=========================================================================
 
INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Tue, 17 Apr 90       Volume 90 : Issue  455
 
Today's Topics:
                     Advice to Spectre GCR owners
                   C compilers & small machines...
                            Omega for ST?
             Overscan in 60 hertz and Multisync Monitors.
                       Phantom Typist (2 msgs)
   Small Unix for Small systems? (Was: One world, One CPU, One OS)
                   Where is overscan stuff located?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: 17 Apr 90 19:08:24 GMT
From:
 mailrus!uwm.edu!ogicse!zephyr.ens.tek.com!orca.wv.tek.com!pogo!bluneski@tut.cis
 .ohio-state.edu  (Bob Luneski)
Subject: Advice to Spectre GCR owners
Message-ID: <8911@pogo.WV.TEK.COM>
 
In article <11272@portia.Stanford.EDU> zimm@portia.Stanford.EDU (Dylan Yolles)
writes:
>The Spectre GCR manual never makes it clear whether or not one can get
>away with using the "Shutdown" menu option in Mac mode (versus just ejecting
>the disks).
 
Wrong. The Spectre GCR manual very clearly states that although selecting
shutdown appears to work you should ALWAYS select all disks and eject them
(control-A control-E) to guarentee that the directory information is correctly
updated before you shut down.  It is obviously important to read the entire
Spectre manual!
 
____________________________________________________________________________
  Bob Luneski
  Diamond Back Support Hotline:  bluneski@pogo.WV.TEK.COM
                                 Genie: B.LUNESKI1
 
 
 
 
--
____________________________________________________________________________
  Bob Luneski
  Diamond Back Support Hotline:  bluneski@pogo.WV.TEK.COM
                                 Genie: B.LUNESKI1
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 17 Apr 90 21:24:21 GMT
From: tank!msuinfo!news@handies.ucar.edu  (David Schultz)
Subject: C compilers & small machines...
Message-ID: <1990Apr17.212421.8049@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
 
<THis is all from memory, please excuse mistakes!>
A couple days ago, Mickey Boyd suggested to someone that they upgrade
a 512K machine to at least 1meg to take advantage of C compilers like
Sozobon or GNU.  This is a great idea, but some of us want to write C now
even though we have only 512K and can't afford memory yet.
 
Here's what I do on my 520ST to compile using Sozobon from Gulam. (I have
the demo of quick ST II and Mega-matic installed.  My free memory when
Gulam gets to the prompt is about 200K.)
1.)  Modularize the heck out of your source!!!!
        5k per source file at the most....
2.)  Compile each source file with the -c option (and others)
        cc -c filename  (this will create a lot of files with .o extension)
        'make' can be great for this!
3.)  Compile all the .o files together with any options you wanted
        DO NOT USE THE -c OPTION HERE!
 
You should get away with it!
 
NOTE: I do have the luxury of a DS drive.  Sozobon fits on one disk with
about 100K left over for my source code and .o files.  I only have one
drive.
 
This should give programmers a fighting chance until they can get memory,
a second drive, or a hard drive.  It's not the greatest, but you CAN program!
 
#define  DISCLAIMER     "It is NOT my fault"
_____________________________________________________________________________
David W. Schultz        |                               |
312 N. Case Hall        | schultzd@cpsin.cps.msu.edu    |   M
Michigan State Univ.    | schultzd@frith.egr.msu.edu    |     S
E. Lansing, MI  48825   | Last Chance: 517 355-7033     |       G
________________________|_______________________________|____________________
                                                      # # #
        _______________________________________       # # #
       /            ________________                  # # #
      /________            /                          # # #
              /           /                          #  #  #
_____________/           /                          #   #   #
__________________________________________________#_____#_____#______________
--
_____________________________________________________________________________
David W. Schultz        |                               |
312 N. Case Hall        | schultzd@cpsin.cps.msu.edu    |   M
Michigan State Univ.    | schultzd@frith.egr.msu.edu    |     S
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 17 Apr 90 19:56:22 GMT
From: mcsun!hp4nl!ruuinf!ruunsa!fysae!muts@uunet.uu.net  (Peter Mutsaers)
Subject: Omega for ST?
Message-ID: <922@ruunsa.fys.ruu.nl>
 
I would like to know if someone has ported the game of omega to the ST.
If so, I would like to hear from it. I am trying to translate it myself,
but have some problems.
 
