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INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Tue, 19 Dec 89       Volume 89 : Issue  833
 
Today's Topics:
                       dictionaries for sale/PD
                        GDOS vs LaserJet vs me
                  HELP from Southwestern OK State U.
                      Need Mailing Label Program
                        Re: Unexpandable megas
                     Upbeat note on Atari Canada
              Wanna know where the Archive sites are...
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: 19 Dec 89 05:46:33 GMT
From:
 zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!execu!sequoia!rpp386!puzzle!k
 hijol!erc@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (Edwin R. Carp)
Subject: dictionaries for sale/PD
Message-ID: <662@khijol.UUCP>
 
In article <4928@blake.acs.washington.edu> ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu
 (Enartloc Nhoj) writes:
>Does anyone know where I can get hold
 
>I heard of Austin Code Words... but
 
Couldn't email to you - your address wasn't in the usenet maps.  Austin Code
Works is (usually) listed in Dr. Dobb's
 
--------------------------- discard all after this line -----------------------
Ed Carp N7EKG/5 (28.3-28.5) ...!attctc!puzzle!khijol!erc  (home) (512) 832-5884
Snail Mail:  2000 Cedar Bend Dr., #335, Austin, TX  78758
 
[Disclaimer:  The information contained in this message is soley for informa-
tional purposes only.  Use at your own risk.  No warranty expressed or
implied.]
 
"You may think you're smart, Pierce, but you're DUMB! Real DUMB!  But, you've
met your match in ME!"  - Col. Flagg
"Good tea.  Nice house."  -- Worf
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 20 Dec 89 03:07:04 GMT
From:
 cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!dgp.toronto.edu!hugh@tut.cis.ohio-state.e
 du  (D. Hugh Redelmeier)
Subject: GDOS vs LaserJet vs me
Message-ID: <1989Dec19.220704.27677@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu>
 
I recently bought an HP LaserJet IIP for my 1040ST (and my Sun, but
that is another story).  To exploit the capabilities of the LJ, I
bought a GDOS driver for it (TurboJet from Neocept).  I am
attempting to use it with Microsoft Write and EasyDraw.
 
The whole experience has not been very pleasant.  I have encountered
innumerable problems, many of which remain a mystery.  This note
contains both cautionary tales, and pleas for help.  Perhaps I should
mention that my 1040 has TOS1.4, GDOS 1.1, and EasyDraw 2.3.  There
is only one (released) version of MS Write.
 
- Using GDOS to drive the LJ seems unnecessarily slow.  At least the
  first page of fairly plain text output takes a couple of minutes.
  In contrast, TeX drives the printer at close to its full rated
  speed, 4 pages per minute.  [The TeX output bytes were generated by
  my Sun, but they were transmitted to the printer by my ST.]  The
  key seems to be that the TeX driver downloads fonts a character at
  a time, ON DEMAND.  Often, most characters in a font never get
  downloaded.  The GDOS driver may not even use fonts, I don't know.
 
- Being an official Atari ST Developer, I thought that I might be
  able to write my own driver to solve the speed problem.  ATARI
  sent me their GDOS printer driver construction kit.
  Unfortunately, it contains no documentation of the interface
  between GDOS and printer drivers!  Neither does it contain
  documentation on the library of routines provided to do many of
  the driver tasks.  There are several sample drivers for dot-matrix
  printers, so no doubt one could easily be mutated into a driver
  for another dot-matrix printer.  This is no help in supporting the
  LJ well (i.e. figuring out how to download and then use fonts).
  Atari Canada said that what I got is all there is.  Atari US says
  that it is a Big Deal to get more (proposal in writing for Big
  People to consider).
 
- When GDOS is loaded, MS Write will crash when I use upparrow or
  downarrow keys to cross a change-of-indent.  This does not happen
  without GDOS.
 
- I tried to use GDOS with a large RAM disk.  Apparently this left
  too little memory for GDOS.  The symptoms were not at all clear
  and it took me a week to figure out the problem.  The symptoms
  were that MS Write and EasyDraw were not able to display all the
  fonts they should have, and could print even fewer.  GDOS or the
  printer driver made font substitutions with *no* diagnostic.  As
  you might imagine, I spent many fruitless hours playing with the
  assign.sys etc.
 
- MS Write seems to require all printer fonts to be loaded into RAM,
  even if they are not used.  On a 1040ST, this means that you must
  hide some fonts from Write (don't list them in assign.sys, or don't
  have them in the specified files).  Again, failure is indicated by
  printing with the wrong font.
 
- EasyDraw crashes when I try to save files.  I found that this does
  not happen if I use an obsolete version of meta.sys.  Migraph
  doesn't know why (but I only phoned them once).
 
- I sometimes use AMCGDOS (broadcast over the net from Germany) in
  place of GDOS.  I have not really noticed any difference, but I
  use either version of GDOS as little as I can manage.
 
- The only PD font that I have found that comes in the resolutions I
  need is "Camelot".  Unfortunately the 300DPI version seems to
  malformed: TurboJet won't touch it.  Are there other PD fonts in
  screen and laser resolutions?  I wonder if it would be easy to
  convert MetaFont (TeX) fonts to GDOS formats.
 
