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What is a good GPL version of MSDIAGS? (Diagnostics/system info)

neutrino78x

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So, does anybody know of a good diagnostic/system information program for DOS, able to run on an 8088, which is GPL, or at least free? I'm thinking of an enhanced version of Microsoft Diagnostics which came with MS-DOS.

--Brian
 
Snooper is my favourite for old (and new) DOS systems. Version 3.42 is available everywhere. I'll shoot you a copy if you can't find it. Checkit 3.0 is pretty good too, but it's a bit bigger. Snooper is a single 220K file.

Edit: Get it here: http://archives.scovetta.com/pub/fehq/DOSUtils/00_index.htm
Also, I'm not sure if you were serious about GPL. That's pretty recent so if you are, then it would have to be a new(er) program.
 
Checkit was definitely a good one. Although, I thought the last version on DOS was 4.0 Plus? Anyone can verify that? I wouldn't mind buying a used copy of that one myself... There is also PC Config which is available from the author and a more up to date utility would be HWiNFO which is now freeware.
 
hwinfo is probably closest to what I'm looking for...we need a program that can do things like try to identify boards, or tell you things like "this ibm pc has 256 kb on the motherboard and 384 KB on a memory expansion card", and "the hard drive has x heads, y cylinders"...

--Brian
 
hwinfo is probably closest to what I'm looking for...we need a program that can do things like try to identify boards, or tell you things like "this ibm pc has 256 kb on the motherboard and 384 KB on a memory expansion card", and "the hard drive has x heads, y cylinders"...

--Brian
I take it you don't like Snooper?

Without a very large volume of data with manufacturer's codes and ID numbers, you're not going to get much more info than that. I think that what you're asking is just not going to fit on a floppy. What you can do however, is stick in a Live Linux CD and run "hwinfo" or "lsusb" or "lspci" and stuff like that. Afterwards you can go back to DOS. But seriously, do you actually need that stuff on a DOS machine? I find I don't even use Snooper any more. The only thing I find handy is to type "debug d40:0" to sort out my ports.

OK, then another suggestion. Try this one:
Diag, the diagnostic programm (Author D. Marks)
-----------------------------------------------
Detects, tests and benchmarks your Hard- and Software.
Detected will be
- 21 Soundcards
- 173 Processors (through 4 methods)
- 13 BIOS-Manufacturer
- 62 PC-Types
- 10 Mousedriver manufacturer
- 75 resident Programs
- 41 Partition types
- 1400 PCI cards manufacturer
- 1399 PCI-cards
- 84 Chipsets
- 14 serial PnP devices
- 1307 Motherboards
- 25 Network cards
- and many more
I haven't seen any more complete diagnostics than that. I'll put it here for you for a couple of days. :)
 
Thanks for posting Diag. Also have you tried the later versions of MSD? Like 3.10?

BTW: While we are on the subject of diagnostics how about HW specific diagnostics? E.G. Modem Doctor, or Video/Display testers, etc. Anyone have favorites?
 
Thanks for posting Diag. Also have you tried the later versions of MSD? Like 3.10?

You're welcome. :) No, I haven't tried MSD for many years. It used to be unreliable, but I assume that they finally figured it out. I use MS-DOS 6.22 but haven't looked at any MS software since then. We parted ways when they tried to make people use a mouse. lol However, is the new MSD available somewhere? If it's unencumbered, I'll give it a try.

BTW: While we are on the subject of diagnostics how about HW specific diagnostics? E.G. Modem Doctor, or Video/Display testers, etc. Anyone have favorites?

I quickly outgrew the modem testing software. Once I got the IRQ and comports sorted out using debug, I couldn't see any real use for anything else. The echo command works just fine for quick confirmation and one's comprog of choice will take care of the rest. As far as other kinds of diags are concerned, yes there are a couple. I found one called PCISNIF which basically outputs the same as lspci. IOW, what's on each slot. I found that handy in testing a bunch of PCI network cards for DOS usage lately. Also NICSCAN which basically does a subset of PCISNIF. There is also a program called MONO.EXE which displays the different video modes available. That's a good one for quick tests. I have no idea where they got the name from, but I just renamed it video.exe. It's under 60K.

I used to love diagnostics and have a great collection of them. However as I've gotten older, I find they don't do much for me. I guess I don't feel like I need a window into the machine in the same way. Probably because I already have a good idea of what's in a box. I'd say that NICSCAN and DEBUG are the only ones that have any real meaning for me now. Other ones that I used to use are Amidiag, and SYSINFO which may be a part of Amidiag, I'm not sure. Ofcourse RAMSPY is always fun - especially to see what bits of text someone else has left around after they left the machine. lol
 
However, is the new MSD available somewhere? If it's unencumbered, I'll give it a try.

I BELIEVE it is included w/ the Windows 98/98SE boot disk. I know MSD comes w/ those boot disks just not sure which version.

