warren@ssc-vax.UUCP (Warren Kring) (11/19/85)
Hello world! Please excuse me, but this is my first posting to the net. I, like many of you, have been reading the net for some time now looking for some inside info on the Amiga before buying one. Well, I'm somewhat happy to say that I have finally made the purchase. After an annoying problem with my external drive (the one I received with my system didn't have warranty registration card or one of the protective cards in the drive... I suspect it was a faulty return.... Grrrrrr), I have found myself being amused with the capabilities of my machine. My main gripe, besides the fact that there's literally no software available, is that I can't get the AbasiC to operate in other than a 40 column mode. Is it possible to get an 80 column mode out of it, or must I junk it and replace it with a "Real" language when one comes out (is the assembler available yet???). If anyone knows (Commodore, are you listening???), could you please post a response? I'm sure if there is a way to do it, it must be in the mysterious "Amiga User Manual", which of course no Joe User has access to. I also have a pre-release of Textcraft. I realize that what I have isn't the final product, but will the final version allow you to continue with other jobs while one is printing??? It seems rather useless to have a Multitasking machine if one can't do multiple jobs (even if one is a print job). Perhaps Mr. Commodore could answer this one to? Well, Thanks for listening! Warren Kring Boeing Aerospace Co. Seattle, Wa <<<<<The above comments are in no way to be confused with any thought of mine (I have none) nor to be connected in any way to my employer.... my cat made me do it>>>>
warren@ssc-vax.UUCP (Warren Kring) (11/22/85)
> My main gripe, besides the fact that there's literally no > software available, is that I can't get the AbasiC to operate in > other than a 40 column mode. Is it possible to get an 80 column > mode out of it, or must I junk it and replace it with a "Real" > language when one comes out (is the assembler available yet???). > If anyone knows (Commodore, are you listening???), could you please > post a response? I'm sure if there is a way to do it, it must be > in the mysterious "Amiga User Manual", which of course no Joe User > has access to. Well, I found out the answer to my own question last night. Most of you may already know the answer to the 80 column Abasic question I posted earlier, but for those of you who don't... here goes. In order to have 80 column text, you need to put the screen hi-res mode. This can be done simply by using the screen command (mentioned in the Abasic manual) "Screen 1,4,0". This will put you in high-res mode as long as the font has not been changed (see the font command--default is 40 in low res, 80 in hi res). Personnally, I would much prefer to have the default be 80 columns, since this would be much easier to read. Hey commodore, is this an unreasonable request for an upcoming release??? I've also heard a rumor that Abasic will be replaced by Microsoft basic. Is this true, or should it just remain a rumor? Another question I have (one which could certainly be answered by the user's guide which I can't get yet) is the difficulty I've had with saving my basic files in a different directory than the top-level directory. There are no icons to move (or if there are, I haven't found them) and I can't seem to rename them to another directory like one would do on a Vax. Any help would be appreciated! Warren Kring Boeing Aerospace Co. Seattle, Wa
bruceb@amiga.UUCP (Bruce Barrett) (11/23/85)
In article <376@ssc-vax.UUCP> warren@ssc-vax.UUCP (Warren Kring) writes: >Hello world! > My main gripe, besides the fact that there's literally no >software available, is that I can't get the AbasiC to operate in >other than a 40 column mode. Is it possible to get an 80 column >mode out of it... From Commodore-Amiga (The Gripe busters!): Yes, set your Preferences to 80 and use the ABasiC command: SCREEN 1,2,0 -- or -- SCREEN 1,3,0 When you first come up. This command IS documented, see page R-151 of the ABasiC manual. Parameters are: 1st - mode, 1=highres, 0=lowres 2nd - depth (# of bit-planes) 1=2 colors, 2=4 colors, 3=8 colors,... 