Amiga Collections: New Zealand Amiga Users Group/New Zealand Amiga Users Group Newsdisk v03 (1987-02)(NZAmigaUG).zip/New Zealand Amiga Users Group Newsdisk v03 (1987-02)(NZAmigaUG).adf/Newsletter

Text File | 1993-12-02 | 30KB | 628 lines

                                             NZ Amiga Users Group (Wgtn),
                                             c/- Tony Wills,
                                             156-C Queens Drive,
                                             Lyall Bay,
                                             Wellington 3.

                                             Ph [phone] (home)
                                                [phone]x743 (work)

     ~Editorial :`
          First I must thank all those who contributed something to the
     newsdisk, it is all much appreciated.  But remember there will be
     another newsdisk next month so don't stop now!
          If I haven't replied to your letters over the last couple of
     weeks it is because I have been having disk drive problems.  Anything
     written on tracks 70 to 79 (side 1) of my external drive couldn't be
     read reliably by my internal drive, although the internal drive seemed
     to be able to read everyone else's disks. Which appeared to indicate a
     problem on the external drive. But to compound things the internal
     drive sometimes had problems formatting disks - so perhaps the problem
     was the internal drive, or was it both?.  Well after putting up with
     this problem for a month or so, because I couldn't bare to lose my
     Amiga for any length of time as I am using it continually (and I don't
     think my constitution could stand the withdrawal symptoms), I bought
     some disk drive cleaning disks (a little under $60 for 10 retail, more
     like $40 wholesale) and ran them through both drives.  On testing with
     a copy of our last newsdisk I still couldn't read in the DireStraits
     digitised sound file (it's a few hundred kbytes long and spans tracks
     70-79) on the internal drive but it loaded perfectly from the external
     drive (as it always has). So I dragged the machine off to the local
     Commodore service agent, and left it and a (different) copy of the
     newsdisk with him, to work out what was wrong. In somehow keeping with
     the spirit of Parkinsons Law (Anything that can go wrong will happen
     while you're trying to demonstrate something - A special case of
     Murphys Law) the machine behaved without fault!  Upon retrieving the
     machine I find it is reading disks OK, but there is only one particular
     copy of the Newsdisk that is only readable by one drive, and it is
     unable to format disks (the latter facet of things I forgot to mention
     to the service agent.)
     I know a number of members have had disk/diskdrive problems, and I was
     told that later machines have different drives - can anyone confirm
     this?

     ~News :`
          I have scoured the US Bulletin Board systems, that I've
     access to, for info about the next Amiga, but I can find no hard, or
     particulary definitive info on what is coming and when - it appears
     that we may have to wait until the end of the year before we see any
     significant advances on the Amiga front.  Thats not to say there won't
     be other models released in the interim.

          Still haven't recieved the official version of Workbench 1.2 and
     documentation updates, looks like it will be $NZ60 (ie we now multiply
     US prices by 4 to get the NZ equivalent!)

          The Christchurch group is reported to be building external disk
     drives for $300 each (I dive for cover to avoid the stampede).  But I
     haven't had any direct contact on this matter, so don't know whether
     this includes a case and perhaps power supply, and how compatible they
     are.

          A Wellington member is looking at designing a circuit board for
      the expansion RAM detailed in a previous newsdisk.  I expect this may
      take a little time but we live in hope!  If you are interested let us
      know - the more interest, the more worthwhile the effort.
          A dealer is considering importing 2MByte RAM boards, these boards
      are fully populated (and actually contain 2MB, unlike some other boards
      that only contain 1.5MB, and bring your system upto 2MB total), they
      also pass through the expansion buss so further peripherals can be
      added on.  The expected cost is $1400 including GST (if you think of
      it as $700 per Meg it sounds quite good)

      I don't know of anyone who has tried their own NTSC to PAL upgrade,
      (as per last newsdisk), if you have, please let me know the outcome.
      It may be wise to ask your local service agent to do the mod.s after
      consulting with the Auckland Commodore service experts.  (I trust
      they will not charge $300 to cut one track on the mother board!)

           1 Megabyte 100nS RAM chips now selling for $US36, 256K chips for
      $US2.85 - cheap RAM boards should be getting closer!

