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Panorama - Disk 14B (1987-02-11)(Pacific North-West Amigas Club)[WB].zip
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1987-02-11
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Beginers Questions from the January 14 1987 PANORAMA meeting
CLI QUESTIONS:
Q. I'm typing up this file in ED. When the text is typed, it is only one
screen wide. However, if I insert an addition the text for that line
scrolls to the right and off the screen. Also when I DOWNLOADED part of
this file it was wider than the sceen. How do I keep the text only one
screen wide?
A. ED is not a very smart editor, and lacks a few things that are nice
to have. When you try to insert text, ED does not know where to wrap the
text. Unfortunately, the only way around it at this time is to do the
corrections by hand, a tedious process indeed. To do the corrections, simply
split the line, by entering a RETURN, where you want it to end and join up
the following line to it. Repeat this process until everything lines up.
To keep downloaded files to one screen wide (actually captured files),
some services allow you to set a screen width. If this is the case, set it
for 78 columns or less.
Larry Phillips
Q. What does "NOT AN OBJECT MODULE" mean?
A. It means it is not a loadable program file or it's been corrupted and it's
discription does not match its contents in some way?
Dave Allen
Q. If "NOT AN OBJECT MODULE" is not a loadable program of what use is it?
Or if its been corrupted, was it something I did or do they come that way?
A. The "NOT AN OBJECT MODULE" message means that the file is not a loadable,
runnable program. It could be many things, such as an icon (.info), a text
file, a picture file, sound, whatever. If it is a corrupt file, there is a
chance that it may have been corrupted by something you did, but not
necessarily. It may have been munged in downloading, or some other program
may have changed it. The latter is unlikely, but I mention it as a
possibility.
Larry Phillips
Q. Can you explain some of the .SUFFIXES such as .bat .info .arc .c etc.
A. On the Amiga, the only suffixes that are actually needed by the system
are the ones that end in .INFO. These are icon files, and the WorkBench will
look for that extension to determine if a file is an icon.
Other extensions are not needed by the system, but may be needed by a
program. Some conventions follow.
.C C source code
.ARC ARChived file, process through ARC to list, add or extract files.
.BAT Haven't seen this one except on IBM, ususally a script file.
.TXT Text file
There are many extensions you will see. The best thing to do is to look
at them with an eye on what they are part of. For instance, a group of files
that go with an assembler will have .A or .ASM or .SRC for source code, .O or
.OBJ for object files, etc.
Larry Phillips
Q. What is a printer driver?
A. PRT: is a logical device. By logical device I mean that you can use it as
part of the filing system. Some examples of logical devices are DF0:, RAM:,
C:, LIBS:, and FONTS:
You can see what logical devices are currently recognized by typing ASSIGN
on a line by itself. Since PRT: is a device, you can COPY, TYPE, or
otherwise send output to it. The default for this device happens to be the
"printer.device", which handles the data in a particular way. It accepts
data and send it to PAR:, another logical device, after first running it
through a printer driver. A printer driver is nothing more than a
translation program to allow any printer to understand a set number of ESC
sequences, that will be constant for any printer having an appropriate
driver installed.
Larry Phillips
Q. What is a RAM-Handler?
A. RAM-Handler is the program that allows you to have a ramdisk, which is a
logical device called RAM:
Please note the differences between physical and logical devices. A logical
device allows you to assign the logical device name to other than the
default. For instance, the C directory (note lack of colon) on the disk you
boot from is the normal default for your C: device. You can tell the system
that you want the logical device "C:" to be somewhere else, say in the
ramdisk, by typing...
ASSIGN C: RAM:
Larry Phillips
Q. When you only have one drive, how do you print out a disk directory and
file directory to the printer?
A. Does the author of this question mean "print the directory of a different
disk"? If so, all he has to do is
COPY dir TO RAM:
From there, he can insert the other disk, and type
RAM:DIR df0: > PRT: OPT A
Larry Phillips
A. To print a disk directory all you do get into CLI and type:
DIR > PRT: OPT A
and you get all directories and all files in all directories. But you must
be in the DRIVE. Type:
CD DF0:
DIR > PRT: OPT A
and here it comes...Please NOTE the spaces in the SYNTAX !!!!
Ivan M.
WORKBENCH QUESTIONS:
Q. How does one make a minimal workbench?
A. Basically, make a backup of your WB disk and delete everything you don't
need. I know this sounds a little general, but it is a general question that
can be answered specifically only if I knew what you intend to do with the
disk. You can safely delete:
All demos, any printer drivers you don't need
Any libraries you don't need (translator, etc)
Any commands you don't need.
