Info-Atari16 Digest         Fri, 22 Mar 91       Volume 91 : Issue 162
 
Today's Topics:
                   2.5 million ST's sold worldwide!
                            Bits 'n' bobs
                     standard practices (2 msgs)
                               The Run
                             Time Bandits
                              TT REVIEW
 
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----------------------------------------------------------------------
 
Date: 17 Mar 91 19:11:18 GMT
From: attcan!telly!moore!eastern!egsgate!FredMail@uunet.uu.net
Subject: 2.5 million ST's sold worldwide!
To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu
 
I just heard that ST Format magazine (great U.K. magazine) stated that Atari
 U.K. announced 2.5 million ST's sold worldwide!  This is great.  Last time I
 heard it was at 1.9 to 2 million.
 
S.S.
 
#! rnews 872Sende
 
------------------------------
 
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 91  10:33
From: WOODALLP%VAX1.COMPUTER-CENTRE.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU
Subject: Bits 'n' bobs
To: INFO-ATARI16@naucse.cse.nau.edu
 
Two points I would like to make, one abusive and one not:
 
1) Would the U.S. users of the net like to do me and all other users a favour
by posting somthing nasty (and preferably large) to the sender of the
EASY-MONEY post. Hey, I bet the Amiga lot got it as well so maybe both camps
can find unimimity on how useless and annoying the post was (well we have
to agree on somthing).
 
2) I recently had the pleasure of seeing a british program by the name of
Calligrapher (professional). Those of you from the early days of the ST (here
in the U.K. at least) may well remember the original (aborted) product. Well
it is now here, gor those new to the scene it is a wordup/thats-write/script
et al type of document processor with the ability to import bit image, metafile
and various other things. It used GDOS but HAS SCALEABLE FONTS. AND!!!!!
 
*********************
THE SCALEABLE FONT ROUTINE CAN BE USED WITH OTHER GDOS PROGRAMS!!!!!!!
I have seen it give 300 dpi 72point output froGDOS when the largest
installed font was 18 point. IT IS AMAZING. So you do not have to wait for
Atari's scaleable GDOS, this one works and it does not need 8MB (it seems to
need very little). I have only seen it work with:
EasyDraw
Take Control Music DTP
The publisher does not guarentee that it will work with other things but
says that it might.
The routine is called line_arc, Buy your calligraphers now and lets get some
real font sizes
***********************
 
NOTE: I have nothing to do with Calligrapher, its author or marketing
company, the only reason that I was using it was to try out a monitor and my
observations are based on a 1 hour session. Please check for further details.
I will post the address of the company when I can find a mag.
 
p.s. I only saw the font scaling working on printouts not screen (except
within Calligrapher where both are scaled)
 
p.p.s. I suspect that programs such as OPUS and TIMEWORKS DTP may be a little
difficult to configure as they read the printer font widths but I suppose
some one can come up with a workaround.
 
Phil Woodall
 
WOODALLP@UK.AC.BHAM.VAX1
 
Physicist and Labour candidate in May local elections
World domination comes next
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 22 Mar 91 10:03:29 GMT
From:
 noao!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!jethro!m
 ale!texsun!convex!rosenkra@arizona.edu (William Rosencranz)
Subject: standard practices
To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu
 
In article <352@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> warwick@cs.uq.oz.au writes:
>       Huh?  Are we using ST's or University computers here?  Or are we
>writing portable code or WHAT?
 
i was generalizing. if POSIX (which by *definition* means PORTABLE) were
to adopt these, then even poor slobs like me with low speed access to big
boxes running POSIX OSs (at work, in my case) benefit from not always
having to man around for simple memory lapses...
 
>       Clearly, you are NOW talking about a SMALL amount of informative text
>or the -help option - this is a GOOD idea!  But why not have a SYNOPSIS section
>in your manual...
 
i ALWAYS was talking about this. i mean 1 screen or less, just enuf to
get by.
 
