=========================================================================
 
INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Sat, 16 Dec 89       Volume 89 : Issue  816
 
Today's Topics:
           A few questions on CAD 3D II and Cyber-animation
                              C Question
             Facts, not only talking about them. (2 msgs)
                         Source code control
                          Still searching...
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Date: 15 Dec 89 21:28:39 GMT
From:
 cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!attcan!ncrcan!hcr!jonathan@tut.cis.
 ohio-state.edu  (Jonathan Fischer)
Subject: A few questions on CAD 3D II and Cyber-animation
Message-ID: <1989Dec15.212839.1451@hcr.uucp>
 
In article <1632.25855bdf@cc.helsinki.fi> jalkio@cc.helsinki.fi writes:
>
>Can the CAD 3D II use more than 1 meg of memory? That is, can I use more
>and/or more complicated objects if I have over 1 MB of memory?
>
>Is there some way to play Cyber-animations from Hard Disk? In that way I
>could have even 80 MB (or over) of continuous Cyber-animation. Is this
>possible?
 
        Yes to both questions.  In fact, I find CAD 3D II pretty crippled
in 1 Meg unless I remove almost everything from C:\AUTO.  And yes, on
Compuserve I saw a program which plays large .DLT animation files directly
from the hard drive.  Perhaps someone who has already downloaded it can
send it to comp.binaries.atari.st.  If not, maybe I'll try to find it
again on Compuserve.
 
        I kind of wish I had more time to play with CAD 3D, Cyber Control,
et al.  It's really ideal software for a 'personal computer.'  You can have
so much fun (for a great deal of work) creating objects and doing strange
and twisted things to them.  I've even put some animations on video tape,
thanks to Practical Solutions video cable.  In a sense, the Cyber system
really represents what I bought a home system for in the first place --
being creative, and doing neat graphic doodads, just for the fun of it.
 
        Maybe if I ever get a TT (smiley alert), I won't have to wait so
long for CAD 3D to do anything.  If only Tom Hudson hadn't used floating
point... you can still accomplish everything with 'fixed-point' or even
just integer coordinates on a very large scale.
--
Jonathan Fischer             HCR Corp               Toronto, Ontario, Canada
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 15 Dec 89 21:11:42 GMT
From: unhd!al770@uunet.uu.net  (Anthony Lapadula)
Subject: C Question
Message-ID: <1989Dec15.211142.7509@uunet!unhd>
 
This probably doesn't belong in this newsgroup any more than my last
posting ("he," "she," and "e"), but....
 
 
In some article Jeff Beadles wrote:
>
> [in all of this, the use of "static" is optional. ]
 
Not if we are talking about local variables, which we are.
 
 
> char *fred = "Hello";
>
> is IDENTICAL to
>
> char fred[] = "Hello";
 
Not quite.  In the first case, a legal assignment would be
        fred = "Goodbye";                       /* 'fred' now points to a different string */
 
This assignment fails in the second case.
 
-- Anthony (No Sig Needed) Lapadula
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 15 Dec 89 22:08:59 GMT
From: imagen!atari!apratt@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Allan Pratt)
Subject: Facts, not only talking about them.
Message-ID: <1888@atari.UUCP>
 
Ralph Haglund, please don't do that again.  You are posting information
from Atari developer documentation, which is both copyright by Atari
and released under nondisclosure agreements to Atari developers.
 
The main reason we'd like you not to do that is the possibility of
introducing errors in transcription.  When you say something is
official, people rely on it.  When it turns out to be wrong, they get
mad at ATARI, not at you.
 
That and other reasons are why we say people should get things like STe
documentation by becoming developers and getting them through channels.
 