      ~Old News :`
           Musicraft (music composition program from Commodore) has been
      released as Sonix and will be published by Aegis.  It has reportedly
      been enhanced, and now supports sampled sound instruments, and MIDI
      interfaces, and can use IFF music files allowing interchange with
      other music programs.
           Draw Plus from Aegis is now available, extending their drawing
      package to a full CAD system, not copy protected, DOS 1.2 compatible.


     ~Letters to the Editor :`

     Dear Tony,
          ...
          As for PAL conversions, I've recently heard that Ashby
     Computer Centre in Auckland has taken delivery of the upgrade kits -
     but as of yet, I am still unaware of the price. Ashby also seem to
     have taken delivery of memory expansion units - no doubt more such
     add-ons will be popping up around the country over the next few
     months.
          In response to your plea for more user input for the news letter,
     here are several simple tips concerning the startup-sequence gleaned,
     from the pages of AmigaWorld, that I have found particularly useful -
     and are geared more towards those, who like me, are still only in the
     early stages of coming to grips with their new "toy" and are still too
     broke to splash out on the AmigaDOS Manual.
     Using ED to modify the startup-sequence, it can be modified so that
     you no longer have to use preferences to enter the correct date and
     time on startup, and also to open a small CLI window on the opening
     Workbench screen - saving the hassle of opening up the System draw.
     The easiest way to provide these tips is simply to give a complete
     listing of my own startup-sequence.

     echo "Workbench disk.   Release 1.1"
     echo " "
     echo "Default Date:"
     date
     echo " "
     echo "Set the Date and Time!"
     echo " DD-MMM-YY HH:MM"
     echo " "
     failat 21
     date > nil: ?
     if fail
       echo " "
       echo "Please try again!"
       echo "Use SPACE to separate Date and Time."
       echo " "
       date > nil: ?
     endif
     date
     date to sys:s/Last-Startup-Date
     echo " "
     LoadWb
     newcli con:540/150/100/50/cli
     endcli > nil:

          Note that the sequence saves the current Date and Time to a file
     in the S subdirectory called "Last-Startup-Date" - and as always, try
     this out on a backup-copy of Workbench first.
     The sequence " > nil: " serves to suppress requesters and system
     messages, while " con:540/150/100/50/cli " opens up the CLI window,
     with the numbers determining its size and position. The beauty of this
     method is that once you have input a date such as "10-Feb-87 12:00",
     upon booting up of the system the following day, you have only to
     input "Wednesday 13:00" for the system to readjust itself. Although
     much of this is old ground, it may help some of those still
     progressing slowly through the system.
          You were right, complaining about lack of material DOES seem to
     work!!! Also, some words of advice for other Amiga Users; when you see
     those Reader Service cards in the back of the overseas magazines,
     don't just ignore them, FILL THEM OUT!!! While it's true that only a
     minority of the companies concerned will ever respond, those that do
     tend to provide some very interesting product information, and this
     serves to reinforce the confidence of the user worried that the Amiga
     has lost some of its initial momentum overseas after its first great
     splash. Pity about the unavailability of these products in New Zealand
     though, I always like to have a bit of a play round on the equipment
     before I buy.

                                           --- Andrew Mercer

                  ~--------------------------------`

     Dear Tony,

          It's jolly to hear you're now getting a bit of stuff from
     other Amylubbers - it'll save you making up anymore letters from
     imaginary peoples.

                           Marauderingly yours
                               BLUEBOTTLE

     (ALL letters have been from members as real as YOU or me! -ed)

                  ~----------------------------------`

          ... something novel : The signatures of the people who designed
     the Amiga are formed on the top cover (of the Amiga), on the inside

                           John Veldthuis (Mania)

     (Worth a look if you get the chance, {I think the Mac may have
     started this tradition} but Commodore may have something to say about
     your warranty if you pop the lid off without knowing what you're doing
     -ed)

                  ~----------------------------------`


     Dear Tony,

          I feel a bit embarrassed at your call for material for the Amiga
     Group, mainly because I have had a lot of good help from others, but
     the things I have been developing myself have never quite got to a
     finished state.

