edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (01/25/89)
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference. We
hope that you refer to this article first before posting to the net.
This helps keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. There is an analogous posting in
comp.sys.amiga.tech.
To save this posting when you are using
rn: s newuser <return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics, type 'g' for 'go to' and the three
letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on the left. This
article contains the following topics:
NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu
FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
ali@polya.stanford.edu
FTP A list of locations from which you may ftp amiga files.
leh@beach.cis.ufl.edu.UUCP
LUSIANI@CERNVM.BITNET.UUCP
page@ulowell.UUCP
PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
WED Address of the Wedge people.
stan@teroach.UUCP
FFS Answers to questions about the Fast File System.
cmcmanis@pepper.UUCP
SID Putting the Amiga 2000 on its side. Is it possible?
edwin@hcr.UUCP
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
NET
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Have fun via
mail.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you post an request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
MOD
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
Saving a file:
To get a program, you must save the article you are reading.
Under rn type:
s filename
while reading the article with the program in it. The 'filename' can be
any name you choose for it. This will save the program under the
default directory News. Thus the file will be News/filename.
Once you have saved all the programs, you should then use an editor such
as vi to delete all the lines until the one that says, "delete all lines
up to this one."
Shar:
Most programs the moderators send out are shared together. This is a
special way of binding many text files together to make them easier to
handle.
You now have various choices. There is an unshar program on the Amiga
(Fish 97) or you can use the standard Unix Bourne shell 'sh' to unshar
them. The Unix 'sh' should work with any file the moderators send
across. From unix, type:
sh filename
It is recommended you put this file in its own directory to contain all
the file that sh generates.
Uudecode:
Some files are binaries that have been 'uuencoded'. This is because the
connection between Unix machines can only handle text characters, and not
certain binary characters. To get around the problem, these binary files
are encoded into text using uuencode. Uuencoded files usually have a .uu
or a .uue extension so that you can recognize them. To uudecode a file
type:
uudecode filename
It is recommended that you do your uudecoding on the Amiga. This way,
there are less errors involving file formats on your host machine that
are different from the Amiga's own file format. There is a version of
uudecode for the Amiga on Fish 38.
Arc/zoo:
You might notice that .arc or .zoo files are produced by uudecode. These
files are actually many files glued together and compressed to conserve
space. To extract files from a .arc file, type the following on the Amiga:
arc x filename
To extract files from a .zoo file on the Amiga:
zoo x// filename
There is a version of arc on Fish 70 and a version of zoo on Fish 136.
(Earlier version of arc: Fish 40. Earlier versions of zoo: Fish 87
and 108)
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or
amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file
will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the
aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the
submissions)
3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Bob Page - page@swan.ulowell.edu
- uunet!ut-sally!im4u!woton!swan!page
Pat White (moderator without a home :-)
(ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu | ain@k.cc.purdue.edu)
*************************************************************************
FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1346 W. 10th Place
Tempe, Arizona 85281
USA
(602) 921-1113 (Sorry, I can only return calls collect.)
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
------------------
From: ali@polya.stanford.edu
Subject: How to get a listing of Fish disks electronically:
If you can FTP, you can find the following files on SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, in
the directory <ALI.AMIGA.FISH>
WHEREIS (a list of programs that've appeared on Fish disks 1..138,
sorted by prog name & with one line description)
1, 2, 3, ... (detailed descriptions of what's on each disk --- these
are Fred Fish's own descriptions of what's on the disks)
You can anonymously FTP these files. Because SCORE is a TOPS-20 machine,
you can't CD to the directory, instead you need to:
FTP> get <ali.amiga.fish>whereis
If you want it let me know and I can mail you at least the WHEREIS file.
Ali Ozer, ali@polya.stanford.edu
*************************************************************************
FTP
From: ertem@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tuna Ertemalp)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMIGA FTP-Sites
Any information starting with [;] is something which I couldn't
verify. Some of them were reported to me by other people, but I never
managed to FTP them. Or they seem to be refusing anonymous FTP
although they used to accept it. Some of them does not seem to exist
at all. Even some directories seem to have been purged. The rest is
what I am using always. Have fun and keep me informed about any new
sites, IP-addresses, and directories, as well as the ones which have
been removed, changed, or manipulated (enough to make this list
"old"). I'd appreciate it :-)
Tuna Ertemalp. Ertem@Polya.Stanford.Edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name IP-Address(es) Directorie(s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
a.cs.uiuc.edu 10.3.0.37 /pub/amiga
; 192.5.69.1
cs.utah.edu 128.110.4.21 /pub/amiga-forth
; 10.0.0.4
; husc7.harvard.edu ; 128.103.1.57
ix1.cc.utexas.edu 128.83.1.21 /microlib/amiga
ix2.cc.utexas.edu 128.83.1.29 /microlib/amiga
j.cc.purdue.edu 128.210.0.3 /comp.binaries.amiga
; 10.1.0.37 /comp.sources.amiga
louie.udel.edu 192.5.39.3 /pub/amiga
; 10.0.0.96 /pub/ka9q
ssyx.ucsc.edu 128.114.133.1 /pub/amiga
swan.ulowell.edu 129.63.1.1 /amiga
129.63.224.1
topaz.rutgers.edu 128.6.4.194 /pyr-public/text/mg2/sys/amiga
trantor.umd.edu 128.8.10.14 /info-amiga
/info-amiga/uxe
/pub
ucsd.ucsd.edu 128.54.16.1 /hamradio/karn
uunet.uu.net 192.12.141.129 /amiga-sources
; 192.112.141.12
ux.acss.umn.edu 128.101.63.2 /usenix87/Amiga
/usenix87/Editors/Emacs/MicroGnu/sys/amiga
/usenix87/Editors/Emacs/MicroGnu/tty/amiga
uxc.cso.uiuc.edu 10.6.0.94 /utils/cshar
128.174.5.50
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu 128.174.5.54 /amiga
/archived_notes/comp.binaries.amiga
xanth.cs.odu.edu 128.82.8.1 /usenet
/amiga
*************************************************************************
PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
WED
The following is included to prevent the occasional questions on the net
and in NO WAY ADVOCATES OR DISCOURAGES the use of the wedge.
>From: stan@teroach.UUCP
Subject: Low cost Hard Disk is here for A1000 and A500!!
[stan's opinion on the wedge deleted for objectivity]
So if you don't mind I'll pass on the pertinent information:
R.S.I.
9651 Alexandra Road
Richmond, B.C.
Canada V6X 1C6
(604) 270-0064
Again, I am in no way affiliated with any of the manufacturers
mentioned above, I just want the word to get out, HD RELIEF IS HERE!!
*************************************************************************
FFS
From: cmcmanis@pepper.UUCP
Subject: Re: Fast File System questions
In article <260@geocub.UUCP> anthes@geocub.UUCP (Franklin Anthes) writes:
> - is FFS a totally new FS, or just changes made to the old FS?
Yes and no. Yes it is a totally new file system handler, however the
way the data is stored on the disk is not changed in a really remarkable
way. The only real difference is that datablocks now have 512 bytes of
data rather than 488. [Yes, that's a "free" 5% increase in space]
> - What changes have been made?
Biggest wins come from sequentially ordered hash chains and full data
blocks. It makes long reads much more appealing (and DMA much more
efficient).
> - Why does FFS for diskettes have to wait until 1.4?
Because it won't be in ROM for 1.3, so there is this chicken and egg
problem where you have a disk and no filesystem in memory yet
that can read it, because the filesystem is on the disk you are trying to
read. See the problem ? Further, some of the stuff that diskettes rely on
(like the ability to deal with being swapped out) is not part of FFS yet.
> - Has something been done to make directory access faster, or will the
> the speedup in this area just be proportional to the speedup for
> FFS?
Yes, all aspects of disk activity are faster. My wife (who uses a PC-AT
at work) commented the other day at how fast the directory popped up on
the screen. Such are the improvements. Anyway, with FFS all hard disk
activity on the Amiga are faster than equivalent activity on the Mac, PC,
or Atari.
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
*************************************************************************
SID
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP
Subject: Putting the 2000 on its side.
There seems to be no problem with putting the Amiga 2000 on its side to
make it fit nicely under a desk. My 2000 has been in this orientation for
approximately 10 months and I have had no problem associated with its
position. I recommend putting your computer on its left side so that the
drives are as high (and accessible) as possible.
You may need some extension cables for the keyboard and mouse. A
standard joystick extender cable is fine for the mouse and a standard 7
prong DIN cable will work for the keyboard. Both are available at Radio
Shack and similar stores.
There has been some discussion about the operation of disks and drives
in a sideways position. I have had no more or no less bad disks because
of this. However, it remains to be seen if the disks wear out faster
sideways.
*************************************************************************fnf@estinc.UUCP (Fred Fish) (01/27/89)
In article <4749@hcr.UUCP> edwin@hcrvax.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) writes: >From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP >Subject: How to get Fish disks. > > Fred Fish > 1346 W. 10th Place > Tempe, Arizona 85281 > USA To avoid any delay in filling your orders please note that as of Jan 1 I have moved to a new address (in signature below). Also note that the portion of my email path that used to be "asuvax!nud!fishpond!fnf" is now "asuvax!mcdphx!estinc!fnf". -Fred -- # Fred Fish, 1835 E. Belmont Drive, Tempe, AZ 85284, USA # 1-602-491-0048 asuvax!{nud,mcdphx}!estinc!fnf
edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (03/03/89)
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: March 2, 1989
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference. We
hope that you refer to this article first before posting to the net.
This helps keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. There is an analogous posting in
comp.sys.amiga.tech.
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser <return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on
the left. This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
ali@polya.stanford.edu
,FTP A list of locations from which you may ftp amiga files.
leh@beach.cis.ufl.edu.UUCP
LUSIANI@CERNVM.BITNET.UUCP
page@ulowell.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,WED Address of the Wedge people.
stan@teroach.UUCP
,FFS Answers to questions about the Fast File System.
cmcmanis@pepper.UUCP
,SID Putting the Amiga 2000 on its side. Is it possible?
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,BUY Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,CPU Is 14.32MHz too fast for my expansion RAM?
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
,LED What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
bjc@pollux.UUCP
,MAC A2000 vs B2000, which machine is which?
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
,SUR comp.sys.amiga survey, opinions from the net
uunet!rice.edu!carson
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,NET
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Have fun via
mail.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you post an request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,MOD
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
Saving a file:
To get a program, you must save the article you are reading.
Under rn type:
s filename
while reading the article with the program in it. The 'filename' can be
any name you choose for it. This will save the program under the
default directory News. Thus the file will be News/filename.
Once you have saved all the programs, you should then use an editor such
as vi to delete all the lines until the one that says, "delete all lines
up to this one."
Shar:
Most programs the moderators send out are shared together. This is a
special way of binding many text files together to make them easier to
handle.
You now have various choices. There is an unshar program on the Amiga
(Fish 97) or you can use the standard Unix Bourne shell 'sh' to unshar
them. The Unix 'sh' should work with any file the moderators send
across. From unix, type:
sh filename
It is recommended you put this file in its own directory to contain all
the file that sh generates.
Uudecode:
Some files are binaries that have been 'uuencoded'. This is because the
connection between Unix machines can only handle text characters, and not
certain binary characters. To get around the problem, these binary files
are encoded into text using uuencode. Uuencoded files usually have a .uu
or a .uue extension so that you can recognize them. To uudecode a file
type:
uudecode filename
It is recommended that you do your uudecoding on the Amiga. This way,
there are less errors involving file formats on your host machine that
are different from the Amiga's own file format. There is a version of
uudecode for the Amiga on Fish 38.
Arc/zoo:
You might notice that .arc or .zoo files are produced by uudecode. These
files are actually many files glued together and compressed to conserve
space. To extract files from a .arc file, type the following on the Amiga:
arc x filename
To extract files from a .zoo file on the Amiga:
zoo x// filename
There is a version of arc on Fish 70 and a version of zoo on Fish 136.
(Earlier version of arc: Fish 40. Earlier versions of zoo: Fish 87
and 108)
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or
amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file
will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the
aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the
submissions)
3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Bob Page - page@swan.ulowell.edu
- uunet!ut-sally!im4u!woton!swan!page
Pat White (moderator without a home :-)
(ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu | ain@k.cc.purdue.edu)
*************************************************************************
,FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1346 W. 10th Place
Tempe, Arizona 85281
USA
(602) 921-1113 (Sorry, I can only return calls collect.)
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
------------------
From: ali@polya.stanford.edu
Subject: How to get a listing of Fish disks electronically:
If you can FTP, you can find the following files on SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, in
the directory <ALI.AMIGA.FISH>
WHEREIS (a list of programs that've appeared on Fish disks 1..138,
sorted by prog name & with one line description)
1, 2, 3, ... (detailed descriptions of what's on each disk --- these
are Fred Fish's own descriptions of what's on the disks)
You can anonymously FTP these files. Because SCORE is a TOPS-20 machine,
you can't CD to the directory, instead you need to:
FTP> get <ali.amiga.fish>whereis
If you want it let me know and I can mail you at least the WHEREIS file.
Ali Ozer, ali@polya.stanford.edu
*************************************************************************
,FTP
From: ertem@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tuna Ertemalp)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMIGA FTP-Sites
Any information starting with [;] is something which I couldn't
verify. Some of them were reported to me by other people, but I never
managed to FTP them. Or they seem to be refusing anonymous FTP
although they used to accept it. Some of them does not seem to exist
at all. Even some directories seem to have been purged. The rest is
what I am using always. Have fun and keep me informed about any new
sites, IP-addresses, and directories, as well as the ones which have
been removed, changed, or manipulated (enough to make this list
"old"). I'd appreciate it :-)
Tuna Ertemalp. Ertem@Polya.Stanford.Edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name IP-Address(es) Directorie(s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
a.cs.uiuc.edu 10.3.0.37 /pub/amiga
; 192.5.69.1
cs.utah.edu 128.110.4.21 /pub/amiga-forth
; 10.0.0.4
; husc7.harvard.edu ; 128.103.1.57
ix1.cc.utexas.edu 128.83.1.21 /microlib/amiga
ix2.cc.utexas.edu 128.83.1.29 /microlib/amiga
j.cc.purdue.edu 128.210.0.3 /comp.binaries.amiga
; 10.1.0.37 /comp.sources.amiga
louie.udel.edu 192.5.39.3 /pub/amiga
; 10.0.0.96 /pub/ka9q
ssyx.ucsc.edu 128.114.133.1 /pub/amiga
swan.ulowell.edu 129.63.1.1 /amiga
129.63.224.1
topaz.rutgers.edu 128.6.4.194 /pyr-public/text/mg2/sys/amiga
trantor.umd.edu 128.8.10.14 /info-amiga
/info-amiga/uxe
/pub
ucsd.ucsd.edu 128.54.16.1 /hamradio/karn
uunet.uu.net 192.12.141.129 /amiga-sources
; 192.112.141.12
ux.acss.umn.edu 128.101.63.2 /usenix87/Amiga
/usenix87/Editors/Emacs/MicroGnu/sys/amiga
/usenix87/Editors/Emacs/MicroGnu/tty/amiga
uxc.cso.uiuc.edu 10.6.0.94 /utils/cshar
128.174.5.50
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu 128.174.5.54 /amiga
/archived_notes/comp.binaries.amiga
xanth.cs.odu.edu 128.82.8.1 /usenet
/amiga
*************************************************************************
,PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
,WED
The following is included to prevent the occasional questions on the net
and in NO WAY ADVOCATES OR DISCOURAGES the use of the wedge.
>From: stan@teroach.UUCP
Subject: Low cost Hard Disk is here for A1000 and A500!!
[stan's opinion on the wedge deleted for objectivity]
So if you don't mind I'll pass on the pertinent information:
R.S.I.
9651 Alexandra Road
Richmond, B.C.
Canada V6X 1C6
(604) 270-0064
Again, I am in no way affiliated with any of the manufacturers
mentioned above, I just want the word to get out, HD RELIEF IS HERE!!
*************************************************************************
,FFS
From: cmcmanis@pepper.UUCP
Subject: Re: Fast File System questions
In article <260@geocub.UUCP> anthes@geocub.UUCP (Franklin Anthes) writes:
> - is FFS a totally new FS, or just changes made to the old FS?
Yes and no. Yes it is a totally new file system handler, however the
way the data is stored on the disk is not changed in a really remarkable
way. The only real difference is that datablocks now have 512 bytes of
data rather than 488. [Yes, that's a "free" 5% increase in space]
> - What changes have been made?
Biggest wins come from sequentially ordered hash chains and full data
blocks. It makes long reads much more appealing (and DMA much more
efficient).
> - Why does FFS for diskettes have to wait until 1.4?
Because it won't be in ROM for 1.3, so there is this chicken and egg
problem where you have a disk and no filesystem in memory yet
that can read it, because the filesystem is on the disk you are trying to
read. See the problem ? Further, some of the stuff that diskettes rely on
(like the ability to deal with being swapped out) is not part of FFS yet.
> - Has something been done to make directory access faster, or will the
> the speedup in this area just be proportional to the speedup for
> FFS?
Yes, all aspects of disk activity are faster. My wife (who uses a PC-AT
at work) commented the other day at how fast the directory popped up on
the screen. Such are the improvements. Anyway, with FFS all hard disk
activity on the Amiga are faster than equivalent activity on the Mac, PC,
or Atari.
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
*************************************************************************
,SID
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP
Subject: Putting the 2000 on its side.
There seems to be no problem with putting the Amiga 2000 on its side to
make it fit nicely under a desk. My 2000 has been in this orientation for
approximately 10 months and I have had no problem associated with its
position. I recommend putting your computer on its left side so that the
drives are as high (and accessible) as possible.
You may need some extension cables for the keyboard and mouse. A
standard joystick extender cable is fine for the mouse and a standard 7
prong DIN cable will work for the keyboard. Both are available at Radio
Shack and similar stores.
There has been some discussion about the operation of disks and drives
in a sideways position. I have had no more or no less bad disks because
of this. However, it remains to be seen if the disks wear out faster
sideways.
*************************************************************************
,BUY
>From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
>From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
,CPU
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
Subject: Re: Is 14.32MHz too fast for my expansion RAM?
> I don't know about the CMI board, but some 68000 speedup boards have
> floating point processor sockets. If you use it, and are running
> programs with a lot of FP computation that support it, you should
> get a dramatic speed increase, yes/no?
You'll get a speedup over no 68881 at all (assuming 1.3 math libraries). What
you don't get is a 32 bit interface to the 68881, or a true coprocessor
interface to the 68881, so this is still considerably slower than a similarly
clocked 68020. Given the speedups you can get with any kind of math chip,
it's probably a good idea for someone into image rendering or other heavy
duty math operations who doesn't have a 68020 type budget.
> If you do a lot of floating point stuff (and a lot of graphics programs do),
> it sounds like a lot more bang for the buck compared to a 68020 board
> with coprocessor at ~$1000 more (plus 32 bit memory to get a real advantage
> over the 68000).
Note that for math operations, a 68020 with 68881 is several times faster than
a 68000 with 68881, even on a 16 bit bus. The difference is of course the CPU
interface that the 68020 uses, plus the wide data bus. The 68000 or 68020
have to fetch data for the 68881 in either case. But while the 68000 will fetch
at 16 bits, then transfer at 16 bits, the 68020 will do it's transfers at 32
bits. Of course, if you can only afford a fast 68000 board at $200-$300, it's
going to speed up your math more than that cash sitting in the bank waiting
for a 68020 board will...
Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests"
{ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
"I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
*************************************************************************
,LED
>From: bjc@pollux.UUCP
Subject: Re: What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
In article <1200@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US> grj@tellab5.UUCP () writes:
>Sorry if this has been covered many times before, but I don't get a chance
>to read this group often. Anyway - sometimes when I power on my A2000,
>the caps lock LED flashes at about a 1 or 2 Hz rate. The keyboard is then
>useless and nothing typed gets recognized. It seems to have started
Look on page 3 of Appendix H to the Hardware Reference manual.
Briefly, though, it says:
One blink Keyboard ROM test failed
Two blinks Keyboard RAM test failed
Three blinks Watchdog timer test failed
Four blinks A short exists between two row lines
or one of the seven special control keys.
It also says that you probably would not have been able to type anything
before this sequence would be completed, but if so, the key codes
would be sent to the computer and then a "terminate key stream" code
would be sent. There is more information in that appendix.
Betty
*************************************************************************
,MAC
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
Subject: Re: A2000 vs B2000
> How can I tell which one my 2000 is? A or B. Mine has Amiga 2000 in
> little letters on the system box as opposed to the new ones I've seen with
> Amiga 2000 in BIG letters.
If you bought it in the USA, it's a "B" (or someone hosed you). The easiest
way to tell is to look at the phono jacks on the back of the machine. The
"A" has two, the "B" has three (that extra one is a monochrome video output
that I got basically for free when using the A500 video hybrid).
Most stuff works in both. What doesn't probably can't be easily added,
though with a minor modification to the case, a board swap is possible.
> I got it in late '87 (December I think maybe Jan '88) and the writing on
> the box is mostly in German.
We kept using boxes from Germany long after switching to the US designed
motherboard.
> Will all the hardcards/SCSI interface/genlock/whatever cards fit in the
> A2000?? Or am I screwed there too?
As long as 100 pin cards are in spec, they'll work fine on both machines. All
Genlocks should work similarly. The B2000 video slot has many more signals,
but the only thing I know of on the market that's currently taking advantage
of that slot is MicroWay's flickerFixer, which won't work on the "A" board.
> If I've got the 68020 in my 2000 (which I don't yet) what would be the
> purpose of booting from the 68000???
I put that feature in to allow developers who develop on the 68020 based Amiga
an easy way to test their software on a 68000. It has the side effect of
allowing you to run software on your machine that doesn't work with the 68000.
I've found a better use for such software -- reformatting the disks it comes
on. Really, though, there's very little software that can't be used on the
68020.
--
Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
*************************************************************************
,SUR
From: Jim Carson <uunet!rice.edu!carson>
Subject: comp.sys.amiga survey
I BACKGROUND
a. How experienced do you consider yourself with the Amiga?
EXPERIENCE:
Very -- wrote popular software 6 had amiga > 2 years 10
Fair amount of programming. 4 had amiga > 1 year 4
Some Programming 5 had amiga < 1 year 2
No programming on Amiga 10 did not say 10
b. What kind of hardware do you have? (Some people had more than one system)
Machines:
A1000 17 A/B2000 9 A500 7
Peripherals:
External Memory 18 Extra Floppy 14
Modem 11 Hard Disk 10
Printer 10 Accelerator board 3
Sound/MIDI interface 3 Clock Card 2
Sidecar 2 Digitizer 1
Ethernet Interface 1
c. How much do you use your Amiga? (Some people said "lots", which
I took to mean 2 - 4 hours/day)
> 4 hours a day 10
2 - 4 hours/day 6
1 - 2 hours/day 4
< 1 hour/day 1
d. What are your favorite kinds of programs (games, utilities, etc)?
Games 13
Utilities 9
Compilers/Program Lang 8
Telecommunication 6
Music 5
Demos 4
Editors 3
II. HARDWARE
a. Hard Drive/Card
Controllers:
WEDGE 1000; WEDGE 500 ($175-$200) - very good
Bear Products - good ($120 w/o chips)
Commodore 2090; C.Ltd.; Overdrive;- okay
Microbotics HardFrame
Startime - Bad performance
Drives:
Miniscribe; Seagate ST157N, ST277N - okay
Quantum; Rodime; Supra SCSI; GVP Impact; CDC Wren - good
b. Other Permanent Storage (Tape, CD, etc)
SCSI tape is nice for backup. R/W opticals are great for animation
(650MB Sony).
c. Modem
Supra 2400 - Great ($150 for 2400, $70 for 1200)
Hayes - Nice, but expensive.
Trailblazer T2000+; Ventel MD212 - good
Courier 2400; BytCOM 212AD; - okay
Bizcomm Intellimodem EXT; Avatex
1680 - adequate (incompatible w/software)
d. Midi interfaces
ECE MIDI interface, connected to an Ensoniq Mirage keyboard.
Golden Hawk MIDI Gold MIDI interface. - Nice little box, does the job
f. External Disk Drives
A1010. (3.5") - okay
A1020 (5.25") - slow, but good for transferring ibm <-> amiga
California Access - good
Byte by Byte PAL Jr. - nice, but obsolete. Company sucks.
g. Printer
Great:
Epson LQ-800. Nice, but not as good as an Imagewriter on a Mac
C.Itoh C310-xp - Fast (300cps), Very nice NLQ
Panasonic KX-P1090i - Very nice NLQ ($200)
Ok:
Epson LX-800 - cheap, quick with 1.3 drivers, graphics
Howtek PixelMaster color inkjet
IBM Colorjet
Okidata 82A w/Rainbow Tech firmware upgrade
Mannesman-Tally Spirit-80 - Excellent printer 5 years ago, good company.
Marginal quality:
Okimate 20 - cheap printer
Star SG-10 - cheap printer
Epson FX-286 - slow. paper jams incessantly. ugly NLQ.
Citizen msp10 - slow. problems with proportional print & tabs.
h. Monitor
Sony KV1311 - very good
C-A 1080 - good
C-A 2002 - good
NEC Multisync - good
Thompson 4120 - good
C-A 1084 - okay, but crackles
C1702 [modified] - adequate
i. Memory Expansion
INSIDER board (1MB + RT Clock) - great
Spirit, A501 - good
Starboard 2-meg - good
Orphan 4-meg - no recommendations
*************************************************************************fnf@estinc.UUCP (Fred Fish) (03/17/89)
In article <5281@hcr.UUCP> edwin@hcrvax.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) writes: >To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk >for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to: > > Fred Fish > 1346 W. 10th Place > Tempe, Arizona 85281 > USA Note that this is my old address. Effective 1-Jan-89 my new address is: Fred Fish 1835 East Belmont Drive Tempe, Arizona 85284 USA Any mail sent to the old address will eventually reach me, but it may be delayed by several days. -Fred -- # Fred Fish, 1835 E. Belmont Drive, Tempe, AZ 85284, USA # 1-602-491-0048 asuvax!{nud,mcdphx}!estinc!fnf
edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (04/03/89)
[Note to Tuna Ertemalp: check the ftp list here to update yours! Please
send a new list if you have more info...]
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: April 3, 1989
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on
the left. This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
ali@polya.stanford.edu
,FTP A list of locations from which you may ftp amiga files.
ertem@polya.Stanford.EDU
hummel@m.cs.uiuc.edu.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,WED Address of the Wedge people.
stan@teroach.UUCP
,FFS Answers to questions about the Fast File System.
cmcmanis@pepper.UUCP
,SID Putting the Amiga 2000 on its side. Is it possible?
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,CPU Is 14.32MHz too fast for my expansion RAM?
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
,LED What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
bjc@pollux.UUCP
,MAC A2000 vs B2000, which machine is which?
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
,SUR comp.sys.amiga survey, opinions from the net
uunet!rice.edu!carson
,CLI Closing the initial CLI
hcr!edwin
,KIK Crashing all the way to Kickstart 1.3 (*the solution*)
bryce@cbmvax
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,BUY a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
,COL All dem [screen] colors during boot
hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
,GUR GURU-NUMBERS (what they mean)
bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt)
(current address: bryce@cbmvax)
Send questions, comments to:
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,NET
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Have fun via
mail.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you post an request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,MOD
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
Saving a file:
To get a program, you must save the article you are reading.
Under rn type:
s filename
while reading the article with the program in it. The 'filename' can be
any name you choose for it. This will save the program under the
default directory News. Thus the file will be News/filename.
Once you have saved all the programs, you should then use an editor such
as vi to delete all the lines until the one that says, "delete all lines
up to this one."
Shar:
Most programs the moderators send out are shared together. This is a
special way of binding many text files together to make them easier to
handle.
You now have various choices. There is an unshar program on the Amiga
(Fish 97) or you can use the standard Unix Bourne shell 'sh' to unshar
them. The Unix 'sh' should work with any file the moderators send
across. From unix, type:
sh filename
It is recommended you put this file in its own directory to contain all
the file that sh generates.
Uudecode:
Some files are binaries that have been 'uuencoded'. This is because the
connection between Unix machines can only handle text characters, and not
certain binary characters. To get around the problem, these binary files
are encoded into text using uuencode. Uuencoded files usually have a .uu
or a .uue extension so that you can recognize them. To uudecode a file
type:
uudecode filename
It is recommended that you do your uudecoding on the Amiga. This way,
there are less errors involving file formats on your host machine that
are different from the Amiga's own file format. There is a version of
uudecode for the Amiga on Fish 38.
Arc/zoo:
You might notice that .arc or .zoo files are produced by uudecode. These
files are actually many files glued together and compressed to conserve
space. To extract files from a .arc file, type the following on the Amiga:
arc x filename
To extract files from a .zoo file on the Amiga:
zoo x// filename
There is a version of arc on Fish 70 and a version of zoo on Fish 136.
(Earlier version of arc: Fish 40. Earlier versions of zoo: Fish 87
and 108)
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or
amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file
will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the
aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the
submissions)
3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Bob Page - page@Sun.COM
- uunet!sun!page
Pat White (moderator without a home :-)
(ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu | ain@k.cc.purdue.edu)
*************************************************************************
,FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1346 W. 10th Place
Tempe, Arizona 85281
USA
(602) 921-1113 (Sorry, I can only return calls collect.)
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
------------------
From: ali@polya.stanford.edu
Subject: How to get a listing of Fish disks electronically:
If you can FTP, you can find the following files on SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, in
the directory <ALI.AMIGA.FISH>
WHEREIS (a list of programs that've appeared on Fish disks 1..138,
sorted by prog name & with one line description)
1, 2, 3, ... (detailed descriptions of what's on each disk --- these
are Fred Fish's own descriptions of what's on the disks)
You can anonymously FTP these files. Because SCORE is a TOPS-20 machine,
you can't CD to the directory, instead you need to:
FTP> get <ali.amiga.fish>whereis
If you want it let me know and I can mail you at least the WHEREIS file.
Ali Ozer, ali@polya.stanford.edu
*************************************************************************
,FTP
From: ertem@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tuna Ertemalp)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMIGA FTP-Sites
Any information starting with [;] is something which I couldn't
verify. Some of them were reported to me by other people, but I never
managed to FTP them. Or they seem to be refusing anonymous FTP
although they used to accept it. Some of them does not seem to exist
at all. Even some directories seem to have been purged. The rest is
what I am using always. Have fun and keep me informed about any new
sites, IP-addresses, and directories, as well as the ones which have
been removed, changed, or manipulated (enough to make this list
"old"). I'd appreciate it :-)
Tuna Ertemalp. Ertem@Polya.Stanford.Edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name IP-Address(es) Directorie(s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
a.cs.uiuc.edu 10.3.0.37 /pub/amiga
; 192.5.69.1
cs.utah.edu 128.110.4.21 /pub/amiga-forth
; 10.0.0.4
; husc7.harvard.edu ; 128.103.1.57
; gtss.gatech.edu 128.61.4.1 # amiga rexx stuff
ix1.cc.utexas.edu 128.83.1.21 /microlib/amiga
ix2.cc.utexas.edu 128.83.1.29 /microlib/amiga
j.cc.purdue.edu 128.210.0.3 /comp.binaries.amiga
; 10.1.0.37 /comp.sources.amiga
louie.udel.edu 192.5.39.3 /pub/amiga
; 10.0.0.96 /pub/ka9q
ssyx.ucsc.edu 128.114.133.1 /pub/amiga
swan.ulowell.edu 129.63.1.1 /amiga
129.63.224.1
topaz.rutgers.edu 128.6.4.194 /pyr-public/text/mg2/sys/amiga
trantor.umd.edu 128.8.10.14 /info-amiga
/info-amiga/uxe
/pub
ucsd.ucsd.edu 128.54.16.1 /hamradio/karn
uunet.uu.net 192.12.141.129 /amiga-sources
; 192.112.141.12
ux.acss.umn.edu 128.101.63.2 /usenix87/Amiga
/usenix87/Editors/Emacs/MicroGnu/sys/amiga
/usenix87/Editors/Emacs/MicroGnu/tty/amiga
uxc.cso.uiuc.edu 10.6.0.94 /utils/cshar
128.174.5.50
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu 128.174.5.54 /amiga
/archived_notes/comp.binaries.amiga
xanth.cs.odu.edu 128.82.8.1 /usenet
/amiga
From: hummel@m.cs.uiuc.edu.UUCP
When Fred Fish posts a new announcement to the net, I immediately stow a copy
of it in the directory pub/amiga at the following Internet archive site:
128.174.252.27 uihub.cs.uiuc.edu uihub hub
There are also listings of the contents of the internet archive at UIUCUXE,
as well as other items of current interest. (I use UIHUB as a staging
area for stuff relating to UXE because there is sometimes a very large
delay between the time I create update tar's and when they're loaded onto
UXE.)
*************************************************************************
,PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
,WED
The following is included to prevent the occasional questions on the net
and in NO WAY ADVOCATES OR DISCOURAGES the use of the wedge.
>From: stan@teroach.UUCP
Subject: Low cost Hard Disk is here for A1000 and A500!!
[stan's opinion on the wedge deleted for objectivity]
So if you don't mind I'll pass on the pertinent information:
R.S.I.
9651 Alexandra Road
Richmond, B.C.
Canada V6X 1C6
(604) 270-0064
Again, I am in no way affiliated with any of the manufacturers
mentioned above, I just want the word to get out, HD RELIEF IS HERE!!
*************************************************************************
,SID
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP
Subject: Putting the 2000 on its side.
There seems to be no problem with putting the Amiga 2000 on its side to
make it fit nicely under a desk. My 2000 has been in this orientation for
approximately 10 months and I have had no problem associated with its
position. I recommend putting your computer on its left side so that the
drives are as high (and accessible) as possible.
You may need some extension cables for the keyboard and mouse. A
standard joystick extender cable is fine for the mouse and a standard 7
prong DIN cable will work for the keyboard. Both are available at Radio
Shack and similar stores.
There has been some discussion about the operation of disks and drives
in a sideways position. I have had no more or no less bad disks because
of this. However, it remains to be seen if the disks wear out faster
sideways.
*************************************************************************
,BUY
From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
Subject: a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
>From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
>From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
,CPU
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
Subject: Re: Is 14.32MHz too fast for my expansion RAM?
> I don't know about the CMI board, but some 68000 speedup boards have
> floating point processor sockets. If you use it, and are running
> programs with a lot of FP computation that support it, you should
> get a dramatic speed increase, yes/no?
You'll get a speedup over no 68881 at all (assuming 1.3 math libraries). What
you don't get is a 32 bit interface to the 68881, or a true coprocessor
interface to the 68881, so this is still considerably slower than a similarly
clocked 68020. Given the speedups you can get with any kind of math chip,
it's probably a good idea for someone into image rendering or other heavy
duty math operations who doesn't have a 68020 type budget.
> If you do a lot of floating point stuff (and a lot of graphics programs do),
> it sounds like a lot more bang for the buck compared to a 68020 board
> with coprocessor at ~$1000 more (plus 32 bit memory to get a real advantage
> over the 68000).
Note that for math operations, a 68020 with 68881 is several times faster than
a 68000 with 68881, even on a 16 bit bus. The difference is of course the CPU
interface that the 68020 uses, plus the wide data bus. The 68000 or 68020
have to fetch data for the 68881 in either case. But while the 68000 will fetch
at 16 bits, then transfer at 16 bits, the 68020 will do it's transfers at 32
bits. Of course, if you can only afford a fast 68000 board at $200-$300, it's
going to speed up your math more than that cash sitting in the bank waiting
for a 68020 board will...
Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests"
{ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
"I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
*************************************************************************
,LED
>From: bjc@pollux.UUCP
Subject: Re: What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
In article <1200@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US> grj@tellab5.UUCP () writes:
>Sorry if this has been covered many times before, but I don't get a chance
>to read this group often. Anyway - sometimes when I power on my A2000,
>the caps lock LED flashes at about a 1 or 2 Hz rate. The keyboard is then
>useless and nothing typed gets recognized. It seems to have started
Look on page 3 of Appendix H to the Hardware Reference manual.
Briefly, though, it says:
One blink Keyboard ROM test failed
Two blinks Keyboard RAM test failed
Three blinks Watchdog timer test failed
Four blinks A short exists between two row lines
or one of the seven special control keys.
It also says that you probably would not have been able to type anything
before this sequence would be completed, but if so, the key codes
would be sent to the computer and then a "terminate key stream" code
would be sent. There is more information in that appendix.
Betty
*************************************************************************
,MAC
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
Subject: Re: A2000 vs B2000
> How can I tell which one my 2000 is? A or B. Mine has Amiga 2000 in
> little letters on the system box as opposed to the new ones I've seen with
> Amiga 2000 in BIG letters.
If you bought it in the USA, it's a "B" (or someone hosed you). The easiest
way to tell is to look at the phono jacks on the back of the machine. The
"A" has two, the "B" has three (that extra one is a monochrome video output
that I got basically for free when using the A500 video hybrid).
Most stuff works in both. What doesn't probably can't be easily added,
though with a minor modification to the case, a board swap is possible.
> I got it in late '87 (December I think maybe Jan '88) and the writing on
> the box is mostly in German.
We kept using boxes from Germany long after switching to the US designed
motherboard.
> Will all the hardcards/SCSI interface/genlock/whatever cards fit in the
> A2000?? Or am I screwed there too?
As long as 100 pin cards are in spec, they'll work fine on both machines. All
Genlocks should work similarly. The B2000 video slot has many more signals,
but the only thing I know of on the market that's currently taking advantage
of that slot is MicroWay's flickerFixer, which won't work on the "A" board.
> If I've got the 68020 in my 2000 (which I don't yet) what would be the
> purpose of booting from the 68000???
I put that feature in to allow developers who develop on the 68020 based Amiga
an easy way to test their software on a 68000. It has the side effect of
allowing you to run software on your machine that doesn't work with the 68000.
I've found a better use for such software -- reformatting the disks it comes
on. Really, though, there's very little software that can't be used on the
68020.
--
Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
*************************************************************************
,SUR
From: Jim Carson <uunet!rice.edu!carson>
Subject: comp.sys.amiga survey
I BACKGROUND
a. How experienced do you consider yourself with the Amiga?
EXPERIENCE:
Very -- wrote popular software 6 had amiga > 2 years 10
Fair amount of programming. 4 had amiga > 1 year 4
Some Programming 5 had amiga < 1 year 2
No programming on Amiga 10 did not say 10
b. What kind of hardware do you have? (Some people had more than one system)
Machines:
A1000 17 A/B2000 9 A500 7
Peripherals:
External Memory 18 Extra Floppy 14
Modem 11 Hard Disk 10
Printer 10 Accelerator board 3
Sound/MIDI interface 3 Clock Card 2
Sidecar 2 Digitizer 1
Ethernet Interface 1
c. How much do you use your Amiga? (Some people said "lots", which
I took to mean 2 - 4 hours/day)
> 4 hours a day 10
2 - 4 hours/day 6
1 - 2 hours/day 4
< 1 hour/day 1
d. What are your favorite kinds of programs (games, utilities, etc)?
Games 13
Utilities 9
Compilers/Program Lang 8
Telecommunication 6
Music 5
Demos 4
Editors 3
II. HARDWARE
a. Hard Drive/Card
Controllers:
WEDGE 1000; WEDGE 500 ($175-$200) - very good
Bear Products - good ($120 w/o chips)
Commodore 2090; C.Ltd.; Overdrive;- okay
Microbotics HardFrame
Startime - Bad performance
Drives:
Miniscribe; Seagate ST157N, ST277N - okay
Quantum; Rodime; Supra SCSI; GVP Impact; CDC Wren - good
b. Other Permanent Storage (Tape, CD, etc)
SCSI tape is nice for backup. R/W opticals are great for animation
(650MB Sony).
c. Modem
Supra 2400 - Great ($150 for 2400, $70 for 1200)
Hayes - Nice, but expensive.
Trailblazer T2000+; Ventel MD212 - good
Courier 2400; BytCOM 212AD; - okay
Bizcomm Intellimodem EXT; Avatex
1680 - adequate (incompatible w/software)
d. Midi interfaces
ECE MIDI interface, connected to an Ensoniq Mirage keyboard.
Golden Hawk MIDI Gold MIDI interface. - Nice little box, does the job
f. External Disk Drives
A1010. (3.5") - okay
A1020 (5.25") - slow, but good for transferring ibm <-> amiga
California Access - good
Byte by Byte PAL Jr. - nice, but obsolete. Company sucks.
g. Printer
Great:
Epson LQ-800. Nice, but not as good as an Imagewriter on a Mac
C.Itoh C310-xp - Fast (300cps), Very nice NLQ
Panasonic KX-P1090i - Very nice NLQ ($200)
Ok:
Epson LX-800 - cheap, quick with 1.3 drivers, graphics
Howtek PixelMaster color inkjet
IBM Colorjet
Okidata 82A w/Rainbow Tech firmware upgrade
Mannesman-Tally Spirit-80 - Excellent printer 5 years ago, good company.
Marginal quality:
Okimate 20 - cheap printer
Star SG-10 - cheap printer
Epson FX-286 - slow. paper jams incessantly. ugly NLQ.
Citizen msp10 - slow. problems with proportional print & tabs.
h. Monitor
Sony KV1311 - very good
C-A 1080 - good
C-A 2002 - good
NEC Multisync - good
Thompson 4120 - good
C-A 1084 - okay, but crackles
C1702 [modified] - adequate
i. Memory Expansion
INSIDER board (1MB + RT Clock) - great
Spirit, A501 - good
Starboard 2-meg - good
Orphan 4-meg - no recommendations
*************************************************************************
,CLI
From: hcr!edwin
Subject: Closing the initial CLI
% "I can't get my initial CLI window to close" seems to be a commonly
% asked question. It would be good to explain "run" vs. "runback"
Okay, a CLI will not close if a program has been "run" from it. (Check
your startup-sequence) This is because the program that has been "run"
needs someplace to get and put its I/O. If your program does not need
to do I/O to the CLI, you should use the RunBack program from Fish 152
(earlier version on Fish 65), or RunBackGround on Fish 73. These
programs will totally detach your program from the CLI and allow you to
close it normally with endcli.
Edwin
*************************************************************************
,KIK
From: bryce@cbmvax
Subject: Re: Crashing all the way to Kickstart (*the solution*)
In several articles <> several.net.posters wrote:
> [Since installing V1.3 I have noticed something strange. If the
> machine ever crashes, it sometimes goes back to the Kickstart hand
> instead of the Workbench hand.]
Thank you all for noting and reporting this bug. I have located the
cause; a code mistake causes the Kickstart protected memory to be
left open open for writing during some types of system Alert. This
problem will be addressed in the next version of "SetPatch" (no
date or distribution details are available at this time).
*************************************************************************
,HAR
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
,COL
>From: hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
Subject: All dem colors during boot
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N C O L O R S
Dark gray Ok Hardware
Light gray Ok Software
Red Bad ROM Checksum
Green Bad RAM
Blue Bad Custom Chips
Yellow Exception
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N
Clear Chips
Disable DMA and Interrupts
Clear the Screen
Check the Hardware
Pass or fail the Hardware to the Screen
Checksum the ROMs
Pass or fail the ROMs to the Screen
System setup
Check the for RAM at $C00000
Move SYS_BASE to $C00000 if it exists
RAM Test
Pass or fail the RAM to the Screen
Check the Software
Pass or fail the Software to the Screen
Set up the RAM
Link the Libraries
Find External RAM and link it to the list
Set up Interrupts and DMA
Start default Task
Check for 68010, 68020, and 68881
Check for an Exception
System Reset
Hans
*************************************************************************
,GUR
>From: bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt)
Subject: Re: GURU-NUMBERS
[this was posted before Bryce was hired by C-A and I kept it - ed]
This comes from the V1.2 include files. Save this
file if you think you might ever want it.
/*********************************************************************
* Format of the alert error number:
* +-+-------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
* |D| SubSysId | General Error | SubSystem Specific Error |
* +-+-------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
* D: DeadEnd alert
* SubSysId: indicates ROM subsystem number.
* General Error: roughly indicates what the error was
* Specific Error: indicates more detail
**********************************************************************/
/* General Dead-End Alerts:*/
/*------ alert types */
#define AT_DeadEnd 0x80000000
#define AT_Recovery 0x00000000
/*------ general purpose alert codes */
#define AG_NoMemory 0x00010000
#define AG_MakeLib 0x00020000
#define AG_OpenLib 0x00030000
#define AG_OpenDev 0x00040000
#define AG_OpenRes 0x00050000
#define AG_IOError 0x00060000
#define AG_NoSignal 0x00070000
/*------ alert objects: */
#define AO_ExecLib 0x00008001
#define AO_GraphicsLib 0x00008002
#define AO_LayersLib 0x00008003
#define AO_Intuition 0x00008004
#define AO_MathLib 0x00008005
#define AO_CListLib 0x00008006
#define AO_DOSLib 0x00008007
#define AO_RAMLib 0x00008008
#define AO_IconLib 0x00008009
#define AO_ExpansionLib 0x0000800A
#define AO_AudioDev 0x00008010
#define AO_ConsoleDev 0x00008011
#define AO_GamePortDev 0x00008012
#define AO_KeyboardDev 0x00008013
#define AO_TrackDiskDev 0x00008014
#define AO_TimerDev 0x00008015
#define AO_CIARsrc 0x00008020
#define AO_DiskRsrc 0x00008021
#define AO_MiscRsrc 0x00008022
#define AO_BootStrap 0x00008030
#define AO_Workbench 0x00008031
/* Combine the above to get the actual number */
/* Specific Dead-End Alerts: */
/*------ exec.library */
#define AN_ExecLib 0x01000000
#define AN_ExcptVect 0x81000001 /* 68000 exception vector checksum */
#define AN_BaseChkSum 0x81000002 /* execbase checksum */
#define AN_LibChkSum 0x81000003 /* library checksum failure */
#define AN_LibMem 0x81000004 /* no memory to make library */
#define AN_MemCorrupt 0x81000005 /* corrupted memory list */
#define AN_IntrMem 0x81000006 /* no memory for interrupt servers */
#define AN_InitAPtr 0x81000007 /* InitStruct() of an APTR source */
#define AN_SemCorrupt 0x81000008 /* a semaphore is in illegal state */
#define AN_FreeTwice 0x81000009 /* freeing memory already freed */
#define AN_BogusExcpt 0x8100000A /* illegal 68k exception taken */
/*------ graphics.library */
#define AN_GraphicsLib 0x02000000
#define AN_GfxNoMem 0x82010000 /* graphics out of memory */
#define AN_LongFrame 0x82010006 /* long frame, no memory */
#define AN_ShortFrame 0x82010007 /* short frame, no memory */
#define AN_TextTmpRas 0x02010009 /* text, no memory for TmpRas */
#define AN_BltBitMap 0x8201000A /* BltBitMap, no memory */
#define AN_RegionMemory 0x8201000B /* regions, memory not available */
#define AN_MakeVPort 0x82010030 /* MakeVPort, no memory */
#define AN_GfxNoLCM 0x82011234 /* emergency memory not available */
/*------ layers.library */
#define AN_LayersLib 0x03000000
#define AN_LayersNoMem 0x83010000 /* layers out of memory */
/*------ intuition.library */
#define AN_Intuition 0x04000000
#define AN_GadgetType 0x84000001 /* unknown gadet type */
#define AN_BadGadget 0x04000001 /* Recovery form of AN_GadgetType */
#define AN_CreatePort 0x84010002 /* create port, no memory */
#define AN_ItemAlloc 0x04010003 /* item plane alloc, no memory */
#define AN_SubAlloc 0x04010004 /* sub alloc, no memory */
#define AN_PlaneAlloc 0x84010005 /* plane alloc, no memory */
#define AN_ItemBoxTop 0x84000006 /* item box top < RelZero */
#define AN_OpenScreen 0x84010007 /* open screen, no memory */
#define AN_OpenScrnRast 0x84010008 /* open screen, raster alloc, no memory */
#define AN_SysScrnType 0x84000009 /* open sys screen, unknown type */
#define AN_AddSWGadget 0x8401000A /* add SW gadgets, no memory */
#define AN_OpenWindow 0x8401000B /* open window, no memory */
#define AN_BadState 0x8400000C /* Bad State Return entering Intuition */
#define AN_BadMessage 0x8400000D /* Bad Message received by IDCMP */
#define AN_WeirdEcho 0x8400000E /* Weird echo causing incomprehension */
#define AN_NoConsole 0x8400000F /* couldn't open the Console Device */
/*------ math.library */
#define AN_MathLib 0x05000000
/*------ clist.library */
#define AN_CListLib 0x06000000
/*------ dos.library */
#define AN_DOSLib 0x07000000
#define AN_StartMem 0x07010001 /* no memory at startup */
#define AN_EndTask 0x07000002 /* EndTask didn't */
#define AN_QPktFail 0x07000003 /* Qpkt failure */
#define AN_AsyncPkt 0x07000004 /* Unexpected packet received */
#define AN_FreeVec 0x07000005 /* Freevec failed */
#define AN_DiskBlkSeq 0x07000006 /* Disk block sequence error */
#define AN_BitMap 0x07000007 /* Bitmap corrupt */
#define AN_KeyFree 0x07000008 /* Key already free */
#define AN_BadChkSum 0x07000009 /* Invalid checksum */
#define AN_DiskError 0x0700000A /* Disk Error */
#define AN_KeyRange 0x0700000B /* Key out of range */
#define AN_BadOverlay 0x0700000C /* Bad overlay */
/*------ ramlib.library */
#define AN_RAMLib 0x08000000
#define AN_BadSegList 0x08000001 /* no overlays in library seglists */
/*------ icon.library */
#define AN_IconLib 0x09000000
/*------ expansion.library */
#define AN_ExpansionLib 0x0A000000
#define AN_BadExpansionFree 0x0A000001
/*------ audio.device */
#define AN_AudioDev 0x10000000
/*------ console.device */
#define AN_ConsoleDev 0x11000000
/*------ gameport.device */
#define AN_GamePortDev 0x12000000
/*------ keyboard.device */
#define AN_KeyboardDev 0x13000000
/*------ trackdisk.device */
#define AN_TrackDiskDev 0x14000000
#define AN_TDCalibSeek 0x14000001 /* calibrate: seek error */
#define AN_TDDelay 0x14000002 /* delay: error on timer wait */
/*------ timer.device */
#define AN_TimerDev 0x15000000
#define AN_TMBadReq 0x15000001 /* bad request */
#define AN_TMBadSupply 0x15000002 /* power supply does not supply ticks */
/*------ cia.resource */
#define AN_CIARsrc 0x20000000
/*------ disk.resource */
#define AN_DiskRsrc 0x21000000
#define AN_DRHasDisk 0x21000001 /* get unit: already has disk */
#define AN_DRIntNoAct 0x21000002 /* interrupt: no active unit */
/*------ misc.resource */
#define AN_MiscRsrc 0x22000000
/*------ bootstrap */
#define AN_BootStrap 0x30000000
#define AN_BootError 0x30000001 /* boot code returned an error */
/*------ Workbench */
#define AN_Workbench 0x31000000
/*------ DiskCopy */
#define AN_DiskCopy 0x32000000
*************************************************************************ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (05/03/89)
[Please note my new address: ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu or
uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets. Please do not send to hcr!edwin
anymore]
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: April 3, 1989
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on
the left. This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
ali@polya.stanford.edu
,FTP A list of locations from which you may ftp amiga files.
ertem@polya.Stanford.EDU
hummel@m.cs.uiuc.edu.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,WED Address of the Wedge people.
stan@teroach.UUCP
,FFS Answers to questions about the Fast File System.
cmcmanis@pepper.UUCP
,SID Putting the Amiga 2000 on its side. Is it possible?
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,CPU Is 14.32MHz too fast for my expansion RAM?
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
,LED What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
bjc@pollux.UUCP
,MAC A2000 vs B2000, which machine is which?
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
,SUR comp.sys.amiga survey, opinions from the net
uunet!rice.edu!carson
,CLI Closing the initial CLI
hcr!edwin
,KIK Crashing all the way to Kickstart 1.3 (*the solution*)
bryce@cbmvax
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,BUY a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
,COL All dem [screen] colors during boot
hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
,GUR GURU-NUMBERS (what they mean)
bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt)
(current address: bryce@cbmvax)
Send questions, comments to:
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,NET
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Have fun via
mail.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you post an request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,MOD
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
Saving a file:
To get a program, you must save the article you are reading.
Under rn type:
s filename
while reading the article with the program in it. The 'filename' can be
any name you choose for it. This will save the program under the
default directory News. Thus the file will be News/filename.
Once you have saved all the programs, you should then use an editor such
as vi to delete all the lines until the one that says, "delete all lines
up to this one."
Shar:
Most programs the moderators send out are shared together. This is a
special way of binding many text files together to make them easier to
handle.
You now have various choices. There is an unshar program on the Amiga
(Fish 97) or you can use the standard Unix Bourne shell 'sh' to unshar
them. The Unix 'sh' should work with any file the moderators send
across. From unix, type:
sh filename
It is recommended you put this file in its own directory to contain all
the file that sh generates.
Uudecode:
Some files are binaries that have been 'uuencoded'. This is because the
connection between Unix machines can only handle text characters, and not
certain binary characters. To get around the problem, these binary files
are encoded into text using uuencode. Uuencoded files usually have a .uu
or a .uue extension so that you can recognize them. To uudecode a file
type:
uudecode filename
It is recommended that you do your uudecoding on the Amiga. This way,
there are less errors involving file formats on your host machine that
are different from the Amiga's own file format. There is a version of
uudecode for the Amiga on Fish 38.
Arc/zoo:
You might notice that .arc or .zoo files are produced by uudecode. These
files are actually many files glued together and compressed to conserve
space. To extract files from a .arc file, type the following on the Amiga:
arc x filename
To extract files from a .zoo file on the Amiga:
zoo x// filename
There is a version of arc on Fish 70 and a version of zoo on Fish 136.