>NAME
>     cc - C compiler
>
>SYNOPSIS
>     cc [ -a ] [ -align _block ] [ -Bbinding ] [ -c ] [ -C ]
>          [ -dalign ] [ -dryrun ] [ -Dname [=def ] ] [ -E ]
>          [ float_option ] [ -fsingle ] [ -g ] [ -go ] [ -help ]
                                                           ~~~~~ SEE!!!
>          [ -Ipathname ] [ -J ] [ -Ldirectory ] [ -M ]
[ more of the same deleted ]
 
ok, so what. i still don't know what "-c" means, just that it exists.
however:
 
        cc -help
        ...
        -c  compile to .o only (no link)
        ...
 
tells me EXACTLY what i want to know (and quickly, since with man, i still
need to page to find the propper switch for the functionality i want - i
know the latter, not the former).
 
this way i get BOTH sides of the equation: option = function.
i agree, that SYNOPSIS from man cc may jog my memory enuf to get the
right info. but u and i are experienced. others are not. this is one
or the reasons unix has a bad rap for being cryptic and difficult to
learn. once u do get into the philosophy, however, it is, of course,
very nice and productive. but that can take months or even years.
so consider "-help" an aid to novices (and us older folks with degrading
memories...). again, YOU don't have to EVER type "-help". so i still
don't see the problem here. there is never a problem when you have
a choice NOT to do something which you can. there are potential problems,
however, when you want to do something but can't.
 
>Also, and this is my main gripe, too many programs have a -help option,
>but no man entry:  the developer is just too lazy it seems.
 
i don't know of many besides my own with -help. and i use precious few
gem programs because i can usually type faster than mouse. and i hate
cleaning the damn thing all the time. but i agree 1000% about the
laziness of (some) developers. if you take the time to write something,
you should also make the extra effort to have people remember your name
with fondness :-). i'd rather have someone say "nice total package" rather
than "nice program, but i can't figure out how it works...documentation
basically sucks...". pardon my french. i think it is better that some
functionality is lost at the sake of documentation. i think it is better
to have whatever is working clearly explained than have a zillion extra
functions that, without documentation, can't be used anyway.
 
i think we are getting closer to agreement here...
 
-bill
rosenkra@convex.com (not .edu :-)
 
--
Bill Rosenkranz            |UUCP: 
Convex Computer Corp.      |ARPA: rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 22 Mar 91 10:29:47 GMT
From:
 noao!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!jethro!male
 !texsun!convex!rosenkra@arizona.edu (William Rosencranz)
Subject: standard practices
To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu
 
In article <2246@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU> plinio@turing.seas.ucla.edu (Plinio
 Barbeito) writes:
>how you want), you throw them away.  An example of this kind of
>program: a utility that prints the date.  Typing "date -debug" is not
>something most people would be inclined to do.
 
obviously -debug is more useful as program complexity increases.
but, let's look at date(1) for a second. there is more going on
behind the scenes than you may think (in a "propper" implementation).
date sets the time, too. and there is the issue of GMT vs local time.
and then there is the issue of converting unix epoch time to atari
format for Settime and friends. i can think of at least a couple of
things with date which would be useful for USERS not only the
developer. the option for access to information is NEVER a bad one,
no matter how voluminous it may get.
 
>>not all commands can be typed without args. stdin is usually inferred
>>as source of input.
>True, but as you probably know, there is also the '-' convention.
>Type 'command', and you get help.  Type 'command - < file' and you
>are sending that file to the stdin.
 
NO NO NO NO!!! do NOT change the way we currently do things with unix.
i don't want to have to type "ls -~D" or whatever. add, do not change.
that is the whole purpose of standards. and so far, for us cmdline
types, unix IS our standard. if you propose to change the way the ST
can look like unix, you will get lots of angry hate mail, i suspect,
or else be ignored. however, i you want to propose an entirely new
user interface, have at it. you may come up with something truly good.
afterall, unix is not perfect.
 
>The trouble with this is that the
>original convention (a la 'cat') of 'command < file' is more elegant
>in its simplicity.
 
bingo...
 
