henning@thor.acc.stolaf.edu (11/02/90)
Hello, I have just FTP'ed a copy of my latest release of emacs to the abcfd20.larc.nasa.gov archive. Please amke sure the version you get is labled gnuemacs08.tar. Any other version should be tossed. The tar file will be larger than an amigados floppy, so if you are a non-harddisk amiga, then you should untar the two lharc and one .txt (text) file on your unix machine before transferring to your home machine. Below is a copy of the readme file ( called RelGNU08.txt ) . ----------------------------------------------------------- Here is a new version of Gnu Emacs for the amiga. You will note that it is a bit larger than before, that is because many new features have been added. This is an intermediate release. I have ferreted out most of the true bugs left in the code and have added features which have been requested by many, especially our Amiga friends with non usa1 keyboards. Below are lists that you should read. Also, there is an explanation of many of the new features, as well as a step-by-step intro if this is the first version you pick up. ********************************* Bugs fixed since last release: ********************************* 1. Fsit_for has been fixed/kludged. This is the function which is responsible for things such as holding the opening message for a set amount of time, unless input ocurrs. I have it working, temporarily, however the fix i made is incomplete. Since I have it waiting for either a timerport or I/O port signal, it was catching the key-release signal and jumping out of itself before valid input was done. The temporary fix I did was to have it call sleep(1) if Fsit_for's argument was one second. This will be fixed, however for now, at least the parens matching works. 2. Capitalization and lower case oporations function properly. This was the fault of MANX 5.0a --- which, BTW I am still using, as any later releases cause pointer faults that crash or hopelessly garble the Lisp tables. This cannot be the code itself because the pseudo-lisp code is unaltered from the UNIX code except for the memory allocation routines. I will be sending the entire source to MANX to see if they can track their own problems down, as I am not an assembly person and this is into getting pretty down-and-dirty assembly code problems. 3. If emacs is called from a ``root'' direcory, for instance ram: or df0:, it would refer to them as ram/ and df0/ which caused no end of confusion to amigados. This was my fault, as I was stripping the last character from my recursive directory tree search string. it works now. 4. That annoying new file treated as a read only existing file is fixed to a point. My code now functions correctly, however the MANX library call access() sometimes returns an incorrect value ... expecially if the file you wish to find is on a different logical root. for instance, if I fire up emacs from dh1: and try to read a file which doesn't exist in dh0:, emacs behaves as it did before I fixed the bug. As this is a library call issue, I cannot fix it. Maby when manx 5.0e comes out?!? **************** New Features: **************** 1. PAL screens are now supported. there are several flags parsed in the emacs comand line. -nocustom forces emacs to open on the workbench. -lace sets the bottom of window to 400 (or 512) -pal makes the bottom of window to be 256 or 512 -serial THIS OPTION IS NOT WORKING YET. IT IS STILL PARSED AND WILL LIKELY CAUSE A SYSTEM CRASH!!!!!!!! -keymap THIS OPTION IS NOT WORKING YET. IT IS STILL PARSED AND WILL LIKELY CAUSE A SYSTEM CRASH!!!!!!!! 2. Non USA1 keymaps are supported. I have NOT used the standard decode routine for the following reason: many codes available from a standard decode have the high bit set (umlauts and such) and emacs would interpret these codes as meta keycodes. To make use of non-usa keymaps, there is a new function called <meta>x a-load-raw-keymap which takes a string as an argument. this string is then converted into a filename gnu:etc/amiga_keymaps/<string> and the new map is loaded. Soon the parser will do that for you with a startup flag, but I wanted to get this release out. One of the reasons I want the release out is that I have neither the time not the resources to encode the keymaps myself. I started to do so, and then tried the amiga keymaps against the standard documentation and found that commodore's software did not exactly match the docs. Therefore, I am asking people who have non-USA1 keyboards to encode their map and email it to me. To encode a keymap I have included a very simple program called makekbd which is an old fassion menu driven, non intuitionized program that allows you to edit the stock keymap or, to load a custom one in and edit it. The program is self documenting, however I will describe the format of an amiga emacs keymap file: The first byte is a flag either TRUE or FALSE (1,0) which controls the behavior of the alt keys. the flag is called alt_meta_flag. The right amiga key is now known as the hard-meta key. It will or-mask any decoded key with 128 thus making it a meta value. If alt-meta-flag is true, then the alt