3rd - top of screen (# of scan lines from the top) I do note that this is in the "File Management Commands" section so I had a little trouble looking it up. (And I knew I needed the SCREEN command) I first tried "graphics", then "I/O" commands. Found it by using the command summary in the back of the book. Oh well... > I also have a pre-release of Textcraft. I realize that >what I have isn't the final product, but will the final version >allow you to continue with other jobs while one is printing??? It >seems rather useless to have a Multitasking machine if one can't do >multiple jobs (even if one is a print job). Perhaps Mr. Commodore >could answer this one to? First of all I'll put on my "big bad police man's" hat and say "What are you doing with a product that: ((keep :-)ing please! )) a) will be sold (not a give away with the machine) and b) had only be released in a dealer demo version." My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that Textcraft was sent to dealers so that they could demo machines, not give an unreleased product away. Anyway, that aside, you are right to note that TC does not "print-spool" and that all indications are that the Amiga could handle this. The answers are: 1) Just because a machine multi tasks doesn't mean that you (the developer, Arktronics in this case) has to. 2) Textcraft is meant as an "entry level" word processor. Not a *high-powered* business tool. Yes, there are some and will be other businesses that can use TC. That is not the stated market for THIS product. 3) *IF* you had lots of memory and *IF* Arktronics had allowed you to use the Amiga-M and Amiga-N keys to get back and forth to the workbench screen and *IF* Textcraft ran in a machine with more than 512k of memory and *IF* your document(s) was(were) small enough to fit in memory, TWICE -- *THEN* -- you could run 2 copies of Textcraft, printing in one and editing in the other. ED in the CLI, for example will do this. ED, however, will not do many of the other things TC does. The released 1.0 version of Textcraft will continue to print in this way. I do not know (and probably couldn't say) when the next rev will be out and what features it has. If you want to start a "card and letter" campaign please either direct it to Arktronics or get in touch with me and I'll try to determine if it is us (C/A) or they you should lobby. Hope that helps! Bruce Barrett PS: > Boeing Aerospace Co. ^^^^^^ I like your planes. PPS: Amiga and Textcraft are trademarks of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
kim@mips.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn) (11/23/85)
> My main gripe, besides the fact that there's literally no > software available, is that I can't get the AbasiC to operate in > other than a 40 column mode. Is it possible to get an 80 column > mode out of it, or must I junk it and replace it with a "Real" > language when one comes out (is the assembler available yet???). I had the same "gripe" Warren, but a friend of mine who had had his machine for a couple of days longer came thru. Here's the trick: When ABasiC comes up type "screen 1,4,0". The screen will flash a bit, then lo and behold ... 80 columns. The screen function is described on pages 151-152 of the ABasiC manual. BTW, the default mode is not "1,4,0" as page 152 says; it's "0,?,0" the low-resolution mode (the ?-mark is because I haven't really *tested* the number of planes that it defaults to). Also, "1,5,0" won't work as that specifies high-res mode, with 5 planes (32 colors); the Amiga can't normally do this. It would be nice if ABasiC were fixed to respect the setting given in Preferences (and how about for screen colors, as well)! Another one *I* had trouble with was getting OUT of ABasiC without doing a reset. I tried EXIT, QUIT, STOP, END, LEAVE, BYE, DIE, every Cntl-Char, and a few words I can't use on the net. Then I stumbled upon page R-154; "of course you type SYSTEM", I exclaimed, "just like in APL" ... naturally! Maybe this is a common way to get out of a BASIC interpreter, but I've never used BASIC before (I prefer Assembler, but then what do you expect from someone in H/W Diagnostics? :-) ) One thing I feel pretty strongly about is telling a user how to terminate an application in the same paragraph or section as you told her how to get into it ... not 151 pages later (the manual tells you how to bring up ABasiC on page R-3, and I didn't see SYSTEM referenced until R-154 though I suppose I could have missed it). Here's a tidbit I stumbled upon by chance ... haven't seen it documented either: The friend I mentioned above wrote a quick-and-dirty Mandelbrot program to get a feel for the graphics capability and computational power of the Amiga. His Amiga is currently hooked up to a TV set, as his dealer was short of monitors. He coded the program so that it would give him a nice display on the TV set, but on my 1080 monitor, it ended up being about 2"x 6" in size (80 col mode). "Well", I says to myself, "here's a chance to play with ABasiC". After *finally* getting a listing of his code out (the way to do this is documented