Info-Atari16 Digest Saturday, October 7, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 478 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: Atari 1040ST for sale Re: TOS 1.4 on disk fortyfolderlimit fortran subscribing to info-atari Re: educational discounts Re: TT announcement Re: MIDI software for Atari ST RE: Info-Atari16 Digest V89 #460 Re: Dumas encoding (was Re: SAME OLD SAME OLD VOLUME 2) Re: Professional GEM #18 and following? Re: Apple Emulation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 15 Sep 89 14:49:22 GMT From: zl04+@andrew.cmu.edu (Zachary Shanes Levow) Subject: Re: Atari 1040ST for sale To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu You said yourself that he has taken $200 of the price of a new one. That is 20% off for something which is identical with a couple of fingerprints on it. But no, YOU want him lose half of his money in the sale. That is a dumb reason to post on this board! Disclaimer: I have no relation to the sale or the purchase or the seller or the purchaser. I'm not sure that this is the case with the Flame. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 89 03:46:31 GMT From: rochester!rit!ultb!clf3678@pt.cs.cmu.edu (C.L. Freemesser) Subject: Re: TOS 1.4 on disk To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1689@atari.UUCP> apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt) writes: >wardlaw@ucrmath.UCR.EDU (Johnie Wardlaw) writes: >>Now that TOS 1.4 (aka Rainbow TOS) is available, does this mean that the >>disk based beta version supplied to registered developers is "up for grabs"? > >If by "up for grabs" you mean "freely distributable" the answer is no. But why not? It would be a great idea! A disk based version of TOS, freely distributable, that people can get to see what TOS 1.4 is like. If they feel it is REALLY worth it, they can order it. Nobody with an smidgen of sense would still use a disk-based version instead of a set of ROMS, so you don't really have to worry about losing sales. Of course, Atari would have to update the disk version, so it is equal to the ROM version (at least on the outside). >Please don't use or distribute disk-based versions of TOS 1.4. Yes, please wait for Atari to put out an official demo disk of 1.4. :~) >============================================ >Opinions expressed above do not necessarily -- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp. >reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else. ...ames!atari!apratt Chris Freemesser, Rochester Institute of Technology | What I like : BITNET: %clf3678@RITVAX GEnie: C.FREEMESSER | 1) My Atari ST USENET: Just reply and hope it gets through | 2) My '77 Mercury Call the ACORN BBS (716)436-3078, 300/1200 baud | 3) Coke Classic ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 89 14:43:12 GMT From: mcsun!hp4nl!nikhefh!t68@uunet.uu.net (Jos Vermaseren) Subject: fortyfolderlimit To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Recently Allan explained us that the 40 folder limit has been solved in TOS 1.4. This makes me wonder. What has been done about the Fsfirst call and the DTA. The existence of hanging pointers to file structures makes it kind of difficult to clean up those structures. Can I safely do many Fsfirst calls? (locally we have seen some crashes that look suspiciously like the 40 folder limit even though tos1.4 was running). Or did I miss something in the docs? (Atari Benelux does send updates around to devellopers). Jos Vermaseren t68@nikhefh.nikhef.nl ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 89 11:42 EST From: EDGINGTC%Wabash.Bitnet@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu X-VMS-To: IN%"info-atari16@score.stanford.edu" Hello all, I don't know if this problem has been addressed before, but I haven't seen it discussed so here goes. I just receive, free, two hard drives. One is a Seagate ST-4096 80 meg 28 ms. The other one is a CDC drive (I don't know the model) & I don't know if it is 40 or 80 meg. They are both just the drives by themselves. No scsi or anything. Here are my questions?: 1. Does anyone know of a reputable and inexpensive place that repairs hard drives? Both of these supposedly (I don't know) won't format & I figured it wouldn't be too expensive to have them repaired. 2. What hardware do I need to purchase to hook the Seagate drive to my ST. (I plan on selling the CDC drive.) Someone mentioned to me that I would need an Adeptec controller card and also an ICD host adaptor. Is that all? (excluding a power supply & case for the HD) 3. What software will I need to format/use/partition? the drive. Are there any public domain hard drive programs. Will I need some special boot software? As you can see, I don't know much about hard drives, but I am willing to learn all I can so I can get this 80 megger up and running. I have purchased ALOT of software that is hard drive installable that I am sure would run quite nicely on the Seagate. Thanks for your help. Chris Edgington If you don't want to post the answers to my questions to the net: e-mail edgingtc@wabash.bitnet ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 89 18:28 GMT+0100 From: Wolfgang Hecht To: info-atari16@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU Subject: fortran Hello, i need some infos about fortran on the atari. I think about porting a large fortran subroutine package (?100000 lines of code), and would like to get some infos about: - which compiler (in which versions) are available - which experiences did you make, goods and odds. Any contribution welcome Wolfgang ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 89 15:22:50 GMT From: swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!marque!carroll1!dnewton@ucsd.edu (Dave Newton) Subject: subscribing to info-atari To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu How do I subscribe to Info-Atari? -- David L. Newton | dnewton@carroll1.UUCP | I prefer to remain (414) 524-7343 (work) | dnewton@carroll1.cc.edu | isolated from the (414) 524-6809 (home) | 100 NE Ave, Waukesha, WI 53186 | majority of people. The fish are getting seasick -- Rough Sea/RAW ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 89 15:16:56 GMT From: mailrus!uwm.edu!marque!carroll1!dnewton@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Dave Newton) Subject: Re: educational discounts To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <5310@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> hulse@iris.ucdavis.edu (C.A. Hulse) writes: > > [interesting comments deleted] >> mass educational discounts (quantity one) like Apple and IBM (just started >> offering quantity one discounts recently I think). ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ >Is Atari now offering educational discounts? I've been trying to scrape money No, that's why I said they were missing a great possibility. -- David L. Newton | dnewton@carroll1.UUCP | I prefer to remain (414) 524-7343 (work) | dnewton@carroll1.cc.edu | isolated from the (414) 524-6809 (home) | 100 NE Ave, Waukesha, WI 53186 | majority of people. The fish are getting seasick -- Rough Sea/RAW ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 89 16:35:52 GMT From: gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!aplcen!haven!uvaarpa!hudson!astsun9.astro.Virgin ia.EDU!gl8f@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Greg Lindahl) Subject: Re: TT announcement To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1695@atari.UUCP> kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher) writes: >gl8f@astsun7.astro.Virginia.EDU (Greg Lindahl) writes: > >| 3. Plug in blitter and ROMS. Note the small speed increase, since you're >| running TurboST or QuickST already... > > I beg to differ here, Greg. TurboST 1.6 runs _much_ faster on a machine >with a blitter than one without. Least it seems that way to me. This is a classic "your mileage will vary" situation. A blitter does some things much better than a 68000, and other things only as well as a 68000. The stuff that *I* happen to do on my ST (mostly editing text in windows that are aligned) the blitter can't beat the 68000. So it wouldn't be cost effective for *me* to go out and buy a blitter upgrade. And I'm not going to whine because Atari didn't provide me a blitter upgrade for my old 520. If I was doing stuff that was sped up by a blitter, I'd buy one. ------ Greg Lindahl gl8f@virginia.edu I'm not the NRA. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 89 15:06:57 GMT From: mcsun!mcvax!waal@uunet.uu.net (Peter de Waal) Subject: Re: MIDI software for Atari ST To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <34269@grapevine.uucp> sgrimm@sun.com (Steven Grimm) writes: >I bought a Yamaha PSR-47 keyboard yesterday, just to play around with some >basic musicmaking. I'd really like to drive the thing from my Atari ST, >too; can anyone recommend good software? I can recommend Steinberg's Twelve sequencer. It's supposed to be a stripped down version of their PRO-24. It has 12 tracks and you can compose a song in pieces (called patterns). Basically each pattern has a track (just like on a tape deck) and a MIDI channel assigned to it, plus a begin and end position. You can play back a song in either track mode, i.e. like an open reel tapedeck, or you can use one of the available tracks as a sequencer track, where you can glue different patterns together to make a song. This allows you to have e.g. one pattern repeated as the chorus of the song. Input of notes can be done either by a MIDI keyboard or mousewise on an edit screen. The latter is done by putting notes on a musicscore. Lots of copy, cut and paste functions are available. The song files are compatible with the ones used by PRO-24, so you can still use them when you ever want to upgrade to PRO. (You get a discount coupon with the program for the upgrade, but I'm satisfied with 12 for now.) The song files can thus also be used by Masterscore (I'm not sure this is the right name?) to be printed on whatever printer you have. Differences with PRO-24 are: -Twelve can only record sysex and controller messages from a keyboard, you can't edit them. You can, however, put program and volume changes in a track, so you can have your computer select the right voice to play back a song. -Twelve has only 12 tracks (as opposed to 24 in PRO). -Twelve comes on a non-copyprotected disc. No hardware key needed in you cartridge port. I don't know which resolutions it runs on, but since this is not mentioned in the manual I suppose a colour monitor is no problem (I use it on a monochrome system) The best thing of all is: it costs only Dfl. 99 (?US$ 46) #include I don't have anything to do with Steinberg apart from being a satisfied customer. ######################################################################### # Peter de Waal, Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica, Amsterdam. # # email: waal@cwi.nl # ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 15 Sep 89 14:56 EDT From: YAYCHUKT%SCIvax.McMaster.CA@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU Subject: RE: Info-Atari16 Digest V89 #460 To: Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu X-VMS-To: JHEVAX::IN%"Info-Atari16@Score.Stanford.edu",YAYCHUKT signoff ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 