Peter Mutsaers          (nmutsaer@ruunsa.fys.ruu.nl)
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 17 Apr 90 18:25:42 GMT
From: news@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu  (Bradford Mott)
Subject: Overscan in 60 hertz and Multisync Monitors.
Message-ID: <1990Apr17.182542.23328@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu>
 
In article <7731@sbcs.sunysb.edu> mrose@libserv1.ic.sunysb.edu (Michael Rose)
writes:
>
>       A friend of mine recently did the Overscan mod to his Mega, and I
>was wondering if there is a new version (we have 1.6) that will work in 60
>hertz so our screens won't flicker.  Also, does anybody know of a good
 [Stuff Deleted...]
>
>                               -Michael Rose
 
     I modified the OVERSCAN.PRG a few months ago to work at 60Hz.  It seems
to be working pretty good.  If anyone wants it I uploaded it to Terminator.
It's called oscan_60.arc (in the 'new' directory).
 
Bradford W. Mott
bmott@shumv1.ncsu.edu
 
--
 
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=  BBBBB  M     M        t     t     |      |||      | 49 20 54 48 49 4E 4B =
 
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Date: 17 Apr 90 16:48:42 GMT
From: chinet!saj@gargoyle.uchicago.edu  (Stephen Jacobs)
Subject: Phantom Typist
Message-ID: <1990Apr17.164842.8726@chinet.chi.il.us>
 
I don't type fast enough to see this fellow regularly, but I have a suggestion
for any registered developer out there who does.  Make a habit of running
programs that run into the 'phantom typist' under Atari's db debugger, WITH
A STOP BUTTON SET UP (does any other debugger allow external events to break
programs too?).  Next time you see him, push the button and start tracing.
How's that sound?
                                    Steve J.
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 17 Apr 90 21:09:22 GMT
From: xanth!xanth.cs.odu.edu!scott@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Scott Yelich)
Subject: Phantom Typist
Message-ID: <SCOTT.90Apr17170922@croaker.cs.odu.edu>
 
>I don't type fast enough to see this fellow regularly, but I have a suggestion
>or any registered developer out there who does.  Make a habit of running
>rograms that run into the 'phantom typist' under Atari's db debugger, WITH
>STOP BUTTON SET UP (does any other debugger allow external events to break
>rograms too?).  Next time you see him, push the button and start tracing.
>How's that sound?
 
Hmmm... is that what I just found?
 
Example:
  Run megaroids.prg  :)  and use the alt-cursor keys to maneuver the mouse
  pointer.  Select menu item "Start" and then press and hold down alt...
  press and hold down insert.
 
It is quite annoying.  I just turned the machine off!
--
 
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Scott D. Yelich                                 scott@cs.odu.edu [128.82.8.1]
 After he pushed me off the cliff, he asked me, as I fell, ``Why'd you jump?''
 Administrator of:    Game design requests to <game-design-request@cs.odu.edu>
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 17 Apr 90 21:32:05 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sunybcs!oswego!news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
 (Boyd Ostroff)
Subject: Small Unix for Small systems? (Was: One world, One CPU, One OS)
Message-ID: <1990Apr17.213205.14122@oswego.Oswego.EDU>
 
In article <MWM.90Apr16145111@raven.pa.dec.com> mwm@raven.pa.dec.com (Mike (Real
 Amigas have keyboard garages) Meyer) writes:
>In article <1990Apr14.155106.2692@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
 swklassen@tiger.waterloo.edu (Steven W. Klassen) writes:
>
>   Contrary to popular belief UNIX does NOT require 4-8 meg of
>   ram and 80+meg hard disks.
 
