dean@ns.network.com (Dean C. Gahlon) (01/12/90)
Just a note to let y'all know that the new revision of the Libraries And Devices manual is available here in Mpls. I just picked up my copy yesterday, and am finding all KINDS of interesting stuff (for instance, masked boolean gadgets -- have these not been mentioned on the net at all, or were they discussed during one of the times recently when our newsfeed was down?) Dean C. Gahlon dean@ns.network.com
peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) (01/12/90)
In article <1990Jan11.163459.1733@ns.network.com> dean@ns.network.com (Dean C. Gahlon) writes: >Just a note to let y'all know that the new revision of the Libraries And >Devices manual is available here in Mpls. I just picked up my copy >yesterday, and am finding all KINDS of interesting stuff (for instance, >masked boolean gadgets -- have these not been mentioned on the net at all, >or were they discussed during one of the times recently when our newsfeed >was down?) Yes it's true. The new ROM Kernel Manual (Libraries and Devices) is out. Note well that the three software volumes that were out for 1.1 (white covers with a single colored band) were organized along the lines of Exec, Intuition, and Libraries and Devices. Each generally contained technical descriptions, autodocs, and includes. The new organization puts the software manuals into two volumes, one of which contains all the includes and autodocs (it's been out for a while, and you've likely all seen it) and the brand new one, which contains the technical descriptions for all the modules including Exec, Intuition, and all the other libraries and devices. After all, Exec and Intuition are both libraries. With the release of this third volume (the revised Hardware Manual has been out for a little while), the technical documentation is now up to the level of the 1.3 revision of the operating system. When 1.2 was released, the 1.2 Enhancer had addenda for the technical as well as user manuals in it. People who bought systems that shipped with 1.2 installed for the most part got revised user manuals and no Enhancer booklet. So the technical updates did not get out to a lot of people. Yes, masked boolean gadgets were explained in the Enhancer 1.2 manual, along with all the other 1.2 features. Now that the technical series is up to 1.3, it's all described in one place. There is one important point that deserves mention. The people in CATS and Engineering worked very hard to verify that all the example code compiles and works as intended. As well, a lot of you may find useful the new sections on correct Amiga programming practices including programming for compatibility, and on troubleshooting your software. 43 chapters, about 950 pages, and a lot of late nights... let's make it a best-seller! > Dean C. Gahlon > dean@ns.network.com -- 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.
ejkst@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Eric J. Kennedy) (01/12/90)
In article <9298@cbmvax.commodore.com> peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) writes: >technical descriptions, autodocs, and includes. The new organization >puts the software manuals into two volumes, one of which contains >all the includes and autodocs (it's been out for a while, and you've >likely all seen it) Does this manual contain anything not on the NDU from Commodore? It doesn't make a lot of sense to buy it if not. That info is more useful on disk anyway. -- Eric Kennedy ejkst@cis.unix.pitt.edu
dean@ns.network.com (Dean C. Gahlon) (01/12/90)
In article <9298@cbmvax.commodore.com> peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) writes: >Yes, masked boolean gadgets were explained in the Enhancer 1.2 >manual, along with all the other 1.2 features. > >Now that the technical series is up to 1.3, it's all described in one place. > >There is one important point that deserves mention. The people in >CATS and Engineering worked very hard to verify that all the >example code compiles and works as intended. > Just one comment on masked boolean gadgets. The descriptions of the fields in the gadget structure claim that the "BoolInfo" pointer should go into the "MutualExclude" field of the gadget structure. Given that 1) this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and 2) the examples all have it in the SpecialInfo field, I'm going to treat it as being that way, but it was a little disconcerting at first. Aside from the above, everything looks great! Dean C. Gahlon dean@ns.network.com
peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) (01/12/90)
In article <21529@unix.cis.pitt.edu> ejkst@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Eric J. Kennedy) writes: >In article <9298@cbmvax.commodore.com> peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) writes: >>technical descriptions, autodocs, and includes. The new organization >>puts the software manuals into two volumes, one of which contains >>all the includes and autodocs (it's been out for a while, and you've >>likely all seen it) > >Does this manual contain anything not on the NDU from Commodore? It >doesn't make a lot of sense to buy it if not. That info is more useful >on disk anyway. (For those who are wondering, the NDU is the Native Developer's Upgrade, a package available through CATS, containing autodocs and includes on disk. Write to: CATS-Information 1200 Wilson Drive West Chester PA 19380 ) It can be nice to have autodocs and includes in print form too, so here they are. I always had notes marked in the autodocs section of my 1.1 Manuals. The AutoDocs and Includes Manual also contains (among other things) a complete cross-reference of all structures, members, and #defines for the include files, giving sizes, offsets, and values, as well as where in the includes they may be found. Then you have the IFF documentation, sample IFF code, sample device, sample library,... Of course, if you have the autodocs on line, indexed, with instant single key lookup, you would well prefer to have the NDU (or both). By a strange coincidence, I've released a bunch of tools that do just that (freely redistributable, look for "DevKit" on a Fish disk near 300). Anyway, the big news this time around is certainly the software manual, and there's information in there that isn't found anywhere else except in the legends handed down by the ancients... >-- >Eric Kennedy >ejkst@cis.unix.pitt.edu Peter -- 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.
peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) (01/12/90)
In article <1990Jan11.232420.5447@ns.network.com> dean@ns.UUCP (Dean C. Gahlon) writes: > Just one comment on masked boolean gadgets. The descriptions of the >fields in the gadget structure claim that the "BoolInfo" pointer should >go into the "MutualExclude" field of the gadget structure. Given that 1) >this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and 2) the examples all have it >in the SpecialInfo field, I'm going to treat it as being that way, but it >was a little disconcerting at first. Quite true. We had to leave one error in the book to prove we're human :-) On a serious note, if you should happen to find any other errors in the book (we knew this one), please mail them to bugs@cbmvax. That way, they'll end up in the proper place where they may be found when time comes to fix and revise. It helps if you use a subject line which is descriptive, such as "1.3 RKM Libs&Devs MutualExclude/SpecialInfo mistake", and not "I found a mistake". > Aside from the above, everything looks great! Thanks. > Dean C. Gahlon > dean@ns.network.com -- 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.
etxkrjg@solsta.ericsson.se (Kristian Jorg TX/DKL) (01/12/90)
What will happen when 1.4 comes out? Will there be a new set of manuals? -- ---------------------------------- Kristian Jorg USENET: etxkrjg@solsta.ericsson.se
ken@cbmcats.UUCP (Ken Farinsky) (01/13/90)
In article <1990Jan11.232420.5447@ns.network.com> dean@ns.UUCP (Dean C. Gahlon) writes: >>[Talking about the introduction of the Addison Wesley Libs & Devs Manual] > Just one comment on masked boolean gadgets. The descriptions of the >fields in the gadget structure claim that the "BoolInfo" pointer should >go into the "MutualExclude" field of the gadget structure. Given that 1) >this doesn't make a whole lot of sense, and 2) the examples all have it >in the SpecialInfo field, I'm going to treat it as being that way, but it >was a little disconcerting at first. How do you read so fast? You just got the manual! We know of a number of problems with this manual, hopefully we will post long descriptions of them at sometime in the near future. Here are some brief descriptions of the ones I know of--send me mail if you find more (or post to bix, book.comments...): P 92: The information about BOOLEXTEND under MutualExclude should be under SpecialInfo. P 133: There should be two closing braces "}" on this page to finish up the example. P 149: a bunch of numbers associated with alertMsg are really octal and should have leading backslashes. I have not yet had time to look up the correct positioning of the backslashes. This happens because troff eats backslashes, so we have to double them up. Guess we missed a few--also look for these in printf() statements, where you will find a "0" instead of backslash-n. printf("\n"); --> printf("0"); P 884: An item in parenthesis starts outside of a NOTE and ends inside of it. Just remove the parenthesis. P 900: At the top of the page, after the line "Motor_Off(diskreq1);", there should be a FreeMem() of the AllocMem done on p. 899. Index: A number of subjects in the index have multiple entries. See "Text" for an example. -------------------------------------------------------------- Ken Farinsky -- CATS Commodore Business Machines PHONE 215-431-9421 UUCP ...{uunet,rutgers}!cbmvax!ken --------------------------------------------------------------
dwl10@uts.amdahl.com (Dave Lowrey) (01/13/90)
In article <9315@cbmvax.commodore.com> peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) writes: > >On a serious note, if you should happen to find any other errors in the >book (we knew this one), please mail them to bugs@cbmvax.'ll ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ What other errors do you know about? It would be helpfull if you could list them. -- "What is another word | Dave Lowrey | [The opinions expressed MAY be for 'Thesaurus'?" | Amdahl Corp. | those of the author and are not | Houston, Texas | necessarily those of his Steven Wright | amdahl!dwl10 | employer] (`nuff said!)