The worst that can happen if you delete something you end up needing is
that you will have to copy it back onto the disk.
The .info files are icons only, and serve only to clutter the directory if
you are using CLI only. Zapp 'em all!
Larry Phillips
Q. With respect to the .info files Larry, does that mean if you don't wish
to make use of the iconic interface you could safely do a del #?.info and get
away with it?
Steve Barer
A. Steve, if you are not going to use the workbench, you can safely delete
all the info files. If by chance you did subsequently open the disk icon
from workbench, all you would see is a blank window - no drawers or garbage
can or pictures.
Larry Phillips
Q. When using PREFERNCES under Workbench 1.2, I have been unable to SAVE the
Key Repeat Speed at fast settings and when attempting to do so, I have
also had GURU errors and system freeze ups which are associated with
mouse movents during the transition out of PREFERENCES. I have an early
series AMIGA. Is this a bug in 1.2 or my machine?
A. There seems to be a bug or two in Preferences. In particular, things seem
to go wrong when trying to rush things, or when doing certain operations. One
user found that for his particular problems, if he clicked on the "hours"
digits on the time, that it stopped him from seeing the GURU (How do these
people find these things?).
When using Preferences, try to slow things down a bit. Move the mouse
pointer only after everything has stabilized from the last operation. Moving
the pointer quickly to another place or clicking the buttons can aggravate
the problems if windows are opening or closing at the time.
Be sure to have the right Preferences program in place. I don't know if
the old 1.1 Preferences will even work with 1.2, but it is a good idea to
make sure that all your disks are updated to reflect any changes to programs,
commands, etc. that happened with the 1.2 release.
Larry Phillips
HARDWARE QUESTIONS:
Q. How to best set up a single drive system?
A. The best way to set up a single drive system is with a second drive. This
goes a long way toward making things easy. If this cannot be, then you will
need to learn how to do the various operations in such a way that they need
minimal swapping of disks. RAM: is a good place to put your most frequently
used commands. Under 1.2 there is a command called PATH, that allows you to
set up an alternate path where the system will look for commands. Try to get
a good balance between ease of use and runing short of RAM. There is no hard
and fast answer to this question, as it depends heavily on what you want to
do with your system.
Larry Phillips
WORD PROCESSING QUESTIONS:
Q. What is the TC (Dir)?
A. TC (dir) is from that "masterpiece" of a word processor, TextCraft. As
far as I know, it's the directory in which the help screens or files are
kept. For some reason, you can't erase it; TextCraft looks for it....
Joel Murray
DATABASES QUESTIONS:
Q. Can I leave my SUPERBASE DONGLE in all the time?
A. You can leave your Superbase dongle in place all the time, unless you
happen to want to use the port for something else. If you end up getting more
memory and want to run Superbase and another program requiring a dongle
simultaneously, then you are out of luck. Isn't copy protection wonderful?
Larry Phillips
SPREADSHEETS QUESTIONS:
Q. Why can't I errase a file called "A*" from PROFESSIONAL?
A. Not being familiar with professional, I can only hazard a guess that you
are not supposed to erase it. There is nothing stopping you from erasing a
file with an asterisk in it, other than that it may be "delete protected".
Larry Phillips
Q. What is the differences between Lattice C and Aztec C, and what is a
good manual to familiarize one's self with C?
A. Both Lattice C and Aztec C are really "development systems" used for
translating computer programs written in the "C" language into runnable
programs on your computer. As a minimum, both development packages
include:
1) the compiler which translates the source "C" language into an
intermediate format,
2) the code generator which generates 68000 CPU instructions from
the intermediate code and,
3) A linker which will gather a number of seperately-compiled modules
into a runnable program.
4) A number of supporting functions are also provided to make the
job of writing programs easier, and to comply with Ansii standards.
The products differ, sometimes greatly, in all four phases.
1) The Lattice compiler was originally supplied by Commodore, and you
will find that the "C" source code examples supplied by Commodore
will work with the Lattice compiler. Not so with Aztec!
The Lattice compiler tends to be more pedantic about error
diagnostics than Aztec. Diagnostics tend to be wordy and misleading
more often than not. Aztec seems to be ahead in this area in my
opinion.
