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Date: Sat 19 Mar 88 23:45:23 PST
Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #126
From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU>
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Info-Atari16 Digest Saturday, March 19, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 126
This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield
Today's Topics:
Re: fsel_input
Re: fsel_input
Atari Forth question
Re: Video interrupts: using or disabling
More information of software color upgrade
Re: A cure looking for a disease? (I hope)
Re: DESKTOP.INF some corrections
Re: More info on software color upgrade
micro-RTX price
Re: UniTerm 2.1a wishlist/Broken ST problem...
Re: A cure looking for a disease? (I hope)
Clearing out used software!
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Date: 9 Mar 88 11:06:35 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!fireplace@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: fsel_input
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
In a previous article, braner@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu writes:
>For one thing, the "*.*" should be the default, without the need to type it.
To my knowledge, if you click on the bar at the top of the directory list
(instead of in the list), it automatically defaults to "*.*". It's one of
those nifty "hidden" features. I could of been dreaming this. 8-)
You mean you really still like the ATARI 8-bit? <----- fireplace@cup.portal.com
<------------------------------------------ sun!portal!cup.portal.com!fireplace
------------------------------
Date: 9 Mar 88 11:33:14 GMT
From: portal!cup.portal.com!fireplace@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Re: fsel_input
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
Remember, there is a wonderful replacement file selector called the "Universal
File Selector". You simply put in in the AUTO folder and forget about it. It
adds a click-on drive selector plus Format, Create Folder, Move, Copy, Rename,
Delete, Disk Info, Print Directory, Protect and Unprotect. It is well worth
it's outrageous price of $15 - I suggest you check it out.
------------------------------
Date: 9 Mar 88 19:49:49 GMT
From: pacbell!att-ih!alberta!mnetor!utzoo!yunexus!maccs!leb@AMES.ARC.NASA.GOV (Anthony Hurst)
Subject: Atari Forth question
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
One of my students is interested in writing some of his own
video games using his Atari ST. I suggested that Forth would
be my choice, but he doesn't know if it is available for the
68000-based ST.
Does anyone out there have a version of Forth (preferably F83)
that will run on the ST ?
Thanks in advance.
...adh
--
seismo!mnetor!{genat,lsuc}!maccs!leb Anthony Hurst
McMaster Dept. of Comp. Sci. & Systems (416)-525-9140 x4030
Will there be cigarettes in heaven?
------------------------------
Date: 9 Mar 88 23:48:47 GMT
From: tektronix!tekig!tekig5!wayneck@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Wayne Knapp)
Subject: Re: Video interrupts: using or disabling
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
In article <3379@chinet.UUCP>, saj@chinet.UUCP (Stephen Jacobs) writes:
> I am curious about the horizontal and vertical blank interrupts. How much
> code can one safely put in a horizontal blank routine? How many micro
Horizontal blank is hard to use and the interrupt occurs every 64.5 usec.
> seconds does each call of the default vertical blank handler take? There
No idea, but there is time for lots of code during a vertical blank, at
least a millisecond's worth of code.
> appears to be a flag telling the default vertical blank handler to cut its
> operation short: what awful thing (if any) would happen if the interrupt
> threshold was simply set above the vertical blank level? And finally, how
Ugh! You would very quickly get a stack overflow, crash, burn, ugly stuff.
> do I try playing with these things (I've never done anything with privileged
> instructions on the 68000, so those interrupt levels and first 1 K of memory
> flags are new territory). I have Mark Williams C (with their assembler
> included), a few Abacus books and some 68000 documentation. Use your best
> judgement about whether to mail or post replies.
When playing around with the interrupts you will get many surprizes.
Video interrupts can be very trickly. If you only have a small routine I
run just add it to the vertical blank routine. I spent a lot of time playing
with the horizontal interrupts and finally gave up. Just too much overhead
to try and handle a iterrupt every 64.5 usec. Doing stuff with video
interrupt can give great results but it is very easy to burn up most of the
cpu cycles on just the interrupt code. I've had much better luck with using
timers. Also rememger you can get burned on the vertical blank since it can
be 50, 60, or 70hz.
Wayne Knapp
------------------------------
Date: 9 Mar 88 19:04:39 GMT
From: tektronix!tekig!tekig5!wayneck@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Wayne Knapp)
Subject: More information of software color upgrade
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
Yesterday I had a couple of misstakes in my posting of how to do a software
graphics upgrade on the ST.
Last night I did some more work on a spy program I have to determine the
timing of things in the ST. Basically I rewrote the part that was doing the
spying into assembly. Then I looked at the screen pointer. Here is what I
found. There are 80 increments by 2 spaced 4 cycles apart, then there is a
horizontal retrace time of 188 cycles. This means that each scan line takes
508 cycles total or 64.5 microseconds. I believe these figures to be pretty
close to true. Using the computer to spy on it's self worked out really well.
