=========================================================================
 
Today's Topics:
                           DA's and Curses
             FAST ST SPRITES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
                      One world, One CPU, One OS
                        Quick ST demo problems
                         SPECTRE GCR GOODIES
                       Uniterm version numbers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: 16 Apr 90 16:00:22 GMT
From: cs.umn.edu!thelake!steve@ub.d.umn.edu  (Steve Yelvington)
Subject: DA's and Curses
Message-ID: <A1477121168@thelake.mn.org>
 
[In article <16988@eagle.wesleyan.edu>,
     ncastellano@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes ... ]
 
> In article <A1248990348@thelake.mn.org>, steve@thelake.mn.org (Steve
 Yelvington) writes:
>>      char path[128], defult[13];
>>      defult[0] = '\0';
>>      int button;
>
> Again, Sozobon didn't seem to like this.  I had to move the "int button;" up
> above the "defult[0] = '\0';".  After that it worked fine.  Did this compile
> on your machine or was it a last-second change made while posting it?
 
Oof! Hit again by my own compulsion to make just ONE LAST CHANGE before I
let go of a posting ....
 
> Anyway, please continue to post source code examples, they are very
> informative and useful.
 
And if they'd compile, they'd be even better, eh? ;-?
 
--
   Steve Yelvington at the lake in Minnesota
   steve@thelake.mn.org
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 16 Apr 90 16:37:01 GMT
From:
 usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!haven!umbc3!umbc
 5.umbc.edu!petey@ucsd.edu
Subject: FAST ST SPRITES !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Message-ID: <3143@umbc3.UMBC.EDU>
 
Hey everyone:
This one to the ASSEMBLY HACKS out there.
 
Has anyone written a sprite routine that can beat the Line-A routines
is the ST?  Without using multiple copies of the sprite offset by 1 pixel
so that it can be put onto non-byte boundries???
 
It seems that since the line-a routines are in rom and can be READ faster
therefor executed faster that this is not possible.  But ive heard people
claim they can do it.
 
I would like some psuedo-code or code to do this.
Code for a monochrome monitor ( 1 BIT PLANE ) would be perferred, just so
we dont have to mess with the strange way the ST uses 4 bitplanes.
 
I wrote a routine that put the sprite to the screen byte by byte shifting
each byte as required.  The line-a  routine was still about 3 times faster
and my routine only used adds, shifts, and moves.
 
well, has ANYONE out there done this?
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 16 Apr 90 20:47:05 GMT
From: sdcc6!sdcc13!pa1562@ucsd.edu  (C. SQuibby Breyman)
Subject: One world, One CPU, One OS
Message-ID: <9745@sdcc6.ucsd.edu>
 
Monothink is good.
Just have faith in the single thought process.
Remember your soma ....
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sun, 15 Apr 90 12:51:26 EDT
From: clark@mshri.utoronto.ca
Subject: Quick ST demo problems
Message-ID: <9004151651.AA12525@lash.utcs.utoronto.ca>
 
        I have the demo version of Quick ST 1.8 and am having problems with
Flash, v1.51. About 90% of my ST time these days is spent in Flash, logged
onto a VAX running VMS. The problem is that I get extra cursors dropped on
the screen at various places. (They don't blink, but sit there as black
rectangles.) It averages 1 - 2 per screen when I am reviewing text, such as
reading mail, but get one between almost every word when editing with EDT.
Is this a common problem, or is this something peculiar to my setup? I have
a 520 STm, about 4 years old, upgraded to 1 meg, containing the following
programs in the AUTO folder in the indicated order:
 
        foldr100
        fatspeed
        pinhead13
        spool     (64K print spooler from the Abacus book Tricks'n'Tips)
        universe  (Universal Item Selector I)
        maccel2   (mouse accelerator and screen blanker from Atari)
        quickstm
        quickstc
        startgem  (for Neodesk)
        clkset
 
At the recent Toronto Atrai Confederation show I spoke to someone at the
Branch Always booth (the people who make Quick ST) describing this problem
that I had had with an earlier version of their then shareware demo. He
assured me that the problem of dropping decoy cursors had been fixed. It
just makes me wonder...
 
 
Steve Clark
 
clark@mshri.utoronto.ca  (Internet)
sinai@utoroci            (Netnorth/Bitnet)
 
"Nothing in biology makes sense except in the context of evolution."
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 14 APR 90 13:07:48 CST
From: Z4648252 <Z4648252%SFAUSTIN.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
Subject: SPECTRE GCR GOODIES
Message-ID: <900414.13074410.031226@SFA.CP6>
 
  This is a little long and Spectre GCR intensive.  Page ahead if you are an
'ST only' computer user....
 
