phil@rice.edu (William LeFebvre) (10/05/88)
I just got the November issue of AmigaWorld in my mailbox yesterday (that's strange...didn't we just start October?) and I saw a few things that were relevant to recent discussions in this group. There is a rather nice article about ARexx. Anyone that is still wondering what it is and what it does for you might do well to read it. It lists some programs that support ARexx (including AmigaTEX [sic], the first time I've ever seen AmigaWorld make a reference to that fine product). I also saw an advertisement for Superbase and Superplan that says "Superbase Professional and Superplan now support ARexx". So add those to the list. And didn't someone recent comment that it would be nice if there was a spreadsheet with an ARexx port? Well, that's Superplan (if you can afford it....although I guess $150 is reasonable for a spreadsheet). There's also a short article in the Notepad about the Sony Jumbotron scoreboard at Miami's Joe Robbie Stadium. Seems that it's programmed and driven by three Amigas! A 500, 1000, and 2000. Guess where Super Bowl XXIII is being held? Miami! Wouldn't it be just absolutely great if the network covering the game decided to do a short feature on the scoreboard? Can't someone convince them to do that? P-p-p-p-p-p-p-please? If Commodore could afford Super Bowl advertising time, it would be ideal to advertise during that game and make sure that the ads pointed out what was driving the scoreboard. The Amiga is not just programming it, folks. The board is hooked up directly to an Amiga and it is running it directly (well, at least according to the article). Finally, does anyone know who won the AmigaWorld contest? My copy of the mag says (pg. 76) that it was won by none other than "That lucky person's name" from a place called "and home town". Sounds like someone forgot to make a few important changes before shipping data to the typesetter! Sigh. We weren't called, so I guess we should unpack our bags, huh? William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University <phil@Rice.edu>
page@swan.ulowell.edu (Bob Page) (10/05/88)
Add another to the list: The MediaPhile developer's system (it's a run-time library) has an ARexx port, according to the blurb I got on the system. MediaPhile is an system that allows you to control Sony 8mm video decks (and other IR-controlled devices) from your Amiga. ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. page@swan.ulowell.edu ulowell!page
jlockhar@ssibbs.UUCP (John Lockhart) (10/06/88)
In article <1958@kalliope.rice.edu>, phil@rice.edu (William LeFebvre) writes: > I just got the November issue of AmigaWorld in my mailbox yesterday [deleted stuff] > It lists some programs that support ARexx (including AmigaTEX [sic], the > first time I've ever seen AmigaWorld make a reference to that fine > product). Unfortunately, they blew the reference. They referred to it as Public Domain (EGAD!!!). [For the record, AmigaTeX is sold by Radical Eye Software and is NOT PD -- but most of us knew that, right?] As far as supporting ARexx, I've heard that ASDG's LaserScan software will support ARexx, as will a future version of Professional Page (so that you can easily put your scanned, hi-res color pics into a DTP package) Also, although they didn't mention it in the ARexx article, they mentioned CygnusEd Professional [ASDG-published] later on. It supports ARexx and has become my editor of choice (not to start religious editor wars -- I just want to mention that ARexx-compatible editors, as far as I know, are now TxEd Plus, CygnusEd Pro, and a version of mg1b modified by Tom Rockicki}.
phil@titan.rice.edu (William LeFebvre) (10/09/88)
In article <16@ssibbs.UUCP> jlockhar@ssibbs.UUCP (John Lockhart) writes: >In article <1958@kalliope.rice.edu>, phil@rice.edu (William LeFebvre) writes: >>... >> It lists some programs that support ARexx (including AmigaTEX [sic], the >> first time I've ever seen AmigaWorld make a reference to that fine >> product). > >Unfortunately, they blew the reference. They referred to it as Public >Domain (EGAD!!!). [For the record, AmigaTeX is sold by Radical Eye >Software and is NOT PD -- but most of us knew that, right?] Yes, they got it wrong in the text of the article, but they almost redeemed themselves by putting the address for Radial Eye in the block at the end of the article (the one that lists references to products that support ARexx). I'll probably write a quick little letter to the editor that points this out, along with the "spelling" error (could one consider "TEX" a spelling error"?). William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University <phil@Rice.edu>
space@sns.UUCP (Lars Soltau) (10/10/88)
In article <16@ssibbs.UUCP> jlockhar@ssibbs.UUCP (John Lockhart) writes: >I just want to mention that ARexx-compatible editors, as far as I know, >are now TxEd Plus, CygnusEd Pro, and a version of mg1b modified by Tom >Rockicki}. Matt Dillon's famous DME has now an ARexx port. This once more puts DME in front of all other editors I've seen. Matt, how did you manage to make it scroll THAT fast? I'm using a 1-BitPlane-Display and it really flies. One thing with DME bothers me, though: it updates its window title bars too often, so that I'm never able to see which of DME's windows is active. -- Lars Soltau UUCP: uunet!unido!sns!space BIX: -- no bucks -- Here's looking at you, kid! -- the Medusa
vkr@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao) (10/12/88)
In article <1978@kalliope.rice.edu> phil@Rice.edu (William LeFebvre) writes: >[...] along with the "spelling" error (could one consider "TEX" a spelling >error"?). Apparently, `TEX' is copy-righted by somebody other than Knuth. So refering to `TEX' or pronounceing it like `teks' means that you are referring to some other product :-). This is out of Knuth's book. (or an article by him) Actually if you are typesetting, the `correct' way is to print the E like a subscript. `TeX' is a sop to those (like ttys) who can't do it. :-)
ssd@sugar.uu.net (Scott Denham) (10/12/88)
In article <16@ssibbs.UUCP>, jlockhar@ssibbs.UUCP (John Lockhart) writes: > I just want to mention that ARexx-compatible editors, as far as I know, > are now TxEd Plus, CygnusEd Pro, and a version of mg1b modified by Tom > Rockicki}. You missed one - UEdit by Rick Stiles is an excellent shareware editor that includes an Arexx port. Scott Denham