>doesn't mean that the programmer couldn't have his own separate
>version, for debugging purposes.  I didn't mean to imply that
>programmers wouldn't be deprived of their debugging facilities (if
>that is what you are implying that I implied).
 
of course the developer is not deprived. but why deprive the USER
or (implied) developer? he may help you ferret out bugs. not everyone
is going to recompile an application. and not all the stuff posted
here is perfect. if it were, it would be sold, not given away.
 
ok, i suppose -debug can go, reluctantly. but i was thinking more
globally in scope here. like a certain set of rules guaranteed to
be available for these types of applications. i was hoping for more
ideas from the community to help me write better applications which
can be used by more people than seasoned experts. things that are
intuitive with little or no knowledge. telling someone "if all else
fails, type 'help'" or "if all else fails when u try to execute
'cmd', type 'cmd -help'" is the sort of thing alot of people could
benefit from. maybe not gurus, but most all <= guru level.
 
ok, i've had enuf of this. move along...
 
-bill
rosenkra@convex.com
 
--
Bill Rosenkranz            |UUCP: 
Convex Computer Corp.      |ARPA: rosenkra%c1yankee@convex.com
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 17 Mar 91 18:57:28 GMT
From: attcan!telly!moore!eastern!egsgate!FredMail@uunet.uu.net
Subject: The Run
To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu
 
Well the TT is selling for $2900 Canadian here without monitor.  The $3000 U.S.
 is the Atari suggested price and not the retail.
 
S.S.
 
#! rnews 427
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 22 Mar 91 07:10:36 GMT
From:
 noao!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu@ar
 izona.edu (Sean Sterling Foiles)
Subject: Time Bandits
To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu
 
Remember Time Bandits?  It is a very good quality action/adventure/shoot-em
up game that was released in the mid-80's.  I recently came across a
cheat-loader that gives infinite lives.  So the question...
 
Has anyone made it through the starship Enterprise look-alike?  I've
gone through the starbase, made the computer tell me the asteroid
coordinates, and managed to kill myself (the cheater didn't help here, and
I was warned twice not to do it) with the green ooze.
 
Have you gone farther?  Please e-mail.
 
Thanks in advance,
 
 Sean Sterling Foiles  / Univ. Texas Comp Sci Grad / sean@happy.cc.utexas.edu
 
------------------------------
 
Date: 20 Mar 91 14:13:44 GMT
From:
 noao!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard
 !sunic!mcsun!ukc!newcastle.ac.uk!turing!n00m4@arizona.edu (Dave Barratt)
Subject: TT REVIEW
To: Info-Atari16@naucse.cse.nau.edu
 
The following is more or less the complete  review of the TT by
Richard Monteiro, which appeared in the April edition of Computer
Shopper (UK edition). (Article 359 lines in total)
 
*********************************************************************
 
At very long last it's possible to get hold of a TT in reasonable
quantities. Prior to Christmas, you may remember, The TT was only
available from Signa. It is still available from Signa but, more
importantly, Atari's distributors are able to supply the entry level
machine. Following is a review of the TT 2/40 system (plus PTC1426
colour monitor) currently on offer from SDL. The complete package will
set you back a wallet-draining (pounds)2,298 (including VAT).
     Other models will eventually be on offer from SDL; in the
meantime Signa can kit you out with a 4Mb model for (pounds)2,639 and
an 8Mb model for (pounds)2,869.
   Back to the entry level machine. The standard kit comprises:
 