Greetings Spectre GCR users,
 
    Some new toys have been released for the Mac which can be run
on the ST.   These are Grouch version 2.0, SoundMaster 1.4b2, and Cursor
Animator 1.0b3 and can be found at LISTSERV@RICEVM1.  All three go in
the System folder and I'd kill for their availability for the "ST side".
    Grouch 2.0 animates the trashcan and needs to be doctored a bit
before we can run it on our Spectre GCR.   When you empty your trash,
Oscar the Grouch lifts the lid and waves at you.  He then returns to the
can.  On a real Mac, he sings, "I love it because it's trash."  On the ST, we
don't have the ability to play his SND song, but Oscar looks for the SND
hardware anyway.  This will lock up the Spectre.  With ResEdit, operate on
Oscar and cut out the SND resource.  Oscar will now wave merrily to you
when you dump your trash.  Works PERFECTLY...  By the way, if you have
Sound Leech, you can pull the song out and save it for use in other toys.  If
you want Oscar to make noises, read the next paragraph.
    IF YOU HAVE SYSTEM 6.0.4, then Oscar can sing to you, your ST
can do hourly chimes, and icons/windows can sound off when they open
and close via SoundMaster 1.4b2.   6.0.4 has some new routines, which, in
spite of a rumor that continues to kick around, works great on the ST.
(One little glitch with 6.0.4 and Spectre 2.65 is that toggling between a
Mac 512e and a Mac Plus seems to be funny.  KeyCaps indicates a toggle
via the ALT/+ combo but doesn't seem to show when using the function key
toggle via the help page.  MacEnvy and Felix also don't see the toggle.
Doesn't seem to affect my programs, though.)
    SoundMaster 1.4b2 allows you to sound off with virtually ANY
desktop function that you do, provided you are running System 6.0.4.  My ST
is giggling, growling, and chiming.  Sort of unnerving.  During the hour, the
computer chimes the time--very distinquished.  I have always wanted a
Grandfather's clock, never could afford one.  I have a real rich sounding
digitized chime and one would think that the Grandfather's clock is in the
room.  GREAT!
    A bug, or is it a feature, in SoundMaster will cause some
frustration, even on a real Mac.  When you set up your sounds, do not close
up yet.  With the SoundMaster window still open, click on the System
Folder and look for a SoundMaster Settings file, if one exists.  Delete it.
When you close your SoundMaster window, a new settings file will be
written.  If an old one is there when you change your settings, then upon a
new bootup, your settings will be done away with.  OUCH...  So, first open
SoundMaster, then open the System Folder and delete the old settings file.
    Another bug seems to exist on the STARTUP sound option.  It
hangs Spectre and also hangs some real Macs.  Don't use it.  In spite of
these bugs, SoundMaster is neat to use, especially for the trashcan.  If
STARTUP is real important to you, I'd bet that the older SoundMaster CDEV
will not duke it out with the new one, if you select ONLY the STARTUP
sound on the old one.  Haven't tried that out.  Run both and see what
happens.
    Cursor Animator 1.0b3 is really slick and I wish that we had it
for the ST side.  Imagine the busy bee on the ST replaced by any symbol
that you want, and animated at that.  Well, we have it for the Spectre GCR.
Now, whenever the computer is busy, loading a file or whatever, I have my
choice of many many animated cursors.  There is a circling radar, a grid
race, a grinder, and many more.  I even created, via ResEdit, a scrolling
Fuji and flashing Gadgets Logo cursor!!!
    These are some really neat toys.  I would send them to whomever
wants them but our mainframe corrupts transmissions even on encoded
files.  They are available at LISTSERV@RICEVM1.  ... and as usual, thanks to
Dave Small for making Spectre GCR so compatible with the real thing.
 
Larry Rymal:  |East Texas Atari 68NNNers| <Z4648252@SFAUSTIN.BITNET>
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 16 Apr 90 20:20:56 GMT
From: eru!luth!sunic!tut!hydra!viljanen@bloom-beacon.mit.edu  (Lea Viljanen)
Subject: Uniterm version numbers
Message-ID: <4954@hydra.Helsinki.FI>
 
In article <1990Apr2.143946.23692@bath.ac.uk> exspes@bath.ac.uk (P E Smee)
 writes:
>In article <9003290806.AA08256@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>
 S61304@PRIME-A.POLY-SOUTH-WEST.AC.UK ("Simon Chappell") writes:
>>I checked my version of Uniterm today after all the discussion that has been
>>going on, and my version is 2.0e 010. Is that the highest there is?
>>
>>Have I got a rarity? Should I have it insured?? :-)
>
>Far as I know, that is the highest existing version.
 
Funny, I just ftp'd Uniterm 2.0e 011 from tukki.jyu.fi.
And it doesn't work properly, namely the YMODEM downloading
acts strange. I was much happier with the 002 version I had.
 
>Paul Smee, Computing Service, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UD, UK
--
"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""
Lea 'LadyBug' Viljanen           ____     University of Helsinki, Finland
viljanen@finuha.bitnet       \  / . '     Dept. of Computer Science
viljanen@cs.helsinki.fi       \/  |_      ' All this and brains too'
 
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End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V90 Issue #450
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