The AT&T UNIX-PC 7300 was originally introduced around 1984 with 512K RAM
and a 10MB disk. It was stripped down pretty much but it was real UNIX and
had its own proprietary bitmapped windowing system and mouse/keyboard
oriented shell.
 
>The problem with all these is that they are v6 or v7 Eunices, not
>anything modern. Missing things like process control, networking,
>modern tty drivers, windowing systems, etc. Adding those things adds a
 
No, the AT&T 7300 and 3B1 both run a version of System V somewhere between
Vr2 and Vr3....
 
>Not much fun. But you probably don't have a
>windowing system, as the X11R4 binary distribution is ?40Meg, not
>including most of the user-contributed software.
 
Yes, X is big, but there are other alternatives.  Read unix-pc.general and
comp.sys.att for discussions of the MGR port to the 3B1 which gives
lots of the same functionality in a fraction of the space...
 
>I'd be glad to have a counterexample. A fully functional Unix system,
>complete with window manager, SLIP, UUCP, cron daemon, and the ability
>to provide reasonable perforamance to both an editor, a terminal and
>multiple trivial applications (xsnap, xclipboard, xwd and xmessage,
>for isntance) at the same time as all the above are running (hint:
>choose something with shared libraries - they help a lot!). Make it
>all fit in 1 or 2 meg of memory, and run from 30 meg of disk (that
>seems to be the new "smallest" disk).
 
I have a 3B1 which I got for $2100 new during the big "fire sale" which
AT&T had a couple years ago to clean out their inventory.  You can buy
them used now for $1500, including development set software.  The stock
3B1 has a 67 MB disk and 2 MB RAM, 10 Mhz 68010 CPU, demand-paged virtual
memory, internal 1200 baud modem, 400 K 5.25 disk, etc.
 
There has been lots of talk about porting X to the 3B1, but it hasn't been
done yet.  Windowing on the bitmapped screen is built into the system
(via kernel and window driver), but is not really ideal.  Anyway, this
machine runs quite respectably, even with 3 users.  I have lots of public
domain sources and binaries online, several MB of man pages, run a bulletin
board, carry about 6 or 7 MB of usenet news, have 4 UUCP neighbors, 5 MB swap
space and still have about 30 MB free on my 67 MB disk.  Yes, it does make
effective use of shared libraries to keep binaries small too.
 
I know others with 1 MB RAM and 20 MB disks that still make productive use
of their machines.  Dave Bozak's cleo.oswego.edu is a 1MB/20MB 7300 with an
ethernet card here on the internet, for example.
 
With this kind of hardware available for such a reasonable price, why not
just buy a 3B1 for your UNIX needs and use your Amiga, Atari and or Mac
for your other needs; that's what I do.
 
||| Boyd Ostroff - Tech Director - Dept of Theatre - SUNY Oswego
||| Sys Admin - "The CallBoard" - (315) 947-6414 - 1200/2400 baud
||| ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu - cboard!ostroff@oswego.oswego.edu
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 17 Apr 90 18:22:43 GMT
From:
 zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!rodan!rodan.acs.syr.edu!jfbruno@tut.cis.ohi
 o-state.edu  (John F. Bruno)
Subject: Where is overscan stuff located?
Message-ID: <2990@rodan.acs.syr.edu>
 
I found these three files in the atari/new directory:
 
overscan.arc
overscn2.arc
oscan_60.arc
 
All of their docs refer to an "overscan switch". I assume that they are
referring to a hardware modification, but none of them contain any more
details. Could someone tell me where I can find instructions for the
hardware mod? Will it work with Spectre? What are the differences between
the above archives? I have a 1040 with the original TOS roms, all of these
packages state that if you have the old TOS, you must load in RAM_TOS1.4
(or something like that) where can I get it? If I CAN'T get it, where can
I get an update for my old TOS roms? How much $$?
 
---jb (jfbruno@rodan.acs.syr.edu)
 
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End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V90 Issue #455
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