(Earlier version of arc: Fish 40. Earlier versions of zoo: Fish 87
and 108)
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or
amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file
will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the
aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the
submissions)
3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Bob Page - page@Sun.COM
- uunet!sun!page
Pat White (moderator without a home :-)
(ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu | ain@k.cc.purdue.edu)
*************************************************************************
,FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1346 W. 10th Place
Tempe, Arizona 85281
USA
(602) 921-1113 (Sorry, I can only return calls collect.)
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
------------------
From: ali@polya.stanford.edu
Subject: How to get a listing of Fish disks electronically:
If you can FTP, you can find the following files on SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, in
the directory <ALI.AMIGA.FISH>
WHEREIS (a list of programs that've appeared on Fish disks 1..138,
sorted by prog name & with one line description)
1, 2, 3, ... (detailed descriptions of what's on each disk --- these
are Fred Fish's own descriptions of what's on the disks)
You can anonymously FTP these files. Because SCORE is a TOPS-20 machine,
you can't CD to the directory, instead you need to:
FTP> get <ali.amiga.fish>whereis
If you want it let me know and I can mail you at least the WHEREIS file.
Ali Ozer, ali@polya.stanford.edu
*************************************************************************
,FTP
From: ertem@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tuna Ertemalp)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMIGA FTP-Sites
Any information starting with [;] is something which I couldn't
verify. Some of them were reported to me by other people, but I never
managed to FTP them. Or they seem to be refusing anonymous FTP
although they used to accept it. Some of them does not seem to exist
at all. Even some directories seem to have been purged. The rest is
what I am using always. Have fun and keep me informed about any new
sites, IP-addresses, and directories, as well as the ones which have
been removed, changed, or manipulated (enough to make this list
"old"). I'd appreciate it :-)
Tuna Ertemalp. Ertem@Polya.Stanford.Edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name IP-Address(es) Directorie(s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
a.cs.uiuc.edu 10.3.0.37 /pub/amiga
; 192.5.69.1
cs.utah.edu 128.110.4.21 /pub/amiga-forth
; 10.0.0.4
; husc7.harvard.edu ; 128.103.1.57
; gtss.gatech.edu 128.61.4.1 # amiga rexx stuff
ix1.cc.utexas.edu 128.83.1.21 /microlib/amiga
ix2.cc.utexas.edu 128.83.1.29 /microlib/amiga
j.cc.purdue.edu 128.210.0.3 /comp.binaries.amiga
; 10.1.0.37 /comp.sources.amiga
louie.udel.edu 192.5.39.3 /pub/amiga
; 10.0.0.96 /pub/ka9q
ssyx.ucsc.edu 128.114.133.1 /pub/amiga
swan.ulowell.edu 129.63.1.1 /amiga
129.63.224.1
topaz.rutgers.edu 128.6.4.194 /pyr-public/text/mg2/sys/amiga
trantor.umd.edu 128.8.10.14 /info-amiga
/info-amiga/uxe
/pub
ucsd.ucsd.edu 128.54.16.1 /hamradio/karn
uunet.uu.net 192.12.141.129 /amiga-sources
; 192.112.141.12
ux.acss.umn.edu 128.101.63.2 /usenix87/Amiga
/usenix87/Editors/Emacs/MicroGnu/sys/amiga
/usenix87/Editors/Emacs/MicroGnu/tty/amiga
uxc.cso.uiuc.edu 10.6.0.94 /utils/cshar
128.174.5.50
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu 128.174.5.54 /amiga
/archived_notes/comp.binaries.amiga
xanth.cs.odu.edu 128.82.8.1 /usenet
/amiga
From: hummel@m.cs.uiuc.edu.UUCP
When Fred Fish posts a new announcement to the net, I immediately stow a copy
of it in the directory pub/amiga at the following Internet archive site:
128.174.252.27 uihub.cs.uiuc.edu uihub hub
There are also listings of the contents of the internet archive at UIUCUXE,
as well as other items of current interest. (I use UIHUB as a staging
area for stuff relating to UXE because there is sometimes a very large
delay between the time I create update tar's and when they're loaded onto
UXE.)
*************************************************************************
,PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
,WED
The following is included to prevent the occasional questions on the net
and in NO WAY ADVOCATES OR DISCOURAGES the use of the wedge.
>From: stan@teroach.UUCP
Subject: Low cost Hard Disk is here for A1000 and A500!!
[stan's opinion on the wedge deleted for objectivity]
So if you don't mind I'll pass on the pertinent information:
R.S.I.
9651 Alexandra Road
Richmond, B.C.
Canada V6X 1C6
(604) 270-0064
Again, I am in no way affiliated with any of the manufacturers
mentioned above, I just want the word to get out, HD RELIEF IS HERE!!
*************************************************************************
,SID
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP
Subject: Putting the 2000 on its side.
There seems to be no problem with putting the Amiga 2000 on its side to
make it fit nicely under a desk. My 2000 has been in this orientation for
approximately 10 months and I have had no problem associated with its
position. I recommend putting your computer on its left side so that the
drives are as high (and accessible) as possible.
You may need some extension cables for the keyboard and mouse. A
standard joystick extender cable is fine for the mouse and a standard 7
prong DIN cable will work for the keyboard. Both are available at Radio
Shack and similar stores.
There has been some discussion about the operation of disks and drives
in a sideways position. I have had no more or no less bad disks because
of this. However, it remains to be seen if the disks wear out faster
sideways.
*************************************************************************
,BUY
From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
Subject: a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
>From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
>From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
,CPU
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
Subject: Re: Is 14.32MHz too fast for my expansion RAM?
> I don't know about the CMI board, but some 68000 speedup boards have
> floating point processor sockets. If you use it, and are running
> programs with a lot of FP computation that support it, you should
> get a dramatic speed increase, yes/no?
You'll get a speedup over no 68881 at all (assuming 1.3 math libraries). What
you don't get is a 32 bit interface to the 68881, or a true coprocessor
interface to the 68881, so this is still considerably slower than a similarly
clocked 68020. Given the speedups you can get with any kind of math chip,
it's probably a good idea for someone into image rendering or other heavy
duty math operations who doesn't have a 68020 type budget.
> If you do a lot of floating point stuff (and a lot of graphics programs do),
> it sounds like a lot more bang for the buck compared to a 68020 board
> with coprocessor at ~$1000 more (plus 32 bit memory to get a real advantage
> over the 68000).
Note that for math operations, a 68020 with 68881 is several times faster than
a 68000 with 68881, even on a 16 bit bus. The difference is of course the CPU
interface that the 68020 uses, plus the wide data bus. The 68000 or 68020
have to fetch data for the 68881 in either case. But while the 68000 will fetch
at 16 bits, then transfer at 16 bits, the 68020 will do it's transfers at 32
bits. Of course, if you can only afford a fast 68000 board at $200-$300, it's
going to speed up your math more than that cash sitting in the bank waiting
for a 68020 board will...
Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests"
{ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
"I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
*************************************************************************
,LED
>From: bjc@pollux.UUCP
Subject: Re: What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
In article <1200@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US> grj@tellab5.UUCP () writes:
>Sorry if this has been covered many times before, but I don't get a chance
>to read this group often. Anyway - sometimes when I power on my A2000,
>the caps lock LED flashes at about a 1 or 2 Hz rate. The keyboard is then
>useless and nothing typed gets recognized. It seems to have started
Look on page 3 of Appendix H to the Hardware Reference manual.
Briefly, though, it says:
One blink Keyboard ROM test failed
Two blinks Keyboard RAM test failed
Three blinks Watchdog timer test failed
Four blinks A short exists between two row lines
or one of the seven special control keys.
It also says that you probably would not have been able to type anything
before this sequence would be completed, but if so, the key codes
would be sent to the computer and then a "terminate key stream" code
would be sent. There is more information in that appendix.
Betty
*************************************************************************
,MAC
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
Subject: Re: A2000 vs B2000
> How can I tell which one my 2000 is? A or B. Mine has Amiga 2000 in
> little letters on the system box as opposed to the new ones I've seen with
> Amiga 2000 in BIG letters.
If you bought it in the USA, it's a "B" (or someone hosed you). The easiest
way to tell is to look at the phono jacks on the back of the machine. The
"A" has two, the "B" has three (that extra one is a monochrome video output
that I got basically for free when using the A500 video hybrid).
Most stuff works in both. What doesn't probably can't be easily added,
though with a minor modification to the case, a board swap is possible.
> I got it in late '87 (December I think maybe Jan '88) and the writing on
> the box is mostly in German.
We kept using boxes from Germany long after switching to the US designed
motherboard.
> Will all the hardcards/SCSI interface/genlock/whatever cards fit in the
> A2000?? Or am I screwed there too?
As long as 100 pin cards are in spec, they'll work fine on both machines. All
Genlocks should work similarly. The B2000 video slot has many more signals,
but the only thing I know of on the market that's currently taking advantage
of that slot is MicroWay's flickerFixer, which won't work on the "A" board.
> If I've got the 68020 in my 2000 (which I don't yet) what would be the
> purpose of booting from the 68000???
I put that feature in to allow developers who develop on the 68020 based Amiga
an easy way to test their software on a 68000. It has the side effect of
allowing you to run software on your machine that doesn't work with the 68000.
I've found a better use for such software -- reformatting the disks it comes
on. Really, though, there's very little software that can't be used on the
68020.
--
Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
*************************************************************************
,SUR
From: Jim Carson <uunet!rice.edu!carson>
Subject: comp.sys.amiga survey
I BACKGROUND
a. How experienced do you consider yourself with the Amiga?
EXPERIENCE:
Very -- wrote popular software 6 had amiga > 2 years 10
Fair amount of programming. 4 had amiga > 1 year 4
Some Programming 5 had amiga < 1 year 2
No programming on Amiga 10 did not say 10
b. What kind of hardware do you have? (Some people had more than one system)
Machines:
A1000 17 A/B2000 9 A500 7
Peripherals:
External Memory 18 Extra Floppy 14
Modem 11 Hard Disk 10
Printer 10 Accelerator board 3
Sound/MIDI interface 3 Clock Card 2
Sidecar 2 Digitizer 1
Ethernet Interface 1
c. How much do you use your Amiga? (Some people said "lots", which
I took to mean 2 - 4 hours/day)
> 4 hours a day 10
2 - 4 hours/day 6
1 - 2 hours/day 4
< 1 hour/day 1
d. What are your favorite kinds of programs (games, utilities, etc)?
Games 13
Utilities 9
Compilers/Program Lang 8
Telecommunication 6
Music 5
Demos 4
Editors 3
II. HARDWARE
a. Hard Drive/Card
Controllers:
WEDGE 1000; WEDGE 500 ($175-$200) - very good
Bear Products - good ($120 w/o chips)
Commodore 2090; C.Ltd.; Overdrive;- okay
Microbotics HardFrame
Startime - Bad performance
Drives:
Miniscribe; Seagate ST157N, ST277N - okay
Quantum; Rodime; Supra SCSI; GVP Impact; CDC Wren - good
b. Other Permanent Storage (Tape, CD, etc)
SCSI tape is nice for backup. R/W opticals are great for animation
(650MB Sony).
c. Modem
Supra 2400 - Great ($150 for 2400, $70 for 1200)
Hayes - Nice, but expensive.
Trailblazer T2000+; Ventel MD212 - good
Courier 2400; BytCOM 212AD; - okay
Bizcomm Intellimodem EXT; Avatex
1680 - adequate (incompatible w/software)
d. Midi interfaces
ECE MIDI interface, connected to an Ensoniq Mirage keyboard.
Golden Hawk MIDI Gold MIDI interface. - Nice little box, does the job
f. External Disk Drives
A1010. (3.5") - okay
A1020 (5.25") - slow, but good for transferring ibm <-> amiga
California Access - good
Byte by Byte PAL Jr. - nice, but obsolete. Company sucks.
g. Printer
Great:
Epson LQ-800. Nice, but not as good as an Imagewriter on a Mac
C.Itoh C310-xp - Fast (300cps), Very nice NLQ
Panasonic KX-P1090i - Very nice NLQ ($200)
Ok:
Epson LX-800 - cheap, quick with 1.3 drivers, graphics
Howtek PixelMaster color inkjet
IBM Colorjet
Okidata 82A w/Rainbow Tech firmware upgrade
Mannesman-Tally Spirit-80 - Excellent printer 5 years ago, good company.
Marginal quality:
Okimate 20 - cheap printer
Star SG-10 - cheap printer
Epson FX-286 - slow. paper jams incessantly. ugly NLQ.
Citizen msp10 - slow. problems with proportional print & tabs.
h. Monitor
Sony KV1311 - very good
C-A 1080 - good
C-A 2002 - good
NEC Multisync - good
Thompson 4120 - good
C-A 1084 - okay, but crackles
C1702 [modified] - adequate
i. Memory Expansion
INSIDER board (1MB + RT Clock) - great
Spirit, A501 - good
Starboard 2-meg - good
Orphan 4-meg - no recommendations
*************************************************************************
,CLI
From: hcr!edwin
Subject: Closing the initial CLI
% "I can't get my initial CLI window to close" seems to be a commonly
% asked question. It would be good to explain "run" vs. "runback"
Okay, a CLI will not close if a program has been "run" from it. (Check
your startup-sequence) This is because the program that has been "run"
needs someplace to get and put its I/O. If your program does not need
to do I/O to the CLI, you should use the RunBack program from Fish 152
(earlier version on Fish 65), or RunBackGround on Fish 73. These
programs will totally detach your program from the CLI and allow you to
close it normally with endcli.
Edwin
*************************************************************************
,KIK
From: bryce@cbmvax
Subject: Re: Crashing all the way to Kickstart (*the solution*)
In several articles <> several.net.posters wrote:
> [Since installing V1.3 I have noticed something strange. If the
> machine ever crashes, it sometimes goes back to the Kickstart hand
> instead of the Workbench hand.]
Thank you all for noting and reporting this bug. I have located the
cause; a code mistake causes the Kickstart protected memory to be
left open open for writing during some types of system Alert. This
problem will be addressed in the next version of "SetPatch" (no
date or distribution details are available at this time).
*************************************************************************
,HAR
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
,COL
>From: hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
Subject: All dem colors during boot
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N C O L O R S
Dark gray Ok Hardware
Light gray Ok Software
Red Bad ROM Checksum
Green Bad RAM
Blue Bad Custom Chips
Yellow Exception
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N
Clear Chips
Disable DMA and Interrupts
Clear the Screen
Check the Hardware
Pass or fail the Hardware to the Screen
Checksum the ROMs
Pass or fail the ROMs to the Screen
System setup
Check the for RAM at $C00000
Move SYS_BASE to $C00000 if it exists
RAM Test
Pass or fail the RAM to the Screen
Check the Software
Pass or fail the Software to the Screen
Set up the RAM
Link the Libraries
Find External RAM and link it to the list
Set up Interrupts and DMA
Start default Task
Check for 68010, 68020, and 68881
Check for an Exception
System Reset
Hans
*************************************************************************
,GUR
>From: bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt)
Subject: Re: GURU-NUMBERS
[this was posted before Bryce was hired by C-A and I kept it - ed]
This comes from the V1.2 include files. Save this
file if you think you might ever want it.
/*********************************************************************
* Format of the alert error number:
* +-+-------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
* |D| SubSysId | General Error | SubSystem Specific Error |
* +-+-------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
* D: DeadEnd alert
* SubSysId: indicates ROM subsystem number.
* General Error: roughly indicates what the error was
* Specific Error: indicates more detail
**********************************************************************/
/* General Dead-End Alerts:*/
/*------ alert types */
#define AT_DeadEnd 0x80000000
#define AT_Recovery 0x00000000
/*------ general purpose alert codes */
#define AG_NoMemory 0x00010000
#define AG_MakeLib 0x00020000
#define AG_OpenLib 0x00030000
#define AG_OpenDev 0x00040000
#define AG_OpenRes 0x00050000
#define AG_IOError 0x00060000
#define AG_NoSignal 0x00070000
/*------ alert objects: */
#define AO_ExecLib 0x00008001
#define AO_GraphicsLib 0x00008002
#define AO_LayersLib 0x00008003
#define AO_Intuition 0x00008004
#define AO_MathLib 0x00008005
#define AO_CListLib 0x00008006
#define AO_DOSLib 0x00008007
#define AO_RAMLib 0x00008008
#define AO_IconLib 0x00008009
#define AO_ExpansionLib 0x0000800A
#define AO_AudioDev 0x00008010
#define AO_ConsoleDev 0x00008011
#define AO_GamePortDev 0x00008012
#define AO_KeyboardDev 0x00008013
#define AO_TrackDiskDev 0x00008014
#define AO_TimerDev 0x00008015
#define AO_CIARsrc 0x00008020
#define AO_DiskRsrc 0x00008021
#define AO_MiscRsrc 0x00008022
#define AO_BootStrap 0x00008030
#define AO_Workbench 0x00008031
/* Combine the above to get the actual number */
/* Specific Dead-End Alerts: */
/*------ exec.library */
#define AN_ExecLib 0x01000000
#define AN_ExcptVect 0x81000001 /* 68000 exception vector checksum */
#define AN_BaseChkSum 0x81000002 /* execbase checksum */
#define AN_LibChkSum 0x81000003 /* library checksum failure */
#define AN_LibMem 0x81000004 /* no memory to make library */
#define AN_MemCorrupt 0x81000005 /* corrupted memory list */
#define AN_IntrMem 0x81000006 /* no memory for interrupt servers */
#define AN_InitAPtr 0x81000007 /* InitStruct() of an APTR source */
#define AN_SemCorrupt 0x81000008 /* a semaphore is in illegal state */
#define AN_FreeTwice 0x81000009 /* freeing memory already freed */
#define AN_BogusExcpt 0x8100000A /* illegal 68k exception taken */
/*------ graphics.library */
#define AN_GraphicsLib 0x02000000
#define AN_GfxNoMem 0x82010000 /* graphics out of memory */
#define AN_LongFrame 0x82010006 /* long frame, no memory */
#define AN_ShortFrame 0x82010007 /* short frame, no memory */
#define AN_TextTmpRas 0x02010009 /* text, no memory for TmpRas */
#define AN_BltBitMap 0x8201000A /* BltBitMap, no memory */
#define AN_RegionMemory 0x8201000B /* regions, memory not available */
#define AN_MakeVPort 0x82010030 /* MakeVPort, no memory */
#define AN_GfxNoLCM 0x82011234 /* emergency memory not available */
/*------ layers.library */
#define AN_LayersLib 0x03000000
#define AN_LayersNoMem 0x83010000 /* layers out of memory */
/*------ intuition.library */
#define AN_Intuition 0x04000000
#define AN_GadgetType 0x84000001 /* unknown gadet type */
#define AN_BadGadget 0x04000001 /* Recovery form of AN_GadgetType */
#define AN_CreatePort 0x84010002 /* create port, no memory */
#define AN_ItemAlloc 0x04010003 /* item plane alloc, no memory */
#define AN_SubAlloc 0x04010004 /* sub alloc, no memory */
#define AN_PlaneAlloc 0x84010005 /* plane alloc, no memory */
#define AN_ItemBoxTop 0x84000006 /* item box top < RelZero */
#define AN_OpenScreen 0x84010007 /* open screen, no memory */
#define AN_OpenScrnRast 0x84010008 /* open screen, raster alloc, no memory */
#define AN_SysScrnType 0x84000009 /* open sys screen, unknown type */
#define AN_AddSWGadget 0x8401000A /* add SW gadgets, no memory */
#define AN_OpenWindow 0x8401000B /* open window, no memory */
#define AN_BadState 0x8400000C /* Bad State Return entering Intuition */
#define AN_BadMessage 0x8400000D /* Bad Message received by IDCMP */
#define AN_WeirdEcho 0x8400000E /* Weird echo causing incomprehension */
#define AN_NoConsole 0x8400000F /* couldn't open the Console Device */
/*------ math.library */
#define AN_MathLib 0x05000000
/*------ clist.library */
#define AN_CListLib 0x06000000
/*------ dos.library */
#define AN_DOSLib 0x07000000
#define AN_StartMem 0x07010001 /* no memory at startup */
#define AN_EndTask 0x07000002 /* EndTask didn't */
#define AN_QPktFail 0x07000003 /* Qpkt failure */
#define AN_AsyncPkt 0x07000004 /* Unexpected packet received */
#define AN_FreeVec 0x07000005 /* Freevec failed */
#define AN_DiskBlkSeq 0x07000006 /* Disk block sequence error */
#define AN_BitMap 0x07000007 /* Bitmap corrupt */
#define AN_KeyFree 0x07000008 /* Key already free */
#define AN_BadChkSum 0x07000009 /* Invalid checksum */
#define AN_DiskError 0x0700000A /* Disk Error */
#define AN_KeyRange 0x0700000B /* Key out of range */
#define AN_BadOverlay 0x0700000C /* Bad overlay */
/*------ ramlib.library */
#define AN_RAMLib 0x08000000
#define AN_BadSegList 0x08000001 /* no overlays in library seglists */
/*------ icon.library */
#define AN_IconLib 0x09000000
/*------ expansion.library */
#define AN_ExpansionLib 0x0A000000
#define AN_BadExpansionFree 0x0A000001
/*------ audio.device */
#define AN_AudioDev 0x10000000
/*------ console.device */
#define AN_ConsoleDev 0x11000000
/*------ gameport.device */
#define AN_GamePortDev 0x12000000
/*------ keyboard.device */
#define AN_KeyboardDev 0x13000000
/*------ trackdisk.device */
#define AN_TrackDiskDev 0x14000000
#define AN_TDCalibSeek 0x14000001 /* calibrate: seek error */
#define AN_TDDelay 0x14000002 /* delay: error on timer wait */
/*------ timer.device */
#define AN_TimerDev 0x15000000
#define AN_TMBadReq 0x15000001 /* bad request */
#define AN_TMBadSupply 0x15000002 /* power supply does not supply ticks */
/*------ cia.resource */
#define AN_CIARsrc 0x20000000
/*------ disk.resource */
#define AN_DiskRsrc 0x21000000
#define AN_DRHasDisk 0x21000001 /* get unit: already has disk */
#define AN_DRIntNoAct 0x21000002 /* interrupt: no active unit */
/*------ misc.resource */
#define AN_MiscRsrc 0x22000000
/*------ bootstrap */
#define AN_BootStrap 0x30000000
#define AN_BootError 0x30000001 /* boot code returned an error */
/*------ Workbench */
#define AN_Workbench 0x31000000
/*------ DiskCopy */
#define AN_DiskCopy 0x32000000
*************************************************************************fnf@estinc.UUCP (Fred Fish) (05/11/89)
In article <13564@watdragon.waterloo.edu> ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets) writes: >To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk >for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to: > > Fred Fish > 1346 W. 10th Place > Tempe, Arizona 85281 > USA > > (602) 921-1113 (Sorry, I can only return calls collect.) Please note that anything sent to this address will be delayed by about 5-10 days while the Post Office forwards it. My new address, since Dec 88, is: Fred Fish 1835 East Belmont Drive Tempe, Arizona 85284 USA I've been a little lazy about getting a new return address stamp, since I still own that property and the renters understand the situation, so if anything DOES come back, it will eventually reach me at either address. Maybe THIS will be the week that I get in to order a new stamp... :-) Most of the mail I got today (May 10th) that was forwarded was postmarked between Apr 28th and May 2nd. -Fred -- # Fred Fish, 1835 E. Belmont Drive, Tempe, AZ 85284, USA # 1-602-491-0048 asuvax!{nud,mcdphx}!estinc!fnf
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (06/03/89)
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: June 2, 1989
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on
the left. This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
ali@polya.stanford.edu
,FTP A list of locations from which you may ftp amiga files.
ertem@polya.Stanford.EDU
hummel@m.cs.uiuc.edu.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,WED Address of the Wedge people.
stan@teroach.UUCP
,SID Putting the Amiga 2000 on its side. Is it possible?
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,CPU Is 14.32MHz too fast for my expansion RAM?
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
,LED What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
bjc@pollux.UUCP
,MAC A2000 vs B2000, which machine is which?
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
,SUR comp.sys.amiga survey, opinions from the net
uunet!rice.edu!carson
,CLI Closing the initial CLI
hcr!edwin
,KIK Crashing all the way to Kickstart 1.3 (*the solution*)
bryce@cbmvax
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,COL All dem [screen] colors during boot
hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
,GUR GURU-NUMBERS (what they mean)
bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt)
(current address: bryce@cbmvax)
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
Send questions, comments to:
Edwin
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
*************************************************************************
,NET
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Have fun via
mail.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you post an request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,MOD
From: page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
How To Use The Comp.Binaries.Amiga Postings
Every comp.binaries.amiga submission is archived with the ZOO archive
program, which does a fair amount of data compression and retains the
original names, dates and directory structure within the archive.
Because Usenet data paths are not 8-bit, these archives must be
encoded to "regular ASCII" which is 7-bit. The encoding is done with
a program called 'uuencode'. The version used adds a checksum at the
end of each line, and includes the file size at the end of the
encoding.
Sometimes the files are too large for one posting (Usenet postings
should generally be less than 64k bytes but you can sometimes get away
with longer postings). If this uuencoded zoo archive is too large, it
gets split into pieces, roughly 64k in length.
Finally, the (possibly split) .zuu files are enclosed by some simple
UNIX commands. This 'shell archive' is commonly known as a 'shar'.
There is a more-or-less standard set of file extensions used to show
the file type. The file extension is the set of characters after the
dot (or period) in the name. The set of file extensions used is:
.zoo An archive file in ZOO format
.zuu A .zoo file that's been uuencoded
.zu1 The first file in a split .zuu file
.zu9 The ninth file in a split .zuu file
.zu10 The tenth file in a split .zuu file
.uu1 The first shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu9 The ninth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu10 The tenth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
To get all this back into a usable form, you need to:
1. Unpack the files from the shar format (the verb is usually called
'unshar'). You can either use a standard text editor to remove the
info, or the unix 'sh' (Bourne Shell), or a publicly available tool to
do it for you. With some tools (like 'sh'), you are required to
remove the Usenet header information first; other unshar tools will
remove it for you. Once you unshar a .uu? file, you'll have a .zu?
file.
2. Combine all the .zu? pieces into a large .zuu file. You should use
something like 'cat' under UNIX or 'join' under AmigaDOS. It is
important that you combine the pieces in numerical order. Be aware
that the single digit pieces do not have a leading zero, so a wildcard
sort will probably not do what you want. Instead, you should specify
the files in this way: zu? zu??, which will do the single digit files
first, then the double digits. You can rest assured there will not be
any triple-digit postings.
3. Convert the .zuu file to a .zoo file with the 'uudecode' program.
If you have a version of uudecode that understands the checksum and
file size information, you should use it. If you don't, you can still
use the old uudecode program, but you will not know if the file has
somehow become corrupt.
4. You now have a .zoo file. To extract the files into a directory,
you need a program called 'zoo'. After "un-zoo'ing", most submissions
will have some documentation to tell how to set up and run the
software on your Amiga.
---------
Of course you need to get the program(s) to your Amiga to run them.
Usually this means downloading the software to your Amiga through a
terminal program. If you want to download the files as quickly as
possible to your Amiga, you should do steps 1-3 above on your UNIX
machine and download the .zoo file to your Amiga, since the .zoo file
is the smallest of the files. It's also usually faster and easier to
do steps 1-3 on the UNIX machine because you have less worry about
disk and memory limitations.
However, some terminal emulators available for the Amiga do not handle
binary downloads well. Experiment with yours and see. If you have
trouble, you might try a different protocol or different terminal
program. If all else fails, you can download the .zuu file, which is
an ascii file, and do the uudecode on your Amiga.
The mechanics of terminal programs, protocols and downloading are
beyond the scope of this document. Most terminal programs should have
a manual section describing how to log in and do remote downloads.
---------
Here are the tools you need, under UNIX, AmigaDOS, or both. All are
publicly available; you do not need to purchase anything to make use
of the software that comes across in comp.binaries.amiga.
shar, sh, unshar - a tool to unpack the shell archives, or use an editor
cat or join - to append the split .zu? files to one .zuu file
uudecode - to decode the .zuu file to a .zoo file
zoo - to unpack the ZOO archive.
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or
amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file
will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the
aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the
submissions)
3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Bob Page - page@Sun.COM
- uunet!sun!page
*************************************************************************
,FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
------------------
From: ali@polya.stanford.edu
Subject: How to get a listing of Fish disks electronically:
If you can FTP, you can find the following files on SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, in
the directory <ALI.AMIGA.FISH>
WHEREIS (a list of programs that've appeared on Fish disks 1..138,
sorted by prog name & with one line description)
1, 2, 3, ... (detailed descriptions of what's on each disk --- these
are Fred Fish's own descriptions of what's on the disks)
You can anonymously FTP these files. Because SCORE is a TOPS-20 machine,
you can't CD to the directory, instead you need to:
FTP> get <ali.amiga.fish>whereis
If you want it let me know and I can mail you at least the WHEREIS file.
Ali Ozer, ali@polya.stanford.edu
*************************************************************************
,FTP
From: ertem@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tuna Ertemalp)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMIGA FTP-Sites
Any information starting with [;] is something which I couldn't
verify. Some of them were reported to me by other people, but I never
managed to FTP them. Or they seem to be refusing anonymous FTP
although they used to accept it. Some of them does not seem to exist
at all. Even some directories seem to have been purged. The rest is
what I am using always. Have fun and keep me informed about any new
sites, IP-addresses, and directories, as well as the ones which have
been removed, changed, or manipulated (enough to make this list
"old"). I'd appreciate it :-)
Tuna Ertemalp. Ertem@Polya.Stanford.Edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name IP-Address(es) Directorie(s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
a.cs.uiuc.edu 10.3.0.37 /pub/amiga
; 192.5.69.1
cs.utah.edu 128.110.4.21 /pub/amiga-forth
; 10.0.0.4
; husc7.harvard.edu ; 128.103.1.57
; gtss.gatech.edu 128.61.4.1 # amiga rexx stuff
ix1.cc.utexas.edu 128.83.1.21 /microlib/amiga
ix2.cc.utexas.edu 128.83.1.29 /microlib/amiga
j.cc.purdue.edu 128.210.0.3 /comp.binaries.amiga
; 10.1.0.37 /comp.sources.amiga
louie.udel.edu 192.5.39.3 /pub/amiga
; 10.0.0.96 /pub/ka9q
ssyx.ucsc.edu 128.114.133.1 /pub/amiga
swan.ulowell.edu 129.63.1.1 /amiga
129.63.224.1
topaz.rutgers.edu 128.6.4.194 /pyr-public/text/mg2/sys/amiga
trantor.umd.edu 128.8.10.14 /info-amiga
/info-amiga/uxe
/pub
ucsd.ucsd.edu 128.54.16.1 /hamradio/karn
uunet.uu.net 192.12.141.129 /amiga-sources
; 192.112.141.12
ux.acss.umn.edu 128.101.63.2 /usenix87/Amiga
/usenix87/Editors/Emacs/MicroGnu/sys/amiga
/usenix87/Editors/Emacs/MicroGnu/tty/amiga
uxc.cso.uiuc.edu 10.6.0.94 /utils/cshar
128.174.5.50
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu 128.174.5.54 /amiga
/archived_notes/comp.binaries.amiga
xanth.cs.odu.edu 128.82.8.1 /usenet
/amiga
From: hummel@m.cs.uiuc.edu.UUCP
When Fred Fish posts a new announcement to the net, I immediately stow a copy
of it in the directory pub/amiga at the following Internet archive site:
128.174.252.27 uihub.cs.uiuc.edu uihub hub
There are also listings of the contents of the internet archive at UIUCUXE,
as well as other items of current interest. (I use UIHUB as a staging
area for stuff relating to UXE because there is sometimes a very large
delay between the time I create update tar's and when they're loaded onto
UXE.)
*************************************************************************
,PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
,WED
[The following is included to prevent the occasional questions on the net
and in NO WAY ADVOCATES OR DISCOURAGES the use of the wedge.]
>From: stan@teroach.UUCP
Subject: Low cost Hard Disk is here for A1000 and A500!!
[stan's opinion on the wedge deleted for objectivity]
So if you don't mind I'll pass on the pertinent information:
R.S.I.
9651 Alexandra Road
Richmond, B.C.
Canada V6X 1C6
(604) 270-0064
Again, I am in no way affiliated with any of the manufacturers
mentioned above, I just want the word to get out, HD RELIEF IS HERE!!
*************************************************************************
,SID
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP
Subject: Putting the 2000 on its side.
There seems to be no problem with putting the Amiga 2000 on its side to
make it fit nicely under a desk. My 2000 has been in this orientation for
approximately 10 months and I have had no problem associated with its
position. I recommend putting your computer on its left side so that the
drives are as high (and accessible) as possible.
You may need some extension cables for the keyboard and mouse. A
standard joystick extender cable is fine for the mouse and a standard 7
prong DIN cable will work for the keyboard. Both are available at Radio
Shack and similar stores.
There has been some discussion about the operation of disks and drives
in a sideways position. I have had no more or no less bad disks because
of this. However, it remains to be seen if the disks wear out faster
sideways. I have heard of problems with hard disks, however. It seems
that some hard disks will only work in the orientation that they were
formatted. If you have this problem, you can do a complete backup and
reformat your drive, and it should work.
*************************************************************************
,BUY
From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
Subject: a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
>From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
>From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
,CPU
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
Subject: Re: Is 14.32MHz too fast for my expansion RAM?
> I don't know about the CMI board, but some 68000 speedup boards have
> floating point processor sockets. If you use it, and are running
> programs with a lot of FP computation that support it, you should
> get a dramatic speed increase, yes/no?
You'll get a speedup over no 68881 at all (assuming 1.3 math libraries). What
you don't get is a 32 bit interface to the 68881, or a true coprocessor
interface to the 68881, so this is still considerably slower than a similarly
clocked 68020. Given the speedups you can get with any kind of math chip,
it's probably a good idea for someone into image rendering or other heavy
duty math operations who doesn't have a 68020 type budget.
> If you do a lot of floating point stuff (and a lot of graphics programs do),
> it sounds like a lot more bang for the buck compared to a 68020 board
> with coprocessor at ~$1000 more (plus 32 bit memory to get a real advantage
> over the 68000).
Note that for math operations, a 68020 with 68881 is several times faster than
a 68000 with 68881, even on a 16 bit bus. The difference is of course the CPU
interface that the 68020 uses, plus the wide data bus. The 68000 or 68020
have to fetch data for the 68881 in either case. But while the 68000 will fetch
at 16 bits, then transfer at 16 bits, the 68020 will do it's transfers at 32
bits. Of course, if you can only afford a fast 68000 board at $200-$300, it's
going to speed up your math more than that cash sitting in the bank waiting
for a 68020 board will...
Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests"
{ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
"I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
*************************************************************************
,LED
>From: bjc@pollux.UUCP
Subject: Re: What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
In article <1200@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US> grj@tellab5.UUCP () writes:
>Sorry if this has been covered many times before, but I don't get a chance
>to read this group often. Anyway - sometimes when I power on my A2000,
>the caps lock LED flashes at about a 1 or 2 Hz rate. The keyboard is then
>useless and nothing typed gets recognized. It seems to have started
Look on page 3 of Appendix H to the Hardware Reference manual.
Briefly, though, it says:
One blink Keyboard ROM test failed
Two blinks Keyboard RAM test failed
Three blinks Watchdog timer test failed
Four blinks A short exists between two row lines
or one of the seven special control keys.
It also says that you probably would not have been able to type anything
before this sequence would be completed, but if so, the key codes
would be sent to the computer and then a "terminate key stream" code
would be sent. There is more information in that appendix.
Betty
*************************************************************************
,MAC
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
Subject: Re: A2000 vs B2000
> How can I tell which one my 2000 is? A or B. Mine has Amiga 2000 in
> little letters on the system box as opposed to the new ones I've seen with
> Amiga 2000 in BIG letters.
If you bought it in the USA, it's a "B" (or someone hosed you). The easiest
way to tell is to look at the phono jacks on the back of the machine. The
"A" has two, the "B" has three (that extra one is a monochrome video output
that I got basically for free when using the A500 video hybrid).
Most stuff works in both. What doesn't probably can't be easily added,
though with a minor modification to the case, a board swap is possible.
> I got it in late '87 (December I think maybe Jan '88) and the writing on
> the box is mostly in German.
We kept using boxes from Germany long after switching to the US designed
motherboard.
> Will all the hardcards/SCSI interface/genlock/whatever cards fit in the
> A2000?? Or am I screwed there too?
As long as 100 pin cards are in spec, they'll work fine on both machines. All
Genlocks should work similarly. The B2000 video slot has many more signals,
but the only thing I know of on the market that's currently taking advantage
of that slot is MicroWay's flickerFixer, which won't work on the "A" board.
> If I've got the 68020 in my 2000 (which I don't yet) what would be the
> purpose of booting from the 68000???
I put that feature in to allow developers who develop on the 68020 based Amiga
an easy way to test their software on a 68000. It has the side effect of
allowing you to run software on your machine that doesn't work with the 68000.
I've found a better use for such software -- reformatting the disks it comes
on. Really, though, there's very little software that can't be used on the
68020.
--
Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
*************************************************************************
,SUR
From: Jim Carson <uunet!rice.edu!carson>
Subject: comp.sys.amiga survey
I BACKGROUND
a. How experienced do you consider yourself with the Amiga?
EXPERIENCE:
Very -- wrote popular software 6 had amiga > 2 years 10
Fair amount of programming. 4 had amiga > 1 year 4
Some Programming 5 had amiga < 1 year 2
No programming on Amiga 10 did not say 10
b. What kind of hardware do you have? (Some people had more than one system)
Machines:
A1000 17 A/B2000 9 A500 7
Peripherals:
External Memory 18 Extra Floppy 14
Modem 11 Hard Disk 10
Printer 10 Accelerator board 3
Sound/MIDI interface 3 Clock Card 2
Sidecar 2 Digitizer 1
Ethernet Interface 1
c. How much do you use your Amiga? (Some people said "lots", which
I took to mean 2 - 4 hours/day)
> 4 hours a day 10
2 - 4 hours/day 6
1 - 2 hours/day 4
< 1 hour/day 1
d. What are your favorite kinds of programs (games, utilities, etc)?
Games 13
Utilities 9
Compilers/Program Lang 8
Telecommunication 6
Music 5
Demos 4
Editors 3
II. HARDWARE
a. Hard Drive/Card
Controllers:
WEDGE 1000; WEDGE 500 ($175-$200) - very good
Bear Products - good ($120 w/o chips)
Commodore 2090; C.Ltd.; Overdrive;- okay
Microbotics HardFrame
Startime - Bad performance
Drives:
Miniscribe; Seagate ST157N, ST277N - okay
Quantum; Rodime; Supra SCSI; GVP Impact; CDC Wren - good
b. Other Permanent Storage (Tape, CD, etc)
SCSI tape is nice for backup. R/W opticals are great for animation
(650MB Sony).
c. Modem
Supra 2400 - Great ($150 for 2400, $70 for 1200)
Hayes - Nice, but expensive.
Trailblazer T2000+; Ventel MD212 - good
Courier 2400; BytCOM 212AD; - okay
Bizcomm Intellimodem EXT; Avatex
1680 - adequate (incompatible w/software)
d. Midi interfaces
ECE MIDI interface, connected to an Ensoniq Mirage keyboard.
Golden Hawk MIDI Gold MIDI interface. - Nice little box, does the job
f. External Disk Drives
A1010. (3.5") - okay
A1020 (5.25") - slow, but good for transferring ibm <-> amiga
California Access - good
Byte by Byte PAL Jr. - nice, but obsolete. Company sucks.
g. Printer
Great:
Epson LQ-800. Nice, but not as good as an Imagewriter on a Mac
C.Itoh C310-xp - Fast (300cps), Very nice NLQ
Panasonic KX-P1090i - Very nice NLQ ($200)
Ok:
Epson LX-800 - cheap, quick with 1.3 drivers, graphics
Howtek PixelMaster color inkjet
IBM Colorjet
Okidata 82A w/Rainbow Tech firmware upgrade
Mannesman-Tally Spirit-80 - Excellent printer 5 years ago, good company.
Marginal quality:
Okimate 20 - cheap printer
Star SG-10 - cheap printer
Epson FX-286 - slow. paper jams incessantly. ugly NLQ.
Citizen msp10 - slow. problems with proportional print & tabs.
h. Monitor
Sony KV1311 - very good
C-A 1080 - good
C-A 2002 - good
NEC Multisync - good
Thompson 4120 - good
C-A 1084 - okay, but crackles
C1702 [modified] - adequate
i. Memory Expansion
INSIDER board (1MB + RT Clock) - great
Spirit, A501 - good
Starboard 2-meg - good
Orphan 4-meg - no recommendations
*************************************************************************
,CLI
From: hcr!edwin
Subject: Closing the initial CLI
% "I can't get my initial CLI window to close" seems to be a commonly
% asked question. It would be good to explain "run" vs. "runback"
Okay, a CLI will not close if a program has been "run" from it. (Check
your startup-sequence) This is because the program that has been "run"
needs someplace to get and put its I/O. If your program does not need
to do I/O to the CLI, you should use the RunBack program from Fish 152
(earlier version on Fish 65), or RunBackGround on Fish 73. These
programs will totally detach your program from the CLI and allow you to
close it normally with endcli.
Edwin
*************************************************************************
,KIK
From: bryce@cbmvax
Subject: Re: Crashing all the way to Kickstart (*the solution*)
In several articles <> several.net.posters wrote:
> [Since installing V1.3 I have noticed something strange. If the
> machine ever crashes, it sometimes goes back to the Kickstart hand
> instead of the Workbench hand.]
Thank you all for noting and reporting this bug. I have located the
cause; a code mistake causes the Kickstart protected memory to be
left open open for writing during some types of system Alert. This
problem will be addressed in the next version of "SetPatch" (no
date or distribution details are available at this time).
*************************************************************************
,HAR
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
,COL
>From: hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
Subject: All dem colors during boot
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N C O L O R S
Dark gray Ok Hardware
Light gray Ok Software
Red Bad ROM Checksum
Green Bad RAM
Blue Bad Custom Chips
Yellow Exception
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N
Clear Chips
Disable DMA and Interrupts
Clear the Screen
Check the Hardware
Pass or fail the Hardware to the Screen
Checksum the ROMs
Pass or fail the ROMs to the Screen
System setup
Check the for RAM at $C00000
Move SYS_BASE to $C00000 if it exists
RAM Test
Pass or fail the RAM to the Screen
Check the Software
Pass or fail the Software to the Screen
Set up the RAM
Link the Libraries
Find External RAM and link it to the list
Set up Interrupts and DMA
Start default Task
Check for 68010, 68020, and 68881
Check for an Exception
System Reset
Hans
*************************************************************************
,GUR
>From: bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt)
Subject: Re: GURU-NUMBERS
[this was posted before Bryce was hired by C-A and I kept it - ed]
This comes from the V1.2 include files. Save this
file if you think you might ever want it.
/*********************************************************************
* Format of the alert error number:
* +-+-------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
* |D| SubSysId | General Error | SubSystem Specific Error |
* +-+-------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
* D: DeadEnd alert
* SubSysId: indicates ROM subsystem number.
* General Error: roughly indicates what the error was
* Specific Error: indicates more detail
**********************************************************************/
/* General Dead-End Alerts:*/
/*------ alert types */
#define AT_DeadEnd 0x80000000
#define AT_Recovery 0x00000000
/*------ general purpose alert codes */
#define AG_NoMemory 0x00010000
#define AG_MakeLib 0x00020000
#define AG_OpenLib 0x00030000
#define AG_OpenDev 0x00040000
#define AG_OpenRes 0x00050000
#define AG_IOError 0x00060000
#define AG_NoSignal 0x00070000
/*------ alert objects: */
#define AO_ExecLib 0x00008001
#define AO_GraphicsLib 0x00008002
#define AO_LayersLib 0x00008003
#define AO_Intuition 0x00008004
#define AO_MathLib 0x00008005
#define AO_CListLib 0x00008006
#define AO_DOSLib 0x00008007
#define AO_RAMLib 0x00008008
#define AO_IconLib 0x00008009
#define AO_ExpansionLib 0x0000800A
#define AO_AudioDev 0x00008010
#define AO_ConsoleDev 0x00008011
#define AO_GamePortDev 0x00008012
#define AO_KeyboardDev 0x00008013
#define AO_TrackDiskDev 0x00008014
#define AO_TimerDev 0x00008015
#define AO_CIARsrc 0x00008020
#define AO_DiskRsrc 0x00008021
#define AO_MiscRsrc 0x00008022
#define AO_BootStrap 0x00008030
#define AO_Workbench 0x00008031
/* Combine the above to get the actual number */
/* Specific Dead-End Alerts: */
/*------ exec.library */
#define AN_ExecLib 0x01000000
#define AN_ExcptVect 0x81000001 /* 68000 exception vector checksum */
#define AN_BaseChkSum 0x81000002 /* execbase checksum */
#define AN_LibChkSum 0x81000003 /* library checksum failure */
#define AN_LibMem 0x81000004 /* no memory to make library */
#define AN_MemCorrupt 0x81000005 /* corrupted memory list */
#define AN_IntrMem 0x81000006 /* no memory for interrupt servers */
#define AN_InitAPtr 0x81000007 /* InitStruct() of an APTR source */
#define AN_SemCorrupt 0x81000008 /* a semaphore is in illegal state */
#define AN_FreeTwice 0x81000009 /* freeing memory already freed */
#define AN_BogusExcpt 0x8100000A /* illegal 68k exception taken */
/*------ graphics.library */
#define AN_GraphicsLib 0x02000000
#define AN_GfxNoMem 0x82010000 /* graphics out of memory */
#define AN_LongFrame 0x82010006 /* long frame, no memory */
#define AN_ShortFrame 0x82010007 /* short frame, no memory */
#define AN_TextTmpRas 0x02010009 /* text, no memory for TmpRas */
#define AN_BltBitMap 0x8201000A /* BltBitMap, no memory */
#define AN_RegionMemory 0x8201000B /* regions, memory not available */
#define AN_MakeVPort 0x82010030 /* MakeVPort, no memory */
#define AN_GfxNoLCM 0x82011234 /* emergency memory not available */
/*------ layers.library */
#define AN_LayersLib 0x03000000
#define AN_LayersNoMem 0x83010000 /* layers out of memory */
/*------ intuition.library */
#define AN_Intuition 0x04000000
#define AN_GadgetType 0x84000001 /* unknown gadet type */
#define AN_BadGadget 0x04000001 /* Recovery form of AN_GadgetType */
#define AN_CreatePort 0x84010002 /* create port, no memory */
#define AN_ItemAlloc 0x04010003 /* item plane alloc, no memory */
#define AN_SubAlloc 0x04010004 /* sub alloc, no memory */
#define AN_PlaneAlloc 0x84010005 /* plane alloc, no memory */
#define AN_ItemBoxTop 0x84000006 /* item box top < RelZero */
#define AN_OpenScreen 0x84010007 /* open screen, no memory */
#define AN_OpenScrnRast 0x84010008 /* open screen, raster alloc, no memory */
#define AN_SysScrnType 0x84000009 /* open sys screen, unknown type */
#define AN_AddSWGadget 0x8401000A /* add SW gadgets, no memory */
#define AN_OpenWindow 0x8401000B /* open window, no memory */
#define AN_BadState 0x8400000C /* Bad State Return entering Intuition */
#define AN_BadMessage 0x8400000D /* Bad Message received by IDCMP */
#define AN_WeirdEcho 0x8400000E /* Weird echo causing incomprehension */
#define AN_NoConsole 0x8400000F /* couldn't open the Console Device */
/*------ math.library */
#define AN_MathLib 0x05000000
/*------ clist.library */
#define AN_CListLib 0x06000000
/*------ dos.library */
#define AN_DOSLib 0x07000000
#define AN_StartMem 0x07010001 /* no memory at startup */
#define AN_EndTask 0x07000002 /* EndTask didn't */
#define AN_QPktFail 0x07000003 /* Qpkt failure */
#define AN_AsyncPkt 0x07000004 /* Unexpected packet received */
#define AN_FreeVec 0x07000005 /* Freevec failed */
#define AN_DiskBlkSeq 0x07000006 /* Disk block sequence error */
#define AN_BitMap 0x07000007 /* Bitmap corrupt */
#define AN_KeyFree 0x07000008 /* Key already free */
#define AN_BadChkSum 0x07000009 /* Invalid checksum */
#define AN_DiskError 0x0700000A /* Disk Error */
#define AN_KeyRange 0x0700000B /* Key out of range */
#define AN_BadOverlay 0x0700000C /* Bad overlay */
/*------ ramlib.library */
#define AN_RAMLib 0x08000000
#define AN_BadSegList 0x08000001 /* no overlays in library seglists */
/*------ icon.library */
#define AN_IconLib 0x09000000
/*------ expansion.library */
#define AN_ExpansionLib 0x0A000000
#define AN_BadExpansionFree 0x0A000001
/*------ audio.device */
#define AN_AudioDev 0x10000000
/*------ console.device */
#define AN_ConsoleDev 0x11000000
/*------ gameport.device */
#define AN_GamePortDev 0x12000000
/*------ keyboard.device */
#define AN_KeyboardDev 0x13000000
/*------ trackdisk.device */
#define AN_TrackDiskDev 0x14000000
#define AN_TDCalibSeek 0x14000001 /* calibrate: seek error */
#define AN_TDDelay 0x14000002 /* delay: error on timer wait */
/*------ timer.device */
#define AN_TimerDev 0x15000000
#define AN_TMBadReq 0x15000001 /* bad request */
#define AN_TMBadSupply 0x15000002 /* power supply does not supply ticks */
/*------ cia.resource */
#define AN_CIARsrc 0x20000000
/*------ disk.resource */
#define AN_DiskRsrc 0x21000000
#define AN_DRHasDisk 0x21000001 /* get unit: already has disk */
#define AN_DRIntNoAct 0x21000002 /* interrupt: no active unit */
/*------ misc.resource */
#define AN_MiscRsrc 0x22000000
/*------ bootstrap */
#define AN_BootStrap 0x30000000
#define AN_BootError 0x30000001 /* boot code returned an error */
/*------ Workbench */
#define AN_Workbench 0x31000000
/*------ DiskCopy */
#define AN_DiskCopy 0x32000000
*************************************************************************
,HED
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: Re: 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
In article <1735@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dretor (Wallace B. Wallace) writes:
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
...
> BTW, the drive is a Fujitsu 2249SA, SCSI, 320M, 8 disks, 15 heads
Maybe this should be added to the introduction to comp.sys.amiga.
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drive.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (07/05/89)
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: July 4, 1989
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on
the left. This article contains the following topics:
Please note that the list of FTP sites has been deleted from this
posting, since Tuna Ertemalp posts the same list monthly. Also, since
he is the one taking care of the list, he will always have the more
up-to-date version.
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
ali@polya.stanford.edu
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,ARC How to use the kilowatt archive server
raz@sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry)
,WED Address of the Wedge people.
stan@teroach.UUCP
,SID Putting the Amiga 2000 on its side. Is it possible?
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,CPU Is 14.32MHz too fast for my expansion RAM?
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
,LED What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
bjc@pollux.UUCP
,MAC A2000 vs B2000, which machine is which?
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
,SUR comp.sys.amiga survey, opinions from the net
uunet!rice.edu!carson
,CLI Closing the initial CLI
hcr!edwin
,KIK Crashing all the way to Kickstart 1.3 (*the solution*)
bryce@cbmvax
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,COL All dem [screen] colors during boot
hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
,GUR GURU-NUMBERS (what they mean)
bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt)
(current address: bryce@cbmvax)
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
Send questions, comments to:
Edwin
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
*************************************************************************
,NET
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Have fun via
mail.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you post an request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,MOD
From: page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
How To Use The Comp.Binaries.Amiga Postings
Every comp.binaries.amiga submission is archived with the ZOO archive
program, which does a fair amount of data compression and retains the
original names, dates and directory structure within the archive.
Because Usenet data paths are not 8-bit, these archives must be
encoded to "regular ASCII" which is 7-bit. The encoding is done with
a program called 'uuencode'. The version used adds a checksum at the
end of each line, and includes the file size at the end of the
encoding.
Sometimes the files are too large for one posting (Usenet postings
should generally be less than 64k bytes but you can sometimes get away
with longer postings). If this uuencoded zoo archive is too large, it
gets split into pieces, roughly 64k in length.
Finally, the (possibly split) .zuu files are enclosed by some simple
UNIX commands. This 'shell archive' is commonly known as a 'shar'.
There is a more-or-less standard set of file extensions used to show
the file type. The file extension is the set of characters after the
dot (or period) in the name. The set of file extensions used is:
.zoo An archive file in ZOO format
.zuu A .zoo file that's been uuencoded
.zu1 The first file in a split .zuu file
.zu9 The ninth file in a split .zuu file
.zu10 The tenth file in a split .zuu file
.uu1 The first shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu9 The ninth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu10 The tenth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
To get all this back into a usable form, you need to:
1. Unpack the files from the shar format (the verb is usually called
'unshar'). You can either use a standard text editor to remove the
info, or the unix 'sh' (Bourne Shell), or a publicly available tool to
do it for you. With some tools (like 'sh'), you are required to
remove the Usenet header information first; other unshar tools will
remove it for you. Once you unshar a .uu? file, you'll have a .zu?
file.
2. Combine all the .zu? pieces into a large .zuu file. You should use
something like 'cat' under UNIX or 'join' under AmigaDOS. It is
important that you combine the pieces in numerical order. Be aware
that the single digit pieces do not have a leading zero, so a wildcard
sort will probably not do what you want. Instead, you should specify
the files in this way: zu? zu??, which will do the single digit files
first, then the double digits. You can rest assured there will not be
any triple-digit postings.
3. Convert the .zuu file to a .zoo file with the 'uudecode' program.
If you have a version of uudecode that understands the checksum and
file size information, you should use it. If you don't, you can still
use the old uudecode program, but you will not know if the file has
somehow become corrupt.
