INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Wed,  9 May 90       Volume 90 : Issue  527
 
Today's Topics:
                       Comments on N_SYSCOM.ACC
                              DCDESKTOP
                      Fading SM124 inverse video
                     More on The Vault / The Key
               poolfix3, poolfix4; naming conventions.
                    Problems with drive light....
                       problems with GDOS, Opus
                             Unix Windows
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: Wed, 9 May 90 15:42 N
From: <KRUYSBER%HNYKUN53.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Comments on N_SYSCOM.ACC
 
Open answer to:
Howard C. Johson
hcj@lzsc.att.com
 
Re:Re: N_SYSCOM.ACC
 
I developed and updated this program. So about the three criticisms:
 
>1. Do not clear the screen at startup.  An ACC loads after other programs
>  in the AUTO folder and I like to see what they have to say.
 
The 1.1 version DID clear the screen at startup. HOWEVER: as soon as GEM
is started the screen is cleared! The fact that this program has to be
started as an accessory means that the screen is already cleared for me.
The 1.2 version does not clear the screen, so you will be able to see the
information from other accessories (and only from them ...).
 
>2. A means to slow the display and/or log the system calls is really needed.
>   As it is now, there is just a blur.  Pretty, but not useful.
 
The fact that it is a blur means that your Atari is working and working ...
I am sorry that your computer is that fast. Slowing the display down (i.e.
holding the information but not interfering with the computer speed) is
not a wise thing to do, because all you get is an abstract of the executed
commands: you're loosing the sequence. So all I can offer is slowing the
computer down. I hate to do that (finally able to buy a nice ST and then
slowing the thing down to IBM compatibility ...). But I'm afraid that's
the only way to do it. So version 1.2 has the ability to slow your ST down
in 2 ways ('Much' and 'Little'). I do not have the intention at this moment
to make something like a log file. This software (merely meant as a
gimmick ...) would then become too professional ...
 
>3. Did you purposfully scramble the letters in the ASCII strings?  It sure
>   makes simple fixes a pain.
 
Well, why should I? This was due to a tiny little buggy: instead of adding
extending d0.b to d0.w before adding d0 to a0 I added d0.b: the other byte
contained garbage every now and then, which led to a pointer to somewhere
in memory, where there was 'garbage'. I never had this problem, because
I am using N_SYSTEM.ACC (a multipurpose accessory) all of the time, and
that one clears d0 in its VBL routine, so adding d0.b to a0 causes no
problem. This has been fixed in version 1.2: NOW available at your
local (?) panarthea.
 
I am always open to suggestions and criticism; version 1.2 is mainly
based upon other peoples wishes!
 
Noud van Kruysbergen
NICI Nijmegen
The Netherlands
kruysbergen@hnykun53.bitnet
kruysbergen@knupv1.psych.kun.nl
 
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 May 90 10:49:59 GMT
From: mcsun!unido!tub!tubopal!ripley@uunet.uu.net  (Ch. Eckert)
Subject: DCDESKTOP
Message-ID: <1455@opal.tubopal.UUCP>
 
I tried to install DC-Desktop and the following happend:
Itstarts all active moduls and instead of launching the desktop,
it simply reboots. I tried it on an extra disk (didn't want to puzzle with
my HD's auto-folder ;-) and without any accessories...
No luck.
 
The system: 520STM (1 MB) with german TOS 1.4 and SM124. The harddisk
is connected via the c't-omti adaptor, but as I rebooted without it,
I think the problem is elsewhere.
 
And yes, I did follow the instructions of the .doc-file (especially
concerning the sequence of the programs).
 
Greetings,
                                RIPLEY
 
--
Greetings from RIPLEY | UUCP: ripley@tubopal.UUCP (ripley@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de)
Hans-Christian Eckert |         ...!unido!tub!opal!ripley (Europe)
D-1000 Berlin 30      |         ...!pyramid!tub!opal!ripley (World)
Regensburger Str. 2   | BITNET: ripley%tubopal@DB0TUI11.BITNET (saves $$$)
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 May 90 12:21:30 GMT
From: mcsun!unido!tub!tubopal!ripley@uunet.uu.net  (Ch. Eckert)
Subject: Fading SM124 inverse video
Message-ID: <1457@opal.tubopal.UUCP>
 