Much easier than trying to use a logic anailizer or an oscilloscope.
The other misstate was that I didn't realize that the movq only give you 8 bits
of data. So now it would that I limited my choices on how to update the color
registers. I'm still thinking some combination of movm and move using the
address registers will be best. Also I still believe that the only way to
sync up the system is have limited colors on the first scan line. Since the
update is four cycles per update and nop's are 4 cycles long it may be possible
to use a code sequence like the following to get started. (numbers in comments
are the cycle count.
interrupts turned off and all registers except for A7 saved, giving
15 registers to work with
waitv tst.b $FF8209 # 4 the video counter always starts at zero
beq waitv # 12 wait until not zero
move.b $FF8209,A0 # 28 get the current count
jmp PC@(0,A0) # 42 do a relative jump based on the video addr
nop # video address of 2
nop # video address of 4
nop # video address of 6
nop # video address of 8
nop # video address of 10
nop # video address of 12
nop # video address of 14
nop # video address of 16
nop # video address of 18
nop # video address of 20
nop # video address of 22
nop # video address of 24
nop # video address of 26
nop # video address of 28
nop # video address of 30 260 cycle to hor. retrace
- at this point the system should be with in a window of +/- 2 cycles.
which means that as long as we keep a window of 4 pixcel before a color
change we should be safe. Actually since a move (a0)+,(a1)+ takes 20 cycles
I think it would be best to wait 24 cycles before using a new color. If one
could used a movm to load some registers a move d0,(a1)+ take 14 cycles.
Anyway I'm open to ideas. Some things I toying around with is not changing
all the color registers during the scan line. Maybe all at first then only
some later. Also all the moves will be long so that all the registers will
change is pairs. Anyway I want this to be good and useful so input is welcome.
If you didn't follow the above, in simple terms, changing the color
registers in 20 cycles means two new colors every 10 pixels in 320X200 16 color
mode.
Thanks,
Wayne Knapp
------------------------------
Date: 10 Mar 88 00:37:52 GMT
From: phoenix!mpsimon@princeton.edu (M. Patrick Simon)
Subject: Re: A cure looking for a disease? (I hope)
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
In article <8803081650.AA29358@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> 051332@UOTTAWA.BITNET (John Turnbull) writes:
>
>A program called VDU_2_0.PRG has been posted to the FILESERVers at
>CANADA01 and UHUPVM1. It is claimed that it will cure the 'Boot sector'
>virus and immunize the disk from future infection with this virus.
>
>Does anybody have any information about this virus, its mode of
>infection, mechanism, symptoms or how wide-spread it may have become?
>
>Please post replies to the net. Most people will be interested. /JT
>
>John Turnbull, NetNorth: 051332@uottawa
The magazine ST Applications warned of a virus being spread around via
"disks from W. Germany". They did not give any information on how the
virus is spreading (ie part of a larger program?), but the disk for
this issue is supposed to have a virus detecting program on it. No
info as to exactly what damage the virus is capable of doing either.
--Patrick Simon mpsimon@phoenix.princeton.edu 3/9/88
------------------------------
Date: 9 Mar 88 14:57:19 GMT
From: mnetor!utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!orchid!achowe@uunet.uu.net (CrackerJack)
Subject: Re: DESKTOP.INF some corrections
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
>9) #D #F #G #P - File Icons
[...]
>#D function most likely stands for DIRECTORY not DISK while the first
>#F probably stands for FILE rather than FOLDER. Based on what I say
>for the rest of the examples maybe someone can figure out what these
>first two lines do.
I was right about #D for DIRECTORY. But I not sure what useful tricks
you can do with it.
eg. #D 01 01 GAMES@ *.*@ - Seems to allow you only to look at the
GAMES directory, while clicking on any other directory cause a warm
boot.
eg #D 01 04 GAMES@ *.PRG@ - Seems to bomb (2) when you click on a file
in that directory.
>eg. #G 03 04 GEMCSH.PRG@ *.SH@ - When any .SH file is opened, execute
>GEMCSH.PRG passing the specified file name on the command line.
Can be done with TOS and TTP files as well. Also it is possible to
install more than one file for an application. But you can't do this
from the desktop options.
eg. #F 03 04 LV.TOS@ *.C@
#F 03 04 LV.TOS@ *.H@ - Clicking on either a .C or .H file will
execute LV.TOS with the given file.
>So from the above I can only speculate to the following meanings as
>I have not tried them.
>
>eg. #F FF 04 @ *.*@ - What constitutes a none executable, displayable
>file.
