INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Sat,  9 Dec 89       Volume 89 : Issue 782
 
Today's Topics:
                            cartridge port
                           Hey, you she/he!
                               NOTATOR
                         Saving the menu bar
                   Soz C V1.2 Upgrade help required
                           TeX and Calamus
                      TOS 1.4 Incompatibilities
                          Trash, Disks, etc.
                   Wanted: Restaurant Management SW
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: 9 Dec 89 16:49:56 GMT
From: ogicse!blake!ramsiri@ucsd.edu  (Enartloc Nhoj)
Subject: cartridge port
Message-ID: <4840@blake.acs.washington.edu>
 
Considering all the discussion about cartidges lately,
I was wondering what the prospects are for building
an inexpensive multi-port extension that would allow
those who need the port for more than one application
to not have to turn the machine off.. reinstall "another"
cartridge or dongle etc.. Doing this on a regular basis
will only ask for problems.. guarranteed damage to the
port and to the cartridge or dongle.
 
Specifically, I would like to get the GCR.. I also use
NOTATOR on a very regular basis.  There are other
commercial products requiring the use of the cartridge port,
obviously...  I assume building a cartridge extender is
difficult and costly.. otherwise there would be one on the
market...  C-LAB puts out "The Combiner" for $349.00.
Seems a bit pricey to me!
 
Does anyone know of another in development.. or already available
that is reasonably priced?
 
-kevin
ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 89 08:11:38 EST
From: David Megginson <MEGGIN@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Hey, you she/he!
Message-ID: <89Dec9.082033est.57440@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca>
 
OK. Let's see if I can end the debate. A few hundred years ago, people
in English started using 'ye/you' (//French vous), which is plural, to
address a single person politely. Now we barely ever use 'thou/thee'
(//French tu/te) except in special religious contexts, and we use the
plural 'you' (we have lost 'ye') for everyone. For my children or
grandchildren, 'they/them' for a single person will be normal, as in
     "Every user should check their computer."
That sounds terrible to me, but in 50 years I'll be dead anyway, and
none of the people using it will care. He/she and s/he are just
temporary crutches for people like me who don't like a singular 'they',
but the English language has changed and will change, like it or not.
 
 
      David Megginson, Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 Dec 89 17:02:46 GMT
From: ogicse!blake!ramsiri@ucsd.edu  (Enartloc Nhoj)
Subject: NOTATOR
Message-ID: <4841@blake.acs.washington.edu>
 
NOTATOR currently does NOT work with
either the moniterm nor with Jim ALlen's
accelerator.
 
The Moniterm support will take about two weeks of
software work (according to the US national rep)..
 
TO work with the Turbo16 accelerator or with the TT,
a change in the timing of the read of the dongle has
to be implemented... another software change.
 
Regarding the accelerator:  I am told that there
is a German board that does work with NOTATOR.. however,
the cache has to be disabled.. and as a result, there are
no real noticeable improvements in scrolling ..
 
However, as the update to NOTATOR will include a full page
preview among other things.. it would be nice to have
MONITERM support.  As it is now, one needs to do a lot
of verticle scrolling when viewing and editing more than
6 tracks.  This gets very time consuming.
 
POINT:  THe US rep Mikhail Graham tells me that C-LAB won't
support the MONITERM unless they get a few hundred calls
requesting it.  SO far there has been few.  So, if any of you
NOTATOR users are simply waiting for MONITERM support.. it won't
be there unless we call in our request.
 
Here's the name and number of the C-LAB rep.  A very nice guy
i might add:
 
 
              Mikhail Graham
              1-916-265-6484
 
He's always receptive to ideas and encourages users to make
suggestions for improving the already awesome NOTATOR.
 
-kevin
ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 89 07:53:18 EST
From: David Megginson <MEGGIN@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: Saving the menu bar
Message-ID: <89Dec9.080019est.57438@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca>
 
In response to the question about saving the menu bar:
 
The menubar disappears when you execute a TOS program from a GEM program
and then return (using the VDI escape functions to get a TOS screen).
There are a couple of ways to save the menu bar. First, if your application
is actually an application (ie. it owns the menu bar), just use menu_bar()
to hide the menu before you run a program, and use it to redisplay the
menu afterwards. If it is an accessory (be careful here!), call wind_get()
with window handle 0 (DESK) to get the working area of the desktop, and
you should be able to presume that everything from 0 to X with width Y
is the menu bar (use the VDI raster functions to save it!). Good luck.
 
 
      David Megginson, Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 7 Dec 89 18:28:15 GMT
From: uvm-gen!pegram@uunet.uu.net  (pegram r)
Subject: Soz C V1.2 Upgrade help required
Message-ID: <1362@uvm-gen.UUCP>
 
From article <1852@atari.UUCP>, by kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher):
> steve@thelake.UUCP (Steve Yelvington) writes:
> | In addition to providing a proper environment string, Gulam (or any other
> | competent shell) will pass arguments to the Sozobon compiler and utilities
> | without mangling them. GEM Desktop uppercases everything [...]
 
