=========================================================================
 
INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Mon,  5 Mar 90       Volume 90 : Issue  289
 
Today's Topics:
                           ATTN Mickey Boyd
                           Computer Wanted
                     CRITICAL ERROR ROUTINE ARGS
               Floating Point Wierdness with Sozobon C
                  LZH program wanted...  Please Help
         Mono-Monitor Alternative - An Idea - Suggestions???
                   no shareware mac emulator (long)
          PD/shareware Fortran compiler for Atari ST needed
   Print Desktop (Alt-HELP) with Epson 24 pin printer - HELP NEEDED
----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: Mon, 5 Mar 90  20:42 GMT
From: Vision Newspapers <SOCS18%vaxb.york.ac.uk@NSFnet-Relay.AC.UK>
Subject: ATTN Mickey Boyd
 
ATTN Mickey Boyd (boyd@fsucs.cs.fsu.edu)
 
I tried to mail you a copy of ST Blank as requested, but the the EARN gateway
has given up after failing to deliver the message (it's been trying for
eight days).
 
How can I contact you?
 
Apologies for using net bandwidth in this way, but I can't see another method.
 
Mathew Lodge (JANET : SOCS18@uk.ac.york.vaxa)
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 5 Mar 90 22:08:49 GMT
From: pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu!ohstpy!miavx1!rlcollins@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Subject: Computer Wanted
Message-ID: <1092.25f29d21@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu>
 
Help!!!
 
I'm in dire need of an Atari 8-bit computer, anything but the 400. (This is
for my girlfriend, and she doesn't like the membrane keyboard at all) I
also need a disk drive too. Orginal boxes or manuals are not needed though.
(Just in case you can't find them!!!)
 
                        Goz
--
????????????????????????????? Ryan Collins ??????????????????????????????????
"When you have Super Powers,                  rlcollins@miavx1.BITNET
hard work is easy"                             rc1dsanu@miamiu.BITNET
 -Dufus from Ducktails
??????????????????????Yea, right, thats what I said.?????????????????????????
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 6 Mar 90 01:41:56 GMT
From:
 cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!cs325ec@tut.cis.ohio-st
 ate.edu
Subject: CRITICAL ERROR ROUTINE ARGS
Message-ID: <16000020@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
 
        OK, now I can trap errors by setting 0x404 to point to one
        of my own subroutines...  But...  What sort of arguments
        should my routine accept?
 
        I tried
 
        int criterr(void)
                ?
                ?
 
 
        and long criterr(void)
                ?
                ?
 
        but I am just guessing... and they don't work.  Can someone
                tell me what to expect from the 0x404 jump?
 
                Thanks.
                                -- Greg
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 5 Mar 90 10:29 -0800
From: Doug Latornell <latornell@mech.ubc.ca>
Subject: Floating Point Wierdness with Sozobon C
Message-ID: <301*latornell@mech.ubc.ca>
 
 
Consider the following piece of code:
 
#include <stdio.h>
#include <fplib.h>
main()
?
  float  a;
  FILE   *fopen(), *infile, *outfile;
 
  infile = fopen("test2.dat", "rt");
  outfile = fopen("test2.out", "wt");
  fscanf(infile, "%f", &a);
  fprintf(outfile, "a = %f\n", a);
  fclose(infile);
  fclose(outfile);
  exit(0);
?
 
I use the command line "cc -vf test2.c" to compile this with
Sozobon C version 1.1 and the libm.a library from fplib2.0.
If test2.dat contains:
0.01000000000
(that's 9 0s after the 1) the result in test2.out is:
a = 0.010000
and everything is fine.  But, if I add a 0 to the contents of test2.dat:
0.010000000000
the result in test2.out is:
a = 0.001410
 
The value that stored in "a" seems to change with the value in test2.dat but I
can't correlate the changes.  I'm pretty sure the problem is with fscanf()
because this problem arise initially in a program that reads data from a file
into a struct and uses v_pline() to display the data (after minor
manipulation).  That program worked fine when compiled with Megamax C.
 
Can anyone a) reproduce the results described above and b) suggest an
explanation?
 