     However here are a few items:

     ~KILL!!!`
         ------ There is a great need for a KILL TASK  command ------

         I can't understand why Commodore/MetaComco didn't build a command
     like this into the operating system at the start. Don't they ever have
     programs that lock up the system??? It takes a long time to clear a
     queue of 50 000 "printer trouble" flags for instance if you are using
     a program that doesn't provide for you to abort a long print output if
     it has gone sour.
     When you have only one drive (and you ARE entitled to) then you need
     to have some kind of RAMdisk setup, and perpetual rebooting to recover
     from program weaknesses does nothing to enhance Amiga's image -
     especially as this problem always crops up when you're trying to
     impress some snooty VAX-Hacks or something. But it would  really do a
     great deal to make life more comfortable on the system.
     (It may be that the system does not keep track of which programs have
      been allocated which resources - and hence it wouldn't know what to
      release after 'killing' a task -ed)

     ~CONTOUR`

        I have written an AmigaBASIC program around a contour plotting
     routine from BYTE, Nov 1983. It's quite reasonable now if you want
     contour plots, but has one residual bug which I have for the moment
     given up trying to kill - that is that it doesn't always synchronise
     the y-position of the contour with the y-scale. The problem is x-y
     symmetrical and the same method of handling the two dimensions is
     used, but there is a y-flip operation built into the BYTE routine and
     this has trapped me somehow. So until that is fixed I have (a) just
     added a runtime option for the user to vertically reposition the plot
     (b) deferred some tidying up. All the subroutines, for instance,
     should be made into isolated blocks and thus be more available as
     future program blocks.
     (I have fixed this problem, more or less, you hadn't handled the
      'y-flip' ,you talk about, consistantly -ed)

         The listing is included here as CONTOUR1, with a CONTOUR.readme
      file and a short TESTCONTOUR file so that a demo can be run.
      (included on the newsdisk -ed)

     ~ED`
         I use ED quite a bit, it has many good features and some very
     irritating ones, and overall I don't find TEXTCRAFT or SCRIBBLE to be
     sufficiently better to want them a lot. One reason is that ED is just
     much easier accessible, another is that the methods used by all three
     for cutting and pasting and other "simple" operations are really
     pretty clumsy, and the "powerful enhancements" of the packages are
     useful mainly to get cleaner printout. So I often write text on ED (as
     now) and then transfer to say TEXTCRAFT for printing. This too is a
     pain.

     There are some things I would find MOST useful with ED:
         Command file control-  For difficult reformatting jobs which may
            have to be done on more than one occasion, or repeated because
            you couldn't get it right the first try, wouldn't it be
            loverly to be able to say;-

                        ED <commandfilename textfilename

            I have tried all sorts of ways with no joy whatever.

     As a for-instance, try reformatting a HEX dump of one of the
     .bmap files from:

            0000: 426C7442 69744D61 7000FFE2 0901020A    BltBitMap.......
            0010: 03040506 07080B00 426C7454 656D706C    ........BltTempl
            0020: 61746500 FFDC0901 020A0304 05060043    ate............C
            0030: 6C656172 454F4C00 FFD60A00 436C6561    learEOL.....Clea
            0040: 72536372 656

                        to:

        BltBitMap...............   00 FFE2 0901 020A 0304 0506 0708 0B 00
        BltTemplate............    00 FFDC 0901 020A 0304 0506 00
        ClearEOL.....              00 FFD6 0A 00
        ClearScreen.....           00 FFD0 0A 00


         Suppress screen update- When you call an extensive editing
         operation, ED spends most of it's time updating the screen
         with stuff that hasn't finished being edited yet.
         Can this be suppressed?

       "File Contains Binary" - There's no reason why ED should have been
             made to refuse to process these files, unless you regard
             screen tidiness to be more important at all times than the
             utility of ED. There's nothing more irritating than to have
             a file with one corrupt character on it, and all you want to
             do is delete it, and then be forbidden by an unnecesary
             limitation.

