INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Sun, 18 Feb 90       Volume 90 : Issue  224
 
Today's Topics:
                         Club pirating orgies
                             disc testing
                         gnu c++ on the Atari
                          Interrupt handlers
                            SIPs and SIMMs
                           Terminating TSRs
                               TeX Site
                          Uniterm metafiles
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: 18 Feb 90 18:01:23 GMT
From: clubok@husc4.harvard.edu  (Ken "The Snake" Clubok)
Subject: Club pirating orgies
Message-ID: <1730@husc6.harvard.edu>
 
In article <2554@sactoh0.UUCP> mfolivo@sactoh0.UUCP (Mark F. Newton) writes:
>
>Heck, if you really want to make a difference, don't just write a
>letter,or make an announcement saying you're clean, the pirate
>boards just laugh in your face anyway, what do they care?
. . .
>Plant worms, viruses, program new viruses to screw up their
>systems. Do something, rather than point and hope someone does
>something.
>
This isn't even funny.  The idea of planting viruses to "punish" pirates is
ridiculous, because the virus is almost guaranteed to spread beyond those you
are trying to punish.  I hope this suggestion was made in jest, but even so,
it shouldn't have been made.
 
Ken Clubok
clubok@husc4.bitnet
clubok@husc4.harvard.edu
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 18 Feb 90 19:30:10 GMT
From: watmath!watmsg!mwnewman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu  (mike newman)
Subject: disc testing
Message-ID: <34378@watmath.waterloo.edu>
 
In article <690@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> pjj@r2.uucp (Pete Jinks) writes:
>7) I have been offered a formatter that will give 11 sectors per track. Could
>   anyone with experience of using discs with 10 or 11 sectors per track
>   comment ?
 
I've used various 10/11 sector-per-track formatters.  However, I stopped
using them a while back after I seemed to be getting more disk errors
then other family members on the same machine.  Errors included desktop
claiming a non-empty disk was empty (although if booted from, auto programs
would work) - usually cured by a cold boot; erasure of the boot sector -
which I was able to fix by copying a boot sector from another disk of the
same format; and the final straw for me - complete erasure of all fat and
directory sectors on the disk.
 
This would happen during completely normal disk usage, hence my suspicion
of the extra sector formatters (although I'm not really sure).
 
Another thing: I remember reading in an old copy of the developer docs or
the abacus disk book (sorry can't remember which, I don't have it here)
about the minimum space needed for the control information (required for
each sector) and the acutal available space per track, and concluding that
11 sectors is impossible: it won't fit (?!?), and 10 is very tight.
 
Does anyone know if extra-sector formatters are "playing by the rules"?  Do
they push the capacity beyond what it can safely hold?  Is all this in my
imagination?  Anyone else having such problems?  It would be really nice
to get that extra storage.  (-: It would be even nicer to get a hard disk :-)
 
 
mwnewman@watmsg.waterloo.edu
mike newman, co-minister of terrorism and propaganda, Cubic Earth Society :-)
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 18 Feb 90 03:20:08 GMT
From:
 pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.c
 sri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!geac!maccs!art@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (Art
 Mulder)
Subject: gnu c++ on the Atari
Message-ID: <25DE1468.18050@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca>
 
Hello,
  I came across an atari version of gnu c++ on the Terminator archive.
version 1.35 - dated Oct 6 (i assume 1989).  a readme file that I downloaded
stated that it was a little buggy.
 
  Before I go through the pain of downloading this, I have some questions of
anyone who is using it.
  1) are there a lot of bugs?  should I wait for them to be cleaned up?
  2) do you need a hard disk (ok maybe a dumb question, knowing gnu)
  3) can you do gem programming with it?  (using gemfast or something else)
thanks for any info.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Art Mulder, art@maccs.DCSS.mcmaster.ca ( <- best),             art@maccs.uucp,
            ...neat.ai.toronto.edu!maccs!art       uwocc1gate%"art@maccs.uucp"
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 90  22:42 GMT
From: Vision Newspapers <SOCS18%vaxb.york.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK>
Subject: Interrupt handlers
 
Keywords : Interrupts
 
Re : Writing interrupt handlers in C
 
The problem with your interrupt routine hanging is probably because you haven't
cleared the Interrupt in SeRvice (ISR) bit of the appropriate MFP register. I
can't remember the correct bit and location offhand -- it's probably in
'ST Internals'.
 
