HALL@SU-SUSHI.ARPA (Keith Hall) (02/10/86)
Analogous to the library of software available for the Amiga and run
by Fred Fish, I am organizing a collection of public domain software
for the Atari ST machines.
THE LIBRARY
-----------
I am collecting and organizing programs which can be freely copied and
shared, including teaching aids, utilities, demonstrations, and applications
which are of use to programmers/developers, hobbyists, and members
of Atari Users Groups. Programs will be grouped so that those logically
related appear on the same disk, in as much as this leads to efficient
use of storage space on disks. Whenever possible, the source code as
well as object code for the programs will be distributed. To the extent
that time permits, I am writing brief critiques/bug reports to accompany
the software collected (as well as ascertaining that the effects of each
program's execution is benevolent!). In addition I plan to author some
tutorial programs on various aspects of programming for the ST and include
these in the library.
SOFTWARE AVAILABLE
------------------
I have the usual demos of color and monochrome pictures, some games, freebie
text editors, graphics editors, and ramdisks, miscellaneous utilities (such as
a program to be placed in the Auto folder which queries you of time and date
at boot-time), a dumphex utility, and several desk accessories. The above
programs account for about 5-6 double-sided disks worth of software which will
be distilled to make up the first 3-4 disks I distribute. I am also down-
loading (and converting to the ST) programs from Net.Sources and (indirectly
thru a friend) from CompuServe. In addition, I am taking programs from the
Amiga library (many of which use only the standard C-language interface) and
porting them to the ST. (Of course some of these programs depend upon the
hardware/operating system specific to the Amiga and which will not be ported.)
Likewise, there is a wealth of public domain programs for the Macintosh which
could be converted to GEM. In the absence of objection, I'll post on this
bulletin board a listing of the contents of each disk as it becomes available.
OBTAINING DISKS
---------------
I want to distribute the disks first to organizations and people who are
willing to share what they get from me with friends or user groups. I am a
member of the ST Developers Forum (a developers group in the San Francisco Bay
Area) and will be sharing disks with other members of that group and with
members of BAAUG (Bay Area Atari User Group). As has been noted many times,
in order to ensure success of the ST, the software vacuum must be filled
quickly, and for that to occur, aids for programmers should be readily and
inexpensively available. So I would especially like to hear from members
of other user groups who would make these disks available to their groups.
If you need a disk NOW, or can't find copies of these disks locally (which
I hope will not be the case in a couple of weeks!), I will mail them directly
to you for the cost of medium, mailing costs, photocopying, and misc
expenses. The charge will be $10 for each double-sided (Sony) diskette 80-90%
full of public domain software. Normally I will distribute the software
on double-sided diskettes. However, since some ST owners have only a
single-sided drive, I will also distribute the software in each double-sided
disk as two single-sided disks and charge $12 for those two disks. If you
make an order and send excess money, then I will apply the excess to the
next disk and mail it to you when it becomes available. (If you're interested
in "just demos" or "just utilities" or whatever be sure to tell me.) As stated
above I have 3-4 disks almost ready to go, with roughly 1 1/2 disks utilities,
1 1/2 disks graphics demos, and 1 disk applications.
Finally, I am eager to hear from other programmers who wish to contribute
to this library software they've written or ported. There are thousands of
public-domain programs from other computers which could be adapted to the ST,
but of course I don't have time to convert all these (and its more fun to
write original software anyway), so I solicit aid from others in making
available (public domain) software which they feel may be of use to
fellow ST users.
I guess that's everything except ways to contact me if you want to share
software, get disks, or to suggest ways to make this operation run more
smoothly:
Keith Hall
address: 1510 Oak Creek Drive #305
Palo Alto, CA 94304
e-mail: hall@su-sushi.arpa
phone: 415-324-0284
Please call only between 10am and 12 midnite, and remember that I'm in
Pacific Time Zone. I'm a student and home not alot, so don't be shy
about talking to my answering machine.
-------info-atari@ucbvax.UUCP (02/13/86)
Keith:
Read your posting about ST software in net.micro.
atari.
Reading the atari info in the newsgroup can be very
disheartening for someone in the UK. You are lucky to get
a functioning ST here, let alone all the added extras and
software that you people from the US talk about!
However, I've got an ST, with limited sofware
(database, word processor etc) but no compilers etc as they
are still rare. Anyway, your public domain software such as
desk utilities and applications sounds as though it could
brighten my machine up no end. Would it be possible to
get (compiled or BASIC) software from you here in UK?
As I said, things are basic here, so it would have to
be single sided discs.
If you think you can help, send me some info
on prices etc.
Thanks,
Steve Marsh.
scm@onion.cs.reading.uk