4. You now have a .zoo file. To extract the files into a directory,
you need a program called 'zoo'. After "un-zoo'ing", most submissions
will have some documentation to tell how to set up and run the
software on your Amiga.
---------
Of course you need to get the program(s) to your Amiga to run them.
Usually this means downloading the software to your Amiga through a
terminal program. If you want to download the files as quickly as
possible to your Amiga, you should do steps 1-3 above on your UNIX
machine and download the .zoo file to your Amiga, since the .zoo file
is the smallest of the files. It's also usually faster and easier to
do steps 1-3 on the UNIX machine because you have less worry about
disk and memory limitations.
However, some terminal emulators available for the Amiga do not handle
binary downloads well. Experiment with yours and see. If you have
trouble, you might try a different protocol or different terminal
program. If all else fails, you can download the .zuu file, which is
an ascii file, and do the uudecode on your Amiga.
The mechanics of terminal programs, protocols and downloading are
beyond the scope of this document. Most terminal programs should have
a manual section describing how to log in and do remote downloads.
---------
Here are the tools you need, under UNIX, AmigaDOS, or both. All are
publicly available; you do not need to purchase anything to make use
of the software that comes across in comp.binaries.amiga.
shar, sh, unshar - a tool to unpack the shell archives, or use an editor
cat or join - to append the split .zu? files to one .zuu file
uudecode - to decode the .zuu file to a .zoo file
zoo - to unpack the ZOO archive.
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or
amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file
will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the
aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the
submissions)
3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Bob Page - page@Sun.COM
- uunet!sun!page
*************************************************************************
,FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
------------------
From: ali@polya.stanford.edu
Subject: How to get a listing of Fish disks electronically:
If you can FTP, you can find the following files on SCORE.STANFORD.EDU, in
the directory <ALI.AMIGA.FISH>
WHEREIS (a list of programs that've appeared on Fish disks 1..138,
sorted by prog name & with one line description)
1, 2, 3, ... (detailed descriptions of what's on each disk --- these
are Fred Fish's own descriptions of what's on the disks)
You can anonymously FTP these files. Because SCORE is a TOPS-20 machine,
you can't CD to the directory, instead you need to:
FTP> get <ali.amiga.fish>whereis
If you want it let me know and I can mail you at least the WHEREIS file.
Ali Ozer, ali@polya.stanford.edu
*************************************************************************
,PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
,WED
[The following is included to prevent the occasional questions on the net
and in NO WAY ADVOCATES OR DISCOURAGES the use of the wedge.]
>From: stan@teroach.UUCP
Subject: Low cost Hard Disk is here for A1000 and A500!!
[stan's opinion on the wedge deleted for objectivity]
So if you don't mind I'll pass on the pertinent information:
R.S.I.
9651 Alexandra Road
Richmond, B.C.
Canada V6X 1C6
(604) 270-0064
Again, I am in no way affiliated with any of the manufacturers
mentioned above, I just want the word to get out, HD RELIEF IS HERE!!
*************************************************************************
,SID
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP
Subject: Putting the 2000 on its side.
There seems to be no problem with putting the Amiga 2000 on its side to
make it fit nicely under a desk. My 2000 has been in this orientation for
approximately 10 months and I have had no problem associated with its
position. I recommend putting your computer on its left side so that the
drives are as high (and accessible) as possible.
You may need some extension cables for the keyboard and mouse. A
standard joystick extender cable is fine for the mouse and a standard 7
prong DIN cable will work for the keyboard. Both are available at Radio
Shack and similar stores.
There has been some discussion about the operation of disks and drives
in a sideways position. I have had no more or no less bad disks because
of this. However, it remains to be seen if the disks wear out faster
sideways. I have heard of problems with hard disks, however. It seems
that some hard disks will only work in the orientation that they were
formatted. If you have this problem, you can do a complete backup and
reformat your drive, and it should work.
*************************************************************************
,BUY
From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
Subject: a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
>From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
>From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
,CPU
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
Subject: Re: Is 14.32MHz too fast for my expansion RAM?
> I don't know about the CMI board, but some 68000 speedup boards have
> floating point processor sockets. If you use it, and are running
> programs with a lot of FP computation that support it, you should
> get a dramatic speed increase, yes/no?
You'll get a speedup over no 68881 at all (assuming 1.3 math libraries). What
you don't get is a 32 bit interface to the 68881, or a true coprocessor
interface to the 68881, so this is still considerably slower than a similarly
clocked 68020. Given the speedups you can get with any kind of math chip,
it's probably a good idea for someone into image rendering or other heavy
duty math operations who doesn't have a 68020 type budget.
> If you do a lot of floating point stuff (and a lot of graphics programs do),
> it sounds like a lot more bang for the buck compared to a 68020 board
> with coprocessor at ~$1000 more (plus 32 bit memory to get a real advantage
> over the 68000).
Note that for math operations, a 68020 with 68881 is several times faster than
a 68000 with 68881, even on a 16 bit bus. The difference is of course the CPU
interface that the 68020 uses, plus the wide data bus. The 68000 or 68020
have to fetch data for the 68881 in either case. But while the 68000 will fetch
at 16 bits, then transfer at 16 bits, the 68020 will do it's transfers at 32
bits. Of course, if you can only afford a fast 68000 board at $200-$300, it's
going to speed up your math more than that cash sitting in the bank waiting
for a 68020 board will...
Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests"
{ihnp4|uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
"I can't relax, 'cause I'm a Boinger!"
*************************************************************************
,LED
>From: bjc@pollux.UUCP
Subject: Re: What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
In article <1200@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US> grj@tellab5.UUCP () writes:
>Sorry if this has been covered many times before, but I don't get a chance
>to read this group often. Anyway - sometimes when I power on my A2000,
>the caps lock LED flashes at about a 1 or 2 Hz rate. The keyboard is then
>useless and nothing typed gets recognized. It seems to have started
Look on page 3 of Appendix H to the Hardware Reference manual.
Briefly, though, it says:
One blink Keyboard ROM test failed
Two blinks Keyboard RAM test failed
Three blinks Watchdog timer test failed
Four blinks A short exists between two row lines
or one of the seven special control keys.
It also says that you probably would not have been able to type anything
before this sequence would be completed, but if so, the key codes
would be sent to the computer and then a "terminate key stream" code
would be sent. There is more information in that appendix.
Betty
*************************************************************************
,MAC
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP
Subject: Re: A2000 vs B2000
> How can I tell which one my 2000 is? A or B. Mine has Amiga 2000 in
> little letters on the system box as opposed to the new ones I've seen with
> Amiga 2000 in BIG letters.
If you bought it in the USA, it's a "B" (or someone hosed you). The easiest
way to tell is to look at the phono jacks on the back of the machine. The
"A" has two, the "B" has three (that extra one is a monochrome video output
that I got basically for free when using the A500 video hybrid).
Most stuff works in both. What doesn't probably can't be easily added,
though with a minor modification to the case, a board swap is possible.
> I got it in late '87 (December I think maybe Jan '88) and the writing on
> the box is mostly in German.
We kept using boxes from Germany long after switching to the US designed
motherboard.
> Will all the hardcards/SCSI interface/genlock/whatever cards fit in the
> A2000?? Or am I screwed there too?
As long as 100 pin cards are in spec, they'll work fine on both machines. All
Genlocks should work similarly. The B2000 video slot has many more signals,
but the only thing I know of on the market that's currently taking advantage
of that slot is MicroWay's flickerFixer, which won't work on the "A" board.
> If I've got the 68020 in my 2000 (which I don't yet) what would be the
> purpose of booting from the 68000???
I put that feature in to allow developers who develop on the 68020 based Amiga
an easy way to test their software on a 68000. It has the side effect of
allowing you to run software on your machine that doesn't work with the 68000.
I've found a better use for such software -- reformatting the disks it comes
on. Really, though, there's very little software that can't be used on the
68020.
--
Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
*************************************************************************
,SUR
From: Jim Carson <uunet!rice.edu!carson>
Subject: comp.sys.amiga survey
I BACKGROUND
a. How experienced do you consider yourself with the Amiga?
EXPERIENCE:
Very -- wrote popular software 6 had amiga > 2 years 10
Fair amount of programming. 4 had amiga > 1 year 4
Some Programming 5 had amiga < 1 year 2
No programming on Amiga 10 did not say 10
b. What kind of hardware do you have? (Some people had more than one system)
Machines:
A1000 17 A/B2000 9 A500 7
Peripherals:
External Memory 18 Extra Floppy 14
Modem 11 Hard Disk 10
Printer 10 Accelerator board 3
Sound/MIDI interface 3 Clock Card 2
Sidecar 2 Digitizer 1
Ethernet Interface 1
c. How much do you use your Amiga? (Some people said "lots", which
I took to mean 2 - 4 hours/day)
> 4 hours a day 10
2 - 4 hours/day 6
1 - 2 hours/day 4
< 1 hour/day 1
d. What are your favorite kinds of programs (games, utilities, etc)?
Games 13
Utilities 9
Compilers/Program Lang 8
Telecommunication 6
Music 5
Demos 4
Editors 3
II. HARDWARE
a. Hard Drive/Card
Controllers:
WEDGE 1000; WEDGE 500 ($175-$200) - very good
Bear Products - good ($120 w/o chips)
Commodore 2090; C.Ltd.; Overdrive;- okay
Microbotics HardFrame
Startime - Bad performance
Drives:
Miniscribe; Seagate ST157N, ST277N - okay
Quantum; Rodime; Supra SCSI; GVP Impact; CDC Wren - good
b. Other Permanent Storage (Tape, CD, etc)
SCSI tape is nice for backup. R/W opticals are great for animation
(650MB Sony).
c. Modem
Supra 2400 - Great ($150 for 2400, $70 for 1200)
Hayes - Nice, but expensive.
Trailblazer T2000+; Ventel MD212 - good
Courier 2400; BytCOM 212AD; - okay
Bizcomm Intellimodem EXT; Avatex
1680 - adequate (incompatible w/software)
d. Midi interfaces
ECE MIDI interface, connected to an Ensoniq Mirage keyboard.
Golden Hawk MIDI Gold MIDI interface. - Nice little box, does the job
f. External Disk Drives
A1010. (3.5") - okay
A1020 (5.25") - slow, but good for transferring ibm <-> amiga
California Access - good
Byte by Byte PAL Jr. - nice, but obsolete. Company sucks.
g. Printer
Great:
Epson LQ-800. Nice, but not as good as an Imagewriter on a Mac
C.Itoh C310-xp - Fast (300cps), Very nice NLQ
Panasonic KX-P1090i - Very nice NLQ ($200)
Ok:
Epson LX-800 - cheap, quick with 1.3 drivers, graphics
Howtek PixelMaster color inkjet
IBM Colorjet
Okidata 82A w/Rainbow Tech firmware upgrade
Mannesman-Tally Spirit-80 - Excellent printer 5 years ago, good company.
Marginal quality:
Okimate 20 - cheap printer
Star SG-10 - cheap printer
Epson FX-286 - slow. paper jams incessantly. ugly NLQ.
Citizen msp10 - slow. problems with proportional print & tabs.
h. Monitor
Sony KV1311 - very good
C-A 1080 - good
C-A 2002 - good
NEC Multisync - good
Thompson 4120 - good
C-A 1084 - okay, but crackles
C1702 [modified] - adequate
i. Memory Expansion
INSIDER board (1MB + RT Clock) - great
Spirit, A501 - good
Starboard 2-meg - good
Orphan 4-meg - no recommendations
*************************************************************************
,CLI
From: hcr!edwin
Subject: Closing the initial CLI
% "I can't get my initial CLI window to close" seems to be a commonly
% asked question. It would be good to explain "run" vs. "runback"
Okay, a CLI will not close if a program has been "run" from it. (Check
your startup-sequence) This is because the program that has been "run"
needs someplace to get and put its I/O. If your program does not need
to do I/O to the CLI, you should use the RunBack program from Fish 152
(earlier version on Fish 65), or RunBackGround on Fish 73. These
programs will totally detach your program from the CLI and allow you to
close it normally with endcli.
Edwin
*************************************************************************
,KIK
From: bryce@cbmvax
Subject: Re: Crashing all the way to Kickstart (*the solution*)
In several articles <> several.net.posters wrote:
> [Since installing V1.3 I have noticed something strange. If the
> machine ever crashes, it sometimes goes back to the Kickstart hand
> instead of the Workbench hand.]
Thank you all for noting and reporting this bug. I have located the
cause; a code mistake causes the Kickstart protected memory to be
left open open for writing during some types of system Alert. This
problem will be addressed in the next version of "SetPatch" (no
date or distribution details are available at this time).
*************************************************************************
,HAR
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
,COL
>From: hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
Subject: All dem colors during boot
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N C O L O R S
Dark gray Ok Hardware
Light gray Ok Software
Red Bad ROM Checksum
Green Bad RAM
Blue Bad Custom Chips
Yellow Exception
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N
Clear Chips
Disable DMA and Interrupts
Clear the Screen
Check the Hardware
Pass or fail the Hardware to the Screen
Checksum the ROMs
Pass or fail the ROMs to the Screen
System setup
Check the for RAM at $C00000
Move SYS_BASE to $C00000 if it exists
RAM Test
Pass or fail the RAM to the Screen
Check the Software
Pass or fail the Software to the Screen
Set up the RAM
Link the Libraries
Find External RAM and link it to the list
Set up Interrupts and DMA
Start default Task
Check for 68010, 68020, and 68881
Check for an Exception
System Reset
Hans
*************************************************************************
,GUR
>From: bryce@hoser.berkeley.edu (Bryce Nesbitt)
Subject: Re: GURU-NUMBERS
[this was posted before Bryce was hired by C-A and I kept it - ed]
This comes from the V1.2 include files. Save this
file if you think you might ever want it.
/*********************************************************************
* Format of the alert error number:
* +-+-------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
* |D| SubSysId | General Error | SubSystem Specific Error |
* +-+-------------+----------------+--------------------------------+
* D: DeadEnd alert
* SubSysId: indicates ROM subsystem number.
* General Error: roughly indicates what the error was
* Specific Error: indicates more detail
**********************************************************************/
/* General Dead-End Alerts:*/
/*------ alert types */
#define AT_DeadEnd 0x80000000
#define AT_Recovery 0x00000000
/*------ general purpose alert codes */
#define AG_NoMemory 0x00010000
#define AG_MakeLib 0x00020000
#define AG_OpenLib 0x00030000
#define AG_OpenDev 0x00040000
#define AG_OpenRes 0x00050000
#define AG_IOError 0x00060000
#define AG_NoSignal 0x00070000
/*------ alert objects: */
#define AO_ExecLib 0x00008001
#define AO_GraphicsLib 0x00008002
#define AO_LayersLib 0x00008003
#define AO_Intuition 0x00008004
#define AO_MathLib 0x00008005
#define AO_CListLib 0x00008006
#define AO_DOSLib 0x00008007
#define AO_RAMLib 0x00008008
#define AO_IconLib 0x00008009
#define AO_ExpansionLib 0x0000800A
#define AO_AudioDev 0x00008010
#define AO_ConsoleDev 0x00008011
#define AO_GamePortDev 0x00008012
#define AO_KeyboardDev 0x00008013
#define AO_TrackDiskDev 0x00008014
#define AO_TimerDev 0x00008015
#define AO_CIARsrc 0x00008020
#define AO_DiskRsrc 0x00008021
#define AO_MiscRsrc 0x00008022
#define AO_BootStrap 0x00008030
#define AO_Workbench 0x00008031
/* Combine the above to get the actual number */
/* Specific Dead-End Alerts: */
/*------ exec.library */
#define AN_ExecLib 0x01000000
#define AN_ExcptVect 0x81000001 /* 68000 exception vector checksum */
#define AN_BaseChkSum 0x81000002 /* execbase checksum */
#define AN_LibChkSum 0x81000003 /* library checksum failure */
#define AN_LibMem 0x81000004 /* no memory to make library */
#define AN_MemCorrupt 0x81000005 /* corrupted memory list */
#define AN_IntrMem 0x81000006 /* no memory for interrupt servers */
#define AN_InitAPtr 0x81000007 /* InitStruct() of an APTR source */
#define AN_SemCorrupt 0x81000008 /* a semaphore is in illegal state */
#define AN_FreeTwice 0x81000009 /* freeing memory already freed */
#define AN_BogusExcpt 0x8100000A /* illegal 68k exception taken */
/*------ graphics.library */
#define AN_GraphicsLib 0x02000000
#define AN_GfxNoMem 0x82010000 /* graphics out of memory */
#define AN_LongFrame 0x82010006 /* long frame, no memory */
#define AN_ShortFrame 0x82010007 /* short frame, no memory */
#define AN_TextTmpRas 0x02010009 /* text, no memory for TmpRas */
#define AN_BltBitMap 0x8201000A /* BltBitMap, no memory */
#define AN_RegionMemory 0x8201000B /* regions, memory not available */
#define AN_MakeVPort 0x82010030 /* MakeVPort, no memory */
#define AN_GfxNoLCM 0x82011234 /* emergency memory not available */
/*------ layers.library */
#define AN_LayersLib 0x03000000
#define AN_LayersNoMem 0x83010000 /* layers out of memory */
/*------ intuition.library */
#define AN_Intuition 0x04000000
#define AN_GadgetType 0x84000001 /* unknown gadet type */
#define AN_BadGadget 0x04000001 /* Recovery form of AN_GadgetType */
#define AN_CreatePort 0x84010002 /* create port, no memory */
#define AN_ItemAlloc 0x04010003 /* item plane alloc, no memory */
#define AN_SubAlloc 0x04010004 /* sub alloc, no memory */
#define AN_PlaneAlloc 0x84010005 /* plane alloc, no memory */
#define AN_ItemBoxTop 0x84000006 /* item box top < RelZero */
#define AN_OpenScreen 0x84010007 /* open screen, no memory */
#define AN_OpenScrnRast 0x84010008 /* open screen, raster alloc, no memory */
#define AN_SysScrnType 0x84000009 /* open sys screen, unknown type */
#define AN_AddSWGadget 0x8401000A /* add SW gadgets, no memory */
#define AN_OpenWindow 0x8401000B /* open window, no memory */
#define AN_BadState 0x8400000C /* Bad State Return entering Intuition */
#define AN_BadMessage 0x8400000D /* Bad Message received by IDCMP */
#define AN_WeirdEcho 0x8400000E /* Weird echo causing incomprehension */
#define AN_NoConsole 0x8400000F /* couldn't open the Console Device */
/*------ math.library */
#define AN_MathLib 0x05000000
/*------ clist.library */
#define AN_CListLib 0x06000000
/*------ dos.library */
#define AN_DOSLib 0x07000000
#define AN_StartMem 0x07010001 /* no memory at startup */
#define AN_EndTask 0x07000002 /* EndTask didn't */
#define AN_QPktFail 0x07000003 /* Qpkt failure */
#define AN_AsyncPkt 0x07000004 /* Unexpected packet received */
#define AN_FreeVec 0x07000005 /* Freevec failed */
#define AN_DiskBlkSeq 0x07000006 /* Disk block sequence error */
#define AN_BitMap 0x07000007 /* Bitmap corrupt */
#define AN_KeyFree 0x07000008 /* Key already free */
#define AN_BadChkSum 0x07000009 /* Invalid checksum */
#define AN_DiskError 0x0700000A /* Disk Error */
#define AN_KeyRange 0x0700000B /* Key out of range */
#define AN_BadOverlay 0x0700000C /* Bad overlay */
/*------ ramlib.library */
#define AN_RAMLib 0x08000000
#define AN_BadSegList 0x08000001 /* no overlays in library seglists */
/*------ icon.library */
#define AN_IconLib 0x09000000
/*------ expansion.library */
#define AN_ExpansionLib 0x0A000000
#define AN_BadExpansionFree 0x0A000001
/*------ audio.device */
#define AN_AudioDev 0x10000000
/*------ console.device */
#define AN_ConsoleDev 0x11000000
/*------ gameport.device */
#define AN_GamePortDev 0x12000000
/*------ keyboard.device */
#define AN_KeyboardDev 0x13000000
/*------ trackdisk.device */
#define AN_TrackDiskDev 0x14000000
#define AN_TDCalibSeek 0x14000001 /* calibrate: seek error */
#define AN_TDDelay 0x14000002 /* delay: error on timer wait */
/*------ timer.device */
#define AN_TimerDev 0x15000000
#define AN_TMBadReq 0x15000001 /* bad request */
#define AN_TMBadSupply 0x15000002 /* power supply does not supply ticks */
/*------ cia.resource */
#define AN_CIARsrc 0x20000000
/*------ disk.resource */
#define AN_DiskRsrc 0x21000000
#define AN_DRHasDisk 0x21000001 /* get unit: already has disk */
#define AN_DRIntNoAct 0x21000002 /* interrupt: no active unit */
/*------ misc.resource */
#define AN_MiscRsrc 0x22000000
/*------ bootstrap */
#define AN_BootStrap 0x30000000
#define AN_BootError 0x30000001 /* boot code returned an error */
/*------ Workbench */
#define AN_Workbench 0x31000000
/*------ DiskCopy */
#define AN_DiskCopy 0x32000000
*************************************************************************
,HED
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: Re: 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
In article <1735@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dretor (Wallace B. Wallace) writes:
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
...
> BTW, the drive is a Fujitsu 2249SA, SCSI, 320M, 8 disks, 15 heads
Maybe this should be added to the introduction to comp.sys.amiga.
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drive.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
,ARC
From: raz%kilowatt.EBay@Sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry)
Subject: How to use the kilowatt archive server
The following message is the reply that kilowatt (the archive
server) will mail to you if you ask it for help. Please be sure that
you read it carefully and understand it completely before you post to
the net asking for help. If you have problems with the server, and you
*can* reach the machine (but it isn't doing what you want) send the symptoms
of the problem to manage%kilowatt@sun.com and I'll get back to you as
soon as I can.
Also, if anyone is interested in setting up their very own archive
server, contact me at the above address and I'll send you all information
and programs that you need to set one up.
-Raz
PS: For those that are interested, kilowatt is a Sun 3/260 8meg ram, with
128meg of disk allocated (currently) for the archive.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message comes to you from the archive server at kilowatt@sun.com,
archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. It received a message from you asking
for help.
The archive server is a mail-response program. That means that you mail
it a request, and it mails back the response.
The archive server is a very dumb program. It does not have much error
checking. If you don't send it the commands that it understands, it will
just answer "I don't understand you".
The archive server has 4 commands. Each command must be the first word
on a line. The archive server reads your entire message before it does
anything, so you can have several different commands in a single
message. The archive server treats the "Subject:" header line just like
any other line of the message. You can use any combination of upper and
lower case letters in the commands.
The archives are organized into a series of top-level directories. The
top-level index gives you the index for each of the files in the archive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are bored with reading documentation and just want to try
something, then send the server a message containing the line
send index
When you get the index back, it will give you the names of all of the
files in the archive; send the server another message asking it to send you the
files that you want:
send applications plplot.2 plplot.3
etc. If you are using a mailer that understands "@" notation, send to
archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. If your mailer deals in "!" notation,
try sending to {someplace}!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server, e.g.
uunet!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server. For other mailers, you're on your own.
For BITNET mailers and those lazy typists out there, I have aliased
archive-server to archive and archive-management to manage. This means that
you can also use the net address of:
archive%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!archive
manage%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!manage
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The server has 4 commands:
"help" command: The command "help" or "send help" causes the server to
send you the help file. You already know this, of course,
because you are reading the help file. No other commands are
honored in a message that asks for help (the server figures that
you had better read the help message before you do anything else).
"index" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is
"index", then the server will send you the index of
the contents of the archive.
For example, you can say
index
You can then send back another message to the archive server,
using a "send" command (see below) to ask it to send you the
files whose name you learned from that list.
The index is updated nightly, to reflect the contents of the
archive. So if you are getting messages that inform you that the
file you requested does not exist, ask for the index again and
double check the file name.
If your message has an "index" or a "send index" command, then
all other "send" commands will be ignored. This means that you
cannot get an index and data in the same request. This is so
that index requests can be given high priority.)
"send" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is
"send", then the archive server will send you the item(s) named
on the rest of the line. To name an item, you give its directory
and its name. For example
send workbench ptranim.uu2
or
send audio vclock.uu
Once you have named a category, you can put as many names as you
like on the rest of the line; they will all be taken from that
category. For example:
send exec xoper13.1 xoper13.2 xoper13.uu1
Each "send" command can reference only one directory. If you
would like to get files from more than one directory, you must use
two "send" commands.
One of the most common mistakes that a new user makes when formatting
a send command is to type something that looks like:
send dos/fs pthass.sh1 dos/fs pthass.sh2
(This is incorrect... )
This will not work for 2 reasons. One, simply because the archive will
look for a directory called "dos/fs". All that you need to do is:
send fs pthass.sh1 pthass.sh2
(This is correct)
The second reason that the previous send command would not work
is that you may only specify one path per send command.
You may put as many "send" commands as you like into one message
to the server, but the more you ask for, the longer it will take
to receive. See "FAIRNESS", below, for an explanation. Actually,
it's not strictly true that you can put as many "send" commands
as you want into one message. If the server must use uucp mail
to send your files, then it cannot send more than 100K bytes
in one message. If you ask for more than it can send, then it
will send as much as it can and ignore the rest. Since many
files in the archive are around 60K, it's probably best to
ask for one file at a time unless you know it's safe to do
otherwise.
"path" command: The "path" command exists to help in case you do not
get responses from the server when you mail to it.
Sometimes the server is unable to return mail over the incoming
path. There are dozens of reasons why this might happen, and if
you are a true wizard, you already know what those reasons are.
If you are an apprentice wizard, you might not know all the
reasons but you might know a way to circumvent them.
If you put in a "path" command, then everything that the server
mails to you will be mailed to that address, rather than to the
return address on your mail. For example, if you say
path decwrl!pyramid!rutgers!zakkaroo!jj@uunet.uu.net
then all mail sent by the server will be sent to that address.
If you use mixed-mode addresses (! and @), the archive-server
will put precedence on '@' before '!'.
You cannot expect the archive server to pick a uucp path to be
determined for you. If you can't determine a path yourself,
make the path relative to a 'known' site, e.g.:
path place!person@uunet.uu.net
which will cause the archive-server to send to site uunet.uu.net
with the instructions "send this to place!person".
EXAMPLES:
1) Find out the list of all of the Amiga files that are in the archive.
Send this message:
To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com
Subject: hi there
index
2) Get files from the archive (you have learned their
file names from the list that was sent to you in step 1).
To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com
Subject: send digest 3.17
send iff gif2iff.uu2 ifflib161.uu1
send iff dplaz.uu1
(it turns out these three files add up to less that 100k,
so they can all be sent by return mail).
3) Get a file, and send it over the best path to my site:
To: uunet.uu.net!mcvax!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server
path myname@site.uucp
send iff iff2ps20.1
NOTES:
The archive server acknowledges every request by return mail. If you
don't get a message back in a few days (depending on how close you
are to sun.com on the network) you should assume that something is
going wrong, and perhaps try sending another request, this time
with a "path" command. If you aren't getting anywhere and you don't
know a wizard to help you, try putting
path mysite!myname@uunet.uu.net
in your message, where "myname" is your mailbox name and "mysite" is the
uucp name of your machine.
The delays in sending out large items from the archives are
intentional, to make it difficult to get copies of everything in the
archives. If you are new to the network and would like to get all back
issues of everything, you should post a request to a regional newsgroup
asking whether someone who is geographically near you can provide
them.
Don't send mail with long lines. If you want to ask for 40 files in one
request, you don't need to put all 40 of them in one "send" command.
The archive server is quite able to handle long lines, but before your
mail message is received by the archive server it might pass through
relay computers that will choke on long lines, or chop them up.
The archive server does not respond to requests from users named
"root", "system", "daemon", or "mailer". This is to prevent mail
loops. If your name is "Bruce Root" or "Joe Daemon". Yes, I know
about Norman Mailer and Waverley Root. Norman doesn't use netmail and
Waverley is dead.
FAIRNESS:
The archive server contains many safeguards to ensure that it is not
monopolized by people asking for large amounts of data. The mailer is
set up so that it will send no more than a fixed amount of data each
day. If the work queue contains more requests than the day's quota,
then the unsent files will not be processed until the next day.
Whenever the mailer is run to send its day's quota, it sends the
requests out shortest-first.
If you have a request waiting in the work queue and you send in another
request, the new request is added to the old one (thereby increasing
its size) rather than being filed anew. This prevents you from being
able to send in a large number of small requests as a way of beating
the system. If you request 10 files together, you will get
substantially higher priority than if you make 10 requests for 1 file
each.
The reason for all of these quotas and limitations is that the delivery
resources are finite, and there may be many people who would like to
make use of the archive.
[end of help]
*************************************************************************ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (08/02/89)
[please note: next month's posting may be a little late as I am going to
work next semester (back in January). My new address will be
w-edwinh@microsoft.uucp -ed]
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: Aug 1, 1989
Changes this month:
Added: RAD: and the ECS
Added: where to get a 2500UX
Added: Supra controllers
Added: Amiga Minix
Added: putting a 68010 into an Amiga
Added: Execute script errors
Added: HAM mode description
Removed: fish disk info about score.stanford.edu -- it's going away :-(
Removed: can an amiga be put on its side?
Removed: is 14.32MHz to fast for the RAM?
Removed: address of Wedge people
Removed: A2000 vs B2000, which machine is which?
Removed: comp.sys.amiga survey, opinions from the net
Removed: GURU-NUMBERS (what they mean)
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. Deleted topics can still be obtained from
the editor via mail.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
Please note that the list of FTP sites has been deleted from this
posting, since Tuna Ertemalp posts the same list monthly. Also, since
he is the one taking care of the list, he will always have the more
up-to-date version.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on
the left. This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,ARC How to use the kilowatt archive server
raz@sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry)
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,LED What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
bjc@pollux.UUCP
,CLI Closing the initial CLI
hcr!edwin
,KIK Crashing all the way to Kickstart 1.3 (*the solution*)
bryce@cbmvax
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,COL All dem [screen] colors during boot
hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
,ECS How to get RAD: to recover with the new Agnus
adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
New Agnus for older B2000s
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
,2500 Can I get a 2500 UX?
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
,SUP Supra Controllers and SCSI ID's
thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
,MIN Minix for the Amiga ???
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
,010 Need information about 68010.
scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden)
,HAM What is HAM?
Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
,EXE Execute script errors
Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Send questions, comments to:
Edwin
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
(or as of September: w-edwinh@microsoft.uucp)
*************************************************************************
,NET
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Have fun via
mail.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you post an request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,MOD
From: page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
How To Use The Comp.Binaries.Amiga Postings
Every comp.binaries.amiga submission is archived with the ZOO archive
program, which does a fair amount of data compression and retains the
original names, dates and directory structure within the archive.
Because Usenet data paths are not 8-bit, these archives must be
encoded to "regular ASCII" which is 7-bit. The encoding is done with
a program called 'uuencode'. The version used adds a checksum at the
end of each line, and includes the file size at the end of the
encoding.
Sometimes the files are too large for one posting (Usenet postings
should generally be less than 64k bytes but you can sometimes get away
with longer postings). If this uuencoded zoo archive is too large, it
gets split into pieces, roughly 64k in length.
Finally, the (possibly split) .zuu files are enclosed by some simple
UNIX commands. This 'shell archive' is commonly known as a 'shar'.
There is a more-or-less standard set of file extensions used to show
the file type. The file extension is the set of characters after the
dot (or period) in the name. The set of file extensions used is:
.zoo An archive file in ZOO format
.zuu A .zoo file that's been uuencoded
.zu1 The first file in a split .zuu file
.zu9 The ninth file in a split .zuu file
.zu10 The tenth file in a split .zuu file
.uu1 The first shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu9 The ninth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu10 The tenth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
To get all this back into a usable form, you need to:
1. Unpack the files from the shar format (the verb is usually called
'unshar'). You can either use a standard text editor to remove the
info, or the unix 'sh' (Bourne Shell), or a publicly available tool to
do it for you. With some tools (like 'sh'), you are required to
remove the Usenet header information first; other unshar tools will
remove it for you. Once you unshar a .uu? file, you'll have a .zu?
file.
2. Combine all the .zu? pieces into a large .zuu file. You should use
something like 'cat' under UNIX or 'join' under AmigaDOS. It is
important that you combine the pieces in numerical order. Be aware
that the single digit pieces do not have a leading zero, so a wildcard
sort will probably not do what you want. Instead, you should specify
the files in this way: zu? zu??, which will do the single digit files
first, then the double digits. You can rest assured there will not be
any triple-digit postings.
3. Convert the .zuu file to a .zoo file with the 'uudecode' program.
If you have a version of uudecode that understands the checksum and
file size information, you should use it. If you don't, you can still
use the old uudecode program, but you will not know if the file has
somehow become corrupt.
4. You now have a .zoo file. To extract the files into a directory,
you need a program called 'zoo'. After "un-zoo'ing", most submissions
will have some documentation to tell how to set up and run the
software on your Amiga.
---------
Of course you need to get the program(s) to your Amiga to run them.
Usually this means downloading the software to your Amiga through a
terminal program. If you want to download the files as quickly as
possible to your Amiga, you should do steps 1-3 above on your UNIX
machine and download the .zoo file to your Amiga, since the .zoo file
is the smallest of the files. It's also usually faster and easier to
do steps 1-3 on the UNIX machine because you have less worry about
disk and memory limitations.
However, some terminal emulators available for the Amiga do not handle
binary downloads well. Experiment with yours and see. If you have
trouble, you might try a different protocol or different terminal
program. If all else fails, you can download the .zuu file, which is
an ascii file, and do the uudecode on your Amiga.
The mechanics of terminal programs, protocols and downloading are
beyond the scope of this document. Most terminal programs should have
a manual section describing how to log in and do remote downloads.
---------
Here are the tools you need, under UNIX, AmigaDOS, or both. All are
publicly available; you do not need to purchase anything to make use
of the software that comes across in comp.binaries.amiga.
shar, sh, unshar - a tool to unpack the shell archives, or use an editor
cat or join - to append the split .zu? files to one .zuu file
uudecode - to decode the .zuu file to a .zoo file
zoo - to unpack the ZOO archive.
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or
amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file
will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the
aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the
submissions)
3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Bob Page - page@Sun.COM
- uunet!sun!page
*************************************************************************
,FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
[Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188
uihub.cs.uiuc.edu (128.174.252.27) for fish 189-222
- ed]
*************************************************************************
,PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
,BUY
From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
Subject: a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
>From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
>From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
,LED
>From: bjc@pollux.UUCP
Subject: Re: What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
In article <1200@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US> grj@tellab5.UUCP () writes:
>sometimes when I power on my A2000,
>the caps lock LED flashes at about a 1 or 2 Hz rate. The keyboard is then
>useless and nothing typed gets recognized.
Look on page 3 of Appendix H to the Hardware Reference manual.
Briefly, though, it says:
One blink Keyboard ROM test failed
Two blinks Keyboard RAM test failed
Three blinks Watchdog timer test failed
Four blinks A short exists between two row lines
or one of the seven special control keys.
It also says that you probably would not have been able to type anything
before this sequence would be completed, but if so, the key codes
would be sent to the computer and then a "terminate key stream" code
would be sent. There is more information in that appendix.
Betty
*************************************************************************
,CLI
From: hcr!edwin
Subject: Closing the initial CLI
% "I can't get my initial CLI window to close" seems to be a commonly
% asked question. It would be good to explain "run" vs. "runback"
Okay, a CLI will not close if a program has been "run" from it. (Check
your startup-sequence) This is because the program that has been "run"
needs someplace to get and put its I/O. If your program does not need
to do I/O to the CLI, you should use the RunBack program from Fish 152
(earlier version on Fish 65), or RunBackGround on Fish 73. These
programs will totally detach your program from the CLI and allow you to
close it normally with endcli.
Edwin
*************************************************************************
,KIK
From: bryce@cbmvax
Subject: Re: Crashing all the way to Kickstart (*the solution*)
In several articles <> several.net.posters wrote:
> [Since installing V1.3 I have noticed something strange. If the
> machine ever crashes, it sometimes goes back to the Kickstart hand
> instead of the Workbench hand.]
Thank you all for noting and reporting this bug. I have located the
cause; a code mistake causes the Kickstart protected memory to be
left open open for writing during some types of system Alert. This
problem will be addressed in the next version of "SetPatch" (no
date or distribution details are available at this time).
*************************************************************************
,HAR
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
,COL
>From: hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
Subject: All dem colors during boot
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N C O L O R S
Dark gray Ok Hardware
Light gray Ok Software
Red Bad ROM Checksum
Green Bad RAM
Blue Bad Custom Chips
Yellow Exception
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N
Clear Chips
Disable DMA and Interrupts
Clear the Screen
Check the Hardware
Pass or fail the Hardware to the Screen
Checksum the ROMs
Pass or fail the ROMs to the Screen
System setup
Check the for RAM at $C00000
Move SYS_BASE to $C00000 if it exists
RAM Test
Pass or fail the RAM to the Screen
Check the Software
Pass or fail the Software to the Screen
Set up the RAM
Link the Libraries
Find External RAM and link it to the list
Set up Interrupts and DMA
Start default Task
Check for 68010, 68020, and 68881
Check for an Exception
System Reset
Hans
*************************************************************************
,HED
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: Re: 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
In article <1735@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dretor (Wallace B. Wallace) writes:
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drive.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
,ARC
From: raz%kilowatt.EBay@Sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry)
Subject: How to use the kilowatt archive server
The following message is the reply that kilowatt (the archive
server) will mail to you if you ask it for help.
Also, if anyone is interested in setting up their very own archive
server, contact me at the above address and I'll send you all information
and programs that you need to set one up.
-Raz
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message comes to you from the archive server at kilowatt@sun.com,
archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. It received a message from you asking
for help.
The archive server is a mail-response program. That means that you mail
it a request, and it mails back the response.
The archive server is a very dumb program. It does not have much error
checking. If you don't send it the commands that it understands, it will
just answer "I don't understand you".
The archive server has 4 commands. Each command must be the first word
on a line. The archive server reads your entire message before it does
anything, so you can have several different commands in a single
message. The archive server treats the "Subject:" header line just like
any other line of the message. You can use any combination of upper and
lower case letters in the commands.
The archives are organized into a series of top-level directories. The
top-level index gives you the index for each of the files in the archive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are bored with reading documentation and just want to try
something, then send the server a message containing the line
send index
When you get the index back, it will give you the names of all of the
files in the archive; send the server another message asking it to send you the
files that you want:
send applications plplot.2 plplot.3
etc. If you are using a mailer that understands "@" notation, send to
archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. If your mailer deals in "!" notation,
try sending to {someplace}!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server, e.g.
uunet!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server. For other mailers, you're on your own.
For BITNET mailers and those lazy typists out there, I have aliased
archive-server to archive and archive-management to manage. This means that
you can also use the net address of:
archive%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!archive
manage%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!manage
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The server has 4 commands:
"help" command: The command "help" or "send help" causes the server to
send you the help file. You already know this, of course,
because you are reading the help file. No other commands are
honored in a message that asks for help (the server figures that
you had better read the help message before you do anything else).
"index" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is
"index", then the server will send you the index of
the contents of the archive.
For example, you can say
index
You can then send back another message to the archive server,
using a "send" command (see below) to ask it to send you the
files whose name you learned from that list.
The index is updated nightly, to reflect the contents of the
archive. So if you are getting messages that inform you that the
file you requested does not exist, ask for the index again and
double check the file name.
If your message has an "index" or a "send index" command, then
all other "send" commands will be ignored. This means that you
cannot get an index and data in the same request. This is so
that index requests can be given high priority.)
"send" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is
"send", then the archive server will send you the item(s) named
on the rest of the line. To name an item, you give its directory
and its name. For example
send workbench ptranim.uu2
or
send audio vclock.uu
Once you have named a category, you can put as many names as you
like on the rest of the line; they will all be taken from that
category. For example:
send exec xoper13.1 xoper13.2 xoper13.uu1
Each "send" command can reference only one directory. If you
would like to get files from more than one directory, you must use
two "send" commands.
One of the most common mistakes that a new user makes when formatting
a send command is to type something that looks like:
send dos/fs pthass.sh1 dos/fs pthass.sh2
(This is incorrect... )
This will not work for 2 reasons. One, simply because the archive will
look for a directory called "dos/fs". All that you need to do is:
send fs pthass.sh1 pthass.sh2
(This is correct)
The second reason that the previous send command would not work
is that you may only specify one path per send command.
You may put as many "send" commands as you like into one message
to the server, but the more you ask for, the longer it will take
to receive. See "FAIRNESS", below, for an explanation. Actually,
it's not strictly true that you can put as many "send" commands
as you want into one message. If the server must use uucp mail
to send your files, then it cannot send more than 100K bytes
in one message. If you ask for more than it can send, then it
will send as much as it can and ignore the rest. Since many
files in the archive are around 60K, it's probably best to
ask for one file at a time unless you know it's safe to do
otherwise.
"path" command: The "path" command exists to help in case you do not
get responses from the server when you mail to it.
Sometimes the server is unable to return mail over the incoming
path. There are dozens of reasons why this might happen, and if
you are a true wizard, you already know what those reasons are.
If you are an apprentice wizard, you might not know all the
reasons but you might know a way to circumvent them.
If you put in a "path" command, then everything that the server
mails to you will be mailed to that address, rather than to the
return address on your mail. For example, if you say
path decwrl!pyramid!rutgers!zakkaroo!jj@uunet.uu.net
then all mail sent by the server will be sent to that address.
If you use mixed-mode addresses (! and @), the archive-server
will put precedence on '@' before '!'.
You cannot expect the archive server to pick a uucp path to be
determined for you. If you can't determine a path yourself,
make the path relative to a 'known' site, e.g.:
path place!person@uunet.uu.net
which will cause the archive-server to send to site uunet.uu.net
with the instructions "send this to place!person".
EXAMPLES:
1) Find out the list of all of the Amiga files that are in the archive.
Send this message:
To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com
Subject: hi there
index
2) Get files from the archive (you have learned their
file names from the list that was sent to you in step 1).
To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com
Subject: send digest 3.17
send iff gif2iff.uu2 ifflib161.uu1
send iff dplaz.uu1
(it turns out these three files add up to less that 100k,
so they can all be sent by return mail).
3) Get a file, and send it over the best path to my site:
To: uunet.uu.net!mcvax!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server
path myname@site.uucp
send iff iff2ps20.1
NOTES:
The archive server acknowledges every request by return mail. If you
don't get a message back in a few days (depending on how close you
are to sun.com on the network) you should assume that something is
going wrong, and perhaps try sending another request, this time
with a "path" command. If you aren't getting anywhere and you don't
know a wizard to help you, try putting
path mysite!myname@uunet.uu.net
in your message, where "myname" is your mailbox name and "mysite" is the
uucp name of your machine.
The delays in sending out large items from the archives are
intentional, to make it difficult to get copies of everything in the
archives. If you are new to the network and would like to get all back
issues of everything, you should post a request to a regional newsgroup
asking whether someone who is geographically near you can provide
them.
Don't send mail with long lines. If you want to ask for 40 files in one
request, you don't need to put all 40 of them in one "send" command.
The archive server is quite able to handle long lines, but before your
mail message is received by the archive server it might pass through
relay computers that will choke on long lines, or chop them up.
The archive server does not respond to requests from users named
"root", "system", "daemon", or "mailer". This is to prevent mail
loops. If your name is "Bruce Root" or "Joe Daemon". Yes, I know
about Norman Mailer and Waverley Root. Norman doesn't use netmail and
Waverley is dead.
FAIRNESS:
The archive server contains many safeguards to ensure that it is not
monopolized by people asking for large amounts of data. The mailer is
set up so that it will send no more than a fixed amount of data each
day. If the work queue contains more requests than the day's quota,
then the unsent files will not be processed until the next day.
Whenever the mailer is run to send its day's quota, it sends the
requests out shortest-first.
If you have a request waiting in the work queue and you send in another
request, the new request is added to the old one (thereby increasing
its size) rather than being filed anew. This prevents you from being
able to send in a large number of small requests as a way of beating
the system. If you request 10 files together, you will get
substantially higher priority than if you make 10 requests for 1 file
each.
The reason for all of these quotas and limitations is that the delivery
resources are finite, and there may be many people who would like to
make use of the archive.
[end of help]
*************************************************************************
,ECS
>From: adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
Subject: Re: RAD: won't
In article <4425@crash.cts.com> spierce@pnet01.cts.com (Stuart Pierce) writes:
>Unfortunately, RAD: loses everything now when I reboot the machine. I added
>the R option to SetPatch in my startup-sequence, but that didn't help. What
>am I missing?
Use a lower case 'R' as in
SetPatch >NIL: r
and your RAD: will reboot. This could be considered a bug or a
documentation error; I will get it corrected.
Adam
--
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore-Amiga Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!adam
------------------------------------------
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Subject: Re: New Agnus for older B2000s
in article <274@vuecon.econ.vu.nl>, niesemc@econ.vu.nl (Marco Niese) says:
> could a reliable source at Commodore (best would be Dave Haynie) give a final
> statement here on the net about the New 1MB Agnus working in older (pre-rev.6)
> B2000s?
The 1 Meg Agnus works in all B2000s. There are two or three jumpers to change
to install it correctly (J101 is moved, J500 is removed or cut depending on
how your board was assembled, and J102 is cut if you want to come up PAL
instead of NTSC). The Rev 6 board _requires_ the 1 Meg Agnus for support of
refresh on it's 256K x 4 DRAMs, but it will work in every revision of the
B2000 ever shipped.
It will not work on the original A2000, which may be available in the
Netherlands as well as other parts of Europe. The easiest way to identify
the type of motherboard in your system is to see how many RCA phono jacks
you have in the back of the machine: there are 2 on the "A" board, 3 on
the "B" board.
--
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it
*************************************************************************
,2500
>From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Subject: Re: 2500 UX
In article <[465]un.amiga@tronsbox.UUCP> tron1@tronsbox.UUCP (HIM) writes:
>Is the Amiga 2500 UX available???
Yes, ONLY to qualified commercial developers.
>If so, where can I get one ? (mail order I assume)
You can ONLY get directly from Commodore. You can contact:
Brenda Billings - CATS
1200 Wilson Drive
West Chester, PA 19380
>Does anyone have any idea how good the UNIX is???
It runs AMIX, a port of AT&T Unix System V, Release 3.1, and provides the
AMIX proprietary Windowing Interface.
Price is *CONFIDENTIAL*. The original "technology announcement" of AMIX
posted a while back on Usenet and other nets (after the COMDEX show) included
the following disclaimer:
"PRELIMINARY INFORMATION -- SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE
NOT PRESENTLY FOR SALE"
As far as I know, *ALL* THE ABOVE INFORMATION IS A MATTER OF PUBLIC RECORD.
-- Marco Papa 'Doc'
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu
"There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Diga and Caligari!" -- Rick Unland
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
*************************************************************************
,SUP
>From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
Subject: Re: Supra Controllers and SCSI ID's
Re: Doug's questions about the Supra controller for the A1000 and SCSI IDs ...
Set the SCSI ID jumpers on the drive to something OTHER than 0. Do NOT set
the ID to 7, because the Supra 4x4 for the A1000 has 7 as its ID. The reason
to set the drive's ID to other-than-zero is to NOT usurp the first 6 or 7
cylinders for an autoboot partition.
Run the Supra Formatter (and you better be running at least version 5.1; 5.3
is preferable), specify the ID to which the drive has been set, and let it do
its thing. Specify FORMAT but do NOT specify the MAP option, let the drive do
its own verification ... embedded SCSI drives are supposed to present a
perfect media to the host, and the surface checking performed by the drive's
built-in controller will do a far better job of checking and bad-block sparing
than the present host software. This process will take about 20 minutes for
the 3280 (280MB) and about 30 minutes for the 3380 (380MB).
Reboot.
Re-run the Supra Formatter, respecify the ID to which the drive has been set,
and THIS time only do the partition info ... takes but 1 second or so.
Reboot, and assuming the SupraMount program is executed in the startup-sequence,
then the drive is automatically mounted and ready for use.
These procedures are for the Maxtor XT3280 or XT3380 drives, and work fine on
ALL my systems and the systems I've built and/or put together for others.
Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]
*************************************************************************
,MIN
>From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: Re: Minix for the Amiga ???
Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an
excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an
official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested.
I am working on that one, however.
Andy Tanenbaum
>From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers
Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We
hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around
AmigaMINIX.
For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX
like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by
Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by
Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the
Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga.
While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of
MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every
bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of
the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is
that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST)
format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100%
compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and
MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on
AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do
use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of-
day clock won't run properly of course!)
Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we
didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to
optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for
each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing
a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The
normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track-
cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically
allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected.
Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about
AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main
reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard
disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of
them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a
hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common
in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before
one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk.
To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX:
- AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so
it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your
Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have,
what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that
it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC.
- You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available
under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented.
- The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80-
track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.)
Up to four drives can be connected.
- The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro-
nics) port.
- The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides
limited access to the color registers.
Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC.
The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't
run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't
such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another
reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of
each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all
about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15
page scheduler, but getting all the details right.")
AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't
found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll
probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX.
-Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl)
*************************************************************************
,010
>From: scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden)
Subject: Re: Need information about 68010.
In article <1407@rivm05.UUCP>, ccemdd@rivm.UUCP (Marco Dedecker) writes:
> - Is swapping the chips all you need to do, or are there some other
> ajustments you have to make ?
Thats all you need to do. I switched mine over 2 years ago
with no ill effects.
> - Does all the software still work with the 68010 ?
All current software (that I have anyways) works just fine. (The
old pre-1.2 Calculator used to blow up on /0 errors). Even A-Max
works properly with the 68010 (w/ 128K ROMS of course). There is
a PD program called "decigel" available in various places which
patches the trap vector for the 1 instruction which is incompatible.
I can't remember the last time I used "decigel".
> - What are the advantages of the 68010 ?
About 7% speed improvement as measured by Jez San's Amiga Speed
Program (recently on BIX and elsewhere). This number is about
exactly what I have experienced up to now, and I think it agrees
with Motorola's own figures. I think the speedup is noticeable,
but then I can also see infrared and hear to 25KHz ;-), so...
Should you replace your 68000 with a 68010? Well, they don't cost $60
anymore (what like $12 or so??), so you can't really lose. You can always
go back...
--
Scott Evernden PRIME Computer Inc.
scott@ssgp32.Prime.COM Commercial Systems Group
uunet!ssgp32!scott Technology Drive
(508) 478-8600 x2984 Milford, MA 01757
*************************************************************************
,HAM
From: Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: What is HAM?
What is HAM? (A NON-technical description)
HAM (Hold And Modify) is a special graphics mode on the Amiga. It
involves a special mode of the graphic chips that allow for all 4096
colors to be displayed at the same time; with some restrictions.
If you have Fish Disk #1, the program "colorful" will show what I
mean. It displays all 4096 colors at the same time.
How is it done? Each pixel on a normal screen has three components;
the red, the green and the blue (RGB). These R-G-B values are
combined to make the color of that pixel. In HAM, the first pixel on
each line can be any color. Then, the next pixel is the same color as
the previous one, except the value of either R, G, or B has been
changed. Only one component can change at any time from pixel to
pixel so you are restricted in displaying very different colors
directly next to each other. There is facility for two adjacent
pixels to be exactly the same, i.e. no change in either R, G, or B.
Using HAM many impressive graphic screens have been created. Because
of its peculiar restrictions doing certain tasks are not well-suited
to HAM and HAM is usually used for non-moving graphics (though it's
good for ray-traced animation). Digitized pictures look great in HAM.
Some programs store their graphics internally as 24-bit graphics (more
colors that the Amiga can display) for use with high-end graphics
equipment but permit the user to preview their graphics in HAM mode.
This is a real boon for high-end users because it enables them to
"estimate" results on their Amiga before they send them off to very
expensive printing services, etc.
HAM isn't perfect but it has its uses. Users should be careful about
selecting when and when not to use it.
*************************************************************************
,EXE
From: Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: EXECUTE: No K Directive
A common question that comes up is "I just wrote a script and when I
EXECUTE it I get an error like 'EXECUTE: No K Directive. What am I
doing wrong?"
Try making the first two lines ".bra {" and ".ket }". This tells
EXECUTE how to interpret {'s and }'s. A plain Amiga EXECUTE script
can do a heck of a lot more than most people know about.
This is documented in the AmigaDOS manual from Bantam which is still
the only C-A book that gives the CLI complete coverage. I hope that
after 1.4 comes out we'll find much better documentation.
*************************************************************************ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (09/01/89)
[please note: my new address will be w-edwinh@microsoft.uucp. Please do
not reply to this account as it is dying soon. -ed]
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: Aug 31, 1989
Changes this month:
Added: Questions [and answers] about AT Bridgeboard
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still
availble from the editor via email.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on
the left. This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,ARC How to use the kilowatt archive server
raz@sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry)
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,LED What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
bjc@pollux.UUCP
,CLI Closing the initial CLI
hcr!edwin
,KIK Crashing all the way to Kickstart 1.3 (*the solution*)
bryce@cbmvax
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,COL All dem [screen] colors during boot
hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
,ECS How to get RAD: to recover with the new Agnus
adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
New Agnus for older B2000s
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
,2500 Can I get a 2500 UX?
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
,SUP Supra Controllers and SCSI ID's
thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
,MIN Minix for the Amiga ???
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
,010 Need information about 68010.
scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden)
,HAM What is HAM?
Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
,EXE Execute script errors
Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
,AT Questions [and answers] on AT Bridgeboard
higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Send questions, comments to:
Edwin
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
(or as of September: w-edwinh@microsoft.uucp)
*************************************************************************
,NET
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Have fun via
mail.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you post a request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,MOD
From: page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
How To Use The Comp.Binaries.Amiga Postings
Every comp.binaries.amiga submission is archived with the ZOO archive
program, which does a fair amount of data compression and retains the
original names, dates and directory structure within the archive.