If you don't clear this bit, then the MFP still thinks that you're handling
the interrupt, and will not let any other interrupts start. This will lock
up the keyboard, mouse, VBL and everything else handled via interrupts.
 
Hope this helps -
Regards,
 
Mathew Lodge
***********************************************************************
* c/o Dept. Computer Science    * "Baldrick, fetch me a turkey _so    *
* University of York            * big_, you'd have thought its mother *
* Heslington                    * had been rodgered by an Omnibus"    *
* York, UK                      *                                     *
* YO1 5DD                       * JANET : SOCS18@uk.ac.york.vaxa      *
***********************************************************************
 
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 90 21:07:00 EST
From: Greg Csullog <01659%AECLCR.bitnet@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Subject: SIPs and SIMMs
Message-ID: <90Feb18.094151est.58275@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca>
 
Alan Pratt made the statement that Atari puts in SIPs or SIMMs depending
on what is cheapest at the time. First of all, I am not very hardware
literate and the comment does not mean a heck of a lot to me on the
technical side. However, on the support side, it means that I cannot
tell someone what is inside his/her STe until I open up the box. Atari
Canada told me that the STe may or may not have sockets for SIMMs to boost
the memory to 4 megs. How can anyone promote a computer when he has to
take his chances and guess what is under the hood? What a nightmare
situation.
 
I would like to see an official Atari statement about (i) large screen
monitor support and (ii) memory upgrade capability for the STe. NO DISCLAIMERS
on this one please. What are the official specs for the STe for these two
features? If Alan cannot give an official spec, get someone else to do it.
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 90  22:43 GMT
From: Vision Newspapers <SOCS18%vaxb.york.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK>
Subject: Terminating TSRs
 
Terminating the _installation section_ of a TSR should simply be a matter of
calling Ptermres() with the amount of memory your program takes up as one
of the parameters.
 
This can be calculated from the basepage, and is TEXT+DATA+BSS+256
(The 256 is for the size of the basepage itself)
 
This should be all you have to do. It works for me (from assembler...)
Regards,
 
Mathew Lodge
***********************************************************************
* c/o Dept. Computer Science    * "Baldrick, fetch me a turkey _so    *
* University of York            * big_, you'd have thought its mother *
* Heslington                    * had been rodgered by an Omnibus"    *
* York, UK                      *                                     *
* YO1 5DD                       * JANET : SOCS18@uk.ac.york.vaxa      *
***********************************************************************
 
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 90 11:57 EST
From: FRACHEL@umiami.Miami.EDU
Subject: TeX Site
 
This was posted a while ago, but I lost it:
 
Does anyone have the Ftp site which contains all the files for tex, and
has the binaries separated into 3 files which are set up especially
for 1 meg, 2 meg or 4 megs?
 
Thanks alot..
 
Frank Rachel
 
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sat, 17 Feb 1990 17:46:26 SET
From: Klaus Wacker <WACKER%CERNVM.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Uniterm metafiles
 
A while ago I posted several questions about the metafiles (or, more
general, output to VDI device) Uniterm produces when hitting Alt-F3.
One of my problems was that I couldn't get direct output to the printer,
it would always tell me 'unable to open VDI device'.  Several people
suggested that lack of system space might the problem.  I never believed
them, after all, I already had 600 kbytes system space.  After I started
thinking, however, I realized that the stupid Atari laser printer might
need much more than that.  Anyway, after increasing the system space to
1500 kbytes, I finally succedded to get direct output on the laser
printer.
 
Actually, it works only most of the time, sometimes I get a page of
blank paper or nothing at all.  I haven't figured that one out yet.
 
It may be possible to decrease the 1500 kbytes a little bit. 1300 I know
won't work, but I don't have it narrowed down more than that.  Since
Uniterm needs some 500 kbytes plus maybe a couple hundred kbytes buffer
space plus you need GDOS and Diab630 plus maybe other AUTO programs and
accessories you think you cannot do without, this whole thing won't work
on anything less than a Mega ST4.
 
Now if the GEM file conversion programs some people told me about could
be posted at panarthea (the only server I know how to access) or sent
directly to me, I might be completely happy.
 
Cheers, Klaus.
Acknowledge-To: <WACKER@CERNVM>
 
------------------------------
 
End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V90 Issue #224
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