]In article <9004271625.a015851@nabla.electrical-engineering.umist.ac.uk>
 idh@NABLA.ELECTRICAL-ENGINEERING.UMIST.AC.UK (Ian D Hawkins) writes:
]When I use my SM124 monitor with inverse video (white on black)
]I find that the characters become increasingly dim,  eventually
]becoming illegible;  most especially when the screen is almost
]entirely black already.  Has anyone else found this/got a
]solution ?.
I have it, too.
The solution is quite simple. You only need a 20k-potentiometer and solder
it parallel to a condensator. As I don't have the curcuit-map of the monitor
handy at the moment, I can't tell you which one it was, though.
This patch was sent to me by Volker Brandt from Bonn (vbrandt@dbnuama1.bitnet,
I don't know if he still has this account, I only remember dimly there
changed something). Volker, if you are still around, can you tell which
condensator it was?
 
Greetings,
                                RIPLEY
 
Disclaimer: I still haven't installed this (sigh). I can't guarantee, that
it works.
 
--
Greetings from RIPLEY | UUCP: ripley@tubopal.UUCP (ripley@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de)
Hans-Christian Eckert |         ...!unido!tub!opal!ripley (Europe)
D-1000 Berlin 30      |         ...!pyramid!tub!opal!ripley (World)
Regensburger Str. 2   | BITNET: ripley%tubopal@DB0TUI11.BITNET (saves $$$)
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 May 90 12:49:11 GMT
From: mcsun!unido!tub!tubopal!ripley@uunet.uu.net  (Ch. Eckert)
Subject: More on The Vault / The Key
Message-ID: <1458@opal.tubopal.UUCP>
 
In article <1124@bambam.UUCP> mcallist@bambam.UUCP (Steve McAllister) writes:
]The Vault and The Key are both great.  I lost my hard drive, complete with
I agree. There are only two minor problems which hit me:
 
Copying the auto-folder results in (sort of) garbage. The files each
for itself ar OK, sure, but they're resorted afterwards.
Well, I used tar and compress and all went fine. ;-)
(Zoo and arc did no good. Either I invoke them for each file again, then
they're sorted in when copying the rest of the archive around. If I do
"zoo -a archive *" from within gulam, they're sorted. If I do "zoo -a
archiv '*'", zoo sorts the filenames itself. Arc reacted this way, too.
What also worked was using the MT C-Shell and doing "ls -u1 |  zoo aI archive"
thus listing the contents of auto without sorting and each entry on its
own line and piping these into zoo, reading filenames from stdin.)
 
The other one: empty directories aren't backup'ed and therefore aren't
copied back. I do have some directories which are essential, though empty
most of the time (you know things like /usr/spool/uucp, don't you? ;-)
Well, I did a "du c d e f g > dirlist" and manually edited the logfile
to a gulam-script to mkdir all missing directories.
 
Greetings,
                                RIPLEY
 
--
Greetings from RIPLEY | UUCP: ripley@tubopal.UUCP (ripley@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de)
Hans-Christian Eckert |         ...!unido!tub!opal!ripley (Europe)
D-1000 Berlin 30      |         ...!pyramid!tub!opal!ripley (World)
Regensburger Str. 2   | BITNET: ripley%tubopal@DB0TUI11.BITNET (saves $$$)
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 May 90 12:33:45 GMT
From: usc!snorkelwacker!ira.uka.de!fauern!fauern!csbrod@ucsd.edu  (Claus Brod )
Subject: poolfix3, poolfix4; naming conventions.
Message-ID: <2718@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
 
dmb@wam.umd.edu (David M. Baggett) writes:
 
>The problem was not with the program itself, but with the author's
>attitude.  Allan Pratt may not be perfect, but then again if you've
>every released software to the world you know that getting everything
>absolutely right the first time isn't likely no matter how careful you are.
 
>The original poolfix4 posting was one of the most pompous and obnoxious
>messages I've ever seen in this newsgroup.  There was more of an
>"I'm a better hacker, Nyyaah!" feeling there than an "I'm trying to help
>out" attitude.  If I'd been Allan I would have been annoyed too.
 
Well, right, the first readme file that I sent to some friends who needed
a patched POOLFIX version was a bit provocative. I've changed that
meanwhile, and I apologized for allowing Chris overhastedly to post it.
Maybe you would understand my attitude in the readme file if you know
how you feel like after an evening of disassembling and patching a
foreign program in order to solve a SEP (somebody else's problem) which
ATARI should have known about and cared for for a long time.
(Remember: The bug has been reported! BTW: It isn't the only bug
in the pool manager, but this is another story and we're currently
trying to find out more about it.)
 
