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INFO-ATARI16 Digest         Sat, 24 Feb 90       Volume 90 : Issue  254
 
Today's Topics:
                    Club pirating orgies (2 msgs)
                  Lab write-ups/Scientific Plotting
                                RateHD
                         The 'PHANTOM TYPIST'
                               TOS 1.4
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Date: 24 Feb 90 02:27:48 GMT
From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!convex!thurlow@ucsd.edu  (Robert
 Thurlow)
Subject: Club pirating orgies
Message-ID: <100233@convex.convex.com>
 
mfolivo@sactoh0.UUCP (Mark F. Newton) writes:
>> This is a good way to get yourself prosecuted. A better way would be to get
>> the names of the people doing the pirating, the software packages
 
>I very much *doubt* that. And by whom? "Oh Mr. DA, I run a BBS full
>of illegally copied software, and this guy planted a worm and
>formatted my drive..."
 
How about the fellow who, in all innocence, got hold of the infected
software he thought was free of copyright that proceeded to eat his
hard disk?  He has a valid tort, and you're the biggest and most
obviously wrong target.
 
I'm not interested in seeing this shit happen anymore.  I've seen too
much harm done by viruses already, and anyone who makes it worse for
any reason, or advocates it, is a horses ass.
 
Rob T
--
--
Rob Thurlow, thurlow@convex.com
One more day until skiing!  Seven more days until the Bay Area!
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 24 Feb 90 02:22:44 GMT
From: usc!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!texsun!convex!thurlow@ucsd.edu  (Robert
 Thurlow)
Subject: Club pirating orgies
Message-ID: <100232@convex.convex.com>
 
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 is bullshit.  What happens is that a lot of innocents who just
bought their machines three days ago and don't even know what piracy
and copyrights *are* yet will get burned big by this, sure as hell.
 
Prevention of piracy is a never-ending process, not just a long one.
You have to get the people who will listen to think about violation
of property rights piracy does, as well as the complete lack of any
support from any legitimate source and the very real possibility that
you'll get your balls sued off if you benefit from having used the
software.  The ones who won't listen will get theirs; I believe in
the old "Time wounds all heels" quip, though I didn't ever report
pirates to the authorities.  The ones who do the most damage seem
to get theirs anyway, eventually.  But I will do what I can to try
to convince people not to pirate, and I would not permit copying of
any restricted software at meetings of my old club.
 
Rob T
--
--
Rob Thurlow, thurlow@convex.com
One more day until skiing!  Seven more days until the Bay Area!
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 24 Feb 90 10:39:53 GMT
From:
 swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.u
 iuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!eer36024@ucsd.edu
Subject: Lab write-ups/Scientific Plotting
Message-ID: <46300088@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>
 
        I want to use my ST to produce lab write-ups from my Physics classes.
However, I am not certain if the software that I require exists.  I have
a Mega 4, mono monitor, and HP DeskJet.
 
        My needs are basically three:
 
                1: I need the ability to do graphs with error bars and
                   have one or both axes be logarithmic, and to have
                   the program do some type of curve fit to the data
 
                2: Moderately complex mathematical expressions should
                   be possible.
 
                3: Diagrams should be able to be imported.  Preferably,
                   .GEM format, but .IMG or .P?3 would be marginally
                   acceptable.
 
        Obviously, I need to be able to output to my DeskJet.
 
        It would seem that my choices would be limited to TeX or Signum2
as the base of all this.  Then I would need a scientific graphing/plotting
program (I don't know of any for the ST) that can produce output suitable
for importing into one of these programs.  Or I could simply put diagrams
and graphs on separate pages to eliminate the need for importing.  What
are TeX and Signum2 capable of importing?  And what scientific graphing-
plotting programs exist for the ST?  Any other comments?
 
Thanks,
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 24 Feb 90 15:11:49 GMT
From: cs.yale.edu!fischer-michael@CS.YALE.EDU  (Michael Fischer)
Subject: RateHD
Message-ID: <16969@cs.yale.edu>
 
In article <900223121113.363135@DMZRZU71-UNI-MAINZ--GERMANY>
 Ritzert@DMZRZU71.BITNET writes:
>Chris Ridd wrote:
>
>>I tried the RateHD a day or so ago
>>...
>>time was only about 36ms!  Has DLII (the defragger used) done something
>>unexpected to my drive, or has RateHD gone doolally?
>
>RateHD is buggy. The results for the access time can be considered only
>a *rough* estimate. I found out that there is even a dependence on the
>partition size.
>
Access time is seek time plus rotational delay.  I don't know exactly
what RadtHD is measuring, but the larger the partition, the further the
head has to move to get from one end of the partition to the other, so
it only stands to reason that the average access time should increase.
This is hardly a reason to call a program buggy.
 
