textfiles/messages/ALANWESTON/1992/CIS09_05.txt

#: 16346 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    30-Aug-92  22:49:11
Sb: #16343-#New drives
Fm: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203
To: Jay Truesdale 72176,3565 (X)

Thanks for the ED info. Hopefully some MM/1 expert will add the dirty details
for the disk controller on this beast. Yes, I noticed the disk prices...guess
we'll wait awhile before jumping into this one. Mind you, backups would be
nicer...

There are 2 Replies.

#: 16351 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    31-Aug-92  09:09:37
Sb: #16346-#New drives
Fm: Mark Griffith 76070,41
To: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203 (X)

Bob,

Sorry....the MM/1 disk controller doesn't support those transfer rates. Wish it
did.

Mark

There are 2 Replies.

#: 16360 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    31-Aug-92  23:41:15
Sb: #16351-New drives
Fm: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203
To: Mark Griffith 76070,41 (X)

Pity about the transfer rates. Oh well, I wasn't planning on buying any disks
with $6.00 each pricing anyways.

#: 16389 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    05-Sep-92  07:22:36
Sb: #16351-#New drives
Fm: Kevin Pease 70516,1633
To: Mark Griffith 76070,41 (X)

Mark your reply is not completely true. The floppy controller on produstion
MM1's is a 37c65c. If one changes the xtal to 32 mhz and if Carl would change
the floppy driver the 2.88 meg drives could be used. The controller does
support the drives but you give up single density and we thought that people
wanted to suport that mode so we did not go along with the change. It is up to
paul to decide if he wants to offer modifications for the new drives.

 Kevin Pease
exit

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16390 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    05-Sep-92  10:52:36
Sb: #16389-New drives
Fm: Mark Griffith 76070,41
To: Kevin Pease 70516,1633

Kevin,

Yes, I knew that, but did not think anyone was prepared to give up all the
other drive modes to read/write 2.88 meg disks.  Still, you message will be
godd information to others.

On another subject, what are the chances of getting to source code for the boot
ROMs from you?  Might like to publish then in the next edition of the tech
manual.

Mark

#: 16352 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    31-Aug-92  19:02:27
Sb: #16346-New drives
Fm: Jay Truesdale 72176,3565
To: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203 (X)

One other thing to keep an eye on would be the SCSI Floptical drives that store
20 MB on a floppy like media.

(I've not been paying too much attention to these myself since I already have a
Teac SCSI tape drive.)

For several reasons (like access speed and cost per megabyte) I think that the
Syquest 44 or 88 MB removable hard disks are a better deal than the Flopticals.
If the Floptical drives drop into the $200.00 range then I think they'll have a
better chance.

On a related note, I saw a nifty item in the recent Dalco catalog. It is a
mounting frame that fits into a 5.24" drive bay and has a removable frame for a
3.5" hard drive. This allows you to make ANY 3.5" hard disk into a removable
hard drive. Used small capacity (<= 50mb) 3.5" SCSI hard disks are becoming
easier and easier to find these days with Amiga and Mac owners upgrading to
larger drives.


-J



#: 16347 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    30-Aug-92  22:49:23
Sb: #16340-#source_part 2
Fm: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203
To: Mike Haaland 72300,1433 (X)

Hey guys....I don't like to whine, but I tried the code Larry posted too. It
looked okay to me...and was looking forward to the fixes being discussed here.
But if you guys start using mail, then the rest of us get left out....
<whining>.

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16349 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    31-Aug-92  00:36:08
Sb: #16347-#source_part 2
Fm: Mike Haaland 72300,1433
To: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203 (X)


Sorry, Bob.

The only real problem was 2 statement

Change:

 Palette(path,10*3,210,105,30);

To:

 Palette(path,10,210,105,30);

And Change:

 clutoffset = palnum * 3;

To:

 clutoffset = palnum;

The confusion lies in that each palette register is 24 bits with 8 bits each
of Red, Green and Blue.  Palnum above needs to be the actual palette number
NOT the byte offset into the palette CLUT.

The other problem he's having is that he's using the original cgfx.l that
had a bug in the Palette and _gs/_ss_palette functions.

 - Mike -

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16359 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    31-Aug-92  23:41:09
Sb: #16349-#source_part 2
Fm: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203
To: Mike Haaland 72300,1433 (X)

Thanks Mike. I noticed the * 3 stuff and wondered about. However, it didn't
occur to me that setting a palette outside the valid range would cause
problems. Guess it does. When I ran the original on /term it would crash my
system--worked okay on the other windows (although it gave erronous results). I
guess that the clut is only as big as needed for a particular screen type and
setting values outside of that range will clobber unknowns.

There are 2 Replies.

