POSTMASTER@BINGVAXA.BITNET (01/06/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY7379 at node VAXA Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXA with Jnet id 1886 for VY7379@BINGVAXA; Wed, 6 Jan 88 01:37 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 1883; Wed, 06 Jan 88 01:36:59 EDT Date: Mon, 4 Jan 88 12:44:10 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #1 To: TODD KRISSEL <VY7379@BINGVAXA> Info-Atari16 Digest Monday, January 4, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 1 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Nothing about: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Multi-tasking on micro computers Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Even more thoughts about multi-tasking..... Multitasking and Big Brother Re: Nothing about: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Multitasking?? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Dec 87 19:10:49 GMT From: uhccux!lee@humu.nosc.mil (Greg Lee) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <2673@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: >In article <3256@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> davidli@umn-cs.UUCP (Dave Meile) writes: Mr. Sexton's comments don't bear repeating. It was suggested in another news group that he has a net variety of Tourette's syndrome. Would Dave Meile and others in comp.sys.arari.st please accept an apology from us amiga folks? ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 87 20:17:27 GMT From: Lindy!kevin@labrea.stanford.edu (Kevin Burnett) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <2673@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: >>People want computers (when they want them at all) to DO SOMETHING for >>them. In the majority of cases with the Atari ST and the Amiga, that >>"something" has been: >> >> writing stuff >> filing stuff >> retrieving stuff that's been filed >> playing games >> programming all of the above > >Speak for yourself, you nit. You have no idea what *I* do, or what *I* >need. I don't believe he said anything about how YOU use your computer. And, you're asking for this comment, ASSHOLE. Last time I checked, "the majority of cases" doesn't mean 100%, does it? >>access to two programs (ala Multifinder or perhaps through a "desk >>accessory" [IBM PCs have desk accessories too, folks]) you already have >>as much power as you're ever liable to need in most environments. > ^^^^^^ > >Speak for yourself, nit. I believe he was, TWIT. >I could not go back to a single tasking computer, nor would I accept >a job programming one. Stone age. Good for you, dude. >Alright, thats it. For the last time, just because you dont want it/dont >need it/can't understand it, don't for a second presuppose others >dont want/need/understand multitasking. He said that he didn't see any arguments why multitasking is a REQUIREMENT for a microcomputer. Thinking it's useful, and liking it don't cut it. >Open mouth, insert foot. Open hand, take egg. Apply to face. Do you do that often? Perhaps you should seek therapy. >P.S. This is not a flame. This is not even a spark. If you would >like flames, I'll be glad to lay into you, you little jerk. It sure sounds like a flame to me. I'm not going to claim what I'm doing isn't. Why don't you crawl back under the rock from whence you came? Why can't people just forget this stupid argument? I bought my Atari because it does what I wanted at the time, you bought your Amiga for the same reason. Why can't you just leave it at that? When I bought my ST, the Amiga was at least $600-$700 more expensive than the ST. I didn't have that extra money. If I had, maybe I would have bought an Amiga. Maybe not. I don't need this damned "my computer is better than yours because mine does x, nyah nyah nyah" bullshit. -- Kevin Burnett Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre / Santa Clara Class of '88 Arpa: kevin@Lindy.Stanford.EDU Bitnet: KJBSF@SLACVM.BITNET Old-style UUCP: ...!decwrl!labrea!Lindy!kevin ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 87 20:37:29 GMT From: amdcad!amdahl!kim@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Kim DeVaughn) Subject: Nothing about: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu _ _ _ __ ' ) ) ) / ) / _/_ / / / _ __ __ __ , / /_ __ o _ / ______ __. _ / ' (_</_/ (_/ (_/ (_/_ (__/ / /_/ (_<_/_)_<__/ / / <_(_/|_/_) / ' _ _ / _/_ // // / / __ __. // // ' <__(_) (_/|_</_</_ o /kim -- UUCP: kim@amdahl.amdahl.com or: {sun,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,ihnp4,uunet,oliveb,cbosgd,ames}!amdahl!kim DDD: 408-746-8462 USPS: Amdahl Corp. M/S 249, 1250 E. Arques Av, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 CIS: 76535,25 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Dec 87 22:28:29 EST From: Joel Malman <malman@FRED.BBN.COM> To: davidli@umn-cs.ARPA Subject: Multi-tasking on micro computers Dave, I totally agree with your statement: "BUT I still insist that, for the non "power user" there's no need for it." The problem is that most computer users these days, are power users. The children running games don't need "high power or multitasking" - nor do people who really don't understand what a computer can do for them. Once someone reaches the point where they really understand what a computer can do, they should be given access to all the power they need or want to complete the required task - multitasking is just another tool they might need to complete that task. The truth of the matter (bickering aside) is that there are useful things a true computer user or programmer can accomplish with multitasking that can make his/her life easier. (btw: I don't own a multitasking machine - but I do have a Sun 3/50 on my desk at work - and love it!). All these flames about what machine is "better" are total trash. Every machine, ever created, is good for "SOME" task - not every task. The truth is that some tasks can be more easily done and/or done more efficiently with multitasking. If you really want an example OK: Say you are running a mail server on your machine - you would still want to be able to do anything you normally do (editing, debugging, etc) while the mail server is running... For that, you NEED multitasking. To make small computers able to do complex tasks - multitasking is required. Multitasking is just another tool -- like more memory, RAM disks, disk storage space, tape backup devices, sidecars, magic sacs, etc., etc. To most computer professionals, multitasking is just another tool you use to complete a task - it is a fact of computing life. /joel [ arpanet to: malman@bbn.com ] ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 00:26:45 GMT From: pepper!cmcmanis@sun.com (Chuck McManis) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <3259@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> davidli@umn-cs.UUCP (Dave Meile) writes: |>Actually, the argument is "Joe Average doesn't NEED Multi-Tasking to |>accomplish the primary uses of a home computer" |> |> writing stuff |> filing stuff |> retrieving stuff |> playing games |> The degenerate case of this argument is "Joe Average User" really only needs a pencil, some paper, and a box to do the above. We are down to arguing opinions. Could we move on now? --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 00:20:36 GMT From: pepper!cmcmanis@sun.com (Chuck McManis) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <8155@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes: >I'm still waiting to see if someone can come up with a use for TRUE >multitasking that a typical home user would find very handy but that >cannot be satisfied by a simple 'carousel' approach. There probably >are some, especially with message-passing, etc., but none have been >posted yet (except for people waiting for their compilers to finish -- >they just need faster integrated compilers, though :) The major difference between carouselling (I love that term) and true multitasking is efficiency. You alluded to these above however the conditions where this is a win are greater than just the compile/edit cycle mentioned. Basically you keep the CPU busy and get more work done. The other advantage to true multitasking is the transparency of it. When you program this becomes self evident. No special steps are needed to run two tasks simultaneously, and flexibility is enhanced. A really nice example is Carolyn's Pallete Tool. This runs as a separate task and can be run with any other program to provide a color adjuster. Plus you don't have to go through hoops/special startup sequences etc like you do with DAs. It doesn't make it better, it demonstrably makes it more efficient over the long term. Anyway, it is a hell of a lot easier to not use than it is to simulate when it isn't built in. My whole case on 'picking a computer' is based on what it *can* do versus what it was *designed* to do. Simply put, rating two computers can be done rationally. If any program that can be written on computer A, can be identically duplicated on computer B. And, a program can be written on computer B that *cannot* be identically duplicated on computer A. Then, computer B can be said to be *more capable* than computer A. If any program that can be written on computer A, can be identically duplicated on computer B. And, the program on computer B is consistently faster than computer A. Then, computer B can be said to be *more powerful* than computer A. If any program can be written for computer A, that computer B cannot duplicate, and any program can be written for computer B that computer A cannot duplicate. Then these two computers can only be compared while specifying the limits of the comparison. Once again, I would like to see a comp.sys.compare newsgroup. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 02:22:00 EDT From: "Welych, Gregory J." <gjwelych@sunrise.acs.syr.edu> Subject: Even more thoughts about multi-tasking..... To: "info-atari16" <info-atari16@score.stanford.edu> Reply-To: "Welych, Gregory J." <gjwelych@sunrise.acs.syr.edu> I just sat here reading my Info-Atari16 mail and read about 20 replies, and counter-replies. All on the subject of multi-tasking. I think that the issue is NOT joe-average-user being too dumb to use a multi-tasking environment, but that they don't have a NEED to as of yet. To whom ever said that Joe-Average-user is NEVER going to need multi-tasking, have you ever look at the future prospects??? Maybe they don't need or want to use it now ( or even know HOW to), in the future, it may be NEEDED by ANY user of a computer. I think the MAIN reason multi-tasking personal computers are not extremely popular, is due to the LACK of them on the market. Yes, I know there are some on the market now, but five years ago, name one! ( note I said personal computer and not mini's or super micros) This lack of public use (and abuse) of multi-tasking is why joe-average-user doesn't feel a NEED for it. As a side note, only the recent emergence of high-resolution graphic displays have made using a multi-tasking operating system easy enough for non-hacker types. Currently, I rarely use the multi-tasking abilities of the VAX I'm using now. The reason is NOT that I have no need or ability to use it, but that it is VERY difficult to use easily. And due to the lack of EASE-OF-USE, I haven't tried to use it to it's fullest extent where I currently sit saying, "It sure would be nice to be doing such-and-such while I'm doing so-and-so!". If the VAX had a nice, inexpensive, easily gotten, and logical graphic interface, I know I would be using the multi-tasking to the hilt! I see a day when EVERY computer had better have a multi-tasking operating system. The express need will stem from the, as of yet, unexplored uses of computers in normal human existence. I doubt many people feel the way I do, but at least to me, these are the reasons I will NEVER get another computer with-out a multi-tasking, graphic environment. Please note: The above is NOT a flame to anyone, about anything, or even just for the fun of it. It is just the expression of my thoughts on the subject. Just a thought, Greg Welych. PS: Please, people, let's not start ANOTHER "My computer is better than yours" war. I have had enough of them. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 23 Dec 87 22:51 AST From: <FXDDR%ALASKA.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu> Subject: Multitasking and Big Brother To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu X-Original-To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu, FXDDR Another aspect in the debate over multitasking comes to mind. A few weeks ago some guy was hawking his book on a talk show...don't recall the author or the title but it was pretty much the antithesis of the "Micro Millenium" that came out a few years back. His theme on the show was that office automation most often _reduces_ the office productivity (I've seen this phenomenon mentioned in Infoworld and elsewhere so I'll assume there's some truth to it). So managers will be forced to either toss a lot of the techno-glitz and hope productivity improves, OR employ `watchdog' software to see that everybody is meeting quotas and not goofing off...he called that the `electronic sweatshop' approach. The argument went like this: Right now, PCs are still pretty slow. There is time for employees to get away from the machine for a few minutes while it calculates, sorts, or whatever. But the new generation of PCs can do several things at once, so instead of a moment's relaxation the employee will just move on to a new task. And employers will have the ability to see that they do just that. I've heard that such monitoring is being used a little already for cashiers and ticket agents. Personally, when I first used multitasking systems I thought it was great, and did a lot of simultaneous compiles and whatnot. But these days I rarely try it...seems there's always paperwork to do and journals to read while the computer is busy, so I mentally multitask. Getting the eyes off the screen (*&?!! VT-compatibles) reduces headaches too. After stopping to think about it, I don't know that I'd walk across the street to pick up a multitasking os. Kinda like quadraphonic sound...cute concept but I wouldn't pay extra for it. Having used up a week's worth of computer blasphemy in this message, I'll quit. Notes: 1) No, I didn't post to Amiga. I've lost what interest I had in that machine. 2) If you've sent me mail in the last month (or two?), I haven't been keeping up with it. I'm clearing up the backlog and hope to be caught up shortly... sorry. Don Rice FXDDR@ALASKA.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 06:26:13 GMT From: glacier!jbn@labrea.stanford.edu (John B. Nagle) Subject: Re: Nothing about: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Please, could we turn down the flames a bit. On the systems that don't have multi-tasking, such as the IBM PC and the Mac, we observe people desperately fighting the operating system to get some concurrent operations going. Terminate-and-stay-resident programs, such as Sidekick on IBM PCs, were an attempt to get around the lack of multi-tasking. The attempt was only moderately successful, and such programs often interfere with each other and the program they preempt. Microsoft takes the position that such programs violate the rules of MS-DOS and has warned for years that they will not work under future versions of MS-DOS. They won't work under OS/2, but OS/2 offers multi-tasking, so they will not be needed. PC spooling programs, which must patch into interrupt locations and store into the operating system, have similar problems. (Try to get a printer spooler and a plotter spooler both running at the same time.) Even desk accessories on the Mac, which are officially supported by the operating system, are something of a kludge internally. So what we see, on the systems that don't offer multitasking, are attempts to achieve it through hacks that don't work too well. John Nagle ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 87 17:35:57 GMT From: ssyx!koreth@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Steven Grimm) Subject: Re: Multitasking?? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <39@lzaz.ATT.COM> bds@lzaz.ATT.COM (BRUCE SZABLAK) writes: >Frankly, if the BIOS was written re-enterantly, there would be >little difficulty in adding multitasking. It could be done for >those who use it, and those who didn't could ignore it. The ST's BIOS is re-entrant. GEMDOS is not. (I have a multiuser BBS system to prove it...) You just have to make sure that each task has its own BIOS register save area. That took me a while to figure out -- basically you switch the BIOS stack pointer in your task-switching routine, as well as the user stack pointer and all the registers. Multitasking on the ST is actually fairly trivial, as long as you don't try to use Pexec() or Pterm(). I'm working on rewriting both of those right now for the background Xmodem accessory in ST-Talk Professional. +New! Improved! Now 100% Artificial-+-+-----------------------------------+ |# # @@@ **** &&&&& $$$$$ % %| |Steven Grimm | |# # @ @ * * & $ % %+-+ ARPA: koreth@ucscb.ucsc.edu | |### @ @ **** &&&& $ %%%%%| | UUCP: ...!ucbvax!ucscc!ssyx!koreth| |# # @ @ * * & $ % %+-+ ______________________________| |# # @@@ * ** &&&&& $ % %| | |"Let's see what's out there."| +-----with NutraSour(TM)! No natural colors or preservatives!------------+ ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXA.BITNET (01/06/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY7379 at node VAXA Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXA with Jnet id 2191 for VY7379@BINGVAXA; Wed, 6 Jan 88 02:35 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 2187; Wed, 06 Jan 88 02:34:09 EDT Date: Mon, 4 Jan 88 12:44:50 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #2 To: TODD KRISSEL <VY7379@BINGVAXA> Info-Atari16 Digest Monday, January 4, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 2 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: Multi-tasking? A Nightmare... Re: HELP! the real advantage of multi-tasking. Failing Disk Drive & Strange TPA pointer drive problems Re: Microsoft Write ... Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: about ST disk drives (and media change) Cheap Harddiscs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Dec 87 22:13:59 GMT From: well!ewhac@hplabs.hp.com (Leo 'Bols Ewhac' Schwab) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A Nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu [ Followups to alt.flame, where it rightfully belongs. ] Someone writes: >> I'm still waiting to see if someone can come up with a use for TRUE >> multitasking that a typical home user would find very handy but that >> cannot be satisfied by a simple 'carousel' approach. There probably >> are some, especially with message-passing, etc., but none have been >> posted yet (except for people waiting for their compilers to finish -- >> they just need faster integrated compilers, though :) >> >> Robert Gardner >> Here's a real-world example. Note that this is from the programmer's perspective, not the user's. As you will see later, this is irrelevant. The specifications are as follows: You are to design a space invaders-type game. There is one spaceship at the top of the screen, and a gun at the bottom. The spaceship moves across the top of the screen from left to right; as it does so, it "drops" letters forming words down the screen. As the user types on the keyboard, the program checks to see if the letter typed matches the one the gun is currently under. If so, the letter is shot and the gun moves one position to the right (to the next letter in the word. If they don't match, a short error signal is delivered to the user. The screen will look like this: --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ...<-=O=-> S P A C E W E L L C R A T H A N T H I S H A L L K I L L T H R I L L L A K E G R E A T A N P A R T D R A T S P A C E B E A T H E A R S E A D R E A A T H E R M A P T H A N F O R H E A R T | A /#\ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- The spaceship moves across the top of the screen at a fixed rate. When it reaches the end of the row, all the rows drop down one, and the ship returns to the left side. To make it more interesting, a range of colors in the spaceship are to be cycled, to make it look like it's spinning. The cycle rate is totally independent of any other regular rate in the program. Don't worry about winning or losing at this point; they'll complicate the issue. Now. Design this program, first on a system with multitasking, and then on a system without it. Discuss the design issues that need to be considered, and how you would address them under each environment. "Be specific; give examples." Whether or not the machine multitasks should be made invisible to the user; both versions should run the same as far as the user is concerened. -------- I designed this very program on the Amiga. I was porting the program from the Atari ST, working from the ST source code. Before posting my approach and ultimate solution to the problem, I want to see how others would address it. That is, if anyone cares..... [In the article titled "Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare...", Dec 22, 1987, ...!uwvax!umn-d-ub!umn-cs!davidli writes:] > How many years have you owned a personal computer Joseph? I don't know about Joseph, but I've been stumbling along for about eleven years now. > Were you ever actually around when punch cards were being used? Yup. IBM 1130. Didn't like it, either. > Were you around when all you could do with a personal computer was toggle > switches on the front panel and bring an AM radio close to the CPU to > produce "music"? Yup. I've even used a ASR-33 TTY. Wow. > Did you ever put together one of those personal computers (you know, > before Radio Shack started mass production of the TRS-80 model I)? No, unfortunately. I lusted after a SOL-20 myself. But then the Commodore PET came out (predates the TRaSh-80, BTW), and I wanted one of those. My first ended up being a C-64. -------- I'm still trying to discover what all this arguing accomplishes... It's fun, though..... _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Leo L. Schwab -- The Guy in The Cape ihnp4!ptsfa -\ \_ -_ Recumbent Bikes: dual ---> !{well,unicom}!ewhac O----^o The Only Way To Fly. hplabs / (pronounced "AE-wack") "Work FOR? I don't work FOR anybody! I'm just having fun." -- The Doctor ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 06:37:55 GMT From: lakesys!rich@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Rich Dankert) Subject: Re: HELP! To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <2319@dasys1.UUCP> mzyla@dasys1.UUCP (Martin Zyla) writes: >In article <907@atari.UUCP> neil@atari.UUCP (Neil Harris) writes: >>In article <3162@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, engst@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Adam C. Engst) writes: >>> >>> I was just working happily along on a philosophy paper when I decided to >> edited >>Sounds like the proverbial "loose chips" problem. Open up the 1040, press >>down on all the socketed chips, and chances are your drive will magically >>start working. >>-- >>--->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation > >Neil is probably right about the "loose chips" problem, but in my ex- >periences with ST repairs nearly all problems can be traced to one chip, >the MMU (the square socketed chip in the center of the motherboard). I've >had to reseat this chip on more occasions than you can shake a stick at. >If that particular chip is making poor contact on any of it's 40 points >it can masquerade as any number of problems, output to drives being one >of them. This is a problem seemingly caused by the soft alloy used in >either the chip or the socket. I understand from Atari that their final >solution is to directly solder the chip to the motherboard in the newer >Megas. As for prior machines I suggest some sort of contact enhancement >spray but you must be careful of static or you can kill the chip ($35?). > >Other than that single problem, the ST is a pretty solid machine. I only >wish that this had been taken care of long ago. Many people who thought >they had a problem elsewhere probably had the one mentioned above. > > > > I\ /I ____________________________________ >Martin Zyla I \/ I / >Big Electric Cat I I / {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri!dasys1!mzyla >New York, NY, USA I I / {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!mzyla > I I / GEnie:mzyla DELPHI:gmz CIS:74216,1372 >__________________________/____ First off I must agree that the ST is a pretty solid machine as stated above. I have been doing the repairs ( Out of Warranty ) for quite a while in the Milwaukee Area here now, The main problem that I have been seeing is in the newer drive mech's. The machines are pretty solid even when they go through alot of transfer. I myself have one of the first machines that came out, in 1985, a revision A board. I have not had the problems with the chips unseating as many other's have had. Now being of the technical nature that I am, by vocation also, I decided to make a fix for the machines and have passed it along via our local user group ( Mil*Atari Ltd. ). It's really quite simple, and has made the fix pretty perminent. What I did was to remove the MMU (Really a MCU) very carefully, and place the chip on a piece of tin foil while out of socket. Now what I did was to take a tool that I fashioned from a dental tool. Mainly it was just the filed down end. With the chip out, I carefully pryed up all 40 contacts on the chip socket, (just a bit for better contact) then took a eraser pencil and cleaned all the contacts making sure that the pins didn't get pressed down again. Now I took a small piece of double sided foam tape (The thin stuff) and placed that in the center of the socket. Now I remount the chip, and reassemble the machine. I have yet to have a machine come back for any reason concerning the MMU, outside of it going bad due to the older power supplies regulator to not regulate too well, and causing damage to the MMU and possibly other chips. Of course you could go about the same routine, except in place of the double sided foam tape, get your local Atari service center to sell you two of the clips that are used on the newer machines, to make sure that the chip stays seated. The above can be done also to the GLUE chip. Same size and type. ---> Disclaimer! "I must mention that if you decide to try this mod, and are NOT a technicion, and still want to do it yourself, your on your own. I take no responsibility for a machine repair that I myself did not repair!" -rich UUCP: {Ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!rich Discalimer: The words,ideas,and expressions are my own, and not nessasarily always correct, but I always look for the good cheap fix. ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 87 20:56:39 GMT From: mcvax!jack@uunet.uu.net (Jack Jansen) Subject: the real advantage of multi-tasking. To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Lots of people say things like 'I don't need real multi-tasking, I'm happy with a spooler and one or two other utilities'. The point, however, is that applications like spoolers become completely trivial once you have multi-tasking. 90% of the code (and the most error-prone 90%, at that) is spent stealing vectors, jumping in and out of supervisory mode, making sure your program isn't overwritten by something else, etc etc etc. I've been working on a network where a number of atari's can use each others disks, but things got so incredibly hairy that I've suspended the project and started thinking about making the BIOS (or maybe even GEMDOS) multiprogrammed first. This will make my remote-disk almost as trivial as a ramdisk..... -- Jack Jansen, jack@cwi.nl (or jack@mcvax.uucp) The shell is my oyster. ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 87 09:36:49 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!its63b!hwcs!neil@uunet.uu.net (Neil Forsyth) Subject: Failing Disk Drive & Strange TPA pointer To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Boo hoo the disk drive on my 1040ST is not working. I know it is the drive because I have swapped it in other machines and the problem moved with the drive. The symptoms are strange in that it reads every track on a disk fine but has trouble writing. I say trouble because sometime it formats a track ok sometimes not, but never a whole disk. I had a look at a track it had tried to format and found corruption (gap bytes inconsistant & data damaged ie $E5 corrupted.) If I can't fix this drive I will have to buy a replacement and that will kill my slim chance of being able to afford a hard drive. I phoned a company that upgrades the internal SS drive in a 520STFM to DS and asked if the same drive could be fitted inside a 1040. They said no, which I think is pretty strange since I thought (as most do) that the 520STFM was just a 1040 with a lesser drive and some RAM missing. Has anyone else put a different drive in their 1040 or repaired the original one? If so please advise me. (Note: Our machines will be down(ish) from 24th Dec to Jan 5th) Another interesting point: I wrote a little C program print out a programs base page address and the operating systems start of TPA pointer (at $432). When run it printed out a high base page address eg. $23??? and $A100 for the start of the TPA which is to be expected. But when I put the program by itself in the AUTO folder on a floppy and booted up the machine with a power down/up it came up with $A204 and $A100 respectively. Can anyone tell me why the OS takes this memory away? I know I have a megabyte to play around with but I like to ponder/solve such mysteries. Thanks in advance and a Merry Christmas to all who know me or would like to. Neil Forsyth (the man with the ROFDD (Read Only Floppy Disk Drive) Help!) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I think all right thinking people in this country are sick and tired of being told that ordinary decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I'm certainly not and I'm sick and tired of being told that I am!" - Monty Python 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 ------------------------------ From: U00296%HASARA5.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu Date: 24 DEC 87 16:05-N To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Subject: drive problems PROBLEMS WITH MY DISKDRIVE Lately I have been experiencing some problems with my diskdrive on my ST (1040). When the machine has been running some time and I write something to my disk (or read something from it) it will keep on spinning (red light also remains on). It seems to be due to the heating of some part, since it does not happen when the machine is cold (boots). A warm boot exstinguishes the light for a moment, bit does not solve the problem. Has anyone had similar experiences with his ATARI, and if so what was the solution? Any comments are appreciated. Niels Walet BITNET/EARN U00296@HASARA5 UUCP mcvax!amolf!walet ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 87 02:00:25 GMT From: portal!atari!neil@uunet.uu.net (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: Microsoft Write ... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1987Dec20.223242.1574@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu>, lharris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Leonard Harris) writes: > Can anyone give me an exact date of when Microsoft Write is supposed to > appear. Started shipping this week. Finally! Look for it at dealers within the next couple of weeks. > Wordperfect isn't perfect I'm helping to beta test the next release of WordPerfect. Despite the problems, it is still awfully good. And the support is fabulous. -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 07:30:11 GMT From: coplex!jim@bloom-beacon.mit.edu (Jim Sewell) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <11191@oliveb.UUCP>, dragon@olivej.olivetti.com (Give me a quarter or I'll touch you) writes: > > I think that these arguments aren't representative of an *average* user, > since an average user is more likely not to own a modem. Oh, I don't know about that. Our Amiga club did a survey of its users, who would probably fit into most people's idea of "normal" users, and over 80% of them had modems. Granted, most of them used the modem for bbsing, but that is certainly an environment in which one could use multi-process capability, be it true multitasking or simply context switching. Amazingly enough, the RS Color Computer Club I formerly belonged to had a much-much lower percentage of modem users (on the order of around 20% if I remember correctly). Perhaps it is too much of a hassel to do a days work one step at a time? I wouldn't consider myself a "normal" user either, but something I have found quite handy is the ability to have a directory showing up on one page while trying to reorganize it on another. Jim Sewell | "Make knowledge free!" Freelance Programmer | "Anyone need a program? 8-)" ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 87 18:43:50 GMT From: portal!atari!apratt@uunet.uu.net (Allan Pratt) Subject: Re: about ST disk drives (and media change) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu in article <8712211937.AA01474@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, gjwelych@SUNRISE.ACS.SYR.EDU ("Welych, Gregory J.") says: > What in the Atari drives senses the change of media? > And how does the drive signal this to the ST? The media-change sensing is done using the write-protect signal from the drive. The assumption is that when you take a write-enabled disk out of the drive, the write-protect sensor will pop up, and the drive will signal "write protect" to the controller. When you put another disk (or even the same disk) in the drive, the write-protect sensor will be pushed down again and signal "not write protect." When a disk is really write protected, of course, there will be no transition on the line. Because of this, write-protected disks go into the "maybe changed" state 1 sec (I think) after the last disk access. (The assumption is that you won't change from one write protected disk to another within one second). When a disk is in the "maybe changed" state, the next access (through RWABS or maybe Floprd) will check the serial number of the disk in the drive. If it hasn't changed, then the disk hasn't changed, either. This is another assupmtion: you should not have two disks with the same serial number. If your drive suppresses write protect changes when there is no disk present, then switching from one write-enabled disk to another will not cause the transition, and the BIOS will not sense media change. Sorry. Nobody said it would be easy. ============================================ Opinions expressed above do not necessarily -- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp. reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else. ...ames!atari!apratt ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 87 10:30:36 GMT From: mcvax!diku!iesd!lbn@uunet.uu.net (Lars Bo Nielsen) Subject: Cheap Harddiscs To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Considering the relative high prices on ST-Harddiscs, and the forever falling prices on PC compatible harddiscs, it seems natural to attempt interfacing one of these to the ST. We are aware that there might be a lot of problems. Not knowing the PC-hardware in details, one of the problems one could foresee is the existence of a DMA-controller on the PC-controller card. Since the ST is allready fully equipped in this respect, the PC-DMA might get in the way. Another problem is the fact that, when booting up, the ST makes certain assumptions on the part of the (possibly) connected harddisc. I.e it has to understand certain commands (bitpatterns). We saw the solution offered in "ST World", in which two adapterboards were used. One to convert the ST-interface to SCSI, and the other to connect a bare industrystandard drive to the SCSI. The cost of these two boards plus the bare drive, however, nearly equals the price of an ordinary ST-drive (at least in this part of the world, don't tell us about high taxes :-). So, if anybody out there has any suggestions in this respect, please let us know. We will summarize any received mail, in a posting to the net. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Lars Bo Nielsen (lbn@iesd.uucp) Steen Kroyer (judas@iesd.uucp) -------------------------------------------------------------------- -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- | Lars Bo Nielsen | lbn@iesd.uucp | | Department of Computer Science | | | Aalborg University | | | D E N M A R K | {...