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INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Fri, 22 Dec 89       Volume 89 : Issue  851
 
Today's Topics:
     "The Atari formula" (was Re: Sig Hartmann Goes to Televideo)
                    Changing the A drive (2 msgs)
                         Commandline length?
                        LHARC source and UNIX
               Res Changing (really terminate handler)
                            Usenet-->GEnie
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Date: 20 Dec 89 21:59:35 GMT
From: orc!mipos3!omepd!merlyn@decwrl.dec.com  (Randal Schwartz)
Subject: "The Atari formula" (was Re: Sig Hartmann Goes to Televideo)
Message-ID: <5372@omepd.UUCP>
 
In article <33294@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>, kawakami@ocf (John Kawakami) writes:
|    Televideo, which five years ago was making $170 million on terminal
| sales, now faces a sea of red ink.  Hartmann plans to use the Atari
| formula to bring back the company's fortunes.  "My pnals are to run a
| lean, lean, lean organization."
 
The Atari formula?  Hmm, what could that be?
 
1. Start by making a little video game inside each of the terminals.
Make it play table tennis...
 
[steps 2 through 5 deleted because I have to get back to work :-]
 
6. Preannounce lotsa nifty new advanced terminal designs to get the
public taking Televideo as a "serious contender" in the marketplace.
 
7. Put an end to any preannouncements because of failure to deliver
products within the expected timeframe.
 
8. Spin off the most profitable section of the company (the
arcade-style graphics board).
 
9. Purchase a series of consumer retail stores that previously sold
Wyse 60's to eliminate the competition's distribution.
 
10. Announce a "laptop terminal" through the rumor mill, but deny
it vehemontly in comp.sys.terminal.televideo.
 
11. Sell off the consumer retail stores at a tremendous loss, to drop
the value of the stock so that the insiders can pick it up cheap.
 
12. Start selling a "cash-register compatible terminal" with ads in
Business Week and WSJ to advance the "business" image.
 
13. Have Sig go off to a different company.
 
:-) :-)
 
Just a happy user of my old "first off the assembly line" ST,
--
/== Randal L. Schwartz, Stonehenge Consulting Services (503)777-0095 ====\
| on contract to Intel's iWarp project, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA, Sol III  |
| merlyn@iwarp.intel.com ...!uunet!iwarp.intel.com!merlyn                |
\== Cute Quote: "Welcome to Oregon... Home of the California Raisins!" ==/
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 22 Dec 89 17:32:20 GMT
From: shlump.nac.dec.com!engage.enet.dec.com!oldtmr!wallace@decwrl.dec.com  (Ray
 Wallace)
Subject: Changing the A drive
Message-ID: <1391@engage.enet.dec.com>
 
In article <1989Dec21.201152.4270@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>,
 barry@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Barry Lay) writes...
>(Falcon).  Is there a way to get the Atari to think that an external drive is
>drive A?  I tried installing the external drive in the place for the internal
Disconnect the cable from the internal drive and then swapp the "drive select
A" and "drive select B" wires on either the floppy round connector on the back
of the ST or on the round floppy connector going into the external drive. You
can get the signal names and pin numbers from the back of the users manual
which came with the ST. If know what your doing enough to swap the wires in
the right place then you can do it without having to disconect the internal
drive. If you leave the internal drive connected and swap the lines in the
wrong place then you'll end up with both drives "driving" the ST at the same
time.
 
        Ray
---
Ray Wallace
                (INTERNET,UUCP) wallace@oldtmr.enet.dec.com
                (UUCP)          ...!decwrl!oldtmr.enet!wallace
                (INTERNET)      wallace%oldtmr.enet@decwrl.dec.com
---
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 22 Dec 89 19:35:10 GMT
From:
 cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!hyc@tut.cis.
 ohio-state.edu  (Howard Chu)
Subject: Changing the A drive
Message-ID: <10427@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu>
 
In article <1989Dec21.201152.4270@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
 barry@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Barry Lay) writes:
>I have the following problem.  I have a Mega 4 ST with a dead internal disk
>drive.  Fortunately, my hard disk autoboots, so I am not out of business,
>but I occasionally like to play a game which has to boot from a floppy disk
>(Falcon).  Is there a way to get the Atari to think that an external drive is
>
Too bad about your floppy drive...
 