             There's a partial way around this, but you have to be cautious
             - always work from a backup copy of your files - . If you
             OPEN a file in the normal way, then you can "include" a file
             which DOES contain binary. The screen is likely to show queer
             stuff, and perhaps the cursor might not be where it seems to
             be, but you have a sporting chance. (ESC IF/filename/   -ed)

        ED Summary, November Newsletter - Add the following:

             Special keys  TAB - move to next tab position
             Immediate     ^I  - move to next tab position (the default tab
                                 is 3 char, can be changed using esc ST n)
             Extended      esc SA[/file/] - this save text command can be
                                            directed to save to any file.
                           esc U - this undoes any edits on the current
                                   line, so long as you haven't moved off
                                   it or deleted it. Good for getting out
                                   of foul-ups.

     ~EMACS`
          There is a public domain editor called EMACS which is supposed
     to more powerful than ED. Perhaps it is, but I find convenience of use
     in what the program can do, to be much more important than extra
     features.

     There are several versions of EMACS on the Fred Fish disks, none of
     them have the feature in my copy, of being menu driven. The menu shows
     the keyboard code as well as function names, and you don't have to be
     always looking up a list of commands.
         If anyone wants a copy, I can provide. (not all versions of EMACS
     are public domain -ed)

     ~RAMdisk`
          As the proud owner of a single disk system, I have adopted
     several measures to make life easier.
     In addition to your January suggestion of loading COPY to RAM first,
     I also have put together a set of different ramx files which set up
     various levels of RAMdisk, according to the kind of work I want to do.
     To put the entire c: directory in ram takes a lot of space, but if you
     don't want to do big memory jobs it's quicker. But you can't afford to
     do this if you want to run C compiler, TEXTCRAFT, etc. So I have other
     ram setup files which cut down the contents of ram:c to what I can
     stand.
     The smallest take less than 50K but are still convenient enough.

     Then what you want to do is to be able to call any setup file at
     any time, if you are moving on to another kind of task. This means
     that you have to do a lot of
                           IF NOT EXISTS xxxx
                           COPY df0:c/xxxx to ram:c
                           ENDIF
     constructions, and you have to be careful that all the IF, ENDIF,
     commands have been loaded too, before reassigning.

     When copying a disk that needs cleaning up, and you have only one
     drive, the thing to do is a directory-by-directory copy via ram: .
     One thing to watch here is to minimise risk of mistakes. A useful
     method for copying each directory is to create a ram: directory of
     the same name.

     eg:  makedir ram:dirname                 open a ram: directory
          copy df0:dirname/#? to ram:dirname  copy files in old dir to ram
          (then swap disks)
          makedir df0:                        open a disk directory
          copy ram:dirname/#? to df0:dirname  copy files in dir to newdisk
          delete ram:dirname/#? dirname

          I expect that with proper use of the "key" function and "execute"
     commands, this could be made automatic and much quicker & safer.

     Like this :-
               FIRST open a RAM:T directory (with makedir ram:t)
               Then type execute dircopy dirname
               where dircopy is the name of the command file below
               and   dirname is the name of the directory you want to copy

     dircopy:
          .k dirname/a
          . note there must be a dir "ram.t"
          echo "insert disk to copy <dirname> from"
          if not exists ram:<dirname>
            makedir ram:<dirname>
          endif
          copy df0:<dirname>/#? to ram:<dirname>
          echo "insert disk to write to"
          wait 10 sec                  - this gives you time to swap disks
          makedir df0:<dirname>
          copy ram:<dirname>/#? to df0:<dirname>
          delete ram:<dirname>/#? ram:<dirname>
          echo "copy directory <dirname> finished"

     ~Fragmented files:`
          One of the reasons for above is that if the files on a disk get
     fragmented, they load slowly. A good way to find out if your files are
     fragmented is with program FM (FileMapper) from FF disk 36.

