¢ o=o=o=o=o=¢¢ New Member¢¢ by Alan Sharkis¢ OHAUG Newsletter Editor¢¢ It isn't a permanent feature of this¢ newsletter that new members are¢ highlighted. Perhaps it should be,¢ but my experience tells me that most¢ members are reluctant to write about¢ themselves. One of our new members¢ has not only written about himself,¢ but his equipment list, and his¢ position as a sysop on the IAN are¢ just the things I think we'd want to¢ know.¢¢ The member is RENE DE BIE, otherwise¢ known as SYSOP*TXG. He is sysop of¢ The Underground, a PRO BBS operating¢ in The Netherlands. He's also Co-¢ Sysop of Thunderdome BBS. His BBS is¢ not public and presently not on line,¢ but Thunderdome is part of the IAN¢ and also involved in TOM HUNT's QWK-¢ Net. What impressed me most in¢ reading his equipment list is that he¢ has almost enough equipment to stock¢ a retail store -- although I doubt¢ that Rene would part with any of it. ¢ Just to run the BBS he has the¢ following system, installed in a big¢ tower case:¢¢ * 130XE upgraded to 320Kb of RAM¢¢ * 720Kb 3.5" XF551 (Woolley upgrade)¢¢ * 360Kb 5.25" XF551 (stock)¢¢ * Black Box with enhancement ROM and¢ parity PAL upgrade¢¢ * 676Mb SCSI hard disk drive¢¢ * 270Mb SCSI hard disk drive¢¢ * 14,400 modem¢¢ That just runs the BBS! In addition¢ to that, he does some rather¢ extensive programming. For that¢ purpose, he has the following¢ equipment (note: many of the names¢ and model numbers will not be¢ familiar to American users - ed.):¢¢ * Atari 800XE¢¢ * Black Box with enhancement ROM and¢ parity PAL upgrade¢¢ * 140Mb hard disk drive¢¢ * Supermax 1050 drive¢¢ * 2 Speedy 1050 drives¢¢ * Turbo-Speedy 1050 drive¢¢ * Happy 7.10 1050 drive¢¢ * XF551 drive¢¢ * XEP80 80-column display device¢¢ And yet another system:¢¢ * Atari 130XE with IDE Interface¢¢ * 420Mb IDE hard disk drive¢¢ * XFD602 (double XF551 multiple speed¢ with automatic mode-switching for¢ various modes¢¢ * XEP80 80-column display device¢¢ He also has other 8-bit equipment.¢¢ What Rene needs help with is getting¢ the CD-ROM drive to work. He'd like¢ to be able to develop a driver for it¢ and/or test drivers developed by¢ others. He has a file¢ (HDFMT1993.COM) which will autodetect¢ the CD-Player, but he needs to know¢ the following:¢¢ 1. How does he address absolute¢ blocks/sectors on a hard disk/CD?¢¢ 2. How can he read bigger sectors¢ than the 512 byte limit of the¢ Black Box ROM? Most CD's use 2048¢ bytes/sector.¢¢ 3. If the first two questions are¢ answered, he would like to improve¢ the process more by incorporating¢ Send SCSI and Receive SCSI commands¢ into the driver. Can anyone help¢ with this?¢¢ Rene can be reached at:¢¢ Schrevelstraat 15¢ 5161 AB Sprang Capelle¢ The Netherlands¢¢ or at:¢¢ Sysoptxg@Freemail.nl¢¢¢ o=o=o=o=o=¢¢
