Q. WHY would anyone care?
A. In our location, LOTS of users import programs from the \PROGRAMS\ folder on their USB thumb drives. NONE of them EVER deletes any program they've ever written from that directory, and when they IMPORT their programs into the ProtoTRAK, _ALL_ their programs come in. ...AND so do _ALL_ the programs of the NEXT user. And the NEXT. And the NEX... Pretty soon, finding THE ONLY PROGRAM YOU LOADED AND CARE ABOUT is like looking for a needle in a haystack. [We used to have HUNDREDS, and people worked in shifts to remove, say, two dozen each!]
Here's a way you can delete them all at once.
With some hints from Southwestern Industries, the fine providers of ProtoTRAK equipment, I have come up with a routine for erasing all the .CAM and .MX2 programs from "internal storage" in one fell swoop. (Actually, more like 3 or 4 fell swoops, but it still beats the plowshares off of standing there thumbing in each of the dozens or hundreds of numerically named programs one-at-a-time, followed by buttoning ".MX2 or .CAM" and then "Yes.")
Plugging a USB keyboard into the back, sometimes provokes the controller to go into OS mode automagically, and if not, it can sometimes be induced to that mode by pressing the Pause/Break key. (If the keyboard is not recognized, it may be after the controller is rebooted.) However, there's a sure-fire way to bring up a way to talk to the underlying operating system.
These are based on my theories of what's going on. I think the ProtoTRAK interface is (just) a program running in WindowsCE, which itself is running in MS-DOS.
THEBIGNEWS: Pressing the Windows-control-key-and-R together pops up an offer from Windows to run a program; if that program to be run is 'CMD', you'll get a terminal/shell "command" window.
In the case of the ProtoTRAK EMX, the user-imported program files live in:
\Hard Disk\PTCE\
aka "internal storage", so to remove them all requires running two DOS commands:
DEL \Hard Disk\PTCE\*.CAM
DEL \Hard Disk\PTCE\*.MX2
BEWARE!!! If you delete ANYTHING ELSE in that directory ["PTCE" - PowerTRAK CE?], you stand to BRICK your controller, and NO ONE will be pleased--including me. You Have Been Warned.
NOTE: "Hard Disk" may need to be in quotes, because DOS sometimes stops paying attention after a 'space' character, and will get confused.
NOTE: The contents of \Hard Disk\PTCE\ are PRESERVED when the power goes off. (In fact, that's why these programs need to be erased manually...) The contents of the top-level dir '\' apparently are NOT. Thus, IF one were to create a DOS 'batch' file (program) INSIDE the PTCE folder, it would not be erased when the power was cycled.
NOTE: You could create such a batch program by copying these DOS commands [ECHO ordinarily displays a message on the screen, but '>' and '>>' send the output into a file instead]:
ECHO ECHO Erasing all the .CAM files > \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
ECHO DEL \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\*.CAM >> \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
ECHO ECHO Erasing all the .MX2 files >> \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
ECHO DEL \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\*.MX2 >> \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
ECHO DIR \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\*.CAM >> \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
ECHO DIR \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\*.MX2 >> \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
These four "ECHO" commands create a new file:
\"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
containing six DOS commands (2 pairs of an ECHO and a DELETE, and a pair
of DIR commands to prove they were actually deleted).
Now at the CMD prompt, type 'exit' to go back to the ProtoTRAK console.
To run the command anytime you want:
* pull up a command window (Windows-ctrl-key + R)
* type in:
\"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean[ENTER, or RETURN key]
* or type in:
cd \"Hard Disk"\PTCE
clean
* go back to the PT console with
exit
NOTE: The '>' "redirection operator" character differs from the '>>' version in that it ERASES the file it's aimed at, while the latter APPENDS to it, so take care you get them right.
If you've got a LOT of machines to do this too, you COULD copy the batch file onto your oh-so-portable thumbdrive (in our case, the OS put it at \USB-Drive\) with:
COPY \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat \USB-Disk\PROGRAMS
and then create ANOTHER batch file on your USB stick (copyclean.bat), using the ECHO methods above, to:
COPY \USB-Disk\PROGRAMS\clean.bat \"Hard Disk\PTCE\"
DIR \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\*.bat
We execute it, by opening the shell, and executing:
\"Hard Disk"\PTCE\copyclean.bat
Well. I just thought someone besides me ought to know.
FINALLY: you COULD create the .BAT files on your thumbdrive on a regular computer in the:
\USB-Drive\PROGRAMS\
directory, using Notepad.