() Processor: 32MHz 68030
() Maths coprocessor: 68882 floating point
() Memory: 2Mb ST DRam standard; expandable in 2Mb jumps up to a
   maximum 10Mb ST DRam. A further 4 or 16Mb of fast 1 or 4-Mbit DRam
   also possible. 26Mb maximum.
() Operating system: Tos 3.01/Gem on 512K of Rom.
() Graphics resolution: ST low (320*200 using 16 colours), ST medium
   (640*200 using four colours), ST high (640*400 using two colours),
   TT low (320*480 using 256 colours), TT medium (640*480 using 16
   colours), TT high (1,280*960 using two colours)
() Colour: palette of 4,096 with maximum of 256 colours onscreen
() Interfaces: Midi in (5-pin Din female), Midi out (5-pin Din
   female), VME-compatible expansion slot (24-bit address, 16-bit
   data), monitor (high density DB15), parallel (DB25 female), two
   serial (DB9 male), two RS232 (DB9 male), floppy disk (14-pin Din
   female), SCSI (DB25 female), Lan (8-pin mini Din female RS422),
   ASCI DMA with 10Mbits transfer rate (DB19 female), Rom cartridge
   with 128K capacity (40-pin PCB female edge connector),
   mouse/joystick and joystick (DB9 male), stereo sound jacks (female
   phono)
() Sound: stereo pulse code modulated (PCM) using twin 8-bit DACs
   boasting replay rates of 6.25, 12.5, 25 and 50Hz; three voice
   programmable sound generator (PSG)
() Keyboard: 95-key intelligent keyboard featuring HD6301 processor
() Storage: 3.5" double-density, double-sided disk drive offering 720K
   space; 40Mb 28ms hard drive (although current units are shipping
   with 48Mb hard drive)
() Monitor(PTC1426): 14" colour VGA compatible, 0.29mm dot pitch, non-
   glare, 31.46KHz horizontal scanning frequency, 60 to 70Hz vertical
   frequency
 
You can decide for yourself what you think of the TT's wedding cake
styling. Elegant, different, bizarre and functional spring to mind.
Putting cosmetics aside, you'll notice much more thinking has gone
into it's ergonomics. This machine is meant to be used. Mouse and
joystick ports are finally out in the open; they don't reside under
the main unit like in the 520 and 1040, and they don't sit under the
keyboard as in the case with the Mega range. Someone has certainly
taken a close look at an Apple keyboard and stolen almost all of the
best ideas. Function keys, while not as jazzy as those on the ST, are
arguably more usable. The back and left side of the machine are
absolutely teeming with ports. On the left you'll find keyboard,
cartridge, Midi and Lan sockets, while the back houses two modem, two
serial, parallel, monitor, floppy disk, Ascii(DMA), SCSI, and audio
sockets. Quite why Atari has gone for four serial sockets (five if you
include the Lan) is anyone's guess.
     Atari's PTC1426 colour monitor is huge; so huge, in fact, that
it doesn't fit very well on top of the TT. Whoops! Looks like someone
fouled up. It's not that disastrous, because the monitor is large
enough not to need the extra few inches of the TT's base. It also
means you'll get some good tabletop training for the TT030/X (the Unix
version of the machine which comes in tower format).
     The machine's all very nice, but the real exciting changes are to
be found in the revised Tos (operating system).
 
