Software

Vi

My first editor was TECO. My second was vi; it's still my favorite. There are a lot of vi clones floating around but I like elvis. Also, the vi Editor FAQ part 1 and part 2 are pretty detailed.

WinZip

You will some kind of zip utility and WinZip has a nice user interface. There are versions for both Windows 3.X and Windows 95.

Electronic TV HOST

After getting an RCA digital satellite receiver, I found that TV Guide wasn't hacking it anymore. I decided to try the Electronic TV HOST. I started with their test drive. I down loaded the ETV Windows client and a "demo" data file. Once I saw how powerful it was, I bought a six month subscription. I guess I won't be renewing TV Guide; ETV costs about the same but does a lot more! You can also check out the ETV FAQ (although it looks pretty dusty...)

(Note that TV Guide appears to be working on something called TV Guide on-line. It looks like an ETV competitor.)

DIACOM

DIACOM is a really neat package that lets you use your Butterfly (actually any PC from the IBM-AT up) to link to the computer in your late model GM or Chrysler vehicle. It displays all the engine parameters your cars engine management systems maintains in real time. In addition to the software, you get a parallel printer port to ALDL interface cable.

There are two version available. The basic DIACOM package is about $300. The extended package is called DIACOM Plus and is about $580. In addition to the normal DIACOM features, DIACOM Plus does graphs and gives you access to technical troubleshooting information.

DIACOM runs great on the Butterfly (after you fix the "Packed file is corrupt" problem described on my PC DOS page). But it doesn't run under Windows 95; you have to boot to DOS or else the software will incorrectly report trouble codes (including ECM failure!)

fips

Fips is a neat utility that allows you to shrink a fdisk partition. This is handy when you have a new laptop that has Windows 95 pre-installed on the hard drive and you want to convert it to a dual boot system. First you defragment the disk, then you run fips to shrink the DOS partition and then you have room to install Unix.

Note that if you hibernation file is enabled, you will need to disable it in the BIOS and then delete it before you defragment the disk.

ATTRIB -R -S -H C:*.HIB DEL C:*.HIB

After you have run fips, you can re-enable the hibernation file in the BIOS (which will automatically recreate it the next time you boot).

Partition Magic

A commercial alternative to fips is Partition Magic by Power Quest. This program is very slick. It lets you change partition size, location, type (including FAT32 and FAT conversions). It lists for about $30.

The Simtel.Net software collection

Simtel.Net is a good place to go looking for all kinds of PC software.

Related Craig's Butterfly pages:

Back to Craig's IBM Butterfly page