========================================================================= INFO-ATARI16 Digest Thu, 5 Apr 90 Volume 90 : Issue 413 Today's Topics: Amiga/Atari help CurrentNotes at Terminator HD Backup (a summary of responses) Help! My Hardware is Dying! How to create a senseless flame war Let's hear more about Toronto, Please! Sozobon fix for Gemini vortex PC emulation ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 5 Apr 90 21:35:23 GMT From: oliveb!amiga!cbmvax!daveh@apple.com (Dave Haynie) Subject: Amiga/Atari help Message-ID: <10626@cbmvax.commodore.com> In article <10365.2619c11a@zeus.unomaha.edu> fh007@zeus.unomaha.edu writes: > The amiga 3.5 has 880k where the Atari has about half. > Bob Well, that's not quite true. Both the early Mac and the early ST supported 1 sided disks, which gave them 400K and 360K, respectively. I don't know enough about each market to know how prevalent those formats are anymore, but I suspect the 800K Mac disks and 720K ST disks are far more common today. The mechanisms used for each format are different between machines. The ST uses an IBM-type disk controller and give you a format that's physically and logically almost the same as the IBM 3.5" format. Physcially, that's an MFM encoding with 9 sectors/track, 2 heads, and 80 tracks. The Mac uses a GCR format with variable angular density, kind of like a 1990s CBM 1541, to give you 800K per disk. Amiga uses the same MFM encoding as the IBM/ST machines, but it works on a track vs. sector basis. Without requiring any spacing between sectors, the Amiga fits 880K per disk, using 11 [logical] sectors per track, rather than the MS-DOS setup which uses 9. That's why Amigas have no trouble reading MS-DOS or ST 3.5" disks. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Systems Engineering) "The Crew That Never Rests" ?uunet|pyramid|rutgers?!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy Too much of everything is just enough ------------------------------ Date: 5 Apr 90 22:18:48 GMT From: umich!terminator!terminator.cc.umich.edu!weiner@CS.YALE.EDU (Jeff Weiner) Subject: CurrentNotes at Terminator Message-ID: <1990Apr5.221848.27399@terminator.cc.umich.edu> Hi everyone, Installment #2 or currentnotes stuff is now available on terminator in the ?atari/magazines/curnotes directory. It has some past issues indexes,various columns including St Update, and the table of contents from the past three issues. For more info, get ahold of either myself or John Barnes, (johnbarnes@enh.nist.gov). Thanks and have a swell day, Jmw ------------------------------ Date: 5 Apr 90 17:50:55 GMT From: snorkelwacker!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hp-pcd!hplsla!andyc@tut. cis.ohio-state.edu (Andy Cassino) Subject: HD Backup (a summary of responses) Message-ID: <5440112@hplsla.HP.COM> | >I've had Diamond Back for a while now. I think it might be what you are | >looking for. It uses the archive bit correctly, you can set it to compress | >files, and it seems faster than Turtle, though I haven't sat down and made | | Where can one find this program? | | Steven W. Klassen +-----------------------------+ | Computer Science Major | Support the poor...buy fur! | | University of Waterloo +-----------------------------+ | ---------- I have seen Diamond Back advertised by Joppa, MicroTyme, etc, but I bought my copy at a local dealer, who desperately needs the business. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed herein are those solely of the author, who has no pecuniary interest in the companies, products, or publications mentioned above. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % Andy Cassino % % uucp: hplabs!hplsla!andyc domain: andyc%hplsla@hplabs.hp.com % % Hewlett-Packard Lake Stevens Instrument Division % % 8600 Soper Hill Road Everett, WA 98205-1298 % % (206) 335-2211 % %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ------------------------------ Date: 6 Apr 90 00:39:19 GMT From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu! uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!dbr00467@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Subject: Help! My Hardware is Dying! Message-ID: <46300090@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu> I have been having a lot of hardware problems lately. A color monitor died, my mouse port on my 1040ST is really flakey and I have a couple of external disk drives laying around which aren't really functional. What I need is some information on places where I can