grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Graham Thomas) (06/30/90)
I have a couple of questions about strange behaviour on our two DTP setups. But first: I was looking through the ROM address space of TOS 1.4 and was delighted to find (at address $FD0294 AND $FD3206) that Dave Staugas still (after 2 ROM revisions) loves Bea Hablig. Not only that, but (at $FD124E) that Jim (Eisenstein?) loves Jeneane. Are there any more little messages lurking around that I've missed? There must be lots of room for this in the TT TOS! Now the questions. We have 2 systems consisting of Mega 4, SH205 and SLM804 laser printer, which are used mainly for word processing & DTP work. Both exhibit (different) strange behaviour, and I'd be grateful for any info, clues, hunches, etc. about what's going on. For a start, they use the DMA channel differently. System A (the older one, bought mid-87 I think) connects using the route Mega->Laser->Hard disk. System B (bought Spring 88) connects Mega->Hard disk->Laser. I think system A is the way the manual says it should be done, but neither system will work the other way round. (I've seen a magazine review where the reviewer - Richard Seel who used to do DTP reviews for the UK ST World mag - had the same problem and had to connect his system the 'wrong' way.) System B sometimes has problems booting up - it boots from floppy unless we switch on the Mega first (after the printer of course), then switch on the hard disk, then do a warm reset. System B also sometimes comes up with 'Data may be damaged on drive D:' messages when we exit from First Word Plus (v3.14 UK). (Both hard drives are configured with Atari's software, the version released before HDX 3.01 - no, not 3.00, I know that was buggy. The version before that even. The 4 partitions C: - F: range from 2 to 10 mb.) As far as we know, the disk isn't really damaged. A reset 'cures' the problem. System A has a different foible. Sometimes after exiting one program the machine won't run another (which could be the same prog again, or could be a different one). After double-clicking on prog no.2, the prog is highlighted, the mouse pointer changes to the busy bee, then nothing else happens. Generally, this takes a cold boot to clear. A warm boot doesn't do it (and a warm boot with the machine in this condition bypasses George Woodside's virus guard bootsector on my bootup floppy). Both these systems get used by several people, so there could be odd things lurking around on the disk. But I've run checks with DLII and cleared out whatever lost clusters and zero-length files were there. I don't have any really exotic auto progs & accessories in there, just things like foldr100, pinhead (1.4 currently), G+Plus, Little Green Selector. Both machines are running TOS 1.2. Thanks for staying with this rambling monologue. Does anyone have any suggestions? I'd be happy to answer any questions you think might be relevant. These problems are not fatal, but they're annoying, and anything to alleviate them would be very welcome. Graham -- Graham Thomas, SPRU, Mantell Building, U of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RF, UK JANET: grahamt@uk.ac.sussex.syma BITNET: grahamt%syma.sussex.ac.uk@UKACRL INTERNET: grahamt%syma.sussex.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk UUCP: grahamt%syma.sussex@ukc.uucp PHONE: +44 273 686758 FAX: [..] 685865
Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com (07/06/90)
Graham Thomas writes: > ... But first: I was looking through the ROM address space of TOS >1.4 and was delighted to find (at address $FD0294 AND $FD3206) that Dave >Staugas still (after 2 ROM revisions) loves Bea Hablig. Not only that, >but (at $FD124E) that Jim (Eisenstein?) loves Jeneane. Nice to get independant confirmation of the veracity of what Neil Harris, John Townsend, Alan Pratt, Ken B., and others from Atari have been telling us all along... there just isn't any room in the TOS ROMs to add any more useful features for us... BobR
alex@athertn.Atherton.COM (Alex Leavens) (07/07/90)