Because Usenet data paths are not 8-bit, these archives must be
encoded to "regular ASCII" which is 7-bit. The encoding is done with
a program called 'uuencode'. The version used adds a checksum at the
end of each line, and includes the file size at the end of the
encoding.
Sometimes the files are too large for one posting (Usenet postings
should generally be less than 64k bytes but you can sometimes get away
with longer postings). If this uuencoded zoo archive is too large, it
gets split into pieces, roughly 64k in length.
Finally, the (possibly split) .zuu files are enclosed by some simple
UNIX commands. This 'shell archive' is commonly known as a 'shar'.
There is a more-or-less standard set of file extensions used to show
the file type. The file extension is the set of characters after the
dot (or period) in the name. The set of file extensions used is:
.zoo An archive file in ZOO format
.zuu A .zoo file that's been uuencoded
.zu1 The first file in a split .zuu file
.zu9 The ninth file in a split .zuu file
.zu10 The tenth file in a split .zuu file
.uu1 The first shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu9 The ninth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu10 The tenth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
To get all this back into a usable form, you need to:
1. Unpack the files from the shar format (the verb is usually called
'unshar'). You can either use a standard text editor to remove the
info, or the unix 'sh' (Bourne Shell), or a publicly available tool to
do it for you. With some tools (like 'sh'), you are required to
remove the Usenet header information first; other unshar tools will
remove it for you. Once you unshar a .uu? file, you'll have a .zu?
file.
2. Combine all the .zu? pieces into a large .zuu file. You should use
something like 'cat' under UNIX or 'join' under AmigaDOS. It is
important that you combine the pieces in numerical order. Be aware
that the single digit pieces do not have a leading zero, so a wildcard
sort will probably not do what you want. Instead, you should specify
the files in this way: zu? zu??, which will do the single digit files
first, then the double digits. You can rest assured there will not be
any triple-digit postings.
3. Convert the .zuu file to a .zoo file with the 'uudecode' program.
If you have a version of uudecode that understands the checksum and
file size information, you should use it. If you don't, you can still
use the old uudecode program, but you will not know if the file has
somehow become corrupt.
4. You now have a .zoo file. To extract the files into a directory,
you need a program called 'zoo'. After "un-zoo'ing", most submissions
will have some documentation to tell how to set up and run the
software on your Amiga.
---------
Of course you need to get the program(s) to your Amiga to run them.
Usually this means downloading the software to your Amiga through a
terminal program. If you want to download the files as quickly as
possible to your Amiga, you should do steps 1-3 above on your UNIX
machine and download the .zoo file to your Amiga, since the .zoo file
is the smallest of the files. It's also usually faster and easier to
do steps 1-3 on the UNIX machine because you have less worry about
disk and memory limitations.
However, some terminal emulators available for the Amiga do not handle
binary downloads well. Experiment with yours and see. If you have
trouble, you might try a different protocol or different terminal
program. If all else fails, you can download the .zuu file, which is
an ascii file, and do the uudecode on your Amiga.
The mechanics of terminal programs, protocols and downloading are
beyond the scope of this document. Most terminal programs should have
a manual section describing how to log in and do remote downloads.
---------
Here are the tools you need, under UNIX, AmigaDOS, or both. All are
publicly available; you do not need to purchase anything to make use
of the software that comes across in comp.binaries.amiga.
shar, sh, unshar - a tool to unpack the shell archives, or use an editor
cat or join - to append the split .zu? files to one .zuu file
uudecode - to decode the .zuu file to a .zoo file
zoo - to unpack the ZOO archive.
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or
amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file
will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the
aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the
submissions)
3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Bob Page - page@Sun.COM
- uunet!sun!page
*************************************************************************
,FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
[Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188
uihub.cs.uiuc.edu (128.174.252.27) for fish 189-222
- ed]
*************************************************************************
,PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
,BUY
From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
Subject: a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
>From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
>From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
,LED
>From: bjc@pollux.UUCP
Subject: Re: What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
In article <1200@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US> grj@tellab5.UUCP () writes:
>sometimes when I power on my A2000,
>the caps lock LED flashes at about a 1 or 2 Hz rate. The keyboard is then
>useless and nothing typed gets recognized.
Look on page 3 of Appendix H to the Hardware Reference manual.
Briefly, though, it says:
One blink Keyboard ROM test failed
Two blinks Keyboard RAM test failed
Three blinks Watchdog timer test failed
Four blinks A short exists between two row lines
or one of the seven special control keys.
It also says that you probably would not have been able to type anything
before this sequence would be completed, but if so, the key codes
would be sent to the computer and then a "terminate key stream" code
would be sent. There is more information in that appendix.
Betty
*************************************************************************
,CLI
From: hcr!edwin
Subject: Closing the initial CLI
% "I can't get my initial CLI window to close" seems to be a commonly
% asked question. It would be good to explain "run" vs. "runback"
Okay, a CLI will not close if a program has been "run" from it. (Check
your startup-sequence) This is because the program that has been "run"
needs someplace to get and put its I/O. If your program does not need
to do I/O to the CLI, you should use the RunBack program from Fish 152
(earlier version on Fish 65), or RunBackGround on Fish 73. These
programs will totally detach your program from the CLI and allow you to
close it normally with endcli.
Edwin
*************************************************************************
,KIK
From: bryce@cbmvax
Subject: Re: Crashing all the way to Kickstart (*the solution*)
In several articles <> several.net.posters wrote:
> [Since installing V1.3 I have noticed something strange. If the
> machine ever crashes, it sometimes goes back to the Kickstart hand
> instead of the Workbench hand.]
Thank you all for noting and reporting this bug. I have located the
cause; a code mistake causes the Kickstart protected memory to be
left open open for writing during some types of system Alert. This
problem will be addressed in the next version of "SetPatch" (no
date or distribution details are available at this time).
*************************************************************************
,HAR
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
,COL
>From: hah@mipon3.intel.com (Hans Hansen)
Subject: All dem colors during boot
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N C O L O R S
Dark gray Ok Hardware
Light gray Ok Software
Red Bad ROM Checksum
Green Bad RAM
Blue Bad Custom Chips
Yellow Exception
A M I G A ' S I N I T I A L I Z A T I O N
Clear Chips
Disable DMA and Interrupts
Clear the Screen
Check the Hardware
Pass or fail the Hardware to the Screen
Checksum the ROMs
Pass or fail the ROMs to the Screen
System setup
Check the for RAM at $C00000
Move SYS_BASE to $C00000 if it exists
RAM Test
Pass or fail the RAM to the Screen
Check the Software
Pass or fail the Software to the Screen
Set up the RAM
Link the Libraries
Find External RAM and link it to the list
Set up Interrupts and DMA
Start default Task
Check for 68010, 68020, and 68881
Check for an Exception
System Reset
Hans
*************************************************************************
,HED
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: Re: 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
In article <1735@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dretor (Wallace B. Wallace) writes:
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drive.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
,ARC
From: raz%kilowatt.EBay@Sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry)
Subject: How to use the kilowatt archive server
The following message is the reply that kilowatt (the archive
server) will mail to you if you ask it for help.
Also, if anyone is interested in setting up their very own archive
server, contact me at the above address and I'll send you all information
and programs that you need to set one up.
-Raz
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message comes to you from the archive server at kilowatt@sun.com,
archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. It received a message from you asking
for help.
The archive server is a mail-response program. That means that you mail
it a request, and it mails back the response.
The archive server is a very dumb program. It does not have much error
checking. If you don't send it the commands that it understands, it will
just answer "I don't understand you".
The archive server has 4 commands. Each command must be the first word
on a line. The archive server reads your entire message before it does
anything, so you can have several different commands in a single
message. The archive server treats the "Subject:" header line just like
any other line of the message. You can use any combination of upper and
lower case letters in the commands.
The archives are organized into a series of top-level directories. The
top-level index gives you the index for each of the files in the archive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are bored with reading documentation and just want to try
something, then send the server a message containing the line
send index
When you get the index back, it will give you the names of all of the
files in the archive; send the server another message asking it to send you the
files that you want:
send applications plplot.2 plplot.3
etc. If you are using a mailer that understands "@" notation, send to
archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. If your mailer deals in "!" notation,
try sending to {someplace}!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server, e.g.
uunet!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server. For other mailers, you're on your own.
For BITNET mailers and those lazy typists out there, I have aliased
archive-server to archive and archive-management to manage. This means that
you can also use the net address of:
archive%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!archive
manage%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!manage
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The server has 4 commands:
"help" command: The command "help" or "send help" causes the server to
send you the help file. You already know this, of course,
because you are reading the help file. No other commands are
honored in a message that asks for help (the server figures that
you had better read the help message before you do anything else).
"index" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is
"index", then the server will send you the index of
the contents of the archive.
For example, you can say
index
You can then send back another message to the archive server,
using a "send" command (see below) to ask it to send you the
files whose name you learned from that list.
The index is updated nightly, to reflect the contents of the
archive. So if you are getting messages that inform you that the
file you requested does not exist, ask for the index again and
double check the file name.
If your message has an "index" or a "send index" command, then
all other "send" commands will be ignored. This means that you
cannot get an index and data in the same request. This is so
that index requests can be given high priority.)
"send" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is
"send", then the archive server will send you the item(s) named
on the rest of the line. To name an item, you give its directory
and its name. For example
send workbench ptranim.uu2
or
send audio vclock.uu
Once you have named a category, you can put as many names as you
like on the rest of the line; they will all be taken from that
category. For example:
send exec xoper13.1 xoper13.2 xoper13.uu1
Each "send" command can reference only one directory. If you
would like to get files from more than one directory, you must use
two "send" commands.
One of the most common mistakes that a new user makes when formatting
a send command is to type something that looks like:
send dos/fs pthass.sh1 dos/fs pthass.sh2
(This is incorrect... )
This will not work for 2 reasons. One, simply because the archive will
look for a directory called "dos/fs". All that you need to do is:
send fs pthass.sh1 pthass.sh2
(This is correct)
The second reason that the previous send command would not work
is that you may only specify one path per send command.
You may put as many "send" commands as you like into one message
to the server, but the more you ask for, the longer it will take
to receive. See "FAIRNESS", below, for an explanation. Actually,
it's not strictly true that you can put as many "send" commands
as you want into one message. If the server must use uucp mail
to send your files, then it cannot send more than 100K bytes
in one message. If you ask for more than it can send, then it
will send as much as it can and ignore the rest. Since many
files in the archive are around 60K, it's probably best to
ask for one file at a time unless you know it's safe to do
otherwise.
"path" command: The "path" command exists to help in case you do not
get responses from the server when you mail to it.
Sometimes the server is unable to return mail over the incoming
path. There are dozens of reasons why this might happen, and if
you are a true wizard, you already know what those reasons are.
If you are an apprentice wizard, you might not know all the
reasons but you might know a way to circumvent them.
If you put in a "path" command, then everything that the server
mails to you will be mailed to that address, rather than to the
return address on your mail. For example, if you say
path decwrl!pyramid!rutgers!zakkaroo!jj@uunet.uu.net
then all mail sent by the server will be sent to that address.
If you use mixed-mode addresses (! and @), the archive-server
will put precedence on '@' before '!'.
You cannot expect the archive server to pick a uucp path to be
determined for you. If you can't determine a path yourself,
make the path relative to a 'known' site, e.g.:
path place!person@uunet.uu.net
which will cause the archive-server to send to site uunet.uu.net
with the instructions "send this to place!person".
EXAMPLES:
1) Find out the list of all of the Amiga files that are in the archive.
Send this message:
To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com
Subject: hi there
index
2) Get files from the archive (you have learned their
file names from the list that was sent to you in step 1).
To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com
Subject: send digest 3.17
send iff gif2iff.uu2 ifflib161.uu1
send iff dplaz.uu1
(it turns out these three files add up to less that 100k,
so they can all be sent by return mail).
3) Get a file, and send it over the best path to my site:
To: uunet.uu.net!mcvax!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server
path myname@site.uucp
send iff iff2ps20.1
*************************************************************************
,ECS
>From: adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
Subject: Re: RAD: won't
In article <4425@crash.cts.com> spierce@pnet01.cts.com (Stuart Pierce) writes:
>Unfortunately, RAD: loses everything now when I reboot the machine. I added
>the R option to SetPatch in my startup-sequence, but that didn't help. What
>am I missing?
Use a lower case 'R' as in
SetPatch >NIL: r
and your RAD: will reboot. This could be considered a bug or a
documentation error; I will get it corrected.
Adam
--
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore-Amiga Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!adam
------------------------------------------
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Subject: Re: New Agnus for older B2000s
in article <274@vuecon.econ.vu.nl>, niesemc@econ.vu.nl (Marco Niese) says:
> could a reliable source at Commodore (best would be Dave Haynie) give a final
> statement here on the net about the New 1MB Agnus working in older (pre-rev.6)
> B2000s?
The 1 Meg Agnus works in all B2000s. There are two or three jumpers to change
to install it correctly (J101 is moved, J500 is removed or cut depending on
how your board was assembled, and J102 is cut if you want to come up PAL
instead of NTSC). The Rev 6 board _requires_ the 1 Meg Agnus for support of
refresh on it's 256K x 4 DRAMs, but it will work in every revision of the
B2000 ever shipped.
It will not work on the original A2000, which may be available in the
Netherlands as well as other parts of Europe. The easiest way to identify
the type of motherboard in your system is to see how many RCA phono jacks
you have in the back of the machine: there are 2 on the "A" board, 3 on
the "B" board.
--
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it
*************************************************************************
,2500
>From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Subject: Re: 2500 UX
In article <[465]un.amiga@tronsbox.UUCP> tron1@tronsbox.UUCP (HIM) writes:
>Is the Amiga 2500 UX available???
Yes, ONLY to qualified commercial developers.
>If so, where can I get one ? (mail order I assume)
You can ONLY get directly from Commodore. You can contact:
Brenda Billings - CATS
1200 Wilson Drive
West Chester, PA 19380
>Does anyone have any idea how good the UNIX is???
It runs AMIX, a port of AT&T Unix System V, Release 3.1, and provides the
AMIX proprietary Windowing Interface.
Price is *CONFIDENTIAL*. The original "technology announcement" of AMIX
posted a while back on Usenet and other nets (after the COMDEX show) included
the following disclaimer:
"PRELIMINARY INFORMATION -- SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE
NOT PRESENTLY FOR SALE"
As far as I know, *ALL* THE ABOVE INFORMATION IS A MATTER OF PUBLIC RECORD.
-- Marco Papa 'Doc'
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu
"There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Diga and Caligari!" -- Rick Unland
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
*************************************************************************
,SUP
>From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
Subject: Re: Supra Controllers and SCSI ID's
Re: Doug's questions about the Supra controller for the A1000 and SCSI IDs ...
Set the SCSI ID jumpers on the drive to something OTHER than 0. Do NOT set
the ID to 7, because the Supra 4x4 for the A1000 has 7 as its ID. The reason
to set the drive's ID to other-than-zero is to NOT usurp the first 6 or 7
cylinders for an autoboot partition.
Run the Supra Formatter (and you better be running at least version 5.1; 5.3
is preferable), specify the ID to which the drive has been set, and let it do
its thing. Specify FORMAT but do NOT specify the MAP option, let the drive do
its own verification ... embedded SCSI drives are supposed to present a
perfect media to the host, and the surface checking performed by the drive's
built-in controller will do a far better job of checking and bad-block sparing
than the present host software. This process will take about 20 minutes for
the 3280 (280MB) and about 30 minutes for the 3380 (380MB).
Reboot.
Re-run the Supra Formatter, respecify the ID to which the drive has been set,
and THIS time only do the partition info ... takes but 1 second or so.
Reboot, and assuming the SupraMount program is executed in the startup-sequence,
then the drive is automatically mounted and ready for use.
These procedures are for the Maxtor XT3280 or XT3380 drives, and work fine on
ALL my systems and the systems I've built and/or put together for others.
Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]
*************************************************************************
,MIN
>From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: Re: Minix for the Amiga ???
Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an
excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an
official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested.
I am working on that one, however.
Andy Tanenbaum
>From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers
Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We
hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around
AmigaMINIX.
For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX
like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by
Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by
Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the
Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga.
While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of
MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every
bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of
the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is
that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST)
format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100%
compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and
MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on
AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do
use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of-
day clock won't run properly of course!)
Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we
didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to
optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for
each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing
a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The
normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track-
cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically
allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected.
Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about
AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main
reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard
disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of
them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a
hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common
in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before
one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk.
To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX:
- AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so
it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your
Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have,
what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that
it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC.
- You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available
under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented.
- The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80-
track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.)
Up to four drives can be connected.
- The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro-
nics) port.
- The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides
limited access to the color registers.
Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC.
The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't
run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't
such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another
reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of
each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all
about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15
page scheduler, but getting all the details right.")
AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't
found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll
probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX.
-Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl)
*************************************************************************
,010
>From: scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden)
Subject: Re: Need information about 68010.
In article <1407@rivm05.UUCP>, ccemdd@rivm.UUCP (Marco Dedecker) writes:
> - Is swapping the chips all you need to do, or are there some other
> ajustments you have to make ?
Thats all you need to do. I switched mine over 2 years ago
with no ill effects.
> - Does all the software still work with the 68010 ?
All current software (that I have anyways) works just fine. (The
old pre-1.2 Calculator used to blow up on /0 errors). Even A-Max
works properly with the 68010 (w/ 128K ROMS of course). There is
a PD program called "decigel" available in various places which
patches the trap vector for the 1 instruction which is incompatible.
I can't remember the last time I used "decigel".
> - What are the advantages of the 68010 ?
About 7% speed improvement as measured by Jez San's Amiga Speed
Program (recently on BIX and elsewhere). This number is about
exactly what I have experienced up to now, and I think it agrees
with Motorola's own figures. I think the speedup is noticeable,
but then I can also see infrared and hear to 25KHz ;-), so...
Should you replace your 68000 with a 68010? Well, they don't cost $60
anymore (what like $12 or so??), so you can't really lose. You can always
go back...
--
Scott Evernden PRIME Computer Inc.
scott@ssgp32.Prime.COM Commercial Systems Group
uunet!ssgp32!scott Technology Drive
(508) 478-8600 x2984 Milford, MA 01757
*************************************************************************
,HAM
From: Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: What is HAM?
What is HAM? (A NON-technical description)
HAM (Hold And Modify) is a special graphics mode on the Amiga. It
involves a special mode of the graphic chips that allow for all 4096
colors to be displayed at the same time; with some restrictions.
If you have Fish Disk #1, the program "colorful" will show what I
mean. It displays all 4096 colors at the same time.
How is it done? Each pixel on a normal screen has three components;
the red, the green and the blue (RGB). These R-G-B values are
combined to make the color of that pixel. In HAM, the first pixel on
each line can be any color. Then, the next pixel is the same color as
the previous one, except the value of either R, G, or B has been
changed. Only one component can change at any time from pixel to
pixel so you are restricted in displaying very different colors
directly next to each other. There is facility for two adjacent
pixels to be exactly the same, i.e. no change in either R, G, or B.
Using HAM many impressive graphic screens have been created. Because
of its peculiar restrictions doing certain tasks are not well-suited
to HAM and HAM is usually used for non-moving graphics (though it's
good for ray-traced animation). Digitized pictures look great in HAM.
Some programs store their graphics internally as 24-bit graphics (more
colors that the Amiga can display) for use with high-end graphics
equipment but permit the user to preview their graphics in HAM mode.
This is a real boon for high-end users because it enables them to
"estimate" results on their Amiga before they send them off to very
expensive printing services, etc.
HAM isn't perfect but it has its uses. Users should be careful about
selecting when and when not to use it.
*************************************************************************
,EXE
From: Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: EXECUTE: No K Directive
A common question that comes up is "I just wrote a script and when I
EXECUTE it I get an error like 'EXECUTE: No K Directive. What am I
doing wrong?"
Try making the first two lines ".bra {" and ".ket }". This tells
EXECUTE how to interpret {'s and }'s. A plain Amiga EXECUTE script
can do a heck of a lot more than most people know about.
This is documented in the AmigaDOS manual from Bantam which is still
the only C-A book that gives the CLI complete coverage. I hope that
after 1.4 comes out we'll find much better documentation.
*************************************************************************
,AT
From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: Re: Questions on AT Bridgeboard
In article <30153@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> frerking@grapenuts.llnl.gov (Chris Frerking) writes:
$I have recently had the misfortune of being told that I need to have a PC
$compatable computer. I currently own an A2500, and would like information
$on the AT Bridgeboard (I need a 286 or 386 machine). Specifically:
$
$1. Would it be cheaper to just buy an inexpensive AT clone? (I would
$prefer the Bridgeboard, as I haven't lots of desk space... but if the price
$difference were too great, I could find some space.)
It's tough to find an AT clone for less than the price of our Bridgeboard.
You MIGHT be able to, but generally the cheap clones are the large footprint
models (read `huge').
$2. Does the AT Bridgeboard cause any problems on the A2500? Is there certain
$software that won't run/hardware that won't work if the Bridgeboard is
$installed?
I have an A2500 with AT Bridgeboard installed here, and they work fine. I
believe you cannot have more than 6Mb of Amiga RAM with the Bridgeboard
installed, which isn't a problem for most people.
$3. How AT compatable is the Bridgeboard? (I am new to PC compatables,
$and have been told that this is a question which needs to be asked) (can it
$run xenix? minix? microport unix? OS/2?)
The A2286 is an entire PC AT on a card, including processor, math coprocessor
socket, BIOS, video RAM, 1Mb system RAM, and of course, PC slots in the Amiga.
So in a word - it's very compatible. The potential incompatibilities, which
relate to an interrrupt and a couple of memory locations that are used for
communication between AmigaDOS and MS-DOS are documented, and prevent (for
example) you having more than 1 serial card installed, and a parallel card
becomes LPT3: (I think), but I would think that with the mode command you
could make it act like an LPT1:. I don't believe Commodore has tested OS/2
or XENIX at this time. I see no reason why they shouldn't work, although
they may not if they want to share Amiga peripherals.
$4. Does the Bridgeboard provide any graphics capability - if so, what sort?
$CGA compatable? EGA compatable?
The Bridgeboard has RAM enough for MDA and CGA displays, which the Amiga
interprets and displays in a window or on a separate screen. The emulation
is very good, but...
$- If not, can a CGA/EGA/VGA card be plugged into the PC slots, and run
$off of a separate monitor? What about using the same monitor?
...if you want other modes or a real MDA or CGA display, you can, yes, plug
in a video card and use that. It may require a second monitor though.
$5. Does the Bridgeboard have its own memory, or does it use the Amiga's memory?
Yes, 1Mb, and no, although you could use Amiga's RAM disk as a DOS device.
$can it be expanded? Is extra memory added accessable to the amiga?
Yes, and no.
$6. Can the Bridgeboard use the Amiga harddrive?
Yes. It can even boot of it.
$Can the Amiga access PC harddrives plugged into the PC slots?
Yes, you can create an Amiga partition on a PC hard drive.
In addition you can move files back and forth using supplied utilities.
$What about access to the Amiga's 3.5" drives?
Only as virtual drives, not transparently.
$Does the Bridgeboard come with a 5.25" disk drive?
Yes, high density with AT version, and low density with XT version.
$...can it be mounted externally
You might have to extend your power cable, but it's possible, yes.
Plus, you might want to get a case of some sort for the drive.
$7. Does the Bridgeboard provide its own serial/parallel ports, or does it share
$them with the Amiga?
No built in ports, but the Amiga's parallel port can be loaned to the
Bridgeboard.
$If it shares them, how compatable are they?
This is implemented at the BIOS level, so anything that goes through that
should work. That is, software that tries to bang on hardware directly won't
work, which is why we don't allow sharing of the serial port, because no-one
goes through the BIOS to use it.
$Can I plug any piece of PC hardware into them without fear of harming the
$equipment?
Normal precautions apply. If you want the real mccoy, just get a
multi-function card - they're cheap.
Paul.
-----------------------------
>From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: Re: Problems with BridgeBoard, Bad Virtual Dirs
In article <626@uranus.UUCP> esker@abaa.UUCP (Lawrence Esker) writes:
$...having persistent problems with data integrity on 'JLink' virtual
$drives in the IBM side of the bridgeboard. Does
$anyone share this problem. Can anyone help?
Yes. The JLINK software creates a virtual drive file that must grow
if new data added requires it (i.e., there's no more room with the file
at its current size). When this occurs, the JANUS software has to open
the virtual drive file and append the new data. THE FILE ONLY GETS CLOSED
IF YOU DO AN UNLINK!!! The problem may therefore not exhibit itself if
new data was added but the virtual drive file didn't have to grow (there
was still room left in it due to your deleting some other stuff perhaps).
One fix: add tons of dummy stuff to the virtual drive, then delete it all
then unlink it. From that point forth the virtual drive should not be
required to grow since it's already huge.
Another fix: using the new JANUS 2.0 software, you can create a [bootable]
DOS drive space on the Amiga hard drive that looks like, smells like [etc.]
a real PC hard drive as far as MS-DOS is concerned. You even specify
cylinders, heads, etc. for the new MakeAB command that creates the space.
This solution does not require the first fix.
$... Why is a virtual drive on
$the ibm a single Amiga file. A significant reliability issue IMHO. A
$single problem can destroy a whole (ibm) disk and DiskDoctor can't help.
The manual recommends that you have a separate partition for the PC
data, to prevent accidental removal of the file, etc. However, most people
have no problem with just allowing it to coexist with other stuff.
$Is there a way to force PCdisk to complete pending writes once the ibm has
$crashed, before rebooting it and remounting the virtual drives? Maybe
$executing PCdisk a second time?
No - I recommend you use the new software.
$Other Possible Bugs:
$The command AREAD does not seem to transfer data between an Amiga file and a
$virtual drive.
Problems with AREAD/AWRITE have been fixed for the new 2.0 software (they
were re-written).
I hope this helps,
Paul.
*************************************************************************w-edwinh@microsoft.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (10/02/89)
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: Oct 1, 1989
Changes this month:
Added: Where to get AmigaTeX
Added: Do you need a Mac drive to use AMax?
Deleted: All dem [screen] colors during boot
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still
available from the editor via email.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on
the left. This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,ARC How to use the kilowatt archive server
raz@sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry)
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,LED What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
bjc@pollux.UUCP
,CLI Closing the initial CLI
hcr!edwin
,KIK Crashing all the way to Kickstart 1.3 (*the solution*)
bryce@cbmvax
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
,ECS How to get RAD: to recover with the new Agnus
adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
New Agnus for older B2000s
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
,2500 Can I get a 2500 UX?
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
,SUP Supra Controllers and SCSI ID's
thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
,MIN Minix for the Amiga ???
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
,010 Need information about 68010.
scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden)
,HAM What is HAM?
Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
,EXE Execute script errors
Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
,AT Questions [and answers] on AT Bridgeboard
higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
,TEX Where to get AmigaTeX
rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
,AMAX Do you need a Mac drive to use AMax?
douglee@becker.UUCP (Doug Lee)
Send questions, comments to:
Edwin
w-edwinh@microsoft.uucp or uunet!microsoft!w-edwinh
*************************************************************************
,NET
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Have fun via
mail.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you post a request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,MOD
From: page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
How To Use The Comp.Binaries.Amiga Postings
Every comp.binaries.amiga submission is archived with the ZOO archive
program, which does a fair amount of data compression and retains the
original names, dates and directory structure within the archive.
Because Usenet data paths are not 8-bit, these archives must be
encoded to "regular ASCII" which is 7-bit. The encoding is done with
a program called 'uuencode'. The version used adds a checksum at the
end of each line, and includes the file size at the end of the
encoding.
Sometimes the files are too large for one posting (Usenet postings
should generally be less than 64k bytes but you can sometimes get away
with longer postings). If this uuencoded zoo archive is too large, it
gets split into pieces, roughly 64k in length.
Finally, the (possibly split) .zuu files are enclosed by some simple
UNIX commands. This 'shell archive' is commonly known as a 'shar'.
There is a more-or-less standard set of file extensions used to show
the file type. The file extension is the set of characters after the
dot (or period) in the name. The set of file extensions used is:
.zoo An archive file in ZOO format
.zuu A .zoo file that's been uuencoded
.zu1 The first file in a split .zuu file
.zu9 The ninth file in a split .zuu file
.zu10 The tenth file in a split .zuu file
.uu1 The first shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu9 The ninth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu10 The tenth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
To get all this back into a usable form, you need to:
1. Unpack the files from the shar format (the verb is usually called
'unshar'). You can either use a standard text editor to remove the
info, or the unix 'sh' (Bourne Shell), or a publicly available tool to
do it for you. With some tools (like 'sh'), you are required to
remove the Usenet header information first; other unshar tools will
remove it for you. Once you unshar a .uu? file, you'll have a .zu?
file.
2. Combine all the .zu? pieces into a large .zuu file. You should use
something like 'cat' under UNIX or 'join' under AmigaDOS. It is
important that you combine the pieces in numerical order. Be aware
that the single digit pieces do not have a leading zero, so a wildcard
sort will probably not do what you want. Instead, you should specify
the files in this way: zu? zu??, which will do the single digit files
first, then the double digits. You can rest assured there will not be
any triple-digit postings.
3. Convert the .zuu file to a .zoo file with the 'uudecode' program.
If you have a version of uudecode that understands the checksum and
file size information, you should use it. If you don't, you can still
use the old uudecode program, but you will not know if the file has
somehow become corrupt.
4. You now have a .zoo file. To extract the files into a directory,
you need a program called 'zoo'. After "un-zoo'ing", most submissions
will have some documentation to tell how to set up and run the
software on your Amiga.
---------
Of course you need to get the program(s) to your Amiga to run them.
Usually this means downloading the software to your Amiga through a
terminal program. If you want to download the files as quickly as
possible to your Amiga, you should do steps 1-3 above on your UNIX
machine and download the .zoo file to your Amiga, since the .zoo file
is the smallest of the files. It's also usually faster and easier to
do steps 1-3 on the UNIX machine because you have less worry about
disk and memory limitations.
However, some terminal emulators available for the Amiga do not handle
binary downloads well. Experiment with yours and see. If you have
trouble, you might try a different protocol or different terminal
program. If all else fails, you can download the .zuu file, which is
an ascii file, and do the uudecode on your Amiga.
The mechanics of terminal programs, protocols and downloading are
beyond the scope of this document. Most terminal programs should have
a manual section describing how to log in and do remote downloads.
---------
Here are the tools you need, under UNIX, AmigaDOS, or both. All are
publicly available; you do not need to purchase anything to make use
of the software that comes across in comp.binaries.amiga.
shar, sh, unshar - a tool to unpack the shell archives, or use an editor
cat or join - to append the split .zu? files to one .zuu file
uudecode - to decode the .zuu file to a .zoo file
zoo - to unpack the ZOO archive.
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or
amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file
will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the
aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the
submissions)
3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Bob Page - page@Sun.COM
- uunet!sun!page
*************************************************************************
,FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
[Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188
uihub.cs.uiuc.edu (128.174.252.27) for fish 189-222
- ed]
*************************************************************************
,PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
,BUY
From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
Subject: a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
>From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
>From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
,LED
>From: bjc@pollux.UUCP
Subject: Re: What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
In article <1200@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US> grj@tellab5.UUCP () writes:
>sometimes when I power on my A2000,
>the caps lock LED flashes at about a 1 or 2 Hz rate. The keyboard is then
>useless and nothing typed gets recognized.
Look on page 3 of Appendix H to the Hardware Reference manual.
Briefly, though, it says:
One blink Keyboard ROM test failed
Two blinks Keyboard RAM test failed
Three blinks Watchdog timer test failed
Four blinks A short exists between two row lines
or one of the seven special control keys.
It also says that you probably would not have been able to type anything
before this sequence would be completed, but if so, the key codes
would be sent to the computer and then a "terminate key stream" code
would be sent. There is more information in that appendix.
Betty
*************************************************************************
,CLI
From: hcr!edwin
Subject: Closing the initial CLI
% "I can't get my initial CLI window to close" seems to be a commonly
% asked question. It would be good to explain "run" vs. "runback"
Okay, a CLI will not close if a program has been "run" from it. (Check
your startup-sequence) This is because the program that has been "run"
needs someplace to get and put its I/O. If your program does not need
to do I/O to the CLI, you should use the RunBack program from Fish 152
(earlier version on Fish 65), or RunBackGround on Fish 73. These
programs will totally detach your program from the CLI and allow you to
close it normally with endcli.
Edwin
*************************************************************************
,KIK
From: bryce@cbmvax
Subject: Re: Crashing all the way to Kickstart (*the solution*)
In several articles <> several.net.posters wrote:
> [Since installing V1.3 I have noticed something strange. If the
> machine ever crashes, it sometimes goes back to the Kickstart hand
> instead of the Workbench hand.]
Thank you all for noting and reporting this bug. I have located the
cause; a code mistake causes the Kickstart protected memory to be
left open open for writing during some types of system Alert. This
problem will be addressed in the next version of "SetPatch" (no
date or distribution details are available at this time).
*************************************************************************
,HAR
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
,HED
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: Re: 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
In article <1735@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dretor (Wallace B. Wallace) writes:
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drive.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
,ARC
From: raz%kilowatt.EBay@Sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry)
Subject: How to use the kilowatt archive server
The following message is the reply that kilowatt (the archive
server) will mail to you if you ask it for help.
Also, if anyone is interested in setting up their very own archive
server, contact me at the above address and I'll send you all information
and programs that you need to set one up.
-Raz
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message comes to you from the archive server at kilowatt@sun.com,
archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. It received a message from you asking
for help.
The archive server is a mail-response program. That means that you mail
it a request, and it mails back the response.
The archive server is a very dumb program. It does not have much error
checking. If you don't send it the commands that it understands, it will
just answer "I don't understand you".
The archive server has 4 commands. Each command must be the first word
on a line. The archive server reads your entire message before it does
anything, so you can have several different commands in a single
message. The archive server treats the "Subject:" header line just like
any other line of the message. You can use any combination of upper and
lower case letters in the commands.
The archives are organized into a series of top-level directories. The
top-level index gives you the index for each of the files in the archive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are bored with reading documentation and just want to try
something, then send the server a message containing the line
send index
When you get the index back, it will give you the names of all of the
files in the archive; send the server another message asking it to send you the
files that you want:
send applications plplot.2 plplot.3
etc. If you are using a mailer that understands "@" notation, send to
archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. If your mailer deals in "!" notation,
try sending to {someplace}!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server, e.g.
uunet!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server. For other mailers, you're on your own.
For BITNET mailers and those lazy typists out there, I have aliased
archive-server to archive and archive-management to manage. This means that
you can also use the net address of:
archive%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!archive
manage%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!manage
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The server has 4 commands:
"help" command: The command "help" or "send help" causes the server to
send you the help file. You already know this, of course,
because you are reading the help file. No other commands are
honored in a message that asks for help (the server figures that
you had better read the help message before you do anything else).
"index" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is
"index", then the server will send you the index of
the contents of the archive.
For example, you can say
index
You can then send back another message to the archive server,
using a "send" command (see below) to ask it to send you the
files whose name you learned from that list.
The index is updated nightly, to reflect the contents of the
archive. So if you are getting messages that inform you that the
file you requested does not exist, ask for the index again and
double check the file name.
If your message has an "index" or a "send index" command, then
all other "send" commands will be ignored. This means that you
cannot get an index and data in the same request. This is so
that index requests can be given high priority.)
"send" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is
"send", then the archive server will send you the item(s) named
on the rest of the line. To name an item, you give its directory
and its name. For example
send workbench ptranim.uu2
or
send audio vclock.uu
Once you have named a category, you can put as many names as you
like on the rest of the line; they will all be taken from that
category. For example:
send exec xoper13.1 xoper13.2 xoper13.uu1
Each "send" command can reference only one directory. If you
would like to get files from more than one directory, you must use
two "send" commands.
One of the most common mistakes that a new user makes when formatting
a send command is to type something that looks like:
send dos/fs pthass.sh1 dos/fs pthass.sh2
(This is incorrect... )
This will not work for 2 reasons. One, simply because the archive will
look for a directory called "dos/fs". All that you need to do is:
send fs pthass.sh1 pthass.sh2
(This is correct)
The second reason that the previous send command would not work
is that you may only specify one path per send command.
You may put as many "send" commands as you like into one message
to the server, but the more you ask for, the longer it will take
to receive. See "FAIRNESS", below, for an explanation. Actually,
it's not strictly true that you can put as many "send" commands
as you want into one message. If the server must use uucp mail
to send your files, then it cannot send more than 100K bytes
in one message. If you ask for more than it can send, then it
will send as much as it can and ignore the rest. Since many
files in the archive are around 60K, it's probably best to
ask for one file at a time unless you know it's safe to do
otherwise.
"path" command: The "path" command exists to help in case you do not
get responses from the server when you mail to it.
Sometimes the server is unable to return mail over the incoming
path. There are dozens of reasons why this might happen, and if
you are a true wizard, you already know what those reasons are.
If you are an apprentice wizard, you might not know all the
reasons but you might know a way to circumvent them.
If you put in a "path" command, then everything that the server
mails to you will be mailed to that address, rather than to the
return address on your mail. For example, if you say
path decwrl!pyramid!rutgers!zakkaroo!jj@uunet.uu.net
then all mail sent by the server will be sent to that address.
If you use mixed-mode addresses (! and @), the archive-server
will put precedence on '@' before '!'.
You cannot expect the archive server to pick a uucp path to be
determined for you. If you can't determine a path yourself,
make the path relative to a 'known' site, e.g.:
path place!person@uunet.uu.net
which will cause the archive-server to send to site uunet.uu.net
with the instructions "send this to place!person".
EXAMPLES:
1) Find out the list of all of the Amiga files that are in the archive.
Send this message:
To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com
Subject: hi there
index
2) Get files from the archive (you have learned their
file names from the list that was sent to you in step 1).
To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com
Subject: send digest 3.17
send iff gif2iff.uu2 ifflib161.uu1
send iff dplaz.uu1
(it turns out these three files add up to less that 100k,
so they can all be sent by return mail).
3) Get a file, and send it over the best path to my site:
To: uunet.uu.net!mcvax!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server
path myname@site.uucp
send iff iff2ps20.1
*************************************************************************
,ECS
>From: adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
Subject: Re: RAD: won't
In article <4425@crash.cts.com> spierce@pnet01.cts.com (Stuart Pierce) writes:
>Unfortunately, RAD: loses everything now when I reboot the machine. I added
>the R option to SetPatch in my startup-sequence, but that didn't help. What
>am I missing?
Use a lower case 'R' as in
SetPatch >NIL: r
and your RAD: will reboot. This could be considered a bug or a
documentation error; I will get it corrected.
Adam
--
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore-Amiga Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!adam
------------------------------------------
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Subject: Re: New Agnus for older B2000s
in article <274@vuecon.econ.vu.nl>, niesemc@econ.vu.nl (Marco Niese) says:
> could a reliable source at Commodore (best would be Dave Haynie) give a final
> statement here on the net about the New 1MB Agnus working in older (pre-rev.6)
> B2000s?
The 1 Meg Agnus works in all B2000s. There are two or three jumpers to change
to install it correctly (J101 is moved, J500 is removed or cut depending on
how your board was assembled, and J102 is cut if you want to come up PAL
instead of NTSC). The Rev 6 board _requires_ the 1 Meg Agnus for support of
refresh on it's 256K x 4 DRAMs, but it will work in every revision of the
B2000 ever shipped.
It will not work on the original A2000, which may be available in the
Netherlands as well as other parts of Europe. The easiest way to identify
the type of motherboard in your system is to see how many RCA phono jacks
you have in the back of the machine: there are 2 on the "A" board, 3 on
the "B" board.
--
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it
*************************************************************************
,2500
>From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Subject: Re: 2500 UX
In article <[465]un.amiga@tronsbox.UUCP> tron1@tronsbox.UUCP (HIM) writes:
>Is the Amiga 2500 UX available???
Yes, ONLY to qualified commercial developers.
>If so, where can I get one ? (mail order I assume)
You can ONLY get directly from Commodore. You can contact:
Brenda Billings - CATS
1200 Wilson Drive
West Chester, PA 19380
>Does anyone have any idea how good the UNIX is???
It runs AMIX, a port of AT&T Unix System V, Release 3.1, and provides the
AMIX proprietary Windowing Interface.
Price is *CONFIDENTIAL*. The original "technology announcement" of AMIX
posted a while back on Usenet and other nets (after the COMDEX show) included
the following disclaimer:
"PRELIMINARY INFORMATION -- SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE
NOT PRESENTLY FOR SALE"
As far as I know, *ALL* THE ABOVE INFORMATION IS A MATTER OF PUBLIC RECORD.
-- Marco Papa 'Doc'
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
uucp:...!pollux!papa BIX:papa ARPAnet:pollux!papa@oberon.usc.edu
"There's Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Diga and Caligari!" -- Rick Unland
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
*************************************************************************
,SUP
>From: thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan)
Subject: Re: Supra Controllers and SCSI ID's
Re: Doug's questions about the Supra controller for the A1000 and SCSI IDs ...
Set the SCSI ID jumpers on the drive to something OTHER than 0. Do NOT set
the ID to 7, because the Supra 4x4 for the A1000 has 7 as its ID. The reason
to set the drive's ID to other-than-zero is to NOT usurp the first 6 or 7
cylinders for an autoboot partition.
Run the Supra Formatter (and you better be running at least version 5.1; 5.3
is preferable), specify the ID to which the drive has been set, and let it do
its thing. Specify FORMAT but do NOT specify the MAP option, let the drive do
its own verification ... embedded SCSI drives are supposed to present a
perfect media to the host, and the surface checking performed by the drive's
built-in controller will do a far better job of checking and bad-block sparing
than the present host software. This process will take about 20 minutes for
the 3280 (280MB) and about 30 minutes for the 3380 (380MB).
Reboot.
Re-run the Supra Formatter, respecify the ID to which the drive has been set,
and THIS time only do the partition info ... takes but 1 second or so.
Reboot, and assuming the SupraMount program is executed in the startup-sequence,
then the drive is automatically mounted and ready for use.
These procedures are for the Maxtor XT3280 or XT3380 drives, and work fine on
ALL my systems and the systems I've built and/or put together for others.
Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]
*************************************************************************
,MIN
>From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: Re: Minix for the Amiga ???
Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an
excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an
official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested.
I am working on that one, however.
Andy Tanenbaum
>From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers
Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We
hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around
AmigaMINIX.
For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX
like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by
Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by
Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the
Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga.
While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of
MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every
bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of
the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is
that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST)
format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100%
compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and
MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on
AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do
use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of-
day clock won't run properly of course!)
Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we
didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to
optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for
each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing
a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The
normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track-
cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically
allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected.
Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about
AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main
reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard
disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of
them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a
hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common
in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before
one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk.
To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX:
- AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so
it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your
Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have,
what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that
it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC.
- You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available
under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented.
- The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80-
track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.)
Up to four drives can be connected.
- The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro-
nics) port.
- The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides
limited access to the color registers.
Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC.
The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't
run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't
such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another
reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of
each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all
about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15
page scheduler, but getting all the details right.")
AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't
found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll
probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX.
-Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl)
*************************************************************************
,010
>From: scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden)
Subject: Re: Need information about 68010.
In article <1407@rivm05.UUCP>, ccemdd@rivm.UUCP (Marco Dedecker) writes:
> - Is swapping the chips all you need to do, or are there some other
> ajustments you have to make ?
Thats all you need to do. I switched mine over 2 years ago
with no ill effects.
> - Does all the software still work with the 68010 ?
All current software (that I have anyways) works just fine. (The
old pre-1.2 Calculator used to blow up on /0 errors). Even A-Max
works properly with the 68010 (w/ 128K ROMS of course). There is
a PD program called "decigel" available in various places which
patches the trap vector for the 1 instruction which is incompatible.
I can't remember the last time I used "decigel".
> - What are the advantages of the 68010 ?
About 7% speed improvement as measured by Jez San's Amiga Speed
Program (recently on BIX and elsewhere). This number is about
exactly what I have experienced up to now, and I think it agrees
with Motorola's own figures. I think the speedup is noticeable,
but then I can also see infrared and hear to 25KHz ;-), so...
Should you replace your 68000 with a 68010? Well, they don't cost $60
anymore (what like $12 or so??), so you can't really lose. You can always
go back...
--
Scott Evernden PRIME Computer Inc.
scott@ssgp32.Prime.COM Commercial Systems Group
uunet!ssgp32!scott Technology Drive
(508) 478-8600 x2984 Milford, MA 01757
*************************************************************************
,HAM
From: Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: What is HAM?
What is HAM? (A NON-technical description)
HAM (Hold And Modify) is a special graphics mode on the Amiga. It
involves a special mode of the graphic chips that allow for all 4096
colors to be displayed at the same time; with some restrictions.
If you have Fish Disk #1, the program "colorful" will show what I
mean. It displays all 4096 colors at the same time.
How is it done? Each pixel on a normal screen has three components;
the red, the green and the blue (RGB). These R-G-B values are
combined to make the color of that pixel. In HAM, the first pixel on
each line can be any color. Then, the next pixel is the same color as
the previous one, except the value of either R, G, or B has been
changed. Only one component can change at any time from pixel to
pixel so you are restricted in displaying very different colors
directly next to each other. There is facility for two adjacent
pixels to be exactly the same, i.e. no change in either R, G, or B.
Using HAM many impressive graphic screens have been created. Because
of its peculiar restrictions doing certain tasks are not well-suited
to HAM and HAM is usually used for non-moving graphics (though it's
good for ray-traced animation). Digitized pictures look great in HAM.
Some programs store their graphics internally as 24-bit graphics (more
colors that the Amiga can display) for use with high-end graphics
equipment but permit the user to preview their graphics in HAM mode.
This is a real boon for high-end users because it enables them to
"estimate" results on their Amiga before they send them off to very
expensive printing services, etc.
HAM isn't perfect but it has its uses. Users should be careful about
selecting when and when not to use it.
*************************************************************************
,EXE
From: Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: EXECUTE: No K Directive
A common question that comes up is "I just wrote a script and when I
EXECUTE it I get an error like 'EXECUTE: No K Directive. What am I
doing wrong?"
Try making the first two lines ".bra {" and ".ket }". This tells
EXECUTE how to interpret {'s and }'s. A plain Amiga EXECUTE script
can do a heck of a lot more than most people know about.
This is documented in the AmigaDOS manual from Bantam which is still
the only C-A book that gives the CLI complete coverage. I hope that
after 1.4 comes out we'll find much better documentation.
*************************************************************************
,AT
From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: Re: Questions on AT Bridgeboard
In article <30153@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> frerking@grapenuts.llnl.gov (Chris Frerking) writes:
$I have recently had the misfortune of being told that I need to have a PC
$compatable computer. I currently own an A2500, and would like information
$on the AT Bridgeboard (I need a 286 or 386 machine). Specifically:
$
$1. Would it be cheaper to just buy an inexpensive AT clone? (I would
$prefer the Bridgeboard, as I haven't lots of desk space... but if the price
$difference were too great, I could find some space.)
It's tough to find an AT clone for less than the price of our Bridgeboard.
You MIGHT be able to, but generally the cheap clones are the large footprint
models (read `huge').
$2. Does the AT Bridgeboard cause any problems on the A2500? Is there certain
$software that won't run/hardware that won't work if the Bridgeboard is
$installed?
I have an A2500 with AT Bridgeboard installed here, and they work fine. I
believe you cannot have more than 6Mb of Amiga RAM with the Bridgeboard
installed, which isn't a problem for most people.
$3. How AT compatable is the Bridgeboard? (I am new to PC compatables,
$and have been told that this is a question which needs to be asked) (can it
$run xenix? minix? microport unix? OS/2?)
The A2286 is an entire PC AT on a card, including processor, math coprocessor
socket, BIOS, video RAM, 1Mb system RAM, and of course, PC slots in the Amiga.
So in a word - it's very compatible. The potential incompatibilities, which
relate to an interrrupt and a couple of memory locations that are used for
communication between AmigaDOS and MS-DOS are documented, and prevent (for
example) you having more than 1 serial card installed, and a parallel card
becomes LPT3: (I think), but I would think that with the mode command you
could make it act like an LPT1:. I don't believe Commodore has tested OS/2
or XENIX at this time. I see no reason why they shouldn't work, although
they may not if they want to share Amiga peripherals.
$4. Does the Bridgeboard provide any graphics capability - if so, what sort?
$CGA compatable? EGA compatable?
The Bridgeboard has RAM enough for MDA and CGA displays, which the Amiga
interprets and displays in a window or on a separate screen. The emulation
is very good, but...
$- If not, can a CGA/EGA/VGA card be plugged into the PC slots, and run
$off of a separate monitor? What about using the same monitor?
...if you want other modes or a real MDA or CGA display, you can, yes, plug
in a video card and use that. It may require a second monitor though.
$5. Does the Bridgeboard have its own memory, or does it use the Amiga's memory?
Yes, 1Mb, and no, although you could use Amiga's RAM disk as a DOS device.
$can it be expanded? Is extra memory added accessable to the amiga?
Yes, and no.
$6. Can the Bridgeboard use the Amiga harddrive?
Yes. It can even boot of it.
$Can the Amiga access PC harddrives plugged into the PC slots?
Yes, you can create an Amiga partition on a PC hard drive.
In addition you can move files back and forth using supplied utilities.
$What about access to the Amiga's 3.5" drives?
Only as virtual drives, not transparently.
$Does the Bridgeboard come with a 5.25" disk drive?
Yes, high density with AT version, and low density with XT version.
$...can it be mounted externally
You might have to extend your power cable, but it's possible, yes.
Plus, you might want to get a case of some sort for the drive.
$7. Does the Bridgeboard provide its own serial/parallel ports, or does it share
$them with the Amiga?
No built in ports, but the Amiga's parallel port can be loaned to the
Bridgeboard.
$If it shares them, how compatable are they?
This is implemented at the BIOS level, so anything that goes through that
should work. That is, software that tries to bang on hardware directly won't
work, which is why we don't allow sharing of the serial port, because no-one
goes through the BIOS to use it.
$Can I plug any piece of PC hardware into them without fear of harming the
$equipment?
Normal precautions apply. If you want the real mccoy, just get a
multi-function card - they're cheap.
Paul.
-----------------------------
>From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: Re: Problems with BridgeBoard, Bad Virtual Dirs
In article <626@uranus.UUCP> esker@abaa.UUCP (Lawrence Esker) writes:
$...having persistent problems with data integrity on 'JLink' virtual
$drives in the IBM side of the bridgeboard. Does
$anyone share this problem. Can anyone help?
Yes. The JLINK software creates a virtual drive file that must grow
if new data added requires it (i.e., there's no more room with the file
at its current size). When this occurs, the JANUS software has to open
the virtual drive file and append the new data. THE FILE ONLY GETS CLOSED
IF YOU DO AN UNLINK!!! The problem may therefore not exhibit itself if
new data was added but the virtual drive file didn't have to grow (there
was still room left in it due to your deleting some other stuff perhaps).
One fix: add tons of dummy stuff to the virtual drive, then delete it all
then unlink it. From that point forth the virtual drive should not be
required to grow since it's already huge.
Another fix: using the new JANUS 2.0 software, you can create a [bootable]
DOS drive space on the Amiga hard drive that looks like, smells like [etc.]
a real PC hard drive as far as MS-DOS is concerned. You even specify
cylinders, heads, etc. for the new MakeAB command that creates the space.
This solution does not require the first fix.
$... Why is a virtual drive on
$the ibm a single Amiga file. A significant reliability issue IMHO. A
$single problem can destroy a whole (ibm) disk and DiskDoctor can't help.
The manual recommends that you have a separate partition for the PC
data, to prevent accidental removal of the file, etc. However, most people
have no problem with just allowing it to coexist with other stuff.
$Is there a way to force PCdisk to complete pending writes once the ibm has
$crashed, before rebooting it and remounting the virtual drives? Maybe
$executing PCdisk a second time?
No - I recommend you use the new software.
$Other Possible Bugs:
$The command AREAD does not seem to transfer data between an Amiga file and a
$virtual drive.
Problems with AREAD/AWRITE have been fixed for the new 2.0 software (they
were re-written).
I hope this helps,
Paul.
*************************************************************************
,TEX
From: rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Subject: AmigaTeX
For a free demo disk and further information on AmigaTeX, please drop a
postcard with your name and address to Radical Eye Software, Box 2081,
Stanford, CA~~94309. This is *free* and will answer most questions.
-tom
*************************************************************************
,AMAX
From: douglee@becker.UUCP (Doug Lee)
Subject: AMax
>Here is the question: "Do you or do you
>not need a Mac drive to use AMax?"
No you do NOT need a Macintosh disk drive to use Amax. You do need it if you
want to read NATIVE Macintosh disks. There is software provided to read and
write one third of a disk (just the centre tracks) such that the disk can
be used on a real Mac, using Amax provided utilities and on the Amiga. If you
BORROW a Mac drive, you can connect it and diskcopy real Mac disks to a full
disk format unique to Amax using the amiga's drives as the destination.
This would allow you to make Amiga readable copies of system disks etc.
You could then download PD stuff with a modem and have many hours of happy
computing without having to read a real mac disk. Of course if you want to use
commercial software, you will either need the Mac drive to read it or access
to a Mac which you can use to copy stuff a third of a disk at a time.
--
Doug Lee
douglee@becker
416-461-5357
*************************************************************************w-edwinh@microsoft.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (11/01/89)
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: Oct 31, 1989
Changes this month:
Added: Commodore's customer support phone number
Added: ARexx: Where to find it?
Added: How to get multiple RADs
Added: How to fix "Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found" errors
Deleted: Can I get a 2500 UX?
Deleted: Supra Controllers and SCSI ID's
Deleted: Crashing all the way to Kickstart 1.3 (*the solution*)
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still
available from the editor via email.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on
the left. This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@hcr.UUCP
,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,ARC How to use the kilowatt archive server
raz@sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry)
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,LED What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
bjc@pollux.UUCP
,CLI Closing the initial CLI
hcr!edwin
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
,ECS How to get RAD: to recover with the new Agnus
adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
New Agnus for older B2000s
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
,MIN Minix for the Amiga ???
