Most computers have enough memory so that the
amount taken by Driver488/DRV is not critical, but some very large programs need so much memory
that they cannot operate if Driver488/DRV is installed.

It is possible to temporarily remove Driver488/DRV by editing the

AUTOEXEC.BAT

file. Once

Driver488/DRV is installed, the

AUTOEXEC.BAT

file will contain one or more lines similar to the

following:

C:\IEEE488\DRVR488

These are the commands that install Driver488/DRV. They can be disabled by adding the word

REM

followed by a space, to convert them to remarks:

REM C:\IEEE488\DRVR488

When the computer is rebooted, these lines will be ignored, Driver488/DRV will not be loaded, and the
memory that would have been used for Driver488/DRV will now be available for other programs. If
Driver488/DRV is needed later, the

AUTOEXEC.BAT

file must be re-edited to remove the

REM

s and to

re-enable Driver488/DRV, and then the computer must be rebooted.

A more practical method involves the creation of a separate batch file that holds the

DRVR488

commands. When Driver488/DRV is installed, the

DRVR488

commands are placed in the

AUTOEXEC.BAT

file. By moving these commands to a separate batch file, it is possible to avoid

installing Driver488/DRV before it is needed. To create a separate batch file, first copy

AUTOEXEC.BAT

to a new file, perhaps

DRIVER.BAT

. Then edit the

AUTOEXEC.BAT

file, deleting the

DRVR488

commands, and edit

DRIVER.BAT

, leaving only the

DRVR488

commands. When the system

is rebooted, Driver488/DRV will no longer be installed because the

AUTOEXEC.BAT

file no longer

contains the DRVR488 commands. However, whenever Driver488/DRV is needed, it can be installed
by typing

DRIVER

which will execute the

DRVR488

commands in the

DRIVER.BAT

file. Once

Driver488/DRV has been installed, it will remain installed until the system is rebooted.

MARKDRVR & REMDRVR

Using the techniques described above, it is possible to install Driver488/DRV only when it is needed.
However, it is still necessary to reboot the computer to remove Driver488/DRV. The

MARKDRVR

and

REMDRVR

utilities allow Driver488/DRV and other TSR programs, such as

Sidekick

and

Superkey

to be installed and removed at will, without rebooting.

Before installing the TSR program, the

MARKDRVR

command should be used to “snapshot” the system

state:

C:> MARKDRVR comment
C:> C:\IEEE488\DRVR488

The

MARKDRVR

command is followed by an optional

comment

of up to 119 character that is normally

used to note which TSR programs are about to be installed. When the above command is executed it