INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Fri, 10 Nov 89       Volume 89 : Issue 630
 
Today's Topics:
                            archive sites
                      Hard Disk Port Info Reqd.
                      Mega with TOS 1.4 crashes!
                  Problems booting w/accessories...
                             Trip-a-Tron
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: 9 Nov 89 17:38:52 GMT
From: thelake!steve@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu  (Steve Yelvington)
Subject: archive sites
 
In article <1989Nov8.234846.1453@chinet.chi.il.us>,
     saj@chinet.chi.il.us (Stephen Jacobs) writes ...
 
>           ... Another empty niche is a BBS with an explicit connection
>to the ST newsgroups (the IBM PC newsgroups have something like that).
 
Steve, I'm not sure what you mean by "explicit connection." There are a
number of public-access Unix sites that carry comp.sys.atari.st, as well
as several STadel and Citadel BBSes that carry it. Among the latter are
MAST and Class68 in Minnesota, BRASS in upstate New York, The Land in
Ohio, Cerebral Cortex in Nova Scotia (I think) and Bitsko's Bar and Grill
in Utah. Several of the People-Net nodes also carry it. I think it also
may be available on Bix and therefore to the BBS systems that use the
Citadel-to-Bix relay program cooked up by Jefferson Software.
 
The comp.binaries and comp.sources groups are another matter. I currently
am feeding both to MAST, but it's a manual process. (My rnews is not yet
smart enough to do the job.) Some of the BBSes may get them directly, but
I don't know which ones.
 
(Jim Kershner, can you elaborate on that?)
 
   -- Steve Yelvington, up at the lake in Minnesota
  ... pwcs.StPaul.GOV!stag!thelake!steve             (UUCP)
 
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Date: 9 Nov 89 16:51:16 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!harrier.ukc.ac.uk!gos.ukc.ac.uk!anw1@uunet.uu.net
 (A.N.Walkeden)
Subject: Hard Disk Port Info Reqd.
 
I am in my final year of a computing degree, and therefore I have to
undertake a third year project.
 
My aim is to produce A medium to high quality sound sampler for the Atari
ST, by using the Hard disk port for the transfer of data, in  and out of
the machine.
 
I seem to be having a problem with actually getting hold of good reference
material regarding ACSI, and about the DMAC chip inside the ST.
 
If anyone knows anything about the above, or anything they think may be
useful could they please mail me the details.
 
Thanks
 
Adrian
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 10 Nov 89 09:18:54 GMT
From: mcsun!hp4nl!ruuinf!verwer@uunet.uu.net  (Nico Verwer)
Subject: Mega with TOS 1.4 crashes!
 
In article <5286@orca.WV.TEK.COM>, stank@anvil.WV.TEK.COM (Stan Kalinowski)
 writes:
> I hit upon the idea of copying the TOS roms into a
> PROM programmer and making a higher density, 2-ROM chip from the 6-ROM
> set that I bought.  It seems like it should be fairly straignt
> forward.  I should be OK from a copyright/legal standpoint as long as
 
I think this is impossible, for the following reason: The ROMs in a
mega-ST have a standard pinout. All pins are used on these ROMs.
An EPROM needs an extra pin (Vpp) in order to program it, and with
this standard pinout, there is just no spare pin left for this function.
So I am afraid you will not be able to find EPROMs which can be used as
an equivalent for the 2-ROM set.
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 10 Nov 89 09:09:36 GMT
From: mcsun!hp4nl!ruuinf!verwer@uunet.uu.net  (Nico Verwer)
Subject: Problems booting w/accessories...
 
In article <1669@fredonia.UUCP>, sale5312@fredonia.UUCP (Marty Saletta) writes:
|
|    I've got many disks with accessories, AUTO programs, etc.  Sometimes
| when I boot up with such a floppy (I'd guess about 10% of the time) I
| get the computer loading a few of the accessories, but then doing a
| cold or warm boot in the middle.  It's like someone hitting the reset
| switch during bootup before the GEM Desktop appears.
| [...]
| got 1 Meg so memory might no be the problem.  Anyone else have this
| happen frequently?
 