on page 172, but check the errata sheets BEFORE you spend an hour trying to get it to work), and hacking on it a bit, I get it up and it seems to be running. Since all the floating point is done in s/w, it's a pretty slooow program; but not to worry, the Amiga is a multi-tasking machine ... we'll just flip ABasiC into the background and go off and do something else while it's running. Up to the Back Gadget and click. Click. Click! CLICK! The screen does not change. Try pulling down the screen ... nope, won't budge. Well, lessee, maybe it'll pull down if I make the ABasiC window smaller. Down to the Sizing Gadget, size the window; up to the Drag Bar and pull. Ah ha! The ABasiC window bar was on top of the ABasiC screen bar. Now we'll get to the correct Back Gadget ... click. CLICK!!!!! The screen does not change. Try dragging the ABasiC *screen* down now that its exposed ... no dice. Now I *know* I've seen ABasiC and Workbench up together .... begin searching thru the manual ... yep, there it is on page 4-27 of Introduction to Amiga. What's this about shortcuts ... Amiga-M ... nothing happens. I remember reading someplace about Amiga-N ... nada! Back to the manuals. About this time, the Mandelbrot program does something bad ... Guru Meditation time. Later. I think I've fixed my error in the Mandelbrot code and have it running again. I try going thru some semblance of the above procedure, Desperately Seeking Workbench. Lo and behold, when I try dragging down the ABasiC *screen's* Drag Bar (after getting it out from underneath ABasiC's window Drag Bar) ... THERE IS THE WORKBENCH! OK, so what's different? The clock is sitting there ticking away, and ... wait a minute! I brought no clock up last time ... just went straight into ABasiC. CLOCK? NO CLOCK? Come on, let's get serious ... what can that have to do with it? But it does. WHAT IS GOING ON HERE? It seems that if you want to be able to foreground or background the "main" screen (i.e., the Workbench), something has to be "happening" on it, and the clock will do the trick ... perhaps they use it for "time-slicing" (sorry, I just couldn't resist :-) ). Now I've been able to get two ABasiC's up at once. Three, and I get a "Can't open window" Requester, which if I click and then try to move one of the ABasiC's Drag Bar ends up giving me Guru Meditation #00000003.000027A2. Oh well, this is release 1.0, right? Right! I'm sorry the above narration is so long (doubly so if this is "common knowledge"), but I wanted to make a point. For myself, I enjoy debugging new machines, and I get paid to do just that; it's more fun to me than Hack or Rogue or whatever. But, if people who are relatively familier with computers, and who are used to working on "Beta" level machines with incomplete documentation have these kinds of experiences, what will happen to the really naive users in the offices and schools and so forth? You know, the people of "The Marketplace"; the ones who ultimately decide whether a product is successful or not. The Amiga is a really GREAT machine, with tremendous potential. AmigaDOS Rev 1.0 has a LOT of holes, and some serious oversights in documentation of FUNDEMENTAL operations, in my opinion. Rev 1.1 is supposed to be out "next week" I'm told. I really hope to see a significant improvement in the system, and the documentation, but being somewhat cynical (working in Diagnostics will do that to you), I'd bet that the system won't be "clean" until about Rev 1.6 or so. There's one other thing I noticed while working with ABasiC that I'd like to see "fixed". The Front and Back Gadgets are in the "standard" places (i.e., the same as Workbench), but their iconic representation seems "backwards" to me. In Workbench, the Front Gadget is represented by a white square on top of a black square and vice-versa for the Back Gadget; in ABasiC, Front is blue/black on white and Back is white on blue/black. The white tends to dominate in the gadgets, visually, and tends to become associated with "this window/screen"; thus making ABasiC's representation seem backwards (to me, anyway). I bring this up because *consistency* in the user interface (particularly in iconic systems) is the key to effortless use. I realize ABasiC was developed by a third party, but I hope it will seem more consistent with the rest of the bundled s/w in future releases. Also, I hope Commodore-Amiga is *encouraging* all 3rd party ISV's to be consistent in their basic interfaces. (Is there a "suggested standard interface"? I've not seen one in the technical documentation that my dealer lets me make notes from.) Finally, if you're still with me, you deserve a cookie ... here's something