>So, does anybody have any ideas for what to do while waiting for the drive
>to be fixed?  If someone has figured out how to get Falcon to run from a
>hard disk, that would be nice, too.
>
>Barry
 
All you need to do to run Falcon off your hard drive is to copy the floppies.
It runs with no trouble, as long as you run the startup program from your
AUTO folder. (Can't have *anything* else in memory. Kind of a drag, sometimes,
coldboots are inconvenient...)
 
Actually, it's not *quite* that simple, if you want a convenient setup.
Falcon doesn't specify any directory pathnames when it looks for its data
files, so all necessary files must be located in the default (or "current
working") directory. When programs run from the AUTO folder, the default
directory is the root directory of the boot device/partition. Obviously
you don't want to clutter the root directory of your hard drive with a
lot of junk, you'd like to have the Falcon files stored in a subdirectory.
(Like, D:\games\falcon, as an arbitrary example...  ?-)
 
The solution I use is two-part. First, Falcon *must* be started from an
AUTO-boot. So, I have two AUTO folders on my hard drive. I have to rename
the one I want to use to "AUTO", then reboot, to get things going.
 
I stick all the Falcon files in a subdirectory. In my Falcon AUTO folder,
I have a 3 line program that calls Dsetdrv() and Dsetpath() to set the
default path to my Falcon directory, then Pexec()s FALCON.PRG.
 
This works for Falcon 1.0, 1.1, and Operation Counterstrike. I keep Falcon 1.1
and Operation Counterstrike in d:\games\falcon nowadays, and select which to
start with the AUTO program.
 
Falcon takes about 3 seconds to load on my Mega 4. It's quite nice, not having
to deal with inserting additional floppies & such to play a game... Also, you
don't need the code-wheel when you boot from the hard drive. (I hated the
damn thing anyway!)
 
Last note - I have a sneaking suspicion, if I grabbed TopDown and installed
it, I wouldn't have to worry about loading Falcon from the AUTO folder. The
Falcon loader program is non-relocatable, which is why you can't have much
else in memory when it starts up. It also won't run with the ICD boot code,
because they try to use the same memory space.
--
 -=- PrayerMail: Send 100Mbits to holyghost@father.son[127.0.0.1]
 and You Too can have a Personal Electronic Relationship with God!
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 22 Dec 89 11:57:52 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!acorn!moncam!emmo@uunet.uu.net  (Dave Emmerson)
Subject: Commandline length?
Message-ID: <329@marvin.moncam.co.uk>
 
> In article <510@tnosoes.UUCP> joep@tnosoes.UUCP (Joep Mathijssen) writes:
> >Using Gulam and make, I want to link a program using TURBO-C.
> >But there are so much .O-files that must be linked, that my list of
> >files is not processed correctly. I think the commandline is limited to
> >only 80 characters. It this a ST- or Gulam-limit?
> >And how can I solve it?
>
 
I don't know about on the ST, but I have a vague recollection that some
implementations will accept a '/' or a '+' to force continuation on the
next line.
 
-Don't flame me if I'm wrong, I'm just trying to help...
 
 
Have a good Christmas all,
 
Dave E.
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 22 Dec 89 19:47:26 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!hyc@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
 (Howard Chu)
Subject: LHARC source and UNIX
Message-ID: <10429@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu>
 
In article <51989@ccicpg.UUCP> paulm@ccicpg.UUCP (tmp Paul Moreau usenet acct)
 writes:
>Well it seems that the LHARC is going to take over the atari archiving
>world.  I for one use a UNIX system for posting and recieving news
>and binaries.   I uudecode, and unarc on the unix system and examine
>the stuff before going through the expense of going home, making a
>LONG DISTANCE call to work and download the stuff.  If LHARC is to be
>the new standard (which I can see the benefit in smaller archives) I'd
>like to get the source so I can port it to our UNIX system.
>If the source is protected (which it seems to be) then I don't think
>I'll be downloading any more files unless I know what to expect in them.
>
>I hope that the source is available!
>I think that the majority of readers on the net here are on UNIX machines
>and would also like to get LHARC on thiers also.
 