}!mcvax!diku!iesd!lbn | ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXA.BITNET (01/06/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY7379 at node VAXA Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXA with Jnet id 3328 for VY7379@BINGVAXA; Wed, 6 Jan 88 08:05 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 3325; Wed, 06 Jan 88 08:04:51 EDT Date: Mon, 4 Jan 88 12:45:19 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #3 To: TODD KRISSEL <VY7379@BINGVAXA> Info-Atari16 Digest Monday, January 4, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 3 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Cheap DIY doublesided floppy Re: 40-folder bug and FOLDRXXX.PRG Re: Hard disk boot??? RS232 Re: FOLDRXXX.PRG, you got it! Re: Multi-tasking? Re: Amiga and MIDI Re: Atari's Marketing Approach ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 23 Dec 87 12:13:32 GMT From: mcvax!diku!iesd!judas@uunet.uu.net (Sten Kroyer) Subject: Cheap DIY doublesided floppy To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu THESTARTTHESTARTTHESTARTTHESTARTTHESTARTTHESTARTTHESTARTTHESTARTTHESTART This is partially a retransmission of an earlier posting, but since I'm not sure that the first posting got around, and there's been some talk on the subject since then, here goes again. In message <236@xrns.UUCP> Tom Love writes: >hello out there... i hope i am not adding to the clamor of people >crying out for help with 5.25" drives; this is actually a different >question. i would like to have an external 3.5" DSDD floppy drive >to go along with the one already inside my 1040ST. i do not, however, >desire one bad enough to pay the $200 plus which atari dealers seem to >want to charge. i do not mind a little hardware hacking, and don't >mind scabby looking assemblies with wires hanging out all over them. In message <8712211937.AA0147@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> Gregory Welych writes: >I have had one of my disk drives die on me, and rather than try to get >it fixed, (it was only a single sided drive anyways) I decided to >buy a cheap(er?) double sided drive. I hooked the new drive into >the little converter card inside an Atari drive, and connected >the power supply up. It works fine except for one slight problem >which can cause MAJOR problems with certain software. >The problem is this: > Say I boot up with disk A in drive A, and disk B in drive B. > ( drive B is the new drive ) > Then after I get the desktop, I change drive B's disk to disk C. > ( I have a window automatically opened for drive B on the desktop) > Then I hit ESC to get the new directory, but it doesn't know > I changed the disk. I am assuming that the disk drive has not reported > media change to the ST so it doen't think that there might have been > a switch. > >Now to my main question: > What in the Atari drives senses the change of media?????????!!???? > And how does the drive signal this to the ST????? > >Thanks in advance for any help, > >Greg Welych. A couple of months back, my 1040ST suddenly blew its internal doublesided floppydrive. Since this was the only drive connected, it was a disaster ! My beloved Babs was (almost) dead. She would eventually boot, and come up with an empty desktop. That's a boring game (it wasn't so :-) at the time). What went wrong, I don't know, I tried plucking everything apart to check for any loose connections etc., but no luck. A custom chip in the drive did get awfully hot though. To summarize, I found myself in a situation somewhat similar to yours: I had to get a new drive somehow. Not wanting to pay for an original Atari-drive, I came up with a reasonably cheap solution. A little research revealed that the internal drive used a standard Shugart interface (both in terms of signals AND connectors). So the problem could be reduced to finding a (cheap) bare drive equipped with the Shugart interface. That's easy enough. I picked a NEC-drive type 1036A, a drive known for its reliability and quiet operation. It's also smaller than the original Ataridrive (which seems be from Hitachi), so with a little fiddling I managed to get it crammed into place. (I had to make some minor changes to the ST-case). The proof of the pudding ? Well, I removed the old drive, plugged in the new one, turned on the power, and Babs made a successfull boot from disc and has been happily humming ever since. So to connect another external drive, all it seems one has to do is: A) Buy a bare drive. B) Pick up the floppysignals from the ST's external floppy interface. The connections are as shown (seen from the rear): 11 10 PIN SIGNAL INPUT/OUTPUT 1 read data i 9 8 2 side select o 13 12 3 gnd n.a 7 6 4 index i 14 5 drive 0 select + i 5 4 6 drive 1 select + i 7 gnd n.a 3 2 8 motor on o 1 9 direction o 10 step o 11 write data o 12 write gate o 13 track 00 i 14 write protect i + : On the 1040's external floppy interface, only the drive 0 select is active. It carries the actual drive 1 select signal. That way the external drive automatically becomes drive B. The standard Shugart interface (again as seen from the rear) looks like this: ___________________________________________________ /////////////////////////////////////////////////// <- Edge of --------------------------------------------------- PCB | 33 . . . . . . . . 1 | | 34 . . . . . . . . 2 | |----------------------| PIN SIGNAL INPUT/OUTPUT PIN SIGNAL INPUT/OUTPUT 2 motor on 1 * i 18 direction i 4 in use * i 20 step i 6 drive select 3 * i 22 write data i 8 index o 24 write gate i 10 drive select 0 + i 26 track 00 o 12 drive select 1 + i 28 write protect o 14 motor on 2/ * i 30 read data o drive select 2 32 side select i 16 motor on 0 i 34 ready * o PIN 1-33 are all connected to ground (gnd). *: Not used by the ST. +: Only one of these should be used. It might be jumper-configurable which is the active input. C) Supply the drive with some power. I'm not sure if an 1040's internal supply can cope with two drives. However, since 3.5 inch drives have a low powerconsumption (my 1036A is rated at 1.8 W), a simple 5/12 volts powersupply shouldn't be so costly. The connections looks like this _______________________ /////////////////////// <- Edge of PCB ----------------------- | ____|-----|____ | 1: +5 v dc | O O O O | 2: GND ------------------- 3: GND 1 2 3 4 4: +12 v dc D) Add cabinet to your taste. There's a tiny fly in the ointment, however. (There had to be, right?) The VBL-interrupt routine in the ST, uses the status of the WRITEPROTECT-line from the drive to check if the disc has been ejected. Since the level of this signal is reflected in the statusregister of the floppydisc-controller, all the VBL-routine has to do is read the contents of this register from time to time. For this system to function, the drive has to toggle its WRPROT-line in some fashion (which i haven't bothered to figure out), whenever the disc is ejected. This represented no problem in my case, since the latest version (which was the one I used) of NEC FD1036A, is fully "ST-modified" and thus plug-in-and-go compatible. I bought my drive in W-Germany and payed around 220,- DM, which is VERY cheap by danish standards. (#include<standardcomplaint.tax> :-( ). Well, I have to stop rambling. Let's hear more about homebrewed hardware-projects on this group. See you next time on the Newsshow. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | "I hate silly citations" "The opinions expressed above are | | Steen Kroyer hopefully not mine alone. Should | | that however, be the case, it | | only goes to show that I'm smar- | | vWWWv ter than the rest of you. (:-)" | | vWWWWWWWv | | |/^^ ^^\| | | O @ @ O judas@iesd.uucp (Steen Kroyer) | | O L O | | ( <O> ) <- I don't really look that silly !! | | \_____/ | |____________________________________________________________________| THEENDTHEENDTHEENDTHEENDTHEENDTHEENDTHEENDTHEENDTHEENDTHEENDTHEENDTHEEND ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 14:40:21 GMT From: mind!romero@princeton.edu (Antonio Romero) Subject: Re: 40-folder bug and FOLDRXXX.PRG To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <910@atari.UUCP>, apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) writes: > in article <560@pyuxe.UUCP>, crc6@pyuxe.UUCP (C. Colbert) says: > > In one of the atari periodicals it was announced that they fixed the 40 > > folder bug in the Mega St roms. > I WILL TELL YOU WHEN THE 40-FOLDER BUG IS FIXED. DO NOT BELIEVE ANY > OTHER REPORTS UNTIL YOU HEAR IT FROM ME. I AM THE ONLY PERSON WORKING > ON THIS. Uh... guys? Did you hear him say what I just heard him say? Did Alan just say that there's ONLY ONE PERSON WORKING ON THE WORST PROBLEM THEIR MACHINE HAS? Just how small an operation is Atari, anyway? (Actually, my guess is EVERYONE else is working on the 40-folder bug on the Transputer box...) When the fix is made, maybe I'll buy an Atari. I still have a certain amount of faith in Atari's ability to deliver a decent value, despite all the griping I've seen on this group since the ST came out. > > I *am* working on it, so don't despair. When the fix comes out, it will > be more sweeping than you think (unless you think big). Hmm. Does this suggest upcoming compatibility problems? Or perhaps the advent of a new operating system altogether? Could it be... MULTITASKING? Okay guys, warm up the rumor mills... -Antonio Romero romero@psycho.Princeton.EDU PS-- Hi Charlie! ------------------------------ Date: 15 Dec 87 15:19:00 GMT From: cca!mirror!datacube!ftw@husc6.harvard.edu Subject: Re: Hard disk boot??? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu federico@actisb.UUCP writes: > [The line eater was sleeping again ...] > In article <624@aucs.UUCP> 870646c@aucs.UUCP (barry comer) writes: > >I have a few questions for anyone using a SH204 with a Mega ST. I have a Meag2 > >with a SH204, I have being auto booting from the hard disk using HDB_V2.3, I > >used to be able to auto boot from the floppy when the CTRL,SHIFT, and ALT. > >keys were held down, well since I started using the Mega, the machine always > >boots from the hard disk with the keys down or up?????????????? > I didn't know of the CTRL-SHIFT-ALT trick, but I had a problem similar > to yours: there was no way my Mega would boot from floppy, and that > turned out to be quite a problem when a desk accessory I had downloded > from somewhere was turned unusable because of line noise. My "solution" > was not to boot from hard disk at all, which I now find better since it > allows me to choose different configurations (desk accesories and such) > depending on the job I'm going to do. I have the new ("blitter") ROMs in my 1040, and have noticed the same behavior when booting (I have a Supra disk, with their hard disk boot program installed). Anyone have a guess as to why? (hello, apratt?) > >I am also using GEMBOOT to overcome the 40 folder limit in TOS(has it been > >fixed with the new ROMS?). > I'm also interested on this question, and it has been already asked a couple > of times with no visible answer. I've never used the old ROMs, so I don't > know what the infamous "40 folder limit" means. I've had more than 40 folders > on my hard disk and nothing happened. Does this mean that the problem is > fixed? Or is it 40 folders DEEP? Au contraire, the question has been answered here before in a definitive manner. That answer is: NO The blitter ROMs do not fix the 40 folder bug. The 40 folder bug refers to a problem where a filesystem on a hard disk or diskette can become corrupted if more than 40 folders are accessed during any one "session" with an ST ("session": period of use between re-boots). A well-known workaround is the recently re-posted FOLDRXXX.PRG. Change XXX in the program name to the number of folders you think you're likeky to access during any one use of the machine, and stick the program in your \AUTO folder, and re-boot. I have heard from other netters that this bug is due to memory not being freed-up when you jumo into and out of folders (directories). Correct me if I'm wrong on that... > /////// > //____ // > Federico // // > // __ // > // / / // > /////// > UUCP: ...!mcvax!unido!tub!actisb > BIX: fheinz Farrell T. Woods Datacube Inc. Systems / Software Group 4 Dearborn Rd. Peabody, Ma 01960 VOICE: 617-535-6644; FAX: (617) 535-5643; TWX: (710) 347-0125 INTERNET: ftw@datacube.COM UUCP: {rutgers, ihnp4, mirror}!datacube!ftw ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Dec 87 14:06:12 EST From: maccarle@ed.ecn.purdue.edu (Carl A Maccarley) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Subject: RS232 From Michael Czeiszperger's posting: >In article <2267@tekig4.TEK.COM> brianr@tekig4.UUCP (Brian Rhodefer) writes: >>Michael S Czeisperger: "...Midi is less of a standard than RS232..." >>Oh, Noooo! It can't be THAT bad, can it? >Oh, whoops! I didn't really mean that! I was trying to imply that >RS-232 is more of a general protocol that you'd want on a computer, >where MIDI is specialized so that it can only be used for music. If Just to add further confusion to this discussion... I'm pretty sure that EIA RS-232c is just a hardware spec, eg., voltage swing, line assignments, line loading, maximum line length, etc. I don't believe there's anything in the spec about transmission protocols, but I admit that the term RS-232 seems to have taken on a broader colloquial meaning. maccarle@ed.ecn.purdue.edu ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 87 16:03:00 GMT From: cca!mirror!datacube!ftw@husc6.harvard.edu Subject: Re: FOLDRXXX.PRG, you got it! To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu crc6@pyuxe.UUCP writes: > In one of the atari periodicals it was announced that they fixed the 40 folder > bug in the Mega St roms. If those are the same ROMs that they are selling us developers, then the answer is NO, the "40 folder bug" still exists, and the magazine article is incorrect. Neil: please jump in here if if the ROM upgrade for the 520/1040 is different than what is in the Megas. I understand they are the same. Farrell T. Woods Datacube Inc. Systems / Software Group 4 Dearborn Rd. Peabody, Ma 01960 VOICE: 617-535-6644; FAX: (617) 535-5643; TWX: (710) 347-0125 INTERNET: ftw@datacube.COM UUCP: {rutgers, ihnp4, mirror}!datacube!ftw "OS/2 -- Half an operating system" ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 16:13:48 GMT From: m2c!ulowell!page@husc6.harvard.edu (Bob Page) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Most PEOPLE don't multitask on a computer, they task-switch. HOWEVER! Having multitasking available allows one to write (and use) programs that multitask internally - sending messages back and forth to each other, processing things concurrently rather than serially. Many nice programs on multi-tasking machines just aren't possible on any single-tasking machine because they INTERNALLY take advantage of the machine's ability to multi-task and message-pass. Examples on request, by E-mail. As a user, MultiFinder is all I want, in most cases. But n ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 05:04:09 GMT From: ihnp4!homxb!hropus!ki4pv!codas!killer!elg@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Eric Green) Subject: Re: Amiga and MIDI To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu in article <467@gethen.UUCP>, farren@gethen.UUCP (Michael J. Farren) says: > In article <2267@tekig4.TEK.COM> brianr@tekig4.UUCP (Brian Rhodefer) writes: >>If only all the originators/promulgators of RS232 had just one neck, >>and I could get my hands around it.... > > There is an RS-232 standard. You can get it from (I think) the American > National Standards Institute. I've got a copy somewhere around here > myself. In that standard, everything having to do with an RS-232 interface > is defined, carefully, from the rise times of the signals to their meaning > to the pins and connectors they are supposed to go to. Unfortunately, even if you adhere completely to the standard, half the devices in the world still won't talk to you without a breakout-box or cable switching. When the only devices extant were computers and terminals, that was no big deal, but tell me, how about hooking up a terminal concentrator/network node to printers, computers, terminals, .... We're talking BIG-time troubles here, we're talking about cabling nightmares to end all nightmares, even if the standard IS followed (and it usually isn't -- e.g. a switcher which arbitrarily decides to ignore an outgoing line if certain transitions don't occure at certain times, and a network node which refuses to give the switcher those transitions -- thus FUbaring things horribly.). I hated having to mutilate my cable to flop RxD and TxD when I hooked up an Amiga to a C-64 to transfer files at 9600 baud (yes, there's some magic involved :-). -- Eric Lee Green elg@usl.CSNET Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 {cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg Lafayette, LA 70509 "There's someone in my head, but it's not me...." -PF ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 16:53:59 GMT From: voder!apple!landon@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Landon Dyer) Subject: Re: Atari's Marketing Approach To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Atari does a lot of "re-manufacturing" as well. Rev-A boards go in, for instance, and Rev-Ds pop out the other end. atari!jwt could probably shed more light on this subject (he has actually SEEN the plant in Taiwan), but he's probably not allowed to say much. 'tain't that interesting, anyway.... -Landon -- I speak for me. ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXA.BITNET (01/06/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY7379 at node VAXA Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXA with Jnet id 3443 for VY7379@BINGVAXA; Wed, 6 Jan 88 08:14 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 3440; Wed, 06 Jan 88 08:09:32 EDT Date: Tue, 5 Jan 88 13:34:53 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #4 To: TODD KRISSEL <VY7379@BINGVAXA> Info-Atari16 Digest Tuesday, January 5, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 4 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: BMS controller package A defense of Multi-tasking A different view on multitasking. Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: BMS controller package Re: Degas Elite PostScript Driver Re: Great Demo from Rex... Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Microsoft Write ... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Dec 87 18:12:57 GMT From: sgi!daisy!turner@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (D'arc Angel) Subject: Re: BMS controller package To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu From article <945@ssc.UUCP>, by fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes): > > I have tme BMS controller. It works fine (once we found the bugs but > that was almost a year ago). The only question I have about it is does > it actually cost less. You need to buy the interface and controller > ($250, I think), then get a drive, box and power supply. > No problems putting it together but when you are done you probably > could have bought a Supra or Atari drive. > -- > Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155 (206)FOR-UNIX > uw-beaver!tikal!ssc!fyl or uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl or attmail!ssc!fyl agreeded, I alway felt the advantages of the BMS solution were: 1. It came with a battery backed-up real time clock 2. It supports two hard disks on the same controller 3. If and when i wanted to upgrade to a larger disk, i just unplugged the old one and plugged the new one in as to cost, be creative, most cities support at least one good used electronic surplus/salvage store -- Laissez les bons temps rouler - Queen Ida ...{decwrl|ucbvax}!imagen!atari!daisy!turner (James M. Turner) Daisy Systems, 700 E. Middlefield Rd, P.O. Box 7006, Mountain View CA 94039-7006. (415)960-0123 ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 16:12:13 GMT From: denbeste@bbn.com (Steven Den Beste) Subject: A defense of Multi-tasking To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu The original poster of this subject asked if there was a place where multi-tasking was "essential". Many people responded with ways to use multi-tasking, and the original poster always responded with one of two answers: 1. There are other ways to do that that don't involve multi-tasking. Multi-tasking therefore isn't essential for that task. 2. Only sophisticated users would want to do that. (He called them "Power users.) [Well, actually, there was a third answer used a couple of times: 3. Why are you being so abusive in a publicly posted article? Why didn't you mail it to me so I could ignore it? But that's not relevant to the subject...] Let's get one thing straight. Multi-tasking is not "essential". Neither are high-level languages. You can do anything in assembly language you can do in C or BASIC, but it is less convenient. (MUCH less convenient.) Nor are icons. People survived for years with text-only computer interfaces. [For that matter, assemblers aren't "essential" either - you can key in machine language directly in hex. And if you really want to get down to it, the computer itself isn't "essential".] I'm not suggesting that multi-tasking is as important as high level languages. That's not the point. I _am_ saying that requiring a feature to be "essential" to be included is a ridiculous criterion. The proper criteria are "useful" and "convenient". On the Mac, there are many programs which can run simultaneously. To do this, however, they must be written in a very special way and the operating system must be specifically informed of each. This is certainly an approach, and it seems to work for the Mac owners. There are certain special cases on the ST, I am sure, where more than one thing can happen at the same time (like a print spooler, for instance) - again it is done specially. On a general purpose multi-tasker, ANY two programs can run simultaneously, unless one of them is being a particularly bad citizen. Though this isn't "essential", isn't that more convenient? Which brings us to the second argument: Even if multi-tasking is indeed useful and convenient, it still won't be used by the great unwashed (called typical users in the original posting). Only "power users" would use it. I don't quite understand why that means a feature should be omitted. Is it being suggested that a feature should only be included in a product if EVERY OWNER of that product will use it? More importantly, it assumes that the users won't mature and become more sophisticated. Though a user may not use a feature when the product is first purchased, many times the user will grow into it as time progresses. "Power users" all began as unsophisticated users. However, they won't mature if the machine they are on won't let them. I used to know quite a few owners of TRS Model I's, who were wizard Basic programmers, but were so restricted otherwise by the machine, that they might now never grow out of it, even if now given a better system. In many ways, it is desirable that a machine provide some advanced features that the new user won't immediately use, so as to provide room for maturation and learning... ...providing it is done so that the user isn't forced to use this feature before ready. Which leads me to the last point: The original poster stated, but never justified, a belief that providing multi-tasking was not merely useless but actually undesirable. I don't see it. If: 1. Multi-tasking doesn't add to the purchase price of the product 2. It isn't intrusive on people who don't understand or need it right now 3. It is available for those who do understand it, or those who grow into it Then I state that it is an unmixed asset and should be in the product. I would be very interested in hearing why, given these three assumptions, multi-tasking should be omitted from a product. If you change any of the assumptions, then you are arguing against a strawman. All three of them are true for multi-tasking on the Amiga. If you say "There are other ways" that is irrelevant. The point is not to show alternatives, but to actually demonstrate that multi-tasking is a negative thing in its own right. If you cannot demonstrate that it is an actual danger, then it is merely useless for most (but not all!) users. But since, by the assumptions, it doesn't impede those users who don't use it, then its ability to attract "power users" makes it an asset. (It attracted me - it is the main reason I bought the Amiga.) (By the way, by so doing it represents an indirect asset for those unsophisticated users, because the "power users" are cranking out public domain software which the unsophisticated users can get for free. 120 880K Fish-disks at last count.) We therefore have three classes of users for the multi-tasking machine: 1. Those who don't understand and won't use multi-tasking, but are not impeded by it. [If you think they are impeded, then we are out of the realm of the theory and into fact. I state as a fact that it does not impede rank amateurs on the Amiga.] 2. Those who don't understand it to begin with, but grow into it. 3. Those who understand it and use it from the very beginning. Group 1 isn't bothered by its presence. Group 2 and Group 3 benefit by it. How can it be a bad thing? -------------------------------- Which brings us finally to the issue of the motive of the original poster. Let's try some syllogisms, shall we? 1. The Atari ST is an ideal computer 2. The Atari ST doesn't have multi-tasking ERGO Ideal computers don't require multi-tasking. 1. If several machines offer multi-tasking, people will grow to expect it. 2. If people grow to expect it, they will refuse to buy machines not having it. ERGO If several machines offer multi-tasking, the public will refuse to buy machines not having it. 1. If several machines offer multi-tasking, the public will refuse to buy machines not having multi-tasking. 2. The Atari ST doesn't have multi-tasking. ERGO If several machines offer multi-tasking, Atari ST sales will suffer. 1. Anything which causes Atari ST sales to suffer is dangerous. 2. If several machines offer multi-tasking, Atari ST sales will suffer. ERGO It is dangerous for other machines to offer multi-tasking. Could these be the real reasons behind the original posting? Or maybe just a deliberate attempt to stir up trouble? -- Steven C. Den Beste, Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA denbeste@bbn.com(ARPA/CSNET/UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste(UUCP) I don't think BBN cares what I think about this stuff. And that's probably just as well. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 24 Dec 87 17:25:29 EST From: SARGON%UMass.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu Subject: A different view on multitasking. To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In light of the humorous (if not entirely short sighted) notes on the usefulness of multitasking to the "average" microcomputer user I thought Id toss in some historically relevant views.. 1. A microcomputer user will never need anything more than a few cassette tapes to hold his work. 2. A microcomputer user will never need anything but a TV set to display information from a computer. 3. A microcomputer user will never need even as much as 64K of memory. 4. A microcomputer user will never need a language other than interpretive BASIC to perform any task. Last time I heard the Atari 1040ST came with an 800K floppy disk drive, requires a monitor (as Atari didnt put the modulator in there), comes stock with 1MB of RAM and doesnt come stock with BASIC. Does this make the designers at Atari morons for putting in such useless junk? I think not. Finally, your "average" user of a modern microcomputer (this gets rid of the Apple II and C64 crowds) is more likely to be in a business or higher education setting than in the kitchen as a $x000 recipie file. Both of these areas are demanding the ability to share and distribute information. This means networks. Networks need software drivers that requires a certain degree of multitasking. Im sure Atari the self proclaimed "vertically integrated" computer maker will be (or hopefully IS) working on both multitasking and networking. The 286/386 and the 030 all have memory management hardware whether you use it or not. Why not use it? -Steve ccccccccccc Stephen Halpin Sargon@UMass.BITNET PO Box 241 Amherst, MA 01004-0241 ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 18:44:00 GMT From: cbmvax!schein@rutgers.edu (Dan Schein CATS) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I usually dont reply to these net wars because there is never a winner and they only surface again in 6-8 months, but..... In article <444@Lindy.STANFORD.EDU> kevin@Lindy.Stanford.EDU (Kevin Burnett) writes: >In article <2673@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: >>Speak for yourself, you nit. You have no idea what *I* do, or what *I* >>need. >I don't believe he said anything about how YOU use your computer. >And, you're asking for this comment, ASSHOLE. Soap Box mode ON *** Comments like these are not needed. If you can not hold a discussion / debate in a more mature adult manner, then please do it in e-mail. I am really getting tired of adding more and more subjects to my kill file. Im sure that hidden in each of these flame throwing messages is a valid point, but in the way these point(s) are presented, its sure hard to find them. Im not asking you to stop this "my dad can beat up your dad" battle (Heck sometimes even I need a good laugh), just use a little more thought into what others think when they read your message and how your message reflects on comp.sys.amiga. Soap Box mode OFF *** -- Dan Schein uucp: {ihnp4|allegra|burdvax|rutgers}!cbmvax!schein Commodore AMIGA Bix: dschein Plink: Dan*CATS 1200 Wilson Drive phone: (215) 431-9100 ext. 9542 West Chester PA 19380 +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ All spelling mistakes are a result of my efforts to avoid education :-) +----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ I help Commodore by supporting the AMIGA. Commodore supports me by allowing me to form my own suggestions and comments. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 15:39:06 GMT From: clyde!watmath!water!ljdickey@rutgers.edu (Lee Dickey) Subject: Re: BMS controller package To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <945@ssc.UUCP> fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes) writes: ] ] I have the BMS controller. It works fine (once we found the bugs but ] that was almost a year ago). ... What were the bugs? If I were to buy such a board, I would probably *never* find the bugs. -- L. J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo. ljdickey@watmath.UUCP UUCP: ...!uunet!watmath!ljdickey ljdickey%water@waterloo.edu ljdickey@watdcs.BITNET ljdickey%water%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 20:51:50 GMT From: uw-entropy!dataio!pilchuck!ssc!fyl@june.cs.washington.edu (Phil Hughes) Subject: Re: Degas Elite PostScript Driver To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <8712231156.AA07312@lasso.laas.fr>, ralph@lasso.UUCP (Ralph P. Sobek) writes: > Does there exist a program which converts Degas Elite format files to > PostScript? Thanks a whole bunch! Well, the bad way is to use Publishing Partner. It works unless PP screws it up (which does happen). I have used this method (it is how I got the graphics into our new UNIX products catalog) but would like to have a cleaner way. -- Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155 (206)FOR-UNIX uw-beaver!tikal!ssc!fyl or uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl or attmail!ssc!fyl ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 04:19:35 GMT From: dalcs!garfield!john13@uunet.uu.net (John Russell) Subject: Re: Great Demo from Rex... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <5825@jhunix.UUCP> ins_bjjb@jhunix.UUCP (Jared J Brennan) writes: > The program did the same thing on my machine (except vertically). Play ... > You can probably attribute this to hardware dependencies. The monitor The game Goldrunner (European) has a 50/60 hz option. At the European frequency the screen jumps like you describe so it may be continent dependency :-). John -- "...and intuition, in a case such as this, is of crucial importance." -- William Gibson, _Count_Zero_ ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 15:42:12 GMT From: mcrware!jejones@uunet.uu.net (James Jones) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <323@lakesys.UUCP>, mark@lakesys.UUCP (Mark Storin) writes: > If all he ever needs is simple word processing or file keeping then he can > find those in the simplest of computers (8-bit machines like Apples and > Atari's)... I agree with Mr. Storin's main point fully, and moreover think that Joe Average will, unless he's very careful, actually *learn* something about what his computer can do and take advantage of multitasking eventually, but--I think that a visit to a friend or neighbor with a CoCo 3 running OS-9 will show that one can have multitasking on an 8-bit machine. (Much less a visit to a place with a dozen folks hacking merrily away on a Gimix 6809-based computer.) James Jones ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 21:08:51 GMT From: mcrware!droid@uunet.uu.net (Andy Nicholson) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu > Of course, you can get OS-9 (and IDRIS) for the Atari ST. So there. You > can multi-task to your hearts content, regardless of the machine. BUT I > still insist that, for the non "power user" there's no need for it. > > -- Dave Meile I normally avoid religious wars, but this is too much. Just who are these mythical "non-power-users" that don't need multi-tasking. Everyone is trying to convince you that they don't exist. I'll tell you what. You show joe user what muti-tasking can do and then tell him that he is too unsophisticated to use it. Then duck. Manufacturers who underestimate buyers go out of business. If "joe user" couldn't use multi-tasking, we would not have kludgo simulations (TSR's, desk accessories, etc.). As one of my co-workers posted, it is only a matter of education. Joe user expects magic from a computer. As soon as he realizes a computer can't do two things at once, like he can, he'll be unhappy. He wants multi-tasking. And I'm not picking a bone for the Amiga over the Atari. Note my employer. We only support one of those two machines. And its not the Amiga. Sorry, no cute signature file. Andy Nicholson "Opinions expressed here were placed by Christmas elves trying to get me into trouble." Merry X-MAS! ------------------------------ Date: 25 Dec 87 04:05:14 GMT From: lakesys!martin@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Martin Wiedmeyer) Subject: Re: Microsoft Write ... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Neil, what's the Mfg's Suggested Retail Price (list price) for MS Write? Thanks, Marty -- | Martin Wiedmeyer - Lake Systems, Milwaukee, WI | | UUCP: {ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!martin | | Disclaimer: "I take the heat for my own (mis)statements!" | ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXA.BITNET (01/06/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY7379 at node VAXA Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXA with Jnet id 3589 for VY7379@BINGVAXA; Wed, 6 Jan 88 08:25 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 3588; Wed, 06 Jan 88 08:14:49 EDT Date: Tue, 5 Jan 88 22:15:53 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #5 To: TODD KRISSEL <VY7379@BINGVAXA> Info-Atari16 Digest Tuesday, January 5, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 5 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: Christmas Adventure - Elves87 Part 1 of 4 Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... WordPerfect on ST Abaq Developer Kits Info atari instructions. Re: WordPerfect on ST Re: Failing Disk Drive & Strange TPA pointer ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 24 Dec 87 15:24:16 GMT From: hao!scdpyr!cruff@AMES.ARPA (Craig Ruff) Subject: Re: Christmas Adventure - Elves87 Part 1 of 4 To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <250@dalcsug.UUCP> euloth@dalcsug.UUCP (George Seto) writes: >Here is the first of hopefully many adventures from BOA! which stands >for Burnt Out Adventurers!. This is a Christmas theme adventure. The >ST loader will show a little picture before loading the game. ... ^^ Why are comp.sys.mac and comp.sys.ibm being cluttered up with this stuff? Atari ST binaries, never the less. Please, show some restraint in what news groups you post this stuff to. It doesn't do us much good to receive useless ST binaries in comp.sys.mac or comp.sys.ibm! -- Craig Ruff NCAR INTERNET: cruff@scdpyr.UCAR.EDU (303) 497-1211 P.O. Box 3000 CSNET: cruff@ncar.CSNET Boulder, CO 80307 UUCP: cruff@scdpyr.