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
,010 Need information about 68010.
scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden)
,HAM What is HAM?
Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
,EXE Execute script errors
Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
,AT Questions [and answers] on AT Bridgeboard
higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
,TEX Where to get AmigaTeX
rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
,AMAX Do you need a Mac drive to use AMax?
douglee@becker.UUCP (Doug Lee)
,CS Commodore's customer support phone number
lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
,RXX ARexx: Where to find it?
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
,RF1: How to get multiple RADs
esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker)
,CLO How to fix "Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found" errors
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Send questions, comments, submissions to:
Edwin
w-edwinh@microsoft.uucp or uunet!microsoft!w-edwinh
*************************************************************************
,NET
From: edwin@hcr.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Have fun via
mail.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you post a request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
uunet!utai!utcsri!hcr!edwin
*************************************************************************
,MOD
From: page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
How To Use The Comp.Binaries.Amiga Postings
Every comp.binaries.amiga submission is archived with the ZOO archive
program, which does a fair amount of data compression and retains the
original names, dates and directory structure within the archive.
Because Usenet data paths are not 8-bit, these archives must be
encoded to "regular ASCII" which is 7-bit. The encoding is done with
a program called 'uuencode'. The version used adds a checksum at the
end of each line, and includes the file size at the end of the
encoding.
Sometimes the files are too large for one posting (Usenet postings
should generally be less than 64k bytes but you can sometimes get away
with longer postings). If this uuencoded zoo archive is too large, it
gets split into pieces, roughly 64k in length.
Finally, the (possibly split) .zuu files are enclosed by some simple
UNIX commands. This 'shell archive' is commonly known as a 'shar'.
There is a more-or-less standard set of file extensions used to show
the file type. The file extension is the set of characters after the
dot (or period) in the name. The set of file extensions used is:
.zoo An archive file in ZOO format
.zuu A .zoo file that's been uuencoded
.zu1 The first file in a split .zuu file
.zu9 The ninth file in a split .zuu file
.zu10 The tenth file in a split .zuu file
.uu1 The first shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu9 The ninth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu10 The tenth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
To get all this back into a usable form, you need to:
1. Unpack the files from the shar format (the verb is usually called
'unshar'). You can either use a standard text editor to remove the
info, or the unix 'sh' (Bourne Shell), or a publicly available tool to
do it for you. With some tools (like 'sh'), you are required to
remove the Usenet header information first; other unshar tools will
remove it for you. Once you unshar a .uu? file, you'll have a .zu?
file.
2. Combine all the .zu? pieces into a large .zuu file. You should use
something like 'cat' under UNIX or 'join' under AmigaDOS. It is
important that you combine the pieces in numerical order. Be aware
that the single digit pieces do not have a leading zero, so a wildcard
sort will probably not do what you want. Instead, you should specify
the files in this way: zu? zu??, which will do the single digit files
first, then the double digits. You can rest assured there will not be
any triple-digit postings.
3. Convert the .zuu file to a .zoo file with the 'uudecode' program.
If you have a version of uudecode that understands the checksum and
file size information, you should use it. If you don't, you can still
use the old uudecode program, but you will not know if the file has
somehow become corrupt.
4. You now have a .zoo file. To extract the files into a directory,
you need a program called 'zoo'. After "un-zoo'ing", most submissions
will have some documentation to tell how to set up and run the
software on your Amiga.
---------
Of course you need to get the program(s) to your Amiga to run them.
Usually this means downloading the software to your Amiga through a
terminal program. If you want to download the files as quickly as
possible to your Amiga, you should do steps 1-3 above on your UNIX
machine and download the .zoo file to your Amiga, since the .zoo file
is the smallest of the files. It's also usually faster and easier to
do steps 1-3 on the UNIX machine because you have less worry about
disk and memory limitations.
However, some terminal emulators available for the Amiga do not handle
binary downloads well. Experiment with yours and see. If you have
trouble, you might try a different protocol or different terminal
program. If all else fails, you can download the .zuu file, which is
an ascii file, and do the uudecode on your Amiga.
The mechanics of terminal programs, protocols and downloading are
beyond the scope of this document. Most terminal programs should have
a manual section describing how to log in and do remote downloads.
---------
Here are the tools you need, under UNIX, AmigaDOS, or both. All are
publicly available; you do not need to purchase anything to make use
of the software that comes across in comp.binaries.amiga.
shar, sh, unshar - a tool to unpack the shell archives, or use an editor
cat or join - to append the split .zu? files to one .zuu file
uudecode - to decode the .zuu file to a .zoo file
zoo - to unpack the ZOO archive.
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or
amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file
will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the
aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the
submissions)
3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Bob Page - page@Sun.COM
- uunet!sun!page
*************************************************************************
,FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
[Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188
uihub.cs.uiuc.edu (128.174.252.27) for fish 189-222
- ed]
*************************************************************************
,PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
,BUY
From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
Subject: a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
>From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
>From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
,LED
>From: bjc@pollux.UUCP
Subject: Re: What does flashing caps lock LED mean?
In article <1200@tellab5.tellabs.CHI.IL.US> grj@tellab5.UUCP () writes:
>sometimes when I power on my A2000,
>the caps lock LED flashes at about a 1 or 2 Hz rate. The keyboard is then
>useless and nothing typed gets recognized.
Look on page 3 of Appendix H to the Hardware Reference manual.
Briefly, though, it says:
One blink Keyboard ROM test failed
Two blinks Keyboard RAM test failed
Three blinks Watchdog timer test failed
Four blinks A short exists between two row lines
or one of the seven special control keys.
It also says that you probably would not have been able to type anything
before this sequence would be completed, but if so, the key codes
would be sent to the computer and then a "terminate key stream" code
would be sent. There is more information in that appendix.
Betty
*************************************************************************
,CLI
From: hcr!edwin
Subject: Closing the initial CLI
% "I can't get my initial CLI window to close" seems to be a commonly
% asked question. It would be good to explain "run" vs. "runback"
Okay, a CLI will not close if a program has been "run" from it. (Check
your startup-sequence) This is because the program that has been "run"
needs someplace to get and put its I/O. If your program does not need
to do I/O to the CLI, you should use the RunBack program from Fish 152
(earlier version on Fish 65), or RunBackGround on Fish 73. These
programs will totally detach your program from the CLI and allow you to
close it normally with endcli.
Edwin
*************************************************************************
,HAR
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
,HED
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: Re: 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
In article <1735@dciem.dciem.dnd.ca> kevin@dretor (Wallace B. Wallace) writes:
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drive.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
,ARC
From: raz%kilowatt.EBay@Sun.COM (Steve -Raz- Berry)
Subject: How to use the kilowatt archive server
The following message is the reply that kilowatt (the archive
server) will mail to you if you ask it for help.
Also, if anyone is interested in setting up their very own archive
server, contact me at the above address and I'll send you all information
and programs that you need to set one up.
-Raz
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
This message comes to you from the archive server at kilowatt@sun.com,
archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. It received a message from you asking
for help.
The archive server is a mail-response program. That means that you mail
it a request, and it mails back the response.
The archive server is a very dumb program. It does not have much error
checking. If you don't send it the commands that it understands, it will
just answer "I don't understand you".
The archive server has 4 commands. Each command must be the first word
on a line. The archive server reads your entire message before it does
anything, so you can have several different commands in a single
message. The archive server treats the "Subject:" header line just like
any other line of the message. You can use any combination of upper and
lower case letters in the commands.
The archives are organized into a series of top-level directories. The
top-level index gives you the index for each of the files in the archive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you are bored with reading documentation and just want to try
something, then send the server a message containing the line
send index
When you get the index back, it will give you the names of all of the
files in the archive; send the server another message asking it to send you the
files that you want:
send applications plplot.2 plplot.3
etc. If you are using a mailer that understands "@" notation, send to
archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com. If your mailer deals in "!" notation,
try sending to {someplace}!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server, e.g.
uunet!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server. For other mailers, you're on your own.
For BITNET mailers and those lazy typists out there, I have aliased
archive-server to archive and archive-management to manage. This means that
you can also use the net address of:
archive%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!archive
manage%kilowatt@sun.com {}kilowatt.sun.com!manage
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The server has 4 commands:
"help" command: The command "help" or "send help" causes the server to
send you the help file. You already know this, of course,
because you are reading the help file. No other commands are
honored in a message that asks for help (the server figures that
you had better read the help message before you do anything else).
"index" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is
"index", then the server will send you the index of
the contents of the archive.
For example, you can say
index
You can then send back another message to the archive server,
using a "send" command (see below) to ask it to send you the
files whose name you learned from that list.
The index is updated nightly, to reflect the contents of the
archive. So if you are getting messages that inform you that the
file you requested does not exist, ask for the index again and
double check the file name.
If your message has an "index" or a "send index" command, then
all other "send" commands will be ignored. This means that you
cannot get an index and data in the same request. This is so
that index requests can be given high priority.)
"send" command: if your message contains a line whose first word is
"send", then the archive server will send you the item(s) named
on the rest of the line. To name an item, you give its directory
and its name. For example
send workbench ptranim.uu2
or
send audio vclock.uu
Once you have named a category, you can put as many names as you
like on the rest of the line; they will all be taken from that
category. For example:
send exec xoper13.1 xoper13.2 xoper13.uu1
Each "send" command can reference only one directory. If you
would like to get files from more than one directory, you must use
two "send" commands.
One of the most common mistakes that a new user makes when formatting
a send command is to type something that looks like:
send dos/fs pthass.sh1 dos/fs pthass.sh2
(This is incorrect... )
This will not work for 2 reasons. One, simply because the archive will
look for a directory called "dos/fs". All that you need to do is:
send fs pthass.sh1 pthass.sh2
(This is correct)
The second reason that the previous send command would not work
is that you may only specify one path per send command.
You may put as many "send" commands as you like into one message
to the server, but the more you ask for, the longer it will take
to receive. See "FAIRNESS", below, for an explanation. Actually,
it's not strictly true that you can put as many "send" commands
as you want into one message. If the server must use uucp mail
to send your files, then it cannot send more than 100K bytes
in one message. If you ask for more than it can send, then it
will send as much as it can and ignore the rest. Since many
files in the archive are around 60K, it's probably best to
ask for one file at a time unless you know it's safe to do
otherwise.
"path" command: The "path" command exists to help in case you do not
get responses from the server when you mail to it.
Sometimes the server is unable to return mail over the incoming
path. There are dozens of reasons why this might happen, and if
you are a true wizard, you already know what those reasons are.
If you are an apprentice wizard, you might not know all the
reasons but you might know a way to circumvent them.
If you put in a "path" command, then everything that the server
mails to you will be mailed to that address, rather than to the
return address on your mail. For example, if you say
path decwrl!pyramid!rutgers!zakkaroo!jj@uunet.uu.net
then all mail sent by the server will be sent to that address.
If you use mixed-mode addresses (! and @), the archive-server
will put precedence on '@' before '!'.
You cannot expect the archive server to pick a uucp path to be
determined for you. If you can't determine a path yourself,
make the path relative to a 'known' site, e.g.:
path place!person@uunet.uu.net
which will cause the archive-server to send to site uunet.uu.net
with the instructions "send this to place!person".
EXAMPLES:
1) Find out the list of all of the Amiga files that are in the archive.
Send this message:
To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com
Subject: hi there
index
2) Get files from the archive (you have learned their
file names from the list that was sent to you in step 1).
To: archive-server%kilowatt@sun.com
Subject: send digest 3.17
send iff gif2iff.uu2 ifflib161.uu1
send iff dplaz.uu1
(it turns out these three files add up to less that 100k,
so they can all be sent by return mail).
3) Get a file, and send it over the best path to my site:
To: uunet.uu.net!mcvax!kilowatt.sun.com!archive-server
path myname@site.uucp
send iff iff2ps20.1
*************************************************************************
,ECS
>From: adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
Subject: Re: RAD: won't
In article <4425@crash.cts.com> spierce@pnet01.cts.com (Stuart Pierce) writes:
>Unfortunately, RAD: loses everything now when I reboot the machine. I added
>the R option to SetPatch in my startup-sequence, but that didn't help. What
>am I missing?
Use a lower case 'R' as in
SetPatch >NIL: r
and your RAD: will reboot. This could be considered a bug or a
documentation error; I will get it corrected.
Adam
--
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore-Amiga Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!adam
------------------------------------------
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Subject: Re: New Agnus for older B2000s
in article <274@vuecon.econ.vu.nl>, niesemc@econ.vu.nl (Marco Niese) says:
> could a reliable source at Commodore (best would be Dave Haynie) give a final
> statement here on the net about the New 1MB Agnus working in older (pre-rev.6)
> B2000s?
The 1 Meg Agnus works in all B2000s. There are two or three jumpers to change
to install it correctly (J101 is moved, J500 is removed or cut depending on
how your board was assembled, and J102 is cut if you want to come up PAL
instead of NTSC). The Rev 6 board _requires_ the 1 Meg Agnus for support of
refresh on it's 256K x 4 DRAMs, but it will work in every revision of the
B2000 ever shipped.
It will not work on the original A2000, which may be available in the
Netherlands as well as other parts of Europe. The easiest way to identify
the type of motherboard in your system is to see how many RCA phono jacks
you have in the back of the machine: there are 2 on the "A" board, 3 on
the "B" board.
--
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it
*************************************************************************
,MIN
>From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: Re: Minix for the Amiga ???
Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an
excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an
official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested.
I am working on that one, however.
Andy Tanenbaum
>From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers
Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We
hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around
AmigaMINIX.
For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX
like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by
Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by
Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the
Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga.
While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of
MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every
bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of
the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is
that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST)
format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100%
compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and
MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on
AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do
use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of-
day clock won't run properly of course!)
Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we
didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to
optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for
each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing
a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The
normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track-
cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically
allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected.
Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about
AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main
reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard
disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of
them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a
hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common
in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before
one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk.
To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX:
- AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so
it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your
Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have,
what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that
it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC.
- You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available
under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented.
- The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80-
track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.)
Up to four drives can be connected.
- The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro-
nics) port.
- The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides
limited access to the color registers.
Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC.
The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't
run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't
such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another
reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of
each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all
about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15
page scheduler, but getting all the details right.")
AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't
found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll
probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX.
-Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl)
*************************************************************************
,010
>From: scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden)
Subject: Re: Need information about 68010.
In article <1407@rivm05.UUCP>, ccemdd@rivm.UUCP (Marco Dedecker) writes:
> - Is swapping the chips all you need to do, or are there some other
> ajustments you have to make ?
Thats all you need to do. I switched mine over 2 years ago
with no ill effects.
> - Does all the software still work with the 68010 ?
All current software (that I have anyways) works just fine. (The
old pre-1.2 Calculator used to blow up on /0 errors). Even A-Max
works properly with the 68010 (w/ 128K ROMS of course). There is
a PD program called "decigel" available in various places which
patches the trap vector for the 1 instruction which is incompatible.
I can't remember the last time I used "decigel".
> - What are the advantages of the 68010 ?
About 7% speed improvement as measured by Jez San's Amiga Speed
Program (recently on BIX and elsewhere). This number is about
exactly what I have experienced up to now, and I think it agrees
with Motorola's own figures. I think the speedup is noticeable,
but then I can also see infrared and hear to 25KHz ;-), so...
Should you replace your 68000 with a 68010? Well, they don't cost $60
anymore (what like $12 or so??), so you can't really lose. You can always
go back...
--
Scott Evernden PRIME Computer Inc.
scott@ssgp32.Prime.COM Commercial Systems Group
uunet!ssgp32!scott Technology Drive
(508) 478-8600 x2984 Milford, MA 01757
*************************************************************************
,HAM
From: Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: What is HAM?
What is HAM? (A NON-technical description)
HAM (Hold And Modify) is a special graphics mode on the Amiga. It
involves a special mode of the graphic chips that allow for all 4096
colors to be displayed at the same time; with some restrictions.
If you have Fish Disk #1, the program "colorful" will show what I
mean. It displays all 4096 colors at the same time.
How is it done? Each pixel on a normal screen has three components;
the red, the green and the blue (RGB). These R-G-B values are
combined to make the color of that pixel. In HAM, the first pixel on
each line can be any color. Then, the next pixel is the same color as
the previous one, except the value of either R, G, or B has been
changed. Only one component can change at any time from pixel to
pixel so you are restricted in displaying very different colors
directly next to each other. There is facility for two adjacent
pixels to be exactly the same, i.e. no change in either R, G, or B.
Using HAM many impressive graphic screens have been created. Because
of its peculiar restrictions doing certain tasks are not well-suited
to HAM and HAM is usually used for non-moving graphics (though it's
good for ray-traced animation). Digitized pictures look great in HAM.
Some programs store their graphics internally as 24-bit graphics (more
colors that the Amiga can display) for use with high-end graphics
equipment but permit the user to preview their graphics in HAM mode.
This is a real boon for high-end users because it enables them to
"estimate" results on their Amiga before they send them off to very
expensive printing services, etc.
HAM isn't perfect but it has its uses. Users should be careful about
selecting when and when not to use it.
*************************************************************************
,EXE
From: Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: EXECUTE: No K Directive
A common question that comes up is "I just wrote a script and when I
EXECUTE it I get an error like 'EXECUTE: No K Directive. What am I
doing wrong?"
Try making the first two lines ".bra {" and ".ket }". This tells
EXECUTE how to interpret {'s and }'s. A plain Amiga EXECUTE script
can do a heck of a lot more than most people know about.
This is documented in the AmigaDOS manual from Bantam which is still
the only C-A book that gives the CLI complete coverage. I hope that
after 1.4 comes out we'll find much better documentation.
*************************************************************************
,AT
From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: Re: Questions on AT Bridgeboard
In article <30153@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> frerking@grapenuts.llnl.gov (Chris Frerking) writes:
$I have recently had the misfortune of being told that I need to have a PC
$compatable computer. I currently own an A2500, and would like information
$on the AT Bridgeboard (I need a 286 or 386 machine). Specifically:
$
$1. Would it be cheaper to just buy an inexpensive AT clone? (I would
$prefer the Bridgeboard, as I haven't lots of desk space... but if the price
$difference were too great, I could find some space.)
It's tough to find an AT clone for less than the price of our Bridgeboard.
You MIGHT be able to, but generally the cheap clones are the large footprint
models (read `huge').
$2. Does the AT Bridgeboard cause any problems on the A2500? Is there certain
$software that won't run/hardware that won't work if the Bridgeboard is
$installed?
I have an A2500 with AT Bridgeboard installed here, and they work fine. I
believe you cannot have more than 6Mb of Amiga RAM with the Bridgeboard
installed, which isn't a problem for most people.
$3. How AT compatable is the Bridgeboard? (I am new to PC compatables,
$and have been told that this is a question which needs to be asked) (can it
$run xenix? minix? microport unix? OS/2?)
The A2286 is an entire PC AT on a card, including processor, math coprocessor
socket, BIOS, video RAM, 1Mb system RAM, and of course, PC slots in the Amiga.
So in a word - it's very compatible. The potential incompatibilities, which
relate to an interrrupt and a couple of memory locations that are used for
communication between AmigaDOS and MS-DOS are documented, and prevent (for
example) you having more than 1 serial card installed, and a parallel card
becomes LPT3: (I think), but I would think that with the mode command you
could make it act like an LPT1:. I don't believe Commodore has tested OS/2
or XENIX at this time. I see no reason why they shouldn't work, although
they may not if they want to share Amiga peripherals.
$4. Does the Bridgeboard provide any graphics capability - if so, what sort?
$CGA compatable? EGA compatable?
The Bridgeboard has RAM enough for MDA and CGA displays, which the Amiga
interprets and displays in a window or on a separate screen. The emulation
is very good, but...
$- If not, can a CGA/EGA/VGA card be plugged into the PC slots, and run
$off of a separate monitor? What about using the same monitor?
...if you want other modes or a real MDA or CGA display, you can, yes, plug
in a video card and use that. It may require a second monitor though.
$5. Does the Bridgeboard have its own memory, or does it use the Amiga's memory?
Yes, 1Mb, and no, although you could use Amiga's RAM disk as a DOS device.
$can it be expanded? Is extra memory added accessable to the amiga?
Yes, and no.
$6. Can the Bridgeboard use the Amiga harddrive?
Yes. It can even boot of it.
$Can the Amiga access PC harddrives plugged into the PC slots?
Yes, you can create an Amiga partition on a PC hard drive.
In addition you can move files back and forth using supplied utilities.
$What about access to the Amiga's 3.5" drives?
Only as virtual drives, not transparently.
$Does the Bridgeboard come with a 5.25" disk drive?
Yes, high density with AT version, and low density with XT version.
$...can it be mounted externally
You might have to extend your power cable, but it's possible, yes.
Plus, you might want to get a case of some sort for the drive.
$7. Does the Bridgeboard provide its own serial/parallel ports, or does it share
$them with the Amiga?
No built in ports, but the Amiga's parallel port can be loaned to the
Bridgeboard.
$If it shares them, how compatable are they?
This is implemented at the BIOS level, so anything that goes through that
should work. That is, software that tries to bang on hardware directly won't
work, which is why we don't allow sharing of the serial port, because no-one
goes through the BIOS to use it.
$Can I plug any piece of PC hardware into them without fear of harming the
$equipment?
Normal precautions apply. If you want the real mccoy, just get a
multi-function card - they're cheap.
Paul.
-----------------------------
>From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: Re: Problems with BridgeBoard, Bad Virtual Dirs
In article <626@uranus.UUCP> esker@abaa.UUCP (Lawrence Esker) writes:
$...having persistent problems with data integrity on 'JLink' virtual
$drives in the IBM side of the bridgeboard. Does
$anyone share this problem. Can anyone help?
Yes. The JLINK software creates a virtual drive file that must grow
if new data added requires it (i.e., there's no more room with the file
at its current size). When this occurs, the JANUS software has to open
the virtual drive file and append the new data. THE FILE ONLY GETS CLOSED
IF YOU DO AN UNLINK!!! The problem may therefore not exhibit itself if
new data was added but the virtual drive file didn't have to grow (there
was still room left in it due to your deleting some other stuff perhaps).
One fix: add tons of dummy stuff to the virtual drive, then delete it all
then unlink it. From that point forth the virtual drive should not be
required to grow since it's already huge.
Another fix: using the new JANUS 2.0 software, you can create a [bootable]
DOS drive space on the Amiga hard drive that looks like, smells like [etc.]
a real PC hard drive as far as MS-DOS is concerned. You even specify
cylinders, heads, etc. for the new MakeAB command that creates the space.
This solution does not require the first fix.
$... Why is a virtual drive on
$the ibm a single Amiga file. A significant reliability issue IMHO. A
$single problem can destroy a whole (ibm) disk and DiskDoctor can't help.
The manual recommends that you have a separate partition for the PC
data, to prevent accidental removal of the file, etc. However, most people
have no problem with just allowing it to coexist with other stuff.
$Is there a way to force PCdisk to complete pending writes once the ibm has
$crashed, before rebooting it and remounting the virtual drives? Maybe
$executing PCdisk a second time?
No - I recommend you use the new software.
$Other Possible Bugs:
$The command AREAD does not seem to transfer data between an Amiga file and a
$virtual drive.
Problems with AREAD/AWRITE have been fixed for the new 2.0 software (they
were re-written).
I hope this helps,
Paul.
*************************************************************************
,TEX
From: rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Subject: AmigaTeX
For a free demo disk and further information on AmigaTeX, please drop a
postcard with your name and address to Radical Eye Software, Box 2081,
Stanford, CA~~94309. This is *free* and will answer most questions.
-tom
*************************************************************************
,AMAX
From: douglee@becker.UUCP (Doug Lee)
Subject: AMax
>Here is the question: "Do you or do you
>not need a Mac drive to use AMax?"
No you do NOT need a Macintosh disk drive to use Amax. You do need it if you
want to read NATIVE Macintosh disks. There is software provided to read and
write one third of a disk (just the centre tracks) such that the disk can
be used on a real Mac, using Amax provided utilities and on the Amiga. If you
BORROW a Mac drive, you can connect it and diskcopy real Mac disks to a full
disk format unique to Amax using the amiga's drives as the destination.
This would allow you to make Amiga readable copies of system disks etc.
You could then download PD stuff with a modem and have many hours of happy
computing without having to read a real mac disk. Of course if you want to use
commercial software, you will either need the Mac drive to read it or access
to a Mac which you can use to copy stuff a third of a disk at a time.
--
Doug Lee
douglee@becker
416-461-5357
*************************************************************************
,CS
From: lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
Subject: commodore's customer support phone number
The correct phone number for Customer Support
is (215) 436-4200. Use this number to inquire
about getting 1.3.2, or any other end user question.
*************************************************************************
,RXX
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Subject: Re: ARexx: Where to find it?
>Okay, I've been seeing here lots and lots of stuff about ARexx.
ARexx is commercial, and list price is about $50. Do yourself a favour if you
buy it, and add another $50 (list) for WShell, which knows all about ARexx, and
makes ARexx scripts transparently callable as if they were binary executables.
I have seen both of these packages advertised in the $35 range from mail order
places. Both packages are written by, and available from:
[ed - Bill is also the author of conman, a nice console device replacement]
William S. Hawes
P.O. Box 308
Maynard, MA 01754
Phone: (617) 568-8695
*************************************************************************
,RF1:
From: esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker)
Subject: How to get multiple RADs
>Is it possible to have two ram drive entries that look like floppies?
It is possible to make two RAD: devices.
First make a copy of ramdrive.device in your devs: directory to
ramdriv1.device. Also copy the RemRAD program in your c: directory to RemRF1.
Since you used RF0: for your first floppy, you may want to rename the original
RemRAD to RemRF0 for consistancy.
Second, get a copy of NewZAP or some other binary file editor. Yes, this is
the hard part, but any well respecting Amiga Hacker should have this program.
Use NewZAP to edit devs:ramdriv1.device and c:RemRF1. In each program, replace
all occurances of ramdrive with ramdriv1 and all occurances of RAMB0 with
RAMB1. (Program is ShareWare by someone I think is on this net.)
Third, edit your MountList. Both RAD: type device entries must be identical
to a floppy description for DiskCopy to work on them. The RF0: entry should
use DEVICE = ramdrive.device, the other use DEVICE = ramdriv1.device. Also
make sure the entries contain 'MOUNT = 1' so Workbench recognizes them when
they are first mounted and not at first usage. I would add 'BOOTPRI = -128'
so the OS doesn't attempt to reboot on your RAD: devices. I don't know what
would happen if both RAD: devices were bootable and you did a reboot as this
is probably an unexpected situation for the OS to encounter.
This procedure may be extended to any number of RAD: type devices. Make sure
double check the MountList entries with your 1.3 enhancer manual for accuracy
for my memory is not always perfect.
*************************************************************************
,CLO
From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Subject: Re: Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found
| I ctrl-A-A'ed the beast and it came up complaining about its clock. I
| tried "setclock reset" but it, too, just complained about "clock not
| found". And there I sit.
This happened to me earlier. I "fixed" it by doing nothing. About the
second or third day I booted, the problem simply disappeared.
As I understand it, a register in the clock is getting trashed. The normal
startup then can't find a (proper) clock. The solution is to get the
registers in the clock back the way they should be. Between version 1.2
and 1.3 of the "setclock reset" commands, one works and one doesn't. (I
believe 1.2 works.(?)) Another possible fix is the program which claims
to "cure" the fabled "clock virus". Apparently it just resets the registers
in the clock. (Available at an anti-viral archive site near you.)
Jim Wright
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
*************************************************************************w-edwinh@microsoft.UUCP (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (11/29/89)
[I'm going skiing in Whistler this weekend (yeah!), so that's why this
is a bit early this month -ed]
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: Nov 28, 1989
Changes this month:
Added: How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites (,BIT)
Added: Which file name extensions archivers use (how to extract them)
(,END)
Added: Can You Use An Amiga 24 Hours A Day? (,24)
Added: What is ARP? (,ARP)
Deleted: How to use the kilowatt archive server (,ARC)
(It's going away - please do not use it any longer)
Deleted: What does flashing caps lock LED mean? (,LED)
Deleted: Closing the initial CLI (,CLI)
Updated: The Fish Public Domain software library. (,FNF)
(added section on submitting things)
Updated: How to get multiple RADs (,RF1:)
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still
available from the editor via email.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on
the left. This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@watcsc.waterloo.edu
,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
,BIT How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
ain@mace.cc.purdue.edu
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
,ECS How to get RAD: to recover with the new Agnus
adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
New Agnus for older B2000s
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
,MIN Minix for the Amiga ???
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
,010 Need information about 68010.
scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden)
,HAM What is HAM?
Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
,EXE Execute script errors
Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
,AT Questions [and answers] on AT Bridgeboard
higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
,TEX Where to get AmigaTeX
rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
,AMAX Do you need a Mac drive to use AMax?
douglee@becker.UUCP (Doug Lee)
,CS Commodore's customer support phone number
lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
,RXX ARexx: Where to find it?
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
,RF1: How to get multiple RADs
esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker)
,CLO How to fix "Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found" errors
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
,END Which file name extensions archivers use (how to extract them)
aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
,24 Can You Use An Amiga 24 Hours A Day?
dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
,ARP What is ARP?
moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
Send questions, comments, submissions to:
Edwin
w-edwinh@microsoft.uucp or uunet!microsoft!w-edwinh
*************************************************************************
,NET
From: edwin@watcsc.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Do not post
anything that you wouldn't say aloud in a large group of people. Have
fun via mail instead. These guidelines help to keep up the useful
information content of the newsgroups.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware. Please do not post programs
here.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you must post a request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
edwin@watcsc.waterloo.edu
*************************************************************************
,MOD
From: page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
How To Use The Comp.Binaries.Amiga Postings
Every comp.binaries.amiga submission is archived with the ZOO archive
program, which does a fair amount of data compression and retains the
original names, dates and directory structure within the archive.
Because Usenet data paths are not 8-bit, these archives must be
encoded to "regular ASCII" which is 7-bit. The encoding is done with
a program called 'uuencode'. The version used adds a checksum at the
end of each line, and includes the file size at the end of the
encoding.
Sometimes the files are too large for one posting (Usenet postings
should generally be less than 64k bytes but you can sometimes get away
with longer postings). If this uuencoded zoo archive is too large, it
gets split into pieces, roughly 64k in length.
Finally, the (possibly split) .zuu files are enclosed by some simple
UNIX commands. This 'shell archive' is commonly known as a 'shar'.
There is a more-or-less standard set of file extensions used to show
the file type. The file extension is the set of characters after the
dot (or period) in the name. The set of file extensions used is:
.zoo An archive file in ZOO format
.zuu A .zoo file that's been uuencoded
.zu1 The first file in a split .zuu file
.zu9 The ninth file in a split .zuu file
.zu10 The tenth file in a split .zuu file
.uu1 The first shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu9 The ninth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu10 The tenth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
To get all this back into a usable form, you need to:
1. Unpack the files from the shar format (the verb is usually called
'unshar'). You can either use a standard text editor to remove the
info, or the unix 'sh' (Bourne Shell), or a publicly available tool to
do it for you. With some tools (like 'sh'), you are required to
remove the Usenet header information first; other unshar tools will
remove it for you. Once you unshar a .uu? file, you'll have a .zu?
file.
2. Combine all the .zu? pieces into a large .zuu file. You should use
something like 'cat' under UNIX or 'join' under AmigaDOS. It is
important that you combine the pieces in numerical order. Be aware
that the single digit pieces do not have a leading zero, so a wildcard
sort will probably not do what you want. Instead, you should specify
the files in this way: zu? zu??, which will do the single digit files
first, then the double digits. You can rest assured there will not be
any triple-digit postings.
3. Convert the .zuu file to a .zoo file with the 'uudecode' program.
If you have a version of uudecode that understands the checksum and
file size information, you should use it. If you don't, you can still
use the old uudecode program, but you will not know if the file has
somehow become corrupt.
4. You now have a .zoo file. To extract the files into a directory,
you need a program called 'zoo'. After "un-zoo'ing", most submissions
will have some documentation to tell how to set up and run the
software on your Amiga.
---------
Of course you need to get the program(s) to your Amiga to run them.
Usually this means downloading the software to your Amiga through a
terminal program. If you want to download the files as quickly as
possible to your Amiga, you should do steps 1-3 above on your UNIX
machine and download the .zoo file to your Amiga, since the .zoo file
is the smallest of the files. It's also usually faster and easier to
do steps 1-3 on the UNIX machine because you have less worry about
disk and memory limitations.
However, some terminal emulators available for the Amiga do not handle
binary downloads well. Experiment with yours and see. If you have
trouble, you might try a different protocol or different terminal
program. If all else fails, you can download the .zuu file, which is
an ascii file, and do the uudecode on your Amiga.
The mechanics of terminal programs, protocols and downloading are
beyond the scope of this document. Most terminal programs should have
a manual section describing how to log in and do remote downloads.
---------
Here are the tools you need, under UNIX, AmigaDOS, or both. All are
publicly available; you do not need to purchase anything to make use
of the software that comes across in comp.binaries.amiga.
shar, sh, unshar - a tool to unpack the shell archives, or use an editor
cat or join - to append the split .zu? files to one .zuu file
uudecode - to decode the .zuu file to a .zoo file
zoo - to unpack the ZOO archive.
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail to the mail aliases amiga-sources-request or
amiga-binaries-request. Next best -- but be sure the size of the file
will go through mail unscathed (100K or less is usually ok). (BTW, the
aliases are always directed to the right person to receive the
submissions)
3) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since all these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Bob Page - page@Sun.COM
- uunet!sun!page
*************************************************************************
,BIT
From: Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
Subject: How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan P. Crone distributes all amiga Usenet groups for North American
Bitnet sites.
.sys.amiga and .sys.amiga.tech arrive as daily digests of the messages
.binaries.amiga and .sources.amiga arrive more or less direct from
Bob Page
JpC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan P. Crone CRONEJP@UREGINA1.BITNET
Amiga-L@uregina1.bitnet List moderator.
*************************************************************************
,FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
SUBMISSIONS
-----------
For those wishing to submit material for possible inclusion in the library,
here are a few simple guidelines that will make my job of organizing the
material MUCH easier:
1. Don't submit bootable disks or disks with any other
sort of proprietary material included, since I then
have to go examine each file to decide if it is
distributable or not, and if not, what effect removing
it might have.
2. Organize the distribution in a manner similar to my
disks. I.E, place all files related to a particular
submission under a single directory on the disk. If
there is more than one submission per disk, it's ok to
to place each submission in it's own directory.
3. Try to write a simple entry for my "Contents" listing
that summarizes your submission. It should be about
3-10 lines, and include the current version number,
the version and disk number of the most recent version
(if any) that was last included in the library, whether
or not source is included, and an "Author" list.
4. Ensure that your submission will run correctly from
it's subdirectory and if necessary, supply a script
runnable from workbench (via c:IconX) that makes all
necessary assigns, copies fonts and libraries, etc.
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
[Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188
uihub.cs.uiuc.edu (128.174.252.27) for fish 189-222
- ed]
*************************************************************************
,PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
,BUY
From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
Subject: a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
>From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
>From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
,HAR
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
,HED
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: Re: 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drives.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
,ECS
>From: adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
Subject: Re: RAD: won't
In article <4425@crash.cts.com> spierce@pnet01.cts.com (Stuart Pierce) writes:
>Unfortunately, RAD: loses everything now when I reboot the machine. I added
>the R option to SetPatch in my startup-sequence, but that didn't help. What
>am I missing?
Use a lower case 'R' as in
SetPatch >NIL: r
and your RAD: will reboot. This could be considered a bug or a
documentation error; I will get it corrected.
Adam
--
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore-Amiga Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!adam
------------------------------------------
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Subject: Re: New Agnus for older B2000s
in article <274@vuecon.econ.vu.nl>, niesemc@econ.vu.nl (Marco Niese) says:
> could a reliable source at Commodore (best would be Dave Haynie) give a final
> statement here on the net about the New 1MB Agnus working in older (pre-rev.6)
> B2000s?
The 1 Meg Agnus works in all B2000s. There are two or three jumpers to change
to install it correctly (J101 is moved, J500 is removed or cut depending on
how your board was assembled, and J102 is cut if you want to come up PAL
instead of NTSC). The Rev 6 board _requires_ the 1 Meg Agnus for support of
refresh on it's 256K x 4 DRAMs, but it will work in every revision of the
B2000 ever shipped.
It will not work on the original A2000, which may be available in the
Netherlands as well as other parts of Europe. The easiest way to identify
the type of motherboard in your system is to see how many RCA phono jacks
you have in the back of the machine: there are 2 on the "A" board, 3 on
the "B" board.
--
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it
*************************************************************************
,MIN
>From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: Re: Minix for the Amiga ???
Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an
excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an
official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested.
I am working on that one, however.
Andy Tanenbaum
>From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers
Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We
hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around
AmigaMINIX.
For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX
like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by
Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by
Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the
Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga.
While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of
MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every
bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of
the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is
that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST)
format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100%
compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and
MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on
AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do
use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of-
day clock won't run properly of course!)
Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we
didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to
optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for
each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing
a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The
normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track-
cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically
allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected.
Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about
AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main
reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard
disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of
them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a
hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common
in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before
one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk.
To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX:
- AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so
it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your
Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have,
what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that
it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC.
- You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available
under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented.
- The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80-
track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.)
Up to four drives can be connected.
- The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro-
nics) port.
- The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides
limited access to the color registers.
Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC.
The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't
run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't
such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another
reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of
each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all
about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15
page scheduler, but getting all the details right.")
AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't
found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll
probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX.
-Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl)
*************************************************************************
,010
>From: scott@ssgp32.UU.NET (Scott Evernden)
Subject: Re: Need information about 68010.
In article <1407@rivm05.UUCP>, ccemdd@rivm.UUCP (Marco Dedecker) writes:
> - Is swapping the chips all you need to do, or are there some other
> ajustments you have to make ?
Thats all you need to do. I switched mine over 2 years ago
with no ill effects.
> - Does all the software still work with the 68010 ?
All current software (that I have anyways) works just fine. (The
old pre-1.2 Calculator used to blow up on /0 errors). Even A-Max
works properly with the 68010 (w/ 128K ROMS of course). There is
a PD program called "decigel" available in various places which
patches the trap vector for the 1 instruction which is incompatible.
I can't remember the last time I used "decigel".
> - What are the advantages of the 68010 ?
About 7% speed improvement as measured by Jez San's Amiga Speed
Program (recently on BIX and elsewhere). This number is about
exactly what I have experienced up to now, and I think it agrees
with Motorola's own figures. I think the speedup is noticeable,
but then I can also see infrared and hear to 25KHz ;-), so...
Should you replace your 68000 with a 68010? Well, they don't cost $60
anymore (what like $12 or so??), so you can't really lose. You can always
go back...
--
Scott Evernden PRIME Computer Inc.
scott@ssgp32.Prime.COM Commercial Systems Group
uunet!ssgp32!scott Technology Drive
(508) 478-8600 x2984 Milford, MA 01757
*************************************************************************
,HAM
From: Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: What is HAM?
What is HAM? (A NON-technical description)
HAM (Hold And Modify) is a special graphics mode on the Amiga. It
involves a special mode of the graphic chips that allow for all 4096
colors to be displayed at the same time; with some restrictions.
If you have Fish Disk #1, the program "colorful" will show what I
mean. It displays all 4096 colors at the same time.
How is it done? Each pixel on a normal screen has three components;
the red, the green and the blue (RGB). These R-G-B values are
combined to make the color of that pixel. In HAM, the first pixel on
each line can be any color. Then, the next pixel is the same color as
the previous one, except the value of either R, G, or B has been
changed. Only one component can change at any time from pixel to
pixel so you are restricted in displaying very different colors
directly next to each other. There is facility for two adjacent
pixels to be exactly the same, i.e. no change in either R, G, or B.
Using HAM many impressive graphic screens have been created. Because
of its peculiar restrictions doing certain tasks are not well-suited
to HAM and HAM is usually used for non-moving graphics (though it's
good for ray-traced animation). Digitized pictures look great in HAM.
Some programs store their graphics internally as 24-bit graphics (more
colors that the Amiga can display) for use with high-end graphics
equipment but permit the user to preview their graphics in HAM mode.
This is a real boon for high-end users because it enables them to
"estimate" results on their Amiga before they send them off to very
expensive printing services, etc.
HAM isn't perfect but it has its uses. Users should be careful about
selecting when and when not to use it.
*************************************************************************
,EXE
From: Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: EXECUTE: No K Directive
A common question that comes up is "I just wrote a script and when I
EXECUTE it I get an error like 'EXECUTE: No K Directive. What am I
doing wrong?"
Try making the first two lines ".bra {" and ".ket }". This tells
EXECUTE how to interpret {'s and }'s. A plain Amiga EXECUTE script
can do a heck of a lot more than most people know about.
This is documented in the AmigaDOS manual from Bantam which is still
the only C-A book that gives the CLI complete coverage. I hope that
after 1.4 comes out we'll find much better documentation.
*************************************************************************
,AT
From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: Re: Questions on AT Bridgeboard
In article <30153@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> frerking@grapenuts.llnl.gov (Chris Frerking) writes:
$I have recently had the misfortune of being told that I need to have a PC
$compatable computer. I currently own an A2500, and would like information
$on the AT Bridgeboard (I need a 286 or 386 machine). Specifically:
$
$1. Would it be cheaper to just buy an inexpensive AT clone? (I would
$prefer the Bridgeboard, as I haven't lots of desk space... but if the price
$difference were too great, I could find some space.)
It's tough to find an AT clone for less than the price of our Bridgeboard.
You MIGHT be able to, but generally the cheap clones are the large footprint
models (read `huge').
$2. Does the AT Bridgeboard cause any problems on the A2500? Is there certain
$software that won't run/hardware that won't work if the Bridgeboard is
$installed?
I have an A2500 with AT Bridgeboard installed here, and they work fine. I
believe you cannot have more than 6Mb of Amiga RAM with the Bridgeboard
installed, which isn't a problem for most people.
$3. How AT compatable is the Bridgeboard? (I am new to PC compatables,
$and have been told that this is a question which needs to be asked) (can it
$run xenix? minix? microport unix? OS/2?)
The A2286 is an entire PC AT on a card, including processor, math coprocessor
socket, BIOS, video RAM, 1Mb system RAM, and of course, PC slots in the Amiga.
So in a word - it's very compatible. The potential incompatibilities, which
relate to an interrrupt and a couple of memory locations that are used for
communication between AmigaDOS and MS-DOS are documented, and prevent (for
example) you having more than 1 serial card installed, and a parallel card
becomes LPT3: (I think), but I would think that with the mode command you
could make it act like an LPT1:. I don't believe Commodore has tested OS/2
or XENIX at this time. I see no reason why they shouldn't work, although
they may not if they want to share Amiga peripherals.
$4. Does the Bridgeboard provide any graphics capability - if so, what sort?
$CGA compatable? EGA compatable?
The Bridgeboard has RAM enough for MDA and CGA displays, which the Amiga
interprets and displays in a window or on a separate screen. The emulation
is very good, but...
$- If not, can a CGA/EGA/VGA card be plugged into the PC slots, and run
$off of a separate monitor? What about using the same monitor?
...if you want other modes or a real MDA or CGA display, you can, yes, plug
in a video card and use that. It may require a second monitor though.
$5. Does the Bridgeboard have its own memory, or does it use the Amiga's memory?
Yes, 1Mb, and no, although you could use Amiga's RAM disk as a DOS device.
$can it be expanded? Is extra memory added accessable to the amiga?
Yes, and no.
$6. Can the Bridgeboard use the Amiga harddrive?
Yes. It can even boot of it.
$Can the Amiga access PC harddrives plugged into the PC slots?
Yes, you can create an Amiga partition on a PC hard drive.
In addition you can move files back and forth using supplied utilities.
$What about access to the Amiga's 3.5" drives?
Only as virtual drives, not transparently.
$Does the Bridgeboard come with a 5.25" disk drive?
Yes, high density with AT version, and low density with XT version.
$...can it be mounted externally
You might have to extend your power cable, but it's possible, yes.
Plus, you might want to get a case of some sort for the drive.
$7. Does the Bridgeboard provide its own serial/parallel ports, or does it share
$them with the Amiga?
No built in ports, but the Amiga's parallel port can be loaned to the
Bridgeboard.
$If it shares them, how compatable are they?
This is implemented at the BIOS level, so anything that goes through that
should work. That is, software that tries to bang on hardware directly won't
work, which is why we don't allow sharing of the serial port, because no-one
goes through the BIOS to use it.
$Can I plug any piece of PC hardware into them without fear of harming the
$equipment?
Normal precautions apply. If you want the real mccoy, just get a
multi-function card - they're cheap.
Paul.
-----------------------------
>From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: Re: Problems with BridgeBoard, Bad Virtual Dirs
In article <626@uranus.UUCP> esker@abaa.UUCP (Lawrence Esker) writes:
$...having persistent problems with data integrity on 'JLink' virtual
$drives in the IBM side of the bridgeboard. Does
$anyone share this problem. Can anyone help?
Yes. The JLINK software creates a virtual drive file that must grow
if new data added requires it (i.e., there's no more room with the file
at its current size). When this occurs, the JANUS software has to open
the virtual drive file and append the new data. THE FILE ONLY GETS CLOSED
IF YOU DO AN UNLINK!!! The problem may therefore not exhibit itself if
new data was added but the virtual drive file didn't have to grow (there
was still room left in it due to your deleting some other stuff perhaps).
One fix: add tons of dummy stuff to the virtual drive, then delete it all
then unlink it. From that point forth the virtual drive should not be
required to grow since it's already huge.
Another fix: using the new JANUS 2.0 software, you can create a [bootable]
DOS drive space on the Amiga hard drive that looks like, smells like [etc.]
a real PC hard drive as far as MS-DOS is concerned. You even specify
cylinders, heads, etc. for the new MakeAB command that creates the space.
This solution does not require the first fix.
$... Why is a virtual drive on
$the ibm a single Amiga file. A significant reliability issue IMHO. A
$single problem can destroy a whole (ibm) disk and DiskDoctor can't help.
The manual recommends that you have a separate partition for the PC
data, to prevent accidental removal of the file, etc. However, most people
have no problem with just allowing it to coexist with other stuff.
$Is there a way to force PCdisk to complete pending writes once the ibm has
$crashed, before rebooting it and remounting the virtual drives? Maybe
$executing PCdisk a second time?
No - I recommend you use the new software.
$Other Possible Bugs:
$The command AREAD does not seem to transfer data between an Amiga file and a
$virtual drive.
Problems with AREAD/AWRITE have been fixed for the new 2.0 software (they
were re-written).
I hope this helps,
Paul.
*************************************************************************
,TEX
From: rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Subject: AmigaTeX
For a free demo disk and further information on AmigaTeX, please drop a
postcard with your name and address to Radical Eye Software, Box 2081,
Stanford, CA~~94309. This is *free* and will answer most questions.
-tom
*************************************************************************
,AMAX
From: douglee@becker.UUCP (Doug Lee)
Subject: AMax
>Here is the question: "Do you or do you
>not need a Mac drive to use AMax?"
No you do NOT need a Macintosh disk drive to use Amax. You do need it if you
want to read NATIVE Macintosh disks. There is software provided to read and
write one third of a disk (just the centre tracks) such that the disk can
be used on a real Mac, using Amax provided utilities and on the Amiga. If you
BORROW a Mac drive, you can connect it and diskcopy real Mac disks to a full
disk format unique to Amax using the amiga's drives as the destination.
This would allow you to make Amiga readable copies of system disks etc.
You could then download PD stuff with a modem and have many hours of happy
computing without having to read a real mac disk. Of course if you want to use
commercial software, you will either need the Mac drive to read it or access
to a Mac which you can use to copy stuff a third of a disk at a time.
--
Doug Lee
douglee@becker
416-461-5357
*************************************************************************
,CS
From: lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
Subject: commodore's customer support phone number
The correct phone number for Customer Support
is (215) 436-4200. Use this number to inquire
about getting 1.3.2, or any other end user question.
*************************************************************************
,RXX
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Subject: Re: ARexx: Where to find it?
>Okay, I've been seeing here lots and lots of stuff about ARexx.
ARexx is commercial, and list price is about $50. Do yourself a favour if you
buy it, and add another $50 (list) for WShell, which knows all about ARexx, and
makes ARexx scripts transparently callable as if they were binary executables.
I have seen both of these packages advertised in the $35 range from mail order
places. Both packages are written by, and available from:
[ed - Bill is also the author of conman, a nice console device replacement]
William S. Hawes
P.O. Box 308
Maynard, MA 01754
Phone: (617) 568-8695
*************************************************************************
,RF1:
From: esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker)
Subject: How to get multiple RADs
>Is it possible to have two ram drive entries that look like floppies?
It is possible to make two RAD: devices.
First make a copy of ramdrive.device in your devs: directory to
ramdriv1.device. Also copy the RemRAD program in your c: directory to RemRF1.
Since you used RF0: for your first floppy, you may want to rename the original
RemRAD to RemRF0 for consistancy.
Second, get a copy of NewZAP or some other binary file editor. Yes, this is
the hard part, but any well respecting Amiga Hacker should have this program.
Use NewZAP to edit devs:ramdriv1.device and c:RemRF1. In each program, replace
all occurances of ramdrive with ramdriv1 and all occurances of RAMB0 with
RAMB1. (Program is ShareWare by someone I think is on this net.)
Third, edit your MountList. Both RAD: type device entries must be identical
to a floppy description for DiskCopy to work on them. The RF0: entry should
use DEVICE = ramdrive.device, the other use DEVICE = ramdriv1.device. Also
make sure the entries contain 'MOUNT = 1' so Workbench recognizes them when
they are first mounted and not at first usage. I would add 'BOOTPRI = -128'
so the OS doesn't attempt to reboot on your RAD: devices. I don't know what
would happen if both RAD: devices were bootable and you did a reboot as this
is probably an unexpected situation for the OS to encounter.
This procedure may be extended to any number of RAD: type devices. Make sure
double check the MountList entries with your 1.3 enhancer manual for accuracy
for my memory is not always perfect.
>From: esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker)
Subject: Re: problem with mounting 2 RAD's (from introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga...)
>The mount commmand appears to work--no errors, at least, and if I repeat
>the mount RF0: command the amiga replies that RF0 is already mounted.
>Typing ASSIGN LIST shows RF0 as one of my devices. However, typing info
>does not show up RF0 and I can neither cd or ls RF0:. Have I forgotten
>something/done something wrong?
DO NOT CHANGE the unit number. It must be 0. That is why
this entire cryptic procedure must be done, because C= was not farsighted
enough to accept unit numbers for multiple RAD: devices.
I did encounter the problem that is described. The case of the letters in the
Device = ramdriv1.device must match the case of ramdriv1.device within the
device file itself. It seems tha Mount finds the device to mount regardless
of case and mounts properly. However, the device then checks that its name
matches what it expects, case sensitive, and won't run if there is a mismatch.
Check that the case of all changes you made to ramdriv1.device is all lower
case. Also make sure you didn't accidently use ramdrive1.device instead of
ramdriv1.device anywhere. Finally, its always helpful to have Mount = 1 in the
mountlist so that the device is activated when it is mounted. An icon should
show up in the workbench for the device at mount time.
---------- Lawrence W. Esker ---------- Modern Amish: Thou shalt not need any
computer that is not IBM compatible.
UseNet Path: __!mailrus!sharkey!itivax!abaa!esker == esker@abaa.UUCP
*************************************************************************
,CLO
From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Subject: Re: Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found
| I ctrl-A-A'ed the beast and it came up complaining about its clock. I
| tried "setclock reset" but it, too, just complained about "clock not
| found". And there I sit.
This happened to me earlier. I "fixed" it by doing nothing. About the
second or third day I booted, the problem simply disappeared.
As I understand it, a register in the clock is getting trashed. The normal
startup then can't find a (proper) clock. The solution is to get the
registers in the clock back the way they should be. Between version 1.2
and 1.3 of the "setclock reset" commands, one works and one doesn't. (I
believe 1.2 works.(?)) Another possible fix is the program which claims
to "cure" the fabled "clock virus". Apparently it just resets the registers
in the clock. (Available at an anti-viral archive site near you.)
Jim Wright
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
*************************************************************************
,END
>From: aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
Subject: Re: Archivers
Ending Use
---------------------------------------------------------
.zoo Zoo
.arc Arc
.zip Zip
.lzh LHarc
.sit Only available in "unsit" for amiga.
.Z Compress (Lempel-Ziv)
.C Compact (Huffman). Rather outdated.
.sh/.shr/.shar SHell ARchiver (SHAR) (or sksh)
.wrp Warp - Amiga Disk-archiver
.tar tar - stands for Tape archiver.
.sq Sq/Unsq. (forgot the proper name)
.bak Matt Dillon's HD->Flippy backup util.
.uue uudecode
.zuu uudecode and then zoo on the result
.z (small) pack/unpack
>From: tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy)
Subject: Re: Zoo for unix
UNIX Zoo was posted to comp.sources.unix, and is available from any
comp.sources.unix archive site, such as XANTH.CS.ODU.EDU or UUNET.UU.NET.
On xanth, it's also available as /pub/zoo-2.01/zoo-2.01.tar.Z
...tad
*************************************************************************
,24
>From: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
Subject: Re: Can You Use A 2000 24 Hours A Day?
|>>Are there any problems with leaving an Amiga 2000 on 24 hours a day?
|
|>I've run my 2000 on a 24x7 basis for the last 3 or 4 months; during that time
|>I've powered the machine down maybe 3 times total. Of course, I do live in an
|>area where the power is exceptionally stable.
|
|For that matter, anyone know about the A1000 being left on 24hr/day???
The NAG (Northwest Amiga Group) BBS is run on an A1000. The board
runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So far as I
know, the only times the board goes down is when it gets a power glitch,
then it has to be restarted. Other than that, it works just fine.