else that's not mentioned in the bundled documentation. Didja know that there is a full-screen editor in Amiga ... and a line-editor? Yep, there surely are! For the full-screen editor, just go into CLI, and type ED <filename>. Bingo! For the line-editor, you type EDIT <filename> (my short experiance with the *line-editor* is that <filename> must already exist, else you get an error). The commands for ED were posted to the net some time ago in a reference-card form; at the time, I thought they were for the ABasiC editor. If anyone wants a copy, I'll be happy to e-mail it to them. I don't have the commands for the line-editor ("q" actually "quits" it though). To see most (all?) of the CLI commands, enter "dir :c" from CLI. In AmigaDOS, ":" means "root"; "cd /" is equivalent to "cd .." in UNIX(tm). Enter a command followed by a "?" to see the command-syntax. Hoping my Developer's Kit with the *real* documentation gets here SOON! /kim P.S. I attended a demo by Electronic Arts on their upcoming s/w. WOW! I was particularly impressed with Professional Graphics. It's supposed to be released the 1st week in December, and is supposed to retail at $89.95. They're waiting for the release of AmigaDOS Rev 1.1 to happen first ... tho the demo was run on Rev 1.0 without problems. "Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get." -- Lazarus Long -- UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!kim DDD: 415-960-1200 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems Inc, 1330 Charleston Rd, Mt View, CA 94043
french@caip.RUTGERS.EDU (11/24/85)
From: "french robert%d.mfenet"@LLL-MFE.ARPA AbasiC can be placed into an 80-column mode by using the SCREEN command described on page R-151 of the AbasiC manual. It's format is: SCREEN <mode%>,<depth%>,<top%> mode% is 0 for 320 pixels/line (40 col), 1 for 640 (80 col). depth% is the number of bit planes you would like (1-4). top% is supposedly the top line of the screen. For example, I usually use "SCREEN 1,4,0" which gives me an 80-column, 16 color screen. BTW, anybody know how to make the text in different colors? Robert French "French Robert%d"@LLL-MFE.ARPA
liebert@sjuvax.UUCP (liebert) (11/25/85)
> I've also heard a rumor that Abasic will be replaced by Microsoft > basic. Is this true?... Yes this is definately true (and there was much rejoicing) and I have seen it and worked with it. Like their basic for the MAC, there is a seperate window for the listing which allows you on-screen editing (cutting, pasting etc.), good sound/graphics support, mouse support, windows and most of the stuff that ABasiC offers and then some. It is a more structured basic (no need for line numbers) and uses labels. Most of the non-Amiga-specific looks like standard Microsoft stuff. Other neat things include the error detection routine which, when it finds an error in your code, pulls up the listing window with a red box around the offending error. All we need is a compiler and basic could be tolerable :-) Peter Liebert Saint Joseph's University Philadelphia, PA {allegra | astrovax | bpa | burdvax}!sjuvax!liebert
DEC.BANKS@MARLBORO.DEC.COM (11/25/85)
From: Dawn Banks <DEC.BANKS@MARLBORO.DEC.COM> A couple of points here about ABasiC: First, "Screen 1,4,0" does get you into hi res (therefore 80 column) mode. It also gives you 4 bit planes worth of graphics, which as previous mail on this list has shown steals lots of cycles. The machine can run a lot faster if you only use two bit planes ("Screen 1,2,0"). Secondly, in re getting the workbench screen back while running Basic stuff: We've also burned off a lot of computes doing Mandelbrot zooming. Aside from being able to do something else with the machine while it's zooming, it may also run faster if you're using hi res 4 bit plane graphics (as above), since the workbench screen only uses 2 planes. We've done a little more research as to when you can and can't get the workbench screen. As we've not gotten our developer's kit yet (listening Amiga????), excuse the clumsy terminology, as we've only an emperical idea of what's happening here: If you get to the CLI, and say "ABASIC" to run basic (after setting stack to 8000, of course), the CLI doesn't accept anymore commands until ABasiC exits. WHen this is the case, it's terribly difficult to get the Workbench/CLI screen back, and once you do, the CLI isn't going to accept anything. If, on the other hand, you initiate ABasiC with "RUN ABasiC", the CLI will continute to accept commands, and the screen selection gadgets on the ABasiC screen suddenly start working like they're supposed to. I guess the deal here is that it doesn't readily give you the old Workbench screen back if