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 87 16:50:56 GMT From: ssc-vax!shuksan!tahoma!hrsw2!bakken@beaver.cs.washington.edu (David E. Bakken) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <533@otto.COM>, rex@otto.COM (Rex Jolliff) writes: > > I think, however, that the first time home (or other) computer user will not > realize or utilize the full potential of Multitasking for quite a while. They > will have enough fun just making the computer do things one at a time. > I can't count how many non-technical types I've shown Amy and they have no problem comprehending what multitasking can do for them if they are given a few examples. Once the light goes on they tend to use it often. Heck, I don't even need to show then Amy - 4 or 5 well chosen sentences does the trick. Which is why I am really dissapointed (to put it mildly) that C= has not run commercials that help people to see the light. That should be easy to accomplish in a 60 second spot, maybe even in 30 seconds. Peter's commercial idea with Big Blue, Mac, Amy, and the flunky was a classical case in point. -- Dave Bakken Boeing Commercial Airplane Company uw-beaver!apcisea!tahoma!hrsw2!bakken (206) 234-2039 (generic) disclaimer: these views are my own, not my employers. ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 18:55:51 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!RJknees@uunet.uu.net Subject: WordPerfect on ST To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Hey everyone! I'm looking for someone who has (or has used) WordPefect on the Atari-ST. I'm thinking of buying this software! I would be interested in the following: 1. How much faster (if any) is it than WordWriter-ST? 2. Is the spelling checker better than WordWriter-ST or Thunder? 3. Is the GEM interface good? 4. Are there Keyboard Equavilents to the Mouse/Gem commands? 5. Any other opinions or comments RE: Wordproccesing on the ATARI-ST Thanks a bunch, and MERRY CHRISTMASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Richard...RJknees@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: 23 Dec 87 22:50:12 GMT From: portal!atari!neil@uunet.uu.net (Neil Harris) Subject: Abaq Developer Kits To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Before my mailbox overflows: There is a program in place for Abaq developers. In the USA, you can get information on what documentation will be available, and a more complete look at the Abaq itself, from Atari. In the UK you should go right to Perihelion. To get the information package, write to: Atari Corp. 1196 Borregas Ave. Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Attn: Cindy Claveran To become a registered developer of the Abaq, you can get the documentation package and get news of when developer units will be available. The cost is $100, sent to the same person listed above. -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 25 Dec 87 15:40:24 GMT From: ravi@mcnc.org (Ravi Subrahmanyan) Subject: Info atari instructions. To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu This message contains the latest info-atari instructions to subscribers. Please go through it (even seasoned users!) and retain for future reference. Of special interest to BITNET users (and interent users with access to bitnet) is a section on accessing the 16-bit program libraries at the Univ of Houston. The info-atari moderators. Welcome To Info-Atari. 1. Sending Messages You may send messages to all "subscribers" by address- ing it to info-atari8@score.stanford.edu and/or info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Administrative messages should be sent to info-atari{8,16}-request. Please do NOT send general messages to this address. Your moderators get enough mail as it is! 2. Ground Rules All messages should be in good taste. Commercial mes- sages and advertisements are not permitted. When answering a question, please consider carefully whether the answer should go to the whole list, or just to the person who asked the question. The following ground rules should make the use of this (or of any other) mailing list much easier: * never send a message that a totally irrelevant to the mailing list's purpose to a mailing list. This espe- cially includes any expressions of irritation at another list member. * never forward a message that is totally irrelevant to the mailing list's purpose to a mailing list. * when replying to a message on a mailing list, reply only to the sender of the message unless the reply is of interest to the entire mailing list. * avoid inserting the message being replied to in a reply, especially in a message going to a mailing list. The context of the reply should be clear from *your* reply and from various mailer functionalities such as Message-ID. * when replying to an earlier reply that violates the previous rule, ABSOLUTELY DO NOT make matters worse by adding your own violation. December 25, 1987 - 2 - 3. Archives Archives are kept in several places in formats avail- able to everyone. As described below, if you are on ARPANET/DDN you will probably find it more convenient to retrieve files from the archive on radc-softvax.arpa using FTP. If you are not on ARPANET/DDN, or are unable to use FTP, you will be able to retrieve files from archives dis- tributed over several Bitnet hosts by sending mail (notes) to a program called LISTSERV. 3.1. Archives on radc-softvax.arpa Files from radc-softvax.arpa are available by FTP. FTP will work only for hosts directly connected to ARPANET/DDN. Please obtain local documentation and advice for the FTP user programming running on your host. There are two direc- tories under the anonymous account. One for atari8 and one for atari16. FTP to radc-softvax using login:guest and password:guest. To get the current list of available atari16 files do a 'get atari16/files.doc'. All of the atari16 files are stored in the atari16 subdirectory. If you need any other information, contact Marc Poulin. The archive is maintained by Rodney Peck (Peck@radc- multics.arpa) and Marc Poulin (Poulin@radc-multics.arpa or Archives@radc-softvax.arpa). 3.2. LISTSERV LISTSERV provides access to files for everyone who can send mail, independent of their location. Note, however, that intermediate notes have been known to refuse to handle long messages or have damaged them in transit. LISTSERV provides a number of features which you can access by send- ing mail (note) to LISTSERV. Only the barest minimum are described herein. On Bitnet messages should be sent to your nearest LISTSERV (the one from which you receive the info- atari digests). (If your address is not on Bitnet, an address for file servers is given below.) All mail sent to LISTSERV contains command lines. LISTSERV will respond by return mail. No subject is necessary in such mail. For more information send the command INFO 3.2.1. List Names The list_name for 16-bit Ataris is INFO-A16. The list_name for 8-bit Ataris is INFO-A8. These list names are used by Bitnet addressees for subscribing and unsubscribing December 25, 1987 - 3 - and by everyone for obtaining back copies of news digests. The list_names for programs stored in the archives are PROG-A16 and PROG-A8. 3.2.2. (Un)Subscribing If you are on Bitnet you may add or remove yourself from the distribution list. It would greatly convenience the moderators if you would do so when you no longer wish to receive digests. The command to join the list is SUBSCRIBE list_name User_name The command to remove yourself from the list is UNSUBSCRIBE list_name It would be most convenient if users took care of their own subscribing and unsubscribing, but messages to INFO- ATARI-REQUEST{8,16}@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU will still be accepted. 3.2.3. Accessing Program & Digest Archives All digests are in the archives. There is a separate program library. You can obtain copies of files from LIST- SERV by sending a message in the specified format. If you are on ARPAnet (or gatewayed to it), your mail concerning 16-bit Atari information should be addressed to LISTSERV%CANADA01.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Mail concerning 8-bit Atari information should be addressed to LISTSERV%TCSVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU To obtain a list of files in the file server, the com- mand is INDEX list_name The command to obtain a specific file is GET list_name file_name for example, GET INFO-A16 87-00076 December 25, 1987 - 4 - If you want to learn more, send the message HELP The moderator of the 8-bit program library is John R. Dunning. This library is not yet available for use, and further information will be posted to both newsgroups as it becomes available. 3.2.4. LISTSERV Moderators The person to contact if you are having problems (un)subscribing is Harry Williams (harry@marist.bitnet). The moderator of the 16-bit digest archives is Peter Jasper-Fayer (sofpjf@uoguelph.bitnet). The moderator of the 16-bit program archives is Richard Werezak (carson@mcmaster.bitnet). The moderator of the 8-bit archives is John Voigt (sysbjav@tcsvm.bitnet). The modera- tor of the 8-bit program archives is Arnold de Leon (adeleon@hmcvax.bitnet). 3.2.5. Information Concerning 16-bit Archive Organization The digests are numbered sequentially as they come in. Sometimes the files arrive here out of order, or with miss- ing ones, or with extra ones or with mail from BITNET users requesting information. Often the moderator has to logon to LISTSERV and re-name the files according to the "Subject:" line within it. Those "Subject:" lines are what end up in the indexes (in both "-A16" lists) The program files are largely extracts from the digests (INFO-A16). As far as possible, they are numbered the same as the digests they came from. Other programs were inserted somewhere in the list. The numbers of these "inserted" files were selected so that they would appear in the index at about the correct CHRONOLOGICAL sequence. If no programs were included in the digests, and no contributions were received, then those spaces in the index numbers were left blank. 3.2.6. Supplemental information for BITNET users Bitnet sites normally cannot make a connection to an internet site (such as Score) and FTP files over, so you do not have direct access to the archives on radc-softvax.arpa from your BITNET site. However, BITNET has some sites with all the good stuff, so you can get files from there. The LISTSERV's at CANADA01 and FINHUTC have old digests, and the ATARINET server at Univ of Houston has most of the best pro- grams. You can get to the LISTSERVs by saying TELL LISTSERV AT FINHUTC GET ATARI FILELIST December 25, 1987 - 5 - or TELL LISTSERV AT CANADA01 GET ATARI FILELIST to get a list of files. To get a specific file if you know it's name, you can say TELL LISTSERV AT <HOSTNAME> GET <FILENAME> <FILETYPE> To get stuff from the Univ of Houston server, you can say TELL UH-INFO AT UHUPVM1 ATARINET HELP or TELL UH-INFO AT UHUPVM1 ATARINET INDEX for further instructions. After you know a file's name, you can get it by saying TELL UH-INFO AT UHUPVM1 ATARINET SEND <FILENAME> <FILETYPE> December 25, 1987 ------------------------------ Date: 25 Dec 87 20:27:08 GMT From: lakesys!rich@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Rich Dankert) Subject: Re: WordPerfect on ST To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <2143@cup.portal.com> RJknees@cup.portal.com writes: >Hey everyone! I'm looking for someone who has (or has used) WordPefect on >the Atari-ST. I'm thinking of buying this software! > >I would be interested in the following: > >1. How much faster (if any) is it than WordWriter-ST? It's faster, and scrolls much better. > >2. Is the spelling checker better than WordWriter-ST or Thunder? Better isn't the word, you gotta see this thing! > >3. Is the GEM interface good? The GEM interface is very good, but due to space limitations not *all commands are available via Drop Down Menus > >4. Are there Keyboard Equavilents to the Mouse/Gem commands? Yes there are.. > >5. Any other opinions or comments RE: Wordproccesing on the ATARI-ST > Contrary to all the comments from user's of Word Perfect in the negative aspect, I can say that the version I got didn't have all the bugs that I had seen mentioned. In fact Word Perfect Corp. is one of the best software makers that I know of. If you OWN the program, and have a problem with it, and they have a newer version of it, they will send it to you, second day air sometimes. This is one software maker that really backs their product! > >Thanks a bunch, and MERRY CHRISTMASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! M E R R Y C H R I S T M A S S and a H A P P Y N E W Y E A R to you also. > > >Richard...RJknees@cup.portal.com UUCP: {Ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!rich Discalimer: The words,ideas,and expressions are my own, and not nessasarily always correct, and NO I am not affiliated with Word Perfect Corp. I just like there product. ------------------------------ Date: 25 Dec 87 19:45:48 GMT From: lakesys!rich@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Rich Dankert) Subject: Re: Failing Disk Drive & Strange TPA pointer To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1606@brahma.cs.hw.ac.uk> neil@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Forsyth) writes: > >Boo hoo the disk drive on my 1040ST is not working. I know it is the drive >because I have swapped it in other machines and the problem moved with the >drive. The symptoms are strange in that it reads every track on a disk fine >but has trouble writing. I say trouble because sometime it formats a track >ok sometimes not, but never a whole disk. I had a look at a track it had tried >to format and found corruption (gap bytes inconsistant & data damaged ie $E5 >corrupted.) If I can't fix this drive I will have to buy a replacement and >that will kill my slim chance of being able to afford a hard drive. >I phoned a company that upgrades the internal SS drive in a 520STFM to DS and >asked if the same drive could be fitted inside a 1040. They said no, which I >think is pretty strange since I thought (as most do) that the 520STFM was >just a 1040 with a lesser drive and some RAM missing. Has anyone else put a >different drive in their 1040 or repaired the original one? >If so please advise me. >(Note: Our machines will be down(ish) from 24th Dec to Jan 5th) I have replaced the 1040 drives with the newer mech's that are currently shipped as external drives. Have had no problem with doing this at all. If I were you, I would clean the head with Freon TF, and get all the dust that usually seems to collect inside the drive. This is the main problem that I have seen in the internal drives, other than the eairly drives having the write protect to go out, in which case I replaced it with a small micro toggle switch. I have seen drives that were running slow, and still read the data onthe disk fine, but didn't write for ^%$#*( . Also have seen some drives that didn't write well either and the cause was due to a mechanical problem with a lever mounted for upper head pressure. Problem was due to this lever being a little loose and thus making alot of noise (like ball bearings inside) and just getting this a little tighter lessened the vibrations allowing the drive to again work well. One other thing that I noticed was that some drives, lost the ability to turn the disk at proper speed *if the drive was sitting in the correct position. When I went and turned the drive over (upside down) to further look at the problem, the problem was gone! Turn the drive back over and the problem returned, turn it upside down, and the drive worked fine again. Weird problem. Unfortunatly, the direct drive motor for turning the media is not available from Atari, so a new drive was installed. One of the newer external ones. Problem solved.... > > 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 >------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UUCP: {Ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!rich Discalimer: The words,ideas,and expressions are my own, and not nessasarily always correct, but I wouldn't say that I have done it if I didn't. ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXA.BITNET (01/07/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY7379 at node VAXA Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXA with Jnet id 9084 for VY7379@BINGVAXA; Wed, 6 Jan 88 15:59 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 9081; Wed, 06 Jan 88 15:58:52 EDT Date: Wed, 6 Jan 88 11:42:44 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #6 To: TODD KRISSEL <VY7379@BINGVAXA> Info-Atari16 Digest Wednesday, January 6, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 6 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: A different view on multitasking. Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: CP/M Z80 Emulator Re: drivers for new printers Re: BMS controller package Re: Hard disk boot??? Re: Atari's Marketing Approach spectrum 512, MWC, BDT MT C-shell, Alpaha Mega Disk(?) MarsPort Help Text -> Speech Programs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 25 Dec 87 09:30:50 GMT From: ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!crash!gryphon!pnet02!sbauer@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Scott Bauer) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu One point that has been a bit overlooked by the Desk Accessory/Pop-Up Utility crowd -- why be forced to "make do" with the limitations that a Desk Accessory imposes? NOT to suggest that the Desk Accessory are not useful, or that the programming done by their authors is somehow lacking; what I DO mean is that in a multi-tasking environment I have my CHOICE of any number of full featured programs, all of which run together (within the limits of my systems resources, of course.) So I can use the same word processor and outline processor and spreadsheet and etc. that I always use, rather than one that can run as a Desk Accessory (and thus is used mainly for just that reason.) Scott Bauer ----------- UUCP: {ihnp4!crash, hplabs!hp-sdd!crash}!gryphon!pnet02!sbauer INET: sbauer@pnet02.CTS.COM ------------------------------ Date: 25 Dec 87 19:13:57 GMT From: mnetor!utgpu!lharris@uunet.uu.net (Leonard Harris) Subject: Re: A different view on multitasking. To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu When I started working as an advisor at UofT, TSO was the main system besides batch card jobs through JCL. Back then if you mentioned a Micro, you were laued at and told they could never do what a BIG machine could do. Too bad I have to use unix on a this SUN toy now instead of a 370 !! Whats this have to do with multi-tasking? I'm not sure but the whole argument seems kinda stupid. Buy what you want. I have an atari for games and an IBM for programming and cad work. It would be really nice to have a multitasking Sun 3 but I can get by on less. If multitasking would force(?) programmers to produce better code then I'm all for it ! ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 16:55:39 GMT From: ems!nis!stag!trb@UMN-CS.ARPA ( Todd Burkey ) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <7909@e.ms.uky.edu> david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack) writes: >In article <8155@prls.UUCP> gardner@prls.UUCP (Robert Gardner) writes: >>I'm still waiting to see if someone can come up with a use for TRUE >>multitasking that a typical home user would find very handy but that >>cannot be satisfied by a simple 'carousel' approach. There probably >>are some, especially with message-passing, etc., but none have been >>posted yet (except for people waiting for their compilers to finish -- >>they just need faster integrated compilers, though :) Agreed...even my worst case program (hdscan) takes less than a minute to compile, so I rarely even have the urge to pop it into the background... > ... And yes, I know that background print spooler gadgets can >run on single task DOS's ... I've seen 'em in CP/M, RT-11, Mess-DOS, >and many many others. But I've never been convinced that they >ever ran cleanly. ???Why not??? I have less trouble with the automatic print spoolers on my PC clone and ST than I do on the Unix boxes at work. I can prioritize jobs, edit stuff in the queue, etc on the ST version, but those hacks are mostly fluff and rarely used...besides, I have seen those handy little standalone print spoolers going for under $50 nowadays, so that may be a better solution in the long run... >I'm thinking ahead some time into the future when we'll have >ISDN running everywhere ... In order to handle network communications >cleanly we'll need to have multi-tasking. Umm, by the time we have ISDN running everywhere, our current computers will probably be dust. By then, most of us will probably be running some variant of Unix on our machines if we want to properly utilize ISDN (i.e. we will have BIG drives, some form of USENET access ...which I can't quite picture even two years from now, since we are running about 28MBytes of messages/week now..., very high speed modems, etc.) >[There are] also things like mail daemons >and such that recieve e-mail while you're asleep (or away >or whatever). UUPC seems to work fine on the ST and I have several STadel (ST citadel) boards that poll my Unix box every couple of hours for uucp mail and the comp.sys.atari.st sections. I am sure there are a lot of Amiga systems doing the same (I recall that UUPC came out for the Amiga and Citadel is also running on the Amiga). >For right now? Well, how about killing run-away processes? On the ST OS-9 or the Multi-tasking C shell has the standard ability to do this...And on the Amiga or the ST, you can always hit reset to kill everything, but still keep the things that were out on RAM drives...(I used this feature a lot on both the Amiga and the ST in the early days of using C compilers that were released too soon.) I agree somewhat with Dave Meile on this discussion/argument. In the long run, the average user of a popular computer is not the 'BBS'-type or a person that needs anything more than a few utilities in the form of desk accessories on top of an application. Unfortunately, the IBM PC and the Mac have gained the 'average' user market, to date. Those of us with Amiga's and Atari ST's are either technical enough to appreciate and use the special features of the respective computer, or we had very, very persuasive friends who convinced us that the Amiga/ST was the best computer. The 'average' user is still the person that just buys a Mac or PC for a very specific purpose (usually for writing memos or doing spreadsheets in a business environment). They may run Lightning/Thunder (real time spelling checkers on the PC/ST) in a pseudo background manner, and have a ton of desk accessories or pop up tools, but they rarely go in for the increased complexity that a multi-tasking environment like DesqView offers on the PC. Even the carrousel approach (there, I just multi-tasked and asked my wife for a spelling check...it can also be spelled carousel) is somewhat confusing to people, but I have seen secretaries fall in love with the carrousel programs on the Mac and the ST...although not on the PC version for some reason. -Todd Burkey trb@stag.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 25 Dec 87 06:55:05 GMT From: ems!nis!stag!trb@umn-cs.arpa ( Todd Burkey ) Subject: Re: CP/M Z80 Emulator To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <104@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Peter J. Holsberg) writes: >I'm looking for a CP/M - Z80 emulator that will run on a 680x0-based >computer. Please email if you know of such a beast. Thx. There is a very nice PD one for the ST...If I remember right, the docs for it seemed to indicate that the original 'port' source would work on any 68000 computer (it has been over a year since I played with it, so the name of the company that wrote it escapes me). Atari did put this out as a PD disk, so maybe Neil can help? If not, I'm sure you could get the disk from your local Atari club... I recall getting about 1.5MHz to 3Mz throughput on most of the programs I had from the ATR8000 days...things like Perfect Writer, Wordstar, Turbo Pascal, etc all worked fine. I even used some of my wifes software that I copied over from her Geneva portable and it ran fine (but emulating a 80 char by 8 line display). -Todd Burkey trb@stag.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 25 Dec 87 06:43:29 GMT From: phri!dasys1!mzyla@nyu.edu (Martin Zyla) Subject: Re: drivers for new printers To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <2125@cup.portal.com> Randy_Captain-Magic_Holcomb@cup.portal.com writes: >I just got an NEC Pinwriter P2200 for $400, and I think it's a killer little >printer. I did have some fun trying to track down a utility that could do a >good screen dump (ALT-HELP) but I did find one on GEnie (Delphi?) that works >well when you tell the driver it's a P7. (and the P2200 allows you to kill the >tractor feed to, for single-sheet feeding. Nice touch.) > >Randy Holcomb - Contributing Editor/Computer Shopper I'm glad to see that someone else has discovered this gem of a machine. Around this neck of the woods (New York) it seems to be selling well and users marvel at the power, quality and accessories of a printer that sells for a relatively meager $350 to $400. I've used several drivers and wound up with a variety of screen dump sizes but all high quality. Speaking of high quality, if you're into Desktop Publishing this machine will make you think twice about spending all that money on a laser printer. I\ /I ____________________________________ Martin Zyla I \/ I / Big Electric Cat I I / {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri!dasys1!mzyla New York, NY, USA I I / {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!mzyla I I / GEnie:mzyla DELPHI:gmz CIS:74216,1372 ------------------------------ Date: 26 Dec 87 03:23:43 GMT From: ravi@cs.duke.edu (Ravi Subrahmanyan) Subject: Re: BMS controller package To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu >] I have the BMS controller. It works fine (once we found the bugs but >] that was almost a year ago). ... > >What were the bugs? >If I were to buy such a board, I would probably *never* find the bugs. > I've been using that package for a year, and the only bug I've encountered was in the clock setting software, which would cause the clock to freak in February.. it was quite amusing actually, and it was fixed immediately (Chris would actually tell you the location to patch in the executable if you didnt want to wait for him to send you a new disk). No other bugs as far as I know, -ravi ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 17:54:21 GMT From: nuchat!uhnix1!uhnix2!uace0@uunet.uu.net (Michael B. Vederman) Subject: Re: Hard disk boot??? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu The problem you have with holding down the alt-ctrl-shift may have to do with WHEN you hold down the keys. If you bootup with! the keys down, then it will not work with the new ROMs. Try turning on the machine (or resetting) wait a second, then hold down the keys. This should work. Don't use GEMBOOT with th[e new ROMs, use foldrxxx.prg instead. Also, I had the same[ problem with the message about a non-supported ROM version. Ignore the message, the driver is actually installed, and works just fine. - Mike -- #-----------------------------------------------------# University (of Houston) # It is morally wrong to let a sucker keep his money. # Atari Computer #-----------------------------------------------------# Enthusiasts (UACE) Use Atarinet: for help, interactively send a message to UH-INFO@UHUPVM1 ------------------------------ Date: 24 Dec 87 18:23:44 GMT From: nuchat!uhnix1!uhnix2!uace0@uunet.uu.net (Michael B. Vederman) Subject: Re: Atari's Marketing Approach To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Okay, how can you change Atari's image? Does it matter? Sure, more advertise- ments would be nice, but what benefit do we, the curreniet owners of STs derive from that? Perhaps it would be a boost to our own egos having more commmercials on TV. I mean who wants to own a machine that doesn't receive alot of press? In actuality, I doubt that more TV advertising would do too much good, other than allowing us to say "I saw the ad five times in one hour," or "Did you see the ads last night?" Ask yourself this - how many other computer companies make game machines? Answer - NONE! Not Apple, not IBM, not Commodore, no one. Therefore, Atari is stuck, because they do currently sell game machines. This is not neccessarily bad, but more advertising, I beleive will only give us current owners a shot in the arm. Remembere, actions speak louder than words, and no advertising can boost sales if you don't have an exciting line of products to sell, and new products on the way. If Atari can produce, then they zwill be successful. The ABAQ is exciting, but may come out too late to 'steal' the show. Is it important for Atari to come out with products first? For us owners, we certainly would take a lot of pride in the company if we were owners of a$ computer from a company that was 'on the leading edge' and delivered prroducts before anyone else, but what real benefit do we get from that other than feeding our egos. So, before you go complaing to Neil, ask who will really benefit. Is this 'commercial wars.' Are we feeling left out? We have a good machine that is exactl[y what we paid for. What more do you want? Flame me at this address, if you want. I just get tired of complaining about immaterial things. If you wanna complain, complain about how GEM is a closed operating system that must be hacked at to figure out (that's GEM, not TOS). My opinions are my own, and do not neccessarily reflect our users' group, company, university, or any living being. - Mike -- #-----------------------------------------------------# University (of Houston) # It is morally wrong to let a sucker keep his money. # Atari Computer #-----------------------------------------------------# Enthusiasts (UACE) Use Atarinet: for help, interactively send a message to UH-INFO@UHUPVM1 ------------------------------ Date: 25 Dec 87 00:18:00 GMT From: linus!philabs!sbcs!nyit!bryan@husc6.harvard.edu (Bryan Althaus) Subject: spectrum 512, MWC, BDT MT C-shell, Alpaha Mega Disk(?) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I only had my 1040ST for a week before the drive went and I'm still waiting for it to come back so in the meantime I thought I'd ask a few questions. I've been reading about Spectrum 512 in Antics START magazine and was wondering if anyone has disassembled the code and found out how they put 48 colors per scan line? Does this code work for putting more colors per scan line in medium rez? Also could anyone out there who owns Spectrum 512 tell me how like/dislike this product? I plan on buying it just for the feature of 512 colors but I was just wondering how good a paint program this is compared to Degas & NeoChrome. About how they do it, Spectrum owns the rights to Spectrum 512 not the ability to put 48 colors per scan line. I feel Spectrum has done something that I didn't think was possible and they deserve all the customers they can get, it's just that I hope the how's and why's of the scan line trick become public knowledge, for a person shouldn't have to buy the program just to be able to have 48 colors per scan line on their ST's. I'm currently using Mark Williams C with Beckemeyers MT C-shell and together they make a pretty powerful programming environment. I was wondering if anyone knows how much temp space both programs use? I set a ramdisk up and put the most used commands from MT C-shell into it (ls, cd etc.) and was wondering how much bigger I should make the ramdisk to hold the /tmp area which MWC & BDT MT C-shell use for temporary storage. Also while talking about ramdisks has anyone bought the Mega disk(?) by Alpha. It's suppose to be a 1 meg. ram cartridge which plugs into the cartrige port on the Atari and gives you the ability to have an 800k ramdisk + 200k printer spooler or two 400k ramdisks and the printer spooler. Also included for $299 is a power supply so that after you turn your computer off your data is still intact, sort of like a mini Hard Drive. For the price it sounds good, if anyone has bought one could you tell me how you like it and also how could I get MT C-shell to recognize the 200k printer spooler? Thanks in advance Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all Bryan Althaus N.Y.I.T. - Computer Graphics Laboratory UUCP: ...!philabs!nyit!bryan (bryan@nyit.UUCP) ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 87 00:32:43 GMT From: munnari!natmlab!tasis!paul@uunet.uu.net (Paul Stevenson) Subject: MarsPort Help To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu "I'm the sentry 5 pairs for entry..." OK - can anyone tell me how to get through the door? thanks in advance. Paul Stevenson ------------------------------ Date: 22 Dec 87 01:50:38 GMT From: munnari!natmlab!basser!metro!pta!teti!nswitgould!tony@uunet.uu.net (Tony McGrath) Subject: Text -> Speech Programs To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I am making this inquiry on behalf of a partially sighted person who has recently purchased an Atari ST. What he is looking for is a Text -> Speech conversion program that would allow him to hear the contents of a text file. I know that there is a simple speech program available called ST-TALK that performs this function, but only on text typed from the keyboard. Does anybody know of a similar program that could read a file of text and then speak it back? Are there sources available for the aforementioned ST-TALK that might be modified to make it work on text files? Please reply to me by mail, unless, of course, you think it is important enough to post. Tony McGrath tony@nswitgould.OZ ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXA.BITNET (01/07/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY7379 at node VAXA Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXA with Jnet id 0320 for VY7379@BINGVAXA; Wed, 6 Jan 88 17:10 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 0317; Wed, 06 Jan 88 17:09:28 EDT Date: Wed, 6 Jan 88 11:43:27 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #7 To: TODD KRISSEL <VY7379@BINGVAXA> Info-Atari16 Digest Wednesday, January 6, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 7 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: How advertising helps already-owners ST Drive Change? Re: Reasons for buying a computer (was Colorburst) Re: How advertising helps already-owners Reasons for buying a computer (was Colorburst) Atari ST motherboards big arrays in MW C eproms burners Help Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Dec 87 14:13:13 GMT From: denbeste@bbn.com (Steven Den Beste) Subject: How advertising helps already-owners To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Michael Vederman (uace0@uhnix2.UUCP) asks: > Okay, how can you change Atari's image? Does it matter? Sure, > more advertisements would be nice, but what benefit do we, the curreniet > owners of STs derive from that? The rationale goes as follows: If the advertising is effective, more ST's will be sold, and the installed base will get bigger. This will attract more third party software vendors, who will write more software for the system, which means a better and wider availability of software for those who already owned the machine when the advertising began. Clear? -- Steven C. Den Beste, Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA denbeste@bbn.com(ARPA/CSNET/UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste(UUCP) I don't think BBN cares what I think about this stuff. And that's probably just as well. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 02:36:03 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!BigDiamond@uunet.uu.net Subject: ST Drive Change? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Does anyone know if you can take out the single-sided drive in the SF354 drive and slip in a double-sided drive without any problems? Thanks in advance.............................Hank (BigDiamond@cup.portal.com) ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 10:45:49 GMT From: pepper!cmcmanis@sun.com (Chuck McManis) Subject: Re: Reasons for buying a computer (was Colorburst) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <5834@jhunix.UUCP> ins_anmy@jhunix.UUCP (Norman Yarvin) writes: |>In article <36598@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes a lot |>of good suggestions about buying a computer. I can't understand this though: |> |>>* Don't buy a computer to learn programming. If you ever want to program |>> a computer you own, learn programming *first*. Then you will know when |>> the programming environment a computer offers is usable. |> |>How is someone going to learn programming without a computer? Granted, |>Usenet people must have access to at least one. But the world at large does |>not. Don't tell me you are going to just sit there and read a book; very |>few have that much willpower. And even if someone did, would he/she learn |>anything about which computer to buy? Very little, probably. I suggest that if you want to learn programming you take a class at a community college or through some other program where they provide the computer. The reason being that the things that make a computer easy to program, and the programs that make a computer useful may be a disjoint set. Have you ever programmed on a ZX81? Not much fun. Or maybe you buy a commodore 64 to learn programming, and then find out that you really want to program in C and no one makes a C compiler for it. Maybe COBOL is your idea of fun, that wipes out the Atari and Amiga right there. But the biggest danger is that you may discover you can't program, or hate to program and now you have this essentially worthless computer (remember the condition was that you bought it to learn programming). I know a lot of people who have bought computers, the ones that took a programming class were a lot happier. You learn a lot about computers when you take a programming class. It gives you an edge, I heard about a guy that bought a computer to program on that had only a line oriented editor because the salesman had convinced him that editors that supported editing on a "hard copy" terminal were more powerful than screen editors. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 07:40:47 GMT From: lakesys!rich@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Rich Dankert) Subject: Re: How advertising helps already-owners To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <5600@cc5.bbn.COM> denbeste@bbn.COM (Steven Den Beste) writes: > >The rationale goes as follows: > >If the advertising is effective, more ST's will be sold, and the installed base >will get bigger. This will attract more third party software vendors, who will >write more software for the system, which means a better and wider availability >of software for those who already owned the machine when the advertising began. > >Clear? > >-- >Steven C. Den Beste, Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA >denbeste@bbn.com(ARPA/CSNET/UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste(UUCP) > I don't think BBN cares what I think about this stuff. > And that's probably just as well. I can see your rational to a point, though I believe that your over looking one main point. Atari is looking to get away from the GAME MACHINE image. I think that this is an excellent idea. BUT,Right now, I hear more people talking to other's to look at the machine and they refuse to look past the Game Machine Image that is still attached to the name. Increasing the user base is a great idea, but remember that most that do check out the system, are pretty new to computer's for the most part.They really don't know whats out there for third party software, and when they do, they see alot of games made for the machine. They also see alot of owner's talking about the neat games that they have, but when it comes to what application software is available, well thats where were short. Sure games are fun, and show off the power of the machine, but all this power has to be put to better use! What I am getting at is third party software parties like Word Perfect Corp., Monogram, and other's to get their software over to the ST and do it right! I'm not really all that choked up about the third party software houses that simply port their stuff over, and it runs like it would on a PC. I would like to see software that really flys, and takes full advantage of the machine. To date their are but a handfull of such programs and for the most part these companies have not seen fit to back up their product with the supprt that is really needed. Word Perfect has been the real exception. Lets face it. Atari owner's *know what the machine is capable of, and with this knowledge, the demand the software to work correctly, and if it does not, the CO. should make a revision. This is not the case for the most part. Sure there are alot of packages out there that do perform quite well, but still don't make full use of the power that is available. Two markets that suffer quite a bit are the Business and Educational areas. These have been been improving, but were a long way off to where we should be, and where Atari would like it to be (my opinion of course). I for one, like the idea of Atari buying Federated, and the work being done with the Abaq box. Excellent ways to increase performence, but it still has to be sold to the general public. Business in particular. Ways for getting the point across. I would start getting more software out that would 'DO THE JOB' and have my name placed on it (Atari name). Of course the software would have to work to perfection as advertised. Who else better than Atari to make a software product that does the job? They designed the machine, and know it better than anyone else. The software that they have produced, has been outstanding, and proves that fact. (Lets not get into Atari Basic though!) along with the machine, offer software that would help intice the MS-DOS brainwashed people to see the Atari as a viable alternative. Case in point. We bought DAK easy accounting from DAK for our business. The program was written in basic, then compiled. Thats not the real problem. The program was really un-supported. The bugs were not fixed, and when the CO. had to face the fact, they come up with deciding not to support the product, and then comming out with version two, state that there is no market for business software for the machine, thus not making the version two available for the ST. Then you get the software emulator, and version two, and the program runs so slow, that for all intence and purposes, is really not usable. Especially when you seen version one (buggy as it is) run as fast as it did, would make anyone cry. If Atari produced this product, the purchaser's would know that the product would be supported, and any bugs (if any) would be corrected. I stand in the wings that Atari should produce some productivity software for the machine. What they have produced is great, but what is really missing is the business and educational software to act as a magnet to draw more to the power of this fabulous machine. -rich UUCP: {Ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!rich Discalimer: The words,ideas,and expressions are my own, and not nessasarily always correct, but they are mine, and can be yours too, if you want them! ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 03:18:54 GMT From: aplcen!jhunix!ins_anmy@mimsy.umd.edu (Norman Yarvin) Subject: Reasons for buying a computer (was Colorburst) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <36598@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes a lot of good suggestions about buying a computer. I can't understand this though: >* Don't buy a computer to learn programming. If you ever want to program > a computer you own, learn programming *first*. Then you will know when > the programming environment a computer offers is usable. How is someone going to learn programming without a computer? Granted, Usenet people must have access to at least one. But the world at large does not. Don't tell me you are going to just sit there and read a book; very few have that much willpower. And even if someone did, would he/she learn anything about which computer to buy? Very little, probably. Norman Yarvin (seismo!umcp-cs | ihnp4!whuxcc | allegra!hopkins) !jhunix!ins_anmy "I can't really represent the size of the sun, but this should give you a good idea." ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 02:15:08 GMT From: oliveb!olivej!dragon@ames.arpa (Give me a quarter or I'll touch you) Subject: Atari ST motherboards To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Does anyone know if the deal where one sends in their Atari 520ST to Atari and gets a new one back is still good? I remember the price as being around $95 or so. What are the catches to this? Can it be done through a dealer or only through Atari? Thanks for any information! --Dean ---- Dean Brunette {ucbvax,etc.}!hplabs!oliveb!olivej!dragon {ucbvax,etc.}!hplabs!oliveb!dragon-oatc!dean Olivetti Advanced Technology Center _____ _____ __|__ _____ 20300 Stevens Creek Blvd. | | _____| | | ------------------------------ Date: 26 Dec 87 04:24:08 GMT From: dayton!ems!nis!stag!trb@rutgers.edu ( Todd Burkey ) Subject: big arrays in MW C To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Hi, Does anyone know if MWC will safely handle large arrays now? I know that I had problems in the early versions with HDSCAN's arrays in that I had to keep the total amount of data in a particular array less than 32K bytes. Now when I compile tests (i.e. a char[10000][12]), I get a message like: strict: size of array overflows size_t which doesn't make sense, since size_t is a long if I remember correctly. Somewhat confusing (and frustrating now that my manual is out of phase with the newer version of the compiler that I got recently.) What I really want to do is fold my Unix version of HDSCAN back into the ST version, and preferably with MW C. If it looks like it will be too much of a mess, I will probably wait for the new version of Megamax, since that sounds somewhat promising as well. (Yes, the Unix version is done...I am mailing the source code to comp.sources.misc next week. Supports both BSD and SYSV flavors of Unix). -Thanks, Todd Burkey trb@stag.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 19:50:10 GMT From: kap%psueclb.BITNET@psuvm.bitnet Subject: eproms burners To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu hi I hate to interupt this fasinating discussion on multi-tasking but I need to find an eprom burner to use with the ST. I thought hippo made one but I can't find any information. Does anyone have or used one with the ST, any comments. thanks jim, on a friends account ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 03:56:52 GMT From: pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!dle@cad.Berkeley.EDU (Duy Le) Subject: Help To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Hi, I want to create a folder with autocopy but don't know how. Would someone please tell me how to? Thanks Duy ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 14:56:19 GMT From: ucsdhub!jack!crash!pnet01!haitex@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Wade Bickel) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I still have not heard one counter argument against the value that multi-tasking has as a tool for the programmer to use to write better programs. Perhaps the user does not see this as multi-tasking, but benfits from it none the less. After all, this is a powerful tool and we programmers can use it to make what would otherwise be a difficult task an easy one. This this translates to less expensive or more feature full programs. I have never said that multi-tasking was "essential". However, it is a VERY powerfull and usefull tool for both the software developer and the user alike. And you need not use it if it is too much for you. As far as this OS/9 buisness goes, if it were being distributed free then it might mean something, but from what's been said it will be held by only a small fraction of the ST users due to its price. Thus programmers will not be able to consider the bulk of the ST market when depending on OS/9, and will not be likely to do so. So much easier when its included with the basic system! Thanks, Happy New Year, Wade. UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!haitex ARPA: crash!pnet01!haitex@nosc.mil INET: haitex@pnet01.CTS.COM ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 07:40:26 GMT From: mtune!codas!killer!elg@rutgers.edu (Eric Green) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu in article <3256@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>, davidli@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Dave Meile) says: > People want computers (when they want them at all) to DO SOMETHING for > them. In the majority of cases with the Atari ST and the Amiga, that > "something" has been: > > writing stuff > filing stuff > retrieving stuff that's been filed > playing games > programming all of the above > > Most of those who read these forums fall under the "programming" category. > Of course, for programmers, multitasking can be a delight. For the person > who is writing a term paper on the microcomputer, why bother? If you have > access to two programs (ala Multifinder or perhaps through a "desk > accessory" [IBM PCs have desk accessories too, folks]) you already have > as much power as you're ever liable to need in most environments. Let's face it, even a Timex Sinclair with 16K of RAM can do all of the above (just a bit slow and limited). A boat-anchor CP/M system can also do all of the above, and would be cheaper (nowadays) besides. But I sure the hell don't like to use one after I've used BSD4.2 & other OS's that take advantage of multitasking. For example, take the term paper. I'm using an 8-bit single-tasking system right now. I set it to printing. Then I go away for 20 minutes while my NX-10 bangs away in near letter quality mode (more "near" than "letter", but that's the breaks!). That irritates me. Greatly. There's a couple of things I could do here: Use my RAM-disk and jam a software interrupt-driven spooler on my LST: device (multitasking!), go out and buy a 512K print spooler (multitasking again, although in this case with a dedicated processor), or any other number of things. All of which are multitasking. All of which are a kludge, and would be unnecessary if real multitasking was available. I remember my first computer. 5K of RAM, 16K of ROM, I was in hawg heaven, a computer all my own, to hack in 6502 assembly language on. I lusted for 16K, because with 16K, you can do anything, right? 64K? forget it, 64K was for rich folks with $2,000 to buy the latest CP/M boat-anchor (so-called because of its size and weight, in this case :-). Disk drives? Why would anybody want disk drives? I can load and save just fine with my cassette recorder! Then I moved up to a 64K machine with a disk drive. Wow. Big time now. I'll never take that 5K machine out of the closet again (even tho I expanded it to 16K). After all, it's just an obsolete toy now, right? and 64K... I can do ANYTHING! Wow, what power. Why would I want one of them fancy dandy 68000 machines, 'specially when they all cost $5,000 for 256K of RAM, and I can do everything they can, on my li'l min-anchor? I mean, I can process words, I can write programs, I can play games... they do all that, right? There's 2 points I wish to make: 1) Some features added to the computer make it more productive and easier to use (compare cassette deck to floppy drive to hard drive!). 2) Most of us are notoriously short on foresight, like I was when I thought that 64K and a floppy drive was the epitomy of computing (after all, I can do everything you can, right? I can process words, play games, etc.?). While you may not see the use of multitasking, I bet you're as foresighted now as I was 10 years ago when I thought that 16K of RAM was big-time for a microcomputer. -- Eric Lee Green elg@usl.CSNET Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 {cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg Lafayette, LA 70509 "There's someone in my head, but it's not me...." -PF ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXB.BITNET (01/07/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY9074 at node VAXB Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXB with Jnet id 0323 for VY9074@BINGVAXB; Wed, 6 Jan 88 17:11 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 0321; Wed, 06 Jan 88 17:09:31 EDT Date: Wed, 6 Jan 88 11:43:27 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #7 To: andrew stoffel <VY9074@BINGVAXB> Info-Atari16 Digest Wednesday, January 6, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 7 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: How advertising helps already-owners ST Drive Change? Re: Reasons for buying a computer (was Colorburst) Re: How advertising helps already-owners Reasons for buying a computer (was Colorburst) Atari ST motherboards big arrays in MW C eproms burners Help Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 26 Dec 87 14:13:13 GMT From: denbeste@bbn.com (Steven Den Beste) Subject: How advertising helps already-owners To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Michael Vederman (uace0@uhnix2.UUCP) asks: > Okay, how can you change Atari's image? Does it matter? Sure, > more advertisements would be nice, but what benefit do we, the curreniet > owners of STs derive from that? The rationale goes as follows: If the advertising is effective, more ST's will be sold, and the installed base will get bigger. This will attract more third party software vendors, who will write more software for the system, which means a better and wider availability of software for those who already owned the machine when the advertising began. Clear? -- Steven C. Den Beste, Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA denbeste@bbn.com(ARPA/CSNET/UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste(UUCP) I don't think BBN cares what I think about this stuff. And that's probably just as well. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 02:36:03 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!BigDiamond@uunet.uu.net Subject: ST Drive Change? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Does anyone know if you can take out the single-sided drive in the SF354 drive and slip in a double-sided drive without any problems? Thanks in advance.............................Hank (BigDiamond@cup.portal.com) ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 10:45:49 GMT From: pepper!cmcmanis@sun.com (Chuck McManis) Subject: Re: Reasons for buying a computer (was Colorburst) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <5834@jhunix.UUCP> ins_anmy@jhunix.UUCP (Norman Yarvin) writes: |>In article <36598@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes a lot |>of good suggestions about buying a computer. I can't understand this though: |> |>>* Don't buy a computer to learn programming. If you ever want to program |>> a computer you own, learn programming *first*. Then you will know when |>> the programming environment a computer offers is usable. |> |>How is someone going to learn programming without a computer? Granted, |>Usenet people must have access to at least one. But the world at large does |>not. Don't tell me you are going to just sit there and read a book; very |>few have that much willpower. And even if someone did, would he/she learn |>anything about which computer to buy? Very little, probably. I suggest that if you want to learn programming you take a class at a community college or through some other program where they provide the computer. The reason being that the things that make a computer easy to program, and the programs that make a computer useful may be a disjoint set. Have you ever programmed on a ZX81? Not much fun. Or maybe you buy a commodore 64 to learn programming, and then find out that you really want to program in C and no one makes a C compiler for it. Maybe COBOL is your idea of fun, that wipes out the Atari and Amiga right there. But the biggest danger is that you may discover you can't program, or hate to program and now you have this essentially worthless computer (remember the condition was that you bought it to learn programming). I know a lot of people who have bought computers, the ones that took a programming class were a lot happier. You learn a lot about computers when you take a programming class. It gives you an edge, I heard about a guy that bought a computer to program on that had only a line oriented editor because the salesman had convinced him that editors that supported editing on a "hard copy" terminal were more powerful than screen editors. --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 07:40:47 GMT From: lakesys!rich@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Rich Dankert) Subject: Re: How advertising helps already-owners To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <5600@cc5.bbn.COM> denbeste@bbn.COM (Steven Den Beste) writes: > >The rationale goes as follows: > >If the advertising is effective, more ST's will be sold, and the installed base >will get bigger. This will attract more third party software vendors, who will >write more software for the system, which means a better and wider availability >of software for those who already owned the machine when the advertising began. > >Clear? > >-- >Steven C. Den Beste, Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA >denbeste@bbn.com(ARPA/CSNET/UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste(UUCP) > I don't think BBN cares what I think about this stuff. > And that's probably just as well. I can see your rational to a point, though I believe that your over looking one main point. Atari is looking to get away from the GAME MACHINE image. I think that this is an excellent idea. BUT,Right now, I hear more people talking to other's to look at the machine and they refuse to look past the Game Machine Image that is still attached to the name. Increasing the user base is a great idea, but remember that most that do check out the system, are pretty new to computer's for the most part.They really don't know whats out there for third party software, and when they do, they see alot of games made for the machine. They also see alot of owner's talking about the neat games that they have, but when it comes to what application software is available, well thats where were short. Sure games are fun, and show off the power of the machine, but all this power has to be put to better use! What I am getting at is third party software parties like Word Perfect Corp., Monogram, and other's to get their software over to the ST and do it right! I'm not really all that choked up about the third party software houses that simply port their stuff over, and it runs like it would on a PC. I would like to see software that really flys, and takes full advantage of the machine. To date their are but a handfull of such programs and for the most part these companies have not seen fit to back up their product with the supprt that is really needed. Word Perfect has been the real exception. Lets face it. Atari owner's *know what the machine is capable of, and with this knowledge, the demand the software to work correctly, and if it does not, the CO. should make a revision. This is not the case for the most part. Sure there are alot of packages out there that do perform quite well, but still don't make full use of the power that is available. Two markets that suffer quite a bit are the Business and Educational areas. These have been been improving, but were a long way off to where we should be, and where Atari would like it to be (my opinion of course). I for one, like the idea of Atari buying Federated, and the work being done with the Abaq box. Excellent ways to increase performence, but it still has to be sold to the general public. Business in particular. Ways for getting the point across. I would start getting more software out that would 'DO THE JOB' and have my name placed on it (Atari name). Of course the software would have to work to perfection as advertised. Who else better than Atari to make a software product that does the job? They designed the machine, and know it better than anyone else. The software that they have produced, has been outstanding, and proves that fact. (Lets not get into Atari Basic though!) along with the machine, offer software that would help intice the MS-DOS brainwashed people to see the Atari as a viable alternative. Case in point. We bought DAK easy accounting from DAK for our business. The program was written in basic, then compiled. Thats not the real problem. The program was really un-supported. The bugs were not fixed, and when the CO. had to face the fact, they come up with deciding not to support the product, and then comming out with version two, state that there is no market for business software for the machine, thus not making the version two available for the ST. Then you get the software emulator, and version two, and the program runs so slow, that for all intence and purposes, is really not usable. Especially when you seen version one (buggy as it is) run as fast as it did, would make anyone cry. If Atari produced this product, the purchaser's would know that the product would be supported, and any bugs (if any) would be corrected. I stand in the wings that Atari should produce some productivity software for the machine. What they have produced is great, but what is really missing is the business and educational software to act as a magnet to draw more to the power of this fabulous machine. -rich UUCP: {Ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!rich Discalimer: The words,ideas,and expressions are my own, and not nessasarily always correct, but they are mine, and can be yours too, if you want them! ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 03:18:54 GMT From: aplcen!jhunix!ins_anmy@mimsy.umd.edu (Norman Yarvin) Subject: Reasons for buying a computer (was Colorburst) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <36598@sun.uucp> cmcmanis@sun.UUCP (Chuck McManis) writes a lot of good suggestions about buying a computer. I can't understand this though: >* Don't buy a computer to learn programming. If you ever want to program > a computer you own, learn programming *first*. Then you will know when > the programming environment a computer offers is usable. How is someone going to learn programming without a computer? Granted, Usenet people must have access to at least one. But the world at large does not. Don't tell me you are going to just sit there and read a book; very few have that much willpower. And even if someone did, would he/she learn anything about which computer to buy? Very little, probably. Norman Yarvin (seismo!umcp-cs | ihnp4!whuxcc | allegra!hopkins) !jhunix!ins_anmy "I can't really represent the size of the sun, but this should give you a good idea." ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 02:15:08 GMT From: oliveb!olivej!dragon@ames.arpa (Give me a quarter or I'll touch you) Subject: Atari ST motherboards To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Does anyone know if the deal where one sends in their Atari 520ST to Atari and gets a new one back is still good? I remember the price as being around $95 or so. What are the catches to this? Can it be done through a dealer or only through Atari? Thanks for any information! --Dean ---- Dean Brunette {ucbvax,etc.}!hplabs!oliveb!olivej!dragon {ucbvax,etc.}!hplabs!oliveb!dragon-oatc!dean Olivetti Advanced Technology Center _____ _____ __|__ _____ 20300 Stevens Creek Blvd. | | _____| | | ------------------------------ Date: 26 Dec 87 04:24:08 GMT From: dayton!ems!nis!stag!trb@rutgers.edu ( Todd Burkey ) Subject: big arrays in MW C To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Hi, Does anyone know if MWC will safely handle large arrays now? I know that I had problems in the early versions with HDSCAN's arrays in that I had to keep the total amount of data in a particular array less than 32K bytes. Now when I compile tests (i.e. a char[10000][12]), I get a message like: strict: size of array overflows size_t which doesn't make sense, since size_t is a long if I remember correctly. Somewhat confusing (and frustrating now that my manual is out of phase with the newer version of the compiler that I got recently.) What I really want to do is fold my Unix version of HDSCAN back into the ST version, and preferably with MW C. If it looks like it will be too much of a mess, I will probably wait for the new version of Megamax, since that sounds somewhat promising as well. (Yes, the Unix version is done...I am mailing the source code to comp.sources.misc next week. Supports both BSD and SYSV flavors of Unix). -Thanks, Todd Burkey trb@stag.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 19:50:10 GMT From: kap%psueclb.BITNET@psuvm.bitnet Subject: eproms burners To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu hi I hate to interupt this fasinating discussion on multi-tasking but I need to find an eprom burner to use with the ST. I thought hippo made one but I can't find any information. Does anyone have or used one with the ST, any comments. thanks jim, on a friends account ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 03:56:52 GMT From: pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!dle@cad.Berkeley.EDU (Duy Le) Subject: Help To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Hi, I want to create a folder with autocopy but don't know how. Would someone please tell me how to? Thanks Duy ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 14:56:19 GMT From: ucsdhub!jack!crash!pnet01!haitex@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Wade Bickel) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I still have not heard one counter argument against the value that multi-tasking has as a tool for the programmer to use to write better programs. Perhaps the user does not see this as multi-tasking, but benfits from it none the less. After all, this is a powerful tool and we programmers can use it to make what would otherwise be a difficult task an easy one. This this translates to less expensive or more feature full programs. I have never said that multi-tasking was "essential". However, it is a VERY powerfull and usefull tool for both the software developer and the user alike. And you need not use it if it is too much for you. As far as this OS/9 buisness goes, if it were being distributed free then it might mean something, but from what's been said it will be held by only a small fraction of the ST users due to its price. Thus programmers will not be able to consider the bulk of the ST market when depending on OS/9, and will not be likely to do so. So much easier when its included with the basic system! Thanks, Happy New Year, Wade. UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!haitex ARPA: crash!pnet01!haitex@nosc.mil INET: haitex@pnet01.CTS.COM ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 07:40:26 GMT From: mtune!codas!killer!elg@rutgers.edu (Eric Green) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu in article <3256@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu>, davidli@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (Dave Meile) says: > People want computers (when they want them at all) to DO SOMETHING for > them. In the majority of cases with the Atari ST and the Amiga, that > "something" has been: > > writing stuff > filing stuff > retrieving stuff that's been filed > playing games > programming all of the above > > Most of those who read these forums fall under the "programming" category. > Of course, for programmers, multitasking can be a delight. For the person > who is writing a term paper on the microcomputer, why bother? If you have > access to two programs (ala Multifinder or perhaps through a "desk > accessory" [IBM PCs have desk accessories too, folks]) you already have > as much power as you're ever liable to need in most environments. Let's face it, even a Timex Sinclair with 16K of RAM can do all of the above (just a bit slow and limited). A boat-anchor CP/M system can also do all of the above, and would be cheaper (nowadays) besides. But I sure the hell don't like to use one after I've used BSD4.2 & other OS's that take advantage of multitasking. For example, take the term paper. I'm using an 8-bit single-tasking system right now. I set it to printing. Then I go away for 20 minutes while my NX-10 bangs away in near letter quality mode (more "near" than "letter", but that's the breaks!). That irritates me. Greatly. There's a couple of things I could do here: Use my RAM-disk and jam a software interrupt-driven spooler on my LST: device (multitasking!), go out and buy a 512K print spooler (multitasking again, although in this case with a dedicated processor), or any other number of things. All of which are multitasking. All of which are a kludge, and would be unnecessary if real multitasking was available. I remember my first computer. 5K of RAM, 16K of ROM, I was in hawg heaven, a computer all my own, to hack in 6502 assembly language on. I lusted for 16K, because with 16K, you can do anything, right? 64K? forget it, 64K was for rich folks with $2,000 to buy the latest CP/M boat-anchor (so-called because of its size and weight, in this case :-). Disk drives? Why would anybody want disk drives? I can load and save just fine with my cassette recorder! Then I moved up to a 64K machine with a disk drive. Wow. Big time now. I'll never take that 5K machine out of the closet again (even tho I expanded it to 16K). After all, it's just an obsolete toy now, right? and 64K... I can do ANYTHING! Wow, what power. Why would I want one of them fancy dandy 68000 machines, 'specially when they all cost $5,000 for 256K of RAM, and I can do everything they can, on my li'l min-anchor? I mean, I can process words, I can write programs, I can play games... they do all that, right? There's 2 points I wish to make: 1) Some features added to the computer make it more productive and easier to use (compare cassette deck to floppy drive to hard drive!). 2) Most of us are notoriously short on foresight, like I was when I thought that 64K and a floppy drive was the epitomy of computing (after all, I can do everything you can, right? I can process words, play games, etc.?). While you may not see the use of multitasking, I bet you're as foresighted now as I was 10 years ago when I thought that 16K of RAM was big-time for a microcomputer. -- Eric Lee Green elg@usl.CSNET Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 {cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg Lafayette, LA 70509 "There's someone in my head, but it's not me...." -PF ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXB.BITNET (01/08/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY9074 at node VAXB Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXB with Jnet id 1742 for VY9074@BINGVAXB; Thu, 7 Jan 88 13:30 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 1741; Thu, 07 Jan 88 13:25:58 EDT Date: Thu, 7 Jan 88 09:48:35 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #8 To: andrew stoffel <VY9074@BINGVAXB> Info-Atari16 Digest Thursday, January 7, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 8 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: ST Drive Change? DG Terminal Emulators... Re: BMS controller package Re: ST software available for children? VCR -> Atari ST color monitor Re: Observations IBM Drives with ST Re: A defense of Multi-tasking Re: about ST disk drives (and media change) Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Hard disk boot??? Re: Hard disk boot??? Re: big arrays in MW C Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Dec 87 04:44:06 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Sam_Brian_Gridley@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: ST Drive Change? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Have done it many times myself without encountering any problems. Even swapped the SS out of my 520STfm for a DS disk mechanism. Works great! ------------------------------ Posted-From: The MITRE Corp., Bedford, MA To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu, info-atari8@score.stanford.edu Subject: DG Terminal Emulators... Date: Mon, 28 Dec 87 17:56:52 EST From: jhs@mitre-bedford.ARPA KOST@TRIUMFCL.BITNET writes... > > Does anyone know of a Terminal Emulator for the Data General > machines, eg. the D-400 series terminal, for the Atari ST. > I'd be interested also in such an emulator that ran on the Atari 8-bitters, if anyone knows about one! -John Sangster / jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 21:02:00 GMT From: apollo!weber_w@eddie.mit.edu (Walt Weber) Subject: Re: BMS controller package To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1147@eneevax.UUCP> iarocci@eneevax.umd.edu.UUCP (John Iarocci) writes: > >Being the owner of two BMS kits (one for a Micropolis 1325 on a 1040, and one >for a Seagate ST506 on a 520+), I have seen how Berkley Microsystems has >improved over the last year or so. I think their present-day package is well >put together and easy to build. I have only had two reservations about the >kit: 1) The non-standard format used on the disks, and 2) THAT SHORT CORD!! > >Until a recent (fairly) Atari Fest in the area, I was under the impression >that the BMS kit was the only one out there. At this fair, I was introduced >to ICD, Inc. I, too, am a VERY SATISFIED customer of BMS. My opinions of the ICD offering differ somewhat from yours, however. I saw ICD's product at the Worcester AtariFest, and while I think they have an acceptable product, I believe that their methods are less than acceptable. My local Atari dealer (exclusively Atari for the last 4+ years) tells me that ICD has been present in the 8-bit marketplace for a considerable time. My contact at BMS, however, told me that ICD initially contacted BMS with a great deal of interest in the BMS board, and assured BMS that ICD was not going to get into that business. A short while later, ICD released a board which has a strong resemblance to the BMS board with a few modifications. Note that I am NOT advocating sole-sourcing of add-ons for the ST line -- I just do NOT like the idea of an "established" company staying out of the ST marketplace until (or unless) they can piggyback off of the efforts of a fledgling operation by misrepresenting their intentions. As to your first reservation (above), BMS follows the Atari standard of only allowing 4 partitions per drive, while Supra established an "extended format" which permits 8 partitions per drive, but is NOT compatible with Atari's AHDI. ICD follows the Supra extended format. I think if you go back to Tom Love's excellent article in a back issue of Current Notes you will find that BMS did not have a disk driver of their own, and that users would just use Atari's formatter (format.prg?) and driver (ahdi.prg). ...walt... -- Walt Weber PHONE: (617) 256-6600 x7004 Apollo Computer GENIE: W.WEBER Chelmsford, People's Republic of Massachusetts ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 23:37:18 GMT From: tpg@mitre-bedford.arpa (Terry P. Gleason) Subject: Re: ST software available for children? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu LOGO isn't bundled with the ST anymore. Is it worth buying? Are there other better ones available? (My daughter uses LOGO on the Apple at school.) Is KIDTALK ($30-$40) a good buy? For what ages is it appropriate? Thanks for any advice - T. Gleason (tpg@mbunix) ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 87 00:24:31 GMT From: engst@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Adam C. Engst) Subject: VCR -> Atari ST color monitor To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I'm curious, does anyone know of a ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 21:48:26 GMT From: tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!dclemans@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Dave Clemans) Subject: Re: Observations To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu > I kinda liked the "ST World" that my dealer used to carry, but he > stopped carrying it a couple of months before he folded. :-( > Did the newspaper fold too? Or did the go out of business becuase my > dealer no longer carried them? Or was it the other way around? ;-) ST World is apparently going fine; in fact they've now split into two separate newsletters: ST World mainly reviews and show reports ST Informer more general articles, rumors, etc. They're carried by stores in the Oregon area (B. Dalton's Software Etc. even carries ST World). However note that they are not published on a regular schedule; as far as I can tell they wait until they have enough ads and articles to fill an issue and then go to the printers/distributors. dgc ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 06:31:10 GMT From: unirot!josh@rutgers.edu (josh cohen) Subject: IBM Drives with ST To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu lineaterlineaterlineaterlineater Does anyone have the document file on how to hook up an IBM style drive? I am attempting to do it here. I have a tandon TM100 full height drive. I ripped it out of an old PERCOM setup for the old ataris. Has anyone done this? I see the tricks that atari is doing with the drive select line but am not quite sure how to cope with it. Somebody help me before I fry my ST.... Josh Cohen HOOK ARPA HOOK@aim.rutgers.edu UUCP {...}!rutgers!aim.rutgers.edu!hook BITNET hook%gold.decnet@zodiac please me me at the first address. ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 18:08:51 GMT From: clyde!watmath!water!ljdickey@rutgers.edu (Lee Dickey) Subject: Re: A defense of Multi-tasking To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <5595@cc5.bbn.COM> denbeste@bbn.COM (Steven Den Beste) writes: |The original poster of this subject asked if there was a place where |multi-tasking was "essential". ... | [ a long and thoughtful article here... ] | |Could these be the real reasons behind the original posting? Or maybe just a |deliberate attempt to stir up trouble? | |Steven C. Den Beste, Bolt Beranek & Newman, Cambridge MA |denbeste@bbn.com(ARPA/CSNET/UUCP) harvard!bbn.com!denbeste(UUCP) | I don't think BBN cares what I think about this stuff. | And that's probably just as well. Deliberate or not, he certainly did stirr it up! -- L. J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo. ljdickey@watmath.UUCP UUCP: ...!uunet!watmath!ljdickey ljdickey%water@waterloo.edu ljdickey@watdcs.BITNET ljdickey%water%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 17:49:38 GMT From: clyde!watmath!water!ljdickey@rutgers.edu (Lee Dickey) Subject: Re: about ST disk drives (and media change) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Thank you, Alan, for the informative answer, which raises another question... In article <914@atari.UUCP> apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) writes: > >The media-change sensing is done using the write-protect signal from the >drive. ... > >When a disk is in the "maybe changed" state, the next access (through >RWABS or maybe Floprd) will check the serial number of the disk in the >drive. If it hasn't changed, then the disk hasn't changed, either. >This is another assupmtion: you should not have two disks with the same >serial number. > ... What is the "serial number" you mention? I have seen no mention of it before. I have noticed something called "disk label" that comes up when I ask it to "SHOW INFO". Is *that* the "serial number"? How can I be sure that no two disks have the same serial number? -- L. J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo. ljdickey@watmath.UUCP UUCP: ...!uunet!watmath!ljdickey ljdickey%water@waterloo.edu ljdickey@watdcs.BITNET ljdickey%water%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 87 07:16:35 GMT From: marque!gryphon!richard@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Richard Sexton) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1374@uhccux.UUCP> lee@uhccux.UUCP (Greg Lee) writes: >In article <2673@gryphon.CTS.COM> richard@gryphon.CTS.COM (Richard Sexton) writes: >>In article <3256@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> davidli@umn-cs.UUCP (Dave Meile) writes: > >Mr. Sexton's comments don't bear repeating. It was suggested in another >news group that he has a net variety of Tourette's syndrome. Ah yes, but I'm cute and have great legs. > Would Dave >Meile and others in comp.sys.arari.st please accept an apology from >us amiga folks? Don't apologize for me you nimrod. I have nothing against ST's or their owners. But Atari people who blather in comp.sys.amiga about how the amiga's features are "not needed" are fair game. If you want to flame amiga's, fine. Do it in comp.sys.not.amiga. Do it in alt.flame. But do it in this group, and you just may get a rebuttel. Do it four times and people may get testy. .sig missing in newport beach harbour Richard [kick butt and take names] Sexton ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 14:54:00 GMT From: cca!mirror!datacube!ftw@husc6.harvard.edu Subject: Re: Hard disk boot??? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu uace0@uhnix2.UUCP writes: > The problem you have with holding down the alt-ctrl-shift may have to do with > WHEN you hold down the keys. If you bootup with! the keys down, then it will > not work with the new ROMs. > Try turning on the machine (or resetting) wait a second, then hold down the > keys. This should work. > Don't use GEMBOOT with th[e new ROMs, use foldrxxx.prg instead. So, let me see... If there is a disk in the drive at power-on, the Supra boots *immediately*. If I have the three keys down (diskette in drive), Supra still boots immedately. Seems like I have to: turn machine on. Wait about one second. Push the three keys. (Maybe wait for ST to go after the floppy drive again) Push diskette into drive while holding the keys down. What a pain! I don't think it'll work, either. I'm going to call Supra today and ask them if they have a boot program that is a little less zealous ;-) > Also, I had the same[ problem with the message about a non-supported ROM > version. Ignore the message, the driver is actually installed, and works > just fine. > - Mike > -- > #-----------------------------------------------------# University (of Houston) > # It is morally wrong to let a sucker keep his money. # Atari Computer > #-----------------------------------------------------# Enthusiasts (UACE) > Use Atarinet: for help, interactively send a message to UH-INFO@UHUPVM1 Farrell T. Woods Datacube Inc. Systems / Software Group 4 Dearborn Rd. Peabody, Ma 01960 VOICE: 617-535-6644; FAX: (617) 535-5643; TWX: (710) 347-0125 INTERNET: ftw@datacube.COM UUCP: {rutgers, ihnp4, mirror}!datacube!ftw "OS/2 -- Half an operating system" ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 20:01:00 GMT From: cca!mirror!datacube!ftw@husc6.harvard.edu Subject: Re: Hard disk boot??? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu This morning, I wrote: > uace0@uhnix2.UUCP writes: >> The problem you have with holding down the alt-ctrl-shift may have to do with >> WHEN you hold down the keys. If you bootup with! the keys down, then it will >> not work with the new ROMs. >> Try turning on the machine (or resetting) wait a second, then hold down the >> keys. This should work. >> Don't use GEMBOOT with th[e new ROMs, use foldrxxx.prg instead. > So, let me see... If there is a disk in the drive at power-on, the Supra > boots *immediately*. If I have the three keys down (diskette in drive), > Supra still boots immedately. Seems like I have to: turn machine on. Wait > about one second. Push the three keys. (Maybe wait for ST to go after the > floppy drive again) Push diskette into drive while holding the keys down. > What a pain! I don't think it'll work, either. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > I'm going to call Supra today and ask them if they have a boot program > that is a little less zealous ;-) I just got off the phone with a tech-support guy at Supra. He tells me that the scenario described above is exactly what I have to do; they cannot program around it. They say that the problem is in the "blitter" ROMs. The keycode that is made by ctrl-shift-alt isn't available to the Supra boot program as soon as that program would really like it to be. The boot program cannot detect the key combo until much later in the boot, at which time the program is just about to boot from the fixed disk anyway. Farrell T. Woods Datacube Inc. Systems / Software Group 4 Dearborn Rd. Peabody, Ma 01960 VOICE: 617-535-6644; FAX: (617) 535-5643; TWX: (710) 347-0125 INTERNET: ftw@datacube.COM UUCP: {rutgers, ihnp4, mirror}!datacube!ftw "OS/2 -- Half an operating system" ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 87 05:53:08 GMT From: ihnp4!chinet!dag@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Daniel A. Glasser) Subject: Re: big arrays in MW C To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <291@stag.UUCP> trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey ) writes: >Hi, > Does anyone know if MWC will safely handle large arrays now? I know >that I had problems in the early versions with HDSCAN's arrays in that >I had to keep the total amount of data in a particular array less than >32K bytes. Now when I compile tests (i.e. a char[10000][12]), I get a >message like: > strict: size of array overflows size_t > This message is just a warning -- it is because size_t is in fact an unsigned int in MWC 2.1.7. size_t is the default type of the result of the sizeof operator. MWC does support objects larger than 64K now, and this warning is harmless unless you are passing sizeof(foo) to a function that is expecting an int. Sizeof is promoted to a long when it overflows the unsigned int. When MWC releases an ANSI conforming (rather than K&R, which is what it conforms to now with some ANSI extensions), size_t will become a long instead of an int, and then this kind of warning will go away. Even in version 2.0, external objects of > 32K were supported, they just could not be declared. They could be allocated with lmalloc() and then accessed as arrays using the pointer/array equivilance. I hope all of this helps. -- Daniel A. Glasser ...!ihnp4!chinet!dag ...!ihnp4!mwc!dag ...!ihnp4!mwc!gorgon!dag One of those things that goes "BUMP!!! (ouch!)" in the night. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 87 07:00:10 GMT From: coplex!jim@BLOOM-BEACON.MIT.EDU (Jim Sewell) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <2598@killer.UUCP>, elg@killer.UUCP (Eric Green) writes: [conversation ommitted] > 2) Most of us are notoriously short on foresight, like I was when I > thought that 64K and a floppy drive was the epitomy of computing (after all, I > can do everything you can, right? I can process words, play games, etc.?). > -- > Eric Lee Green elg@usl.CSNET Snail Mail P.O. Box 92191 > {cbosgd,ihnp4}!killer!elg Lafayette, LA 70509 > "There's someone in my head, but it's not me...." -PF Speaking of being short on foresight, it was only today that I was modifying my handy dandy disk re-organizer program (Devices are a pain!) and guess what? I was trying to ^XF (save and finish up) out of Emacs and was out of disk space. How many of you have ever told an editor you were finished, fallen short of disk space, and lost everything because the editor was not taught social graces? I'm sure I'm not the only one. Solution? Use my MULTITASKING Amiga to clean out some disk space before I clicked on the retry block of the requestor. Result? I didn't kill my entire family due to the frustration of losing my program. Moral? Even though nearly anything can be simulated with proper programming on a non M-T system, it rarely is. Many programmers take short cuts which do not allow for mistakes. M-T'ing systems are like insurance in case your favorite program has problems. ================================================================================ Jim Sewell "Make knowledge free!" <*> <*> Code: 1-1A / ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXB.BITNET (01/08/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY9074 at node VAXB Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXB with Jnet id 7664 for VY9074@BINGVAXB; Thu, 7 Jan 88 20:08 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 7663; Thu, 07 Jan 88 20:02:55 EDT Date: Thu, 7 Jan 88 09:49:03 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #9 To: andrew stoffel <VY9074@BINGVAXB> Info-Atari16 Digest Thursday, January 7, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 9 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Multi-tasking? A Nightmare... Re: BMS controller package Using a 520ST for video tape titling Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Text -> Speech Programs Re: IBM Drives with ST cartridge slot kludge boards TCP/IP for the ATARIs ? Exactly what IS in a reg dev kit? Re: Microsoft Write ... Re: Christmas Adventure - Elves87 Part 1 of 4 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 29 Dec 87 17:01:46 GMT From: mike@ames.arpa (Mike Smithwick) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <2027@bath63.ux63.bath.ac.uk> pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) writes: > > [deleted a bunch of stuff on how "we really don't need multi-tasking" > >I have an image of telling my machine 'make fred', and then letting it get on >with it while I do a bit of word-processing, or whatever. Only to be hit >milliseconds later with an alert box: > > BACKGROUND COMPILATION NEEDS LIBRARY DISK > PLEASE INSERT LIBRARY DISK INTO DRIVE B > >and, a second or two after I do that: > > FOREGROUND PROCESS NEEDS AUTO-SAVE DISK > PLEASE INSERT DISK INTO DRIVE B > This reminds me of a joke. . . A guy goes to a doctor and says "Doc, it hurts when I do this" (he lifts an arm up, or something) So the doctor says, "well then, don't do that". If running marble-madness slows up a compile too much, don't run marble-madness. The moral of the story is, don't ask us do be limited by others "limitations". As opposed to IBM, and now even (Cr)Apple, who are now bending down to the lowest common denominator, who don't want to burden the average user with unnecessary complexity (the original closed-Mac architecture was a manifestation of this philosophy). -- *** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick *** "if it wasn't for venitian blinds, it would be curtains for all of us!" [discalimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas] ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 87 18:40:24 GMT From: rochester!ur-tut!dpvc@louie.udel.edu (Davide P. Cervone) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A Nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <2187@crash.cts.com> haitex@pnet01.cts.com (Wade Bickel) writes: > What about the example I gave of two resident programs cohabitating > and interacting even though written in different Languages? While > you don't NEED to have multi-tasking to do this, it makes an otherwise > complicated job very much easier, and therefore much more likely to be > successfully accomplished. It certainly is attractive to me because > it means I don't have to "share" any of my source with someone whom > I may want to collaborate with. I think Wade is right on target here. Multi-tasking does not have to be seen by the user to be important. On the Amiga, you can't HELP but use multi- tasking, because the operating system is using it all the time. Each disk drive has a separate "Filing System" process running (use MonProc, you'll see them), there is a separate input task running (I believe that Intuition really is an input handler, so technically, it runs as part of the input device task), each CLI window has a console task associated with it, the serial port has a separate task controlling it. Why is this important? Because it makes it so much easier to do things. For example, early on in the Amiga's life, Matt Dillon (I think) distributed a set of asynchronous file routines. These are very useful, and almost trivial to implement under a multi-tasking OS (not to belittle Matt's work - it's quite good). Or how about the Workbench? Contrary to many people's belief, the WB is NOT the operating system. It's just a program. A plain, old, ordinary program, with no special tricks or hooks. An ordinary mortal could write a program that does similar actions. Witness HackBench. I've often thought about writing a WB replacement myself. If you want to talk about disk swapping, try switching between applications on a Macintosh. It has to load the Finder every time. Why do you think theres a "mini-finder" menu option? I keep trying to pull down the "screen" and use the finder which I expect to still be running back there. I've written programs that monitor other programs (MonProc and MonIDCMP), and that run as input handlers (ClickUpFront, HeliosMouse, wKeys), and some stuff that I haven't released. These would be much more difficult without multi-tasking. Code can be made much more modular with multi-tasking, and smaller, too. Unix people should love this, because you can make programs much more like filters, except you have both ends of the pipe running at the same time, passing data via a message port, or even a PIPE: device. Functions don't have to be duplicated from program to program. For instance, if I write a program that graphs a function, I will not have to add a save-to-IFF-file option, because I already have a program that lets me select a portion of a window or screen and save it as an IFF file. That's a normal program - no special desk- accessory hooks, no special requirements about what programs I can use it with, or what ones I HAVE to have running when I use it. Don't get me wrong, desk-accessories are great (I'd never be able to use a Mac without them), but they are an attempt to achieve multi-taksing where it's not built into the system to start with. Admirable! Great stuff! Keep up the good work! But don't complain when someone offers you what you've been trying to achieve all along. > THE POINT IS THIS: As a programmer I find the idea of writing > such a program as being much simpler with multi-tasking facilities > than without them. Exactly! Right on! > My question for you is, what do you have against multi-tasking? I also wonder the same thing. Where's the beef? > Take OUR (all of us who have given testomonials) word for it that > the disk swapping "nightmare" is indeed just a bad dream. As I mentioned before, I'd hate to have to load the Workbench in from disk every time I quit using a program! I'm much happier letting it run in the background until I need it again. One last comment: (finally :-) the times I find multi-tasking the most helpful is when I WASN'T expecting to have to use it. If I'm using a word processor writing a paper, and need to check some results, I can just start up my statistical analysis program to get my answers (and I can keep on writing while it loads in of the floppy). I don't want to have to know ahead of time that I need to start up whatever carousel or special multi-tasking editor I need in order to do this. If I knew ahead of time, I'd have done the statistics before I started the word-processor! Well, I've gone on far too long as it is. Thanks for listening. > Wade. >UUCP: {cbosgd, hplabs!hp-sdd, sdcsvax, nosc}!crash!pnet01!haitex >ARPA: crash!pnet01!haitex@nosc.mil >INET: haitex@pnet01.CTS.COM Davide P. Cervone dpvc@tut.cc.rochester.edu dpvc@ur-tut.UUCP DPVC@UORDBV.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 87 13:54:07 GMT From: rochester!rocksanne!xrxns!xerox12!toml@rutgers.edu (Tom Love) Subject: Re: BMS controller package To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu re: bugs in bms package - i've been running a bms-based hard disk system since last january. the only bugs i have ever encountered were software bugs. recall that the bms adapter board has a battery-backed clock. it seems that chris rhodin, the guy who runs bms and does the development, made a very small but important error in the clock-setting program (settime.prg, i think - the one that goes in your auto folder) which screwed up on february. actually it was kind of humorous. never affected hard disk use at all. he found the problem feb. 1 1987, and had updated software out in the mail to everyone shortly thereafter. i'm mainly posting this to stop what could be a harmful rumor. i am a very satisfied customer of berkeley microsystems. their product is reasonably priced, in my opinion, and their telephone support is superb (of course, before they had any documentation, it had to be! :-) the bms-100 adapter has evolved somewhat; it is supposedly laid out more attractively on the board, it is pretty well documented, the software has all been rewritten. it's a pretty mature product now. if there were hardware bugs, i would be interested in hearing about them. if not, please don't do bms any disservice by spreading such rumors. one more note: i wrote an article for ST Applications magazine last spring detailing the construction of a bms-based hard disk system for the ST. it covers all the details of a single-HD system, and vaguely addresses the double-HD system too (at that time i only had one HD). it appeared in march 87, i think. at that time i offered to mail out copies, in either electronic or paper form, to anyone who requested one. that offer still stands. note that the electronic form omits the graphics (done on my cad system at work, not on the st), so if you want the whole thing you should buy the magazine or request the paper copy from me. if you want electronic, mail me at the address below; if you want paper, send me a self-addressed stamped envelope to the postal address below. tom love Xerox Engineering Design and Documentation Systems Leesburg, VA 22075 (703)729-8000 {cornell, kodak, ritcv, rutgers, cmcl2, llxn}!rochester! rocksanne!xrxns!toml {rocksvax, sunybcs}! rt 2, box 277 sterling, va 22170 tom love xerox Engineering Design and Documentation Systems leesburg, va 22075 (703)729-8000 {cornell, kodak, ritcv, rutgers, cmcl2, llxn}!rochester! rocksanne!xrxns!toml {rocksvax, sunybcs}! ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 87 21:46:00 GMT From: ssdevo.dec.com!marks@decwrl.dec.com (Randy Marks DTN 522-2718) Subject: Using a 520ST for video tape titling To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Has anybody used their ST for creating video tape titles? If so, I'd like to hear how you did it. - What software did you use to create the title? - Did you transfer the image directly via video connectors? Or did you simply record the image displayed on the monitor using a camcorder? Randy Marks ....decwrl!ssdevo.dec.com!marks ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 87 22:32:41 GMT From: ihnp4!ihuxy!rnss@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Ron Schreiner) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Well this subject line get my vote for the "longest-most-usless" aword of 87. If you are not clever enough to take advantage of multi-tasking then don't use it, and stop telling everyone "who needs it ? " -- Ron Schreiner AT&T Bell Labs ...ihnp4!ihuxy!rnss ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 87 13:33:36 GMT From: ihnp4!mhuxu!cbz@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Craig B. Ziemer) Subject: Re: Text -> Speech Programs To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <3388@nswitgould.OZ>, tony@nswitgould.OZ (Tony McGrath) writes: > > What he is looking for is a Text -> Speech conversion program that Tony: I tried several times to reach you via e-mail, but was unsuccessful (not surprising since the path was 17 machines long). There is a prograam called STSPEECH that will speak a line typed in on the keyboard or speak an already-created text file. Needless to say, it has a very strong "synthesized speech" accent but it really quite understandable. It is a public domain program. Send me e-mail if you want the details. Craig Z. at AT&T mhuxu!cbz ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 87 02:56:36 GMT From: lakesys!rich@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Rich Dankert) Subject: Re: IBM Drives with ST To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <568@unirot.UUCP> josh@unirot.UUCP (josh cohen) writes: > >lineaterlineaterlineaterlineater > > > Does anyone have the document file on how to hook up an IBM >style drive? Josh; Here is the connections that I made. Has been doen to the Tandons and others without problems. ST pin # IBM Style drive pin # 1 ----------------------- 30 2 ----------------------- 32 3 ----------------------- 3 4 ----------------------- 8 5 -- This is the drive select - hook to #2 (B) on IBM Style 6 -- Drive select also, but ignore this one 7 ----------------------- 3 8 ----------------------- 16 9 ----------------------- 18 10 ----------------------- 20 11 ----------------------- 22 12 ----------------------- 24 13 ----------------------- 26 14 ----------------------- 28 There is also a resistor that will have to be pulled up, to make the drive work correctly. I Think it's R49 on most. It's value is in the range of 100 to three hundred Ohm's. It's usually situated close to the drive select block in the IBM Style drive. A little more info here. On the Atari's drive connector, pins 5 and 6 are the drive select, but be aware that these are switched as you chain the drives through. I usually connect the drive right to the drive A (Atari's) out port. On the IBM Style drives, pins 10 & 12 are the drive selects. Use drive select 0, (pin #10, in the Ibm style) This should help you in making the drive work correctly. One more note here. You will have to obtain (or write your own) program that will tell the ST that you have a 5 1/4 drive connected and to slow the seek rate down. The 5 1/4's cannot and will not work at the default seek rate. Good luck! -rich UUCP: {Ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!rich Discalimer: The words,ideas,and expressions are my own, and not nessasarily always correct, and I make np warranty (expressed or Implied) to the above statement(s) though I do know that it does work for me and other's. ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 87 21:29:32 GMT From: pixar!mgr@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Michael Griffin Russell) Subject: cartridge slot kludge boards To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Anyone out there know a company that sells a prototype board for the ST cartridge slot. Any info on physically plugging into the cartridge slot would be appreciated. -- Mike Russell ucbvax!pixar!mgr Don't worry, amnesia is a common side effect of re-incarnation. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1987 From: Frank Elsner - TUBerlin/ZRZ <181%DB0TUZ01.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu> Reply-To: Frank Elsner - TUBerlin/ZRZ <181%DB0TUZ01.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu> To: INFO-ATARI16@score.stanford.edu Subject: TCP/IP for the ATARIs ? We, Technical University Berlin Computing Center, are urgently looking for a TCP/IP implementation for the ATARIs. If you have any informations, don't hesitate to send it to us :- -Frank ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 87 02:49:51 GMT From: clyde!watmath!watdragon!violet!rfpfeifle@rutgers.edu (Ron Pfeifle) Subject: Exactly what IS in a reg dev kit? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I've seen alot of flames about the registered developer kits. But I don't even really know what's in them. Would someone out there who knows please enlighten me (us) as what exactly are the contents of a "registered developer's kit"? (Just the facts, ma'am) Ron ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 18:41:15 GMT From: portal!atari!neil@uunet.uu.net (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: Microsoft Write ... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <327@lakesys.UUCP>, martin@lakesys.UUCP (Martin Wiedmeyer) writes: > Neil, what's the Mfg's Suggested Retail Price (list price) for MS > Write? $129. -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 17:56:32 GMT From: portal!atari!neil@uunet.uu.net (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: Christmas Adventure - Elves87 Part 1 of 4 To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <250@dalcsug.UUCP>, euloth@dalcsug.UUCP (George Seto) writes: > The adventure was done with the ADVSYS program which is available for the > be or should be usuable on these systems. The kernal of the ADVSYS was > extensively re-worked for this game and has many additional features > that you would not expect from playing around with ADVSYS. OK, where did this come from, how can we get the reworked ADVSYS, and, most important -- are there docs on how to program it? The original ADVSYS is fascinating but ultimately frustrating because the docs don't give you enough information to actually program the durn thing! -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXB.BITNET (01/08/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY9074 at node VAXB Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXB with Jnet id 7837 for VY9074@BINGVAXB; Thu, 7 Jan 88 20:22 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 7816; Thu, 07 Jan 88 20:07:49 EDT Date: Thu, 7 Jan 88 10:00:11 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #10 To: andrew stoffel <VY9074@BINGVAXB> Info-Atari16 Digest Thursday, January 7, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 10 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: FOLDRXXX.PRG, you got it! Re: 40-folder bug and FOLDRXXX.PRG Re: Multiuser BBS Re: TOS bug ? -> hard disk cables Disk Controllers Operating systems for the ST Hard drives for the ST EasyDraw XX.XX WordPerfect Update ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 28 Dec 87 18:31:38 GMT From: portal!atari!neil@uunet.uu.net (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: FOLDRXXX.PRG, you got it! To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <105100040@datacube>, ftw@datacube.UUCP writes: >> In one of the atari periodicals it was announced that they fixed the 40 >> folder bug in the Mega St roms. > > If those are the same ROMs that they are selling us developers, then the > answer is NO, the "40 folder bug" still exists, and the magazine article > is incorrect. > > Neil: please jump in here if if the ROM upgrade for the 520/1040 is > different than what is in the Megas. I understand they are the same. You're correct, Farrell. The 40 folder limit still exists in the ROMs. We still recomment FOLDRXXX.PRG as the fix for the problem. Which ST periodical was this? I thought we had most of them trained to call and verify information before printing things like that. -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 18:38:48 GMT From: portal!atari!neil@uunet.uu.net (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: 40-folder bug and FOLDRXXX.PRG To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1505@mind.UUCP>, romero@mind.UUCP (Antonio Romero) writes: > Hmm. Does this suggest upcoming compatibility problems? > Or perhaps the advent of a new operating system altogether? > Could it be... MULTITASKING? Okay guys, warm up the rumor mills... > > -Antonio Romero > romero@psycho.Princeton.EDU *** FLAME ON *** What good does it do to start rumors like this? Do us all a favor, if you need something to talk about, discuss the weather. I'm not saying that it wouldn't be nice to add features to the machine. But, we're not adding this one at the moment. And there are so many rumors getting people jazzed up for nothing... The rumor mill in our community has gone a bit haywire lately. There's enough going on without people making things up. Most ridiculous rumors of 1987 awards: 1. The blitters didn't work, so we're using kludged-up Amiga blitters. 2. The blitters partially work, so we removed 4 of 8 functions from them. Please, folks, give us a break. We're easy enough to talk to if you want to ASK a question. Sometimes it seems that rumors are so much fun that their veracity has no bearing on how they spread. Sometimes they spread AFTER the facts are clarified -- fiction being more fun, I presume. *** FLAME OFF *** Sorry folks, but it's been a rough year. Best to all for 1988! Hope you're having a good holiday season. -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 28 Dec 87 18:21:16 GMT From: portal!atari!neil@uunet.uu.net (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: Multiuser BBS To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1479@saturn.ucsc.edu>, koreth@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Steven Grimm) writes: > The ST's BIOS is re-entrant. GEMDOS is not. (I have a multiuser BBS > system to prove it...) OK, Steven, where's my copy of the multiuser version? And whatever hardware it takes to make it work. Atari Base is waiting... Maybe I'd better backtrack a moment. Here in Atari, we run a free BBS for users. It's known as Atari Base, and can be reached at 408-745-5308. Here's the rub -- we run 5 lines into 5 separate systems. The line you get through to is simply the first available line. But, if you leave a question on that line, you'd better make darn sure you get back to that line. We're looking for a solution. We need a way for the lines to talk to each other. Solutions that have been discussed, in order of preference, are: 1. Multi-port RS232 box that lets several modems talk to one ST. The advantage is that we'd need one computer instead of 5. The disadvantage is that if the one system goes down, everything dies. We're willing to live with this, because system crashes have been extremely rare in the 2 years since Atari Base opened in its current configuration. 