============================================
Opinions expressed above do not necessarily     -- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else.      ...ames!atari!apratt
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 16 Dec 89 08:32:28 GMT
From: mcsun!sunic!lth.se!newsuser@uunet.uu.net  (Ralph Haglund)
Subject: Facts, not only talking about them.
Message-ID: <1989Dec16.083228.25280@lth.se>
 
This info from Alan Pratt I also got privately, and privately I gave a
lengthy answer. In short: I am an "official developer", but have not got
a single sheet of info from ATARI Sweden ever since I bought the kit and
got a bunch of badly copied papers. It was clearly stated in my message
that I had made a quick resume of an article in a German magazine, and I
do think the netlanders have the same priority as the German ST community,
correct me if I am wrong.
Half a year ago or so I also sent in some sheet from the original developer
kit to Atari USA, to get some additional info. Nothing has reached me from
them either.
In June or so I called Atari Stockholm, was promised TOS1.4 and docs in a
few weeks. Still NOTHING. To be able to work I have made a copy of the ROMs,
that come with the big screen monitor..... That is the only way a Swedish
developer can get TOS 1.4, any comments?...
Sure, I hope soon to get the developer's info about the STE, I will gloat
over all the secrets I have promised not to disclose to any human being, just
for the chance of making better programs than the demos accompanying the STE.
Shouldn't take too long I must admit. One big screen, where the mouse can show
3x3 normal screens. One sound show of a minute or so, playing 3-4 different
sounds a couple of times.
ST Magazin in Germany at least sells a diskette for DM19:90 with a demo of
the 4000 colors at the same time. WITH assembly code.
I hope none from Amiga or Apple will read this, so they can steal ideas;
suppose that is what the secrecy is all about.
 
 
|-------------------------------------------------------------|
|  Want to talk to me? Try:                                   |
|  QRALPH@SELDC51  ||  QRALPH@SELDC52  ||  qralph@dna.lth.se  |
|  My name? In official Sweden it is: 4.901.185.654 (secret)  |
|  Anywhere else: Ralph Haglund                               |
|  Disclaimer: If it works, it's out of date.                 |
|_____________________________________________________________|
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 15 Dec 89 22:29:59 GMT
From: mcsun!unido!sbsvax!roeder@uunet.uu.net  (Edgar Roeder)
Subject: Source code control
Message-ID: <1839@sbsvax.UUCP>
 
In article <750039@hpsad.HP.COM>, bobw@hpsad.HP.COM (Bob Waltenspiel) writes:
>
> Does anyone know if the source code for RCS is available from somewhere,
> (MIT?)?
 
There has been a posting of RCS in the amiga source group some weeks ago. I
have not looked at the code, but maybe it could be ported to the st as well.
 
>
> -Bob
 
        - Edgar
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 16 Dec 89 04:48:53 GMT
From: bane@mimsy.umd.edu  (John R. Bane)
Subject: Still searching...
Message-ID: <21312@mimsy.umd.edu>
 
In article <1854@atari.UUCP> kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher) writes:
>
>daniel@pkmab.se (Daniel Deimert) writes:
>| Why should I buy a computer I can't use?  Like buying a car and when
>| you ask for an explanation of the buttons getting the answer: "Sorry,
>| you have to be a registred driver to get to know this.  You shouldn't
>| know about more than the gear and the wheel."
>
>Why do so many people use this analogy?  A computer is not a car.
>A computer is a computer.  But, since you insist, getting technical
>information (on a level equivalent to "How do I program DMA sound?")
>from an auto manufacturer isn't all that easy either.  Try it some time.
>
I can walk into any decent auto shop and purchase a repair manual for most
cars available in America.  I can walk into any computer book store and
purchase cubic yards of books on how to program an IBM PC or a Macintosh.
In both these cases at least one version of this information is published
by the manufacturer, and can be purchased for less than $30.
 
The only Atari-approved source of this information is the developer's kit,
which is over $100 last I heard.  The alternatives are reverse-engineering
exercises like Abacus books and the documentation supplied with various
compilers.
 
I don't require this information to be free, but I would like it to be
available from Atari for a price that meets my need for it (generalized
hacking around, little possibility of commercial success).
--
ARPAnet: bane@mimsy.umd.edu
UUCP:...umcp-cs!bane
 
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End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #816
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