BobR writes: >Graham Thomas writes: >> ... But first: I was looking through the ROM address space of TOS >>1.4 and was delighted to find (at address $FD0294 AND $FD3206) that Dave >>Staugas still (after 2 ROM revisions) loves Bea Hablig. Not only that, >>but (at $FD124E) that Jim (Eisenstein?) loves Jeneane. >Nice to get independant confirmation of the veracity of what Neil Harris, >John Townsend, Alan Pratt, Ken B., and others from Atari have been telling >us all along... there just isn't any room in the TOS ROMs to add any more >useful features for us... Give me a break. Encoding this stuff takes maybe 30 bytes, tops. (I used to write video games, and this kind of stuff is pretty common--you've got 10 bytes sitting around, so you encode something cute in it. BFD). If they had 'easter-egged' it, so that if you did something funky like bring up a dialog box, then hit ALT-SHIFT-CTL-F1-F2 and they pop a message to that effect, _then_ I'd be upset, 'cause that takes a chunk of codespace. But 30 bytes? Sheez. (P.S.-Neil Harris hasn't worked at Atari in quite a while. He works for Genie now.) -- |-------------------------------------------------------------------------| |--alex | alex@Atherton.COM | Caution! Falling Opinions, next 6 miles | | New Net Address!!: UUCP: {uunet,ucbvax}!unisoft!bdt!dsdeng!alex | | "AAAAAGH! Friday the 13th is on a Friday this month! |
bill@mwca.UUCP (Bill Sheppard) (07/09/90)
In article <26704@cherry.athertn.Atherton.COM> alex@Atherton.COM (Alex Leavens) writes: >BobR writes: >>Graham Thomas writes: >>> ... >If they had 'easter-egged' it, so that if you did something funky >like bring up a dialog box, then hit ALT-SHIFT-CTL-F1-F2 and they >pop a message to that effect, _then_ I'd be upset, 'cause that takes >a chunk of codespace. But 30 bytes? Sheez. >... >|--alex | alex@Atherton.COM | Caution! Falling Opinions, next 6 miles | >| New Net Address!!: UUCP: {uunet,ucbvax}!unisoft!bdt!dsdeng!alex | >| "AAAAAGH! Friday the 13th is on a Friday this month! | Along the same lines...an interesting anecdote. When Microware was writing the OS for the Tandy Coco III there was ~6K of ROM space left over, which Radio Shack instructed to "fill with garbage". The authors of the OS digitized a picture of themselves and put in a small routine to display it upon pressing Alt-Ctrl-Reset (reset is on the back of the Coco). Try it next time you're in Radio Shack - the clerk will have NO IDEA how that picture got there! -- ################################################################################ # Bill Sheppard # OS-9: Seven generations beyond __/_!! # # Microware Systems Corporation # OS-9000: 4500 times better than... # #######Opinions expressed are my own, though you'd be wise to adopt them!#######
neil@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Forsyth) (07/16/90)
In article <26704@cherry.athertn.Atherton.COM> alex@Atherton.COM (Alex Leavens) writes: ]BobR writes: ]]Graham Thomas writes: ]]] ... But first: I was looking through the ROM address space of TOS ]]]1.4 and was delighted to find (at address $FD0294 AND $FD3206) that Dave ]]]Staugas still (after 2 ROM revisions) loves Bea Hablig. Not only that, ]]]but (at $FD124E) that Jim (Eisenstein?) loves Jeneane. ] ]]Nice to get independant confirmation of the veracity of what Neil Harris, ]]John Townsend, Alan Pratt, Ken B., and others from Atari have been telling ]]us all along... there just isn't any room in the TOS ROMs to add any more ]]useful features for us... ] ]Give me a break. Encoding this stuff takes maybe 30 bytes, tops. (I ]used to write video games, and this kind of stuff is pretty common--you've ]got 10 bytes sitting around, so you encode something cute in it. BFD). Agreed. Allan Pratt did say there were only 100 bytes or so left free in the French version of the ROM and there is a big chunk free in the UK one. ]If they had 'easter-egged' it, so that if you did something funky ]like bring up a dialog box, then hit ALT-SHIFT-CTL-F1-F2 and they ]pop a message to that effect, _then_ I'd be upset, 'cause that takes ]a chunk of codespace. But 30 bytes? Sheez. Well the rainbow effect in the Desktop Info dialog is just such an example. It's nice but I could live without it. I'd prefer bug fixes. ]|-------------------------------------------------------------------------| ]|--alex | alex@Atherton.COM | Caution! Falling Opinions, next 6 miles | ]| New Net Address!!: UUCP: {uunet,ucbvax}!unisoft!bdt!dsdeng!alex | ]| "AAAAAGH! Friday the 13th is on a Friday this month! | +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ ! DISCLAIMER:Unless otherwise stated, the above comments are entirely my own ! ! ! ! Neil Forsyth JANET: neil@uk.ac.hw.cs ! ! Dept. of Computer Science ARPA: neil@cs.hw.ac.uk ! ! Heriot-Watt University UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!neil ! ! Edinburgh, Scotland, UK "spam spaM spAM sPAM SPAM, lovely SPAM" ! +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+