Info-Atari16 Digest Friday, August 25, 1989 Volume 89 : Issue 413 This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield Today's Topics: Re: New Atari 68030 Machines Re: Apathy and Defeatism Re: QUESTION ABOUT SEAGATE HARD DRIVE Re: How to find bad sectors on Hard Disk? Re: New Atari 68030 Machines Buying an ST in Europe for US - should I? System2/Chaos Comments on your machine Re: Designing HIs under GEM 1 Meg Atari ST for sale Re: Norad binary ? c-shell's, RCS? Need help with writing MIDI software Re: HELP IDENTIFYING SEAGATE 296N WITH REV. 7 ROM Re: Designing HIs under GEM ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 19 Aug 89 03:28:49 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Xorg@uunet.uu.net (Peter Ted Szymonik) Subject: Re: New Atari 68030 Machines To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu A standard Mega keyboard or an enhanced keyboard as a option. Peter Szymonik Xorg@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 89 03:19:07 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Xorg@uunet.uu.net (Peter Ted Szymonik) Subject: Re: Apathy and Defeatism To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu The Fortune 500 list is as of THIS year, and does account for the dumping of Federated. Peter Szymonik Xorg@cup.portal.com (moving up the Fortune 500 while dealing with the Federated fiasco speaks volumes about the strength of Atari Corp.) ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 89 03:37:55 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Xorg@uunet.uu.net (Peter Ted Szymonik) Subject: Re: QUESTION ABOUT SEAGATE HARD DRIVE To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu The Seagate SCSI 296N <- imbedded controller, is the one which I have heard the most complaints about - ask for ROM7 (older) ROM8 is the one used to slow the drive so it can't be formatted at 1:1. Peter Szymonik Xorg@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 89 03:32:14 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Xorg@uunet.uu.net (Peter Ted Szymonik) Subject: Re: How to find bad sectors on Hard Disk? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu This may be a weird way to find bad sectors, but MichTron's Tune-Up program can show a box will shaded areas showing used sectors, if you have bad sectors you will get 'spots' in this pict after you format the partition! I used this to find a nasty scratch on my hard drive surface caused by a crashed head - looked like this: .. ... .. .... (etc) ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 89 03:27:35 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Xorg@uunet.uu.net (Peter Ted Szymonik) Subject: Re: New Atari 68030 Machines To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu August 25th is slated as the day Atari Corp. announces its new products, including the '030 machine. A major ad campaign which is being handled by the same ad firm which did the MacIntosh Olympic ads is also slated to start this Fall - the money has beenspent - the ads WILL appear. Accordin to Sam Tramiel in this month's START the '030 (aka TT) will come in many onfigurations, one being a 6 meg machine which will have TOS 1.4 built-in, will run UNIX 5.3.1 as a $299 add-on option and will aslo emulate MS-DOS (and the Mac no doubt with Dave Small's Spectre GCR.) Sam claims plenty of expandability (hurray!) with six or mor VME full size VME slots. It can be mated to a multi-sync as well as 'slightly adjusted' VGA color and mono monitors. The TT will offer a standard ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 89 21:24:16 GMT From: att!tsdiag!pedsga!mikes@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Mike Shulman) Subject: Buying an ST in Europe for US - should I? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Hello everyone! I've been considering getting a mega ST for a while now. Well, next week I will be going to Germany for 2 weeks and I was wondering.... I've heard that ST's are MUCH cheaper in Germany then in US. Is that true? If it is, would it take much to get a German-made ST to work in US? Would it simply involve moving some jumper on the mother board from 50 to 60 Hz? What about the monitor (color and mono)? I presume all the docs will be in German, but I guess I could photocopy them from somebody here in US. What about OS prompts, error messages, etc. Will they all be in German as well? Can that be changed? Is there anything else I am missing? Does anybody know what's the $ limit on "souvenirs" you can bring back to US before you have to pay a tarrif? These questions are probably just hypothetical, since after paying for this Europe trip I will not be able to afford a new computer. (Unless one of you German STers can recommend a REALLY cheap store that takes credit cards. I will definitely be in Frankfurt and Berlin. I'll also be traveling all over Europe on Eurail pass, so no city is out of reach!) Thanks in advance for your responses! Mike -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mike Shulman UUCP: princeton!rutgers!petsd!pedsga!mikes Internet: mikes@tinton.ccur.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 19 AUG 89 14:04:15 GMT From: WILDDJ%VAXB.ASTON.AC.UK@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU To: info-atari16@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU Subject: System2/Chaos Just thought I'd write to the net about a couple of things... 