INFO-ATARI16 Digest Sat, 9 Dec 89 Volume 89 : Issue 782 Today's Topics: cartridge port Hey, you she/he! NOTATOR Saving the menu bar Soz C V1.2 Upgrade help required TeX and Calamus TOS 1.4 Incompatibilities Trash, Disks, etc. Wanted: Restaurant Management SW ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 9 Dec 89 16:49:56 GMT From: ogicse!blake!ramsiri@ucsd.edu (Enartloc Nhoj) Subject: cartridge port Message-ID: <4840@blake.acs.washington.edu> Considering all the discussion about cartidges lately, I was wondering what the prospects are for building an inexpensive multi-port extension that would allow those who need the port for more than one application to not have to turn the machine off.. reinstall "another" cartridge or dongle etc.. Doing this on a regular basis will only ask for problems.. guarranteed damage to the port and to the cartridge or dongle. Specifically, I would like to get the GCR.. I also use NOTATOR on a very regular basis. There are other commercial products requiring the use of the cartridge port, obviously... I assume building a cartridge extender is difficult and costly.. otherwise there would be one on the market... C-LAB puts out "The Combiner" for $349.00. Seems a bit pricey to me! Does anyone know of another in development.. or already available that is reasonably priced? -kevin ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Dec 89 08:11:38 EST From: David Megginson Subject: Hey, you she/he! Message-ID: <89Dec9.082033est.57440@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> OK. Let's see if I can end the debate. A few hundred years ago, people in English started using 'ye/you' (//French vous), which is plural, to address a single person politely. Now we barely ever use 'thou/thee' (//French tu/te) except in special religious contexts, and we use the plural 'you' (we have lost 'ye') for everyone. For my children or grandchildren, 'they/them' for a single person will be normal, as in "Every user should check their computer." That sounds terrible to me, but in 50 years I'll be dead anyway, and none of the people using it will care. He/she and s/he are just temporary crutches for people like me who don't like a singular 'they', but the English language has changed and will change, like it or not. David Megginson, Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto ------------------------------ Date: 9 Dec 89 17:02:46 GMT From: ogicse!blake!ramsiri@ucsd.edu (Enartloc Nhoj) Subject: NOTATOR Message-ID: <4841@blake.acs.washington.edu> NOTATOR currently does NOT work with either the moniterm nor with Jim ALlen's accelerator. The Moniterm support will take about two weeks of software work (according to the US national rep).. TO work with the Turbo16 accelerator or with the TT, a change in the timing of the read of the dongle has to be implemented... another software change. Regarding the accelerator: I am told that there is a German board that does work with NOTATOR.. however, the cache has to be disabled.. and as a result, there are no real noticeable improvements in scrolling .. However, as the update to NOTATOR will include a full page preview among other things.. it would be nice to have MONITERM support. As it is now, one needs to do a lot of verticle scrolling when viewing and editing more than 6 tracks. This gets very time consuming. POINT: THe US rep Mikhail Graham tells me that C-LAB won't support the MONITERM unless they get a few hundred calls requesting it. SO far there has been few. So, if any of you NOTATOR users are simply waiting for MONITERM support.. it won't be there unless we call in our request. Here's the name and number of the C-LAB rep. A very nice guy i might add: Mikhail Graham 1-916-265-6484 He's always receptive to ideas and encourages users to make suggestions for improving the already awesome NOTATOR. -kevin ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Dec 89 07:53:18 EST From: David Megginson Subject: Saving the menu bar Message-ID: <89Dec9.080019est.57438@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> In response to the question about saving the menu bar: The menubar disappears when you execute a TOS program from a GEM program and then return (using the VDI escape functions to get a TOS screen). There are a couple of ways to save the menu bar. First, if your application is actually an application (ie. it owns the menu bar), just use menu_bar() to hide the menu before you run a program, and use it to redisplay the menu afterwards. If it is an accessory (be careful here!), call wind_get() with window handle 0 (DESK) to get the working area of the desktop, and you should be able to presume that everything from 0 to X with width Y is the menu bar (use the VDI raster functions to save it!). Good luck. David Megginson, Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 89 18:28:15 GMT From: uvm-gen!pegram@uunet.uu.net (pegram r) Subject: Soz C V1.2 Upgrade help required Message-ID: <1362@uvm-gen.UUCP> From article <1852@atari.UUCP>, by kbad@atari.UUCP (Ken Badertscher): > steve@thelake.UUCP (Steve Yelvington) writes: > | In addition to providing a proper environment string, Gulam (or any other > | competent shell) will pass arguments to the Sozobon compiler and utilities > | without mangling them. GEM Desktop uppercases everything [...] > The Desktop stopped doing that as of Mega TOS. Rainbow TOS doesn't mangle > args in the TTP box either. Yet Another Reason To Get Rainbow TOS. > -- > ||| Ken Badertscher (ames!atari!kbad) > ||| Atari R&D System Software Engine > / | \ #include One good thing came from that original bug in the Desktop, Dan Wilga wrote Neodesk. It still supports a proper environment string (which you have to set up) and probably could run Soz C. So people with and without TOS 1.4 can run good stuff from a desktop. Damn news posting program wants more original input, so here's a short description of NeoDesk. ND replaces the desktop with an enhanced version, it can remain resident (about 230K) and function just like the desktop, or it can leave only 21k in Ram as programs execute, reloading afterwards (slow! w/o pinhed 8-)). It supports icons for every possible program name or extension, which can be created in its own icon editor. It improves on the desktop in many subtle ways: printer icon for printing with spooling, so double clicking on a non executable icon immediately shows its contents on the screen - it can run a command interpreter on batch files - it does a correct application install - allows "program icons" to be placed on the desktop, so you don't have to shuffle through all your hard drive folders to execute those programs, has keyboard equivalents for many menu and desktop operations, and more that I forget (improved disk and file copy, formatting to real IBM, sets date and time correctly, allows file MOVES... 8-)). Speaking of reloading and such can anyone tell me why the Laser C (2.1) shell loads external programs so fast? I run it with Pinhed, TurboSt 1.6, and TurboDos 1.05, and it beats the desktop and NeoDesk (2.03) all to pieces. On speedups and the reverse, I pulled out my HabaWriter 1.1 (the debugged version) and ran it with TurboST. Very amused to find that TurboST makes it acceptably fast, but it still won't do double spacing. TurboSt 1.6 slows one program drastically, Opus 1.? (from STLog), the lines dividing the cells take forever to draw. TurboST 1.6 (on Monochrome) also blows up if it's in Multidesk and Neodesk runs afterwards. Bob Pegram (pegram@griffin.uvm-gen.uvm.edu <@ U.of Vt.>) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Dec 89 08:52:55 EST From: David Megginson Subject: TeX and Calamus Message-ID: <89Dec9.085925est.57401@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> TeX is not the only package which can typeset mathematics, nor is it the only package which can print out long documents without stopping. It is very simple in Calamus to set mathematical formulas, since you can use the arrow keys to move individual characters around on the display (when PKS Write comes out, you will find it even easier). Calamus can also print out about 100 pages (or more, depending on the complexity of the graphics) on an SLM804 in under half an hour. You can include various combinations of text, alignment, attributes _and_ kerning in Calamus macros, so mathematic formulas would take only seconds! All said, it is still smarter to distribute in TeX because 1) TeX is free and 2) TeX exists on different machines. David Megginson, Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 9 Dec 89 08:34:55 EST From: David Megginson Subject: TOS 1.4 Incompatibilities Message-ID: <89Dec9.084059est.57396@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> Please stop posting arbitrary incompatibility lists for TOS 1.4. Most of the problems posted come from using a disk-based version of the TOS. First, the disk-based version is a BETA version, with many bugs still in it; second, the disk-based version takes up RAM and changes the location where some poorly-written, non-portable games expect to find things in your computer; finally, the disk-based version takes up about 200k, so your big GDOS program (like DTP) may not be able to run correctly. Even if you have the chip set for TOS 1.4, take everything off your computer (QuickST, accessories, other auto programs, _everything_!), do a _cold_ boot, and then try it again. There has been way too much mis-information floating around about TOS 1.4. David Megginson, Centre for Medieval Studies, Toronto ------------------------------ Date: 8 Dec 89 16:04:32 GMT From: uvm-gen!pegram@uunet.uu.net (pegram r) Subject: Trash, Disks, etc. Message-ID: <1363@uvm-gen.UUCP> From article <929@uhnix2.uh.edu>, by uace0@uhnix2.uh.edu (Michael B. Vederman): (text deleted here, maybe I can post this without too much extra verbiage!) >Double Click Software (us) is about to release a new product called DC DESKTOP (deleted text here....) > This AUTO folder program will *not* replace, but _enhance_ the GEM desktop so > much, you won't believe your eyes! (more deleted text here....) > - mike > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Double Click Me | Double Click Software | P.O. Box 741206 | Houston, Tx, 77274 > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Support BBS: (713)944-0108 | SHADOW | DC FORMATTER | DC UTILITIES | and others Hey Mike V., Will we be able to set up a "proper environment string" with DC DESKTOP?? Bob Pegram (pegram@griffin.uvm-gen.uvm.edu <@ U. of Vt.>) ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 89 03:27:19 GMT From: nis!pwcs!stag!trb@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu ( Todd Burkey ) Subject: Wanted: Restaurant Management SW Message-ID: <1989Dec7.032719.12687@stag.UUCP> Hi, Does anyone know of any good restaurant management packages that exist for the IBM PC or Atari ST (or any other computer for that matter?) Thanks, -Todd Burkey pwcs!stag!trb ------------------------------ End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #782 *****************************************