2. Network that lets each line share messages. At one time there was talk of trying a MIDI-based network, but work on this was shelved by QMI due to the inability to resolve conflicting RS232 and MIDI interrupts. Maybe "PromiseLAN" will solve this one. 3. Using a system like Fnet or Fidonet and having lines call each other to pass messages. Not too elegant in my book, and lines are only updated at intervals (probably daily), but we could do this today if we wanted to. The other burning issue is, which software to use? We're currently using the Michtron BBS. Michtron has abandoned its plan to sell a hardware multiport gizmo because the engineers in the UK who were working on one couldn't get it to work. FoReM 2.0 supports Fnet, so if we wanted to go to approach #3 we could do it. But with the number of novice callers we get, I'm a bit leery of using FoReM. Any comments to the contrary, netlanders? NiteLite Systems now has a hardware device to let 4 or 8 modems share an ST. Their BBS program supports this. But... well, I used NiteLite on the 8-bit before we went to the ST on our board. I like NiteLite's message facility, but the program needs improving in the user log (not sorted at all) and the download area. Paul Swanson, NiteLite's author, is working at making improvements, and is very willing to take criticism and act upon it. BB/ST is very powerful, and Steven Grimm is working on the multi-line facility. But we're still waiting on some hardware. QMI is a great little company, but I know they're (almost) as overworked as we are at Atari. So, timetables for this are in doubt. Also, BB/ST's tree-structured message base is not my cup of tea. And then there's BBS Express ST. Keith Ledbetter is doing a nice job on this one. The message base and file areas work well. But there's been no hint from ICD about the prospects for a multi-line function. I'd like to hear of one, because I like the program, which has a nice extra for us -- the script language for it would make development of an online order entry system fairly simple. It would be a boon to users to allow them to order spare parts online. One last thing -- we're committed to running the whole thing on Atari equipment. Partly because of budget (total cost for system hardware out-of-pocket to date has been $0), and mainly because it's a good excuse to push the envelope of what can be done on the system. The makers of BBS programs would love to see us use their program, because it's a great promotion for them. So, I tell them to give me what I need! Maybe some day it will work. Just to not irritate anyone, I'm aware of the PD program STadel, but this one gave new users fits when I tried it at home. And there's CBBS from Oasis, which just came in and hasn't been tried yet. No word on multi-line functions here either. Any helpful advice from netland? -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 87 12:37:13 GMT From: mcvax!nikhefh!t19@uunet.uu.net (Geert J v Oldenborgh) Subject: Re: TOS bug ? -> hard disk cables To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu > (discussion about errors being probable with too long a cable) Just having obtained a SH205 with a 85cm cable (here in Holland it is prohibited by law to use inches) I followed Landon's suggestion in a simplified way: just 2000 times 'cmp aap noot >> mies' with aap, noot identical 64K files. Cmp did not report any errors on this 256M data transfer in spite of various lamps, a monitor etc. being switched in the neighbourhood. And I rather like the longer cable. Geert Jan (t19@nikhefh.hep.nl) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 30 Dec 87 17:20:25 EST From: Ravi Subrahmanyan <ravi@mcnc.org> To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Subject: Disk Controllers This is a forwarded message: please reply to the address specified below. >Subject: Disk Controllers >From: Reno.Wbst@Xerox.COM >Reply-To: Reno.Wbst@Xerox.COM >Message-Id: <871228-104652-1140@Xerox> >Status: R > > >Could someone please send out the address and/or phone numbers for BMS and >ICD? >Thanx > Reno ------------------------------ From: AB084%DK0RRZK0.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1987 02:03:18 CET To: INFO-ATARI16@score.stanford.edu Subject: Operating systems for the ST A few weeks ago I sent a letter to the net in which I tried to initiate a dicussion about OS's. There was some response to it on the net and a couple of people wrote to me directly. There is one letter which I find interesting enough to forward to the net, because it contains information I have not seen on the net so far. Here it is. (I hope you don't mind, Skip|) >Received: from UCBJADE (BSMTP ) on 12/08/87 09:29:07 GMT-1 (NOS/BE Mailer 2.0 > Mail-to: DK0RRZK0(AB084 ), Format: MAIL >Return-Path: <ucbcad|ames.UUCP|uw-beaver|uw-entropy|dataio|pilchuck|ssc|mcgp1|f >Received: from ucbvax.berkeley.edu > by jade.berkeley.edu (5.54 (CFC 4.22.3)/1.16.17) > id AA23309; Tue, 8 Dec 87 00:15:19 PST >Received: by ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (5.58/1.26) > id AA11959; Tue, 8 Dec 87 00:03:40 PST >Received: by cad.Berkeley.EDU (5.58/1.26) > id AA15187; Mon, 7 Dec 87 23:35:06 PST >Received: Mon, 7 Dec 87 23:23:32 PST by ames.arpa (5.58/1.2) >Received: by beaver.cs.washington.edu (5.52.1/6.10) > id AA15616; Mon, 7 Dec 87 22:01:12 PST >Received: by entropy.ms.washington.edu (5.52.1/6.2) > id AA29903; Mon, 7 Dec 87 22:04:35 PST >Message-Id: <8712080604.AA29903@entropy.ms.washington.edu> >Received: by dataio.Data-IO.COM (smail2.5) > id AA06356; 7 Dec 87 22:04:05 PST (Mon) >Received: by pilchuck.Data-IO.COM (smail2.5) > id AA11304; 7 Dec 87 21:53:51 PST (Mon) >Received: by apcisea.UUCP; Mon, 7 Dec 87 14:16:09 pdt >Date: Mon, 7 Dec 87 14:16:09 pdt >From: ucbcad|ames.UUCP|uw-beaver|uw-entropy|mcgp1|fst@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU >To: uw-entropy|DK0RRZK0 >Subject: Re: OS/9 and other operating systems >In-Reply-To: your article <8712030211.AA03408@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> >Content-Type: text >Content-Length: 2482 > >There is one other (very real) operating system which is available *NOW* >and has been available since Jan 1987. It is called IDRIS (TM). >It is a product of Whitesmiths Ltd, of Westford MA. Those familiar >with "Software Tools" book of Kernighan and Plauger, will be happy to >know that P.J. Plauger is the president and founder of Whitesmiths Ltd. > >IDRIS has been available on many processors including PDP-11, VAXen, >680X0, and 8086. It was first released in 1978 on PDP-11s. IDRIS 2.2 was >ported to the ATARI ST (520, and 1040) in summer 1986, by Computer Tools >International Inc., for which, I am an engineer. The current version is >IDRIS 3.12, with release 3.2 of the C compiler. The IDRIS68K 2.2 was shown >at ATARI booth in Fall COMDEX 1986. The 3.12 release was shown at ATARI >booth in Fall COMDEX 1987. > >More about IDRIS. > >IDRIS is a real time, UNIX(TM) compatible, multi-user, multi-tasking operating >system. Its C compiler (Whitesmiths C 3.2) is fully compatible with the >proposed ANSI C. The system library is fully compatible with latest POSIX(TM) >proposals. Whitesmiths is an active member of both ANSI C, and POSIX standards >committees. IDRIS can, (and in the case of ST and MEGA does), emulated MMU in >software. It can, however, use hardware MMU if it is present. In the case >of the 68K version of IDRIS that would be MC68451. IDRIS68K supports MC68881 >as a coprocessor or a mapped device. > >Currently, many UNIX environment software are being ported to the IDRIS-ST. >Syntactic Corp. is porting Crystalwriter+(TM), Network Research Corp. is >porting FUSION(TM) Network System (including TCP/IP). Oracle SQL is also >being ported. Computer Tools Int'l is porting X-Window system. > >As far as hardware is concerned, Computer Tools Int'l Inc. has working >prototypes of a 4-port I/O Card for ST/MEGA computers. We also have >prototypes of Ethernet/Cheapernet card which is to support FUSION. > >The 4-Port I/O card (4 rs232s, running at up to 19.2 kbps) was shown >at Fall 1987 COMDEX. We also showed a demo version of X-Windows for >the ST/MEGA under IDRIS. This product is called STX-Window(TM) system. > >Tom Love of ST applications has done a review of IDRIS-ST 3.11 with >release 3.1 of the C compiler. It think it was the November 87 issue. > >IDRIS-ST also supports most libvdi, and all LINE A calls (very carefully) > >For more info you can write or call Computer Tools Int'l Inc. >720 S. 333rd, Suite 101 >Federal Way, WA, 98003 >PHONE (206) 838-4990. > >Sincerely, > >Skip Tavakkolian My questions to IDRIS users: - An emulated MMU seems a good idea if there is no hardware. But doesn't that make the OS very slow? - Any experience with porting UNIX software? Does anybody know whether IDRIS is available in Germany? In my first letter I mentioned the OS's RTOS-UH and EUMEL. Several people asked for more information about these. I don't feel too competent... If there is somebody who knows them well and is ready to write an article about them (or one of them), I'd be grateful. If not, I am willing to look up the magazine articles and to extract a short characterization. Michael Eibl <ab084@dk0rrzk0.bitnet> Institut f. Theoretische Physik Universitaet zu Koeln D-5000 Koeln West Germany ------------------------------ Date: 29 Dec 87 21:16:31 GMT From: mnetor!utzoo!yunexus!gen1!chris@uunet.uu.net (Chris Parkinson) Subject: Hard drives for the ST To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I have noticed a few requests on the net for information regarding hard drives, hard drive kits, and the like for the ST. I have just purchased a "TAMI-HD40" hard drive system from FutureDOS, and am *very* happy with it so far. I own an Atari Mega-2 ST and required a larger disk capacity in order to run GEM, Magic Sac, and OS-9/68000 efficiently. The single drive system I received from FutureDOS is in a long enclosure that is designed to accommodate a second half height drive. Since the system is custom made, I ordered the 44 Mb (formatted) hard disk configuration, for which I paid $1400 Cdn.. Other capacities are available upon request. Also, all of the hard drive systems are fully assembled and tested, so reliability is assured. If you are looking for a high quality/high capacity hard drive system at a reasonable price, then this may be the thing for you. You can reach the folks at FutureDOS by writing them at FutureDOS, 1207-120 Torresdale Ave., North York, Ontario, CANADA, M2R 3N7. Tel. (416) 736-0321 Christopher Parkinson yunexus!gen1!yuplanet!chris BTW-Standard disclaimer...I am in no way affiliated with FutureDOS, I am just another happy customer!!! ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 87 23:43:37 GMT From: mnetor!utgpu!parora@uunet.uu.net (Pavneet Arora) Subject: EasyDraw XX.XX To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I saw a demonstration of EasyDraw recently, the version # of which I don't know. I have a few peeves about the package which prevent me from purchasing it. Since I do need an object oriented drawing package I wanted to confirm that my objections are legitimate. If they are, and if EasyDraw is listening then please take them as suggestions. 1. Text cannot be rotated. ( FATAL if you want to draw rough graphs ). The closest you can get is something like: R o t a t e. Not too useful if you are considering drawing architectural plans which require sideways printing for a better fit. 2. Exiting will always request if you want to save your file even if you have made no changes since the last save. 3. You have to explicitly select an object and then click again to move it. A single click should suffice the way it does with copying files etc. 4. The default for text should be justify off. I usually use text as labels and can't see why justify should be on. I also forgot most of the time to change justification when entering text so that I had to go and change text attributes - a real nuisance. Some of the features I wish had been adopted from MacDraw: 5. A cubic spline fit (called SMOOTH and UNSMOOTH in MacDraw). A really useful feature when one wants to draw gaussians and sine waves etc. the way I needed to for my thesis. 6. The ability of picking a larger than one page size for the drawing and then having EasyDraw print it out serially page wise. This allows more complex drawings to be mosaiced easily. Has anyone had similar experiences? Pavneet Arora parora@utgpu ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 87 00:26:39 GMT From: mnetor!utgpu!parora@uunet.uu.net (Pavneet Arora) Subject: WordPerfect Update To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Just a note for WP users. The new update is supposed to be out in early January. Since I didn't get any response to my previous posting about the numerous bugs in WP I am not really sure if any WP users actually exist. 8-{) In response to Neil Harris' comment that the support is excellent, I have a few comments of my own: 1. No company, software or otherwise, should be able to release a product that doesn't even come close to working. Bugs are one thing - fatal bugs another. I use the following analogy - If I approached WP and asked them to give me a copy of the software, and then told them that I would pay them in a few months i.e. whenever I could afford it, I would not expect them to hand over the package. And yet, WP has taken money from users and then handed over a useless package without ever notifying any of its users that there are problems. And when a user tracks down the bugs and calls WP, they say they are aware of it and a working version should be out soon. Soon in my case has meant 3 months now, and I still don't have a working version. 2. A company that only includes its UTAH address for technical support, even in packages sold in Canada can hardly be seen as being concerned for all of its users. By the way the (800) number doesn't work from Canada so that you have to call WP on your own expense during the day at full rate. Technical support does exist in Canada from J.B. Marketing in Cornwall. Their phone number is : 1-(800)-267-1731. 3. Part of servicing a product means keeping in touch with the buyers and users and being above board about things( i.e. through bulletins ). I have not seen any indication that WP considers this a priority. This is critical in the present case where there must be bewildered users trying to figure out why a $595 software package doesn't work. I think the larger issue here is the ethics with which high tech companies operate. Personally, I don't feel that WP has thus far exhibited anything that qualifies it for the praise that Neil Harris had to offer. My experience has been in dealing with WP both in Canada and the US for the past three months now. parora@utgpu ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXB.BITNET (01/12/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY9074 at node VAXB Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXB with Jnet id 2123 for VY9074@BINGVAXB; Mon, 11 Jan 88 18:39 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 2120; Mon, 11 Jan 88 18:35:15 EDT Date: Mon, 11 Jan 88 13:45:43 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #11 To: andrew stoffel <VY9074@BINGVAXB> Info-Atari16 Digest Monday, January 11, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 11 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: PrintMaster Icons Re: Double-Click Formatter Question Re: VCR -> Atari ST color monitor Re: Multiuser BBS graphic file interchange format Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... INTERRUPT PROCESSING Re: cartridge slot kludge boards 520ST Jittery Monitor Woes Re: graphic file interchange format Re: graphic file interchange format 40 folder limit Zoomracks (i.e. Hypercard's predecessor?) Re: graphic file interchange format INFORMATION ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 31 Dec 87 00:49:23 GMT From: clyde!watmath!dalcs!silvert@rutgers.edu (Bill Silvert) Subject: PrintMaster Icons To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu It is a long time since a nice set of PrintMaster icons was posted to this group. They are handy not only for PM use, but with a program by Sol Guber (shareware) you can convert them to Degas format for use with Publishing Partner, etc. I am looking for a tool to manage PM libraries. I would like to be able to read through a library and copy selected icons to a custom library. You can do this with PM itself, but the process is cumbersome. Does anyone have such a beast, or some related code that will help? What is the format of the library entries anyway? Are there any more PD libraries lurking out there? A large set was recently posted to a BBS that I run (almost 300 K!), but I spotted a couple of proprietary libraries in it and had to pull it off. It is a real pain trying to figure out what is and isn't PD! If there is interest, and if I can figure out what is PD in the arc file, I will post some of the libraries. Any information or any files and PM utilities that anyone can post or send would be welcome. By the way, the file includes a program that is supposed to dump an icon library to the printer. It doesn't seem to work well, but the output on my SMM804 makes me think it may work on a true Epson. If you want to try it, send mail to ...!dalcs!biomel (if you send it to this address I won't send it -- You have to use the correct address!). -- Bill Silvert, Modelling/Statistics Group, Biological Sciences Branch Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, NS, Canada B2Y 4A2 UUCP: ...!{uunet,utai,watmath}!dalcs!biomel!bill CDN or BITNET: biomel@cs.dal.cdn ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 87 04:23:10 GMT From: nuchat!uhnix1!uhnix2!uace0@uunet.uu.net (Michael B. Vederman) Subject: Re: Double-Click Formatter Question To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Rick Flashman asks: Are the authors of DC Format n the Net. There is a bug. We are on the net. We had this reported o us by Simon Poole a while back. This was fixed, but what version are you running? One of the Oold versions didn't work right. The latest posted version is either 2.32 or 2.31 I belive. Check the version and let us know. BTW - Look for a desk acces@sory version very soon, which has background formatting. And with our product to download in the background, to be sold by Antic (:-) a little plug), I can now download, word process, and format at the same time. I believe this isn't bad for a non-multqitasking environment. Was't that the ultimate test? - Mike -- #-----------------------------------------------------# University (of Houston) # It is morally wrong to let a sucker keep his money. # Atari Computer #-----------------------------------------------------# Enthusiasts (UACE) Use Atarinet: for help, interactively send a message to UH-INFO@UHUPVM1 ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 87 15:24:05 GMT From: clyde!burl!codas!mtune!mtgzz!drutx!jhs@rutgers.edu (ShoreJ) Subject: Re: VCR -> Atari ST color monitor To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu in article <3257@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, engst@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Adam C. Engst) says: > > I'm curious, does anyone know of a No, but I have heard of a ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 87 13:40:37 GMT From: singer@XN.LL.MIT.EDU (Matthew R. Singer) Subject: Re: Multiuser BBS To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Kindy inform me as to what is so "abrasive" about FoReM ST. Perhaps you find it so because you are unfamilar with it. Please send me your name and address so I can send you a users manual. Matt Singer ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 87 14:11:22 GMT From: sgi!daisy!turner@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (D'arc Angel) Subject: graphic file interchange format To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Is there a simgle format or at least a conversion program that will let me use a picture file generated on a pc on a mac or atari.st or any other permutattion of machines ???? -- Laissez les bons temps rouler - Queen Ida ...{decwrl|ucbvax}!imagen!atari!daisy!turner (James M. Turner) Daisy Systems, 700 E. Middlefield Rd, P.O. Box 7006, Mountain View CA 94039-7006. (415)960-0123 ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 87 14:19:49 GMT From: lakesys!steven@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Steven Goodman) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <2323@ihuxy.ATT.COM> rnss@ihuxy.UUCP (Ron Schreiner) writes: >Well this subject line get my vote for the "longest-most-usless" aword >of 87. If you are not clever enough to take advantage of multi-tasking >then don't use it, and stop telling everyone "who needs it ? " > > >-- >Ron Schreiner AT&T Bell Labs ...ihnp4!ihuxy!rnss AGREED! I have been reading this board on and off for some time now. This due to many users on my system whom use st's. Multi-tasking requires very little "cleverness" and the OS often does the work for you. It doesn't take long to see the advantages and use them. For me, if I had to return to a single tasking enviorment it would be like some of you having to return to a 40 column screen (bleech). Your 68000 is mot likely barely used. Why not give it abit extra in the way of jobs? Multi-tasking makes you far more productive. Useless award - this is right. I would guess that the most likely feature to be seen on all future machines will be OS's that multitask. Why the heck should you have to stop working just because your OS can't "talk and chew gum" at the same time? -- Steven Goodman | Lake Systems Milwaukee, Wisconsin | "A smart man talks, 1 (414) 744-7033 | a wise man listens" UUCP: {ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!steven | ------------------------------ Date: 30 Dec 87 20:19:09 GMT From: mtune!mtgzz!mtuxo!homxb!homxc!jdn@rutgers.edu (J.NAGY) Subject: INTERRUPT PROCESSING To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu How do you disable and enable interrupts from 1. The keyboard? 2. The SIO port? In the documentation at my disposal (Mark Williams C and Abacus) I can find the following table under Jdisint: Interrupt # event 0 I/O port bit 0 1 I/O prot bit 1 2 I/O port bit 2 3 I/O port bit 3 4 Timer D 5 Timer C 6 I/O port bit 4 7 I/O port bit 5 8 Timer B 9 sender error 10 sender buffer empty 11 receive error 12 receive buffer full 13 Timer A 14 I/O port bit 6 15 I/O port bit 7 Half of these are self explanatory, but the other half requires a mapping to atari st hardware events. Would someone be kind enough to inform me what events are represented by I/O port bits 0-7 in the atari 1040 ST? I presume that one of these represents a keyboard interrupt and another an SIO interrupt; otherwise I really need help! Thanks, Jonathan Nagy {ihnp4|allegra|mtune}!homxc!jdn (201) 615-4349 ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 87 13:54:09 GMT From: ulysses!mhuxt!mhuxu!cbz@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Craig B. Ziemer) Subject: Re: cartridge slot kludge boards To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1345@pixar.UUCP>, mgr@pixar.UUCP (Michael Griffin Russell) writes: > Anyone out there know a company that sells a prototype > board for the ST cartridge slot. Any info on physically > plugging into the cartridge slot would be appreciated. I recently built a battery-backed real-time clock and a four channel A/D converter to plug into my cartridge port. I bought the board from, Douglas Electronics 718 Marina Blvd. San Leadro, CA 94577 (415) 483-8770 The board fits perfectly into the cartridge slot. It has holes spaced at 0.10 inches, 20 rows by 30 columns, with 8 rows dedi- cated for power and ground buses. The part number is 33-DE-40, costs $10.00, they'll ship it however you want, and they accept MC and VISA. I have nothing to do with this outfit other than being a satisfied customer. Craig Z. at AT&T mhuxu!cbz ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 87 15:10:40 GMT From: ulysses!mhuxt!mhuxu!cbz@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Craig B. Ziemer) Subject: 520ST Jittery Monitor Woes To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I consider this problem to be minor, but I thought I'd see if anyone has had a similar experience. After my computer (520 ST) has been on for 1 to 1.5 hours, the *low resolution* display begins to get jittery. It starts out very mild (one or two scan lines misplaced a little) and then regresses to the point that I can hardly stand to look at it. If I switch to medium resolution, the problem disappears. Or, if I turn the computer off for a minute (just the computer, not the monitor or drive) then turn it back on, the display will be normal again for a while. Then the whole sequence repeats. It's been this way for a long, long time, but I didn't care too much because I almost always use medium resolution (the problem never occurs in this mode). I just recently acquired some neat (low resolution mode) games so now it's starting to annoy me. Although the computer is properly ventilated, my guess is that something is overheating. Any other ideas?????? Craig Z. at AT&T mhuxu!cbz ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jan 88 01:16:48 GMT From: lakesys!martin@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Martin Wiedmeyer) Subject: Re: graphic file interchange format To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu After seeing Rich's post, I am reminded of David Mumper's fine graphics conversion and compression utility. I heartily reccommend Tiny in addition to PicSwitch. Marty -- | Martin Wiedmeyer - Lake Systems, Milwaukee, WI | | UUCP: {ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!martin | | Disclaimer: "I take the heat for my own (mis)statements!" | ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jan 88 00:33:09 GMT From: lakesys!martin@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Martin Wiedmeyer) Subject: Re: graphic file interchange format To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I have been using a handy utility called PicSwitch to convert Mac, Amiga and Mono ST pictures (Degas, NeoChrome) to be viewable on my RGB, It's Shareware, I believe, so I'd be happy to send you a copy if you'd like. Marty -- | Martin Wiedmeyer - Lake Systems, Milwaukee, WI | | UUCP: {ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!martin | | Disclaimer: "I take the heat for my own (mis)statements!" | ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 87 17:26:32 GMT From: sabre!gamma!pyuxp!pyuxe!crc6@faline.bellcore.com (C. Colbert) Subject: 40 folder limit To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu See Atari Explorer Spring 87 (Vol 7 no. 2) page 27 "Mike Schmall, Atari system programmer involved in upgrading the ST operating system, talked about how the new OS revision will affect Mega system performance:... In addition, we've made some changes that overcome natural limitaions of the original OS, such as the 40-folder limit." They also mention an upgrade to existing machines, adding blitters and new roms. Charles Colbert ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jan 88 01:31:53 GMT From: mnetor!utgpu!parora@uunet.uu.net (Pavneet Arora) Subject: Zoomracks (i.e. Hypercard's predecessor?) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I was just reading this quarter's STart magazine (Wint87), and came across an article on Zoomracks - an ST product which sounds a lot like Hypercard for the Mac. One major difference being that Zoomracks has been around for 3 years. The article is interesting. If anyone has used the product, perhaps they can post their views. Why hasn't this product come to light earlier? One thing I did notice was that the screens used in this article gave a definite edge to Hypercard since there were beautiful graphics mixed with text. Is this a shortcoming of Zoomracks? By the way the author of Zoomracks is Paul Heckel - the same person who developed the Craig Language Translator and wrote "The Elements of Friendly Software Design" (This is from the article). Pavneet Arora parora@utgpu ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jan 88 20:06:22 GMT From: lakesys!martin@csd1.milw.wisc.edu (Martin Wiedmeyer) Subject: Re: graphic file interchange format To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I happen to have the issue of Computer Shopper right here which has the Universal Graphics Interchange cover article. It is the October '87 issue. Marty -- | Martin Wiedmeyer - Lake Systems, Milwaukee, WI | | UUCP: {ihnp4,uwvax}!uwmcsd1!lakesys!martin | | Disclaimer: "I take the heat for my own (mis)statements!" | ------------------------------ Mail-From: BILLW created at 4-Jan-88 12:15:39 Date: Sun, 03 Jan 88 22:07:41 IST From: RON LEOR <HEART01%TAUNIVM.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu> Subject: INFORMATION To: BILL WESTFIELD <BILLW@score.stanford.edu> ReSent-To: info-atari16@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU ReSent-From: BILLW at SCORE.STANFORD.EDU ReSent-Date: 4 Jan 1988 Dear sir. I own an Atari 1040ST and I would like to try using it for image processing in cardiology. I need a video digitizer which will be able to digitize stop-frame video tape pictures (not video camera), and be compatible with the video standards PAL, NTSC, SECAM, colors and/or black and white. Apart from obtaining the pictures on the monitor screen, I am interested in getting numeric picture files of 8 bits for each pixel. I would appreciate if you will be able to find out for me information on the above subject, be it available commercial devices, electronic kits, tested circuits in data sheet form or BITNET addresses of ST users successfully employing such digitizers. I am looking forward to your answer. Sincerely yours Dr. Ron Leor, The Heart Institute, Sheba Hospital, Tel Hashomer, Tel Avive, ISRAEL. ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXB.BITNET (01/12/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY9074 at node VAXB Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXB with Jnet id 3155 for VY9074@BINGVAXB; Mon, 11 Jan 88 20:48 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 3152; Mon, 11 Jan 88 20:43:24 EDT Date: Mon, 11 Jan 88 13:46:29 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #12 To: andrew stoffel <VY9074@BINGVAXB> Info-Atari16 Digest Monday, January 11, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 12 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: Exactly what IS in a reg dev kit? questions Re: Hard drives for the ST Re: 40 folder limit Print Master icons -- what is PD? Re: Zoomracks (i.e. Hypercard's predecessor?) Re: speeding floppies? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 1 Jan 88 13:11:49 GMT From: ihnp4!alberta!auvax!rwa@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Ross Alexander) Subject: Re: Exactly what IS in a reg dev kit? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <4462@watdragon.waterloo.edu>, rfpfeifle@violet.waterloo.edu (Ron Pfeifle) writes: > I've seen alot of flames about the registered developer kits. But I don't > even really know what's in them. > Would someone out there who knows please enlighten me (us) as what exactly > are the contents of a "registered developer's kit"? > (Just the facts, ma'am) > Ron OK. We (Athabasca University Computing Services) got our kit sometime in September or October of 1986. I cannot speak for later Developer's Kits than that. Honestly, I can only say that it was better than the doc's I got from DRI when I first got CP/M - you old CP/M hackers out there can go from there ;-) For the rest of you, I can only say that reading and using the docs supplied was a little like playing Adventure - except that it's a lot slower and more frustrating. If some kind soul hadn't posted the "Proffesional GEM" (by Tim Oren) stuff to the net, and if I hadn't gone out and bought the MWC package, I don't think we would have ever done anything interesting with our 1040's. Sigh. To start, there is a very large stack of paper, perhaps 5 or so inches thick (8.5" x 11" paper, double sided xerographic copies). I have it in three two-inch ring binders, and they are _full_. The quality of the reproduction is a little disappointing, but readable; the only frustration is that occasionally the copies are skewed so that some text falls off the edge of the page. This is not too much of a problem. Volume 1: (about 580 pages) a nondisclosure agreement some waffle about 'please write portable code in case we decide to fool around with the hardware specs'. some blank SPR (bugreport) forms. If I had used these things, I would have needed 20 times as many as are supplied. keycode table errata list writeup on the ACSI buss (interface & protocol) [hard disk port] + listing of (23Jul85) hard disk driver as example of ACSI stuff. Introduction to Gem Programming (DRI): this is the IBM version, it does not exactly conform to the supplied software. Pretty obscure in places, but valuable to the initiated. GEM Programmer's Guide - Vol 1, VDI (DRI): a description of the low-level graphics primitives in _excruciating_ detail, plus a little bit about the non-existant GDOS, and some very useful info on font files. This is a reference work, very few examples of actual use. It is pretty complete, but again more useful to the initiated than the novice. GEM Programmer's Guide - Vol 2, AES (DRI): a description of the higher level stuff in GEM, such as the window and event libraries, menus, manipulation of icons, et c., et c. Again, a reference document. Lots of info if you know what you're looking for, but not a tutorial at all. Volume 2: (about 400 pages) GEM DOS 1.0 specs (DRI): calling conventions & stuff. Readable, useful. Includes C bindings. Hitchhiker's Guide to the BIOS: for a change, a really pleasant piece of doc on the BIOS - has a few errors, and can get a little self-indulgent (and obscure), but still a solid source of info on the low-level stuff. Lots of neat stuff on how booting is performed, & c. Line-A Technical Reference Manual: detailed discussion of the bit blt code, parameters, & how to call it. rather confusing organization, and again the attempts at humour can be irritating on the 500th reading. Not for the faint of heart. Intelligent Keyboard (IKBD) Protocol: really good writeup of how the mouse, joystick, and keyboard work. I wish _all_ the docs were this good. BIOS listing: a listing of the ST's BIOS. I sure wish this had been the listing output by the assembler, as it is there is no symbol table or hex listing, so it's a pain to follow the code around. But handy when you have to know _exactly_ how something works. Volume 3: (about 600 pages) DRI 'C' Language Programming Guide for CP/M 68K: this is the doc for the (in)famous Alcyon C. Ugh, blech, ack phfft! I cannot say anything good about the thing. DRI CP/M 68K Operating System Programmer's Guide: this is the most useless thing you could imagine. It has nothing to do with TOS at all. The only good thing is that it explains a few things about SID, the linker, and the assembler. Otherwise it only confuses anyone who doesn't realize it has nothing to do with using the ST. Kermit User's Guide, Fourth Edition: I never used this & have no intention of ever using it. We have ZMODEM :-). But it looks well enough written. Engineering Hardware Specification of the Atari ST Computer System: A good quick overview of the ST. Terse and pithy. Western Digital WD1770/1772 5-1/4" Floppy Disk Controller/Formatter: This is a typical engineering component data-book sort of description; very, very complete and includes examples of anything you would need to know, and a lot of stuff you don't need to know (like pinouts). Aimed at engineers. MIDI Specification 1.0: Now this is a real prize. It's exactly one page long, and says 'for more information, please contact...' and gives the address of the IMA. Really! Somebody was working overtime on this, I'm sure. (Untitled): long, unreadable & boring description of the STC504 and SMM804 printers. Typical Japanese-style (no racial slurs intended) printer manual organization of jillions of tables, everything cross referenced to something on another page. NO examples. (Untitled): etch masks and schematics for building ROM cartridges, plus mechanical drawing of connectors. OK, I guess; my ex-wife, who does this sort of thing for a living, wasn't very impressed. Me, I do software :-) United Technologies/Mostek MK68901 Multi-function Peripheral: Just like the WD1772 writeup. More stuff than you ever wanted to know, or thought possible. Schematic Diagram: a schematic for a 520ST. two 14" x 11" sheets, hard to read, and not the best organization. Still, it's enough to figure out things like 'which bit in the 68901 do I fiddle to assert DTR on the serial port' and that sort of thing. -- And that brings us to the end of the stack of paper. In summary, there's a whole lot of information here, but d*mned little guidance. It really needs something like the "Proffesional GEM" series to get the newcomer started - as it is you're so busy reading about every leaf on every tree you have no idea at all what the forest looks like ;-) ! Also, there's no master index. Some of the separate documents are indexed, but you have to know which one to look in first, which means plowing through all 1600 pages at least once. You can bet that takes some time... "And now, Ladees and Gennelmun, in the center ring! It boots, and who knows, maybe you can even do developement with it! (I sure had a h*ll of a time, though.) The amaaazing Atari Developer's Software Toolkit!" This sorry collection comes on 5 single-sided flops. I hereby list them: Flop 1 - C Compiler, Assembler, and .H files The dreaded Alcyon C compiler. At the risk of redundancy, let me restate my earlier comments: Ack phfft!! The poorest commercial C compiler you ever met. Generates assembly output, useful for deciding what kind of bugs it has introduced into your code this time around... Slow, buggy, and not even full K&R much less ANSI. Daryl (the other hacker in this shop) struggled with it for about 3 months and even got some stuff to work :-) but I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. Flop 2 - Linker, Libraries, Thing to make Linker output executable An amazingly slow linker. Libraries with some *nasty* bugs in them. And a hack to get CP/M 68K executables to run under TOS. Gag me with a spoon... Flop 3 - Utilities: Debugger, Kermit, and some C runtime environment asm code I sort of like SID, probably because I used it under CP/M so much. We never did use the supplied KERMIT. The other stuff was ok, but pretty ho-hum; no RAMdisk or anything remotely useful like that. The APSKEL.C (application skeleton - sort of a 'hello world' for GEM) was a good thing, although I think that programmer should be shot; his style makes my teeth ache. Flop 4 - Icon Editors and Resource Construction Set, plus Doodle C source Again, having source code as an example is a really fine thing. The only problem is that since it's designed to compile under Alcyon, you spend most of your time wondering "now why is he doing that?" instead of seeing "oh, so that's how you do <arbitrary GEMish thing>". The RCS is useful and pretty completely undocumented (there are a few hints in 'Introduction to GEM Programming' (Vol 1), but nothing like a real write up anywhere). To an experienced GEM hacker, of course, it's all pretty obvious. Took me a long time. Of the two supplied icon editors, only one is useful (the other is just too primitive), and even it has a few annoying bugs - I could never get it to save both an icon and it's mask in one file... but maybe that's me & not it. Bets, anyone? Flop 5 - Emacs, various source and a doc file Well, lessee - Doodle (again), a demo of how to use the forms library, a copy of a very early Mark Williams Co. emacs, and a tutorial doc on how to read/write floppies by directly twiddling the WD1772 (which, by the way, appears in printed form in the pile of paper...). The emacs I considered a great thing, since I use it on Un*x all the time (I'm in it now, as a matter of fact). The rest is nice to have, although my criticism of impenetrable Alcyon style still holds. To bad they didn't give source for the emacs, though. -- And that's it. There's no shell supplied, instead they have an incredibly klugey 'batch processor' to invoke the various & sundry programmes required to do anything interesting like, say, getting a compile-and-link done. No RAMdisk to help speed things up. The real prizes are the ICED icon editor, the RCS, and the emacs. The Alcyon C compiler, the assembler, linker, and libraries are a disaster. The debugger is ok but primitive. The source code is good but obscure because of the Alcyon bug-workarounds (or lack-of-feature workarounds). Now, having waded through all this p*ssing and moaning, what would I recommend instead? For a start, go out and get a copy of the Mark Williams C package. Not too many bugs, nice Un*x compatability libraries, ok shell & tools (you know, stuff like egrep and tail and wc), source for an emacs, pretty good (but not quite complete) GEM and VDI docs, and a RAMdisk. In all, not a bad package deal. I have hacked on it pretty heavily and like it well enough. Secondly, get a subscription to START Magazine (with the disks!). Thirdly, get ahold of the Proffesional GEM series by Tim Oren - this is a must have. I don't know about a Resource Construction Set, though; we're using DRI RCS 2.0, but maybe you can get a copy of the KUMA version. And I'm still looking for a really good icon editor. I also recommend GULAM, and the ZMODEM that was posted about 6 months ago. Or Uniterm - that's a good solid piece of freeware too. Short list of things to stay away from: any of the bloody useless Abacus Software books (except maybe vol 13, "ST Disk Drives", which is almost useful). These things are just copies of the DRI stuff, with gratuitous errors added to avoid copyright infringement :-( Any other suggestions from the other hackers out there? I want to get down off this soapbox, my feet are tired :-) -- Ross Alexander, Athabasca University, alberta!auvax!rwa ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jan 88 19:52:56 GMT From: braner@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (braner) Subject: questions Re: Hard drives for the ST To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu [] I wonder: is the 18 inch limit on the length of the cable connecting the ST to the Atari SH204 hard disk (stated in the user manual) the real technical limit? Would be very nice to have a, say, 3 feet cable. (I hate fan and motor noise.) Does anybody have a disassembly of AHDI.PRG? I have a strange bug, and suspect that AHDI.PRG fiddles with high RAM. Could that be? Is there an alternative driver program for the Atari HD? - Moshe Braner PS: how can I persuade PC-Ditto to read partitions D: and E: from inside MS-DOS? I am trying out PCD 3.0 on 1040ST, mono, SH204 HD, and _did_ put "device=pc_dhd.sys" at top of config.sys. "Dir d:" prints either garbage or an empty list of files. The PCD docs say that reformatting the HD is _not_ required (unless you want to autoboot MS-DOS from the HD, in which case you must let MS-DOS reformat partition C:). Partition C reads OK (and I did not reformat it). ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jan 88 17:04:08 GMT From: clyde!watmath!water!ljdickey@rutgers.edu (Lee Dickey) Subject: Re: 40 folder limit To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <575@pyuxe.UUCP> crc6@pyuxe.UUCP (C. Colbert) writes: |See Atari Explorer Spring 87 (Vol 7 no. 2) page 27 | |"Mike Schmall, Atari system programmer involved in upgrading the ST |operating system, talked about how the new OS revision will affect Mega |system performance:... In addition, we've made some changes that |overcome natural limitaions of the original OS, such as the 40-folder |limit." | |They also mention an upgrade to existing machines, adding blitters and |new roms. | |Charles Colbert My guess is that this is an oblique reference to the program FOLDRXXX. -- L. J. Dickey, Faculty of Mathematics, University of Waterloo. ljdickey@watmath.UUCP UUCP: ...!uunet!watmath!ljdickey ljdickey%water@waterloo.edu ljdickey@watdcs.BITNET ljdickey%water%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.ARPA ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jan 88 16:28:55 GMT From: clyde!watmath!dalcs!silvert@rutgers.edu (Bill Silvert) Subject: Print Master icons -- what is PD? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu It is clear from recent mail that I have received that commercial PrintMaster are getting mixed up with PD icons. Since I run a BBS this is something I have to be careful about, and I thought it might help to identify the three commercial libraries that I am familiar with. Here is a list of the first 4 icons in the three library disks published by Unison World. If you have a library that begins with these icons, it is probably pirated. PrintMaster, usually called SLIB or STANDARD library: Christmas Tree, Menorah, Cake, Easter Art Gallery I, usually called ULIB Santa, Snowflake, Star of David, Black Cat Art Gallery II, usually called GALLERY2 Snow Scene, Conductor, Crown of Thorns, I Forget I don't have the commercial Fonts and Borders disk, so I can't comment on what is PD in that area. To tell the truth, the Art Gallery series is pretty crummy, and the PD libraries are better. I bought them cheap and still felt ripped off. However, copyright is copyright. -- Bill Silvert, Modelling/Statistics Group, Biological Sciences Branch Bedford Institute of Oceanography, Dartmouth, NS, Canada B2Y 4A2 UUCP: ...!{uunet,utai,watmath}!dalcs!biomel!bill CDN or BITNET: biomel@cs.dal.cdn ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jan 88 16:06:41 GMT From: dayton!ems!nis!stag!trb@rutgers.edu ( Todd Burkey ) Subject: Re: Zoomracks (i.e. Hypercard's predecessor?) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1987Dec31.203153.28991@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu> parora@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Pavneet Arora) writes: > >I was just reading this quarter's STart magazine (Wint87), and came across an >article on Zoomracks - an ST product which sounds a lot like Hypercard for the >Mac. One major difference being that Zoomracks has been around for 3 years. Yep, I got the Zoomracks II version while at Comdex over a year ago...it lets you store degas pictures as part of your datasets...among other features. > >Why hasn't this product come to light earlier? One thing I did notice was >that the screens used in this article gave a definite edge to Hypercard >since there were beautiful graphics mixed with text. Is this a shortcoming >of Zoomracks? Yes, and no...It depends upon how much you really depend on graphics. I like the Zoomracks approach because it got more information on the screen at once (although it looks like a mess if you were expecting graphics.) But then, I also am the type of person that turns off my icons on the ST display and just use narrow vertical boxes of text file names for my desktop view (to see more files). From a programmers point of view, I still have yet to come up with a use for hypercard (I've played with it and am not impressed enough to upgrade my wifes Mac just for that). Zoomracks II seems to have a lot of power and macro programmability to it, but give a person a good database, a good spreadsheet, and a good word processor and they will probably be more happy in the long run. I know that a lot of the MCC people down in Texas are doing Hypertext based applications (which hypercard was derived from). It would be nice if they tried porting some of their stuff over to the ST's (they are currently SUN and Symbolics based.) I think the Mega's would make a nice engine for their needs (and things like the ABAQ would fit into their longer term AI stuff where they are really going to need the horsepower). If I remember right, MCC stands for Micro-electronics Computer Consortium and is a research organization funded by 20 or so large companies in the US to develop new technology in a variety of computer and IC design specific areas... -Todd Burkey trb@stag.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jan 88 09:43:43 GMT From: ptsfa!well!dsmall@tis.llnl.gov (David Small) Subject: Re: speeding floppies? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In the referenced article, there's much discussion about speeding up floppies from Michael Stein. There's no point in using a disk with interleave on it on the ST; the ST is more than capable of 1:1 reads and writes. Since the ultimate limiting factor is the head rubbing against the media at a certain speed, and the ST is doing r/w as fast as physically possible, there's no possible gain there. It is dangerous to remove the seek verify bit in the manner you have. Let's say you step to a new track. The head rattles back and forth awhile as it settles. During that time it is reading well enough to return track dta to the controller, yet the head is still wobbling. If you try a sector write, which lasts 16 msec, during this time, it's written in a yo-yo pattern on the disk -- and is often unreadable the next time. This comes from hard experience; I did this on the Magic Sac Motivator, and could consistently kill the first sector of each track. Weird, but true. You're right that a full disk rev is saved. A better way is to just twist the track two sectors around, leaving one sector (#9 or 10) for the settle time and one sector (#8 or 9) for the seek verify. Then you don't lose any time at all track to track, and keep full compatability with unmodified ST's. That's how we did Twister. As for using the index pulse as the delay time for seek, well, maybe. On 9 sector tracks you'll get away with it.. remember, 16.667 millisec per sector. On 10 sector tracks you won't, there is no room. But worse, the step only happens on the next-sector-read command, which may take awhile to happen, all of which time the disk is spinning. Since you're stuck with 30 msec head settle, and lots of machine have seek-with-verify, I think it's the optimal solution to twist the track by 2. You just can't physically get data off multiple tracks any quicker without speeding up the RPMs of the drive. .. perhaps we should plug it into a 220 Volt outlet? -- Thanks, Dave dave small/bottlewasher/data pacific inc ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXB.BITNET (01/12/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY9074 at node VAXB Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXB with Jnet id 5684 for VY9074@BINGVAXB; Tue, 12 Jan 88 03:56 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 5682; Tue, 12 Jan 88 03:52:28 EDT Date: Mon, 11 Jan 88 23:47:30 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #13 To: andrew stoffel <VY9074@BINGVAXB> Info-Atari16 Digest Monday, January 11, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 13 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: eproms burners Re: graphic file interchange format Re: questions Re: Hard drives for the ST Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: VCR -> Atari ST color monitor Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... Re: Multitasking - A nightmare Thanks (Cont'd.) Interrupt Alice Pascal for sale need memory test Magic Sac w/ 128K Roms? Re: questions Re: Hard drives for the ST ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 30 Dec 87 09:43:32 GMT From: portal!atari!neil@uunet.uu.net (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: eproms burners To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <903@PSUECLB>, kap@psueclb.BITNET writes: > I hate to interupt this fasinating discussion on multi-tasking Please do. > I need to find an eprom burner to use with the ST. Call Michtron. They have some which are reputed to be lightning quick. Reach Michtron in Pontiac, MI, at (313) 334-5700. -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 31 Dec 87 20:57:06 GMT From: portal!atari!neil@uunet.uu.net (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: graphic file interchange format To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <782@daisy.UUCP>, turner@daisy.UUCP (D'arc Angel) writes: > > Is there a simgle format or at least a conversion program that will > let me use a picture file generated on a pc on a mac or atari.st or > any other permutattion of machines ???? There is a single format developed by CompuServe called GIF. The complete docs are available there in the Graphics SIG. For the ST, there's a shareware program called PICSWITCH that converts all ST formats and resolutions, and is also compatible with Amiga and Mac formats. (Is there a PC format?) PICSWITCH is up to version 7. It should be on the Atari BBS (I know version 6 was there last time I looked). Version 7 is on GEnie for sure, because that's where I got my copy. -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jan 88 15:31:10 GMT From: sgi!daisy!turner@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (D'arc Angel) Subject: Re: questions Re: Hard drives for the ST To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu From article <3268@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, by braner@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (braner): > [] > > I wonder: is the 18 inch limit on the length of the cable connecting > the ST to the Atari SH204 hard disk (stated in the user manual) the > real technical limit? Would be very nice to have a, say, 3 feet cable. > (I hate fan and motor noise.) > not at all, i built an extender to my cable (using flat cable to minimize resistance) and have never had any problems with it. I's say the cable with extension is 3 to 4 feet long. -- Laissez les bons temps rouler - Queen Ida ...{decwrl|ucbvax}!imagen!atari!daisy!turner (James M. Turner) Daisy Systems, 700 E. Middlefield Rd, P.O. Box 7006, Mountain View CA 94039-7006. (415)960-0123 ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jan 88 03:47:30 GMT From: mike@ames.arpa (Mike Smithwick) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Distribution: na Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Calif. In article <3243@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> davidli@umn-cs.UUCP (Dave Meile) writes: > >The "average user" would be satisfied with a desk accessory, while the Just who is this "average user" by the way?? Is there some ANSI standard committee which is formulating the official "SU 88" specs Computer Companies are supposed to follow?? >I find that I get to do many little things around the house while I'm in >a terminal session. I can catch up on my reading, prepare dinner, change >record albums, everything except un-ARC files I'm downloading (which is >about the only thing I'd do if I owned a multi-tasking system). > >Face it, most of us are (for the most part) linear beings. We are huh? Right now I'm cooking dinner, typing on my computer and listening to Prairie Home Companion on the radio. Sounds like multi-tasking to me. Don't forget that users who are running a single program could very well be multi-tasking and not know it. For instance, color-cycling in Graphic Craft spawned a subtask and operated independently. I believe that Word Perfect's printer module is a separate program from the editor, at least on the Amiga. -- *** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick *** "if peanut oil comes from peanuts, and olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?" --- Lily Tomlin [discalimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas] ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jan 88 04:38:13 GMT From: mike@ames.arpa (Mike Smithwick) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu [". . .which hung in the air, precisely the way bricks don't"] In article <3279@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> davidli@umn-cs.UUCP (Dave Meile) writes: > > But I still insist that, for the non "power user" there's no need for it. > >-- Dave Meile "well, I for one know, that the 'average' person just doesn't Need a telephone!" - latter 19th century "The 'average' person just doesn't need a disk drive, a cassette recorder will do just fine" - 1979 "Well, when we were designing this thing, Jay asked 'So, how much memory do you think people will put on this thing?' We all looked at each other, and said that NO ONE would ever have any need for more than 512K. So he gave the graphic chips 19 pin addressing." Dale Luck (I think) explaining the origins of Chip memory. -- *** mike (powered by M&Ms) smithwick *** "if peanut oil comes from peanuts, and olive oil comes from olives, where does baby oil come from?" --- Lily Tomlin [discalimer : nope, I don't work for NASA, I take full blame for my ideas] ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jan 88 18:52:39 GMT From: nuchat!uhnix1!uhnix2!uace0@uunet.uu.net (Michael B. Vederman) Subject: Re: VCR -> Atari ST color monitor To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <6325@drutx.ATT.COM> jhs@drutx.ATT.COM (ShoreJ) writes: >in article <3257@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, engst@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Adam C. Engst) says: >> >> I'm curious, does anyone know of a > >No, but I have heard of a But I think what Adam is looking for is a-- #-----------------------------------------------------# University (of Houston) # It is morally wrong to let a sucker keep his money. # Atari Computer #-----------------------------------------------------# Enthusiasts (UACE) Use Atarinet: for help, interactively send a message to UH-INFO@UHUPVM1 ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jan 88 08:43:50 GMT From: ihnp4!alberta!auvax!rwa@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Ross Alexander) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <3805@ames.arpa>, mike@ames.arpa (Mike Smithwick) writes: > In article <3279@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu> davidli@umn-cs.UUCP (Dave Meile) writes: > > But I still insist that, for the non "power user" there's no need for it. [ several examples of short-sighted thinking ommited for brevity] > "Well, when we were designing this thing, Jay asked > 'So, how much memory do you think people will put > on this thing?' We all looked at each other, and said > that NO ONE would ever have any need for more than 512K. > So he gave the graphic chips 19 pin addressing." > Dale Luck (I think) explaining the > origins of Chip memory. Pinouts on chips are not exactly free; they have a definite manufacturing cost and per-connection reliability implications. Engineers spend quite a bit of time juggling this scarce and valuable resource (the pins) amongst all the possible things that they might wish to ship in and out of the package. Hence all those bl**dy multiplexed address/data schemes on cpu's (almost anything from Intel last time I looked), multiplexed addresses on DRAMS, kluges to redefine pins according to system configuration (Intel again, at least on the 808[68] parts), and ghods know how many other egregious hacks over the years. I mean, most engineers understand the KISS* princple, and they don't design these horrible interfaces just for the joy of complexity [well, most of them, anyway; I have dark suspicions...]. So let's not be _too_ critical of Jay - your other examples were much more convincing. My pet peeve is that the Atari people didn't put a base-and-limit register into the big glue chip that controls the memory array(s) on the ST. If I had base and limit registers, I could get true, transparent multitasking up on the ST (which, of course, Dave Meile could ignore; that's his privilege). -- Ross Alexander, Sr. Systems Programmer & bottlewasher @ Athabasca University, alberta!auvax!rwa * KISS == Keep It Simple, Stupid! ------------------------------ Date: 2 Jan 88 14:22:20 GMT From: phri!dasys1!andrew@nyu.edu (Andrew Huie) Subject: Re: Multitasking - A nightmare To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <2406@dasys1.UUCP>, larryw@dasys1.UUCP (Winston Lawrence) writes: > > I think that this discussion is a little off-base in many ways. Would this be going on if we were debating the benefits of disk versus cassette storage? > You will be hard pressed to find ANY microcomputer of recent vintage that >does NOT multitask to some extent. The Atari 8bits use multitasking. The ANTIC >CPU interrupts the 6502 chip to generate the video. Smart programs turn OFF the >multitasking during cpu intensive stuff (compiles for example) to speed things I think you're confusing interrupt processing with full multitasking. One question you can ask yourself is: Can I run more than one program from the same microprocessor? Or can I interchange programs between processors? The answer: NO. Each chip is only capable of dealing with one task at a time, and only a task specific to that chip. A real multitasking machine can have the microprocessor (e.g. 68000) deal with more than one task on a revolving basis, using priorities to see who gets more time, without having to wait for each task to finish completely before starting the next one. If the computer isn't too slow or weighted down (with tasks), this can appear to the user as if each task is running at exactly the same time. >works in a similar manner for the sound output. Disk controllers use dedicated >chips (and DMA) to do their thing while the CPU does its thing. ON PCs, IRMA >boards handle screen i/o and updates IN THE BACKGROUND, regardless of what you >are doing in DOS. While you might split hairs as to whether this is multitasking, > parallel processing, or networking. Its a moot point. Multitasking is real, > is here, and has been a feature on most micros for the last six or seven years. If you want to call interrupt processing multitasking, then of course computers have had it for many years, but it definitely isn't the kind that's going to, by itself, allow you to run more than one of your favorite applications at the same time. > > -- > Winston Lawrence {allegra,philabs,cmcl2}!phri\ > Big Electric Cat Public Unix {bellcore,cmcl2}!cucard!dasys1!larryw > New York, NY, USA {sun}!hoptoad/ ------------------------------ From: AB084%DK0RRZK0.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1988 16:50:10 CET To: INFO-ATARI16@score.stanford.edu Subject: Thanks (Cont'd.) To be very clear: I meant this "Does Joe Average Need Multitasking?" thing. ME ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 20:28:23 GMT From: pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!dle@cad.Berkeley.EDU (Duy Le) Subject: Interrupt To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu How do I force an interrupt in C and jump to an interrupt handler which is written in C also? Thank you for your information. Please send mail to dle@cory.Berkeley.EDU Duy ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 19:41:30 GMT From: dalcs!aucs!870646c@uunet.uu.net (barry comer) Subject: Alice Pascal for sale To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Since I am now not using my version of Alice(The Personal Pascal), I am looking for someone to buy it from me. It also includes a free upgrade card for when an upgrade comes out. I am asking $75.00 CDN. for it, at last check it listed for about $80.00 US(about $120.00 CDN). It is a very good version of Pascal, it supports all the normal things like windows, GEM etc. If interested you can reply to this msg. or call me at 1-(902)-542-2312. later Barry ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 16:57:00 GMT From: cca!mirror!datacube!ftw@husc6.harvard.edu Subject: need memory test To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Anyone have/know of a good memory testing program for the ST? I just put the Tech Specialities board in my machine this weekend, and it seems to run fine. The memory test they provide is a joke; it is in BASIC, and simply does peeks and looks for 255 to come back, indicating a bus-error. Thanks in advance. Farrell T. Woods Datacube Inc. Systems / Software Group 4 Dearborn Rd. Peabody, Ma 01960 VOICE: 617-535-6644; FAX: (617) 535-5643; TWX: (710) 347-0125 INTERNET: ftw@datacube.COM UUCP: {rutgers, ihnp4, mirror}!datacube!ftw "OS/2 -- Half an operating system" ------------------------------ Date: 26 Dec 87 04:00:03 GMT From: mnetor!utzoo!dciem!nrcaer!clan!scs!phil@uunet.uu.net (Phil Trubey) Subject: Magic Sac w/ 128K Roms? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu This is probably a nieve question, but, ... Is there a reason that a Magic Sac using 128K ROMs hasn't appeared? Has it to do with 128K ROM availability, or is it something else? Phil Trubey School of Computer Science, Carleton University UUCP: phil@scs.uucp (...!watmath!clan!scs!phil) BITNET: ptrubey@carleton CDNnet: phil@scs.carleton.cdn ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 16:35:14 GMT From: tektronix!sequent!mntgfx!dclemans@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Dave Clemans) Subject: Re: questions Re: Hard drives for the ST To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu > Does anybody have a disassembly of AHDI.PRG? I have a strange bug, and > suspect that AHDI.PRG fiddles with high RAM. Could that be? Is there > an alternative driver program for the Atari HD? There are at least two alternatives; the Supra driver and the ICD driver. Both have been freely distributed on Compuserve. > PS: how can I persuade PC-Ditto to read partitions D: and E: from inside > MS-DOS? I am trying out PCD 3.0 on 1040ST, mono, SH204 HD, and _did_ put > "device=pc_dhd.sys" at top of config.sys. "Dir d:" prints either garbage or > an empty list of files. The PCD docs say that reformatting the HD is _not_ > required (unless you want to autoboot MS-DOS from the HD, in which case you > must let MS-DOS reformat partition C:). Partition C reads OK (and I did > not reformat it). From messages on Compuserve, there are apparently some fields in the boot sector that are "don't care" to the Atari driver, but are looked at by IBM drivers. Avant-garde is distributing a patch program via Compuserve (and presumably others) that zaps these fields from the garbage that they are left at by the Atari formatter into something that MS-DOS approves of. dgc ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXB.BITNET (01/12/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY9074 at node VAXB Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXB with Jnet id 5961 for VY9074@BINGVAXB; Tue, 12 Jan 88 04:48 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 5958; Tue, 12 Jan 88 04:44:26 EDT Date: Mon, 11 Jan 88 23:48:24 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #14 To: andrew stoffel <VY9074@BINGVAXB> Info-Atari16 Digest Monday, January 11, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 14 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: atari --> sun pic translator Re: atari --> sun pic translator ATTN: Jim Holbach Lattice 3.04 forkvp() Summary of disk drive information Other uses for Atari monitor? Menu control for the ST INFORMATION Re: 40-folder bug and FOLDRXXX.PRG Need info on 2400 baud modem and C source debugger Re: CP/M Z80 Emulator Thanks ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Jan 88 14:13:02 GMT From: jjoshua@TOPAZ.RUTGERS.EDU (Jonathan Joshua) Subject: atari --> sun pic translator To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu My original posting did not make it so here it goes again... I am looking for a program that will take an atari picture (.pi1-3, .neo, etc...) and translate it so that I could use it as a backdrop on a SUN terminal. If the SUN terminal is bitmapped similarly to the atari st there shouldn't be much of a problem, right? If anyone has the program that I just mentioned or any information about how I would go about writing the program, send me mail. Thanx in advance. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 88 14:17:57 GMT From: jjoshua@topaz.rutgers.edu (Jonathan Joshua) Subject: Re: atari --> sun pic translator To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Stupid Pnews!!!! It forgot to add my .signature! Sorry about that. here it is. -- :o: Jonathan Joshua jjoshua@topaz.rutgers.edu Rutgers - Since 1766 :o: :o: :o: :o: Which way to A-La-Meda? :o: :o: I'm looking for the nuclear Waxes :o: ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 13:54:20 GMT From: ulysses!mhuxt!mhuxu!cbz@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Craig B. Ziemer) Subject: ATTN: Jim Holbach To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Jim Holbach: I've been trying to reach you for a couple weeks, but can't through to cbosgd. Where are you? Craig Z. at AT&T mhuxu!cbz ------------------------------ From: NETWORK%FRSAC11.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu Date: Tue, 05 Jan 88 14:54:15 GMT To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Subject: Lattice 3.04 forkvp() Date: 5 January 1988, 14:45:05 GMT From: NETWORK at FRSAC11 To: INFO-ATARI16 at SCORE Lately I had to use MCC Lattice C 3.04... I would use the forkvp() call, but when I try I get 3 lovely bombs on my screen, and it is ruining my whole evening. Can some king soul talk to me how to do a successful spawn in Lattice ? In MWC I do a Pexec and it is running, but I would prefer use a more straight UNIX formalism, and do a fork() or an exec(). (I know the semantics are not the same at all, but I am only interested in maintaining a portable coding, and accept the GEMDOS restrictions...) More on the subject: what do I have to do to transmit to the Pexeced process a nice environment ? (The doc I have on GEMDOS does not talk environment about Pexec.) Is the thing set up for me in the child basepage by Pexec ? or what ? (I *need* to transmit a nice environment.) Please help my code. Have a better year. Jean-Pierre H. Dumas network@frsac11 (bitnet) network%frsac11.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu (arpanet) dumas@sumex-aim.stanford.edu (arpanet) ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 88 21:07:44 GMT From: engst@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Adam C. Engst) Subject: Summary of disk drive information To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Well, the information on various disk drive has subsided, so I'll post the entire archive in another posting. To recap: my drive started to give write errors, often even refusing to boot. I tried tightening all the connections and making sure the chips, most notably the DMA chip were seated. Everything seems to have failed. I now have to possibilities. I can (a) take it to a repair place 2 hours away, which would be rather difficult since I work full time during break and don't have a car most of the time. On the other hand, I could (b) just order a new IBM style 3.5" drive and hope that it works. I have decided to follow the latter route for several reasons. First, I can always use the second drive even if it won't work internally. Second, I'm planning on getting a BMS board set and Seagate 238 30 meg hard disk as well, so I'll have a power supply and case handy. There also a few possible problems with this route. The drive might be too big, or might not attach correctly (I asked about the screw holes and it, a Fujitsu, does have them.), or it might not have the correct input/output for the write-protect sensor. To protect myself from that possibility, I ordered from a place that offers a 15 day refund policy. As far as the hard disk goes, BMS has been highly recommended and I see no reason to go with ICD instead since it sounds as if they merely copied the BMS board and made few improvments. I don't mind minor hardware jobs, and the BMS board set sounds fairly easy to assemble without soldering and all that hard stuff. (I don't want to buy the Atari or Supra drives because of minor problems like size, cable length, potential reliability problems etc. I also think it will be fun to put everything together.) The Seagate drive is cheap and basic and 30 meg, which is better than the Atari-specific drives for the same size. So, my system should end up looking like this. DS/DD internal floppy (Fuijitsu - IBM-style) $115 DS/DD external floppy (old internal drive $000 used only for reading) needs a cable from E. Arthur Brown $35 BMS board set $250 Seagate 238 30 meg hard disk $275 Power supply and case combo $80 I'm only actually buying the new internal drive for now - I have to get the ST working well before I invest any more money into it and I still don't know for sure that the DMA chip isn't the culprit. Adam Thanks to all of you who sent information or offered help in one way or another. Luckily I didn't lose anything in the whole mess and I've sort of enjoyed the research I had to put in to finally decide. If anyone has any major problems with what I've decided, please feel free to tell me; I'm still open to suggestions. -- Adam C. Engst engst@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu pv9y@cornella.bitnet "If it's not interactive fiction, it's not fun." ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 88 21:39:43 GMT From: ucsdhub!hp-sdd!ncr-sd!ncrlnk!ncrcce!rogers@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Bob Rogers) Subject: Other uses for Atari monitor? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Has anybody successfully used the Atari color monitor with other computers? Will it work on a PC with multisync card? Thanks -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bob Rogers rogers@StPaul.NCR.COM NCR Comten, St. Paul, MN ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jan 88 22:25:00 GMT From: franco@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu Subject: Menu control for the ST To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Here is a program that solves the problem of unwanted menu dropping when the mouse is accidentally moved to the menu bar. Put the program in the AUTO folder. After booting you should notice that you cannot move the mouse above the menu bar with any button released or with any button pressed starting from any point below the menu bar. However, if you move the mouse to the bottom of the menu bar with the left button released and then apply upward movement to the mouse while pressing the left button you will move the mouse into the menu bar (and drop a menu if one is right under the mouse position). From there two modes of operation are possible: for Atari mode release the left button - this gives menu control exactly as packaged by Atari. In Atari mode you can move the mouse all over the screen dropping menus all over the place until you click on a menu item (in which case the item is selected) or click off the menu (in which case the menu pops up with no action taken). For Mac mode keep the left button pressed then move the mouse down the menu of your choice until you find the desired item to selected - then release the button to select that item. If you release the button while the mouse is off the dropped menu then no action will be taken and the dropped menu will pop back up. The problems: Atari mode: I do not know of any Mac mode: Can be fooled in the following two ways: 1. Bring the mouse right up to the bottom of the menu bar. With the slightest upward movement possible, press the left button - when you see the menu bar drop, stop all mouse movement. Then, while continuing to hold down the left button, move the mouse sharply down. The result: the menu will pop back up and the first item will be selected. 