I don't think that there's a UPS or power conditioner for the BBS.
However, such a thing would be a wise investment for anyone thinking
about running any computer continuously. Especially if the power is
noisy or unstable. (Like in the town I live in. The lights flicker
daily. Does terrible things to computers, vcrs, etc.)
--dds
Big Whorls Have Little Whorls | Dale D. Snell BIX: ddsnell
Which Feed On Their Velocity | UseNet: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM
And Little Whorls have Littler Whorls | CompuServe: 74756.666@compuserv.COM
And So On To Viscosity. | Disclaimer: My opinions, not Tek's.
*************************************************************************
,ARP
>From: moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
Subject: Re: arp.library
ARP is the AmigaDos Replacement Project. It consists of
replacement files for most of the common AmigaDos commands (copy,
list, delete, etc.) along with a library file, namely arp.library. I
got my copy off of a local Amiga bulletin board.
The advantage of ARP is, as far as I can tell, three-fold:
(1) The replacement commands are smaller and therefore leave more free
room on your disk (I assume this was accomplished in part by utilizing a
library of common routines, viz. arp.library); (2) the commands are
slightly easier to use, such as being able to use "*" as a wildcard
(plus a few other goodies--there should be docs accompanying the other
files); and (3) a number of other programs (like VLT 4.226,
apparently) require that you have the arp.library present. There may
be other advantages to ARP, but these are the three that I am aware
of.
Richard Moster
*************************************************************************
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (01/07/90)
[Sorry about the delay this month -- lack of account prevented posting! -ed]
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: January 1, 1990
Changes this month:
Deleted: Need information about 68010. (,010)
Deleted: What is HAM? (,HAM)
Updated: How to post to the moderated groups (,MOD)
Updated: Netiquette section (,NET)
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still
available from the editor via email.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the three letter index identifier in capitals that is listed on
the left. This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
edwin@watcsc.waterloo.edu
,MOD How to receive and post Amiga programs from/to the moderated Amiga
newsgroups.
page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
,BIT How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@fishpond.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
,ECS How to get RAD: to recover with the new Agnus
adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
New Agnus for older B2000s
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
,MIN Minix for the Amiga ???
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
,EXE Execute script errors
Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
,AT Questions [and answers] on AT Bridgeboard
higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
,TEX Where to get AmigaTeX
rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
,AMAX Do you need a Mac drive to use AMax?
douglee@becker.UUCP (Doug Lee)
,CS Commodore's customer support phone number
lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
,RXX ARexx: Where to find it?
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
,RF1: How to get multiple RADs
esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker)
,CLO How to fix "Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found" errors
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
,END Which file name extensions archivers use (how to extract them)
aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
,24 Can You Use An Amiga 24 Hours A Day?
dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
,ARP What is ARP?
moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
Send questions, comments, submissions to:
Edwin
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu or edwin@watcsc.waterloo.edu
uunet!watmath!watrose!ehoogerbeets or uunet!watmath!watcsc!edwin
*************************************************************************
,NET
From: edwin@watcsc.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Do not post
anything that you wouldn't say aloud in a large group of people. Have
fun via mail instead. These guidelines help to keep up the useful
information content of the newsgroups.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware. Please do not post programs
here.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD) in this posting
on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you must post a request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
More information:
The newsgroup mod.announce.newusers contains useful tips and
guidelines on reading and posting news to any news groups. Please
read the postings there before asking about news or mail specific
questions in comp.sys.amiga.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
edwin@watcsc.waterloo.edu
*************************************************************************
,MOD
From: page@Sun.COM (Bob Page)
Subject: how to retrieve programs from the moderated groups
How To Use The Comp.Binaries.Amiga Postings
Every comp.binaries.amiga submission is archived with the ZOO archive
program, which does a fair amount of data compression and retains the
original names, dates and directory structure within the archive.
Because Usenet data paths are not 8-bit, these archives must be
encoded to "regular ASCII" which is 7-bit. The encoding is done with
a program called 'uuencode'. The version used adds a checksum at the
end of each line, and includes the file size at the end of the
encoding.
Sometimes the files are too large for one posting (Usenet postings
should generally be less than 64k bytes but you can sometimes get away
with longer postings). If this uuencoded zoo archive is too large, it
gets split into pieces, roughly 64k in length.
Finally, the (possibly split) .zuu files are enclosed by some simple
UNIX commands. This 'shell archive' is commonly known as a 'shar'.
There is a more-or-less standard set of file extensions used to show
the file type. The file extension is the set of characters after the
dot (or period) in the name. The set of file extensions used is:
.zoo An archive file in ZOO format
.zuu A .zoo file that's been uuencoded
.zu1 The first file in a split .zuu file
.zu9 The ninth file in a split .zuu file
.zu10 The tenth file in a split .zuu file
.uu1 The first shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu9 The ninth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
.uu10 The tenth shar file in a (possibly split) .zuu
To get all this back into a usable form, you need to:
1. Unpack the files from the shar format (the verb is usually called
'unshar'). You can either use a standard text editor to remove the
info, or the unix 'sh' (Bourne Shell), or a publicly available tool to
do it for you. With some tools (like 'sh'), you are required to
remove the Usenet header information first; other unshar tools will
remove it for you. Once you unshar a .uu? file, you'll have a .zu?
file.
2. Combine all the .zu? pieces into a large .zuu file. You should use
something like 'cat' under UNIX or 'join' under AmigaDOS. It is
important that you combine the pieces in numerical order. Be aware
that the single digit pieces do not have a leading zero, so a wildcard
sort will probably not do what you want. Instead, you should specify
the files in this way: zu? zu??, which will do the single digit files
first, then the double digits. You can rest assured there will not be
any triple-digit postings.
3. Convert the .zuu file to a .zoo file with the 'uudecode' program.
If you have a version of uudecode that understands the checksum and
file size information, you should use it. If you don't, you can still
use the old uudecode program, but you will not know if the file has
somehow become corrupt.
4. You now have a .zoo file. To extract the files into a directory,
you need a program called 'zoo'. After "un-zoo'ing", most submissions
will have some documentation to tell how to set up and run the
software on your Amiga.
---------
Of course you need to get the program(s) to your Amiga to run them.
Usually this means downloading the software to your Amiga through a
terminal program. If you want to download the files as quickly as
possible to your Amiga, you should do steps 1-3 above on your UNIX
machine and download the .zoo file to your Amiga, since the .zoo file
is the smallest of the files. It's also usually faster and easier to
do steps 1-3 on the UNIX machine because you have less worry about
disk and memory limitations.
However, some terminal emulators available for the Amiga do not handle
binary downloads well. Experiment with yours and see. If you have
trouble, you might try a different protocol or different terminal
program. If all else fails, you can download the .zuu file, which is
an ascii file, and do the uudecode on your Amiga.
The mechanics of terminal programs, protocols and downloading are
beyond the scope of this document. Most terminal programs should have
a manual section describing how to log in and do remote downloads.
---------
Here are the tools you need, under UNIX, AmigaDOS, or both. All are
publicly available; you do not need to purchase anything to make use
of the software that comes across in comp.binaries.amiga.
shar, sh, unshar - a tool to unpack the shell archives, or use an editor
cat or join - to append the split .zu? files to one .zuu file
uudecode - to decode the .zuu file to a .zoo file
zoo - to unpack the ZOO archive.
--------------------------
From: mace.cc.purdue.edu!ain (Patrick White)
Subject: How to post to comp.[sources|binaries].amiga
I'll give you a quick rundown of the various ways to make submissions in
preferred order..
1) make up some postings and post them to the proper groups -- since these
groups are moderated, the posting will get sent via mail to the
moderator(s). Preferred. Helps us a bit if we forward the submission
to a different machine.
2) send mail directly to the moderators. Same warnings as above, but also
be sure to send it to the right person -- if you get it wrong, your mail
might never be heard from again.
Since both these ways use mail, the data transmission is equally reliable
between them. The main difference is ease of submission, and what happens
at our end.
The current moderators are:
Tad Guy - tadguy@cs.odu.edu
send submissions to:
- amiga@cs.odu.edu
*************************************************************************
,BIT
From: Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
Subject: How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan P. Crone distributes all amiga Usenet groups for North American
Bitnet sites.
.sys.amiga and .sys.amiga.tech arrive as daily digests of the messages
.binaries.amiga and .sources.amiga arrive more or less direct from
Bob Page
JpC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan P. Crone CRONEJP@UREGINA1.BITNET
Amiga-L@uregina1.bitnet List moderator.
*************************************************************************
,FNF
From: fnf@fishpond.UUCP
Subject: How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and $6 per disk ($5 per disk
for 10 or more disks), in U.S. funds, to:
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage to
the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
SUBMISSIONS
-----------
For those wishing to submit material for possible inclusion in the library,
here are a few simple guidelines that will make my job of organizing the
material MUCH easier:
1. Don't submit bootable disks or disks with any other
sort of proprietary material included, since I then
have to go examine each file to decide if it is
distributable or not, and if not, what effect removing
it might have.
2. Organize the distribution in a manner similar to my
disks. I.E, place all files related to a particular
submission under a single directory on the disk. If
there is more than one submission per disk, it's ok to
to place each submission in it's own directory.
3. Try to write a simple entry for my "Contents" listing
that summarizes your submission. It should be about
3-10 lines, and include the current version number,
the version and disk number of the most recent version
(if any) that was last included in the library, whether
or not source is included, and an "Author" list.
4. Ensure that your submission will run correctly from
it's subdirectory and if necessary, supply a script
runnable from workbench (via c:IconX) that makes all
necessary assigns, copies fonts and libraries, etc.
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(fishpond!fnf), rather than mcdsun!fnf.
[Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188
uihub.cs.uiuc.edu (128.174.252.27) for fish 189-222
- ed]
*************************************************************************
,PIC
>From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: Re: Picture swap (was Re: clite demo)
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
,BUY
From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
Subject: a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
>From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
>From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
,HAR
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
,HED
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: Re: 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drives.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
,ECS
>From: adam@cbmvax.UUCP (Adam Levin - CATS)
Subject: Re: RAD: won't
In article <4425@crash.cts.com> spierce@pnet01.cts.com (Stuart Pierce) writes:
>Unfortunately, RAD: loses everything now when I reboot the machine. I added
>the R option to SetPatch in my startup-sequence, but that didn't help. What
>am I missing?
Use a lower case 'R' as in
SetPatch >NIL: r
and your RAD: will reboot. This could be considered a bug or a
documentation error; I will get it corrected.
Adam
--
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore-Amiga Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!adam
------------------------------------------
>From: daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie)
Subject: Re: New Agnus for older B2000s
in article <274@vuecon.econ.vu.nl>, niesemc@econ.vu.nl (Marco Niese) says:
> could a reliable source at Commodore (best would be Dave Haynie) give a final
> statement here on the net about the New 1MB Agnus working in older (pre-rev.6)
> B2000s?
The 1 Meg Agnus works in all B2000s. There are two or three jumpers to change
to install it correctly (J101 is moved, J500 is removed or cut depending on
how your board was assembled, and J102 is cut if you want to come up PAL
instead of NTSC). The Rev 6 board _requires_ the 1 Meg Agnus for support of
refresh on it's 256K x 4 DRAMs, but it will work in every revision of the
B2000 ever shipped.
It will not work on the original A2000, which may be available in the
Netherlands as well as other parts of Europe. The easiest way to identify
the type of motherboard in your system is to see how many RCA phono jacks
you have in the back of the machine: there are 2 on the "A" board, 3 on
the "B" board.
--
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
{uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy
Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it
*************************************************************************
,MIN
>From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: Re: Minix for the Amiga ???
Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an
excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an
official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested.
I am working on that one, however.
Andy Tanenbaum
>From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers
Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We
hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around
AmigaMINIX.
For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX
like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by
Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by
Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the
Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga.
While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of
MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every
bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of
the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is
that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST)
format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100%
compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and
MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on
AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do
use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of-
day clock won't run properly of course!)
Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we
didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to
optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for
each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing
a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The
normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track-
cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically
allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected.
Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about
AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main
reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard
disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of
them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a
hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common
in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before
one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk.
To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX:
- AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so
it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your
Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have,
what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that
it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC.
- You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available
under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented.
- The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80-
track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.)
Up to four drives can be connected.
- The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro-
nics) port.
- The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides
limited access to the color registers.
Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC.
The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't
run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't
such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another
reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of
each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all
about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15
page scheduler, but getting all the details right.")
AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't
found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll
probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX.
-Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl)
*************************************************************************
,EXE
From: Tom Limoncelli <limonce@pilot.njin.net>
Subject: EXECUTE: No K Directive
A common question that comes up is "I just wrote a script and when I
EXECUTE it I get an error like 'EXECUTE: No K Directive. What am I
doing wrong?"
Try making the first two lines ".bra {" and ".ket }". This tells
EXECUTE how to interpret {'s and }'s. A plain Amiga EXECUTE script
can do a heck of a lot more than most people know about.
This is documented in the AmigaDOS manual from Bantam which is still
the only C-A book that gives the CLI complete coverage. I hope that
after 1.4 comes out we'll find much better documentation.
*************************************************************************
,AT
From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: Re: Questions on AT Bridgeboard
In article <30153@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> frerking@grapenuts.llnl.gov (Chris Frerking) writes:
$I have recently had the misfortune of being told that I need to have a PC
$compatable computer. I currently own an A2500, and would like information
$on the AT Bridgeboard (I need a 286 or 386 machine). Specifically:
$
$1. Would it be cheaper to just buy an inexpensive AT clone? (I would
$prefer the Bridgeboard, as I haven't lots of desk space... but if the price
$difference were too great, I could find some space.)
It's tough to find an AT clone for less than the price of our Bridgeboard.
You MIGHT be able to, but generally the cheap clones are the large footprint
models (read `huge').
$2. Does the AT Bridgeboard cause any problems on the A2500? Is there certain
$software that won't run/hardware that won't work if the Bridgeboard is
$installed?
I have an A2500 with AT Bridgeboard installed here, and they work fine. I
believe you cannot have more than 6Mb of Amiga RAM with the Bridgeboard
installed, which isn't a problem for most people.
$3. How AT compatable is the Bridgeboard? (I am new to PC compatables,
$and have been told that this is a question which needs to be asked) (can it
$run xenix? minix? microport unix? OS/2?)
The A2286 is an entire PC AT on a card, including processor, math coprocessor
socket, BIOS, video RAM, 1Mb system RAM, and of course, PC slots in the Amiga.
So in a word - it's very compatible. The potential incompatibilities, which
relate to an interrrupt and a couple of memory locations that are used for
communication between AmigaDOS and MS-DOS are documented, and prevent (for
example) you having more than 1 serial card installed, and a parallel card
becomes LPT3: (I think), but I would think that with the mode command you
could make it act like an LPT1:. I don't believe Commodore has tested OS/2
or XENIX at this time. I see no reason why they shouldn't work, although
they may not if they want to share Amiga peripherals.
$4. Does the Bridgeboard provide any graphics capability - if so, what sort?
$CGA compatable? EGA compatable?
The Bridgeboard has RAM enough for MDA and CGA displays, which the Amiga
interprets and displays in a window or on a separate screen. The emulation
is very good, but...
$- If not, can a CGA/EGA/VGA card be plugged into the PC slots, and run
$off of a separate monitor? What about using the same monitor?
...if you want other modes or a real MDA or CGA display, you can, yes, plug
in a video card and use that. It may require a second monitor though.
$5. Does the Bridgeboard have its own memory, or does it use the Amiga's memory?
Yes, 1Mb, and no, although you could use Amiga's RAM disk as a DOS device.
$can it be expanded? Is extra memory added accessable to the amiga?
Yes, and no.
$6. Can the Bridgeboard use the Amiga harddrive?
Yes. It can even boot of it.
$Can the Amiga access PC harddrives plugged into the PC slots?
Yes, you can create an Amiga partition on a PC hard drive.
In addition you can move files back and forth using supplied utilities.
$What about access to the Amiga's 3.5" drives?
Only as virtual drives, not transparently.
$Does the Bridgeboard come with a 5.25" disk drive?
Yes, high density with AT version, and low density with XT version.
$...can it be mounted externally
You might have to extend your power cable, but it's possible, yes.
Plus, you might want to get a case of some sort for the drive.
$7. Does the Bridgeboard provide its own serial/parallel ports, or does it share
$them with the Amiga?
No built in ports, but the Amiga's parallel port can be loaned to the
Bridgeboard.
$If it shares them, how compatable are they?
This is implemented at the BIOS level, so anything that goes through that
should work. That is, software that tries to bang on hardware directly won't
work, which is why we don't allow sharing of the serial port, because no-one
goes through the BIOS to use it.
$Can I plug any piece of PC hardware into them without fear of harming the
$equipment?
Normal precautions apply. If you want the real mccoy, just get a
multi-function card - they're cheap.
Paul.
-----------------------------
>From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: Re: Problems with BridgeBoard, Bad Virtual Dirs
In article <626@uranus.UUCP> esker@abaa.UUCP (Lawrence Esker) writes:
$...having persistent problems with data integrity on 'JLink' virtual
$drives in the IBM side of the bridgeboard. Does
$anyone share this problem. Can anyone help?
Yes. The JLINK software creates a virtual drive file that must grow
if new data added requires it (i.e., there's no more room with the file
at its current size). When this occurs, the JANUS software has to open
the virtual drive file and append the new data. THE FILE ONLY GETS CLOSED
IF YOU DO AN UNLINK!!! The problem may therefore not exhibit itself if
new data was added but the virtual drive file didn't have to grow (there
was still room left in it due to your deleting some other stuff perhaps).
One fix: add tons of dummy stuff to the virtual drive, then delete it all
then unlink it. From that point forth the virtual drive should not be
required to grow since it's already huge.
Another fix: using the new JANUS 2.0 software, you can create a [bootable]
DOS drive space on the Amiga hard drive that looks like, smells like [etc.]
a real PC hard drive as far as MS-DOS is concerned. You even specify
cylinders, heads, etc. for the new MakeAB command that creates the space.
This solution does not require the first fix.
$... Why is a virtual drive on
$the ibm a single Amiga file. A significant reliability issue IMHO. A
$single problem can destroy a whole (ibm) disk and DiskDoctor can't help.
The manual recommends that you have a separate partition for the PC
data, to prevent accidental removal of the file, etc. However, most people
have no problem with just allowing it to coexist with other stuff.
$Is there a way to force PCdisk to complete pending writes once the ibm has
$crashed, before rebooting it and remounting the virtual drives? Maybe
$executing PCdisk a second time?
No - I recommend you use the new software.
$Other Possible Bugs:
$The command AREAD does not seem to transfer data between an Amiga file and a
$virtual drive.
Problems with AREAD/AWRITE have been fixed for the new 2.0 software (they
were re-written).
I hope this helps,
Paul.
*************************************************************************
,TEX
From: rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Subject: AmigaTeX
For a free demo disk and further information on AmigaTeX, please drop a
postcard with your name and address to Radical Eye Software, Box 2081,
Stanford, CA~~94309. This is *free* and will answer most questions.
-tom
*************************************************************************
,AMAX
From: douglee@becker.UUCP (Doug Lee)
Subject: AMax
>Here is the question: "Do you or do you
>not need a Mac drive to use AMax?"
No you do NOT need a Macintosh disk drive to use Amax. You do need it if you
want to read NATIVE Macintosh disks. There is software provided to read and
write one third of a disk (just the centre tracks) such that the disk can
be used on a real Mac, using Amax provided utilities and on the Amiga. If you
BORROW a Mac drive, you can connect it and diskcopy real Mac disks to a full
disk format unique to Amax using the amiga's drives as the destination.
This would allow you to make Amiga readable copies of system disks etc.
You could then download PD stuff with a modem and have many hours of happy
computing without having to read a real mac disk. Of course if you want to use
commercial software, you will either need the Mac drive to read it or access
to a Mac which you can use to copy stuff a third of a disk at a time.
--
Doug Lee
douglee@becker
416-461-5357
*************************************************************************
,CS
From: lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
Subject: commodore's customer support phone number
The correct phone number for Customer Support
is (215) 436-4200. Use this number to inquire
about getting 1.3.2, or any other end user question.
*************************************************************************
,RXX
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Subject: Re: ARexx: Where to find it?
>Okay, I've been seeing here lots and lots of stuff about ARexx.
ARexx is commercial, and list price is about $50. Do yourself a favour if you
buy it, and add another $50 (list) for WShell, which knows all about ARexx, and
makes ARexx scripts transparently callable as if they were binary executables.
I have seen both of these packages advertised in the $35 range from mail order
places. Both packages are written by, and available from:
[ed - Bill is also the author of conman, a nice console device replacement]
William S. Hawes
P.O. Box 308
Maynard, MA 01754
Phone: (617) 568-8695
*************************************************************************
,RF1:
From: esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker)
Subject: How to get multiple RADs
>Is it possible to have two ram drive entries that look like floppies?
It is possible to make two RAD: devices.
First make a copy of ramdrive.device in your devs: directory to
ramdriv1.device. Also copy the RemRAD program in your c: directory to RemRF1.
Since you used RF0: for your first floppy, you may want to rename the original
RemRAD to RemRF0 for consistancy.
Second, get a copy of NewZAP or some other binary file editor. Yes, this is
the hard part, but any well respecting Amiga Hacker should have this program.
Use NewZAP to edit devs:ramdriv1.device and c:RemRF1. In each program, replace
all occurances of ramdrive with ramdriv1 and all occurances of RAMB0 with
RAMB1. (Program is ShareWare by someone I think is on this net.)
Third, edit your MountList. Both RAD: type device entries must be identical
to a floppy description for DiskCopy to work on them. The RF0: entry should
use DEVICE = ramdrive.device, the other use DEVICE = ramdriv1.device. Also
make sure the entries contain 'MOUNT = 1' so Workbench recognizes them when
they are first mounted and not at first usage. I would add 'BOOTPRI = -128'
so the OS doesn't attempt to reboot on your RAD: devices. I don't know what
would happen if both RAD: devices were bootable and you did a reboot as this
is probably an unexpected situation for the OS to encounter.
This procedure may be extended to any number of RAD: type devices. Make sure
double check the MountList entries with your 1.3 enhancer manual for accuracy
for my memory is not always perfect.
>From: esker@abaa.uucp (Lawrence Esker)
Subject: Re: problem with mounting 2 RAD's (from introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga...)
>The mount commmand appears to work--no errors, at least, and if I repeat
>the mount RF0: command the amiga replies that RF0 is already mounted.
>Typing ASSIGN LIST shows RF0 as one of my devices. However, typing info
>does not show up RF0 and I can neither cd or ls RF0:. Have I forgotten
>something/done something wrong?
DO NOT CHANGE the unit number. It must be 0. That is why
this entire cryptic procedure must be done, because C= was not farsighted
enough to accept unit numbers for multiple RAD: devices.
I did encounter the problem that is described. The case of the letters in the
Device = ramdriv1.device must match the case of ramdriv1.device within the
device file itself. It seems tha Mount finds the device to mount regardless
of case and mounts properly. However, the device then checks that its name
matches what it expects, case sensitive, and won't run if there is a mismatch.
Check that the case of all changes you made to ramdriv1.device is all lower
case. Also make sure you didn't accidently use ramdrive1.device instead of
ramdriv1.device anywhere. Finally, its always helpful to have Mount = 1 in the
mountlist so that the device is activated when it is mounted. An icon should
show up in the workbench for the device at mount time.
---------- Lawrence W. Esker ---------- Modern Amish: Thou shalt not need any
computer that is not IBM compatible.
UseNet Path: __!mailrus!sharkey!itivax!abaa!esker == esker@abaa.UUCP
*************************************************************************
,CLO
From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Subject: Re: Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found
| I ctrl-A-A'ed the beast and it came up complaining about its clock. I
| tried "setclock reset" but it, too, just complained about "clock not
| found". And there I sit.
This happened to me earlier. I "fixed" it by doing nothing. About the
second or third day I booted, the problem simply disappeared.
As I understand it, a register in the clock is getting trashed. The normal
startup then can't find a (proper) clock. The solution is to get the
registers in the clock back the way they should be. Between version 1.2
and 1.3 of the "setclock reset" commands, one works and one doesn't. (I
believe 1.2 works.(?)) Another possible fix is the program which claims
to "cure" the fabled "clock virus". Apparently it just resets the registers
in the clock. (Available at an anti-viral archive site near you.)
Jim Wright
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
*************************************************************************
,END
>From: aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
Subject: Re: Archivers
Ending Use
---------------------------------------------------------
.zoo Zoo
.arc Arc
.zip Zip
.lzh LHarc
.sit Only available in "unsit" for amiga.
.Z Compress (Lempel-Ziv)
.C Compact (Huffman). Rather outdated.
.sh/.shr/.shar SHell ARchiver (SHAR) (or sksh)
.wrp Warp - Amiga Disk-archiver
.tar tar - stands for Tape archiver.
.sq Sq/Unsq. (forgot the proper name)
.bak Matt Dillon's HD->Flippy backup util.
.uue uudecode
.zuu uudecode and then zoo on the result
.z (small) pack/unpack
>From: tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy)
Subject: Re: Zoo for unix
UNIX Zoo was posted to comp.sources.unix, and is available from any
comp.sources.unix archive site, such as XANTH.CS.ODU.EDU or UUNET.UU.NET.
On xanth, it's also available as /pub/zoo-2.01/zoo-2.01.tar.Z
...tad
*************************************************************************
,24
>From: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
Subject: Re: Can You Use A 2000 24 Hours A Day?
|>>Are there any problems with leaving an Amiga 2000 on 24 hours a day?
|
|>I've run my 2000 on a 24x7 basis for the last 3 or 4 months; during that time
|>I've powered the machine down maybe 3 times total. Of course, I do live in an
|>area where the power is exceptionally stable.
|
|For that matter, anyone know about the A1000 being left on 24hr/day???
The NAG (Northwest Amiga Group) BBS is run on an A1000. The board
runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So far as I
know, the only times the board goes down is when it gets a power glitch,
then it has to be restarted. Other than that, it works just fine.
I don't think that there's a UPS or power conditioner for the BBS.
However, such a thing would be a wise investment for anyone thinking
about running any computer continuously. Especially if the power is
noisy or unstable. (Like in the town I live in. The lights flicker
daily. Does terrible things to computers, vcrs, etc.)
--dds
Big Whorls Have Little Whorls | Dale D. Snell BIX: ddsnell
Which Feed On Their Velocity | UseNet: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM
And Little Whorls have Littler Whorls | CompuServe: 74756.666@compuserv.COM
And So On To Viscosity. | Disclaimer: My opinions, not Tek's.
*************************************************************************
,ARP
>From: moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
Subject: Re: arp.library
ARP is the AmigaDos Replacement Project. It consists of
replacement files for most of the common AmigaDos commands (copy,
list, delete, etc.) along with a library file, namely arp.library. I
got my copy off of a local Amiga bulletin board.
The advantage of ARP is, as far as I can tell, three-fold:
(1) The replacement commands are smaller and therefore leave more free
room on your disk (I assume this was accomplished in part by utilizing a
library of common routines, viz. arp.library); (2) the commands are
slightly easier to use, such as being able to use "*" as a wildcard
(plus a few other goodies--there should be docs accompanying the other
files); and (3) a number of other programs (like VLT 4.226,
apparently) require that you have the arp.library present. There may
be other advantages to ARP, but these are the three that I am aware
of.
Richard Moster
*************************************************************************schwager@m.cs.uiuc.edu (02/03/90)
A suggestion for the intro postings:
,VIR Virus-combatting programs. Where to obtain them. What viruses are
out there. Why one should be concerned, even if one doesn't feel like it.
Personally, I'd like to know where I can obtain VirusX 4.0. Thanks.
-Mike Schwager
INTERNET:schwager@cs.uiuc.edu
UUCP:{uunet|convex|pur-ee}!uiucdcs!schwager
BITNET:schwager%cs.uiuc.edu@uiucvmd
University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci. ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets) (03/04/90)
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: March 2, 1990
Changes this month:
Added: Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a (,SCR)
Added: uucp<->compuserve gateway (,GATE)
Deleted: How to get RAD: to recover with the new Agnus (,ECS)
Deleted: Execute script errors (,EXE)
Deleted: Do you need a Mac drive to use AMax? (,AMAX)
Updated: How to fix "Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found" errors (,CLO)
Also changed is that all intro postings are now in mailbox format.
Individual topics in a file called `introfile' can be accessed by
executing mail -f introfile on a Unix system.
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still
available from the editor via email.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the index identifier in capitals that is listed on the left.
This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
,MOD How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings
Tad Guy <tadguy@cs.odu.edu>
,BIT How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@estinc.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
,MIN Minix for the Amiga ???
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
,AT Questions [and answers] on AT Bridgeboard
higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
,TEX Where to get AmigaTeX
rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
,CS Commodore's customer support phone number
lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
,RXX ARexx: Where to find it?
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
,RF1 How to get multiple RADs
adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin)
,CLO How to fix "Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found" errors
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo)
,END Which file name extensions archivers use (how to extract them)
aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
,24 Can You Use An Amiga 24 Hours A Day?
dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
,ARP What is ARP?
moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
,DF1 If you need help installing a 2nd internal floppy
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
,SCR Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
,GATE uucp<->compuserve gateway
chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham)
Send questions, comments, submissions to:
Edwin
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu or edwin@watcsc.waterloo.edu
uunet!watmath!watrose!ehoogerbeets or uunet!watmath!watcsc!edwin
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: (,NET) Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Do not post
anything that you wouldn't say aloud in a large group of people. Have
fun via mail instead. These guidelines help to keep up the useful
information content of the newsgroups.
Newsgroups:
There are currently four official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software and hardware. Please do not post programs
here.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD in rn) in this
posting on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you must post a request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
More information:
The newsgroup mod.announce.newusers contains useful tips and
guidelines on reading and posting news to any news groups. Please
read the postings there before asking about news or mail specific
questions in comp.sys.amiga.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Tad Guy <tadguy@cs.odu.edu>
Subject: (,MOD) How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings
1. How a submission is packed
Each comp.binaries.amiga submission is packaged using the Zoo archiver.
Zoo not only compresses the submission, but also checks the files for
corruption, and preserves the original directory structure and timestamps.
The Zoo archiver is available from most Amiga archive sites and BBS's.
Binary submissions and Zoo files contain 8-bit data, which cannot be
reliably transferred over USENET or by mail. The Zoo archive is thus
encoded down to 7-bits using the ``uuencode'' program. The ``uudecode''
program, required to reverse this encoding, is also available from many
Amiga archives (often under the name ``uucode'').
USENET has a conventional limit of 64k bytes per posting. While larger
postings often occur, they are also often mysteriously corrupted at some
point. Unfortunately, most of the uuencoded Zoo archives in
comp.binaries.amiga are larger than 64k bytes. In order to get each
posting to 64k or smaller, the single uuencoded Zoo archive is ``split''
into 64k pieces, which can later be concatenated back into the original
uuencoded Zoo archive. The UNIX ``cat'' and the AmigaDOS ``join''
commands are ideal for this.
Each part of the now-split uuencoded Zoo archive is then wrapped using
some simple UNIX commands in a form called a ``shell archive''. This
makes the postings easier to unpack on UNIX systems, and can be
unpacked on Amiga's using the UNSHAR or SH utilities, available from
some amiga BBS's.
At this point, a single submission has been Zoo'ed, uuencoded, split,
and each part shar'ed. This is what you find posted to comp.binaries.amiga.
2. Unpacking the postings
Before a submission can be used, it must be unpacked in the reverse
order it was packed. This is easily done on UNIX machines, and can be
done on Amigas with the appropriate utilities.
1. Save each part to a different file name of your choosing.
2. Remove the USENET headers (the first line of each file
should be ``#!/bin/sh''). This step can be skipped if you
have the ``unshar'' utility.
3. Run each file using ``sh'', or ``unshar''. This will
create a series of files ending in ``.zuuxx'' where ``xx''
is a number. Each of these files is part of the uuencoded
Zoo archive.
4. Concatenate these files into one file (typically ending in
``.zuu''). This is the whole uuencoded Zoo archive.
5. Decode the uuencoded Zoo archive using ``uudecode''. This
will generate the original Zoo archive.
6. Use Zoo to extract the files from the Zoo archive.
Typically, it's easiest to do steps 1-5 on a UNIX machine, although
utilities exist to do all those steps on an Amiga. Once you have a
Zoo archive, though, you will probably find it easiest to transfer the
archive to your Amiga and use Amiga Zoo to extract the archive there.
3. What do I need?
All these tools mentioned in this article are free for the taking if
you can find them:
. The Zoo archiver is available from almost all Amiga BBS's
and Amiga archives on the Internet.
. The uuencoding utilities are often already installed on UNIX
machines, and there is also at least one Amiga version,
which typically goes under the name of ``uucode''.
. Concatenating the parts of a submission is easily done
under UNIX with the ``cat'' command, or under AmigaDOS with
the ``join'' command.
. Finally, the Bourne Shell in UNIX (/bin/sh) can be used to
unshar the postings, and similar utilities exist for the
Amiga, notably ``UNSHAR'' and ``SH''.
4. How do I make a submission?
The role of the moderator of comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga
is to receive submissions, ensure they are not copyrighted (or if they
are, to ensure that permission is granted to redistribute them), and to
repackage the submission in the form described above.
Persons wanting to make submissions to the these groups do NOT need to
worry about following the above instructions (although doing so makes
my job easier and means the submission will get out faster) .
It is important to note that binary submissions must be encoded into
7-bits to insure it is received intact. This can be done using the
``uuencode'' utility described above, or with any number of similar
utilities (such as ``btoa'').
There are two ways to get your submission to the moderator:
. Post your submission to the appropriate newsgroup. If your
USENET software is properly configured, this will
automatically forward your submission to the moderator,
without your having to know the moderator's address. This
is probably the most intuitive method.
. Mail your submission to the moderator's address. This
requires that your know the moderator's address, but is the
only choice for persons at sites with improperly configured
USENET software.
If your submission is received by the moderator, you will get
notification back by mail (although network problems may cause your
submission or the acknowledgement to be delayed). If you don't get an
acknowledgement within a week, assume something has gone wrong. The
best course of action is to attempt to contact the moderator by email
(please don't send your submission again, instead hold onto it until
you and the moderator determine a reliable way for you to send your
submission).
Submissions to comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga may be mailed to:
amiga@cs.odu.edu
or amiga@xanth.cs.odu.edu (sites with obsolescent or plain broken
mailers may need to use this address)
or ...!uunet!xanth!amiga (sites with very obsolescent mailers
that only understand ``bang'' addresses
may need to use this address. Replace
``...'' with the bang-path necessary
to reach UUNET.)
Consult your system administrator if you have trouble sending mail to
these addresses.
Comments and suggestions are welcome. They should be addressed
to ``amiga-request'' (instead of ``amiga'') at the addresses above.
My thanks to Bob Page <page@eng.sun.com> and Patrick White
<patbob@sequent.sqnt.com> for the original documents I have blatantly
plagiarized in preparing this article...
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
Subject: (,BIT) How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan P. Crone distributes all amiga Usenet groups for North American
Bitnet sites.
.sys.amiga and .sys.amiga.tech arrive as daily digests of the messages
.binaries.amiga and .sources.amiga arrive more or less direct from
Bob Page
JpC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan P. Crone CRONEJP@UREGINA1.BITNET
Amiga-L@uregina1.bitnet List moderator.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: fnf@estinc.UUCP
Subject: (,FNF) How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and the appropriate fee as
follows:
1-9 disks $6 ea
10-49 disks $5 ea
50-99 disks $4 ea
100+ disks $3 ea
to
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage,
or $3 and no disks, to the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
SUBMISSIONS
-----------
For those wishing to submit material for possible inclusion in the library,
here are a few simple guidelines that will make my job of organizing the
material MUCH easier:
1. Don't submit bootable disks or disks with any other
sort of proprietary material included, since I then
have to go examine each file to decide if it is
distributable or not, and if not, what effect removing
it might have.
2. Organize the distribution in a manner similar to my
disks. I.E, place all files related to a particular
submission under a single directory on the disk. If
there is more than one submission per disk, it's ok to
to place each submission in it's own directory.
3. Try to write a simple entry for my "Contents" listing
that summarizes your submission. It should be about
3-10 lines, and include the current version number,
the version and disk number of the most recent version
(if any) that was last included in the library, whether
or not source is included, and an "Author" list.
4. Ensure that your submission will run correctly from
it's subdirectory and if necessary, supply a script
runnable from workbench (via c:IconX) that makes all
necessary assigns, copies fonts and libraries, etc.
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(estinc!fnf), rather than fishpond!fnf or mcdsun!fnf.
[Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188
mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.73.105) for fish 189-300
- ed]
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: (,PIC) Picture swap
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
Subject: (,BUY) a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: (,HAR) Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: (,HED) 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drives.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: (,MIN) Minix for the Amiga ???
Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an
excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an
official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested.
I am working on that one, however.
Andy Tanenbaum
From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers
Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We
hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around
AmigaMINIX.
For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX
like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by
Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by
Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the
Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga.
While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of
MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every
bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of
the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is
that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST)
format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100%
compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and
MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on
AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do
use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of-
day clock won't run properly of course!)
Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we
didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to
optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for
each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing
a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The
normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track-
cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically
allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected.
Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about
AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main
reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard
disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of
them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a
hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common
in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before
one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk.
To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX:
- AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so
it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your
Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have,
what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that
it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC.
- You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available
under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented.
- The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80-
track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.)
Up to four drives can be connected.
- The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro-
nics) port.
- The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides
limited access to the color registers.
Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC.
The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't
run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't
such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another
reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of
each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all
about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15
page scheduler, but getting all the details right.")
AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't
found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll
probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX.
-Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl)
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: (,AT) Questions on AT Bridgeboard
In article <30153@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> frerking@grapenuts.llnl.gov (Chris Frerking) writes:
$I have recently had the misfortune of being told that I need to have a PC
$compatable computer. I currently own an A2500, and would like information
$on the AT Bridgeboard (I need a 286 or 386 machine). Specifically:
$
$1. Would it be cheaper to just buy an inexpensive AT clone? (I would
$prefer the Bridgeboard, as I haven't lots of desk space... but if the price
$difference were too great, I could find some space.)
It's tough to find an AT clone for less than the price of our Bridgeboard.
You MIGHT be able to, but generally the cheap clones are the large footprint
models (read `huge').
$2. Does the AT Bridgeboard cause any problems on the A2500? Is there certain
$software that won't run/hardware that won't work if the Bridgeboard is
$installed?
I have an A2500 with AT Bridgeboard installed here, and they work fine. I
believe you cannot have more than 6Mb of Amiga RAM with the Bridgeboard
installed, which isn't a problem for most people.
$3. How AT compatable is the Bridgeboard? (I am new to PC compatables,
$and have been told that this is a question which needs to be asked) (can it
$run xenix? minix? microport unix? OS/2?)
The A2286 is an entire PC AT on a card, including processor, math coprocessor
socket, BIOS, video RAM, 1Mb system RAM, and of course, PC slots in the Amiga.
So in a word - it's very compatible. The potential incompatibilities, which
relate to an interrrupt and a couple of memory locations that are used for
communication between AmigaDOS and MS-DOS are documented, and prevent (for
example) you having more than 1 serial card installed, and a parallel card
becomes LPT3: (I think), but I would think that with the mode command you
could make it act like an LPT1:. I don't believe Commodore has tested OS/2
or XENIX at this time. I see no reason why they shouldn't work, although
they may not if they want to share Amiga peripherals.
$4. Does the Bridgeboard provide any graphics capability - if so, what sort?
$CGA compatable? EGA compatable?
The Bridgeboard has RAM enough for MDA and CGA displays, which the Amiga
interprets and displays in a window or on a separate screen. The emulation
is very good, but...
$- If not, can a CGA/EGA/VGA card be plugged into the PC slots, and run
$off of a separate monitor? What about using the same monitor?
...if you want other modes or a real MDA or CGA display, you can, yes, plug
in a video card and use that. It may require a second monitor though.
$5. Does the Bridgeboard have its own memory, or does it use the Amiga's memory?
Yes, 1Mb, and no, although you could use Amiga's RAM disk as a DOS device.
$can it be expanded? Is extra memory added accessable to the amiga?
Yes, and no.
$6. Can the Bridgeboard use the Amiga harddrive?
Yes. It can even boot of it.
$Can the Amiga access PC harddrives plugged into the PC slots?
Yes, you can create an Amiga partition on a PC hard drive.
In addition you can move files back and forth using supplied utilities.
$What about access to the Amiga's 3.5" drives?
Only as virtual drives, not transparently.
$Does the Bridgeboard come with a 5.25" disk drive?
Yes, high density with AT version, and low density with XT version.
$...can it be mounted externally
You might have to extend your power cable, but it's possible, yes.
Plus, you might want to get a case of some sort for the drive.
$7. Does the Bridgeboard provide its own serial/parallel ports, or does it share
$them with the Amiga?
No built in ports, but the Amiga's parallel port can be loaned to the
Bridgeboard.
$If it shares them, how compatable are they?
This is implemented at the BIOS level, so anything that goes through that
should work. That is, software that tries to bang on hardware directly won't
work, which is why we don't allow sharing of the serial port, because no-one
goes through the BIOS to use it.
$Can I plug any piece of PC hardware into them without fear of harming the
$equipment?
Normal precautions apply. If you want the real mccoy, just get a
multi-function card - they're cheap.
Paul.
-----------------------------
From: higgin@cbmvax.UUCP (Paul Higginbottom)
Subject: Re: Problems with BridgeBoard, Bad Virtual Dirs
In article <626@uranus.UUCP> esker@abaa.UUCP (Lawrence Esker) writes:
$...having persistent problems with data integrity on 'JLink' virtual
$drives in the IBM side of the bridgeboard. Does
$anyone share this problem. Can anyone help?
Yes. The JLINK software creates a virtual drive file that must grow
if new data added requires it (i.e., there's no more room with the file
at its current size). When this occurs, the JANUS software has to open
the virtual drive file and append the new data. THE FILE ONLY GETS CLOSED
IF YOU DO AN UNLINK!!! The problem may therefore not exhibit itself if
new data was added but the virtual drive file didn't have to grow (there
was still room left in it due to your deleting some other stuff perhaps).
One fix: add tons of dummy stuff to the virtual drive, then delete it all
then unlink it. From that point forth the virtual drive should not be
required to grow since it's already huge.
Another fix: using the new JANUS 2.0 software, you can create a [bootable]
DOS drive space on the Amiga hard drive that looks like, smells like [etc.]
a real PC hard drive as far as MS-DOS is concerned. You even specify
cylinders, heads, etc. for the new MakeAB command that creates the space.
This solution does not require the first fix.
$... Why is a virtual drive on
$the ibm a single Amiga file. A significant reliability issue IMHO. A
$single problem can destroy a whole (ibm) disk and DiskDoctor can't help.
The manual recommends that you have a separate partition for the PC
data, to prevent accidental removal of the file, etc. However, most people
have no problem with just allowing it to coexist with other stuff.
$Is there a way to force PCdisk to complete pending writes once the ibm has
$crashed, before rebooting it and remounting the virtual drives? Maybe
$executing PCdisk a second time?
No - I recommend you use the new software.
$Other Possible Bugs:
$The command AREAD does not seem to transfer data between an Amiga file and a
$virtual drive.
Problems with AREAD/AWRITE have been fixed for the new 2.0 software (they
were re-written).
I hope this helps,
Paul.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Subject: (,TEX) AmigaTeX
For a free demo disk and further information on AmigaTeX, please drop a
postcard with your name and address to Radical Eye Software, Box 2081,
Stanford, CA~~94309. This is *free* and will answer most questions.
-tom
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
Subject: (,CS) commodore's customer support phone number
The correct phone number for Customer Support
is (215) 436-4200. Use this number to inquire
about getting 1.3.2, or any other end user question.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Subject: (,RXX) ARexx: Where to find it?
>Okay, I've been seeing here lots and lots of stuff about ARexx.
ARexx is commercial, and list price is about $50. Do yourself a favour if you
buy it, and add another $50 (list) for WShell, which knows all about ARexx, and
makes ARexx scripts transparently callable as if they were binary executables.
I have seen both of these packages advertised in the $35 range from mail order
places. Both packages are written by, and available from:
[ed - Bill is also the author of conman, a nice console device replacement]
William S. Hawes
P.O. Box 308
Maynard, MA 01754
Phone: (617) 568-8695
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin)
Subject: (,RF1) Multiple RAD:'s
Here are directions that I wrote about a year ago for creating multiple
RAD drives. Be warned that all of these kludges probably won't work
(and probably won't be needed) under version 1.4.
Unfortunately, RAD's ramdrive.device is hard-coded as having the volume name
"RAMB0". One cannot create multiple RADs by simply changing the MountList.
To create multiple RAD devices:
READ ME FIRST:
Byte-offsets are counted starting from 0, the first byte of the file.
Both byte-offsets are for v1.0 of the ramdrive.device, created 6-Apr-88.
The letter 'X' is used below as a place-holder for a unique character to
differentiate the multiple RAD devices. If you are creating a first
duplicate RAD, I suggest you substitute '1'; if creating a second
duplicate RAD, substitute '2', etc.
1.
Edit devs:MountList and duplicate the original RAD: parameters.
Change the name of the duplicate; for example, from "RAD:" to "RADX:".
Change the "Device = ramdrive.device" line to "Device = ramdrivX.device"
Only the original RAD should be allowed to autoboot. Add the following
line to the new entry to keep it from autobooting:
BootPri = -129
2.
Copy devs:ramdrive.device to devs:ramdrivX.device
File-zap devs:ramdrivX.device and change "ramdrive.device" to
"ramdrivX.device" by changing byte 171 (hex) from 'e' to 'X'.
Also change "RAMB0" to "RAMBX" by changing byte 5A1 (hex) from '0' to 'X'.
3.
Mount RADX:.
You can do anything to this new RAD that you could to the original one.
Things like changing the HighCyl to get a different size, etc.
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore Applications and Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!cbmcats!adam
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Subject: (,CLO) Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found
| I ctrl-A-A'ed the beast and it came up complaining about its clock. I
| tried "setclock reset" but it, too, just complained about "clock not
| found". And there I sit.
This happened to me earlier. I "fixed" it by doing nothing. About the
second or third day I booted, the problem simply disappeared.
As I understand it, a register in the clock is getting trashed. The normal
startup then can't find a (proper) clock. The solution is to get the
registers in the clock back the way they should be. Between version 1.2
and 1.3 of the "setclock reset" commands, one works and one doesn't. (I
believe 1.2 works.(?)) Another possible fix is the program which claims
to "cure" the fabled "clock virus". Apparently it just resets the registers
in the clock. (Available at an anti-viral archive site near you.)
Jim Wright
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
----------
From: dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo)
Subject: lost clock advice...
I'm not sure that the advice given about the lost clock problem will
work for everyone. For what it's worth, I've got an Amiga 500 with the
Commodore 512k RAM expansion board that fits in the bottom of the
case. In the past, I've managed to clear up the problem by physically
removing the board from the case, then reconnecting. I have no idea
why this works, but it has worked everytime. I did try the wait and
see attitude once, but apparently, the register never reset itself.
David Kuo
dkuo@atrp.mit.edu
----------
From: rich@inmet.inmet.com
Subject: internal clock problem fixed!
The internal clock on my A1000 was behaving funny for a while: the minutes
didn't increase, the seconds increase once in a while.
Anyway, I fixed the problem by replacing one of the 8520 chip. On the A1000,
I replaced the one (there are two) closer to the 68000.
Hope this information is useful for someone else.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
Subject: (,END) List of archiver file name extensions
Ending Use
---------------------------------------------------------
.zoo Zoo
.arc Arc
.zip Zip
.lzh LHarc
.sit Only available in "unsit" for amiga.
.Z Compress (Lempel-Ziv)
.C Compact (Huffman). Rather outdated.
.sh/.shr/.shar SHell ARchiver (SHAR) (or sksh)
.wrp Warp - Amiga Disk-archiver
.tar tar - stands for Tape archiver.
.sq Sq/Unsq. (forgot the proper name)
.bak Matt Dillon's HD->Flippy backup util.
.uue uudecode
.zuu uudecode and then zoo on the result
.z (small) pack/unpack
---------
From: tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy)
Subject: Re: Zoo for unix
UNIX Zoo was posted to comp.sources.unix, and is available from any
comp.sources.unix archive site, such as XANTH.CS.ODU.EDU or UUNET.UU.NET.
On xanth, it's also available as /pub/zoo-2.01/zoo-2.01.tar.Z
...tad
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
Subject: (,24) Can You Use A 2000 24 Hours A Day?
|>>Are there any problems with leaving an Amiga 2000 on 24 hours a day?
|
|>I've run my 2000 on a 24x7 basis for the last 3 or 4 months; during that time
|>I've powered the machine down maybe 3 times total. Of course, I do live in an
|>area where the power is exceptionally stable.
|
|For that matter, anyone know about the A1000 being left on 24hr/day???
The NAG (Northwest Amiga Group) BBS is run on an A1000. The board
runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So far as I
know, the only times the board goes down is when it gets a power glitch,
then it has to be restarted. Other than that, it works just fine.
I don't think that there's a UPS or power conditioner for the BBS.
However, such a thing would be a wise investment for anyone thinking
about running any computer continuously. Especially if the power is
noisy or unstable. (Like in the town I live in. The lights flicker
daily. Does terrible things to computers, vcrs, etc.)
--dds
Big Whorls Have Little Whorls | Dale D. Snell BIX: ddsnell
Which Feed On Their Velocity | UseNet: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM
And Little Whorls have Littler Whorls | CompuServe: 74756.666@compuserv.COM
And So On To Viscosity. | Disclaimer: My opinions, not Tek's.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
Subject: (,ARP) arp.library
ARP is the AmigaDos Replacement Project. It consists of
replacement files for most of the common AmigaDos commands (copy,
list, delete, etc.) along with a library file, namely arp.library. I
got my copy off of a local Amiga bulletin board.
The advantage of ARP is, as far as I can tell, three-fold:
(1) The replacement commands are smaller and therefore leave more free
room on your disk (I assume this was accomplished in part by utilizing a
library of common routines, viz. arp.library); (2) the commands are
slightly easier to use, such as being able to use "*" as a wildcard
(plus a few other goodies--there should be docs accompanying the other
files); and (3) a number of other programs (like VLT 4.226,
apparently) require that you have the arp.library present. There may
be other advantages to ARP, but these are the three that I am aware
of.
Richard Moster
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990
From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Subject: (,DF1) installing 2nd internal floppy
In article <495@auto-trol.UUCP> todhor@auto-trol.COM () writes:
>Well I'm just about through installing the Chinon 3.5 internal
>drive in my 2000
>...
>everything appears fine except for this: When I access either drive
>say to do a read or dir BOTH lights on both drives come on.
Two things need to be done:
1> set the drive select jumpers on the drives so that one is drive 0 and the
other is drive 1.
2> There is a jumper on the motherboard (I don't have the 2000 handbook with me
so I can't tell you the jumper number) Look in you handbook that came with the
2000 in the section that talks about jumpers. There is one that affects the
drive ID's. Something about it being closed so you can plug in an EXTERNAL
drive, and you have to open it if you are installing an INTERNAL drive.
A friend and I just installed an internal drive in his 2000 and that is what we
had to do. Until we set the jumper on the mother board both drives acted like
yours does. Now it works fine.
--
John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps
||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990
From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Subject: (,SCR) Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a
If you have access to comp.binaries.amiga on a Unix box, this little
script might help you. I whipped it up in a few minutes and it seems
to work on everything Tad has sent thru so far.
I call it Amyshar:
#!/bin/sh
cat $* | sed '1,/^sed/d'|sed '/^SHAR_EOF/,/^sed/d'|sed s/^X//| uudecode
--
Prerequisites: You must have the programs "sed" and "uudecode" (and unix so you
can execute the above unix script)
1. Put the script above in a file, name it Amyshar, make it executable.
2. Then go into your news reader and enter comp.binaries.amiga
3. Save all the parts to a program into one large file (in order of course)
4. At the shell prompt, type: Amyshar sharfile (where sharfile is the name
of the large file you saved to from the newsreader)
5. Ta Da! you now have a zoo file.
You don't have to worry about chopping the files at the 'cut here' lines, or
stripping off the headers. Amyshar ignores all that.
I hope this helps some people out there.
--
John Sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY)
sparks@corpane.UUCP <><><><><><><><><><><> D.I.S.K. ph:502/968-5401 thru -5406
Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!becker!graham!chris Sat Feb 3 01:22:16 EST 1990
From: chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham)
Subject: (,GATE) uucp<->compuserve gateway
> Plink, Bix and Genie are not reachable through Usenet. These are "free-
> standing" commercial computer services to which you have to subscribe
> and pay a connect-time charge in order to use. Plink and Bix can be
> dialed direct (Chicago and Boston respectively) or through different
> "packet switched national data networks", which is how most people
> reach them. Genie has its own national data network.
I don't know about BIX and pLink, but an Internet gateway to and from
Compuserve was documented in the July and September (1989) issues of
_Netmonth Magazine_, a popular magazine of BITnet.
According to the _Netmonth_ recipe, users of Compuserve can send Internet
bound mail by using the "EasyPlex" mail system and addressing the mail to:
>INTERNET:internetaddress
For example, I could probably by reached by the address:
>INTERNET:graham!chris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu
using gpu.utcs.toronto.edu as the Internet->uucp gateway.
Conversely, (and this is the part I've used with success) one may send
mail to Compuserve. Suppose you wanted to send mail to a person whose
Compuserve # is 123,456 . Then you would address your mail to:
123.456@compuserve.com
Failing this, the following will probably work:
123.456%compuserve.com@saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu
gatewaying it through the nearest Internet site.