This only points out the fact that overall disk performance can't be
adequately measured by a single number -- it's very dependent on
exactly what you are doing.  RateHD measures the disk under one
set of assumptions.  Your mileage may vary.
==================================================
| Michael Fischer                                |
|    Arpanet:    <fischer-michael@cs.yale.edu>   |
|    Bitnet:     <fischer-michael@yalecs.bitnet> |
|    UUCP:       <fischer-michael@yale.UUCP>     |
==================================================
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 23 Feb 90 08:49:58 GMT
From: pacbell!rbdc!mccann@ames.arc.nasa.gov  (Mike McCann)
Subject: The 'PHANTOM TYPIST'
Message-ID: <1990Feb23.084958.22668@rbdc>
 
hcj@lzsc.ATT.COM (HC Johnson) writes:
 
>Lets try to catch and fix this.
 
>Does anyone having the problem also have a memory switcher?
>If so, when the problem hits, if you can talk to the switcher, SAVE the
>memory image.  Perhaps we can pass the image around and many more people can
>look at the problem, and if its constant with the image, maybe even
>get Atari interested.
I've got an idea. My theory is that this may be a HARDWARE problem. Because I
 for one have NEVER seen it, and neither has a friend of mine. If you're getting
 it a lot, why not get a replacement IKBD and perhaps some other chips, and try
 swapping them till it quits.
 
EOFZZ
>Howard C. Johnson
>ATT Bell Labs
>=====NEW address====
>att!lzsc!hcj
>hcj@lzsc.att.com
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Sat, 24 Feb 1990 09:57:15 EST
From: Peter Jaspers-Fayer <SOFPJF%UOGUELPH.BITNET@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: TOS 1.4
 
I Got a phone call from Atari Canada last week, TOS 1.4 ROMS are
in.  After some dithering, I ordered the 6 ROM set, and they
arrived yesterday with some photocopied sheets.  One was the blurb
about Control-Drag (file move) & etc, one appeared to be only
relavent to MEGA machines, and the last one was the most scary. It
was a mapping of chip numbers to sockets (which chips go into which
sockets), but the sokcet numbers did not make any sense in my
1040STf.  I do not have H1, L0, ... nor were my ROM sockets
labelled U3,6,9,4,7,and 10 (mine are U2-U7).  Close examination of
the old roms revealed that they were in numerical order (160-165 in
sockets U2-U7), so taking a deep breath, I inserted the new ones
(635-640) in that sequence as well. I found the chips harder to
install than memory chips (stiffer insertion, bent a leg on one
chip, got it straitened out OK).
 
It all works as advertised.  The COPY FILES dialogue looks
different, (likewise the Desktop Info, but no rainbow on my mono
screen ;-).  It seems the screen draws are even faster (?) than
before, and certainly Show Info on a disk (even floppy) is faster.
I should have done some timings before I installed 1.4, darned if
I'll swap back to get them now!  Nothing broke.  RAMdisks are OK,
UniTerm is as good as ever (Thanks once more Simon), WordPerfect is
as ugly as ever, etc, etc.  All in all, I'm happy.  One strange
thing:
 
I have a CLI.TOS, which used to be installed as an application to
be called when I double-clicked a .BAT file.   With TOS1.4, when I
clicked on the .BAT file, the screen cleared, a slight pause, then
the desktop came back, the BAT file was not run!  De-Installing the
Application (Hey could I do that before?  Don't think so), and
re-installing it (just re-installing it didn't help) caused all to
be normal again.  Had to do that on several disks.  Other installed
applications were OK.  Curious, and a minor bother.
 
Thanks Alan and Co, things look good.  Probably adds another year or
so to the useful life of my machine. .. Oh yeah, in TOS 1.99 or
whatever, maybe you can set things up so that newly-installed disk
icons don't come up under an open window - it's still an unfriendly
thing to do, don't you think?
 
 
P.S.  Forced re-read of floppy DIR & FAT when you press ESC is OK, and
      necessary for people using old DOS formatted disks, but something
      not mentioned here (that I've seen), is that DOS 4.1 DOES put a
      serial number on the disk!
 
/PJ                                                 SofPJF@VM.UoGuelph.Ca
                     -------------------------------
Computers are not intelligent. They only think they are.
 
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End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V90 Issue #254
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