Tossing Up
----------
Initially,  you'll probably be disappointed at the lack of apparent
change in the TT's desktop environment. Booting up with the supplied
language disk doesn't show off any of the machine's new tricks. It's
not until you start toying with the enhanced or new menu additions
that you discover what's really possible.
     Search in the File menu is the first, and this lets you perform a
file search on a floppy disk, logical drive or folder. You must enter
the parameters of the search by entering the name of the file for
which you are searching. You can enter wildcards or part of a filename
and Search will attempt to match the typed characters.
     Close Top Window completely closes the active window; Bottom to
Top brings the bottom window to the top of the stack (useful if you've
got many overlapping windows on screen); Select all Items will
highlight All files and folders in the active window; Set File Mask
lets you choose the file type to be displayed in the active window
(the default is *.* for all files). The View menu lets you list files
by names, date, size and type. There's nothing new in that. However,
it's now possible to list files in the order in which they were saved
to disk. Useful? Time will tell.
     Also new in the View menu are the options Size to Fit and Set
Colour and Style. Selecting Size to Fit will cause all icons to be
displayed in horizontal rows starting from the top of the window. Each
row is only as wide as the window and will automatically resize
whenever the window is resized. Set Colour and Style enables you to
create a unique desktop environment. You can use this option to select
a colour and fill pattern for both desktop and opened windows.
     Clicking on the boxed options, Desktop or Window, determines
which item you're about to change. Next you can click on one of eight
fill pattern boxes to the right of the screen. Finally you get to pick
from one of 16 colours on the right. Your combination of colour and
pattern will appear in the preview box in the middle.
     The options menu has radically been altered to let you install
all manner of icons, switch to the new TT screen resolutions, toggle
the 030 cache and so on. Incidentally, the Desktop.inf file of old
(which is affected by what you do within the Options menu) is no more.
Instead, the TT looks for something called Newdesk.inf when it starts
up. It's possible to have more than one desktop information file on
hard disk and load individual .inf files via the Read.inf File option.
The idea, presumably, is that you can have different icon and window
placements for specific tasks.
     Install Icon in Options lets you choose the shape and style of
icons. Forget the handful of icons present in previous versions of Tos
- a file called Deskicon.rsc on the startup disk comes packed with
alternative icon shapes. At last, it's possible to assign different
icons to individual files, folders and even devices. It makes for a
more exciting - and more Mac-like - environment.
     There are two main types of icon: Desktop and Window. Desktop
icons permanently reside on the Gem desktop, and can be further sub-
divided into Drive, Trash can and Printer icons. Window icons are
either file or folder icons. There's no restriction on icon placement.
Hence, you could attach a Trash can icon to an executable file -
unusual and doubtless confusing in the long run! The possibilities are
enormous; you could go mad and assign a different icon to every file,
folder and device on the TT. Sadly, you're restricted in that there
are 35 different icons supplied - and, unless you've access to a
resource editor (like HiSoft's Wercs), that's all your ever get to
choose from. Not only that, but the time involved in assigning
different icons to individual files and folders would be enormous. The
obvious way round this is to use a nifty feature of the TT's Tos,
which enables you to assign an icon shape (say, the text file image)
to a group of files (text files, for instance).
     Using Install Application you can:
 
() Link an application to data files with a specified extension. For
   example, you could enter NeoChrome when double-clicking on a file
   with a .NEO extension.
() Select an autoboot status for any application. In plain English
   this means choosing one application to automatically run when the
   computer is turned on or reset.
() Force a function key to execute an application. In short, you can
   define function keys as hot keys for starting programs. Up to 20
   programs can be installed this way using function and Shift
   function keys. Brilliantly useful.
() Specify the default directory, path and filename for an
   application.
() Assign arguments to programs. Sometimes it's necessary to supply an
   application with additional information when it runs, like what to
   do with a data file, how large a Ramdisk should be or where to send
   any output.
 
Set Preferences lets you choose whether or not to have alert boxes
during copy, move, delete and overwrite operations. It also lets you
select the screen resolution. Six modes are available: the standard
three ST resolutions plus a further three TT resolutions. All but the
TT high resolution can be viewed on the PTC1426 monitor. High
resolution 1280*960 requires an A3 page monitor.
   With the Desktop Configuration option you can set the default
directory and input parameters for all applications, scroll through
assigned function keys, and assign a single keystroke to various menu
commands. A range of default keystroke for most operations exist.
Having all the drop-down menu options at your fingertips is fantastic;
Atari have taken a good Apple Mac idea and turned into something
infinitely better.
     Tos 030 or 3.01 is a phenomenal improvement on previous versions.
Someone has spent a lot of time ensuring the new environment is hassle
free and, more importantly, bug free. Atari has listened to the
criticism levelled at previous versions of Tos and done something
about it. About time!
 