A. In our location, LOTS of users import programs from the \PROGRAMS\ folder on their USB thumb drives. NONE of them EVER deletes any program they've ever written from that directory, and when they IMPORT their programs into the ProtoTRAK, _ALL_ their programs come in. ...AND so do _ALL_ the programs of the NEXT user. And the NEXT. And the NEX... Pretty soon, finding THE ONLY PROGRAM YOU LOADED AND CARE ABOUT is like looking for a needle in a haystack. [We used to have HUNDREDS, and people worked in shifts to remove, say, two dozen each!]
Here's a way you can delete them all at once.
With some hints from Southwestern Industries, the fine providers of ProtoTRAK equipment, I have come up with a routine for erasing all the .CAM and .MX2 programs from "internal storage" in one fell swoop. (Actually, more like 3 or 4 fell swoops, but it still beats the plowshares off of standing there thumbing in each of the dozens or hundreds of numerically named programs one-at-a-time, followed by buttoning ".MX2 or .CAM" and then "Yes.")
Plugging a USB keyboard into the back, sometimes provokes the controller to go into OS mode automagically, and if not, it can sometimes be induced to that mode by pressing the Pause/Break key. (If the keyboard is not recognized, it may be after the controller is rebooted.) However, there's a sure-fire way to bring up a way to talk to the underlying operating system.
These are based on my theories of what's going on. I think the ProtoTRAK interface is (just) a program running in WindowsCE, which itself is running in MS-DOS.
THEBIGNEWS: Pressing the Windows-control-key-and-R together pops up an offer from Windows to run a program; if that program to be run is 'CMD', you'll get a terminal/shell "command" window.
In the case of the ProtoTRAK EMX, the user-imported program files live in:
\Hard Disk\PTCE\
aka "internal storage", so to remove them all requires running two DOS commands:
DEL \Hard Disk\PTCE\*.CAM
DEL \Hard Disk\PTCE\*.MX2
BEWARE!!! If you delete ANYTHING ELSE in that directory ["PTCE" - PowerTRAK CE?], you stand to BRICK your controller, and NO ONE will be pleased--including me. You Have Been Warned.
NOTE: "Hard Disk" may need to be in quotes, because DOS sometimes stops paying attention after a 'space' character, and will get confused.
NOTE: The contents of \Hard Disk\PTCE\ are PRESERVED when the power goes off. (In fact, that's why these programs need to be erased manually...) The contents of the top-level dir '\' apparently are NOT. Thus, IF one were to create a DOS 'batch' file (program) INSIDE the PTCE folder, it would not be erased when the power was cycled.
NOTE: You could create such a batch program by copying these DOS commands [ECHO ordinarily displays a message on the screen, but '>' and '>>' send the output into a file instead]:
ECHO ECHO Erasing all the .CAM files > \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
ECHO DEL \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\*.CAM >> \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
ECHO ECHO Erasing all the .MX2 files >> \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
ECHO DEL \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\*.MX2 >> \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
ECHO DIR \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\*.CAM >> \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
ECHO DIR \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\*.MX2 >> \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
These four "ECHO" commands create a new file:
\"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat
containing six DOS commands (2 pairs of an ECHO and a DELETE, and a pair
of DIR commands to prove they were actually deleted).
Now at the CMD prompt, type 'exit' to go back to the ProtoTRAK console.
To run the command anytime you want:
* pull up a command window (Windows-ctrl-key + R)
* type in:
\"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean[ENTER, or RETURN key]
* or type in:
cd \"Hard Disk"\PTCE
clean
* go back to the PT console with
exit
NOTE: The '>' "redirection operator" character differs from the '>>' version in that it ERASES the file it's aimed at, while the latter APPENDS to it, so take care you get them right.
If you've got a LOT of machines to do this too, you COULD copy the batch file onto your oh-so-portable thumbdrive (in our case, the OS put it at \USB-Drive\) with:
COPY \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\clean.bat \USB-Disk\PROGRAMS
and then create ANOTHER batch file on your USB stick (copyclean.bat), using the ECHO methods above, to:
COPY \USB-Disk\PROGRAMS\clean.bat \"Hard Disk\PTCE\"
DIR \"Hard Disk"\PTCE\*.bat
We execute it, by opening the shell, and executing:
\"Hard Disk"\PTCE\copyclean.bat
Well. I just thought someone besides me ought to know.
FINALLY: you COULD create the .BAT files on your thumbdrive on a regular computer in the:
\USB-Drive\PROGRAMS\
directory, using Notepad.