          This is a great utility. But does anyone know if it can be made
     to trace through ALL files for you? -the equivalent of the "dir opt a"
     process?
                          Yours hackfully,
                              Harry Trethowen

                  ~----------------------------------`

     Dear Tony,
          ...
          The Amiga is obviouly far too dependant on DF0:  When mine gets
     hot it won't even recognize a kickstart disk.  It is a pity there is
     not a switch on the machine to get it to boot off DF1:.  I suppose
     that when I get a hard drive (No 2 priority on my hardware list) I
     will still have to Kickstart off DF0:
          How often are you supposed to clean 3.5" drives? I have had my
     Mac for nearly 2 years and I haven't had to clean it yet. On the other
     hand my machines with 5.25" drives have to be cleaned every 2 months
     or so.
     (If you are having disk drive problems, first get the heads cleaned
      -use a non abrasive cleaning disk.  If the problem persists get the
      drives checked out by Commodore service agents - One hopes that the
      drives can stand up to New Zealands relatively mild ambient
      temperatures, and not overheat - ed)

      This letter was prepared on a Macintosh as there is as yet no WP for
      the Amiga that is as good as MacWrite.

                                Yours sincerely,
                                   Ross Deeley

     (I can't be sure whether you're right as I haven't seen all the
     Wordprocessors that are advertised in the states, but certainly I
     couldn't faithfully reproduce your letter with Textcraft, for this
     newsletter. Perhaps Delux Print would be more appropriate.  To some
     extent it appears that it has been conceded that the Mac is the
     Desktop Publishing king and so they are pushing the Amiga as a Desktop
     Video king.  Until long persistance monitors are standard, so you can
     use 400 interlaced lines {without pain!}, I think the Amiga may stay
     behind in this field. -ed)

                ~------------------------------------`

          Is there anyway you can use Musicraft (Pre-release) scores in
     AmigaBASIC?
                           Jonathan Clarke (Napier)
     (Can anyone help? -ed)


                ~-----------------------------------`


     ~NewsDisk :`
     All newsdisks are available for the cost of a blank disk ($6.30).
     These disks are set up to be bootable workbench disks, and may not
     give the desired results if viewed from CLI, or after booting from
     another disk.

     The third NZAmigaUG newsdisk contains the following :

          ~Juggler Demo` -  An animation demo showing a figure juggling glass
               balls.  Its is displayed in the HAM (Hold and Modify) mode,
               all the reflections, shadows etc were generated using a ray
               trace program. It includes sound effects as well.
               - (from AmigaLibDisk #47) released by Commodore/Amiga
          ~Wharves` - One of many digitised (digiview) pictures submitted by
               Warick Wilson (Wgtn) - I hope to include more pictures on
               later disks.
          ~Blocks` - A worm like graphics demo in high-res, colours chosen to
               minimise flicker.  Submitted by Gary Walker (Nelson).
          ~Basic` - A number of AmigaBASIC programs submitted by members :
               Errmon : Supposed to run as background job reporting error
                    messages - doesn't quite work as you might expect!
                    Submitted by Garth Thornton (Wgtn)
               Dragon : Draws simple fractal 'dragon' shapes. Try number
                    6 or 7. Submitted by Garth Thornton (Wgtn)
               Bands :  Hold down mouse button, and move the mouse to
                    operate. Submitted by Garth Thornton (Wgtn)
               ObEdLo : Modified object editors by Garth Thornton (Wgtn)
               ObEdHi :
               Triangle : Select 10, and draw a large shape, then click
                    in the top left corner (under the 'T' in the title)
                    Submitted by Garth Thornton (Wgtn)
               Ror2 : This one takes a little time to start, originally
                    written by Kevin Bjorke, Submitted by Garth Thornton
               ScapeGen16a : Solid fractal landscape generator. Try level 5
                    an variable smoothness. By Garth Thornton.
               ScapeGen32 : Lores, 32 colour version of above.
               Contour1 : Contour mapping program, try data file
                    TESTCONTOUR as input. Enter ranges 4-24 for X, 4-13 for
                    Y, 10 contours, and 0.1,0.1 for the two 'courseness'
                    parameters. Program by Harry Trethowen (Wgtn)
          Other programs were submitted by Harry Patterson (Nelson) and
          Glenn Blomfield (Bulls), but will have to wait until I sort
          through them.

          ~Utilities` - A few useful tools :
               ViewIlbm : The program that displays IFF files including
                    H.A.M. files like those produced by digiview.
               Ty : Program to display textfiles from the workbench.  Has
                    inbuilt help - use the HELP key.
               PrintFiles : Workbench utility that dumps text files to your
                    printer.  NB the only printer drivers on the disk are
                    'epson' and 'generic', preferences is set to 'epson'.