I have the source for LHARC. I haven't bothered doing anything with it yet.
It's 80% 8086 assembler. Even the C source code is full of ASM compiler
directives. Most of the comments are in Japanese, for a Kanji character
set, and show up as weird diacriticals on an ST display. I doubt any
printer would like them very much.
 
I haven't seen very much of anything archived with LHARC, which is why
I haven't been too eager to look at it. Is there really that much demand
for it? Maybe a show of hands (  ?-)  ) for people saying "yes, I've used
it, I like it" ? I've seen discussion of LHARC on GEnie, they weren't too
thrilled with it because the ST version was slow, buggy, and incompatible
with the PC version. I think that's changed recently, with a new ST version,
but I haven't paid it too much attention.
 
I'm still waiting for SEA to send me the ARC 6.02 sources. I sent 'em a floppy
months ago, a few messages on CI$, made a few phone calls and left messages
that way, and now I'm in limbo, waiting, waiting,
waiting... Needless to say, I'm somewhat perturbed at them. They just sent me
a copy of their newsletter, which mentions the Atari ST and Unix versions of
ARC, (as well as all the other systems it's been ported to) but no credit to
the respective authors, or even any indication that the work was done by
outside people. (To be fair, they don't blatantly claim it as their own, either.
Just mention the existence of such, not how it came to be...)
--
 -=- PrayerMail: Send 100Mbits to holyghost@father.son[127.0.0.1]
 and You Too can have a Personal Electronic Relationship with God!
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 22 Dec 89 17:16:36 GMT
From:
 cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!watserv1!watcgl!electro!ignac@tut.c
 is.ohio-state.edu  (Ignac Kolenko)
Subject: Res Changing (really terminate handler)
Message-ID: <1246@electro.UUCP>
 
In article <1912@atari.UUCP> apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) writes:
>neil@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Forsyth) writes:
>> [Bulk of question deleted.]
>>So we put in a terminate handler at vector 0x102 [...]
>>Can we call the XBIOS safely from here?
>
>Yes.  I wrote an off-the-cuff article "all about terminate handlers"
>on GEnie, then asked John Townsend to post it here.  I don't know if he
    ~~~~~
>has, but among other things, it says you can make BIOS and XBIOS calls
>but not GEMDOS calls.
 
 
 
 
could you perchance repost that article here. it would be nice to know a bit
more about the terminate handlers in the atari st, and i haven't yet seen
it here.
 
thanx, and merry xmas!
 
(hoping santa brings me a stacy) (the portable or a female version!)
 
 
--
=====Ignac A. Kolenko (The Ig)           watmath!watcgl!electro!ignac=====
     co-author of QuickST, and the entire line of Quick Shareware!!!!
       "I don't care if I don't win, 'cause I don't care if I fail"
             from 'Youth Of Today' by SUBURBAN DISTORTION
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 21 Dec 89 14:30:00 GMT
From: inmet!hedger@uunet.uu.net
Subject: Usenet-->GEnie
Message-ID: <30200037@inmet>
 
I think the problem people are having is that Genie will make money
by selling access to the information in this newsgroup. However,
nobody who uses this newsgroup, some of whom can't afford or do not
wish to afford access to Genie, get no benifit from Genie, like  a
download of information from THEIR newsgroup.
They make a profit, the people here on the Net get nothing in return.
 
Personally, I see their point. I subscribe to Genie and there are some
good files out there. I think that if we upload this newsgroup to Genie,
some reciprocation is in order. Otherwise, would we like to have people
who run a Net node in their bedroom, grab these notefiles, then upload
all of the stuff from here into a pay-for BBS running on a another
machine in their bedroom?
I don't think that most people on the net would like it if they knew
someone was making money by selling access to what is supposed to be
a freely accessible resource. By uploading to Genie with no reciprocating
arrangement, we would be allowing the same thing to be done.
 
 
=====================================================================
|                                                                   |
| Keith Hedger :  ?...!?uunet!inmet!hedger   hedger@inmet.inmet.com |
|    'It is a sad, but beautiful world..........'                   |
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End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #851
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