keys will function the same. the rest of the file is a set of six tables of $60 characters each. These values correspond directly to the raw keycodes created when a key is pressed. the tables are in order: noqualifier, shift, caplock, alt, alt-shift, alt-caplock. These six values will be edited for each key or for a single key value. Your amiga documentation should tell you what the raw key values are. I have tested out both the makekbd program and the emacs load keymap and they both function correctly. The decoder function looks at the values of its character to see if it is a potential meta-character. If it is it checks to see if hard-meta or alt(providing alt-meta-flag is true) are being pressed. If not, it assumes that the code should have a cntrl-q prepended to make emacs quote the value into the document. This creates a bug which I will fix, in that assigning a shifted arrow key meta-v for instance, will cause a quoted meta-v in the document. I will fix this. *************** To be added: *************** I will be adding the following functions: 1. window resizing options. 2. ability to open on current window. 3. function keys will execute like keyboard macros. NOTE: don't hi function keys for now, I am unsure in what state I left that code segment. 4. Serial functions. This is probably the first priority, as I have a terminal and would like to use it as my perminant emacs terminal. 5. ablility to open arbitrarily sized windows. 6. Emacs will now display meta characters in the text as octal numbers. I will add a check to display these codes with a minor mode set. (umlauts and ae ligatures are examples of valid amiga meta-chars.) 7. process control. (see help me notes below) **************************** How to set up EMACS *************************** There are two archives in the distribution. The lisp and binary archives. Be sure that you have matching distribution numbers, as the lisp files change a bit as well as the binaries. 1. unlharc the lisp files into a new directory and assign the name gnuemacs: to that directory. I have kept the distro of lisp files small enough to fit on a floppy on purpose. These are the bare bones files necessary for the editor to function. (even cursor control functions are lisp calls) 2. unlharc the binaries into a different directory, somewhere in your search path. 3. copy the files in gnuemacs:s to your s: (termcap and .emacs) 4. set the environment variable TERM to amiga, amigapal, amigalace, or amigalacepal, whichever is most appropriate to your situation. This should be a file in env: called env:TERM containing the string "amiga" or one of its options. 5. alter your startup-sequence to include the environment setup and the assign (assuming you have a hard disk, if not be sure the disk that your lisp files are on is called gnuemacs: ************************************* Help me Please! ************************************ I need to get some help on the following items: 1. as I don't own arexx as of yet ( waiting for 2.0 upgrade ) I don;t know how to write an arexx port. I would like to include one. 2. how does one start a process from C WITHOUT waiting for it to return or terminating. Thanks in advance for keymaps, advice and comments. -henning henning@stolaf.edu henning@stolaf.UUCP -- --------------------------------------------- All opinions are my own, as are the spellings any deviation from the norm is just an effect of my deviance.
davidm@uunet.UU.NET (David S. Masterson) (11/08/90)
First, I have to applaud the effort to convert GnuEmacs to work with the Amiga. If this is successful, it could be a real coup for the Amiga. A few questions: 1. What version of GnuEmacs will this be compatible with? (18.55) 2. Will FSF make these changes part of future Emacs releases? 3. Will it run on stock Amigas? In how much memory? -- ==================================================================== David Masterson Consilium, Inc. (415) 691-6311 640 Clyde Ct. uunet!cimshop!davidm Mtn. View, CA 94043 ==================================================================== "If someone thinks they know what I said, then I didn't say it!"
sie@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Simon Raybould) (11/13/90)
I looked on abcdefg... amiga archive site for the gnuemacs for the amiga and couldn't find it in incoming/amiga. Where is it ? It takes a long time for me to look in each directory as I only have access via BITNET. Thanx SJR
jkh@bambam.pcs.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) (11/13/90)
I notice that Manx is used for everything, which is great, but I'm a dedicated Lattice (5.05) user. If anyone manages to make this all work with Lattice I'd appreciate hearing about it. Jordan
aoe@hpfcso.HP.COM (Alexander Elkins) (11/14/90)
/ hpfcso:comp.sys.amiga / sie@fulcrum.bt.co.uk (Simon Raybould) writes: > I looked on abcdefg... amiga archive site for the gnuemacs for the amiga > and couldn't find it in incoming/amiga. Where is it ? If you get /FILES.Z from abdfg20.larc.nasa.gov, you'll find the line: Fri 01-Nov-90 22:26:48 486912 incoming/amiga/GNU/gnuemacs08.tar - Alexander Elkins (aoe@hpfiaoe.fc.hp.com)