> The Desktop stopped doing that as of Mega TOS.  Rainbow TOS doesn't mangle
> args in the TTP box either.  Yet Another Reason To Get Rainbow TOS.
> --
>    |||   Ken Badertscher  (ames!atari!kbad)
>    |||   Atari R&D System Software Engine
>   / | \  #include <disclaimer>
 
One good thing came from that original bug in the Desktop, Dan Wilga
wrote Neodesk.  It still supports a proper environment string (which
you have to set up) and probably could run Soz C.  So people with and
without TOS 1.4 can run good stuff from a<n excellent> desktop.
 
        Damn news posting program wants more original input, so here's
a short description of NeoDesk.  ND replaces the desktop with an
enhanced version, it can remain resident (about 230K) and function
just like the desktop, or it can leave only 21k in Ram as programs
execute, reloading afterwards (slow! w/o pinhed 8-)).  It supports
icons for every possible program name or extension, which can be
created in its own icon editor.  It improves on the desktop in many
subtle ways: printer icon for printing with spooling, so double clicking on
a non executable icon immediately shows its contents on the screen - it
can run a command interpreter on batch files -  it does a correct application
install - allows "program icons" to be placed on the desktop, so you
don't have to shuffle through all your hard drive folders to execute
those programs, has keyboard equivalents for many menu and desktop
operations, and more that I forget (improved disk and file copy,
formatting to real IBM, sets date and time correctly, allows file MOVES...
8-)).
 
Speaking of reloading and such can anyone tell me why the Laser C (2.1)
shell loads external programs so fast?  I run it with Pinhed,
TurboSt 1.6, and TurboDos 1.05, and it beats the desktop and NeoDesk
(2.03) all to pieces.
 
On speedups and the reverse, I pulled out my HabaWriter 1.1 (the debugged
version) and ran it with TurboST.  Very amused to find that TurboST
makes it acceptably fast, but it still won't do double spacing.
TurboSt 1.6 slows one program drastically, Opus 1.? (from STLog), the
lines dividing the cells take forever to draw.  TurboST 1.6 (on Monochrome)
also blows up if it's in Multidesk and Neodesk runs afterwards.
 
Bob Pegram (pegram@griffin.uvm-gen.uvm.edu <@ U.of Vt.>)
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 89 08:52:55 EST
From: David Megginson <MEGGIN@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: TeX and Calamus
Message-ID: <89Dec9.085925est.57401@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca>
 
TeX is not the only package which can typeset mathematics, nor is it the
only package which can print out long documents without stopping.
It is very simple in Calamus to set mathematical formulas, since you can
use the arrow keys to move individual characters around on the display
(when PKS Write comes out, you will find it even easier). Calamus can
also print out about 100 pages (or more, depending on the complexity
of the graphics) on an SLM804 in under half an hour. You can include
various combinations of text, alignment, attributes _and_ kerning in
Calamus macros, so mathematic formulas would take only seconds!
 
All said, it is still smarter to distribute in TeX because 1) TeX is
free and 2) TeX exists on different machines.
 
 
 
    David Megginson, Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sat, 9 Dec 89 08:34:55 EST
From: David Megginson <MEGGIN@vm.epas.utoronto.ca>
Subject: TOS 1.4 Incompatibilities
Message-ID: <89Dec9.084059est.57396@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca>
 
Please stop posting arbitrary incompatibility lists for TOS 1.4. Most of
the problems posted come from using a disk-based version of the TOS.
First, the disk-based version is a BETA version, with many bugs still in
it; second, the disk-based version takes up RAM and changes the location
where some poorly-written, non-portable games expect to find things in
your computer; finally, the disk-based version takes up about 200k, so
your big GDOS program (like DTP) may not be able to run correctly.
 
Even if you have the chip set for TOS 1.4, take everything off your
computer (QuickST, accessories, other auto programs, _everything_!),
do a _cold_ boot, and then try it again. There has been way too much
mis-information floating around about TOS 1.4.
 
 
          David Megginson, Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 8 Dec 89 16:04:32 GMT
From: uvm-gen!pegram@uunet.uu.net  (pegram r)
Subject: Trash, Disks, etc.
Message-ID: <1363@uvm-gen.UUCP>
 
From article <929@uhnix2.uh.edu>, by uace0@uhnix2.uh.edu (Michael B. Vederman):
(text deleted here, maybe I can post this without too much extra verbiage!)
 
>Double Click Software (us) is about to release a new product called DC DESKTOP
(deleted text here....)
> This AUTO folder program will *not* replace, but _enhance_ the GEM desktop so
> much, you won't believe your eyes!
(more deleted text here....)
> - mike
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Double Click Me | Double Click Software | P.O. Box 741206 | Houston, Tx, 77274
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Support BBS: (713)944-0108 | SHADOW | DC FORMATTER | DC UTILITIES | and others
 
Hey Mike V., Will we be able to set up a "proper environment string"
with DC DESKTOP??
 
Bob Pegram (pegram@griffin.uvm-gen.uvm.edu <@ U. of Vt.>)
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 7 Dec 89 03:27:19 GMT
From: nis!pwcs!stag!trb@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu  ( Todd Burkey )
Subject: Wanted: Restaurant Management SW
Message-ID: <1989Dec7.032719.12687@stag.UUCP>
 
Hi,
  Does anyone know of any good restaurant management packages that exist
  for the IBM PC or Atari ST (or any other computer for that matter?)
  Thanks,
    -Todd Burkey
     pwcs!stag!trb
 
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End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #782
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