Albert.Koelmans@newcastle.ac.uk (Albert Koelmans) (02/19/91)
The following utilities have been added to the Newcastle archive. They were contributed by Stuart Hickinbottom. Names and decriptions are as follows: bascrnch -------- Here is a quite an effective basic cruncher which runs on the desktop providing a simple front end. The actual basic cruncher was written by Mike Harrison, and so I take no credit for that... closeup ------- Here is a very useful desktop magnifier, which does not stop the machine like Acorns. Also keyboard fine positioning of the mouse is provided. I find it most useful when editing templates. makeapp ------- This is a desktop application to turn BASIC files into Absolute files by glueing a header on the front to start basic. This is useful since it somewhat protects programs, and also allows them to be squeeze'd. modeconv -------- This is a simple desktop interface to Roger Wilson's excellent ChangeFSI command-line utility, which allows the mode of sprites to be changed, and also the scaling. Dot patterns are also used to try to preserve colours in a mode with less of them. pathname -------- This is my implementation of a utility similar to 'pwd' on unix. It has a number of facilities and advantages over other implementations - in that it runs as a 'utility' from the RMA, so that it can safely and simply be called without corrupting applications. It is also very compact as it is written in ARM code. shutdown -------- This desktop utility provides a machine 'shutdown' in a similar way to the Mac - also providing a restart button. squeeze ------- This utility provides desktop access to Acorns 'squeeze' utility - squeeze files by simply dropping them on the icon bar. strings2 -------- This is my implementation of the unix utility 'strings' - although it does not have identical parameters. Very useful for finding the text stored in program files. To retrieve a file a file from the archive, send a message to info-server@newcastle.ac.uk with the following content: line-limit 1000 request: sources topic: archimedes filename request: end where filename is replaced by the name of the file that you want. A filename of 'index' will send you the latest index file. JANET: Albert.Koelmans@uk.ac.newcastle UUCP: ...!ukc!newcastle.ac.uk!Albert.Koelmans Computing Laboratory, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK (telephone +44 091-2228155,fax 2228232)
Albert.Koelmans@newcastle.ac.uk (Albert Koelmans) (02/27/91)
Two new utilities on the info server: 'iconbarclock' and 'xpand'.
Submitted by Stuart Hickinbottom.
Descriptions:
Icon Bar Clock v1.11
--------------------
This module will display a clock on the desktop icon bar. The clock is
similar in appearance to the clock displayed by !Alarm on the RiscOS
Applications discs.
An additional feature is that the date is displayed on the clockface when
the face is clicked on.
Since the clock is a module it will start up every time the desktop is
started, and also it runs as a module task so that it will only take 3500
bytes of application space (as opposed to a minimum of 16k if it was run as
a normal task).
The clock can be killed by selecting the Quit option from its menu - but it
will reappear when the desktop is next started. To kill it completely use:
*RMKill IconBarClock
Which will permanently remove it from the module area.
xpand version 1.01
------------------
This application will expand object code which has been compacted using the
Acorn utility 'squeeze', which is part of both the Software Developers Toolbox
and ANSI C. It is actually possible to manually 'unsqueeze' the code, but this
is messy - and after all this utility is only about 900 bytes of ARM code.
Unlike other 'unsqueezers' I have seen, this version SHOULD expand code
compacted with any version of 'squeeze', although I have not tested this
too extensively (if you find one it won't uncompact, then please let me know).
Use 'xpand' just like 'squeeze' - for example:
xpand -h - display program version and date, and also syntax help
xpand prog - expand the squeezed file 'prog', and call the expanded
code 'prog' also - thus OVERWRITING the original
xpand prog bigprog - expand the squeezed file 'prog', and call the expanded
code 'bigprog' - original is unchanged
The expander should notice if the source file is not actually squeezed, and
will also report filing errors (can't find source file, or can't open object
file).
If an error such as 'Abort on data transfer...' or 'No writable memory at
this address' is obtained while expanding then there is not enough memory to
expand the file (either increase Next on the task manager or something
similar).
To retrieve a file a file from the archive, send a message to
info-server@newcastle.ac.uk with the following content:
line-limit 1000
request: sources
topic: archimedes filename
request: end
where filename is replaced by the name of the file that you want.
A filename of 'index' will send you the latest index file.
JANET: Albert.Koelmans@uk.ac.newcastle
UUCP: ...!ukc!newcastle.ac.uk!Albert.Koelmans
Computing Laboratory, University of Newcastle upon Tyne,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK (telephone +44 091-2228155,fax 2228232)