Although I haven't tested this theory exhaustively, I think that fscanf()
freaks out when the field it is reading contains more than 13 characters.
Why this should be is beyond me.  I haven't yet delved into any of the
compiler or library source code and am definitely *not* looking forward to
doing so.
 
BTW, my system configuration is:
        1040STF (built in DS floppy) ca late 1986
        TOS 1.0 in ROM
        ST296N disk connected via ICD host adapter
        using Gulam shell to drive Sozobon C
        AUTO folder contains: copyfix.prg
                              icdtime.prg
                              idle12.prg
                              multivec.prg
                              uis_ii.prg
 
 
Doug Latornell        (latornell@mech.ubc.ca)
CAM/Robotics Lab
Mech. Eng. Dept.
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 5 Mar 90 23:21:09 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!jarthur!uci-ics!wngai@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
  (Wayne Ngai)
Subject: LZH program wanted...  Please Help
Message-ID: <25F2F465.10206@paris.ics.uci.edu>
 
Is there LZH program exist for Unix systems???  Or even source codes??
If so, could someone please mail me a copy of source if possible??
 
We are using DYNIX V3.0.12  (a deviation of Berkeley unix)
 
 
wayne
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 5 Mar 90 23:11:49 GMT
From:
 zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jarthur!uci-ics!gateway@tut.ci
 s.ohio-state.edu  (Wayne Ngai)
Subject: Mono-Monitor Alternative - An Idea - Suggestions???
Message-ID: <25F2F235.8613@paris.ics.uci.edu>
 
Is it possible to connect IBM type monochrme monitor via special cable to
Atari (ones without RF module)??  If not, is there any other computer's
mono-monitor could be use a substitue???
 
 
Wayne.
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 5 Mar 90 11:46:40 GMT
From:
 zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!xylogics!merk!alliant!linus!nixbur!nixpbe!peu
 n11!capit@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu  (Pit Capitain)
Subject: no shareware mac emulator (long)
Message-ID: <1345@nixpbe.UUCP>
 
To anyone who's been interested in the shareware mac emulator...
 
Apologies that you didn't hear anything from me for months, but
I've been too busy with my `real' work. Here's the state of the
project:
 
I decided NOT to release the 64K version, mainly because there
was almost no interest in the emulator (at least on usenet). I
got something around 40 answers :(
I also realized that most of the software on MacWorld's top ten
list requires the Plus Roms to run without patches, so I think of
Aladin as a good piece of work, but to be realistic, with only
64K Roms it's an out-of-date piece of work.
 
I'm still planning to re-design the emulator and to support Plus
Roms, mainly for my own usage. I don't know if I'll have time to
do it and when it will be finished, but if it is, I think I will
release it as shareware, maybe together with source code, but -
again - I don't know when I'll do it...
 
In an old message Dave Small wrote:
 
>       If I may ask -- can the story of the development of Aladin be told?
> I remember the name Mathias Greve, and something about two brothers who
> did the original product; I'm not familiar with the shareware offerer's
> name. I'd like to hear it if you'd care to tell it.
 
Here it is:
since the first day I heard of Apple's Lisa, I was fascinated of its
user interface. But as a student, I never have been able to buy one,
even after the release of the Mac. (In Germany, Apple's prices are much
higher than in the US.) Some guys near my home town (two brothers,
Matthias and Michael Greve) had kind of rich parents and bought a mac
in '84. At first, I wasn't able to look `into' the Mac - with only
MacPaint and MacWrite at hand, but then came Microsoft Basic! Now I
could write a program like the Apple ]['s monitor rom, and I was able
to get a disassembled listing of the 64K roms and of the system files.
I started to comment this listing, which has been hard in the beginning,
but Apple released more and more information about the Mac's internals,
finally `Inside Macintosh'. By the time, I got a very thorough knowledge
of the Mac's OS.
The Greve brothers (the Mac owners) had a small software company named
`ProficomP', trying to sell some Apple ][ games, without much success.
They got the idea of a 2MB battery powered memory board for the first
512K Macs. I wrote the software for this board, that allowed to use part
of it as a ramdisk, from which you could boot the system - this saved
hours(!) of time, because back then there was no harddisk... Soon before
we were ready to ship the board, Apple release the Mac Plus, with 1MB
of memory and hard disk support.
:(
In the meantime, Atari released the ST, claiming it to be a `Jackintosh'
but I didn't like it's OS. However, the hardware and the price was great!
I told the Greve brothers of my idea to port the Mac's OS to the ST.
After some arguing on the pro's and con's, I could convince them that
this could be a promising idea. To reward me for the unsuccessful memory
board project they bought me an Atari ST, so I could realize my ideas,
and they wanted to market the final product.
Three months before we wanted to ship, we heard of Magic Sac. After the
first shock we thought of it as a good test for the reactions of Apple.
(We were convinced, that our product would be better. Sorry, Dave :)
Apple showed no interest in the Magic Sac, so we started shipping, too.
Well, the rest should be known.
After 3 months with very, very rapidly growing sales, Apple took us to
court for the first time, with the result that we had to stopp selling
Aladin in Germany. We still could sell it in the rest of Europe, and
there were enough companies out there, who sold Aladin back to Germany
again.  After the second lawsuit with Apple in '89 though, the Greve
brothers decided to stop selling Aladin.
 