     ~Public Domain Software :`
     Currently we've got :
        Aegis Draw Demo,
        Boing!,               (Including multispeed version)
        CCC Multitasking Demo,
        Delux Video Demo,
        Digiview (Australia) Slideshow,
        Dynamic CAD slideshow,
        EA IFF 85 Standard, Sept 19, 1986
        FAUG Disk #ll,        (Anyone got their address?)
        Fractal Art 1,        (From Captain ROM and Co of Titirangi)
        Future Sound Dukebox Demo,
        Hippy Art,            (From Captain ROM and Co of Titirangi)
        Musicraft V0.99 Demo, (Three different sets of examples)
        NZAmigaUG #1.02,      (Newsdisk)
        NZAmigaUG #2.02,
        NZAmigaUG #3.00,
        Robocity,
        Slide Demo,
        Superbase Demo,
        WB_THD/DEMO (Molecules).
     If any of that lot isn't freely distributable, please let us know!  If
     you have other such demos send us a copy - a few that spring to mind
     are the dancing ballerina, and crying/flying bird demos seen on the
     video of the Amiga launch, and where is the Aquisition database demo ?
     Also available are AMICUS disks 1..6,8,9,10 and disks 1..53 of the
     AmigaLibDisk series assembled by Fred Fish in the States (Fred must
     spend a lot of time assembling these disks, and has been kind enough
     to supply us directly (at a small charge) with his disks. I hope you
     guys (and gals!) appreciate all the voluntary hard work done by the
     authors of the public domain software, don't take it for granted, try
     to repay these people by contributing something yourself.  And
     remember, if you like and use any of the shareware products you are
     expected to send a donation (ussually specified!) to the programs
     author - this often entitles you to a manual and later updates.
     If you've got any contributions or requests then send us a disk.  (or
     money to purchase a box of disks, and specifications as to their
     contents)













     ~Group Meetings :`

     ~Auckland :`
          The next Auckland group meeting ?
          Contact : Roger Manson,
                    22 Ellice Road,
                    Glenfield,
                    Auckland.
                    ph. 444-4044.

     ~Christchurch :`
          A group should have been formed by the time you read this,
     hopefully more information will be forth coming.

     ~Nelson :`
          Nelson Amiga Users Group meets informally, as a subgroup of the
     Nelson Commodore Users Group, on the third Thursday of each month, at
     7:30pm, in the Stoke Primary School In-service training rooms, Main
     Road, Stoke.
          Contact : Gary Walker,
                    ph. Nelson 85494 (home).

     ~Wellington :`
          The next local Wellington group meeting was on Monday the
     23th February at 7:30pm in the Royal Society Building, Turnbull
     Street, Thorndon, Wellington (Yes, ok, this newsletter/disk is
     running a bit late!).
          Contact : Tony Wills,
                    156-C Queens Drive,
                    Lyall Bay,
                    Wellington 3.
                    ph. 877-258.






              ~MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION`

Membership fee is  $12 with a surcharge for local (Wellington) members of $8 to cover room rental for local meetings. Would 'out of town' members indicate whether they would like to be local contacts for other Amiga owners in their area.

Name : _________________________________________

Address : ______________________________________

        : ______________________________________

        : ______________________________________

        : ______________________________________

Home Phone : _________________  Work Phone : ___________________

Any areas of expertise that you can share (eg C language  programmer,
experienced VIP-planner {Lotus 123} user, hardware hacker etc) :

:________________________________________________

:________________________________________________

Any specific areas of interest (eg Graphics/Animation, Music/Sound,
Accounting/Business, Publishing/Wordprocessing etc) :

:_______________________________________________

:_______________________________________________

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Annual subscription fee (for following 12 months) :  $12.00   ______
                                   Local Meeting Levy :   $8.00   ______

                                                TOTAL :           ======
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                          _                                 _
Interested in a Newsdisk |_|      Local user group contact |_|.
                          _
BIX subscriber           |_|      usercode : ________________

Comments : ______________________________________________________


Date ______________          Signature  _________________________