there's no one there to talk to. Running the clock program definitely gives you someone to talk to, so no problems. Giving the shell command "NewCLI" (is that it? I've renamed mine already) will also spawn a new CLI in the workbench screen. As a last point for MandelHackers: As I've mentioned, it's a good idea to "bury" the ABasiC screen under something that steals cycles less if you're computing to 4 bit plane hi res. The only problem with that is that you don't know the progress of the program if you can't see it. This is easily solved by openning a window on the Workbench screen, and displaying the progress. This can be done by openning "CON:0/10/100/20/Mandelbrot", then outputting the progress to it, say every line like "Print #1, CHR$(27);"[HCurrent line:"; ScreenY%;" We've got the inner loop hand coded in assembler, callable from an ABasiC program. This speeds up computation by a factor of 25 or more. If there's any interest, I can make the source (Basic DATA statements, 'cause we STILL DON'T HAVE OUR DEVELOPER'S KIT) available. --------
js@uw-june (Joe Meadows) (11/26/85)
In regards to changing the text color, note the two commands ASK RGB register,red,green,blue (R-99) and RGB register,red,green,blue (R-119) register 0 = background screen color register 1 = Text color, plus parts of the menu gadgets, register 2 = most of the window border, register 15 = Block cursor Other things of possible interest: CHDIR "file-spec" (in the errata sheet) changes your default directory. Note however that this doesn't affect commands like DIR, or SHELL, which will still refer to the directory you were in when you entered basic (at least, I think thats it...) For fun I played with the LIBCALL (R-147) function, after hand-assembling some 68k code (bleah,choke,gag, where's my development kit?!) shoving the assembled code into DATA statements, READing them into an array and then using VARPTR to find their address... Pain city! (aside, Integers are Longwords (32 bit)) For those of you crazy enough to try it : LIBCALL <pointer%>, <index%>, <array%> where pointer% is either the address of the routine, or a "library base pointer", index% is an index into the library (0% for a routine) and array% is an array of 16 cells to hold registers D0-D7 followed by A0-A7. They give an example in the book using the system variable EXECBASE (a pointer to the system Exec library). Apparently your on your own to figure out what offsets do what.. If there's any interest (You mean, someone might want to Do something from Basic?) let me know and after I get my books I'll try and post some more info concerning this.. Personnaly I can't wait for the day companies start shipping their computers with a real language, and with real documentation.. Just another waiting person.. joe (mr. cheers) meadows. Cheers
stroyan@hpfcla.UUCP (11/30/85)
> BTW, anybody know how to make the text in different colors?
The "graphics 1" command has the undocumented effect of making future
"print" statements write text in the current pena color. It doesn't
change text color for other commands. In fact, the "print" text and other
text have independent cursor positions.
Mike Stroyan, hpfcla!stroyan
warren@ssc-vax.UUCP (Warren Kring) (12/02/85)
> > I also have a pre-release of Textcraft. I realize that > >what I have isn't the final product, but will the final version > >allow you to continue with other jobs while one is printing??? It > >seems rather useless to have a Multitasking machine if one can't do > >multiple jobs (even if one is a print job). Perhaps Mr. Commodore > >could answer this one to? > > First of all I'll put on my "big bad police man's" hat and say "What > are you doing with a product that: ((keep :-)ing please! )) > a) will be sold (not a give away with the machine) and > b) had only be released in a dealer demo version." > My understanding (and I could be wrong) is that Textcraft was sent to > dealers so that they could demo machines, not give an unreleased > product away. > > Amiga and Textcraft are trademarks of Commodore-Amiga, Inc. First of all, thanks to everyone for all the info on the Basic 80 column question I posted earlier. Secondly, I just thought I'd let Commodore know how I got the Textcraft demo. As you all know... There is virtually no software available for the Amiga (at least not in the Seattle area...). My dealer said I could get the demo if I prepaid for the real thing. I certainly hope this isn't illegal, because it seems everyone is doing it. Anyway, thanks for the info, Commodore. Keep it up! Warren Kring Boeing Aerospace Co. Seattle, Wa "My comments are my own and are not to be connected in any way with my employer..."