2. Move the mouse to the menu bar with upward-movement-while-pressing but not over a menu position. When the mouse is moved over a menu the menu will not drop. To work in Mac mode (as I always do) and not let the problems above affect you, a) give a little extra upward movement while pressing the left button (actually it is hard to avoid doing this), and b) if a menu fails to drop, either use Atari mode or release then press the button for Mac mode. I will be grateful to the person that posts a program which solves these problems. Acknowledgement: This program is based on previous work by David Small and Brent McKim. John Franco Bloomington, IN franco@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu The code below was tested only using a monochrome monitor. However, I see no reason why it should not work using a color monitor. The code below was UUENCODED using the encoder that currently resides on our VAX. ---------------------------cut here------------------------------------ begin 644 mac.prg M8!H```-```````````````'X`````````````#\\`'].3M_\`````I'\```` M`B/(````]$AY````=C\\`"9.3M_\````!C\\``1.3M_\`````@Q```)F$C/\ M`!(```#P,_P`$P```/)@$#/\``H```#P,_P`"P```/(@;P`$("@`#-"\```! M`$*G+P`_/``Q3D%!^0```((AR`"X3G4B>`2B,!\S`",?2.$?'R')!*((```- M9@).;R!Y````]#`?L%AL-@Q```!F'`Q7``%F%B9O``8L?````S@LBT?Y```` M^"]+``;E2"`P```@0&H"(%`J?`````!.D")X!*),V?CX+QD_&2')!*).<P`` M````````2C@GYV8``C@O`"\!##D``````SUO```D##D``@```SUO```&")`` M`1%\`````@0Y``$```,]8``"`C`X)N(2*``"2('2>";BL'D```#R;@``L&<` M`""R>0```/!N``"0"!```6<``'03_``!```#/F```<@,.0`````#/&X``;RR M>0```/)N``%NLGP``&\``"8($``!9@``#A/\``````,^8```B@PY``$```,^ M9P``?F```0X($``!9@``#A/\``````,^8```9@PY``$```,^9P``6F```.H3 M_``"```#/!/\``````,^8``!3@@0``%GYA/\``$```,^8``!/+)Y````\&X` M`.ZR?```;P``9`@0``%F```P$_P``````SX,.0`"```#/&<``0X3_``````# M/#`Y````\I!X)N(10``"8```]`PY``````,\9@``#!/\``$```,^8-`3_``! M```#/@PY``$```,\9P``RF"Z"!```68``"@3_``````#/@PY``(```,\9P`` M!&"<,#P``9!X)N(10``"8```F@PY``$```,\9^8,.0`"```#/&?<$_P``0`` M`SY@`/]N,#@FXI!Y````\-!\``9&0!%```(3_``!```#/`B0``$3_``#```# M/1/\``$```,^8```1@@0``%G```B$_P``0```SX,.0`"```#/&T``"H3_``` M```#/&```!X3_``````#/@PY``$```,\9@``"A/\``````,\(A\@'T[Y$C16 M>`````!G;V9O<FET`((``````'1R87`Q-'1A@@````#T<V5T;7ET<F&"```` M`'9N;W1M;VYO`((`````3FUE;G5Y````@@````#P;65N=7EY``""`````/)T M97)M`````((`````7FUY=')A<#$T@@````""<W5P97)M;V2"`````)QD;VYE M`````((`````WF1O:70`````@@````#*:&5R90````""`````S9D;VET7W1O M:8(`````^&1I<F5C=```@@````#6=')Y``````""`````SU!5````````((` M```!,E14````````@@````$@;&5A=F4```""`````S)",0```````((````! M^$(R,```````@@````%L0C(```````""`````>9",P```````((````!TF)U M='1O;@``@@````,^;65N=0````""`````SQ"-````````((````"[D(R-0`` M````@@````&N0C(W``````""`````9Y".````````((````")D(Q,``````` M@@````*Z0C(X``````""`````<)"-0```````((````";$(V````````@@`` M``)`0C(Q``````""`````E9".0```````((````"FD(Q,@``````@@````** M0C$Q``````""`````Q8````4!B8("@@>)AP(1@P6&`X4#`H<#!@,$`@2"AP( 6#`84#`H(%@@>"@H.$@P(%`@,#`@,``@> ` end ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 03 Jan 88 22:05:04 IST From: RON LEOR <HEART01%TAUNIVM.BITNET@CNUCE-VM.arpa> Subject: INFORMATION To: "MARSHALL D. ABRAMS" <ABRAMS@mitre.ARPA> Resent-To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Resent-Date: Sun, 03 Jan 88 21:43:08 -0500 Resent-From: (Marshall D. Abrams) <abrams%community-chest.mitre.org@gateway.mitre.org> Dear sir. I own an Atari 1040ST and I would like to try using it for image processing in cardiology. I need a video digitizer which will be able to digitize stop-frame video tape pictures (not video camera), and be compatible with the video standards PAL, NTSC, SECAM, colors and/or black and white. Apart from obtaining the pictures on the monitor screen, I am interested in getting numeric picture files of 8 bits for each pixel. I would appreciate if you will be able to find out for me information on the above subject, be it available commercial devices, electronic kits, tested circuits in data sheet form or BITNET addresses of ST users successfully employing such digitizers. I am looking forward to your answer. Sincerely yours Dr. Ron Leor, The Heart Institute, Sheba Hospital, Tel Hashomer, Tel Avive, ISRAEL. ------------------------------ Date: 3 Jan 88 23:24:27 GMT From: decvax!virgin!zinn!mem@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Mark E. Mallett) Subject: Re: 40-folder bug and FOLDRXXX.PRG To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <920@atari.UUCP>, neil@atari.UUCP (Neil Harris) writes: > What good does it do to start rumors like this? > > Do us all a favor, if you need something to talk about, discuss the weather. > > Most ridiculous rumors of 1987 awards: > > 1. The blitters didn't work, so we're using kludged-up Amiga blitters. > > 2. The blitters partially work, so we removed 4 of 8 functions from them. Here are some more: 1. Atari makes a laser printer. 2. .. an IBM PC clone 3. .. something called a MEGA 2 and a MEGA 4. 4. .. a blitter chip. 5. .. a set of new ROMS called "blitter ROMS" for the ST. Will the wise guy that started those rumors please cut it out!? Oh, OK, we're trading those rumors in for rumours about the Abaq. Does Abaq mean "wolf"? > Please, folks, give us a break. We're easy enough to talk to if you want to > ASK a question. Oh no, there they go again. More rumors. -- Mark E. Mallett Home phone: 603-424-8129 uucp: mem@zinn.UUCP (...decvax!elrond!zinn!mem or ...sii!zinn!mem) BIX: mmallett ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 10:15:18 GMT From: pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!dle@cad.Berkeley.EDU (Duy Le) Subject: Need info on 2400 baud modem and C source debugger To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I am looking for a 2400 baud modem. In the winter 1987 issue of START, there was an ad which said that I could get an Avatex 2400 for $219 or a Supra 2400 ST (ST) for just $159. Now here are my questions: 1. which one is more reliable? Are there any other 2400 baud modems? If so, please give me the name(s), where I can find them and their features (if possible). 2. how come the Supra 2400 ST is so cheap compared to Avatex 2400? 3. One of the people that I know told me that a 2400 baud modem is just like a 1200 baud modem. He said "you can't see the difference in terms of speed." Is this true? Also, is there a C source debugger available for either the Alcyon C compiler or the Lattice C compiler? If so, how much does it cost? how does it work compared to dbx (UNIX)? and where can I find it? Please mail to me at dle@cory.Berkeley.EDU. Thank you for your information. Duy ------------------------------ Date: 1 Jan 88 21:25:56 GMT From: mcvax!unido!rmi!dg2kk!root@uunet.uu.net (The Superuser) Subject: Re: CP/M Z80 Emulator To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <104@mccc.UUCP> pjh@mccc.UUCP (Peter J. Holsberg) writes: | I'm looking for a CP/M - Z80 emulator that will run on a 680x0-based | computer. Please email if you know of such a beast. Thx. | | Trenton, NJ 08690 Voice: 1-609-586-4800 There is a PD CP/M Emulator (in software) available for the Atari-ST. It seems that the Atari Version was originally written for a CPM68k system. -Walter ------------------------------ From: AB084%DK0RRZK0.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu Date: Mon, 04 Jan 1988 16:39:51 CET To: INFO-ATARI16@score.stanford.edu Subject: Thanks I should have thanked everybody who wrote to me in response to my letter about operating systems. I did so in some cases. But there are people I am seemingly unable to write to. And I noticed that I have accidentally deleted some letters, so I cannot answer them any more. Therefore I have to choose this way to say THANK YOU| Michael Eibl BTW: I found most of the letters worth being sent to the net. Especially as compared to some af the somewhat childish arguments that I read there... ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXB.BITNET (01/13/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY9074 at node VAXB Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXB with Jnet id 0338 for VY9074@BINGVAXB; Wed, 13 Jan 88 08:20 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 0333; Wed, 13 Jan 88 07:37:00 EDT Date: Tue, 12 Jan 88 10:23:41 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #16 To: andrew stoffel <VY9074@BINGVAXB> Info-Atari16 Digest Tuesday, January 12, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 16 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Programs Michtron bbs 2.1 Re: Sonic Holography. Re: Multiuser BBS Re: graphic file interchange format Tom Oren's Professional Series Re: SH204 disk errors Re: VCR -> Atari color monitor Re: UUPC: Backlog Re: VCR -> Atari ST color monitor Re: Michtron bbs 2.1 Re: Question about ARC format Re: 40-folder bug and FOLDRXXX.PRG ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 4 Jan 88 23:31:35 GMT From: dalcs!aucs!870646c@uunet.uu.net (barry comer) Subject: Programs To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Hi all, I was just digging through all those files on the back of the hard disk and came accross these programs that I wrote a while ago. I hope that there can be of some use to you. As stated before I would rather post these little files to this newsgroup instead of the binaries because it takes sooooo loooog for them to get to the people that could be using them instead of sitting on a hard disk somewhere for months on end. I still haven't seen the Line-A demos that I posted over 2 months ago on the binaries(sooo loong). Well for those that need to know the little things, here they are: 1. These programs were written with Assempro by me. 2. There is no little tricks built in that will format your drives or blow up your ST. I hope that they can be of some help to someone, after all that is what it is all about, isn't it? later Barry If anyone has downloaded some of the CAD 3D demos from CompuServe could you please get ahold of me. table !"#$%&'()*+,-./0123456789:;<=>? @ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_ begin 644 hi_there.arc M&@A$25-+3D%-12Y04D< ]0$ "00 Y:Y,A@# ,8#0 "" " !( PP-/(#Lz MH ,5;P 0 -$" -HK0!0P B S1>"Q$(&.CO23T$F%X 0%)%R)D?/ H<1+$y M&S^+)IX\R3=0@#\D>1:" #K0P-"@$H\.'*"4X$^D"9HB:&J4* "F5@58ROJTx MI[JLTEPL.<+3J8V;"LX.5!M +0 ;( &(R-%3&8R8R)P((=M3DXU<14'P-7NSw MB5NU!0['G5OW+H"\>\L:35)V@ 44VS#CF#38)UP 9&[P.3A @&@ "P 8N('4v MLD7*2P67%4#+C@(<VZ(L^\>/,4%GCN?HA0U @>S =EC@ULU[\ $0=A8LW\UOu M\ *?Y<J@ D@ TTJCV;<A$1 @)\?= F>C^F )I9'W!MP%^ >?LSM,>D'>9^5t M"/<$-''Q2%: <*= @(\,,5N!,2& 1!H$<<<#35"$!TQ/>J"'(7<^U*<A07QPs MU]Y^CW3FSV=EG(:0::,AM%IK%%CDFP# Q21<9#V=>-,$A]W4UDUO+9:> ';Ar MI1<,Z1GETG>/.%$'%&R4$<8<98!0AAMTE"$'"'2@4:4;9=P!W1MLU-'&EV&<q M"4(:;HQ1)AE5DI'&'&N X$::5>H PD$'Q @)#0$ $.B@@A9***$C(22# 9 Tp M@( &#!A@ *0&,& ! @8X$*D##A@ @0$F<&I!I@Y<R@"D :"%!!3$E.+E!2o M1P!21P @ @ )! 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Is there anyone out there that can fill me in on the differences between the two, and have they gotten rid of the fixed names on the up\download sections? later Barry ------------------------------ Date: 27 Dec 87 20:39:42 GMT From: mnetor!utzoo!dciem!mmt@uunet.uu.net (Martin Taylor) Subject: Re: Sonic Holography. To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu --I am suprised that no one has cited the "Little Boy Suite" on this topic. --I cannot remember the composer's name, although I seem to recall that he --was French. This was one of the works composed with Max Mathews' Music V --system; and, as I recall, it goes down, rather than up. Nevertheless, --the principle is applicable in either direction. --...the effect was one of an --endlessly descending tone. (The dramatic effect was intended to be --that of the dropping of the "Little Boy" atomic bomb.) Jean-Claude Risset, published on Decca 710810 "Voice of the Computer" 1970. (The piece is fine as music, too). -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt mmt@zorac.arpa Magic is just advanced technology ... so is intelligence. Before computers, the ability to do arithmetic was proof of intelligence. What proves intelligence now? ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 88 13:55:40 GMT From: ems!nis!stag!trb@umn-cs.arpa ( Todd Burkey ) Subject: Re: Multiuser BBS To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <928@atari.UUCP> neil@atari.UUCP (Neil Harris) writes: > >OK, I'll buy that part. But you can't leave messages "TO" a specific person. > Yes, you can...you just go to the mail 'room' (.g mail) and enter a message. The first thing it asks is who the message is too. STadel has added 'floors' to the general room concept as well...rooms and floors are just hierarchical ways to break up the structure of the message base. -Todd Burkey trb@stag.UUCP ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 88 15:05:00 GMT From: mnetor!utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!mks!wheels@uunet.uu.net (Gerry Wheeler) Subject: Re: graphic file interchange format To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <782@daisy.UUCP>, turner@daisy.UUCP (D'arc Angel) writes: > > Is there a simgle format or at least a conversion program that will > let me use a picture file generated on a pc on a mac or atari.st or > any other permutattion of machines ???? If you mean something to convert Neochrome pictures to an IBM format, I'm not sure. But, if you mean "is there a common format" then I suggest you have a look at the GIF standard developed on CompuServe. They have documents generally available which outline how it works, and if you need sample code you can become a GIF developer. There are also GIF encoders and decoders for most machines which can be downloaded. The GIF standard includes compression, so that most pictures become smaller. However, the display program I have seen for the ST is a little slow at putting up the picture. -- Gerry Wheeler Phone: (519)884-2251 Mortice Kern Systems Inc. UUCP: uunet!watmath!mks!wheels 35 King St. North BIX: join mks Waterloo, Ontario N2J 2W9 CompuServe: 73260,1043 ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jan 88 04:28:19 GMT From: mnetor!utgpu!parora@uunet.uu.net (Pavneet Arora) Subject: Tom Oren's Professional Series To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Recently there was a mention of Tom Oren's Professional Series. The writer, as I recall, thought highly of it. Perhaps she/he could explain how to get it (and what it is 8-{) ). Thanks in advance. Pavneet Arora parora@utgpu ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jan 88 03:21:37 GMT From: imagen!atari!jwt@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Jim Tittsler) Subject: Re: SH204 disk errors To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <46@lzaz.ATT.COM>, hcj@lzaz.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) writes: > [...] > 3. SH204 CANNOT report ANY ERROR to the computer. > > So why doesn't everyone die on a disk error? The Adaptec interface > does the retries, and if successful, all is well. What happens > if the sector is BAD? You read in junk, fail to get the error message, > and see strange things. That is definitely NOT true. The SH204 and SH205 do indeed return with an error flagged when one occurs. Jim Tittsler, Atari Corporation ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 88 18:09:12 GMT From: imagen!atari!neil@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: VCR -> Atari color monitor To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <3278@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>, engst@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Adam C. Engst) writes: > Does anyone know of a cable or interface box which allows one to use > an Atari ST color monitor (SM 1224) to display VCR tapes, movies etc? Not sure if this is what you're looking for, but here goes: Supra is working on a frame grabber for the ST. I saw a working prototype of this at Antic. Very impressive. It works at 25 frames per second (compared to one for the *m*g* which goes at 15). In the demo I saw, it would display an image coming from a video camera, so I assume a VCR would work as well. The frame grabber includes software for all kinds of special effects -- you can superimpose computer images, or even have the computer control specific colors (like, smear the blues but nothing else). The frames can go into the computer's memory, which gives something like 5 seconds of video stored in a Mega 4. According to Mark at Supra, it looks like this will be out Real Soon Now. Hope to get one to play with myself. -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 88 10:05:01 GMT From: van-bc!skl@uunet.uu.net (Samuel Lam) Subject: Re: UUPC: Backlog To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <71@sialis.mn.org> rjg@sialis.mn.org (Robert J. Granvin) writes: >I would like to see UUPC for at least the IBM PC, but also for the >Amiga. Now, I've been told how to get via Bitnet, and by annonymous >ftp, both of which I am unable to do. I have also been given the >address to contact for these items. I have mailed to the address >three times, with never a response. There is currently a large (no kidding) backlog of mail waiting at the UUPC request mailbox here that I can certainly use an extra half-time staff to help sort out if someone would like to fund that. :-) Seriously, the backlog we currently have is large, and we don't like it that way, but we can only do our best with the limited time we have got. (And the time we spent on mail only takes away from the little time we have got to try to prepare the next release with.) I don't like to complain, the response we have been getting for UUPC has been fantastic, and we love it, but there is only 24 hours to a day and there are a lot of things that we have to squeeze in there. UUPC had been a spare time project for all of us, and will likely continue to remain so... (unless, again, someone want to fund this "research") >Now, how can I get my hands on this without pulling my own teeth? If you can't do BITNET nor ARPAnet FTP, then the options I can currently think of are: 1) directly UUCP it from van-bc 2) find a nearby comp.sources.misc archive 3) find someone else that has it Having us mail out the UUPC distribution by e-mail is definitely NOT an option, as we could not abuse our UUCP neighbours nor could we afford the real $ cost of sending such large files out via UUNET a few times a week. So, please save us all some trouble by not asking for the impossible. Thanks. ...Sam -- Samuel Lam <Samuel.Lam@van-bc.UUCP> or {ihnp4!alberta,watmath,uw-beaver}!ubc-vision!van-bc!skl ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jan 88 00:35:09 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!ANKH@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: VCR -> Atari ST color monitor To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Time to rib Adam, guys? har har ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jan 88 04:37:28 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Jinfu_Jinfu_Chen@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Michtron bbs 2.1 To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu RE: MichTron BBS 2.0 vs 2.1 The differences between these two are too mcuh to say here. Call up MichTron own BBS ( 313-332-5452 ) to find out yourself. Jinfu Chen(one of the beta-testers) ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jan 88 04:10:02 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Jinfu_Jinfu_Chen@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: Question about ARC format To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu RE: ARC format If you are just looking for a ready program to unARC file at VAX, you can get a copy at CompuServe's VAX SIG which was written in FORTRAN. I used to have a copy but didn't take it with me when changing job as the new company doesn't have a VAX. The source code of ARC can be found at IBM land. Some BBS (perhaps CompuServe ) have it posted. Also DEC user group may have an authentic version of ARC in C (I crossed over some old messages at CIS a few months ago). IEEE Computer's June 1984 issue has an article about the major compression scheme ARC used, check page 8-19. Jinfu Chen ------------------------------ Date: 6 Jan 88 00:31:58 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!ANKH@uunet.uu.net Subject: Re: 40-folder bug and FOLDRXXX.PRG To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Well, I, for one, waited for the Atari PC to show up in a store. I wanted to buy my daughter one hoping it would be useful in school work. Since they use either IBM's or Apples there. I ended up buying a 520 for her. That was back in July, and I still don't see the PC. I think the Grinch steals more than Christmas...ho ho Actually, I get depressed hearing that they are producing this or that and then never see it. I wish *all* computer mfgr's would cut the crap and make it...then advertise it. This goes for software companies too. This whole affair seems to be the old 'bait and switch' trick that retail stores love to try on unsuspecting customers. It's illegal and I'm beginning to think it should apply to the computer industry too. Please Atari folks, and other comp type mfgrs too, don't TELL us about these things...put them on the table so we can TOUCH them, USE them. Thanks for listening. Ankh ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------
POSTMASTER@BINGVAXB.BITNET (01/13/88)
Your mail is being returned to you. Reason for return is: %MAIL-E-NOSUCHUSR, no such user VY9074 at node VAXB Returned mail follows: ------------------------------ Received: From CANADA01(MAILER) by BINGVAXB with Jnet id 0546 for VY9074@BINGVAXB; Wed, 13 Jan 88 08:20 EST Received: by CANADA01 (Mailer X1.24) id 0451; Wed, 13 Jan 88 07:41:24 EDT Date: Tue, 12 Jan 88 10:16:37 PST Reply-To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu Sender: INFO-ATARI16 Discussion <INFO-A16@CANADA01> From: Info-Atari16 Digest <Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info-Atari16 Digest V88 #15 To: andrew stoffel <VY9074@BINGVAXB> Info-Atari16 Digest Tuesday, January 12, 1988 Volume 88 : Issue 15 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Fast life program for Atari ST (and other 68000 machines) Re: Observations Re: 40 folder limit Re: Multiuser BBS VCR -> Atari color monitor SH204 disk errors Help wanted UniTerm available for FTP Alcyon (yuck) return codes. Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: clyde!watmath!watnot!watrose!jsgray%rutgers.rutgers.edu%CERNVAX.BITNET@CUNYVM.C UNY.EDU Date: 1 Mar 87 16:44:21 GMT Subject: Fast life program for Atari ST (and other 68000 machines) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Here is a fast (400,000 cell-generations/s) life program for monochrome Atari-ST computers (which should port easily to other 68000 machines). It animates all 240,000 pixels on the screen. Feel free to add a better user-interface! [that means about 2 full screen updates per second, right ? Not a record by any means - let me tell you about the CAM I saw doing full screen life at full video rates (60 (or at least 30) full screens/second). --BillW] But how does it go so fast? It sums the neighbours of 32 cells in one pass, by synthesizing addition instructions out of logical operators. The rest of this file is a shar containing life.c - mainline gen.s - quickly compute next generation life.uue - uuencoded life.prg (Atari ST only) Have fun! Jan Gray jsgray@watrose University of Waterloo (519) 885-1211 x3870 # This is a shell archive. Remove anything before this line, # then unpack it by saving it in a file and typing "sh file". # # Wrapped by watrose!jsgray on Sun Mar 1 11:29:07 EST 1987 # Contents: life.c gen.s life.uue echo x - life.c sed 's/^@//' > "life.c" <<'@//E*O*F life.c//' /* * Fast monochrome life for Atari ST. * * Written by * Jan Gray * 300 Regina St. N Apt. 2-905 * Waterloo, Ontario * N2J 4H2 * Canada * (jsgray@watrose.UUCP) * * Copyright (C) 1987 Jan Gray. * This program may be freely redistributed if this notice is retained. */ #include "define.h" #include "osbind.h" #define MAXX 640 #define MAXY 400 #define BPL 32 #define ROW_LONGS (MAXX / BPL) #define SCREEN_LONGS (ROW_LONGS * MAXY) long *Screen; long NextScreen[SCREEN_LONGS]; main() { Screen = (long *)Physbase(); while (!Cconis()) { /* until key press... */ clearBorders(); gen(); copyScreen(); } } copyScreen() { register long *p; register long *q; for (p = NextScreen, q = Screen; p < &NextScreen[SCREEN_LONGS]; ) { *q++ = *p++; *q++ = *p++; *q++ = *p++; *q++ = *p++; } } clearBorders() { register long *p; for (p = Screen; p < &Screen[ROW_LONGS]; p++) *p = 0L; for (p = &Screen[(MAXY - 1) * ROW_LONGS]; p < &Screen[MAXY * ROW_LONGS]; p++) *p = 0L; for (p = Screen; p < &Screen[SCREEN_LONGS]; p += ROW_LONGS) *p &= ~0x80000000L; for (p = &Screen[ROW_LONGS-1]; p < &Screen[SCREEN_LONGS]; p += ROW_LONGS) *p &= ~1L; } @//E*O*F life.c// chmod u=rw,g=rw,o=r life.c echo x - gen.s sed 's/^@//' > "gen.s" <<'@//E*O*F gen.s//' * * Fast monochrome life for Atari ST. * * Written by * Jan Gray * 300 Regina St. N Apt. 2-905 * Waterloo, Ontario * N2J 4H2 * Canada * (jsgray@watrose.UUCP) * * Copyright (C) 1987 Jan Gray. * This program may be freely redistributed if this notice is retained. * * * gen -- compute the next generation of cells * * This code is a transliteration of the the pdp-11 code presented in * "Life Algorithms" by Mark Niemiec, Byte, 4:1, January 1979. * * gen currently does about 400,000 cell-generations/second. It can go faster. * * Forgive the hardwired-in constants, and the terse comments. It's a hack. * Think of the fun you'll have figuring out how it works. * @.globl _gen @.text _gen: movem.l d0-d7/a0-a2,-(sp) move.l _Screen,a0 move.l a0,a2 add.l #80,a0 add.l #31920,a2 move.l #_NextScreen+80,a1 * 1 2 3 * 7 * 8 * 4 5 6 * (d1,d0) = neighbours 1+2 again: move.l -80(a0),d0 move.l d0,d1 move.l d0,d2 move.b -81(a0),d7 roxr.b #1,d7 roxr.l #1,d0 eor.l d1,d0 or.l d0,d1 eor.l d0,d1 * (d1,d0) = neighbours 1+2+3 move.b -76(a0),d7 roxl.b #1,d7 roxl.l #1,d2 eor.l d2,d0 or.l d0,d2 eor.l d0,d2 or.l d2,d1 * (d3,d2) = neighbours 4+5 move.l 80(a0),d2 move.l d2,d3 move.l d2,d4 move.b 79(a0),d7 roxr.b #1,d7 roxr.l #1,d2 eor.l d3,d2 or.l d2,d3 eor.l d2,d3 * (d3,d2) = neighbours 4+5+6 move.b 84(a0),d7 roxl.b #1,d7 roxl.l #1,d4 eor.l d4,d2 or.l d2,d4 eor.l d2,d4 or.l d4,d3 * (d2,d1,d0) = neighbours 1+2+3+4+5+6 eor.l d2,d0 or.l d0,d2 eor.l d0,d2 eor.l d2,d1 or.l d1,d2 eor.l d1,d2 eor.l d3,d1 or.l d1,d3 eor.l d1,d3 or.l d3,d2 * (d4,d3) = neighbours 7+8 move.l (a0),d3 move.l d3,d4 move.b -1(a0),d7 roxr.b #1,d7 roxr.l #1,d3 move.b 4(a0),d7 roxl.b #1,d7 roxl.l #1,d4 eor.l d4,d3 or.l d3,d4 eor.l d3,d4 * (d2,d1,d0) = neighbours 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8 eor.l d3,d0 or.l d0,d3 eor.l d0,d3 eor.l d3,d1 or.l d1,d3 eor.l d1,d3 eor.l d4,d1 or.l d1,d4 eor.l d1,d4 or.l d3,d2 or.l d4,d2 * next generation or.l (a0)+,d0 not.l d2 and.l d2,d0 and.l d1,d0 move.l d0,(a1)+ cmp.l a2,a0 blt again movem.l (sp)+,d0-d7/a0-a2 rts @//E*O*F gen.s// chmod u=rw,g=rw,o=r gen.s echo x - life.uue sed 's/^@//' > "life.uue" <<'@//E*O*F life.uue//' begin 664 life.prg ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 18:10:14 GMT From: imagen!atari!neil@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: Observations To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1987Dec28.134829.25209@mntgfx.mentor.com>, dclemans@mntgfx.mentor.com (Dave Clemans) writes: > ST World is apparently going fine; in fact they've now split into > two separate newsletters: > ST World mainly reviews and show reports > ST Informer more general articles, rumors, etc. Not quite right. ST World and ST Informer are published by different companies. They seem to be rivals. -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 18:17:34 GMT From: imagen!atari!neil@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: 40 folder limit To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <575@pyuxe.UUCP>, crc6@pyuxe.UUCP (C. Colbert) writes: > See Atari Explorer Spring 87 (Vol 7 no. 2) page 27 > > "Mike Schmall, Atari system programmer involved in upgrading the ST > operating system, talked about how the new OS revision will affect Mega > system performance:... In addition, we've made some changes that > overcome natural limitaions of the original OS, such as the 40-folder > limit." > > They also mention an upgrade to existing machines, adding blitters and > new roms. Sorry. The blitter ROMs do not have any changes to the 40-folder limit. The next ROM rev should take care of this, but it won't be done for a while. The article must have been written before the ROMs were frozen. -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 18:27:52 GMT From: imagen!atari!neil@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Neil Harris) Subject: Re: Multiuser BBS To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <296@stag.UUCP>, trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey ) writes: > In article <918@atari.UUCP> neil@atari.UUCP (Neil Harris) writes: > Several thoughts. First, STadel seems to be a bit more user-friendly > now than it did 6 months ago. You might want to log into the STadel > development system sometime and check it out again (612-377-9239). Will do, but I have logged in to several STadel boards and still haven't changed my opinion. Maybe the reason you find them more friendly now is that you've had 6 months of experience! > One other thought. Stadel is best used as a message base system. You > can log on with minimal fuss, quickly find the section you are > interested in, read what is appropriate, leave a message, and log off > a lot faster than any other BBS that I have ever used. OK, I'll buy that part. But you can't leave messages "TO" a specific person. > If you could reserve say three of your systems for downloading Based on the current usage, I'd have to set up 4 for downloading and 1 for messaging. But, I am philosophically opposed to that -- I think it would reduce message traffic. Some people call mainly to download but also read the messages. And messages are my primary reason for having the board. Hmmm... maybe I should go with STadel... it would cut down the downloaders :-) -- --->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil GEnie: NHARRIS/ WELL: neil / BIX: neilharris / Delphi: NEILHARRIS CIS: 70007,1135 / Atari BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 21:42:51 GMT From: engst@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Adam C. Engst) Subject: VCR -> Atari color monitor To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Having taken a fair amount of flak from several people who seem to think me stupid because some site truncated my messaged, I will ignore them and ask again. Does anyone know of a cable or interface box which allows one to use an Atari ST color monitor (SM 1224) to display VCR tapes, movies etc? It seems that there should be such a beast, and Allan Pratt agreed with me, but neither of us has yet found one. Essentially, it would have to allow composite output to be displayed on an RGB screen, something which should be possible. This would allow you to have a VCR, which has a tuner and all that sort of TV stuff built in, with your computer monitor, which lacks all the TV stuff but can show a decent picture. Please send all information to me and I will summarize to the net. Thanks - Adam -- Adam C. Engst engst@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu pv9y@cornella.bitnet "If it's not interactive fiction, it's not fun." ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 21:09:53 GMT From: mtune!lzaz!hcj@rutgers.edu (HC Johnson) Subject: SH204 disk errors To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu There have been many posting with regard to strange ST behavior when using the SH204 disk. After discussing this with Chris at BMS I learned the following: 1. SH204 seems to report 8 drives per controller. I saw this with the BMS driver on my SH204. Also Magic -Sac describes this. 2. That isn't the problem. 3. SH204 CANNOT report ANY ERROR to the computer. So why doesn't everyone die on a disk error? The Adaptec interface does the retries, and if successful, all is well. What happens if the sector is BAD? You read in junk, fail to get the error message, and see strange things. BTW, hdx CANNOT mark as bad the blocks in the root directory or the SAMS. This creates really strange problems when a block changes, as when adding files and suddenly 5 megabytes dissapper. I solved my problems 2 ways. 1. I changed hdx to accept a list of bad blocks and let Adaptec remove them permanently. 2. I now use a BMS controller. Highly recommended. Any one want to buy a slightly used SH204? ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 88 00:50:00 GMT From: franco@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu Subject: Help wanted To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Over the past few days I have been contacted by someone from Israel requesting BITNET addresses of Atari users. I believe the party wants to feel in touch with the Atari world. Unfortunately this person cannot access USENET to get adresses first hand. Therefore, I am posting this request for any kind hearted soul to contact BARAK@HUJICC.BITNET and get him out of his misery. ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 88 09:05:48 GMT From: orstcs!mist!hakanson@rutgers.edu (Marion Hakanson) Subject: UniTerm available for FTP To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I have made UniTerm v2.0a (currently 006) available for anonymous FTP on our host cs.orst.edu. This machine is on the NSFNET, which means that it's not unusual for it to be unreachable on occasion. As usual, please limit access to after working hours. The files are in the directory pub/atari/uniterm, and you should probably get "README" first to see exactly which files you want. And if you like UniTerm, you should send Simon a check. I hear he's saving up for an Amiga (I know I'll regret joking about that -- more likely he's saving for a color monitor).... Marion Hakanson Domain: hakanson@cs.orst.edu CSNET : hakanson%cs.orst.edu@relay.cs.net UUCP : {hp-pcd,tektronix}!orstcs!hakanson ------------------------------ Date: 5 Jan 88 05:01:43 GMT From: mnetor!utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!dgp.toronto.edu!juancho@uunet.uu.net (John Buchanan) Subject: Alcyon (yuck) return codes. To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu I am trying to use the alcyon compiler. (I know big mistake) I heard a while back that some one at atari was developing patches to ensure that the different passes would return a code other than 0 if an error occured during that pass. My question is Was this real or another piece of rumorware. If the answer to the question is rumorware then send petitions to the folks at atari for a hurried implementation of the above, if reality then please send me the patches so that I don't have to sit here with my hand on the ^C key. Thanks. ************* ********** ***** *** ** ****** **** ** Line eater about to ** be eated by line. * ************** * * ****** ****** ********** ** -- ===================================================================== | Typical conversation on comp.[atari|amiga|mac].* | ===================================================================== My watch is better than yours. It has multitasking, windows and ------------------------------ Date: 4 Jan 88 10:45:22 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!stl!stc!praxis!gauss!sfr@uunet.uu.net (Stephen Rickaby) Subject: Re: Multi-tasking? A nightmare... To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <886@louie.udel.EDU> rminnich@udel.EDU (Ron Minnich) writes: >In article <11191@oliveb.UUCP> dragon@olivej.olivetti.com (Give me a quarter or I'll touch you) writes: >> >>I think that these arguments aren't representative of an *average* user, >>since an average user is more likely not to own a modem. Making a backup > (and many other contributions) I think that there is an aspect of this argument which seems to have escaped many contributors: a good multitasking operating system gives the user *far more* than merely the ability to launch more than one application at a time. Principally, the application designer is able to design multitasking applications which use daemons for part of their functioning, but appear to the user as single programs, just cleverer. We all use these facilities in Un*x without thinking about it (cf. elm), but for the software designer the benefits are cleaner design of complex programs, and for the user a nicer, cleverer application (spool printing, concurrent messaging, simultaneous computation and display in complex graphics applications, etc etc). The bottom line here is that the *average user*, if there is such a person, does not have to bother to understand, or even know he is using, a multitasking opsys to benefit from it. Steve Rickaby | ,,, Praxis Systems plc | < O_O > 20 Manvers Street, Bath, BA1 1PX, UK | ==( . )== Tel: +44 225 444700 Tx: 445848 PRAXIS G | Prrrouwf, Wackwacka sfr%praxis.uuc@ukc.ac.uk | !mcvax!ukc!praxis!sfr | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- '1$x/\{{[^}]*}\}/\{<1\}/q/' ... do it in lower case, it's more polite. ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------