This sometimes happens to me, with about the same frequency. The boot
procedure seems to go all right, and then suddenly a reset occurs.
The machine boots again, and everything is fine.
 
I boot from a hard disk (megafile 30), and I also stick to the rules.
 
First, I thought this might be caused by random bits in RAM, which make
TOS think something terrible has happened.
However, yesterday I noticed that the reboot occurred after the set
time/date program was run from the auto folder, and that it ocuured
when I set a wrong time/date, i.e. I just kept the time/date of the
previous boot. Maybe the program notices that it has been active at
some later time/date (some set time/date programs save the time/date
information) and doesn't want this.
It might also be the case that an error occurs while trying to set the
internal ST clock. I do not have an add-on clock, b.t.w.
 
This was what I could think of, but it doesn't sound too probable to me.
Maybe someone else knows the reason for these spurious reboots?
 
--
Nico Verwer @ Dept. of Computer Science, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
verwer@cs.ruu.nl    +31 30 533921
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 Nov 89 09:17:16 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!edcastle!hwcs!neil@uunet.uu.net  (Neil Forsyth)
Subject: Trip-a-Tron
 
In article <8911071025160FD.BXSS@RAI.CC.FSU.EDU> BAILEYS@FSU.BITNET (NOLES #1)
writes:
>noticed a piece of software for sale that sounds right up my alley.  It is
>called Trip-a-Tron, and is a "light synthesiser".  Basically, a neato
>moving color graphics creator that can be driven by MIDI signals.  It also
>states that Trip-a-Tron has it's own control language, for programming the
>demos.  I am VERY interested in this package (Trip-a-Tron, FM modulator,
>and a Kloss Vidio Beam would make a dandy wall-sized distractor at a night
>club).  Does anyone out there have this package?  Does it work on US
>machines (very important)?  Is there a used copy I might liberate from some
>individual?  The add states that it is made by Llamasoft.
 
Well I have a friend who bought this ages ago and thought it was going to be
great. The sadness of it is that although the author, Jeff Minter, is a very
capable programmer he could not document his creation to save his life.
His manual dwells long and hard on simple things like the colour palette but
skips briefly over the complex waveform generator. Jeff is totally into
sheep, goats and llamas and forces this obsession down your throat by placing
them all over his custom menus. To exit his file selector click on the sheep
saying baa! Having said that you could still play around with it and have a
good time with the supplied material for what you describe above. Trying to
invent something of your own will surely drive you nuts!
 
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
! DISCLAIMER: Unless otherwise stated, the above comments are entirely my own !
!                                                                             !
! 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, UK            "Without milk or suger" - "Or tea!"      !
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Fri, 10 NOV 89 10:44:50
From: WOODALLP%VAX1.COMPUTER-CENTRE.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
 
There was recently a question about Music notation packages for the ST
there was recently a very good review of a product in the British mag ST-World
(October I think). This was called Music DTP and was produced by a firm called
Take Control. This was a DTP prog purely for music, I have seen output on
the Atari Laser, NEC P6/7/2200 and Epson, I think it does laserjet (as it is
GDOS based) and I believe Postscript is on the way but I am not sure. I do not
have the adress of this firm but some other British user on the net may have.
 
As far as I can tell the prog does not support Midi (at the moment) but it
offers typographical control far beyond the midi based systems. I saw it at
the last Atari Show (here in the UK) and was very impressed. I think it
costs about 300 pounds.
 
Hope this is of help.
 
p.s. sorry about using two recentlys together in the firstt sentance.
 
Phil Woodall  Dept of Elec Eng, University of Birmingham (England)
 
WOODALLP@UK.AC.BHAM.VAX1
 
 
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End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #630
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