BITnet : lsuc!graham!chris@utorgpu
uucp : ...!uunet!lsuc!graham!chris
FidoNet: Chris ON 1:250/716
[I've tried both ways, and it works great. -ed]
*************************************************************************w-edwinh@microsoft.UUCP (Edwin HOOGERBEETS) (05/02/90)
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: May 1, 1990
Changes this month:
Added: Random Gurus on the 500 may be caused by chip seating problems (,500)
Updated: Unix Script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a (,SCR)
Deleted: Questions [and answers] on AT Bridgeboard (,AT)
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still
available from the editor via email.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the index identifier in capitals that is listed on the left.
This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
,MOD How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings
Tad Guy <tadguy@cs.odu.edu>
,BIT How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@estinc.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
,MIN Minix for the Amiga ???
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
,TEX Where to get AmigaTeX
rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
,CS Commodore's customer support phone number
lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
,RXX ARexx: Where to find it?
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
,RF1 How to get multiple RADs
adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin)
,CLO How to fix "Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found" errors
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo)
,END Which file name extensions archivers use (how to extract them)
aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
,24 Can You Use An Amiga 24 Hours A Day?
dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
,ARP What is ARP?
moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
,DF1 If you need help installing a 2nd internal floppy
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
,SCR Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
,GATE uucp<->compuserve gateway
chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham)
,500 Random Gurus on the 500 may be caused by chip seating problems
rick@tmiuv0.uucp
Send questions, comments, submissions to:
Edwin
w-edwinh@microsoft or uunet!microsoft!w-edwinh
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: (,NET) Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Do not post
anything that you wouldn't say aloud in a large group of people. Have
fun via mail instead. These guidelines help to keep up the useful
information content of the newsgroups.
Newsgroups:
There are currently five official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software reviews and opinions. Please do not post
programs here.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sys.amiga.hardware - This newsgroup is the forum to discuss Amiga
related hardware and peripherals, such as hard drives, monitors,
add-in boards, Genloc, and such.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD in rn) in this
posting on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you must post a request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
More information:
The newsgroup mod.announce.newusers contains useful tips and
guidelines on reading and posting news to any news groups. Please
read the postings there before asking about news or mail specific
questions in comp.sys.amiga.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
*************************************************************************
From uunet!cs.odu.edu!tadguy Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Tad Guy <tadguy@cs.odu.edu>
Subject: (,MOD) How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings
1. How a submission is packed
Each comp.binaries.amiga submission is packaged using the Zoo archiver.
Zoo not only compresses the submission, but also checks the files for
corruption, and preserves the original directory structure and timestamps.
The Zoo archiver is available from most Amiga archive sites and BBS's.
Binary submissions and Zoo files contain 8-bit data, which cannot be
reliably transferred over USENET or by mail. The Zoo archive is thus
encoded down to 7-bits using the ``uuencode'' program. The ``uudecode''
program, required to reverse this encoding, is also available from many
Amiga archives (often under the name ``uucode'').
USENET has a conventional limit of 64k bytes per posting. While larger
postings often occur, they are also often mysteriously corrupted at some
point. Unfortunately, most of the uuencoded Zoo archives in
comp.binaries.amiga are larger than 64k bytes. In order to get each
posting to 64k or smaller, the single uuencoded Zoo archive is ``split''
into 64k pieces, which can later be concatenated back into the original
uuencoded Zoo archive. The UNIX ``cat'' and the AmigaDOS ``join''
commands are ideal for this.
Each part of the now-split uuencoded Zoo archive is then wrapped using
some simple UNIX commands in a form called a ``shell archive''. This
makes the postings easier to unpack on UNIX systems, and can be
unpacked on Amiga's using the UNSHAR or SH utilities, available from
some amiga BBS's.
At this point, a single submission has been Zoo'ed, uuencoded, split,
and each part shar'ed. This is what you find posted to comp.binaries.amiga.
2. Unpacking the postings
Before a submission can be used, it must be unpacked in the reverse
order it was packed. This is easily done on UNIX machines, and can be
done on Amigas with the appropriate utilities.
1. Save each part to a different file name of your choosing.
2. Remove the USENET headers (the first line of each file
should be ``#!/bin/sh''). This step can be skipped if you
have the ``unshar'' utility.
3. Run each file using ``sh'', or ``unshar''. This will
create a series of files ending in ``.zuuxx'' where ``xx''
is a number. Each of these files is part of the uuencoded
Zoo archive.
4. Concatenate these files into one file (typically ending in
``.zuu''). This is the whole uuencoded Zoo archive.
5. Decode the uuencoded Zoo archive using ``uudecode''. This
will generate the original Zoo archive.
6. Use Zoo to extract the files from the Zoo archive.
Typically, it's easiest to do steps 1-5 on a UNIX machine, although
utilities exist to do all those steps on an Amiga. Once you have a
Zoo archive, though, you will probably find it easiest to transfer the
archive to your Amiga and use Amiga Zoo to extract the archive there.
3. What do I need?
All these tools mentioned in this article are free for the taking if
you can find them:
. The Zoo archiver is available from almost all Amiga BBS's
and Amiga archives on the Internet.
. The uuencoding utilities are often already installed on UNIX
machines, and there is also at least one Amiga version,
which typically goes under the name of ``uucode''.
. Concatenating the parts of a submission is easily done
under UNIX with the ``cat'' command, or under AmigaDOS with
the ``join'' command.
. Finally, the Bourne Shell in UNIX (/bin/sh) can be used to
unshar the postings, and similar utilities exist for the
Amiga, notably ``UNSHAR'' and ``SH''.
4. How do I make a submission?
The role of the moderator of comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga
is to receive submissions, ensure they are not copyrighted (or if they
are, to ensure that permission is granted to redistribute them), and to
repackage the submission in the form described above.
Persons wanting to make submissions to the these groups do NOT need to
worry about following the above instructions (although doing so makes
my job easier and means the submission will get out faster) .
It is important to note that binary submissions must be encoded into
7-bits to insure it is received intact. This can be done using the
``uuencode'' utility described above, or with any number of similar
utilities (such as ``btoa'').
There are two ways to get your submission to the moderator:
. Post your submission to the appropriate newsgroup. If your
USENET software is properly configured, this will
automatically forward your submission to the moderator,
without your having to know the moderator's address. This
is probably the most intuitive method.
. Mail your submission to the moderator's address. This
requires that your know the moderator's address, but is the
only choice for persons at sites with improperly configured
USENET software.
If your submission is received by the moderator, you will get
notification back by mail (although network problems may cause your
submission or the acknowledgement to be delayed). If you don't get an
acknowledgement within a week, assume something has gone wrong. The
best course of action is to attempt to contact the moderator by email
(please don't send your submission again, instead hold onto it until
you and the moderator determine a reliable way for you to send your
submission).
Submissions to comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga may be mailed to:
amiga@cs.odu.edu
or amiga@xanth.cs.odu.edu (sites with obsolescent or plain broken
mailers may need to use this address)
or ...!uunet!xanth!amiga (sites with very obsolescent mailers
that only understand ``bang'' addresses
may need to use this address. Replace
``...'' with the bang-path necessary
to reach UUNET.)
Consult your system administrator if you have trouble sending mail to
these addresses.
Comments and suggestions are welcome. They should be addressed
to ``amiga-request'' (instead of ``amiga'') at the addresses above.
My thanks to Bob Page <page@eng.sun.com> and Patrick White
<patbob@sequent.sqnt.com> for the original documents I have blatantly
plagiarized in preparing this article...
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
Subject: (,BIT) How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan P. Crone distributes all amiga Usenet groups for North American
Bitnet sites.
.sys.amiga and .sys.amiga.tech arrive as daily digests of the messages
.binaries.amiga and .sources.amiga arrive more or less direct from
Bob Page
JpC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan P. Crone CRONEJP@UREGINA1.BITNET
Amiga-L@uregina1.bitnet List moderator.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: fnf@estinc.UUCP
Subject: (,FNF) How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and the appropriate fee as
follows:
1-9 disks $6 ea
10-49 disks $5 ea
50-99 disks $4 ea
100+ disks $3 ea
to
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage,
or $3 and no disks, to the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
SUBMISSIONS
-----------
For those wishing to submit material for possible inclusion in the library,
here are a few simple guidelines that will make my job of organizing the
material MUCH easier:
1. Don't submit bootable disks or disks with any other
sort of proprietary material included, since I then
have to go examine each file to decide if it is
distributable or not, and if not, what effect removing
it might have.
2. Organize the distribution in a manner similar to my
disks. I.E, place all files related to a particular
submission under a single directory on the disk. If
there is more than one submission per disk, it's ok to
to place each submission in it's own directory.
3. Try to write a simple entry for my "Contents" listing
that summarizes your submission. It should be about
3-10 lines, and include the current version number,
the version and disk number of the most recent version
(if any) that was last included in the library, whether
or not source is included, and an "Author" list.
4. Ensure that your submission will run correctly from
it's subdirectory and if necessary, supply a script
runnable from workbench (via c:IconX) that makes all
necessary assigns, copies fonts and libraries, etc.
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(estinc!fnf), rather than fishpond!fnf or mcdsun!fnf.
[Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188
mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.73.105) for fish 189-300
- ed]
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: (,PIC) Picture swap
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
From uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: cmcmanis@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Subject: (,BUY) a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: (,HAR) Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: (,HED) 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drives.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: (,MIN) Minix for the Amiga ???
Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an
excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an
official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested.
I am working on that one, however.
Andy Tanenbaum
From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers
Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We
hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around
AmigaMINIX.
For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX
like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by
Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by
Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the
Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga.
While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of
MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every
bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of
the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is
that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST)
format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100%
compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and
MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on
AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do
use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of-
day clock won't run properly of course!)
Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we
didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to
optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for
each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing
a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The
normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track-
cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically
allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected.
Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about
AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main
reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard
disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of
them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a
hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common
in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before
one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk.
To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX:
- AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so
it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your
Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have,
what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that
it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC.
- You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available
under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented.
- The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80-
track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.)
Up to four drives can be connected.
- The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro-
nics) port.
- The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides
limited access to the color registers.
Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC.
The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't
run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't
such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another
reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of
each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all
about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15
page scheduler, but getting all the details right.")
AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't
found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll
probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX.
-Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl)
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Subject: (,TEX) AmigaTeX
For a free demo disk and further information on AmigaTeX, please drop a
postcard with your name and address to Radical Eye Software, Box 2081,
Stanford, CA~~94309. This is *free* and will answer most questions.
-tom
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
Subject: (,CS) commodore's customer support phone number
The correct phone number for Customer Support
is (215) 436-4200. Use this number to inquire
about getting 1.3.2, or any other end user question.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Subject: (,RXX) ARexx: Where to find it?
>Okay, I've been seeing here lots and lots of stuff about ARexx.
ARexx is commercial, and list price is about $50. Do yourself a favour if you
buy it, and add another $50 (list) for WShell, which knows all about ARexx, and
makes ARexx scripts transparently callable as if they were binary executables.
I have seen both of these packages advertised in the $35 range from mail order
places. Both packages are written by, and available from:
[ed - Bill is also the author of conman, a nice console device replacement]
William S. Hawes
P.O. Box 308
Maynard, MA 01754
Phone: (617) 568-8695
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin)
Subject: (,RF1) Multiple RAD:'s
Here are directions that I wrote about a year ago for creating multiple
RAD drives. Be warned that all of these kludges probably won't work
(and probably won't be needed) under version 1.4.
Unfortunately, RAD's ramdrive.device is hard-coded as having the volume name
"RAMB0". One cannot create multiple RADs by simply changing the MountList.
To create multiple RAD devices:
READ ME FIRST:
Byte-offsets are counted starting from 0, the first byte of the file.
Both byte-offsets are for v1.0 of the ramdrive.device, created 6-Apr-88.
The letter 'X' is used below as a place-holder for a unique character to
differentiate the multiple RAD devices. If you are creating a first
duplicate RAD, I suggest you substitute '1'; if creating a second
duplicate RAD, substitute '2', etc.
1.
Edit devs:MountList and duplicate the original RAD: parameters.
Change the name of the duplicate; for example, from "RAD:" to "RADX:".
Change the "Device = ramdrive.device" line to "Device = ramdrivX.device"
Only the original RAD should be allowed to autoboot. Add the following
line to the new entry to keep it from autobooting:
BootPri = -129
2.
Copy devs:ramdrive.device to devs:ramdrivX.device
File-zap devs:ramdrivX.device and change "ramdrive.device" to
"ramdrivX.device" by changing byte 171 (hex) from 'e' to 'X'.
Also change "RAMB0" to "RAMBX" by changing byte 5A1 (hex) from '0' to 'X'.
3.
Mount RADX:.
You can do anything to this new RAD that you could to the original one.
Things like changing the HighCyl to get a different size, etc.
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore Applications and Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!cbmcats!adam
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Subject: (,CLO) Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found
| I ctrl-A-A'ed the beast and it came up complaining about its clock. I
| tried "setclock reset" but it, too, just complained about "clock not
| found". And there I sit.
This happened to me earlier. I "fixed" it by doing nothing. About the
second or third day I booted, the problem simply disappeared.
As I understand it, a register in the clock is getting trashed. The normal
startup then can't find a (proper) clock. The solution is to get the
registers in the clock back the way they should be. Between version 1.2
and 1.3 of the "setclock reset" commands, one works and one doesn't. (I
believe 1.2 works.(?)) Another possible fix is the program which claims
to "cure" the fabled "clock virus". Apparently it just resets the registers
in the clock. (Available at an anti-viral archive site near you.)
Jim Wright
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
----------
From: dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo)
Subject: lost clock advice...
I'm not sure that the advice given about the lost clock problem will
work for everyone. For what it's worth, I've got an Amiga 500 with the
Commodore 512k RAM expansion board that fits in the bottom of the
case. In the past, I've managed to clear up the problem by physically
removing the board from the case, then reconnecting. I have no idea
why this works, but it has worked everytime. I did try the wait and
see attitude once, but apparently, the register never reset itself.
David Kuo
dkuo@atrp.mit.edu
----------
From: rich@inmet.inmet.com
Subject: internal clock problem fixed!
The internal clock on my A1000 was behaving funny for a while: the minutes
didn't increase, the seconds increase once in a while.
Anyway, I fixed the problem by replacing one of the 8520 chip. On the A1000,
I replaced the one (there are two) closer to the 68000.
Hope this information is useful for someone else.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
Subject: (,END) List of archiver file name extensions
Ending Use
---------------------------------------------------------
.zoo Zoo
.arc Arc
.zip Zip
.lzh LHarc
.sit Only available in "unsit" for amiga.
.Z Compress (Lempel-Ziv)
.C Compact (Huffman). Rather outdated.
.sh/.shr/.shar SHell ARchiver (SHAR) (or sksh)
.wrp Warp - Amiga Disk-archiver
.tar tar - stands for Tape archiver.
.sq Sq/Unsq. (forgot the proper name)
.bak Matt Dillon's HD->Flippy backup util.
.uue uudecode
.zuu uudecode and then zoo on the result
.z (small) pack/unpack
---------
From: tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy)
Subject: Re: Zoo for unix
UNIX Zoo was posted to comp.sources.unix, and is available from any
comp.sources.unix archive site, such as XANTH.CS.ODU.EDU or UUNET.UU.NET.
On xanth, it's also available as /pub/zoo-2.01/zoo-2.01.tar.Z
...tad
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
Subject: (,24) Can You Use A 2000 24 Hours A Day?
|>>Are there any problems with leaving an Amiga 2000 on 24 hours a day?
|
|>I've run my 2000 on a 24x7 basis for the last 3 or 4 months; during that time
|>I've powered the machine down maybe 3 times total. Of course, I do live in an
|>area where the power is exceptionally stable.
|
|For that matter, anyone know about the A1000 being left on 24hr/day???
The NAG (Northwest Amiga Group) BBS is run on an A1000. The board
runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So far as I
know, the only times the board goes down is when it gets a power glitch,
then it has to be restarted. Other than that, it works just fine.
I don't think that there's a UPS or power conditioner for the BBS.
However, such a thing would be a wise investment for anyone thinking
about running any computer continuously. Especially if the power is
noisy or unstable. (Like in the town I live in. The lights flicker
daily. Does terrible things to computers, vcrs, etc.)
--dds
Big Whorls Have Little Whorls | Dale D. Snell BIX: ddsnell
Which Feed On Their Velocity | UseNet: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM
And Little Whorls have Littler Whorls | CompuServe: 74756.666@compuserv.COM
And So On To Viscosity. | Disclaimer: My opinions, not Tek's.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
Subject: (,ARP) arp.library
ARP is the AmigaDos Replacement Project. It consists of
replacement files for most of the common AmigaDos commands (copy,
list, delete, etc.) along with a library file, namely arp.library. I
got my copy off of a local Amiga bulletin board.
The advantage of ARP is, as far as I can tell, three-fold:
(1) The replacement commands are smaller and therefore leave more free
room on your disk (I assume this was accomplished in part by utilizing a
library of common routines, viz. arp.library); (2) the commands are
slightly easier to use, such as being able to use "*" as a wildcard
(plus a few other goodies--there should be docs accompanying the other
files); and (3) a number of other programs (like VLT 4.226,
apparently) require that you have the arp.library present. There may
be other advantages to ARP, but these are the three that I am aware
of.
Richard Moster
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990
From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Subject: (,DF1) installing 2nd internal floppy
In article <495@auto-trol.UUCP> todhor@auto-trol.COM () writes:
>Well I'm just about through installing the Chinon 3.5 internal
>drive in my 2000
>...
>everything appears fine except for this: When I access either drive
>say to do a read or dir BOTH lights on both drives come on.
Two things need to be done:
1> set the drive select jumpers on the drives so that one is drive 0 and the
other is drive 1.
2> There is a jumper on the motherboard (I don't have the 2000 handbook with me
so I can't tell you the jumper number) Look in you handbook that came with the
2000 in the section that talks about jumpers. There is one that affects the
drive ID's. Something about it being closed so you can plug in an EXTERNAL
drive, and you have to open it if you are installing an INTERNAL drive.
A friend and I just installed an internal drive in his 2000 and that is what we
had to do. Until we set the jumper on the mother board both drives acted like
yours does. Now it works fine.
--
John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps
||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990
From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Subject: (,SCR) Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a
If you have access to comp.binaries.amiga on a Unix box, this little
script might help you. I whipped it up in a few minutes and it seems
to work on everything Tad has sent thru so far.
I call it Amyshar:
#!/bin/sh
cat $* | sed '1,/^sed/d'|sed '/^SHAR_EOF/,/^sed/d'|sed s/^X//| uudecode
--
Prerequisites: You must have the programs "sed" and "uudecode" (and unix so you
can execute the above unix script)
1. Put the script above in a file, name it Amyshar, make it executable.
2. Then go into your news reader and enter comp.binaries.amiga
3. Save all the parts to a program into one large file (in order of course)
4. At the shell prompt, type: Amyshar sharfile (where sharfile is the name
of the large file you saved to from the newsreader)
5. Ta Da! you now have a zoo file.
You don't have to worry about chopping the files at the 'cut here' lines, or
stripping off the headers. Amyshar ignores all that.
For use with comp.sources.amiga files:
Amyshar will not separate the source files out of the shar file, but it will
look through the shar file and extract any uuencoded files that are sometimes
packages with c.s.a. source postings.
What you need to do is save the c.s.a postings into files on your system
then run them through amyshar like above, and if there are any uuencoded
files contained withing the shar file Amyshar will extract them and convert
them to binary.
Once this is done, you need to archive the binary files with zoo
(or a similar archiver) before downloading them to your Amiga.
This prevents problems with some transfer protocols (such as Xmodem) padding
the files with nulls, and therefore 'corrupting' the file after its downloaded.
Unzoo on your Amiga and enjoy.
I hope this helps some people out there.
--
John Sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY)
sparks@corpane.UUCP <><><><><><><><><><><> D.I.S.K. ph:502/968-5401 thru -5406
Help fight continental drift.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!becker!graham!chris Sat Feb 3 01:22:16 EST 1990
From: chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham)
Subject: (,GATE) uucp<->compuserve gateway
> Plink, Bix and Genie are not reachable through Usenet. These are "free-
> standing" commercial computer services to which you have to subscribe
> and pay a connect-time charge in order to use. Plink and Bix can be
> dialed direct (Chicago and Boston respectively) or through different
> "packet switched national data networks", which is how most people
> reach them. Genie has its own national data network.
I don't know about BIX and pLink, but an Internet gateway to and from
Compuserve was documented in the July and September (1989) issues of
_Netmonth Magazine_, a popular magazine of BITnet.
According to the _Netmonth_ recipe, users of Compuserve can send Internet
bound mail by using the "EasyPlex" mail system and addressing the mail to:
>INTERNET:internetaddress
For example, I could probably by reached by the address:
>INTERNET:graham!chris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu
using gpu.utcs.toronto.edu as the Internet->uucp gateway.
Conversely, (and this is the part I've used with success) one may send
mail to Compuserve. Suppose you wanted to send mail to a person whose
Compuserve # is 123,456 . Then you would address your mail to:
123.456@compuserve.com
Failing this, the following will probably work:
123.456%compuserve.com@saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu
gatewaying it through the nearest Internet site.
BITnet : lsuc!graham!chris@utorgpu
uucp : ...!uunet!lsuc!graham!chris
FidoNet: Chris ON 1:250/716
[I've tried both directions, and it works great. -ed]
*************************************************************************
From uunet!zardoz.cpd.com!tmiuv0!rick Thu Apr 26 17:04:01 PDT 1990
From: rick@tmiuv0.uucp
Subject: (,500) Random Gurus on the 500 may be caused by chip seating problems
>>Some of the programs that give me the Guru are: JRbeep (NOT JRcomm),
>>DJclock, and MultiPlot. I don't get locked up if I run noclick v3.6 and
>>sometimes if I start a term program (Handshake etc) or even try to save
>>or retrieve a file with CED Pro!
>I'm having very similar problems with my 500 and a Supra SCSI interface
>with 2 megs of RAM installed.
This sounds like the infamous A500 "Loose Chip Phenomenom". Try opening
up the 500 and reseating all of the chips that are socketed. The A500 is
well known to have loose chips. BE CAREFUL! Watch out for static
electricity, and this may void your warranty. THOU HAST BEEN WARNEDST!
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
/ [- O] Rick Stevens (All opinions are mine. Everyone ignores them anyway.) \
| ? +--------------------------------------------------------------------|
| V | uunet!zardoz!tmiuv0!rick (<-- Work (ugh!)) |
|--------+ uunet!zardoz!xyclone!sysop (<-- Home Unix (better!)) |
| uunet!perigrine!ccicpg!conexch!amoeba2!rps2 (<-- Home Amiga (Best!!) |
\ 75006.1355@compuserve.com (CIS: 75006,1355) (<-- CI$) /
`-------------------------------------------------------------------------'
*************************************************************************w-edwinh@microsoft.UUCP (Edwin HOOGERBEETS) (06/02/90)
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: June 1, 1990
Changes this month:
Added: Recent AmigaOS 2.0/Amiga 3000 Questions (,2)
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still
available from the editor via email.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the index identifier in capitals that is listed on the left.
This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
,MOD How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings
Tad Guy <tadguy@cs.odu.edu>
,BIT How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@estinc.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
,MIN Minix for the Amiga ???
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
,TEX Where to get AmigaTeX
rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
,CS Commodore's customer support phone number
lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
,RXX ARexx: Where to find it?
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
,RF1 How to get multiple RADs
adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin)
,CLO How to fix "Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found" errors
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo)
,END Which file name extensions archivers use (how to extract them)
aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
,24 Can You Use An Amiga 24 Hours A Day?
dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
,ARP What is ARP?
moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
,DF1 If you need help installing a 2nd internal floppy
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
,SCR Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
,GATE uucp<->compuserve gateway
chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham)
,500 Random Gurus on the 500 may be caused by chip seating problems
rick@tmiuv0.uucp
,2 Recent AmigaOS 2.0/Amiga 3000 Questions
peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna)
Send questions, comments, submissions to:
Edwin
w-edwinh@microsoft or uunet!microsoft!w-edwinh
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: (,NET) Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Do not post
anything that you wouldn't say aloud in a large group of people. Have
fun via mail instead. These guidelines help to keep up the useful
information content of the newsgroups.
Newsgroups:
There are currently five official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software reviews and opinions. Please do not post
programs here.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sys.amiga.hardware - This newsgroup is the forum to discuss Amiga
related hardware and peripherals, such as hard drives, monitors,
add-in boards, Genloc, and such.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD in rn) in this
posting on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you must post a request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
More information:
The newsgroup mod.announce.newusers contains useful tips and
guidelines on reading and posting news to any news groups. Please
read the postings there before asking about news or mail specific
questions in comp.sys.amiga.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
*************************************************************************
From uunet!cs.odu.edu!tadguy Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Tad Guy <tadguy@cs.odu.edu>
Subject: (,MOD) How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings
1. How a submission is packed
Each comp.binaries.amiga submission is packaged using the Zoo archiver.
Zoo not only compresses the submission, but also checks the files for
corruption, and preserves the original directory structure and timestamps.
The Zoo archiver is available from most Amiga archive sites and BBS's.
Binary submissions and Zoo files contain 8-bit data, which cannot be
reliably transferred over USENET or by mail. The Zoo archive is thus
encoded down to 7-bits using the ``uuencode'' program. The ``uudecode''
program, required to reverse this encoding, is also available from many
Amiga archives (often under the name ``uucode'').
USENET has a conventional limit of 64k bytes per posting. While larger
postings often occur, they are also often mysteriously corrupted at some
point. Unfortunately, most of the uuencoded Zoo archives in
comp.binaries.amiga are larger than 64k bytes. In order to get each
posting to 64k or smaller, the single uuencoded Zoo archive is ``split''
into 64k pieces, which can later be concatenated back into the original
uuencoded Zoo archive. The UNIX ``cat'' and the AmigaDOS ``join''
commands are ideal for this.
Each part of the now-split uuencoded Zoo archive is then wrapped using
some simple UNIX commands in a form called a ``shell archive''. This
makes the postings easier to unpack on UNIX systems, and can be
unpacked on Amiga's using the UNSHAR or SH utilities, available from
some amiga BBS's.
At this point, a single submission has been Zoo'ed, uuencoded, split,
and each part shar'ed. This is what you find posted to comp.binaries.amiga.
2. Unpacking the postings
Before a submission can be used, it must be unpacked in the reverse
order it was packed. This is easily done on UNIX machines, and can be
done on Amigas with the appropriate utilities.
1. Save each part to a different file name of your choosing.
2. Remove the USENET headers (the first line of each file
should be ``#!/bin/sh''). This step can be skipped if you
have the ``unshar'' utility.
3. Run each file using ``sh'', or ``unshar''. This will
create a series of files ending in ``.zuuxx'' where ``xx''
is a number. Each of these files is part of the uuencoded
Zoo archive.
4. Concatenate these files into one file (typically ending in
``.zuu''). This is the whole uuencoded Zoo archive.
5. Decode the uuencoded Zoo archive using ``uudecode''. This
will generate the original Zoo archive.
6. Use Zoo to extract the files from the Zoo archive.
Typically, it's easiest to do steps 1-5 on a UNIX machine, although
utilities exist to do all those steps on an Amiga. Once you have a
Zoo archive, though, you will probably find it easiest to transfer the
archive to your Amiga and use Amiga Zoo to extract the archive there.
3. What do I need?
All these tools mentioned in this article are free for the taking if
you can find them:
. The Zoo archiver is available from almost all Amiga BBS's
and Amiga archives on the Internet.
. The uuencoding utilities are often already installed on UNIX
machines, and there is also at least one Amiga version,
which typically goes under the name of ``uucode''.
. Concatenating the parts of a submission is easily done
under UNIX with the ``cat'' command, or under AmigaDOS with
the ``join'' command.
. Finally, the Bourne Shell in UNIX (/bin/sh) can be used to
unshar the postings, and similar utilities exist for the
Amiga, notably ``UNSHAR'' and ``SH''.
4. How do I make a submission?
The role of the moderator of comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga
is to receive submissions, ensure they are not copyrighted (or if they
are, to ensure that permission is granted to redistribute them), and to
repackage the submission in the form described above.
Persons wanting to make submissions to the these groups do NOT need to
worry about following the above instructions (although doing so makes
my job easier and means the submission will get out faster) .
It is important to note that binary submissions must be encoded into
7-bits to insure it is received intact. This can be done using the
``uuencode'' utility described above, or with any number of similar
utilities (such as ``btoa'').
There are two ways to get your submission to the moderator:
. Post your submission to the appropriate newsgroup. If your
USENET software is properly configured, this will
automatically forward your submission to the moderator,
without your having to know the moderator's address. This
is probably the most intuitive method.
. Mail your submission to the moderator's address. This
requires that your know the moderator's address, but is the
only choice for persons at sites with improperly configured
USENET software.
If your submission is received by the moderator, you will get
notification back by mail (although network problems may cause your
submission or the acknowledgement to be delayed). If you don't get an
acknowledgement within a week, assume something has gone wrong. The
best course of action is to attempt to contact the moderator by email
(please don't send your submission again, instead hold onto it until
you and the moderator determine a reliable way for you to send your
submission).
Submissions to comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga may be mailed to:
amiga@cs.odu.edu
or amiga@xanth.cs.odu.edu (sites with obsolescent or plain broken
mailers may need to use this address)
or ...!uunet!xanth!amiga (sites with very obsolescent mailers
that only understand ``bang'' addresses
may need to use this address. Replace
``...'' with the bang-path necessary
to reach UUNET.)
Consult your system administrator if you have trouble sending mail to
these addresses.
Comments and suggestions are welcome. They should be addressed
to ``amiga-request'' (instead of ``amiga'') at the addresses above.
My thanks to Bob Page <page@eng.sun.com> and Patrick White
<patbob@sequent.sqnt.com> for the original documents I have blatantly
plagiarized in preparing this article...
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
Subject: (,BIT) How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan P. Crone distributes all amiga Usenet groups for North American
Bitnet sites.
.sys.amiga and .sys.amiga.tech arrive as daily digests of the messages
.binaries.amiga and .sources.amiga arrive more or less direct from
Bob Page
JpC
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan P. Crone CRONEJP@UREGINA1.BITNET
Amiga-L@uregina1.bitnet List moderator.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: fnf@estinc.UUCP
Subject: (,FNF) How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and the appropriate fee as
follows:
1-9 disks $6 ea
10-49 disks $5 ea
50-99 disks $4 ea
100+ disks $3 ea
to
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage,
or $3 and no disks, to the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
SUBMISSIONS
-----------
For those wishing to submit material for possible inclusion in the library,
here are a few simple guidelines that will make my job of organizing the
material MUCH easier:
1. Don't submit bootable disks or disks with any other
sort of proprietary material included, since I then
have to go examine each file to decide if it is
distributable or not, and if not, what effect removing
it might have.
2. Organize the distribution in a manner similar to my
disks. I.E, place all files related to a particular
submission under a single directory on the disk. If
there is more than one submission per disk, it's ok to
to place each submission in it's own directory.
3. Try to write a simple entry for my "Contents" listing
that summarizes your submission. It should be about
3-10 lines, and include the current version number,
the version and disk number of the most recent version
(if any) that was last included in the library, whether
or not source is included, and an "Author" list.
4. Ensure that your submission will run correctly from
it's subdirectory and if necessary, supply a script
runnable from workbench (via c:IconX) that makes all
necessary assigns, copies fonts and libraries, etc.
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(estinc!fnf), rather than fishpond!fnf or mcdsun!fnf.
[Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188
mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.73.105) for fish 189-300
- ed]
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: (,PIC) Picture swap
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
From uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: cmcmanis@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Subject: (,BUY) a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: (,HAR) Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: (,HED) 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drives.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: (,MIN) Minix for the Amiga ???
Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an
excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an
official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested.
I am working on that one, however.
Andy Tanenbaum
From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers
Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We
hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around
AmigaMINIX.
For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX
like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by
Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by
Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the
Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga.
While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of
MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every
bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of
the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is
that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST)
format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100%
compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and
MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on
AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do
use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of-
day clock won't run properly of course!)
Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we
didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to
optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for
each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing
a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The
normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track-
cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically
allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected.
Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about
AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main
reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard
disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of
them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a
hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common
in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before
one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk.
To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX:
- AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so
it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your
Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have,
what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that
it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC.
- You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available
under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented.
- The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80-
track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.)
Up to four drives can be connected.
- The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro-
nics) port.
- The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides
limited access to the color registers.
Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC.
The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't
run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't
such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another
reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of
each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all
about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15
page scheduler, but getting all the details right.")
AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't
found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll
probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX.
-Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl)
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Subject: (,TEX) AmigaTeX
For a free demo disk and further information on AmigaTeX, please drop a
postcard with your name and address to Radical Eye Software, Box 2081,
Stanford, CA~~94309. This is *free* and will answer most questions.
-tom
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
Subject: (,CS) commodore's customer support phone number
The correct phone number for Customer Support
is (215) 436-4200. Use this number to inquire
about getting 1.3.2, or any other end user question.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Subject: (,RXX) ARexx: Where to find it?
>Okay, I've been seeing here lots and lots of stuff about ARexx.
ARexx is commercial, and list price is about $50. Do yourself a favour if you
buy it, and add another $50 (list) for WShell, which knows all about ARexx, and
makes ARexx scripts transparently callable as if they were binary executables.
I have seen both of these packages advertised in the $35 range from mail order
places. Both packages are written by, and available from:
[ed - Bill is also the author of conman, a nice console device replacement]
William S. Hawes
P.O. Box 308
Maynard, MA 01754
Phone: (617) 568-8695
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin)
Subject: (,RF1) Multiple RAD:'s
Here are directions that I wrote about a year ago for creating multiple
RAD drives. Be warned that all of these kludges probably won't work
(and probably won't be needed) under version 1.4.
Unfortunately, RAD's ramdrive.device is hard-coded as having the volume name
"RAMB0". One cannot create multiple RADs by simply changing the MountList.
To create multiple RAD devices:
READ ME FIRST:
Byte-offsets are counted starting from 0, the first byte of the file.
Both byte-offsets are for v1.0 of the ramdrive.device, created 6-Apr-88.
The letter 'X' is used below as a place-holder for a unique character to
differentiate the multiple RAD devices. If you are creating a first
duplicate RAD, I suggest you substitute '1'; if creating a second
duplicate RAD, substitute '2', etc.
1.
Edit devs:MountList and duplicate the original RAD: parameters.
Change the name of the duplicate; for example, from "RAD:" to "RADX:".
Change the "Device = ramdrive.device" line to "Device = ramdrivX.device"
Only the original RAD should be allowed to autoboot. Add the following
line to the new entry to keep it from autobooting:
BootPri = -129
2.
Copy devs:ramdrive.device to devs:ramdrivX.device
File-zap devs:ramdrivX.device and change "ramdrive.device" to
"ramdrivX.device" by changing byte 171 (hex) from 'e' to 'X'.
Also change "RAMB0" to "RAMBX" by changing byte 5A1 (hex) from '0' to 'X'.
3.
Mount RADX:.
You can do anything to this new RAD that you could to the original one.
Things like changing the HighCyl to get a different size, etc.
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore Applications and Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!cbmcats!adam
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Subject: (,CLO) Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found
| I ctrl-A-A'ed the beast and it came up complaining about its clock. I
| tried "setclock reset" but it, too, just complained about "clock not
| found". And there I sit.
This happened to me earlier. I "fixed" it by doing nothing. About the
second or third day I booted, the problem simply disappeared.
As I understand it, a register in the clock is getting trashed. The normal
startup then can't find a (proper) clock. The solution is to get the
registers in the clock back the way they should be. Between version 1.2
and 1.3 of the "setclock reset" commands, one works and one doesn't. (I
believe 1.2 works.(?)) Another possible fix is the program which claims
to "cure" the fabled "clock virus". Apparently it just resets the registers
in the clock. (Available at an anti-viral archive site near you.)
Jim Wright
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
----------
From: dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo)
Subject: lost clock advice...
I'm not sure that the advice given about the lost clock problem will
work for everyone. For what it's worth, I've got an Amiga 500 with the
Commodore 512k RAM expansion board that fits in the bottom of the
case. In the past, I've managed to clear up the problem by physically
removing the board from the case, then reconnecting. I have no idea
why this works, but it has worked everytime. I did try the wait and
see attitude once, but apparently, the register never reset itself.
David Kuo
dkuo@atrp.mit.edu
----------
From: rich@inmet.inmet.com
Subject: internal clock problem fixed!
The internal clock on my A1000 was behaving funny for a while: the minutes
didn't increase, the seconds increase once in a while.
Anyway, I fixed the problem by replacing one of the 8520 chip. On the A1000,
I replaced the one (there are two) closer to the 68000.
Hope this information is useful for someone else.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
Subject: (,END) List of archiver file name extensions
Ending Use
---------------------------------------------------------
.zoo Zoo
.arc Arc
.zip Zip
.lzh LHarc
.sit Only available in "unsit" for amiga.
.Z Compress (Lempel-Ziv)
.C Compact (Huffman). Rather outdated.
.sh/.shr/.shar SHell ARchiver (SHAR) (or sksh)
.wrp Warp - Amiga Disk-archiver
.tar tar - stands for Tape archiver.
.sq Sq/Unsq. (forgot the proper name)
.bak Matt Dillon's HD->Flippy backup util.
.uue uudecode
.zuu uudecode and then zoo on the result
.z (small) pack/unpack
---------
From: tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy)
Subject: Re: Zoo for unix
UNIX Zoo was posted to comp.sources.unix, and is available from any
comp.sources.unix archive site, such as XANTH.CS.ODU.EDU or UUNET.UU.NET.
On xanth, it's also available as /pub/zoo-2.01/zoo-2.01.tar.Z
...tad
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
Subject: (,24) Can You Use A 2000 24 Hours A Day?
|>>Are there any problems with leaving an Amiga 2000 on 24 hours a day?
|
|>I've run my 2000 on a 24x7 basis for the last 3 or 4 months; during that time
|>I've powered the machine down maybe 3 times total. Of course, I do live in an
|>area where the power is exceptionally stable.
|
|For that matter, anyone know about the A1000 being left on 24hr/day???
The NAG (Northwest Amiga Group) BBS is run on an A1000. The board
runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So far as I
know, the only times the board goes down is when it gets a power glitch,
then it has to be restarted. Other than that, it works just fine.
I don't think that there's a UPS or power conditioner for the BBS.
However, such a thing would be a wise investment for anyone thinking
about running any computer continuously. Especially if the power is
noisy or unstable. (Like in the town I live in. The lights flicker
daily. Does terrible things to computers, vcrs, etc.)
--dds
Big Whorls Have Little Whorls | Dale D. Snell BIX: ddsnell
Which Feed On Their Velocity | UseNet: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM
And Little Whorls have Littler Whorls | CompuServe: 74756.666@compuserv.COM
And So On To Viscosity. | Disclaimer: My opinions, not Tek's.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
Subject: (,ARP) arp.library
ARP is the AmigaDos Replacement Project. It consists of
replacement files for most of the common AmigaDos commands (copy,
list, delete, etc.) along with a library file, namely arp.library. I
got my copy off of a local Amiga bulletin board.
The advantage of ARP is, as far as I can tell, three-fold:
(1) The replacement commands are smaller and therefore leave more free
room on your disk (I assume this was accomplished in part by utilizing a
library of common routines, viz. arp.library); (2) the commands are
slightly easier to use, such as being able to use "*" as a wildcard
(plus a few other goodies--there should be docs accompanying the other
files); and (3) a number of other programs (like VLT 4.226,
apparently) require that you have the arp.library present. There may
be other advantages to ARP, but these are the three that I am aware
of.
Richard Moster
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990
From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Subject: (,DF1) installing 2nd internal floppy
In article <495@auto-trol.UUCP> todhor@auto-trol.COM () writes:
>Well I'm just about through installing the Chinon 3.5 internal
>drive in my 2000
>...
>everything appears fine except for this: When I access either drive
>say to do a read or dir BOTH lights on both drives come on.
Two things need to be done:
1> set the drive select jumpers on the drives so that one is drive 0 and the
other is drive 1.
2> There is a jumper on the motherboard (I don't have the 2000 handbook with me
so I can't tell you the jumper number) Look in you handbook that came with the
2000 in the section that talks about jumpers. There is one that affects the
drive ID's. Something about it being closed so you can plug in an EXTERNAL
drive, and you have to open it if you are installing an INTERNAL drive.
A friend and I just installed an internal drive in his 2000 and that is what we
had to do. Until we set the jumper on the mother board both drives acted like
yours does. Now it works fine.
--
John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps
||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990
From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Subject: (,SCR) Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a
If you have access to comp.binaries.amiga on a Unix box, this little
script might help you. I whipped it up in a few minutes and it seems
to work on everything Tad has sent thru so far.
I call it Amyshar:
#!/bin/sh
cat $* | sed '1,/^sed/d'|sed '/^SHAR_EOF/,/^sed/d'|sed s/^X//| uudecode
--
Prerequisites: You must have the programs "sed" and "uudecode" (and unix so you
can execute the above unix script)
1. Put the script above in a file, name it Amyshar, make it executable.
2. Then go into your news reader and enter comp.binaries.amiga
3. Save all the parts to a program into one large file (in order of course)
4. At the shell prompt, type: Amyshar sharfile (where sharfile is the name
of the large file you saved to from the newsreader)
5. Ta Da! you now have a zoo file.
You don't have to worry about chopping the files at the 'cut here' lines, or
stripping off the headers. Amyshar ignores all that.
For use with comp.sources.amiga files:
Amyshar will not separate the source files out of the shar file, but it will
look through the shar file and extract any uuencoded files that are sometimes
packages with c.s.a. source postings.
What you need to do is save the c.s.a postings into files on your system
then run them through amyshar like above, and if there are any uuencoded
files contained withing the shar file Amyshar will extract them and convert
them to binary.
Once this is done, you need to archive the binary files with zoo
(or a similar archiver) before downloading them to your Amiga.
This prevents problems with some transfer protocols (such as Xmodem) padding
the files with nulls, and therefore 'corrupting' the file after its downloaded.
Unzoo on your Amiga and enjoy.
I hope this helps some people out there.
--
John Sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY)
sparks@corpane.UUCP <><><><><><><><><><><> D.I.S.K. ph:502/968-5401 thru -5406
Help fight continental drift.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!becker!graham!chris Sat Feb 3 01:22:16 EST 1990
From: chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham)
Subject: (,GATE) uucp<->compuserve gateway
> Plink, Bix and Genie are not reachable through Usenet. These are "free-
> standing" commercial computer services to which you have to subscribe
> and pay a connect-time charge in order to use. Plink and Bix can be
> dialed direct (Chicago and Boston respectively) or through different
> "packet switched national data networks", which is how most people
> reach them. Genie has its own national data network.
I don't know about BIX and pLink, but an Internet gateway to and from
Compuserve was documented in the July and September (1989) issues of
_Netmonth Magazine_, a popular magazine of BITnet.
According to the _Netmonth_ recipe, users of Compuserve can send Internet
bound mail by using the "EasyPlex" mail system and addressing the mail to:
>INTERNET:internetaddress
For example, I could probably by reached by the address:
>INTERNET:graham!chris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu
using gpu.utcs.toronto.edu as the Internet->uucp gateway.
Conversely, (and this is the part I've used with success) one may send
mail to Compuserve. Suppose you wanted to send mail to a person whose
Compuserve # is 123,456 . Then you would address your mail to:
123.456@compuserve.com
Failing this, the following will probably work:
123.456%compuserve.com@saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu
gatewaying it through the nearest Internet site.
BITnet : lsuc!graham!chris@utorgpu
uucp : ...!uunet!lsuc!graham!chris
FidoNet: Chris ON 1:250/716
[I've tried both directions, and it works great. -ed]
*************************************************************************
From uunet!zardoz.cpd.com!tmiuv0!rick Thu Apr 26 17:04:01 PDT 1990
From: rick@tmiuv0.uucp
Subject: (,500) Random Gurus on the 500 may be caused by chip seating problems
>>Some of the programs that give me the Guru are: JRbeep (NOT JRcomm),
>>DJclock, and MultiPlot. I don't get locked up if I run noclick v3.6 and
>>sometimes if I start a term program (Handshake etc) or even try to save
>>or retrieve a file with CED Pro!
>I'm having very similar problems with my 500 and a Supra SCSI interface
>with 2 megs of RAM installed.
This sounds like the infamous A500 "Loose Chip Phenomenom". Try opening
up the 500 and reseating all of the chips that are socketed. The A500 is
well known to have loose chips. BE CAREFUL! Watch out for static
electricity, and this may void your warranty. THOU HAST BEEN WARNEDST!
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
/ [- O] Rick Stevens (All opinions are mine. Everyone ignores them anyway.) \
| ? +--------------------------------------------------------------------|
| V | uunet!zardoz!tmiuv0!rick (<-- Work (ugh!)) |
|--------+ uunet!zardoz!xyclone!sysop (<-- Home Unix (better!)) |
| uunet!perigrine!ccicpg!conexch!amoeba2!rps2 (<-- Home Amiga (Best!!) |
\ 75006.1355@compuserve.com (CIS: 75006,1355) (<-- CI$) /
`-------------------------------------------------------------------------'
*************************************************************************
From uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!rutgers!cbmvax!peter Thu May 10 10:38:35 PDT 1990
From: peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna)
Subject: (,2) Recent AmigaOS 2.0/Amiga 3000 Questions
Workbench 2.0 does not have any specific requirements other than the
future 2.0 Enhancer ROMs and disks (and manuals, I guess). Ken Farinsky
over in CATS stated so quite emphatically, but allow me to reiterate:
2.0 does not require a hard drive, 1 MB of chip, Super Agnus, Super Denise,
etc. Of course, your system will benefit from any of these, just as it
does under 1.3. 2.0 is fairly smart about figuring out what you have
installed, and for example won't allow you to open screen modes you
can't support for lack of hardware.
Super Denise provides a single non-interlaced 640 x 480 mode called
Productivity. This requires Super Denise (hence also Super Agnus), and
a VGA or multiscanning monitor. The Workbench screen can easily be
put into this mode, and windows opening on the Workbench screen will
benefit immediately. Programs opening custom screens need to be updated
(though it is simple for the programmer) in order to open their own
productivity screens. This mode is of special interest to those who
do not have a de-interlacer in their computer which removes flicker from
all the familiar interlaced modes. Productivity mode can have 2 or 4
colors from a palette of 64.
Super Denise also provides Super-Hires modes that give 1280 by
200/400 (NTSC) or 256/512 (PAL). The higher number in each case is
an interlaced mode (that is not de-interlaced by the A3000, BTW). These
modes are compatible with standard NTSC and PAL output, including 1084's.
They also have the 4/64 color arrangement.
The A3000 de-interlacer is on the motherboard. It is not in the 1950
monitor, which is just a (very nice) multiscanning monitor. One extra
feature of the 1950 is that you can set it so that overscanned pictures
do indeed cover the full face of the monitor, which is not true of many
other multisyncs, and is very useful for Amiga graphics work.
The A3000 has an internal bay that can take another floppy or a SCSI 3.5"
drive. There is cabling inside to connect that drive. There is both
an external floppy and SCSI connector on the back of the A3000, and
when you look over the top of your 3000 you can read the labelling since
the labels are above the connector, not below.
Commodities Exchange is a standardized way of handling any special
input-related magic. This includes the various keyboard and mouse
enhancements that people have come to know and love, as well
as hot-keys. The system ships with several standard commodities,
and surely many more will appear in the public domain. We supply:
Screen Blanker
Function Key expander
AutoPoint (activates the window under the pointer)
NoCapsLock (for those who hate it when they brush that key)
IHelp (keyboard sizing and such for windows)
--
Peter Cherna, Software Engineer, Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!peter peter@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com
My opinions do not necessarily represent the opinions of my employer.
"If you insist on spending $10000 on a 68030 technology, may we humbly
suggest you buy three Amiga 3000's."
*************************************************************************w-edwinh@microsoft.UUCP (Edwin HOOGERBEETS) (07/04/90)
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: July 3, 1990
Changes this month:
Updated: Minix for the Amiga? (,MIN)
Updated: How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites (,BIT)
Added: Last word on Copyrights and Patents (,COPY)
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still
available from the editor via email.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the index identifier in capitals that is listed on the left.
This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
,MOD How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings
Tad Guy <tadguy@cs.odu.edu>
,BIT How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@estinc.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
,MIN Minix for the Amiga ???
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
,TEX Where to get AmigaTeX
rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
,CS Commodore's customer support phone number
lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
,RXX ARexx: Where to find it?
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
,RF1 How to get multiple RADs
adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin)
,CLO How to fix "Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found" errors
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo)
,END Which file name extensions archivers use (how to extract them)
aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
,24 Can You Use An Amiga 24 Hours A Day?
dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
,ARP What is ARP?
moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
,DF1 If you need help installing a 2nd internal floppy
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
,SCR Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
,GATE uucp<->compuserve gateway
chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham)
,500 Random Gurus on the 500 may be caused by chip seating problems
rick@tmiuv0.uucp
,2 Recent AmigaOS 2.0/Amiga 3000 Questions
peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna)
,COPY Last word on Copyrights and Patents
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Send questions, comments, submissions to:
Edwin
w-edwinh@microsoft or uunet!microsoft!w-edwinh
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: (,NET) Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Do not post
anything that you wouldn't say aloud in a large group of people. Have
fun via mail instead. These guidelines help to keep up the useful
information content of the newsgroups.
Newsgroups:
There are currently five official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software reviews and opinions. Please do not post
programs here.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sys.amiga.hardware - This newsgroup is the forum to discuss Amiga
related hardware and peripherals, such as hard drives, monitors,
add-in boards, Genloc, and such.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD in rn) in this
posting on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you must post a request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
More information:
The newsgroup mod.announce.newusers contains useful tips and
guidelines on reading and posting news to any news groups. Please
read the postings there before asking about news or mail specific
questions in comp.sys.amiga.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
*************************************************************************
From uunet!cs.odu.edu!tadguy Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Tad Guy <tadguy@cs.odu.edu>
Subject: (,MOD) How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings
1. How a submission is packed
Each comp.binaries.amiga submission is packaged using the Zoo archiver.
Zoo not only compresses the submission, but also checks the files for
corruption, and preserves the original directory structure and timestamps.
The Zoo archiver is available from most Amiga archive sites and BBS's.
Binary submissions and Zoo files contain 8-bit data, which cannot be
reliably transferred over USENET or by mail. The Zoo archive is thus
encoded down to 7-bits using the ``uuencode'' program. The ``uudecode''
program, required to reverse this encoding, is also available from many
Amiga archives (often under the name ``uucode'').
USENET has a conventional limit of 64k bytes per posting. While larger
postings often occur, they are also often mysteriously corrupted at some
point. Unfortunately, most of the uuencoded Zoo archives in
comp.binaries.amiga are larger than 64k bytes. In order to get each
posting to 64k or smaller, the single uuencoded Zoo archive is ``split''
into 64k pieces, which can later be concatenated back into the original
uuencoded Zoo archive. The UNIX ``cat'' and the AmigaDOS ``join''
commands are ideal for this.
Each part of the now-split uuencoded Zoo archive is then wrapped using
some simple UNIX commands in a form called a ``shell archive''. This
makes the postings easier to unpack on UNIX systems, and can be
unpacked on Amiga's using the UNSHAR or SH utilities, available from
some amiga BBS's.
At this point, a single submission has been Zoo'ed, uuencoded, split,
and each part shar'ed. This is what you find posted to comp.binaries.amiga.
2. Unpacking the postings
Before a submission can be used, it must be unpacked in the reverse
order it was packed. This is easily done on UNIX machines, and can be
done on Amigas with the appropriate utilities.
1. Save each part to a different file name of your choosing.
2. Remove the USENET headers (the first line of each file
should be ``#!/bin/sh''). This step can be skipped if you
have the ``unshar'' utility.
3. Run each file using ``sh'', or ``unshar''. This will
create a series of files ending in ``.zuuxx'' where ``xx''
is a number. Each of these files is part of the uuencoded
Zoo archive.
4. Concatenate these files into one file (typically ending in
``.zuu''). This is the whole uuencoded Zoo archive.
5. Decode the uuencoded Zoo archive using ``uudecode''. This
will generate the original Zoo archive.
6. Use Zoo to extract the files from the Zoo archive.
Typically, it's easiest to do steps 1-5 on a UNIX machine, although
utilities exist to do all those steps on an Amiga. Once you have a
Zoo archive, though, you will probably find it easiest to transfer the
archive to your Amiga and use Amiga Zoo to extract the archive there.
3. What do I need?
All these tools mentioned in this article are free for the taking if
you can find them:
. The Zoo archiver is available from almost all Amiga BBS's
and Amiga archives on the Internet.
. The uuencoding utilities are often already installed on UNIX
machines, and there is also at least one Amiga version,
which typically goes under the name of ``uucode''.
. Concatenating the parts of a submission is easily done
under UNIX with the ``cat'' command, or under AmigaDOS with
the ``join'' command.
. Finally, the Bourne Shell in UNIX (/bin/sh) can be used to
unshar the postings, and similar utilities exist for the
Amiga, notably ``UNSHAR'' and ``SH''.
4. How do I make a submission?
The role of the moderator of comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga
is to receive submissions, ensure they are not copyrighted (or if they
are, to ensure that permission is granted to redistribute them), and to
repackage the submission in the form described above.
Persons wanting to make submissions to the these groups do NOT need to
worry about following the above instructions (although doing so makes
my job easier and means the submission will get out faster) .
It is important to note that binary submissions must be encoded into
7-bits to insure it is received intact. This can be done using the
``uuencode'' utility described above, or with any number of similar
utilities (such as ``btoa'').
There are two ways to get your submission to the moderator:
. Post your submission to the appropriate newsgroup. If your
USENET software is properly configured, this will
automatically forward your submission to the moderator,
without your having to know the moderator's address. This
is probably the most intuitive method.
. Mail your submission to the moderator's address. This
requires that your know the moderator's address, but is the
only choice for persons at sites with improperly configured
USENET software.