- Sometimes the 1040ST seems to think that the HPLJIIP is busy when
  it isn't.  This is independent of GDOS -- it happens for normal
  printouts too.  It only happens when the ST first tries to use the
  printer after the printer or the ST has been powered on (not every
  time; it may depend on which is powered on first).  I presume that
  this is related to problems people have reported with HP DeskJet
  printers connected to STs.  The program djreset.acc previously
  broadcast on the net seems to overcome this problem, but it is
  hard to activate it while running a non-GEM program.
 
Trying to discover the source of problems or find workarounds is
very painful.  There are just too many components and I have no
tools to audit the interfaces.
 
GDOS is a tool that adds what should be an important dimension to
the ST.  Many feel GDOS should have been built into GEM, burned into
the ROMS.  The current licensing rules just seem to be a nuisance.
Since AMCGDOS has been broadcast, all that is needed to avoid
licensing is a collection of reasonable fonts and printer drivers.
 
GDOS as it is now is cumbersome and slow.  For me, the worst problem
is that I now have very little confidence in GDOS-based software.
 
Remember: my experience has been as a user, not a programmer.  I
have not used it extensively (too painful :-).  So take my comments
with a grain of salt.
 
Hugh Redelmeier
?utcsri, yunexus, uunet!attcan, utzoo, hcr?!redvax!hugh
When all else fails: hugh@csri.toronto.edu
+1 416 482-8253
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 20 Dec 89 01:22:15 GMT
From: cs.utexas.edu!psurge@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (Troy Carpenter)
Subject: HELP from Southwestern OK State U.
Message-ID: <7395@cs.utexas.edu>
 
I got the help for my friend at SWOSU, so thanks to all who responded,
I am terribly greatfull.
 
 
                              Troy Carpenter
                            Computer  Sciences
                      THE University of Texas, Austin
                           psurge@cs.utexas.edu
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 19 Dec 89 20:26:46 GMT
From: fox!portal!cup.portal.com!CharlieBrown@apple.com  (Charles F Schieber)
Subject: Need Mailing Label Program
Message-ID: <25190@cup.portal.com>
 
Timeworks DataManager has a good label program which we use to send out our w
B.A.A.U.G. monthly new letter.It is not PD or shareware though.Dont have any
price information to pass on.
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 20 Dec 89 00:36:46 GMT
From: mcsun!sunic!lth.se!newsuser@uunet.uu.net  (Ralph Haglund)
Subject: Re: Unexpandable megas
Message-ID: <1989Dec20.003646.25702@lth.se>
 
Why ATARI would make TWO motherboards to produce unexpandable Megas???
Weellll - as far as I have heard, the MEGA1 is intentionally made VERY
hard to expand. Is that true someone???
 
 
|-------------------------------------------------------------|
|  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: 20 Dec 89 01:07:11 GMT
From:
 zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!helios.
 physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!maccs!johns@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (Conan the
 Barbarian)
Subject: Upbeat note on Atari Canada
Message-ID: <258EDB40.1672@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
 
        A while ago I posted a note on how I was worried about our local
dealers not being able to get their hands on computers.  Well, I just heard
that one dealer sold 6 (all he could get his hands on) STEs on Saturday the
16th.  Sounds good.  Saturday they also took in 70 copied of DM II: CSB.
Monday night 45 copies were left.  Brisk business, and that makes me feel good
about the local Atari scene.  And, optimistically, I like to think it reflects
a much larger scene.  Am I right or wrong?
 
 
--
"After all is said and done,                       John Schmitt
 a lot more is said than done."                    johns@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca
Don't blame anybody for what I say.                SCHMITTJ@SCIvax.mcmaster.ca
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 19 Dec 89 19:34:02 GMT
From: attctc!jdoss@eddie.mit.edu  (Joe Doss)
Subject: Wanna know where the Archive sites are...
Message-ID: <10671@attctc.Dallas.TX.US>
 
In article <12300@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> mpsimon@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (M.
 Patrick Simon) writes:
>In article <21521@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU> cr1@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Christopher
 Roth) writes:
>>Hello,  I would like to know where the FTP'able Atari ST stuff is.
>>What is the FTP address?
>
>I also would like to know what archives are currently out there.
 
Bugs.nosc.mil (don't know the internet numbers) archives all messages posted
to comp.os.minix, both those relating to PC's and to ST's.  The serial port
driver from Howard C. Johnson is definately there.  Look for files ending
in lzaz.att.com. There were something like 12 parts to the RS232 posting.
Another good place to find archives is the Mars Hotel BBS (301-277-9408)
It's accessable through PC-Pursuit and it archives most of the source and
interesting articles posted to this newsgroup.
 
>(stuff about accidentally transfering a 16-bit compressed file to his ST)
>Question: is there a compress for minix which removes this
>restriction? (if not, I just have to retransfer down the corrected compressed
>file).
Dale Schumacher posted a version of compress that handles 16-bits on the ST,
sometime earlier this year.  Check bugs.nosc.mil or the Mars Hotel.
 
>
>Thanks,
>--Patrick Simon     mpsimon@phoenix.princeton.edu   12-18-89
>
>disclaimer: opinions are the author's own.
 
 
--
==============================================================================
Joe M. Doss, Jr.                               jmdst!jdoss@attctc.dallas.tx.us
Disclaimer: The opinions above are my own      ?backbones?!attctc!jmdst!jdoss
==============================================================================
 
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End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #833
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