I used to love diagnostics and have a great collection of them. However as I've gotten older, I find they don't do much for me. I guess I don't feel like I need a window into the machine in the same way. Probably because I already have a good idea of what's in a box. I'd say that NICSCAN and DEBUG are the only ones that have any real meaning for me now. Other ones that I used to use are Amidiag, and SYSINFO which may be a part of Amidiag, I'm not sure. Of course RAMSPY is always fun - especially to see what bits of text someone else has left around after they left the machine. lol

Hey, if you want to post a few of them I am more than happy to dl them ;). I love DX SW and benchmarking tools. The problem I keep running into is the constant upgrade cycle of SW. That is a particular SW might still be available but it does not necessarily run on old HW/OS any more (e.g. SiSoft, Adobe, WinZIP). A while back I started marking my SW before upgrading as "Last version to run on such and such OS". But unfortunately it was too little to late. I wish more manufacturers/companies would keep old versions and/or drivers handy on their WWW site. The storage space is practically free, and they don't have to provide support. The only downside would be bandwidth and I really can't imagine that the two people dling the 200KB disk images are the ones killing their servers ;) Of course if they provided proper support for older stuff then people may not be forced to buy new versions (heavens forbid) ;)
 
Shadow Lord: Hey, if you want to post a few of them I am more than happy to dl them.
I'll zip up a whole directory of that stuff for you then. Unfortunately I stayed up all last night/morning reinstalling a BSD system so I really have to sleep right now, but I'll have it up by tomorrow night. :)

Edit: I had to wait for the fire to burn down a bit before I could stuff it for the night so I had time. There's a "bonus.zip" file in there which you might especially like. As usual I put the file here. It's 5.7M so I might not leave it there for a long time. Make sure you extract it with -d option. Oh, and pass it around so we can keep this stuff alive. :)
 
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Thanks for putting the diagnostic files for download, Ole Juul.
Beginner question, but what does the -d option do? And is this to be used in Winzip?
 
Thanks for putting the diagnostic files for download, Ole Juul.
Beginner question, but what does the -d option do? And is this to be used in Winzip?

-d recreates the DIR tree in the zip file on extraction. The winzip command line program also supports -d or you can mark the correct check box in the extraction box in the GUI.
 
Thank you for the answer. It looks like I already had that box checked by default, since the extraction process created the folder structure.
 
Edit: I had to wait for the fire to burn down a bit before I could stuff it for the night so I had time. There's a "bonus.zip" file in there which you might especially like. As usual I put the file here. It's 5.7M so I might not leave it there for a long time. Make sure you extract it with -d option. Oh, and pass it around so we can keep this stuff alive. :)

Thanks for posting. I already downloaded the file if you want to take it offline. I checked out the bonus DIR. Some nice stuff in there. My favorite is DIRMAGIC. I used to have that installed on my system until WinXP... Although, frankly it became quite useless after Win9x (no lfn). I seem to recall there was a second version that had LFN support but not sure.
 
Thanks for posting. I already downloaded the file if you want to take it offline. I checked out the bonus DIR. Some nice stuff in there. My favorite is DIRMAGIC. I used to have that installed on my system until WinXP... Although, frankly it became quite useless after Win9x (no lfn). I seem to recall there was a second version that had LFN support but not sure.

I'll leave it up for a little while so others can get it if they want. I'm actually pretty good on bandwidth - might as well use it. :)

Yes DIRMAGIC! It is my most used program. The ability to just hit enter and view ANY file is indispensable to me. Michael Mefford is the guy that wrote all those assembler utils for PCmag. I think this is the best one though. IIRC, there was some kind of kafuffel between the author and PCMag regarding rights to DM in particular, so that one is now almost gone. Add to that the aggressive removal of their utility collection from public servers by PCMag, despite written promise to the contrary, and we're seeing a goldmine being lost.

PS: I just looked through the collection and I cannot find anything which prohibits distribution. I'm pretty sure they used to encourage it back then and the programs were certainly on all bulletin boards. It would appear that it is only contemporary distribution on public sites which they prohibit. There is however, no mention of that in the collection. Nevertheless, I won't post it here, but I feel safe in offering a copy to anybody who wishes to contact me.
 
Yes DIRMAGIC! It is my most used program. The ability to just hit enter and view ANY file is indispensable to me. Michael Mefford is the guy that wrote all those assembler utils for PCmag. I think this is the best one though. IIRC, there was some kind of kafuffel between the author and PCMag regarding rights to DM in particular, so that one is now almost gone. Add to that the aggressive removal of their utility collection from public servers by PCMag, despite written promise to the contrary, and we're seeing a goldmine being lost.

Ole Juul,

DM was actually a PC Computing program. But PC Mag was definetly the king of utils. I remember grabbing each issue for the utility and they used to create a little instruction page in the same three ring binder format as the PC DOS Manual. That way you could, copy or cut it out, and put it into you manual binder! I remember in the eraly 90s if you got a sub they would send you a couple of disks w/ the benchmarking tools and all theri utils to date. I hada few sets but they are all gone now. I think PC Computing and even PC World tried to do the same thing but they were not even close to the PC Mag effort!
 
I didn't know that DM was distributed by PC Computing. However, many of the PCMag utilities were written by Mefford so I decided to look it up and found this:

Folks who subscribed to PC Mag. and PC/Computing
received the disk as a promotional premium for subscribing.

That is just a quote from Computer underground Digest Sun Nov 22, 1992 Volume 4, which has an interesting article about DM. I think the legal opinions expressed there look a bit outdated and are certainly a bit "colourful" - but of course that is the expected POV of any publication which calls themselves "underground". hehe

Regarding my earlier statement about PC Magazine's distasteful behaviour, that is documented rather well on Garbo here: About the removal of all PC Magazine utilities from Garbo. Simtel was also threatened, even though they had also been told by PCMag that:
Posting the PC Magazine utilities on the Internet is welcome.

Anyway, that's just a bit of colourful history. BTW, how come there isn't a "history" section on this forum. :D
 
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