Ŀ
 SWAP version 2.02 history file                        J.S. Faber 1994 


Ŀ
 SWAP's roots 

SWAP started somewhere in 1985 as a batch file. The oldest version of
SWAP.BAT I could find is from 1987 and was written by J. Simons and
P.E. van der Leeden.
This batch file copied 2 files from C:\CONFIG, overwriting AUTOEXEC.BAT
and CONFIG.SYS, and ran REBOOT.COM (which does what its name suggests).

REBOOT.COM must by the way be one of the smallest programs ever: 17 bytes.

SWAP.BAT was written when XT's were the norm, memory was scarce and
everything had to fit in 640 kB. Swapping between configurations
allowed using applications which required mutually exclusive
environments.

Although UMB's (386 SX+) have made life a lot easier regarding available
base memory (even with massive drivers like PC-NFS loaded you can have
> 600 kB free) it is still so advantageous to SWAP to an optimized
configuration that I thought it worthwhile to write SWAP.EXE.

Ŀ
 Revision history 

V1.00 : One of the largest drawbacks of the batch file system was the
        inability to display a list of all existing configurations. This
        was one of the major reasons for writing SWAP.EXE and the main
        feature of V1.00.
V1.01 : Bug fixes.
V1.02 : Bug fixes.
V1.03 : Bug fix: "SWAP OLD" now works.
V1.04 : Cursor is turned off during SWAP.
V1.05 : Current configuration (CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT) added to
        list as "current".
V1.06 : Added code to disable smartdrive 4.00 write cache, switch
        between left (list of configurations) and right (file contents)
        window, restore cursor after /debug.
V1.07 : Source of V1.06 given to Egbert ter Horst for private use.
V1.08 : Added option to edit files with external editor.
V1.09 : Contains improved file-existence-check functions. Fixed
        commandline interpretation bug (found by Jarda Chmelik who used
        /S=C:\DRDOS\CONFIG and got into debug mode because "CONFIG"
        contains a N).
V1.10 : Increased maximum number of swap configs from 20 to 100 and
        added error message if more than 100 configs were found.

V2.0  : Added so many features (especially the help) that a step in
        major version number was reasonable. Search configuration name
        by typing (first letters of) name. Contains hypertext help.
        Flushes Hyperdisk, NCache-x. Saves changed autoexec/config.
        Copy/rename/delete configs. Colors depend on monochrome / color
        display. Control-Alt-Del simulation to warn programs of pending
        reboot.
V2.01 : Control-Alt-Del simulation does not work with ANSI.SYS loaded
        high with EMM386. Now enable with /SCAD option instead of
        disabling with /I. Boot via keyboard controller (always cold)
        with /KBD option. Handle Control-Break key. Check for Microsoft
        Windows before booting. Improved help (text and viewer). First
        shareware release.
V2.02 : Fixed bugs: Do not ask for save/loose/exit when there is no
        current configuration (caused run time error 2 if you tried to
        save anyway). Name-search could cause configuration window to
        overflow. Swap from other drive as C: caused run time error 17
        (cannot rename across drives). When copying a configuration
        sometimes nothing happened after giving a new name and pressing
        ENTER.
        Added ";" as comment marker in SWAP.INI. Added aliases for some
        keys. Added bye-program (called just before reboot) support.
        Pressing F1 in error window now gives help on error.

Ŀ
 Future plans 

(If I have time, ha)
 - Swap more (other) files than AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS (I am thinking
   of the Windows and 4DOS configuration files).