1. I've started to update my System2 shell. I *think* i've included GEM support - all it does is clear the screen, turn cursor off & put mouse on. Nothing else is required is it? (these are restored afterwards) 2. System2 users - is there anything else you'd desperately like to see in System2 (not too major, please), while I'm amending it? 3. I've written a Fast Basic program for Chos investigation - bifurcation, etc. Is anyone interested? I can't upload it yet, not until I get back to Aston University in 5 wks. - Dave Wild wilddj@uk.ac.aston.vaxb ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 89 19:51:49 GMT From: att!mtuxo!mtgzz!drutx!dvac@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Daniel Vachon) Subject: Comments on your machine To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu This is cross posted to Amiga and Atari ST boards bacause I am really curious what the individual machine owners think about their computers. I would appreciate any input from anyone on this matter. I am currently an Apple // user (have been for the last 7 years .. religiously!), and recently I don't care much for Apple's direction on the Apple // line. I have been seeing Apple //'ers from the past switching to Atari ST's and Commodore Amigas. I would like to know the good points and the bad points about these machines.... Mainly the Atari 520ST, the Amiga 500, the Atari 1020ST, and the Amiga 2000. Any info that anyone would be willing to offer would be appreciated. I am also somewhat interested in MIDI, and would like to know a bit about the MIDI interfaces of these machines. Also, MAC and IBM emulator information is a lot of help too. Thanks in advance for any and all help. If anyone would like to get a copy of all the replies I get, let me know and I will e-mail the synopsis. Later - Dan Vachon - arpa!att!drutx!dvac ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 89 18:22:08 GMT From: hpfcdc!hpldola!jg@hplabs.hp.com (Joe Gilray) Subject: Re: Designing HIs under GEM To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu First, thanks to those of you who have responded to my base note so far. I look forward to some more interesting discussion. Second, more in the HIs (or do you say GUIs) saga: I wanted to create an FTEXT object which could be used two different ways. What I mean is that it could prompt the user for one field or another. For example, it might say Enter Category: ___ at one point or Name: ___ at another. Note that the number of underscores in both cases is the same, although in general I don't think they should have to be. I tried to accomplish this in two ways (both really the same in essence): Method One: copy directly into the Object tree before displaying the tree obspec = (TEDINFO *) (tree + THING)->ob_spec; strcpy(obspec->te_ptext, "@@@"); strcpy(obspec->te_ptmplt, "Name: ___"); Method Two: (credit to Tim Oren and his PROGEM series) copy into a local variable and then set Object to point to local variable obspec = (TEDINFO *) (tree + THING)->ob_spec; strcpy(localtext, "@@@"); obspec->te_ptext = localtext; obspec->te_txtlen = strlen(localtext) + 1; strcpy(localtmplt, "Name: ___"); obspec->te_ptmplt = localtmplt; obspec->te_tmplen = strlen(localtmplt) + 1; Note that the te_pvalid string is not touched in either case, it is left as it is the original Object tree - pointing to "XXX". Neither method works, in both cases it appears that the edit takes place on the box where the original Object tree thinks it should. If the original tree had "MMM: ___" as a template and I replace it (using methods one or two above) with "Name: ___" the dialog will only show "Name: __" and the cursor will go off the end of the two shown underscores, also sometimes the system will crash. If I replace "MMM: ___" with "Name:___" (note missing space) everything is fine. What am I doing wrong, or not doing. Thanks for any help! Yours, Joe Gilray ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 89 16:00:04 GMT From: gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!lakesys!martin@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Martin Wiedmeyer) Subject: 1 Meg Atari ST for sale To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu 1 Meg Atari 520ST for Sale -------------------------- 68000 @ 8Mhz 1 Meg RAM (dealer installed piggyback upgrade) 2 DSDD Disk Drives (1 Atari, 1 Tandy) 1 SM124 Monochrome Monitor 1 SC1224 Color Monitor 1 Panasonic KXP-1091 printer Atari Developers Kit w/ Alcyon C & Developers Docs SYBEX Programmers Guide to GEM Regent Base FLASH 1.6 MANY, MANY PD programs (I was the moderator of netlib@lakesys) e.g. gulam, uniterm 2.0e, Sozobon C, GCC, gemstart, QuickST etc. $1000, you pay shipping. I send email to martin@lakesys.lakesys.COM or call (414)963-2182 Marty Wiedmeyer -- Marty Wiedmeyer martin@lakesys.lakesys.COM ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 89 03:08:10 GMT From: tank!shamash!nic.MR.NET!ns!logajan@handies.ucar.edu (John Logajan) Subject: Re: Norad binary ? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <703@chyde.uwasa.fi>, hv@chyde.uwasa.fi (Harri Valkama LAKE) writes: > Was norad binaries posted recently to comp.binaries.atari.st > arriving alright ? What I got here seems to be truncated because > the last line that was there was 80 characters wide so it was > a whole line, and there was no 'end'... The copy I got here was okay. So I have sent you a copy direct. Hope you get it. Anyone else need a copy? -- - John M. Logajan @ Network Systems; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 - - logajan@ns.network.com / ...rutgers!umn-cs!ns!logajan / john@logajan.mn.org - ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 89 21:51:10 GMT From: telesoft!dar@ucsd.edu (David Reisner) Subject: c-shell's, RCS? To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu Hi Folks. I'm really more of a Unix programmer, but I'm doing some realtime / signal processing controlled by an Atari. I'd very much like to use a full c-shell and RCS (revision control system) or something similar. Are there any such things out there? I've seen and used some version of the Beckmeyer csh - does some stuff OK, but can't expand *\*, 'foreach' doesn't work, no 'find' ... Perhaps Beckmeyer has a newer version, but I don't know how to get in touch with them. I've also used a vi clone called Z - not real vi, but quite usable. I haven't seen anything dealing with version control. Any pointers, especially with phone number or USENET addresses, appreciated. -David ucsd!telesoft!dar, dar@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu ------------------------------ Date: 18 Aug 89 10:53:10 GMT From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!gdt!ccspgo@uunet.uu.net (Paul Overend) Subject: Need help with writing MIDI software To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu This is a submission for a friend. Can anyone please recommend a book about writing a sequencer or MIDI for the atari st (preferably in C). Any level would be appreciated. Thanx in advance, The Outlaw. -- Paul G. Overend ccspgo@uk.ac.bath.gdr The Outlaw at BUCS ccspgo@uk.ac.bath.gdt Bath University,England The_Outlaw at BUCS *** A chat with u and somehow death loses its sting!! *** ------------------------------ Date: 20 Aug 89 03:20:33 GMT From: portal!cup.portal.com!Xorg@uunet.uu.net (Peter Ted Szymonik) Subject: Re: HELP IDENTIFYING SEAGATE 296N WITH REV. 7 ROM To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu A spec sheet is usually included with new Seagate drives - on there it will specifically state which ROM's were used - but you can forget about asking any hard drive distributor to check and see what they are selling - odd's are that they won't even have a clue what you're talking about! Seagate is no help either - they claim that the difference isn't noticable (ha!) Peter Szymonik Xorg@cup.portal.com ------------------------------ Date: 19 Aug 89 03:59:45 GMT From: hall!rosenkra@UMN-CS.CS.UMN.EDU (Bill Rosenkranz) Subject: Re: Designing HIs under GEM To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu In article <11830048@hpldola.HP.COM> jg@hpldola.HP.COM (Joe Gilray) writes: = =I would like to start a discussion about human interface design under GEM. this should be fun :~) =1) Is there any standard "look and feel" for dialog boxes? More than = just Title at the top, buttons across the bottom? For example what u describe is more like an alert box, which are trivial to use. they are subsets of dialog boxes and good for yes/no type input. i generally use them only to warn the user of some condition he should be aware of (do you REALLY want to quit and loose all your data?). = =2) I also tend to use nested dialogs quite a bit. I like to keep the in a word: don't. design your program to have as much information as possible in one spot, i.e. make it as modeless as possible. if you can design your program so a user can get from one place to the desired action in one move, it is far easier to use. in fact, if you can design your program to have but one evnt_multi loop, it will be very easy for the user to do what he wants to do, quickly. ST users really appreciate that. i used to use zillions of alert boxes to tell users what (i thought) they needed to know. i now opt for an asynchronous message box in some static location on the screen, always there, which gives the user info but does not require action (like click or key). =3) One of the reasons I use nested dialogs is a limit I think I've = found in GEM, it appears that there must be less than 256 editable = (FTEXT, FBOXTEXT) characters per box in GEM. Has anyone else = noticed this (I am using original ROM TOS)? Is this fixed in = QuickSt or TurboSt? i have not heard this and doubt it is true. i can't see how it matters since the resources are just strings. i have used dialogs with at least 200 objects which to me seemed like a lot, even in a code with over 50000 lines. half of them were FBOXTEXTs. if there is such a limit, it would be in the form_do code. find tim oren's tutorial series. he has a form_do source which you can hack if this is in fact the case. the standard form_do is pretty lame anyway, especially if you do anything serious (commercial). form_do is ok for run-of-the-mill stuff, but you'd be better off in the long run rolling your own. besides, you'll learn more about how things work. i hacked up form-do to do nested menus (which were just dialogs, one on top of the others). user interface is religion. just ask apple :~) expect this discussion to get rather bloody... =-Joe Gilray -bill rosenkranz rosenkra@boston.cray.com ------------------------------ End of Info-Atari16 Digest ************************** -------