I hope not to waste bandwidth, but I'd like to add some personal remarks
on the Aladin history:
since the beginning of the product, the Greve brothers thought of Aladin
as their product. Everybody (like Dave) knew them and the name of their
company, but not me. I simply was the `programmer'. Yes, it has been my
fault to tolerate this, but I hoped for the future to change this.
I always had trouble with the Greve brothers to get my part of the
company's income. That was the reason why I decided to quit the development
of Aladin in '88. I never could tell at the end of a month whether I could
pay the rent for my appartment or not, and my wife and I didn't want to
live like that. I went to Nixdorf, a German computer manufacturer and
started working on UNIX, what I'm doing still. Until mid '89, however, I
also worked on Aladin at home, just because the Greve brothers had no one
else who really was able to make major imrovements to Aladin.
 
Now I'm really out of the Aladin business. A couple of weeks ago I had to
go to an attorney, because the Greve brothers don't want to pay me my part
of Aladin's income in '89. There's a German proverb, meaning "friendship
ends, when it comes to money", and that's just a description of the
development of our relationship.
 
Sounds a bit like resignation? That's true. I really never thought,
that it could come that far, but it seems to happen more often than I
thought, if you remember Dave's trouble with Data Pacific.
 
>       If any of the makers of Aladin ever make it to Denver, please
> give me a call, okay? Let's go get a beer.
 
Dave, you should be careful offering (US-)beer to a German, many of them
don't like something else than German beer :) but you can be sure, that
I'll give you a call. I will be in Boston and San Francisco by the end of
the year, but I don't know if we make a stop in Denver. We'll see...
 
        Pit
 
+-----------------------+---------------------------------------------------+
!  Pit Capitain, DX-PC  !  US:  ...uunet!philabs!linus!nixbur!capitain.pad  !
!  Nixdorf Computer AG  !  not US:    ...?mcvax!?unido!nixpbe!capitain.pad  !
+-----------------------+---------------------------------------------------+
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 5 Mar 90 23:27:20 GMT
From:
 zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!orion.oac.uci.edu!uci-ics!wngai@tut.cis.ohio-stat
 e.edu  (Wayne Ngai)
Subject: PD/shareware Fortran compiler for Atari ST needed
Message-ID: <25F2F5D8.10902@paris.ics.uci.edu>
 
Is there any existing PD/Shareware Fortran compiler for Atari St in existence?
 
Is so, could someone please mail me a copy?? Thanks!!!
 
 
wayne
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 5 Mar 90 22:50:38 GMT
From: hp-pcd!hplsla!andyc@hplabs.hp.com  (Andy Cassino)
Subject: Print Desktop (Alt-HELP) with Epson 24 pin printer - HELP NEEDED
Message-ID: <5440109@hplsla.HP.COM>
 
rlee@weaver.ads.com (Richard Lee) writes:
|
|Andy, I'm afraid your brain was _still_ a bit fogged.  415 is the area
|code for the San Francisco area.  Perhaps you meant 413 (western MA)?
|
 
Yeah, that was it. Dang, is Mavis Beacon working on TOS 1.4 yet? :-)
 
------------------------------
 
End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V90 Issue #289
*****************************************