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (10/12/88)
>Matt Dillon's famous DME has now an ARexx port. This once more puts DME in >front of all other editors I've seen. Matt, how did you manage to make it >scroll THAT fast? I'm using a 1-BitPlane-Display and it really flies. >One thing with DME bothers me, though: it updates its window title bars too >often, so that I'm never able to see which of DME's windows is active. >-- >Lars Soltau UUCP: uunet!unido!sns!space BIX: -- no bucks -- It scrolls right nicely with the 1.3 FastFonts. Glancing at the source, I simply use ScrollRaster() to scroll. Since I wrote DME on the Amiga and do NOT use the console device, everything is faster. Kim DeVaughn did the ARexx port. The title updating is a problem... I think I mentioned this before but to remove the flicker I have to Text() directly to the title bar rather than use SetWindowTitles(). Frankly, I think 5K is too much space wasted to port ARexx, I am doing much better with my own IPC mechanism. But then again, I'm the only one using my own IPC mechanism so far (fan club of one) since it hasn't been released yet. <natch> -Matt
kim@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) (10/14/88)
In article <8810121541.AA11344@cory.Berkeley.EDU>, dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: > > Frankly, I think 5K is too much space wasted to port ARexx, I am > doing much better with my own IPC mechanism. But then again, I'm the only > one using my own IPC mechanism so far (fan club of one) since it hasn't > been released yet. <natch> Welllll ... the current implementation of ARexx in DME adds only about 1.5K, not 5K. That could be slimmed down a bit if I removed some checking code that I really don't think is needed, now that I understand ARexx a little better. Also several hundred bytes could get cut if I didn't allow "recursive" macro calls. So it could be done in as little as 1K, or so, without too much loss of functionality. On the other hand, the current implementation is rather basic. For example, the interface is "one way" in that currently, DME must initiate the macro call. Having an ARexx program startup a copy of DME, and then tell it what to do isn't supported (yet). Not sure how much code that would take, as I just started thinking about possible implementations, but I would imagine it could be done in about 1K also. Less if I could share some of the existing interface code. We'll see ... A couple other things do need to be done to DME itself though to make the ARexx interface (or, I suspect, your own IPC mechanism, for that matter) more useful. First, better error/boundary-condition trapping and reporting of the internal DME commands needs to be done. The second thing, is to give ARexx macros the ability to interrogate DME "state" information (cursor position, insert/overstrike mode, tab settings, current char/word/line, beginning-of-file, end-of-file, etc.) These too would add some code. So, maybe 5K is a reasonable ballpark number for a "complete" interface, with full error checking, etc., but it *can* be done in considerably less. That was really the objective of this 1st attempt ... to see how easy it would be to add a basic ARexx interface to some existing code, that wasn't designed with ARexx in mind, and to do so with *minimal* changes to the original code. Was pretty simple, really ... BTW, I notice that the "moderator(s)" are finally posting v1.30 of DME, after many months. Too bad it's obsolete (and in a sense, a real waste of net.bandwidth), since Matt's added some exciting new features in v1.30c ... but I'll let him tell you about them! Sounds like he's added some more stuff beyond 1.30c ... I'll be interested to see what *your* IPC mechanism looks like, Matt! /kim P.S. For those that are interested, Bill Hawes has posted a package on BIX called "rvi" (REXX Variable Interface). It's supposed to allow an ARexx "host" program (such as DME) direct access to an ARexx program or macro's internal variables. I haven't looked at it yet, but it might be pretty useful for xfer of "state" info, etc. -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,uunet,oliveb,ames}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 BIX: kdevaughn GEnie: K.DEVAUGHN CIS: 76535,25
scott@applix.UUCP (Scott Evernden) (10/14/88)
In article <c1=Ln53awT1010e=46Y@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> kim@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Kim DeVaughn) writes: >BTW, I notice that the "moderator(s)" are finally posting v1.30 of DME, >after many months. Too bad it's obsolete (and in a sense, a real waste >of net.bandwidth), We have a _serious_ problem here. This is really starting to bug me. There are quite a number of really nice programs and tools for the Amiga which regularly appear via other sources (eg., bbses, plink, genie, ci$). I see stuff like, for example, the QRT ray tracer, a ShowWiz slideshow pgm, viewers, disassemblers, etc., surfacing almost every day. These are good-to-terrific pieces of work which not everyone has access to. I see lots of posting on usenet for all the other machines (pc, mac, st). Sometimes these are _massive_ postings. I can't pretend I don't notice a lack of Amiga postings anymore. I have several pieces of code which I want to _give_ you all (eg., SnipIt sources, a loom simulator, etc.), but I probably won't until I see this thing clear up. (I am aware of alt.amiga, or whatever, but I don't believe everyone sees that- I don't believe I see it). It's really almost pointless to get tools like DME months after they've become obsolete. I mean, it's really stupid. Like dumb. Is there anything which can be done to expedite the binaries/sources moderation such that we can start the flow again?? -scott
peter@sugar.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (10/15/88)
In article <823@applix.UUCP>, scott@applix.UUCP (Scott Evernden) writes: > Is there anything which can be done to expedite the binaries/sources > moderation such that we can start the flow again?? Find someone who can do a better job and is willing to do it, or buy the current moderators some better equipment. -- Peter da Silva `-_-' peter@sugar.uu.net Have you hugged U your wolf today?