>
>eg. #F FF 04 @ *.DOC@ - This to me means that I can "show" any file
>with a .DOC extension.
This one was right. Any other file simply caused a reboot as the system
did not know what to do with it if it was not mark for execution or
display.
>eg. #D FF 01 @ *.*@ - What files should be listed when a folder is
>opened.
Wrong. Still don't know what this spec means.
>eg. #D 01 01 GAMES@ *.PRG@ - This means to me that when I open a
>folder called GAMES, I should only display .PRG files in the directory.
Wrong again.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Anthony C. Howe achowe@trillium.waterloo.edu
achowe@orchid.waterloo.edu
"The definition of flying: throwing yourself at the ground and missing."
- Douglas Adam's "Life, the Universe and Everything"
------------------------------
Date: 11 Mar 88 06:42:52 GMT
From: polya!rokicki@labrea.stanford.edu (Tomas G. Rokicki)
Subject: Re: More info on software color upgrade
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
Try movem. As in:
movem.l (a0)+,a2-a5/d0-d7
movem.l a2-a5/d0-d7,(a1)
add.w #48,a1
Much faster than
move.l (a0)+,(a1)+
repeated 12 times.
-tom
------------------------------
Date: 10 Mar 88 04:15:55 GMT
From: cscosl!tw@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu (Thomas Wolf)
Subject: micro-RTX price
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
Could someone enlighten me as to what the current price for Micro-RTX is?
Also, is it automatically included when you buy MT-CShell? If yes, what's
a good price on MT-Cshell?
I know, I know, I should just read a d*&n magazine ad and find out for myself,
but with my luck I would either look up the wrong product OR choose the
mail-order place with the most outrageous prices :-)
If anyone can help me with any of these quetions, please send me e-mail (David,
what are the "official" prices on these products? :-)
Thanks again for any information.
Tom Wolf
ARPA (I think): tw@cscosl.ncsu.edu
or wolf@csclea.ncsu.edu
------------------------------
Date: 11 Mar 88 22:07:59 GMT
From: dalcs!water!ljdickey@uunet.uu.net (Lee Dickey)
Subject: Re: UniTerm 2.1a wishlist/Broken ST problem...
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
In article <24380@felix.UUCP> preston@felix.UUCP (Preston Bannister) writes:
>
>
> [ ... ] Simon Poole has
>done us all a service by developing Uniterm,
I agree.
Let's hear a round of applause for developers
of free software everywhere.
--
L. J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo.
ljdickey@waterloo.edu
ljdickey@watdcs.BITNET
ljdickey@water.UUCP ...!uunet!water!ljdickey
------------------------------
Date: 9 Mar 88 18:52:53 GMT
From: nunki.usc.edu!sal23.usc.edu!rjung@oberon.usc.edu (Robert Jung)
Subject: Re: A cure looking for a disease? (I hope)
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
In article <4235@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> davidli@umn-cs.UUCP (Dave Meile) writes:
>In article <8803081650.AA29358@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> 051332@UOTTAWA.BITNET (John Turnbull) writes:
>>Does anybody have any information about this virus, its mode of
>>infection, mechanism, symptoms or how wide-spread it may have become?
>
>The program is legitimate. There has been a virus located and dissected
>in Europe. I first heard about it a month ago, when I got the back
>issues of an informational disk called ST NEWS from Richard Karsmakers from
>The Netherlands. He was *quite* furious when the virus was discovered.
Can you post a short summary of what is the purpose of the virus (ie,
what was it supposed to do)? There's been a lot of (now confirmed)
talks about the ST virus, but no one I've met can tell me just what it does.
--R.J.
B-)
What kind of a twisted mind would write such a thing?
______________________________________________________________________________
Bitnet: rjung@castor.usc.edu "Who needs an Amiga?" = == =
= == =
Power WithOUT the Price = == =
===== == =====
Just because it's 8-bits doesn't make it obsolete. ==== == ====
------------------------------
Date: 12 Mar 88 00:09:27 GMT
From: dalcs!aucs!870646c@uunet.uu.net (barry comer)
Subject: Clearing out used software!
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
Hi all, well it is time to clear out some software that I am not
using, I have the following for sale, all packages include up to
date upgrades, and are orginal disks and packaging, and funds are
in Canadian funds, you pay shipping:
1. Timelink $25.00
2. GST-C Ver. 1.3 $30.00(updated by Antic recently)
3. Backup $15.00(Michtron hard disk back-up)
4. Balance of Power $25.00
5. Michtron BBS $25.00
6. Genesis $50.00(Antic's 3D molecular modeler)
If you are intereted in any of these packages, send me a reply msg.
or even better call me at 1-902-542-2312 weeknights.
That's it for now folks.
Later
Barry
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End of Info-Atari16 Digest
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