840445m@aucs.uucp (Alan McKay) (01/13/90)
Could some kind soul please post the complete name, publisher, ISBN etc. of all of the four books. I'd like to order them from my local bookstore. thanks -- + Alan W. McKay + VOICE: (902) 542-1565 + + Acadia University + "Courage my friend, it is not yet too late + + WOLFVILLE, N.S. + to make the world a better place." + + 840445m@AcadiaU.CA + - Tommy Douglas +
sanders@sanders.austin.ibm.com (Tony Sanders) (01/14/90)
In article <9325@cbmvax.commodore.com> ken@cbmcats.UUCP (Ken Farinsky) writes:
-P 149: a bunch of numbers associated with alertMsg are really octal
- and should have leading backslashes. I have not yet had time
- to look up the correct positioning of the backslashes.
- This happens because troff eats backslashes, so we have to
- double them up. Guess we missed a few--also look for these
Try using \e instead of double backslashes.
-- sanders
-- sanders
Reply-To: cs.utexas.edu!ibmaus!auschs!sanders.austin.ibm.com!sanders
lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch'entrate :-)dwl10@uts.amdahl.com (Dave Lowrey) (01/14/90)
In article <1990Jan12.220811.11185@aucs.uucp> 840445m@aucs.UUCP (Alan McKay) writes: >Could some kind soul please post the complete name, publisher, ISBN etc. >of all of the four books. I'd like to order them from my local bookstore. > I only know of three manuals (is there one for DOS yet?) They are: Publisher: Addison Wesley Publishing Company, Inc. The Amiga Technical Reference Series AMIGA ROM KERNEL REFERENCE MANUAK: INCLUDES & AUTODOCS ISBN 0-201-18177-0 AMIGA ROM KERNEL REFERENCE MANUAL: LIBRARIES & DEVICES ISBN 0-201-18187-8 AMIGA HARDWARE REFERENCE MANUAL ISBN 0-201-18157-6 >thanks -- "What is another word | Dave Lowrey | [The opinions expressed MAY be for 'Thesaurus'?" | Amdahl Corp. | those of the author and are not | Houston, Texas | necessarily those of his Steven Wright | amdahl!dwl10 | employer] (`nuff said!)
ken@cbmcats.UUCP (Ken Farinsky) (01/17/90)
In article <3105@cello.UUCP> sanders@sanders.austin.ibm.com (Tony Sanders) writes: >In article <9325@cbmvax.commodore.com> ken@cbmcats.UUCP (Ken Farinsky) writes: >- This happens because troff eats backslashes, so we have to >- double them up. Guess we missed a few--also look for these >Try using \e instead of double backslashes. Can't win, can I. \e (backslash-e) is the escape character. If I use this, and then redefine the escape character, the text comes out wrong. Double backslash will always come out as a backslash, unless it is in a macro, or you turn off the escape character. If you ask "why didn't you turn off the escape character for your code examples?", well, our macros weren't very smart. If the escape character was off, the headers and footers died. -------------------------------------------------------------- Ken Farinsky -- CATS Commodore Business Machines PHONE 215-431-9421 UUCP ...{uunet,rutgers}!cbmvax!ken --------------------------------------------------------------
panon@cheddar.cc.ubc.ca (Paul-Andre Panon) (02/03/90)
In article <31106.25b4e594@drunivac.drew.edu> tlimonce@drunivac.drew.edu writes: > >Why doesn't C-A use AmigaTeX? The \begin{verbatim} and >\end{verbatim} work just fine! Except that it unfortunately doesn't. {verbatim} eats leading spaces for breakfast. That could be nasty on indentation of programs. I know because our team project documentation was being done in LaTeX and we banged our head up against this. We wound up using \tt throughout. Another problem with verbatim is that it can't be used from within other environments. Our LaTeX guru here said verbatim is one of the things which is being upgraded in the version of LaTeX currently being developed (according to an issue of TUGboat a few months back). The rewrite is generally supposed to make LaTeX more robust. Needless to say it will be a very interesting new version when it becomes available but I doubt it will be before our final report is due in March :-(. > >(ok, ok, that's LaTeX... but it's almost the same in plain TeX). > >> Ken Farinsky -- CATS Commodore Business Machines > >(Highly Biased TeX user) >-Tom >--- >Tom Limoncelli The computer industry should spend more time in front of Paul-Andre_Panon@cheddar.cc.ubc.ca or USERPAP1@UBCMTSG or Paul-Andre_Panon@undergrad.cs.ubc.ca or USERPAP1@mtsg.ubc.ca "What should the role of the University be? It should be to enlighten Society." -Luis Sobrino