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INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Thu,  5 Apr 90       Volume 90 : Issue  413
 
Today's Topics:
                           Amiga/Atari help
                      CurrentNotes at Terminator
                  HD Backup (a summary of responses)
                     Help! My Hardware is Dying!
                 How to create a senseless flame war
                Let's hear more about Toronto, Please!
                        Sozobon fix for Gemini
                         vortex PC emulation
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Date: 5 Apr 90 21:35:23 GMT
From: oliveb!amiga!cbmvax!daveh@apple.com  (Dave Haynie)
Subject: Amiga/Atari help
Message-ID: <10626@cbmvax.commodore.com>
 
In article <10365.2619c11a@zeus.unomaha.edu> fh007@zeus.unomaha.edu writes:
 
>  The amiga 3.5 has 880k where the Atari has about half.
>                                       Bob
 
Well, that's not quite true.  Both the early Mac and the early ST supported
1 sided disks, which gave them 400K and 360K, respectively.  I don't know
enough about each market to know how prevalent those formats are anymore, but
I suspect the 800K Mac disks and 720K ST disks are far more common today.
 
The mechanisms used for each format are different between machines.  The ST
uses an IBM-type disk controller and give you a format that's physically and
logically almost the same as the IBM 3.5" format.  Physcially, that's an MFM
encoding with 9 sectors/track, 2 heads, and 80 tracks.  The Mac uses a GCR
format with variable angular density, kind of like a 1990s CBM 1541, to give
you 800K per disk.  Amiga uses the same MFM encoding as the IBM/ST machines,
but it works on a track vs. sector basis.  Without requiring any spacing
between sectors, the Amiga fits 880K per disk, using 11 [logical] sectors
per track, rather than the MS-DOS setup which uses 9.  That's why Amigas have
no trouble reading MS-DOS or ST 3.5" disks.
 
--
Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests"
   ?uunet|pyramid|rutgers?!cbmvax!daveh      PLINK: hazy     BIX: hazy
                    Too much of everything is just enough
 
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Date: 5 Apr 90 22:18:48 GMT
From: umich!terminator!terminator.cc.umich.edu!weiner@CS.YALE.EDU  (Jeff Weiner)
Subject: CurrentNotes at Terminator
Message-ID: <1990Apr5.221848.27399@terminator.cc.umich.edu>
 
Hi everyone,
 
Installment #2 or currentnotes stuff is now available on terminator
in the ?atari/magazines/curnotes directory.
 
It has some past issues indexes,various columns including St Update,
and the table of contents from the past three issues.
 
For more info, get ahold of either myself or John Barnes,
(johnbarnes@enh.nist.gov).
 
Thanks and have a swell day,
 
Jmw
 
 
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Date: 5 Apr 90 17:50:55 GMT
From:
 snorkelwacker!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hplsla!andyc@tut.
 cis.ohio-state.edu  (Andy Cassino)
Subject: HD Backup (a summary of responses)
Message-ID: <5440112@hplsla.HP.COM>
 
| >I've had Diamond Back for a while now. I think it might be what you are
| >looking for. It uses the archive bit correctly, you can set it to compress
| >files, and it seems faster than Turtle, though I haven't sat down and made
|
| Where can one find this program?
|
| Steven W. Klassen                       +-----------------------------+
| Computer Science Major                  | Support the poor...buy fur! |
| University of Waterloo                  +-----------------------------+
| ----------
 
I have seen Diamond Back advertised by Joppa, MicroTyme, etc, but
I bought my copy at a local dealer, who desperately needs the business.
 
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are those solely of the author,
            who has no pecuniary interest in the companies, products,
            or publications mentioned above.
 
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
    % Andy Cassino                                                  %
    % uucp: hplabs!hplsla!andyc  domain: andyc%hplsla@hplabs.hp.com %
    % Hewlett-Packard              Lake Stevens Instrument Division %
    % 8600 Soper Hill Road                   Everett, WA 98205-1298 %
    % (206) 335-2211                                                %
    %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
 
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Date: 6 Apr 90 00:39:19 GMT
From:
 zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!
 uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!dbr00467@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Help! My Hardware is Dying!
Message-ID: <46300090@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>
 
I have been having a lot of hardware problems lately.  A color monitor died,
my mouse port on my 1040ST is really flakey and I have a couple of external
disk drives laying around which aren't really functional.
 