Under the current releases, (V3.10 of Lattice and V3.20 of Aztec),
Lattice is the more Ansii-compatible compiler. It supports most of
the extensions to "C" such as "enum" types, and prototyping your
function parameters. The next release of Aztec (V3.40) due
to be released in February, is rumored to wipe out this advantage.
2)Aztec is the hands down winner on the code generator. The generated
code is normally about half the size of an equivalent Lattice program.
the code is of much better quality - ie it runs faster. You can
also read the intermediate file with an editor. Aztec's compiler
generates 68000 Assembly source code. If you are not sure just how
the compiler interpreted your code, you can look in the intermediate
code and see!
These comments apply to the older version of Lattice. I understand
the current version (V3.10) has partially negated this advantage.
3)Linkers also differ. Lattice was originally supplied with a very
sloooowwww Metacompco linker. Lattice currently comes with The
Software Distilleries' public domain Blink linker. This is a
great improvement over Metacompco's but it still lacks some features.
Manx has it's own linker which runs pretty fast. The next release
is rumored to clear up a few complaints about non-compatible object
formats, and will also implement load module segment overlays
and support scatter loading.
4)Both supply a wealth of supporting subroutines for Ansii
compatibility, and for use on the Amiga. Aztec goes a little
further by including a number of utilities, including a full
screen editor, make, a librarian, a source file comparison
utility, a disassembler, and a debugger. Depending on the option
you select, you can also get Aztec's source code for the library
routines.
SUMMARY:
If you are just starting out with "C", I would suggest you look
closely at Lattice. It's cheaper, and you will find that most of
Commodore's sample source code can be lifted verbatim and will work.
If you are an advanced user, I would suggest you look at Aztec.
Aztec still gets the nod from the big developers, mostly because of the
code generated. Both Aegis and Electronic Arts are rumored to use Aztec.
Oh, my favourite book? It's "C Primer Plus" by Waite, Pratra and Martin,
published by Sams.
Jeff Lydiatt
A. Differences between Lattice and Aztec C, and what is a good C tutorial
text...
I can only recommend that you look in the November '86 issue of Byte
magazine for an article entitled "Two C Compilers for the Amiga" by Charlie
Heath. Although a new version of Lattice C is now shipping, and Manx is on the
verge of releasing their new version, it is still quite a good article to go
by. If you need any specific questions answered, just ask the many users of
both at any Panorama meeting.
There are many excellent texts designed to teach C. I learned C myself
after pouring over the definitive "C Programming Language" by the C creators
Kernighan and Ritchie, along with help from a series of books written by Jack
Purdum, entitled "The C Programming Guide" and "C Self-Study Guide". The study
guide was designed as a companion to the programming guide, and following both
at the same time is a good way to study C. Of course, The C Programming
Language is a must-buy. It is perhaps the only TRUE book on C, and although it
wasn't written for a C beginner, it is an invaluable reference text.
Anson Mah
Q. How do you get rid of a program once done with it?
A. A program, if properly written, will clean up after itself when you are
done. There are many ways to end a program, but all of them should cause the
program to free up any memory it has grabbed, close all files associated with
it, and leave you with exactly the same amount of memory that you had before
you ran it. Unfortunalely, a side effect of having the power of dynamically
allocated memory is that sometimes "fragments" of memory will remain, being
used by some other program.
STACK and HEAP.
The stack is used by a program to store temporary variables and pointers.
Each program has its own stack, and its size is determined by the the OS (about
4K), with the CLI command STACK (variable size), or with the STACK argument in
the info structure of the icon for the program if run from WorkBench.
The HEAP is merely the pool of free memory that any program may use, after
first politely asking the OS if it may do so. A program, when loaded, is also
given memory from the HEAP in order to have room to load in.
BITS and PIECES and FRAGMENTED MEMORY
There is really nothing you can do about memory fragmentation short of
rebooting. This may seem a tad severe, but bear in mind that it is due to the
dynamic allocation of memory by the OS, and is really a small price to pay for
such power. It really pays to keep an eye on memory, and to try to identify
those programs that are particularly prone to leaving fragments lying about.
When you identify them, try to see if there are better implementations or
upgrades. Other than that, reboot the machine whenever you see a problem
developing.
In addition to Anson's comments regarding C books, I would highly recommend the
"C Primer Plus" from The Waite Group, and published by Sam's (all Waite Group
books make a pleasurable contrast from Sam's usual dreary garbage)
Regards, Larry.