89 18:09:40 GMT From: crdgw1!minerva!oplinger@uunet.uu.net (B. S. Oplinger) Subject: Re: Dumas encoding (was Re: SAME OLD SAME OLD VOLUME 2) To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <1989Sep15.123912.24116@cs.dal.ca> bill@biomel.UUCP writes: >In article <15573@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> dav@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (William David Haas) writes: >>Just thought I would pop into the UUD discusion. My favorite feature of >>uud (not uudecode) is that you can save all the parts of a UUEncoded file >>from a newsgroup (like say comp.binaries.atari.st) into mailbox form and >>uud that file. The only catch is the parts must be in order. > >It is easy to hack UUD so that you can save all the parts of a posting >and decode them all at one shot. When something big comes along, like >nethack, I just save the parts as nh.01, nh.02, etc., and when the whole >thing is ready I give the command UUD nh.?? to decode the package. I got UUD from the terminator archive i beleive. I save messages from the net in the form 'nethck30.uag', just like it says on the begin line. I then say uud nethck30.uaa and uud does the rest! No file editing or anything, it just works. I suggest you try it. The uud documentation says it looks for a file in the current directory with the name that is in the include line. You don't have to do anything special. Good luck Brian ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 89 14:42:13 GMT From: mcsun!hp4nl!maestro!andre@uunet.uu.net (andre) Subject: Re: Professional GEM #18 and following? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <8909131023.AA21707@jade.berkeley.edu> VCD51661@DS0RUS54.BITNET writes: >Hello, Netlanders! > >Most of the more experienced ones out there in the ST branch of >the Netland community will know the famous "Professional GEM" >series of articles by Tim Oren, published (electronically) by >ANTIC. I personally know of 17 articles in this series. The last >one, #17, deals with ST -> PC resource conversion. I have good >reasons to believe that there are more articles available. >Could some kind soul tell me if there exist more articles in >this series and/or mail them to me (including the C code, if >any)? > >Thanx for any help! > /* > ** Benno Salzgeber > ** Institute for Computer Applications > ** University of Stuttgart > ** Pfaffenwaldring 57 > ** D-7000 Stuttgart 80 (FRG) > ** VCD51661@DS0RUS54.BITNET > */ If there are more articles by Tim Oren, let me know too ! -- Andre v.d. Vlies Algemene Hogeschool Amsterdam, The Netherlands Technische en Maritieme Faculteit andre@maestro.htsa.aha.nl or ...?backbones?!htsa!andre ------------------------------ Date: 15 Sep 89 18:02:32 GMT From: microsoft!w-darekm@uunet.uu.net (Darek Mihocka) Subject: Re: Apple Emulation To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu David, the public domain Apple emulator you tried was probably an older version of ST Xformer, which required you to copy the Apple ROMs over to disk on the ST. Because I was told by a lot of people that this is probably in some obscure way a violation of copyrights (even if the user doing it owns an Apple II and an ST) I decided to drop everything related to the Apple II and Commodore 64 emulators. It's too bad though. I don't know about the C-64 emulator, because I never got that beyond running Commodore BASIC, but I had machine language video games running on the Apple II emulator almost 3 years ago. The problem then was that it was very slow (about 20% speed). Using the same optimizations I used for the 800XL emulator, I had one version running at about 40% the speed last year, and if I were to implement the optimizations that I used this year in the 130XE emulator, the speed would be over 50%. The problem with Apple II emulation is not the actual emulation of the machine's hardware. The Apple II has a super simple design, such as not using any interrupts at all! Unlike the Commodore 64 and Atari XL/XE emulators, there Apple is a snap. The keyboard is polled, and the video is very straightforward. The biggest impediment in the Apple emulator is getting hold of code compatible with the Apple ROM. I asked Apple two years ago if I could somehow licence their code, and they said forget it. Last year I contacted the makers of the Laser and Franklin computers. The Laser people said to call Taiwan, because that's where the machines are made, and the Franklin guy (who was supposed to be one of the engineers that designed that computer), I swear, could not grasp the concept of what an emulator is. The only other reasonable alternative is to make a cartridge along the lines of the Magic Sac, but I certainly don't have the money, skills, or resources to attempt something like that. If anybody reading this is willing to make the cartridge, contact me. I've got the software. Also David, you have to realize that since the Apple II uses radically different joysticks and disk drives than the ST, disk drives would have to be emulated (using virtual disks) and joysticks would have to be emulated with a mouse, which may or may not work well. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Darek Mihocka ST Xformer II CIS: 73657,2714 Box 2624, Station B Quick Utilities GEnie: DAREKM Kitchener, Ontario MegaBlit SSG SPX DELPHI: DAREKM N2H 6N2 BIX: darekm Canada CheapNet: ...!uw-beaver!microsoft!w-darekm (519)-747-0386 A mind is a terrible thing to waste, so just say no to TOS. Opinions expressed are my own and not those of anyone not named Darek Mihocka. ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest **************************