kawakami@ocf.berkeley.edu (John Kawakami) (12/19/89)
Recently, there has been a little interest in archiving some
of the better articles on comp.sys.atari.st. I'd be willing to put
together a short anthology of such articles. I'm not sure how I'll
do this since I've never sone something like this before, but as they
say at wherever it is they say whatever it is they say, "what the heck!"
Here is what I forsee as the First Book of Good Articles:
* It will come in several formats including but not limited to:
. UNIX compressed tar archive, with a collection of troff formatted
files.
. ARC of ascii files.
. One long file that will print on line printers, paginated.
. PostScript, compressed tar or ARC.
. Maybe TeX instead of troff if I ever bother to learn TeX.
. Maybe in some Desk Top publishing program if I can get my hands
on one.
. Maybe a photocopied version sent by US mail.
* Maybe graphics. It depends on how complex I want the project to be.
* Not less than ten articles.
* A cool sounding title.
Here are the rules for submissions:
* The first deadline is January 30, 1990. I go off for holiday between
Dec. 20 and Jan 16, maybe longer, maybe not. So I'm just going to let
my mail spool grow for a month.
* Submissions should be in ascii format. If you have a troff or TeX file,
tell me, but don't send it. I don't know if I want to deal with special
formats at the moment.
* I reserve the right to change spelling, grammar, syntax, and formatting
without notice. Unless you explicitly state that your document is not
to be combined, merged, or integrated with another document, I reserve
the right to do so. You may indicate if portions are to remain unchanged.
* I will mail out an ad hoc release form before putting the book together.
I don't know how legal the form will be but I will try.
* All contributors will be credited.
* All submissions remain the property of the original authors.
* I reserve the right to distribute all the writings as a collection
in electronic and paper formats. I reserve the right to charge
for media, duplication, and labor, for any distributions requiring
media, duplication, and labor, such as diskette mailings or
paper copies.
* I will encourage the copying of the collection as a whole, and
any article which explicitly states that it should not be copied
inexpensively will not be included.
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Topics I'm interested in seeing:
1. RAM upgrades.
2. Hacking the display.
3. Things to hang off the cartridge port.
4. Alternative mice/alternative input devices.
5. How to write handlers for strange devices.
6. Fixes for the monitors, console, mice, etc.
?. Anything else you think is pertinent.
Other notes:
I think this book will be a mostly hardware book. If the
software oriented articles start to flood my mailbox, I might
come up with a separate book for that. But maybe I'm thinking
too far into the future.
Although I have reserved the right to charge for the
book, I will email it to anyone who asks for free. I will charge
if I have to send out a diskette or a hardcopy version. But I'll
try to keep it down to something like $5 in the USA.
Remember to write to your audience. I don't know what the
level of the audience is, but I'd aim at the "weekend-programmer'
or "kitbuilder" crowd. They are comfortable enough to write
programs and do minor repairs or modifications, but also want
clear, detailed docs because they don't know enough about the
ST (or maybe about computers) to confidently debug mistakes or
fill in vague points in your docs.
Send comments, articles, and suggestions to
kawakami@ocf.berkeley.edu
and remember that I'm on holiday, so I won't be reading anything
for nearly a month. Good bye and happy hollidays.
John Kawakami kawakami@ocf.berkeley.edu