If your submission is received by the moderator, you will get
notification back by mail (although network problems may cause your
submission or the acknowledgement to be delayed). If you don't get an
acknowledgement within a week, assume something has gone wrong. The
best course of action is to attempt to contact the moderator by email
(please don't send your submission again, instead hold onto it until
you and the moderator determine a reliable way for you to send your
submission).
Submissions to comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga may be mailed to:
amiga@cs.odu.edu
or amiga@xanth.cs.odu.edu (sites with obsolescent or plain broken
mailers may need to use this address)
or ...!uunet!xanth!amiga (sites with very obsolescent mailers
that only understand ``bang'' addresses
may need to use this address. Replace
``...'' with the bang-path necessary
to reach UUNET.)
Consult your system administrator if you have trouble sending mail to
these addresses.
Comments and suggestions are welcome. They should be addressed
to ``amiga-request'' (instead of ``amiga'') at the addresses above.
My thanks to Bob Page <page@eng.sun.com> and Patrick White
<patbob@sequent.sqnt.com> for the original documents I have blatantly
plagiarized in preparing this article...
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
Subject: (,BIT) How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan P. Crone distributes all amiga Usenet groups for North American
Bitnet sites.
.sys.amiga and .sys.amiga.tech arrive as daily digests of the messages
.binaries.amiga and .sources.amiga arrive more or less direct from
Bob Page
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan P. Crone CRONEJP@UREGINA1.BITNET
Amiga-L@uregina1.bitnet List moderator.
----------------
From: C503719@UMCVMB.BITNET ("Baird McIntosh")
Subject: Posting bitnet-->Amiga newsgroups on USENET
Besides amiga-relay@udel.edu, the other place (preferable, I think) to post is
ucbvax. They had addresses for comp.sys.amiga and comp.sys.amiga.tech last I
checked... they may have hardware and games addresses, too, but don't count on
it:
comp-sys-amiga@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
comp-sys-amiga-tech@ucbvax.berekeley.edu
Baird McIntosh -- c503719@umcvmb.missouri.edu
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: fnf@estinc.UUCP
Subject: (,FNF) How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and the appropriate fee as
follows:
1-9 disks $6 ea
10-49 disks $5 ea
50-99 disks $4 ea
100+ disks $3 ea
to
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage,
or $3 and no disks, to the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
SUBMISSIONS
-----------
For those wishing to submit material for possible inclusion in the library,
here are a few simple guidelines that will make my job of organizing the
material MUCH easier:
1. Don't submit bootable disks or disks with any other
sort of proprietary material included, since I then
have to go examine each file to decide if it is
distributable or not, and if not, what effect removing
it might have.
2. Organize the distribution in a manner similar to my
disks. I.E, place all files related to a particular
submission under a single directory on the disk. If
there is more than one submission per disk, it's ok to
to place each submission in it's own directory.
3. Try to write a simple entry for my "Contents" listing
that summarizes your submission. It should be about
3-10 lines, and include the current version number,
the version and disk number of the most recent version
(if any) that was last included in the library, whether
or not source is included, and an "Author" list.
4. Ensure that your submission will run correctly from
it's subdirectory and if necessary, supply a script
runnable from workbench (via c:IconX) that makes all
necessary assigns, copies fonts and libraries, etc.
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(estinc!fnf), rather than fishpond!fnf or mcdsun!fnf.
[Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188
mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.73.105) for fish 189-300
- ed]
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: (,PIC) Picture swap
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
From uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: cmcmanis@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Subject: (,BUY) a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: (,HAR) Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: (,HED) 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drives.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
>From microsoft!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast Sun 24 Jun 90 20:52:18 GMT 1990
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: Amiga Minix
> Is there a public domain or shareware MINIX for the Amiga computer?
No. By the end of August there will be a copyrighted version from Prentice
Hall, containing all the sources of everything, plus a 700 page manual
(which includes a listing of the code and a lot more).
Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: (,MIN) Minix for the Amiga ???
Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an
excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an
official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested.
I am working on that one, however.
Andy Tanenbaum
From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers
Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We
hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around
AmigaMINIX.
For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX
like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by
Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by
Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the
Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga.
While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of
MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every
bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of
the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is
that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST)
format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100%
compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and
MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on
AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do
use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of-
day clock won't run properly of course!)
Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we
didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to
optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for
each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing
a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The
normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track-
cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically
allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected.
Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about
AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main
reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard
disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of
them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a
hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common
in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before
one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk.
To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX:
- AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so
it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your
Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have,
what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that
it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC.
- You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available
under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented.
- The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80-
track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.)
Up to four drives can be connected.
- The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro-
nics) port.
- The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides
limited access to the color registers.
Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC.
The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't
run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't
such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another
reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of
each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all
about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15
page scheduler, but getting all the details right.")
AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't
found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll
probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX.
-Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl)
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Subject: (,TEX) AmigaTeX
For a free demo disk and further information on AmigaTeX, please drop a
postcard with your name and address to Radical Eye Software, Box 2081,
Stanford, CA~~94309. This is *free* and will answer most questions.
-tom
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
Subject: (,CS) commodore's customer support phone number
The correct phone number for Customer Support
is (215) 436-4200. Use this number to inquire
about getting 1.3.2, or any other end user question.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Subject: (,RXX) ARexx: Where to find it?
>Okay, I've been seeing here lots and lots of stuff about ARexx.
ARexx is commercial, and list price is about $50. Do yourself a favour if you
buy it, and add another $50 (list) for WShell, which knows all about ARexx, and
makes ARexx scripts transparently callable as if they were binary executables.
I have seen both of these packages advertised in the $35 range from mail order
places. Both packages are written by, and available from:
[ed - Bill is also the author of conman, a nice console device replacement]
William S. Hawes
P.O. Box 308
Maynard, MA 01754
Phone: (617) 568-8695
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin)
Subject: (,RF1) Multiple RAD:'s
Here are directions that I wrote about a year ago for creating multiple
RAD drives. Be warned that all of these kludges probably won't work
(and probably won't be needed) under version 1.4.
Unfortunately, RAD's ramdrive.device is hard-coded as having the volume name
"RAMB0". One cannot create multiple RADs by simply changing the MountList.
To create multiple RAD devices:
READ ME FIRST:
Byte-offsets are counted starting from 0, the first byte of the file.
Both byte-offsets are for v1.0 of the ramdrive.device, created 6-Apr-88.
The letter 'X' is used below as a place-holder for a unique character to
differentiate the multiple RAD devices. If you are creating a first
duplicate RAD, I suggest you substitute '1'; if creating a second
duplicate RAD, substitute '2', etc.
1.
Edit devs:MountList and duplicate the original RAD: parameters.
Change the name of the duplicate; for example, from "RAD:" to "RADX:".
Change the "Device = ramdrive.device" line to "Device = ramdrivX.device"
Only the original RAD should be allowed to autoboot. Add the following
line to the new entry to keep it from autobooting:
BootPri = -129
2.
Copy devs:ramdrive.device to devs:ramdrivX.device
File-zap devs:ramdrivX.device and change "ramdrive.device" to
"ramdrivX.device" by changing byte 171 (hex) from 'e' to 'X'.
Also change "RAMB0" to "RAMBX" by changing byte 5A1 (hex) from '0' to 'X'.
3.
Mount RADX:.
You can do anything to this new RAD that you could to the original one.
Things like changing the HighCyl to get a different size, etc.
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore Applications and Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!cbmcats!adam
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Subject: (,CLO) Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found
| I ctrl-A-A'ed the beast and it came up complaining about its clock. I
| tried "setclock reset" but it, too, just complained about "clock not
| found". And there I sit.
This happened to me earlier. I "fixed" it by doing nothing. About the
second or third day I booted, the problem simply disappeared.
As I understand it, a register in the clock is getting trashed. The normal
startup then can't find a (proper) clock. The solution is to get the
registers in the clock back the way they should be. Between version 1.2
and 1.3 of the "setclock reset" commands, one works and one doesn't. (I
believe 1.2 works.(?)) Another possible fix is the program which claims
to "cure" the fabled "clock virus". Apparently it just resets the registers
in the clock. (Available at an anti-viral archive site near you.)
Jim Wright
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
----------
From: dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo)
Subject: lost clock advice...
I'm not sure that the advice given about the lost clock problem will
work for everyone. For what it's worth, I've got an Amiga 500 with the
Commodore 512k RAM expansion board that fits in the bottom of the
case. In the past, I've managed to clear up the problem by physically
removing the board from the case, then reconnecting. I have no idea
why this works, but it has worked everytime. I did try the wait and
see attitude once, but apparently, the register never reset itself.
David Kuo
dkuo@atrp.mit.edu
----------
From: rich@inmet.inmet.com
Subject: internal clock problem fixed!
The internal clock on my A1000 was behaving funny for a while: the minutes
didn't increase, the seconds increase once in a while.
Anyway, I fixed the problem by replacing one of the 8520 chip. On the A1000,
I replaced the one (there are two) closer to the 68000.
Hope this information is useful for someone else.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
Subject: (,END) List of archiver file name extensions
Ending Use
---------------------------------------------------------
.zoo Zoo
.arc Arc
.zip Zip
.lzh LHarc
.sit Only available in "unsit" for amiga.
.Z Compress (Lempel-Ziv)
.C Compact (Huffman). Rather outdated.
.sh/.shr/.shar SHell ARchiver (SHAR) (or sksh)
.wrp Warp - Amiga Disk-archiver
.tar tar - stands for Tape archiver.
.sq Sq/Unsq. (forgot the proper name)
.bak Matt Dillon's HD->Flippy backup util.
.uue uudecode
.zuu uudecode and then zoo on the result
.z (small) pack/unpack
---------
From: tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy)
Subject: Re: Zoo for unix
UNIX Zoo was posted to comp.sources.unix, and is available from any
comp.sources.unix archive site, such as XANTH.CS.ODU.EDU or UUNET.UU.NET.
On xanth, it's also available as /pub/zoo-2.01/zoo-2.01.tar.Z
...tad
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
Subject: (,24) Can You Use A 2000 24 Hours A Day?
|>>Are there any problems with leaving an Amiga 2000 on 24 hours a day?
|
|>I've run my 2000 on a 24x7 basis for the last 3 or 4 months; during that time
|>I've powered the machine down maybe 3 times total. Of course, I do live in an
|>area where the power is exceptionally stable.
|
|For that matter, anyone know about the A1000 being left on 24hr/day???
The NAG (Northwest Amiga Group) BBS is run on an A1000. The board
runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So far as I
know, the only times the board goes down is when it gets a power glitch,
then it has to be restarted. Other than that, it works just fine.
I don't think that there's a UPS or power conditioner for the BBS.
However, such a thing would be a wise investment for anyone thinking
about running any computer continuously. Especially if the power is
noisy or unstable. (Like in the town I live in. The lights flicker
daily. Does terrible things to computers, vcrs, etc.)
--dds
Big Whorls Have Little Whorls | Dale D. Snell BIX: ddsnell
Which Feed On Their Velocity | UseNet: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM
And Little Whorls have Littler Whorls | CompuServe: 74756.666@compuserv.COM
And So On To Viscosity. | Disclaimer: My opinions, not Tek's.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
Subject: (,ARP) arp.library
ARP is the AmigaDos Replacement Project. It consists of
replacement files for most of the common AmigaDos commands (copy,
list, delete, etc.) along with a library file, namely arp.library. I
got my copy off of a local Amiga bulletin board.
The advantage of ARP is, as far as I can tell, three-fold:
(1) The replacement commands are smaller and therefore leave more free
room on your disk (I assume this was accomplished in part by utilizing a
library of common routines, viz. arp.library); (2) the commands are
slightly easier to use, such as being able to use "*" as a wildcard
(plus a few other goodies--there should be docs accompanying the other
files); and (3) a number of other programs (like VLT 4.226,
apparently) require that you have the arp.library present. There may
be other advantages to ARP, but these are the three that I am aware
of.
Richard Moster
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990
From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Subject: (,DF1) installing 2nd internal floppy
In article <495@auto-trol.UUCP> todhor@auto-trol.COM () writes:
>Well I'm just about through installing the Chinon 3.5 internal
>drive in my 2000
>...
>everything appears fine except for this: When I access either drive
>say to do a read or dir BOTH lights on both drives come on.
Two things need to be done:
1> set the drive select jumpers on the drives so that one is drive 0 and the
other is drive 1.
2> There is a jumper on the motherboard (I don't have the 2000 handbook with me
so I can't tell you the jumper number) Look in you handbook that came with the
2000 in the section that talks about jumpers. There is one that affects the
drive ID's. Something about it being closed so you can plug in an EXTERNAL
drive, and you have to open it if you are installing an INTERNAL drive.
A friend and I just installed an internal drive in his 2000 and that is what we
had to do. Until we set the jumper on the mother board both drives acted like
yours does. Now it works fine.
--
John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps
||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990
From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Subject: (,SCR) Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a
If you have access to comp.binaries.amiga on a Unix box, this little
script might help you. I whipped it up in a few minutes and it seems
to work on everything Tad has sent thru so far.
I call it Amyshar:
#!/bin/sh
cat $* | sed '1,/^sed/d'|sed '/^SHAR_EOF/,/^sed/d'|sed s/^X//| uudecode
--
Prerequisites: You must have the programs "sed" and "uudecode" (and unix so you
can execute the above unix script)
1. Put the script above in a file, name it Amyshar, make it executable.
2. Then go into your news reader and enter comp.binaries.amiga
3. Save all the parts to a program into one large file (in order of course)
4. At the shell prompt, type: Amyshar sharfile (where sharfile is the name
of the large file you saved to from the newsreader)
5. Ta Da! you now have a zoo file.
You don't have to worry about chopping the files at the 'cut here' lines, or
stripping off the headers. Amyshar ignores all that.
For use with comp.sources.amiga files:
Amyshar will not separate the source files out of the shar file, but it will
look through the shar file and extract any uuencoded files that are sometimes
packages with c.s.a. source postings.
What you need to do is save the c.s.a postings into files on your system
then run them through amyshar like above, and if there are any uuencoded
files contained withing the shar file Amyshar will extract them and convert
them to binary.
Once this is done, you need to archive the binary files with zoo
(or a similar archiver) before downloading them to your Amiga.
This prevents problems with some transfer protocols (such as Xmodem) padding
the files with nulls, and therefore 'corrupting' the file after its downloaded.
Unzoo on your Amiga and enjoy.
I hope this helps some people out there.
--
John Sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY)
sparks@corpane.UUCP <><><><><><><><><><><> D.I.S.K. ph:502/968-5401 thru -5406
Help fight continental drift.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!becker!graham!chris Sat Feb 3 01:22:16 EST 1990
From: chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham)
Subject: (,GATE) uucp<->compuserve gateway
> Plink, Bix and Genie are not reachable through Usenet. These are "free-
> standing" commercial computer services to which you have to subscribe
> and pay a connect-time charge in order to use. Plink and Bix can be
> dialed direct (Chicago and Boston respectively) or through different
> "packet switched national data networks", which is how most people
> reach them. Genie has its own national data network.
I don't know about BIX and pLink, but an Internet gateway to and from
Compuserve was documented in the July and September (1989) issues of
_Netmonth Magazine_, a popular magazine of BITnet.
According to the _Netmonth_ recipe, users of Compuserve can send Internet
bound mail by using the "EasyPlex" mail system and addressing the mail to:
>INTERNET:internetaddress
For example, I could probably by reached by the address:
>INTERNET:graham!chris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu
using gpu.utcs.toronto.edu as the Internet->uucp gateway.
Conversely, (and this is the part I've used with success) one may send
mail to Compuserve. Suppose you wanted to send mail to a person whose
Compuserve # is 123,456 . Then you would address your mail to:
123.456@compuserve.com
Failing this, the following will probably work:
123.456%compuserve.com@saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu
gatewaying it through the nearest Internet site.
BITnet : lsuc!graham!chris@utorgpu
uucp : ...!uunet!lsuc!graham!chris
FidoNet: Chris ON 1:250/716
[I've tried both directions, and it works great. -ed]
*************************************************************************
From uunet!zardoz.cpd.com!tmiuv0!rick Thu Apr 26 17:04:01 PDT 1990
From: rick@tmiuv0.uucp
Subject: (,500) Random Gurus on the 500 may be caused by chip seating problems
>>Some of the programs that give me the Guru are: JRbeep (NOT JRcomm),
>>DJclock, and MultiPlot. I don't get locked up if I run noclick v3.6 and
>>sometimes if I start a term program (Handshake etc) or even try to save
>>or retrieve a file with CED Pro!
>I'm having very similar problems with my 500 and a Supra SCSI interface
>with 2 megs of RAM installed.
This sounds like the infamous A500 "Loose Chip Phenomenom". Try opening
up the 500 and reseating all of the chips that are socketed. The A500 is
well known to have loose chips. BE CAREFUL! Watch out for static
electricity, and this may void your warranty. THOU HAST BEEN WARNEDST!
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
/ [- O] Rick Stevens (All opinions are mine. Everyone ignores them anyway.) \
| ? +--------------------------------------------------------------------|
| V | uunet!zardoz!tmiuv0!rick (<-- Work (ugh!)) |
|--------+ uunet!zardoz!xyclone!sysop (<-- Home Unix (better!)) |
| uunet!perigrine!ccicpg!conexch!amoeba2!rps2 (<-- Home Amiga (Best!!) |
\ 75006.1355@compuserve.com (CIS: 75006,1355) (<-- CI$) /
`-------------------------------------------------------------------------'
*************************************************************************
From uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!rutgers!cbmvax!peter Thu May 10 10:38:35 PDT 1990
From: peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna)
Subject: (,2) Recent AmigaOS 2.0/Amiga 3000 Questions
Workbench 2.0 does not have any specific requirements other than the
future 2.0 Enhancer ROMs and disks (and manuals, I guess). Ken Farinsky
over in CATS stated so quite emphatically, but allow me to reiterate:
2.0 does not require a hard drive, 1 MB of chip, Super Agnus, Super Denise,
etc. Of course, your system will benefit from any of these, just as it
does under 1.3. 2.0 is fairly smart about figuring out what you have
installed, and for example won't allow you to open screen modes you
can't support for lack of hardware.
Super Denise provides a single non-interlaced 640 x 480 mode called
Productivity. This requires Super Denise (hence also Super Agnus), and
a VGA or multiscanning monitor. The Workbench screen can easily be
put into this mode, and windows opening on the Workbench screen will
benefit immediately. Programs opening custom screens need to be updated
(though it is simple for the programmer) in order to open their own
productivity screens. This mode is of special interest to those who
do not have a de-interlacer in their computer which removes flicker from
all the familiar interlaced modes. Productivity mode can have 2 or 4
colors from a palette of 64.
Super Denise also provides Super-Hires modes that give 1280 by
200/400 (NTSC) or 256/512 (PAL). The higher number in each case is
an interlaced mode (that is not de-interlaced by the A3000, BTW). These
modes are compatible with standard NTSC and PAL output, including 1084's.
They also have the 4/64 color arrangement.
The A3000 de-interlacer is on the motherboard. It is not in the 1950
monitor, which is just a (very nice) multiscanning monitor. One extra
feature of the 1950 is that you can set it so that overscanned pictures
do indeed cover the full face of the monitor, which is not true of many
other multisyncs, and is very useful for Amiga graphics work.
The A3000 has an internal bay that can take another floppy or a SCSI 3.5"
drive. There is cabling inside to connect that drive. There is both
an external floppy and SCSI connector on the back of the A3000, and
when you look over the top of your 3000 you can read the labelling since
the labels are above the connector, not below.
Commodities Exchange is a standardized way of handling any special
input-related magic. This includes the various keyboard and mouse
enhancements that people have come to know and love, as well
as hot-keys. The system ships with several standard commodities,
and surely many more will appear in the public domain. We supply:
Screen Blanker
Function Key expander
AutoPoint (activates the window under the pointer)
NoCapsLock (for those who hate it when they brush that key)
IHelp (keyboard sizing and such for windows)
--
Peter Cherna, Software Engineer, Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!peter peter@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com
My opinions do not necessarily represent the opinions of my employer.
"If you insist on spending $10000 on a 68030 technology, may we humbly
suggest you buy three Amiga 3000's."
*************************************************************************
From uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!pollux.usc.edu!papa Thu Jun 14 16:58:52 PDT 1990
From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Subject: (,COPY) Last word on Copyrights and Patents
>The legally defendable item is not the game code; the valuable intellectual
>property is the game design.
Sorry. BOTH the game code and the game design can be protected: the
first by copyright, the second one by patent. So far, ELROG, the
Russian author and Nintendo have used only copyrights for protection
[of the game tetris] (though I would assume a patent is being sought).
>The game idea, not the picture on the screen, is what is a
>protectable object.
Wrong again. Both are protectable (one with patent, the other one with
copyright). Note also another mistake you make later in your message,
when you imply that ideas can be copyrighted. Not so:
IDEAS CANNOT BE COPYRIGHTED, THEY CAN ONLY BE PATENTED!
-- Marco
*************************************************************************w-edwinh@microsoft.UUCP (Edwin HOOGERBEETS) (08/08/90)
This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new
reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information,
please read the following articles.
This posting last changed: July 3, 1990
Changes this month: None.
It is recommended that you save this article for future reference.
Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This
will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that
have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still
available from the editor via email.
*
* There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech.
*
To save this posting when you are using
rn or vn: s newuser<return> to save in the file News/newuser.
notes: snewuser<return> to save this article in the file ./newuser.
To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go
to' and the index identifier in capitals that is listed on the left.
This article contains the following topics:
,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article
before posting anything.
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
,MOD How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings
Tad Guy <tadguy@cs.odu.edu>
,BIT How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks
and how to submit programs.
fnf@estinc.UUCP
,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show'
programs.
joe@dayton.UUCP
,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?)
uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis)
geoffs@smoke.UUCP
AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives
jesup@cbmvax
,MIN Minix for the Amiga ???
ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
,TEX Where to get AmigaTeX
rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
,CS Commodore's customer support phone number
lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
,RXX ARexx: Where to find it?
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
,RF1 How to get multiple RADs
adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin)
,CLO How to fix "Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found" errors
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo)
,END Which file name extensions archivers use (how to extract them)
aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
,24 Can You Use An Amiga 24 Hours A Day?
dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
,ARP What is ARP?
moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
,DF1 If you need help installing a 2nd internal floppy
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
,SCR Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
,GATE uucp<->compuserve gateway
chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham)
,500 Random Gurus on the 500 may be caused by chip seating problems
rick@tmiuv0.uucp
,2 Recent AmigaOS 2.0/Amiga 3000 Questions
peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna)
,COPY Last word on Copyrights and Patents
papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Send questions, comments, submissions to:
Edwin
w-edwinh@microsoft or uunet!microsoft!w-edwinh
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets)
Subject: (,NET) Netiquette
Behaviour on the net:
Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If
you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for
useful information.
Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles
short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire
Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga
news groups.
Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct"
answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your
machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer
newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate
that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to
harass other readers that are not interested in the subject.
Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject
other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Do not post
anything that you wouldn't say aloud in a large group of people. Have
fun via mail instead. These guidelines help to keep up the useful
information content of the newsgroups.
Newsgroups:
There are currently five official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here
is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they
should contain:
comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga
related news, software reviews and opinions. Please do not post
programs here.
comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions
about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga.
comp.sys.amiga.hardware - This newsgroup is the forum to discuss Amiga
related hardware and peripherals, such as hard drives, monitors,
add-in boards, Genloc, and such.
comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely
redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators.
comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to
the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be
posted to by the moderators.
Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the
appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD in rn) in this
posting on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups.
Mail:
If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and
you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then
please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This
helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio
of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via
mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article.
Following up:
If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net,
then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up,
and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please
trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that
people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to
re-read the entire text.
Posting original material:
Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the
readers. However, if you must post a request for information or software,
please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again,
this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day.
Cross posting:
Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than
posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article,
and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post,
please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to
your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original
newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be
relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate
that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you
are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the
Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is
relevant.
More information:
The newsgroup mod.announce.newusers contains useful tips and
guidelines on reading and posting news to any news groups. Please
read the postings there before asking about news or mail specific
questions in comp.sys.amiga.
Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the
most from Usenet.
Edwin
ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu
*************************************************************************
From uunet!cs.odu.edu!tadguy Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Tad Guy <tadguy@cs.odu.edu>
Subject: (,MOD) How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings
1. How a submission is packed
Each comp.binaries.amiga submission is packaged using the Zoo archiver.
Zoo not only compresses the submission, but also checks the files for
corruption, and preserves the original directory structure and timestamps.
The Zoo archiver is available from most Amiga archive sites and BBS's.
Binary submissions and Zoo files contain 8-bit data, which cannot be
reliably transferred over USENET or by mail. The Zoo archive is thus
encoded down to 7-bits using the ``uuencode'' program. The ``uudecode''
program, required to reverse this encoding, is also available from many
Amiga archives (often under the name ``uucode'').
USENET has a conventional limit of 64k bytes per posting. While larger
postings often occur, they are also often mysteriously corrupted at some
point. Unfortunately, most of the uuencoded Zoo archives in
comp.binaries.amiga are larger than 64k bytes. In order to get each
posting to 64k or smaller, the single uuencoded Zoo archive is ``split''
into 64k pieces, which can later be concatenated back into the original
uuencoded Zoo archive. The UNIX ``cat'' and the AmigaDOS ``join''
commands are ideal for this.
Each part of the now-split uuencoded Zoo archive is then wrapped using
some simple UNIX commands in a form called a ``shell archive''. This
makes the postings easier to unpack on UNIX systems, and can be
unpacked on Amiga's using the UNSHAR or SH utilities, available from
some amiga BBS's.
At this point, a single submission has been Zoo'ed, uuencoded, split,
and each part shar'ed. This is what you find posted to comp.binaries.amiga.
2. Unpacking the postings
Before a submission can be used, it must be unpacked in the reverse
order it was packed. This is easily done on UNIX machines, and can be
done on Amigas with the appropriate utilities.
1. Save each part to a different file name of your choosing.
2. Remove the USENET headers (the first line of each file
should be ``#!/bin/sh''). This step can be skipped if you
have the ``unshar'' utility.
3. Run each file using ``sh'', or ``unshar''. This will
create a series of files ending in ``.zuuxx'' where ``xx''
is a number. Each of these files is part of the uuencoded
Zoo archive.
4. Concatenate these files into one file (typically ending in
``.zuu''). This is the whole uuencoded Zoo archive.
5. Decode the uuencoded Zoo archive using ``uudecode''. This
will generate the original Zoo archive.
6. Use Zoo to extract the files from the Zoo archive.
Typically, it's easiest to do steps 1-5 on a UNIX machine, although
utilities exist to do all those steps on an Amiga. Once you have a
Zoo archive, though, you will probably find it easiest to transfer the
archive to your Amiga and use Amiga Zoo to extract the archive there.
3. What do I need?
All these tools mentioned in this article are free for the taking if
you can find them:
. The Zoo archiver is available from almost all Amiga BBS's
and Amiga archives on the Internet.
. The uuencoding utilities are often already installed on UNIX
machines, and there is also at least one Amiga version,
which typically goes under the name of ``uucode''.
. Concatenating the parts of a submission is easily done
under UNIX with the ``cat'' command, or under AmigaDOS with
the ``join'' command.
. Finally, the Bourne Shell in UNIX (/bin/sh) can be used to
unshar the postings, and similar utilities exist for the
Amiga, notably ``UNSHAR'' and ``SH''.
4. How do I make a submission?
The role of the moderator of comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga
is to receive submissions, ensure they are not copyrighted (or if they
are, to ensure that permission is granted to redistribute them), and to
repackage the submission in the form described above.
Persons wanting to make submissions to the these groups do NOT need to
worry about following the above instructions (although doing so makes
my job easier and means the submission will get out faster) .
It is important to note that binary submissions must be encoded into
7-bits to insure it is received intact. This can be done using the
``uuencode'' utility described above, or with any number of similar
utilities (such as ``btoa'').
There are two ways to get your submission to the moderator:
. Post your submission to the appropriate newsgroup. If your
USENET software is properly configured, this will
automatically forward your submission to the moderator,
without your having to know the moderator's address. This
is probably the most intuitive method.
. Mail your submission to the moderator's address. This
requires that your know the moderator's address, but is the
only choice for persons at sites with improperly configured
USENET software.
If your submission is received by the moderator, you will get
notification back by mail (although network problems may cause your
submission or the acknowledgement to be delayed). If you don't get an
acknowledgement within a week, assume something has gone wrong. The
best course of action is to attempt to contact the moderator by email
(please don't send your submission again, instead hold onto it until
you and the moderator determine a reliable way for you to send your
submission).
Submissions to comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga may be mailed to:
amiga@cs.odu.edu
or amiga@xanth.cs.odu.edu (sites with obsolescent or plain broken
mailers may need to use this address)
or ...!uunet!xanth!amiga (sites with very obsolescent mailers
that only understand ``bang'' addresses
may need to use this address. Replace
``...'' with the bang-path necessary
to reach UUNET.)
Consult your system administrator if you have trouble sending mail to
these addresses.
Comments and suggestions are welcome. They should be addressed
to ``amiga-request'' (instead of ``amiga'') at the addresses above.
My thanks to Bob Page <page@eng.sun.com> and Patrick White
<patbob@sequent.sqnt.com> for the original documents I have blatantly
plagiarized in preparing this article...
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Jonathan Crone <uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet>
Subject: (,BIT) How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites
Jonathan P. Crone distributes all amiga Usenet groups for North American
Bitnet sites.
.sys.amiga and .sys.amiga.tech arrive as daily digests of the messages
.binaries.amiga and .sources.amiga arrive more or less direct from
Bob Page
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonathan P. Crone CRONEJP@UREGINA1.BITNET
Amiga-L@uregina1.bitnet List moderator.
----------------
From: C503719@UMCVMB.BITNET ("Baird McIntosh")
Subject: Posting bitnet-->Amiga newsgroups on USENET
Besides amiga-relay@udel.edu, the other place (preferable, I think) to post is
ucbvax. They had addresses for comp.sys.amiga and comp.sys.amiga.tech last I
checked... they may have hardware and games addresses, too, but don't count on
it:
comp-sys-amiga@ucbvax.berkeley.edu
comp-sys-amiga-tech@ucbvax.berekeley.edu
Baird McIntosh -- c503719@umcvmb.missouri.edu
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: fnf@estinc.UUCP
Subject: (,FNF) How to get Fish disks.
WHAT'S AVAILABLE
----------------
There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the
AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other
odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the
examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official
AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual.
HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS
-------
First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have
the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread
distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution
points fairly quickly.
If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to
make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials,
postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives).
My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people
that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves
to be.
Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the
executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the
latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release.
In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile
or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include
anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest
kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release.
Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full.
HOW TO ORDER
------------
To order, send a list of the disks you want, and the appropriate fee as
follows:
1-9 disks $6 ea
10-49 disks $5 ea
50-99 disks $4 ea
100+ disks $3 ea
to
Fred Fish
1835 East Belmont Drive
Tempe, Arizona 85284
USA
Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic
postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other
jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order.
Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess
funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against
for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope
to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I
have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to
draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish.
DISK CATALOG
------------
A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as
you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks
(disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage,
or $3 and no disks, to the above address.
DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA
---------
To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely
redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the
following conditions:
(1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting
redistribution.
(2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic
bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice.
(Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown
that copyright notices were illegally removed.)
(3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic
network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster
intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if
they contain no notice limiting distribution.
(4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the
public domain. This is not the same as condition (1).
SUBMISSIONS
-----------
For those wishing to submit material for possible inclusion in the library,
here are a few simple guidelines that will make my job of organizing the
material MUCH easier:
1. Don't submit bootable disks or disks with any other
sort of proprietary material included, since I then
have to go examine each file to decide if it is
distributable or not, and if not, what effect removing
it might have.
2. Organize the distribution in a manner similar to my
disks. I.E, place all files related to a particular
submission under a single directory on the disk. If
there is more than one submission per disk, it's ok to
to place each submission in it's own directory.
3. Try to write a simple entry for my "Contents" listing
that summarizes your submission. It should be about
3-10 lines, and include the current version number,
the version and disk number of the most recent version
(if any) that was last included in the library, whether
or not source is included, and an "Author" list.
4. Ensure that your submission will run correctly from
it's subdirectory and if necessary, supply a script
runnable from workbench (via c:IconX) that makes all
necessary assigns, copies fonts and libraries, etc.
One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then
can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage
in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never
saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if
it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't
spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if
my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your
phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that
my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine
(estinc!fnf), rather than fishpond!fnf or mcdsun!fnf.
[Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at
uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188
mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.73.105) for fish 189-300
- ed]
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: joe@dayton.UUCP
Subject: (,PIC) Picture swap
So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have
pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it
back with what I may have found by that point.
A few notes:
1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would
be appreciated. That's up to you.
2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY
program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display
program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as
to how I should display it.
3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such.
4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means
that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite
magazine, but that's not legal.....
5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get
into trouble with someone Official.
6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're
willing to lose in the mail.
If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell
people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending
submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I
don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have
DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me....
My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to:
Joe Larson
6121 St. Croix Ave. N.
Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422
Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better....
--
UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company
ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060
(standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402
*************************************************************************
From uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: cmcmanis@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis)
Subject: (,BUY) a comparison of PC's... which one to buy
This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why
these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and
the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises.
When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader
look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised,
and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your
choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will
disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective.
Take the following comments from Peter as an example :
In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes:
> ...I'd say Atari will have no
> problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already
> done so! ...
Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac
announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or
Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read
(especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness
Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number.
> Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales
> were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine
> while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much
> greater utility.
This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits
is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his
computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely
no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize
that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features
side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same
machine, to wit :
1040 ST Amiga 500
---------- ----------
Processor 68000 68000
"Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg
Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200
various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200
colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440
Disk Drive 720K 880K
Serial Port Yes Yes
Parallel Port Yes Yes
MIDI Port Yes No
DMA Port Yes No
Expansion Bus No Yes
Hard Disk Available Yes Yes
Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes
Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb
Blitter No* Yes
Audio Yes Yes
-----
* Blitter optional according to some things I have seen
And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.)
Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better"
machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer
the same functions.
The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?"
Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers
did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into
a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which
decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds
in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides
and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here
the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk
interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of
our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the
Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that
other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The
Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision
makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and
that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines
you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even
when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the
price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make
one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers
different.
Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up
in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper
about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better
than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read
an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone
who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you
have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from
*their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective
disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your
perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result
is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and
views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might
et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it.
Well thats *my* perspective,
--
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.
----------------
From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP
Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy?
ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY?
* the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. *
but here are some thoughts:
WORK/SCHOOL OS features:
========================
What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is
Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?)
- (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for
either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured
to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made
to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix).
- (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and
"emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST).
- (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX
has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check
comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version
7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and
unix-behaving tools.
- (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you
can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are
used to multi-tasking, you are already set.
- (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam)
that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the
commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the
editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring
the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not
multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel.
- Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's.
ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's.
MIDI:
=====
The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of
ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds
in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi
programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I
think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You
may wish to look here too...
Final suggestions:
1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers.
Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they
tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!".
2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the
keyboard.
*BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you
choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the
VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST).
I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal
preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both
companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of
the retail computer industry.
--
---> geoffs@brl.arpa
--
----------------
From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP
Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ?
>My next question is this:
>should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000?
>Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines?
Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but
I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150.
You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500.
The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand.
The 2000 is bigger than the 500.
If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space.
The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500.
The 2000 is now selling for $1499.
The 500 is now selling for $649.
Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made
things easier rather than harder.
Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu
Subject: (,HAR) Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000)
NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future
purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing
into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to
the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD
The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with
third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price
diff you will actually be working with.
BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506
1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the
new standard.
2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a
40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506
and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the
hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things.
The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the
established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all
the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do
a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on
the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it
to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to
Autoboot.
The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus
speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph
city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor
free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in
expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and
several extra SCSI interfaces.
There are a few other points to consider:
1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the
processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise
the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it
doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of
the three.
2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard
install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards
is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are
tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if
you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install
it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another
60 or 70 bucks.
3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer
fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the
Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have
this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP
cards may still require additional PROMS.
Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I
gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I
have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they
are extremely happy with them*
paul
--
"Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man"
"Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay"
6 6
Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--'
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: jesup@cbmvax
Subject: (,HED) 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a)
>I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover
>that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either
The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number
of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drives.
--
Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup
*************************************************************************
>From microsoft!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast Sun 24 Jun 90 20:52:18 GMT 1990
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: Amiga Minix
> Is there a public domain or shareware MINIX for the Amiga computer?
No. By the end of August there will be a copyrighted version from Prentice
Hall, containing all the sources of everything, plus a 700 page manual
(which includes a listing of the code and a lot more).
Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl)
From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum)
Subject: (,MIN) Minix for the Amiga ???
Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an
excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an
official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested.
I am working on that one, however.
Andy Tanenbaum
From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga)
Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers
Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We
hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around
AmigaMINIX.
For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX
like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by
Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by
Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the
Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga.
While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of
MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every
bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of
the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is
that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST)
format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100%
compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and
MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on
AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do
use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of-
day clock won't run properly of course!)
Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we
didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to
optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for
each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing
a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The
normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track-
cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically
allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected.
Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about
AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main
reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard
disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of
them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a
hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common
in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before
one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk.
To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX:
- AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so
it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your
Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have,
what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that
it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC.
- You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available
under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented.
- The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80-
track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.)
Up to four drives can be connected.
- The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro-
nics) port.
- The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides
limited access to the color registers.
Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC.
The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't
run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't
such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another
reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of
each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all
about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15
page scheduler, but getting all the details right.")
AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't
found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll
probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX.
-Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl)
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Subject: (,TEX) AmigaTeX
For a free demo disk and further information on AmigaTeX, please drop a
postcard with your name and address to Radical Eye Software, Box 2081,
Stanford, CA~~94309. This is *free* and will answer most questions.
-tom
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS)
Subject: (,CS) commodore's customer support phone number
The correct phone number for Customer Support
is (215) 436-4200. Use this number to inquire
about getting 1.3.2, or any other end user question.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Subject: (,RXX) ARexx: Where to find it?
>Okay, I've been seeing here lots and lots of stuff about ARexx.
ARexx is commercial, and list price is about $50. Do yourself a favour if you
buy it, and add another $50 (list) for WShell, which knows all about ARexx, and
makes ARexx scripts transparently callable as if they were binary executables.
I have seen both of these packages advertised in the $35 range from mail order
places. Both packages are written by, and available from:
[ed - Bill is also the author of conman, a nice console device replacement]
William S. Hawes
P.O. Box 308
Maynard, MA 01754
Phone: (617) 568-8695
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin)
Subject: (,RF1) Multiple RAD:'s
Here are directions that I wrote about a year ago for creating multiple
RAD drives. Be warned that all of these kludges probably won't work
(and probably won't be needed) under version 1.4.
Unfortunately, RAD's ramdrive.device is hard-coded as having the volume name
"RAMB0". One cannot create multiple RADs by simply changing the MountList.
To create multiple RAD devices:
READ ME FIRST:
Byte-offsets are counted starting from 0, the first byte of the file.
Both byte-offsets are for v1.0 of the ramdrive.device, created 6-Apr-88.
The letter 'X' is used below as a place-holder for a unique character to
differentiate the multiple RAD devices. If you are creating a first
duplicate RAD, I suggest you substitute '1'; if creating a second
duplicate RAD, substitute '2', etc.
1.
Edit devs:MountList and duplicate the original RAD: parameters.
Change the name of the duplicate; for example, from "RAD:" to "RADX:".
Change the "Device = ramdrive.device" line to "Device = ramdrivX.device"
Only the original RAD should be allowed to autoboot. Add the following
line to the new entry to keep it from autobooting:
BootPri = -129
2.
Copy devs:ramdrive.device to devs:ramdrivX.device
File-zap devs:ramdrivX.device and change "ramdrive.device" to
"ramdrivX.device" by changing byte 171 (hex) from 'e' to 'X'.
Also change "RAMB0" to "RAMBX" by changing byte 5A1 (hex) from '0' to 'X'.
3.
Mount RADX:.
You can do anything to this new RAD that you could to the original one.
Things like changing the HighCyl to get a different size, etc.
Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore Applications and Technical Support
1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180
BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!cbmcats!adam
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright)
Subject: (,CLO) Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found
| I ctrl-A-A'ed the beast and it came up complaining about its clock. I
| tried "setclock reset" but it, too, just complained about "clock not
| found". And there I sit.
This happened to me earlier. I "fixed" it by doing nothing. About the
second or third day I booted, the problem simply disappeared.
As I understand it, a register in the clock is getting trashed. The normal
startup then can't find a (proper) clock. The solution is to get the
registers in the clock back the way they should be. Between version 1.2
and 1.3 of the "setclock reset" commands, one works and one doesn't. (I
believe 1.2 works.(?)) Another possible fix is the program which claims
to "cure" the fabled "clock virus". Apparently it just resets the registers
in the clock. (Available at an anti-viral archive site near you.)
Jim Wright
jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu
----------
From: dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo)
Subject: lost clock advice...
I'm not sure that the advice given about the lost clock problem will
work for everyone. For what it's worth, I've got an Amiga 500 with the
Commodore 512k RAM expansion board that fits in the bottom of the
case. In the past, I've managed to clear up the problem by physically
removing the board from the case, then reconnecting. I have no idea
why this works, but it has worked everytime. I did try the wait and
see attitude once, but apparently, the register never reset itself.
David Kuo
dkuo@atrp.mit.edu
----------
From: rich@inmet.inmet.com
Subject: internal clock problem fixed!
The internal clock on my A1000 was behaving funny for a while: the minutes
didn't increase, the seconds increase once in a while.
Anyway, I fixed the problem by replacing one of the 8520 chip. On the A1000,
I replaced the one (there are two) closer to the 68000.
Hope this information is useful for someone else.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry)
Subject: (,END) List of archiver file name extensions
Ending Use
---------------------------------------------------------
.zoo Zoo
.arc Arc
.zip Zip
.lzh LHarc
.sit Only available in "unsit" for amiga.
.Z Compress (Lempel-Ziv)
.C Compact (Huffman). Rather outdated.
.sh/.shr/.shar SHell ARchiver (SHAR) (or sksh)
.wrp Warp - Amiga Disk-archiver
.tar tar - stands for Tape archiver.
.sq Sq/Unsq. (forgot the proper name)
.bak Matt Dillon's HD->Flippy backup util.
.uue uudecode
.zuu uudecode and then zoo on the result
.z (small) pack/unpack
---------
From: tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy)
Subject: Re: Zoo for unix
UNIX Zoo was posted to comp.sources.unix, and is available from any
comp.sources.unix archive site, such as XANTH.CS.ODU.EDU or UUNET.UU.NET.
On xanth, it's also available as /pub/zoo-2.01/zoo-2.01.tar.Z
...tad
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell)
Subject: (,24) Can You Use A 2000 24 Hours A Day?
|>>Are there any problems with leaving an Amiga 2000 on 24 hours a day?
|
|>I've run my 2000 on a 24x7 basis for the last 3 or 4 months; during that time
|>I've powered the machine down maybe 3 times total. Of course, I do live in an
|>area where the power is exceptionally stable.
|
|For that matter, anyone know about the A1000 being left on 24hr/day???
The NAG (Northwest Amiga Group) BBS is run on an A1000. The board
runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So far as I
know, the only times the board goes down is when it gets a power glitch,
then it has to be restarted. Other than that, it works just fine.
I don't think that there's a UPS or power conditioner for the BBS.
However, such a thing would be a wise investment for anyone thinking
about running any computer continuously. Especially if the power is
noisy or unstable. (Like in the town I live in. The lights flicker
daily. Does terrible things to computers, vcrs, etc.)
--dds
Big Whorls Have Little Whorls | Dale D. Snell BIX: ddsnell
Which Feed On Their Velocity | UseNet: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM
And Little Whorls have Littler Whorls | CompuServe: 74756.666@compuserv.COM
And So On To Viscosity. | Disclaimer: My opinions, not Tek's.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990
From: moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster)
Subject: (,ARP) arp.library
ARP is the AmigaDos Replacement Project. It consists of
replacement files for most of the common AmigaDos commands (copy,
list, delete, etc.) along with a library file, namely arp.library. I
got my copy off of a local Amiga bulletin board.
The advantage of ARP is, as far as I can tell, three-fold:
(1) The replacement commands are smaller and therefore leave more free
room on your disk (I assume this was accomplished in part by utilizing a
library of common routines, viz. arp.library); (2) the commands are
slightly easier to use, such as being able to use "*" as a wildcard
(plus a few other goodies--there should be docs accompanying the other
files); and (3) a number of other programs (like VLT 4.226,
apparently) require that you have the arp.library present. There may
be other advantages to ARP, but these are the three that I am aware
of.
Richard Moster
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990
From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Subject: (,DF1) installing 2nd internal floppy
In article <495@auto-trol.UUCP> todhor@auto-trol.COM () writes:
>Well I'm just about through installing the Chinon 3.5 internal
>drive in my 2000
>...
>everything appears fine except for this: When I access either drive
>say to do a read or dir BOTH lights on both drives come on.
Two things need to be done:
1> set the drive select jumpers on the drives so that one is drive 0 and the
other is drive 1.
2> There is a jumper on the motherboard (I don't have the 2000 handbook with me
so I can't tell you the jumper number) Look in you handbook that came with the
2000 in the section that talks about jumpers. There is one that affects the
drive ID's. Something about it being closed so you can plug in an EXTERNAL
drive, and you have to open it if you are installing an INTERNAL drive.
A friend and I just installed an internal drive in his 2000 and that is what we
had to do. Until we set the jumper on the mother board both drives acted like
yours does. Now it works fine.
--
John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps
||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406
*************************************************************************
From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990
From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks)
Subject: (,SCR) Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a
If you have access to comp.binaries.amiga on a Unix box, this little
script might help you. I whipped it up in a few minutes and it seems
to work on everything Tad has sent thru so far.
I call it Amyshar:
#!/bin/sh
cat $* | sed '1,/^sed/d'|sed '/^SHAR_EOF/,/^sed/d'|sed s/^X//| uudecode
--
Prerequisites: You must have the programs "sed" and "uudecode" (and unix so you
can execute the above unix script)
1. Put the script above in a file, name it Amyshar, make it executable.
2. Then go into your news reader and enter comp.binaries.amiga
3. Save all the parts to a program into one large file (in order of course)
4. At the shell prompt, type: Amyshar sharfile (where sharfile is the name
of the large file you saved to from the newsreader)
5. Ta Da! you now have a zoo file.
You don't have to worry about chopping the files at the 'cut here' lines, or
stripping off the headers. Amyshar ignores all that.
For use with comp.sources.amiga files:
Amyshar will not separate the source files out of the shar file, but it will
look through the shar file and extract any uuencoded files that are sometimes
packages with c.s.a. source postings.
What you need to do is save the c.s.a postings into files on your system
then run them through amyshar like above, and if there are any uuencoded
files contained withing the shar file Amyshar will extract them and convert
them to binary.
Once this is done, you need to archive the binary files with zoo
(or a similar archiver) before downloading them to your Amiga.
This prevents problems with some transfer protocols (such as Xmodem) padding
the files with nulls, and therefore 'corrupting' the file after its downloaded.
Unzoo on your Amiga and enjoy.
I hope this helps some people out there.
--
John Sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY)
sparks@corpane.UUCP <><><><><><><><><><><> D.I.S.K. ph:502/968-5401 thru -5406
Help fight continental drift.
*************************************************************************
From uunet!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!becker!graham!chris Sat Feb 3 01:22:16 EST 1990
From: chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham)
Subject: (,GATE) uucp<->compuserve gateway
> Plink, Bix and Genie are not reachable through Usenet. These are "free-
> standing" commercial computer services to which you have to subscribe
> and pay a connect-time charge in order to use. Plink and Bix can be
> dialed direct (Chicago and Boston respectively) or through different
> "packet switched national data networks", which is how most people
> reach them. Genie has its own national data network.
I don't know about BIX and pLink, but an Internet gateway to and from
Compuserve was documented in the July and September (1989) issues of
_Netmonth Magazine_, a popular magazine of BITnet.
According to the _Netmonth_ recipe, users of Compuserve can send Internet
bound mail by using the "EasyPlex" mail system and addressing the mail to:
>INTERNET:internetaddress
For example, I could probably by reached by the address:
>INTERNET:graham!chris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu
using gpu.utcs.toronto.edu as the Internet->uucp gateway.
Conversely, (and this is the part I've used with success) one may send
mail to Compuserve. Suppose you wanted to send mail to a person whose
Compuserve # is 123,456 . Then you would address your mail to:
123.456@compuserve.com
Failing this, the following will probably work:
123.456%compuserve.com@saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu
gatewaying it through the nearest Internet site.
BITnet : lsuc!graham!chris@utorgpu
uucp : ...!uunet!lsuc!graham!chris
FidoNet: Chris ON 1:250/716
[I've tried both directions, and it works great. -ed]
*************************************************************************
From uunet!zardoz.cpd.com!tmiuv0!rick Thu Apr 26 17:04:01 PDT 1990
From: rick@tmiuv0.uucp
Subject: (,500) Random Gurus on the 500 may be caused by chip seating problems
>>Some of the programs that give me the Guru are: JRbeep (NOT JRcomm),
>>DJclock, and MultiPlot. I don't get locked up if I run noclick v3.6 and
>>sometimes if I start a term program (Handshake etc) or even try to save
>>or retrieve a file with CED Pro!
>I'm having very similar problems with my 500 and a Supra SCSI interface
>with 2 megs of RAM installed.
This sounds like the infamous A500 "Loose Chip Phenomenom". Try opening
up the 500 and reseating all of the chips that are socketed. The A500 is
well known to have loose chips. BE CAREFUL! Watch out for static
electricity, and this may void your warranty. THOU HAST BEEN WARNEDST!
.-------------------------------------------------------------------------.
/ [- O] Rick Stevens (All opinions are mine. Everyone ignores them anyway.) \
| ? +--------------------------------------------------------------------|
| V | uunet!zardoz!tmiuv0!rick (<-- Work (ugh!)) |
|--------+ uunet!zardoz!xyclone!sysop (<-- Home Unix (better!)) |
| uunet!perigrine!ccicpg!conexch!amoeba2!rps2 (<-- Home Amiga (Best!!) |
\ 75006.1355@compuserve.com (CIS: 75006,1355) (<-- CI$) /
`-------------------------------------------------------------------------'
*************************************************************************
From uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!rutgers!cbmvax!peter Thu May 10 10:38:35 PDT 1990
From: peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna)
Subject: (,2) Recent AmigaOS 2.0/Amiga 3000 Questions
Workbench 2.0 does not have any specific requirements other than the
future 2.0 Enhancer ROMs and disks (and manuals, I guess). Ken Farinsky
over in CATS stated so quite emphatically, but allow me to reiterate:
2.0 does not require a hard drive, 1 MB of chip, Super Agnus, Super Denise,
etc. Of course, your system will benefit from any of these, just as it
does under 1.3. 2.0 is fairly smart about figuring out what you have
installed, and for example won't allow you to open screen modes you
can't support for lack of hardware.
Super Denise provides a single non-interlaced 640 x 480 mode called
Productivity. This requires Super Denise (hence also Super Agnus), and
a VGA or multiscanning monitor. The Workbench screen can easily be
put into this mode, and windows opening on the Workbench screen will
benefit immediately. Programs opening custom screens need to be updated
(though it is simple for the programmer) in order to open their own
productivity screens. This mode is of special interest to those who
do not have a de-interlacer in their computer which removes flicker from
all the familiar interlaced modes. Productivity mode can have 2 or 4
colors from a palette of 64.
Super Denise also provides Super-Hires modes that give 1280 by
200/400 (NTSC) or 256/512 (PAL). The higher number in each case is
an interlaced mode (that is not de-interlaced by the A3000, BTW). These
modes are compatible with standard NTSC and PAL output, including 1084's.
They also have the 4/64 color arrangement.
The A3000 de-interlacer is on the motherboard. It is not in the 1950
monitor, which is just a (very nice) multiscanning monitor. One extra
feature of the 1950 is that you can set it so that overscanned pictures
do indeed cover the full face of the monitor, which is not true of many
other multisyncs, and is very useful for Amiga graphics work.
The A3000 has an internal bay that can take another floppy or a SCSI 3.5"
drive. There is cabling inside to connect that drive. There is both
an external floppy and SCSI connector on the back of the A3000, and
when you look over the top of your 3000 you can read the labelling since
the labels are above the connector, not below.
Commodities Exchange is a standardized way of handling any special
input-related magic. This includes the various keyboard and mouse
enhancements that people have come to know and love, as well
as hot-keys. The system ships with several standard commodities,
and surely many more will appear in the public domain. We supply:
Screen Blanker
Function Key expander
AutoPoint (activates the window under the pointer)
NoCapsLock (for those who hate it when they brush that key)
IHelp (keyboard sizing and such for windows)
--
Peter Cherna, Software Engineer, Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!peter peter@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com
My opinions do not necessarily represent the opinions of my employer.
"If you insist on spending $10000 on a 68030 technology, may we humbly
suggest you buy three Amiga 3000's."
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From uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!pollux.usc.edu!papa Thu Jun 14 16:58:52 PDT 1990
From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa)
Subject: (,COPY) Last word on Copyrights and Patents
>The legally defendable item is not the game code; the valuable intellectual
>property is the game design.
Sorry. BOTH the game code and the game design can be protected: the
first by copyright, the second one by patent. So far, ELROG, the
Russian author and Nintendo have used only copyrights for protection
[of the game tetris] (though I would assume a patent is being sought).
>The game idea, not the picture on the screen, is what is a
>protectable object.
Wrong again. Both are protectable (one with patent, the other one with
copyright). Note also another mistake you make later in your message,
when you imply that ideas can be copyrighted. Not so:
IDEAS CANNOT BE COPYRIGHTED, THEY CAN ONLY BE PATENTED!
-- Marco
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