TT accessories
--------------
Desk accessories are unique in that they can be opened not only from
the desktop, but also from within other programs. As with the ST,
accessories load at boot time and remain in memory until called. The
limit is still six in memory at once - what a waste! However, a new
control panel is supplied in the form of XControl.acc. This new
control panel is is an exciting departure from earlier versions.
Rather than behaving as a normal accessory, the control panel
coordinates the activities of many smaller programs called control
panel extensions (CPXs). This excellent arrangement means that you can
have between five and 99 nested accessories in the form of CPXs. The
initial control panel screen displays the names of all loaded CPXs and
an Option menu. You enter a CPX simply by clicking on the required
one. The Options menu features two items: About and Setup. About
displays the Tos version number and the machine it's running on
(interestingly, the revised control panel and a selection of CPXs will
work on all other STs - hence the reason for telling you which machine
it's running on). Setup lets you change a CPX status (active or
inactive), set the amount of memory reserved for basic CPX information
and designate a CPX directory path.
 
Who wants it, anyway?
---------------------
Nice machine - no doubt about it. When compared to the similarly
priced Macintosh LC, you'll see just how much you're getting for your
money. Below is a brief summary of the LC's and TT's features.
 
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   MACINTOSH LC                      ATARI TT
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------
   16MHZ 68020 (16 bit data path)    32MHz 68030
   2Mb Ram (expandable to 10Mb)      2Mb (26Mb max)
   256K VRam (expandable to 512K)    154K (taken from system)
   512 Rom                           512K Rom
   8-bit colour (512*384)            8-bit colour (480*320)
   11 or 22KHz 8-bit sound           Up to 50 KHz 8-bit sound
   1.4Mb floppy                      720Kb floppy
   40Mb hard drive                   40Mb hard drive
   SCSI, 2 serial, ADB               Lan, SCSI, 4 serial, parallel, ACSI
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------
 
     Hardware-wise there is no comparison. The TT outperforms and
outclasses the LC on virtually every front. For a Mac system with
similar specs you'll have to look at the IIsi or IIci - however, they
cost more than double the TT!.
     It's all very well getting carried away with the technical
aspects of the TT; at the end of the day it's the software that makes
the machine. There are one or two notable packages for the ST that
work well on the TT, but the majority really don't do such a powerful
machine any justice. What the TT needs is software like Quark Xpress
and Adobe Photoshop - that's what sells the machine.
     At present, the system is being snapped up by power hungry
developers, Calamus DTP users and ST owners with too much money. The
only way other people are going to be attracted to the machine is with
the arrival of several heavyweight software packages. Sadly, nothing
is bundled with the TT - a few CPXs, a new screen dump utility for the
Atari laser, and a collection of hard disk utilities is as far as it
goes. How about a decent graphics package that uses all the TT's
modes. a DTP package or something else that shows off the TT for what
it really is - a powerful performer at a paltry price?
 
Surreal compatibility
---------------------
Sore point - and one that dogs Atari every time a new ST-compatible
model comes along. To be fair, no-one has expected much ST software to
work on the TT. What with a different processor, faster processing
speed and a radically updated operating system, you really can't
expect much else.
     Few games run on the TT. Some curiosities that do work include
Goldrunner, Andes Attack and Plutos. A handful of current games like
Loopz and Mig 29 also work, but sadly the majority fall over before
getting past the loader.
     Don't expect too many of your favourite PD utilities to work
either. After a good shufty through several PD libraries, these are
some esssentials that appear to be stable on the TT: Snapshot, Toxic
Formatter, Disk Doctor, FCopy III, Pic Switch 7, RK's Virus Killer,
DSlide, FSel 5.5, StartSAM, Breakout (.ACC), Crabs, Mites, Ram Baby,
Tiny Tool and T159. There are several reasons why programs won't run
on the TT. Almost all are down to programmers not following Atari
guidelines or making silly assumptions. The TT, or rather the 68030,
has a special 256K high-speed Ram cache in which frequently used
information is stored. In most cases you'll want to keep the cache on
to improve performance. Some programs may contain self modifying code
which causes all sorts of problems in the cache. If you don't get an
ST program to work on the TT, don't dismiss it immediately; try
turning off the cache and starting again.
     GDos causes untold horrors even on a normal ST - the old version
won't, in its standard form, run on a TT. And who knows what's
happened to the TT version? It certainly isn't supplied with the
system. Without GDos it simply isn't possible to run packages that
demand GDos in memory. Two prime examples of this ridiculous
constraint are HyperDraw and HyperPaint.
     Here's a small hack that will let you use the old ST GDos as
usual. Load Assign.sys into a text editor and block-copy the three
screen resolutions. Renumber the copies as 5p Screen.sys, 6p
Screen.sys and 7p Screen.sys. Save the edited file, reboot your
machine and you should find GDos will work. Booting with GDos prior to
making these changes will cause the TT to hang.
     Finally, virtually all cartridge dongled software fails. And
there's a very good reason for that: the address lines in the
cartridge port have changed. The TT is a disaster a far as music
software goes. All the big dongled titles like Avalon, Cubase, Cubeat,
Synthworks, Masterscore, and Pro 24 crash.
 