get some of this repaired. Preferably somewhere around St. Louis. Alternatively, I would like to know how to get a hold of Atari to obtain this information. Any help will be greatly apprectiated! Please send any responses via E-Mail to the address below. Don Roberts dbr00467@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu ------------------------------ Date: 5 Apr 90 21:28:31 GMT From: oliveb!amiga!cbmvax!valentin@apple.com (Valentin Pepelea) Subject: How to create a senseless flame war Message-ID: <10625@cbmvax.commodore.com> In article <1985@naucse.UUCP> tar@naucse.UUCP (Tim Roeder) writes: >In article <10607@cbmvax.commodore.com>, valentin@cbmvax.commodore.com >(Valentin Pepelea) writes: >> >> Sometimes computer wars are initiated by users who have an inferiority complex >> about their computers and therefore get defensive. But most often they are >> created by users who simply never took a good look on the other side of the >> fence. Let's analyse such a typically uninformed poster... >> > >While uninformed users are generally quite a pain, I see little need to waste >bandwidth with such an analyzation. My apologies, indeed I made a mistake. I initially posted my article with the intention of demonstrating how computer wars can be accidentally started if we post messages about other computers when we are uninformed about them. In my attempt to embellish the article I transformed it into another senseless flame. Now you know that flame wars are created by: 1. People who are uninformed and therefore accidentally start it. 2. People who do not know when to shut up. :-( Valentin -- The Goddess of democracy? "The tyrants Name: Valentin Pepelea may distroy a statue, but they cannot Phone: (215) 431-9327 kill a god." UseNet: cbmvax!valentin@uunet.uu.net - Ancient Chinese Proverb Claimer: I not Commodore spokesman be ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 5 Apr 90 20:19 EST From: JOHNBARNES@ENH.NIST.GOV Subject: Let's hear more about Toronto, Please! The Posting on the Toronto Convention by Brandon Brooks was fine as far as it went, but it would be nice to know more. 1.) How many people came? 2.) Were the 5 guys from Atari all from Atari Canada? 3.) What about some of the seminar topics? The preliminary announcement included one on a hypertext product, which I am keenly interested in. 4.) How many vendors were there? Who were they? 5.) Were there any third-party hardware products of particular interest? It would be nice to have a post with just the facts, please. No need for an analysis of Atari's market and advertising strategies. These topics get more than enough bandwidth already. ------------------------------ Date: 6 Apr 90 00:44:17 GMT From: uupsi!ncs.dnd.ca!balkwill@rice.edu (R. J. Balkwill) Subject: Sozobon fix for Gemini Message-ID: <771@ncs.dnd.ca> To all who have problems running Sozobon-built programs under Gemini. Do not despair. The real problem is in jas, the Sozobon assembler. My memory is a little shaky here but after more than a few minutes investigation I discovered the following: 1. Gemini uses the xArg convention for passing arguments to programs and Sozobon startup code honours this. Gulam and most other shells do not make an xArg entry in the environment so certain portions of your startup code are never executed when calling from those. 2. The section that deals with xArg passing invokes either memcpy or lmemcpy from dlibs. 3. Although the source for these functions looks ok the jas assembler generates erroneous code for some bit-oriented instruction (btst?) therein. Hence your startup code walks into trash of jas' making. The Solution - either reassemble the memcpy.s and lmemcpy.s functions with a compatible assembler, or write tiny versions of your own either in assembler or C, compile them and add them to dlibs replacing the old versions. PS - I love both Gemini and Sozobon - add in Gulam and life is fun! --- Bob ------------------------------ Date: 5 Apr 90 17:03:50 GMT From: mcsun!unido!gmdzi!focke@uunet.uu.net (Stefan Focke) Subject: vortex PC emulation Message-ID: <2179@gmdzi.UUCP> I wrote a letter to vortex. If I get an answer, I will post it. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Stefan Focke Tel. 02241-14-2265 GMD-Z2.W e-mail: focke@gmdzi.uucp Postfach 1240 focke@gmdzi.gmd.de 5205 St. Augustin 1 ...!?uunet!mcvax!?unido!gmdzi!focke ------------------------------ End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V90 Issue #413 *****************************************