Alas, if you could read some of my articles in German ST magazines or
my book, you wouldn't have been very surprised to find unusual readmes
from me. My readers seem to like it, and so far nobody really did mind.
 
Allan Pratt's message that I've seen didn't mention the readme file,
so it seems he wasn't particularly upset because of this. His point
was different: Publishing the program as POOLFIX4, and failing to ask
before. I really do regret doing this, and I hope Allan will someday
forgive me. But on the other hand, there's a real demand for patches
and programs like this, and we're fed up with waiting for ATARI to
do it for us in Germany. We have learnt a lesson: Don't wait for ATARI
to fix it, fix it yourself. This is a main reason why ATARI is so
successful over here: They are supported by their users. It should
be the other way round, though.
 
Don't forget this is a personal opinion derived from a 4-years-experience
with the ST and ATARI; others will disagree or have experienced much more
feedback from ATARI. Maybe I'm the only one who feels a lack of support.
 
I hope that Allan will come up with his own POOLFIX4 version and end
this discussion.
 
Claus Brod
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 May 90 12:37:27 GMT
From: usc!snorkelwacker!ira.uka.de!fauern!fauern!csbrod@ucsd.edu  (Claus Brod )
Subject: Problems with drive light....
Message-ID: <2719@medusa.informatik.uni-erlangen.de>
 
tmwhitehead@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu writes:
 
>When it's been on for a little while, the drive light comes on, and stays on.
>I dont hear a spinning, the light just comes on.  If I access the drive, the
>light will go off when it is done, and sometimes it comes back on, other times
>it doesn't.  The drive has had problems recognizing a media change for a long
>time now, but I usually just change the right protect status of the disk, and
>it reads teh new disk.
>desktop appears, but it remains white for a few seconds before it turns green.
>This didn't use to happen before.  It used to go to green right away.
 
First try to disable your AUTO folder programs and ACCs and see what happens.
Nobody here can detect the problem when you've installed so many programs
that might interfere with each other. Do some testing, then let us know.
 
Claus Brod
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 May 90 12:53:28 GMT
From: mentor.cc.purdue.edu!gwa@purdue.edu  (James D. Yegerlehner)
Subject: problems with GDOS, Opus
Message-ID: <10589@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
 
Dear Netters,
I have been using Opus for some time, but could never use the charting
facility because I dodn't have GDOS.  But now I have AMCGDOS (from Gemini),
which should make it possible to use the charting ability of Opus.
But when I try to run assigner.prg on the assign.sys that came with Gemini,
it reports that the font files don't exist, even though PATH points directly
to c:\gemsys\ which contains the *.fnt files.  If anyone can tell me what
I'm doing wrong, or has a suggestion, I would much appreciate it,
 
Thanks,
Jim
yegerleh@en.purdue.edu       gwa@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
 
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 9 May 90 11:13:15 GMT
From: mcsun!unido!tub!tubopal!ripley@uunet.uu.net  (Ch. Eckert)
Subject: Unix Windows
Message-ID: <1456@opal.tubopal.UUCP>
 
In article <1396@carroll1.cc.edu> dnewton@carroll1.cc.edu (Dave Newton the Late)
 writes:
]In article <1327.2639e4d8@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu>
 rlcollins@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu writes:
]> [uw references]
]>Anyway, has anyone got it to run?
]
]   Yes, I got it to work on my mono 1040.  Unfortunately, the host side was
]written (apparently) for VAX VMS, which I did not have the inclination to
]port (uw, not VMS :-).
]   So, if anyone has a SysV version of the unix window host side, let me
](us) know...
 
Here we have a BSD-Server up and running (under SunOS 4.x). A sys5-server
might be nice though, as the version currenctly available will not
run under Xenix (which the other side I read News on runs.)
 
BTW: Is there any usable documentation about the uw-protocol? I browsed
through the archive-list of our version here and didn't find such a thing.
I don't want to browse the sources in order to find out how the protocol
works.
 
Greetings,
                                RIPLEY
 
--
Greetings from RIPLEY | UUCP: ripley@tubopal.UUCP (ripley@opal.cs.tu-berlin.de)
Hans-Christian Eckert |         ...!unido!tub!opal!ripley (Europe)
D-1000 Berlin 30      |         ...!pyramid!tub!opal!ripley (World)
Regensburger Str. 2   | BITNET: ripley%tubopal@DB0TUI11.BITNET (saves $$$)
 
------------------------------
 
End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V90 Issue #527
*****************************************