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
      PROGRAMMING CONSIDERATIONS
   ------------------------------------------------------------------
   For such a lot of new machine, its surprising just how little
   things have changed from a programming point of view. Following is
   a selection of new GemDos, Bios and XBios routines.
 
   () FPU Cookie - describes what sort of floating point support is
   offered. The high words tells you what's inside your machine:
 
   Value            Meaning
   0                No hardware FPU detected
   1                SFP004 or compatible; 68881 as a peripheral
   2                68881 or 68882; no way of differentiating
   3                68881 or 68882 plus SFP004
   4                66681 installed
   5                68881 plus SFP004
   6                68882 Installed
   7                68882 plus SFP004
   8                68040 internal floating point
   9                68040 plus SFP004
 
   () Sversion - returns the GemDos version number:
 
   Version            Value returned
   Mega Tos 1.2       1300
   Rainbow Tos 1.4    1500
   STE Tos 1.06       1500
   STE Tos 1.62       1700
   TT Tos 3.01        1900
 
   () There are various routines for reading and setting graphics
   modes. Screen resolutions is coded as follows.
 
   000 - 320*200 (4 bit planes)
   001 - 640*200 (2 bit planes)
   010 - 640*400 (1 bit plane)
   100 - 640*480 (4 bit planes)
   110 - 1280*960 (1 bit plane)
   111 - 320*480 (8 bit planes)
 
   Interestingly, there are gaps in the mode numbers which tend to
   suggest Atari has plans for expansion in this area at some point in
   the future. The modes are currently numbered 0 for ST low, 1 for ST
   medium, 2 for ST high, 4 for TT medium, 6 for TT high and 7 for TT
   low. The arrangement is not just illogical, but implies there are
   missing screen modes.
   -------------------------------------------------------------------
 
The meaning of Ram
------------------
Two types of Ram reside in a TT: so-called ST Ram and TT (or fast)
Ram. ST Ram is exactly that. It's slow (typically 150ns), ST
compatible stuff. TT Ram is another story. A standard 2/40 TT comes
with 2Mb of ST Ram. It is expandable in jumps of 2Mb (ST Ram) to give
a maximum of 10Mb of ST Ram. In addition to this, a further 4 or 16Mb
of fast Ram can be installed. Any mix of the two Ram types is
possible, although obviously each type has its own slot on the TT
circuit board.
     The video chip can only display screen data from the ST Ram.
Likewise, the DMA sound chip can can only play samples stored in ST
Ram. At first you might think this is no big deal, but 150K of screen
memory is a large chunk of Ram to be throwing around - especially in
slow Ram. It's ludicrous that such restrictions are necessary.
     As of Rainbow Tos, one of the reserved longwords in the header of
executable files (PRG, TTP, TOS) acquired a meaning. The bits now
control the way GemDos treats the program. The least significant bit
of the longword (bit 0), when set, means GemDos need not clear all Ram
when loading a program. This results in faster load speeds. Other bits
determine where programs should load: ST Ram, TT Ram, either (ST Ram
preferred), either (TT Ram preferred).
 
*********************************************************************
 
Dave Barratt                     JANET: D.B.Barratt@newcastle.ac.uk
Computing Laboratory
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
UK
 
             " A spacers not a spacer till his trod vac "
 
 
------------------------------
 
End of Info-Atari16 Digest
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