What I need is some information on places where I can get some of this repaired.
Preferably somewhere around St. Louis.  Alternatively, I would like to know
how to get a hold of Atari to obtain this information.  Any help will be
greatly apprectiated!
 
Please send any responses via E-Mail to the address below.
 
                                                Don Roberts
                                                dbr00467@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 5 Apr 90 21:28:31 GMT
From: oliveb!amiga!cbmvax!valentin@apple.com  (Valentin Pepelea)
Subject: How to create a senseless flame war
Message-ID: <10625@cbmvax.commodore.com>
 
In article <1985@naucse.UUCP> tar@naucse.UUCP (Tim Roeder) writes:
>In article <10607@cbmvax.commodore.com>, valentin@cbmvax.commodore.com
>(Valentin Pepelea) writes:
>>
>> Sometimes computer wars are initiated by users who have an inferiority
 complex
>> about their computers and therefore get defensive. But most often they are
>> created by users who simply never took a good look on the other side of the
>> fence. Let's analyse such a typically uninformed poster...
>>
>
>While uninformed users are generally quite a pain, I see little need to waste
>bandwidth with such an analyzation.
 
My apologies, indeed I made a mistake. I initially posted my article with the
intention of demonstrating how computer wars can be accidentally started if we
post messages about other computers when we are uninformed about them. In my
attempt to embellish the article I transformed it into another senseless
flame.
 
Now you know that flame wars are created by:
 
1. People who are uninformed and therefore accidentally start it.
2. People who do not know when to shut up.  :-(
 
Valentin
--
The Goddess of democracy? "The tyrants     Name:    Valentin Pepelea
may distroy a statue,  but they cannot     Phone:   (215) 431-9327
kill a god."                               UseNet:  cbmvax!valentin@uunet.uu.net
             - Ancient Chinese Proverb     Claimer: I not Commodore spokesman be
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Thu, 5 Apr 90 20:19 EST
From: JOHNBARNES@ENH.NIST.GOV
Subject: Let's hear more about Toronto, Please!
 
The Posting on the Toronto Convention by Brandon Brooks was fine as far as
it went, but it would be nice to know more.
 
1.) How many people came?
 
2.) Were the 5 guys from Atari all from Atari Canada?
 
3.) What about some of the seminar topics?  The preliminary announcement
     included one on a hypertext product, which I am keenly interested in.
 
4.) How many vendors were there?  Who were they?
 
5.) Were there any third-party hardware products of particular interest?
 
It would be nice to have a post with just the facts, please. No need
for an analysis of Atari's market and advertising strategies.  These
topics get more than enough bandwidth already.
 
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 6 Apr 90 00:44:17 GMT
From: uupsi!ncs.dnd.ca!balkwill@rice.edu  (R. J. Balkwill)
Subject: Sozobon fix for Gemini
Message-ID: <771@ncs.dnd.ca>
 
To all who have problems running Sozobon-built programs under Gemini.
Do not despair.  The real problem is in jas, the Sozobon assembler.
My memory is a little shaky here but after more than a few minutes
investigation I discovered the following:
 
1.  Gemini uses the xArg convention for passing arguments to programs
and Sozobon startup code honours this.  Gulam and most other shells do
not make an xArg entry in the environment so certain portions of your
startup code are never executed when calling from those.
 
2.  The section that deals with xArg passing invokes either memcpy or
lmemcpy from dlibs.
 
3.  Although the source for these functions looks ok the jas assembler
generates erroneous code for some bit-oriented instruction (btst?)
therein.  Hence your startup code walks into trash of jas' making.
 
The Solution - either reassemble the memcpy.s and lmemcpy.s functions
with a compatible assembler, or write tiny versions of your own either
in assembler or C, compile them and add them to dlibs replacing the
old versions.
 
PS - I love both Gemini and Sozobon - add in Gulam and life is fun!
---
Bob
 
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Date: 5 Apr 90 17:03:50 GMT
From: mcsun!unido!gmdzi!focke@uunet.uu.net  (Stefan Focke)
Subject: vortex PC emulation
Message-ID: <2179@gmdzi.UUCP>
 
I wrote a letter to vortex. If I get an answer, I will post it.
 
 
 
-------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Stefan Focke                  Tel. 02241-14-2265
GMD-Z2.W                      e-mail: focke@gmdzi.uucp
Postfach 1240                         focke@gmdzi.gmd.de
5205 St. Augustin 1                   ...!?uunet!mcvax!?unido!gmdzi!focke
 
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End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V90 Issue #413
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