#: 16370 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    01-Sep-92  23:12:29
Sb: #16359-source_part 2
Fm: Mike Haaland 72300,1433
To: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203 (X)


I believe that setting palettes outside the CLUT of the window will just wrap
around.  But if it was crashing your machine, maybe not.

Hey Mr. Darling?  What happens?

 - Mike -

#: 16383 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    04-Sep-92  01:16:11
Sb: #16359-source_part 2
Fm: LARRY OLSON 72227,3467
To: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203 (X)

Bob,
  Thanks for reminding me, I got to quit this email stuff, I'm a lurker to :-)

  As you heard, the problem was that I was using revision 2 of CGFX instead of
revision 3. I had downloaded CGFX 3 different times from 3 different places, in
order to make sure I had the newest version, but it never dawned on me that
revision 3 was in the file Win38. I already had Windio38 so I didn't think I
needed to download it, it came on an update disk back in Jan. or Feb.
  The thing with the Clutoffset was just one of the versions I had tried to get
to work. I had originally just used the palette number, but when that didn't
work I was trying other things, like multiplying the Clutoffset by 3.
  So everything is working now,(fingers crossed), and I'll try to keep these
messages out in the open.
  We need more traffic here ;-)

larry

#: 16348 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    31-Aug-92  00:35:41
Sb: #16341-#source_part 2
Fm: Mike Haaland 72300,1433
To: LARRY OLSON 72227,3467 (X)


You need to grab the latest update stuff from lib 12.  I believe it has
the latest cgfx.l in it.  Sounds to me like your using the orig cgfx.l.

 - Mike -

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16381 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    04-Sep-92  00:32:48
Sb: #16348-source_part 2
Fm: LARRY OLSON 72227,3467
To: Mike Haaland 72300,1433 (X)

Mike,
   I left you email on it, but that's what it was.

larry

#: 16350 S5/OS9 Users Group
    31-Aug-92  02:33:47
Sb: #15772-#announcement
Fm: John Wight 76370,2100
To: Carl Kreider 71076,76 (X)

Hello, Carl. Sorry for the delay in the reply, but I thought you might like to
know OS-9 CN and myself are still around.  Look for articles in the latest
issue of OS-9 Underground about OS-9 CN.  I feel the OS-9 community needs both
the services of the OS-9 Users' Group and OS-9 CN, as both can reach where the
other can't. One of my priorities right now is to come up with a reliable means
of communications between those of us on Fidonet, and those that reside on
UUCP, Internet, Bitnet, etc.  As you may or may not know, I lost my feed to
Internet, and as a result, our communications stopped. However, my
communications with those in Fidonet is still quite reliable. There are those
of you that communicate on the other networks that have miscellaneous problems
communicating on Fidonet for whatever reason, for example, I suspect that in
your case, you don't have a local Fidonet node where you can access the COCO
and OS-9 related echos. As for the Internet family of networks, many of us COCO
users either can't find an Internet feed, or can't afford it, while Fidonet is
very accessible to anyone with OS-9 and RiBBS (the only Fidonet software
available for OS-9). On the other hand, many can access the Internet family of
networks, and don't see the need to deal with Fidonet and Ribbs. These are the
type of communications problems I hope that we as a community can resolve, and
I really think we can, as the OS-9 community is very special and capable of
solving any such problems. Any help or ideas you or anyone else can give me on
this would sure be appreciated.

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16355 S5/OS9 Users Group
    31-Aug-92  22:17:17
Sb: #16350-announcement
Fm: Carl Kreider 71076,76
To: John Wight 76370,2100

Thanks for the reply.  Like I've said before, the communication issue is a big
bite to chew! ;)  You are right that I haven't a clue where to find a FIDO
node.  You were going to look into that and let me know.  But if there is no
OSK software (is that what you just said?) then it is moot.

#: 16353 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    31-Aug-92  22:12:01
Sb: #16220-#sh
Fm: Carl Kreider 71076,76
To: Steve Wegert 76703,4255 (X)

Uh, yeah, you heard that.  I haven't fixed much yet.  Only one thing. What is
your biggest peave (it probably isn't what I fixed)?

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16366 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    01-Sep-92  17:32:32
Sb: #16353-#sh
Fm: Steve Wegert 76703,4255
To: Carl Kreider 71076,76 (X)

Actually ... I haven't tried it. I've found nothing but trouble (mostly due to
my inexperience with intuative thought and the German language !) in attempting
to mess with any of te TOPS stuff. That's why I was excited when I heard you
were mucking about with the code. I actually might be able to use it.  :-)

But, in discussions with Barry Bond, who has used it, the mention of a problem
with security came up. A normal user has the ability to chown ?

If this isn't enough detail ... I'll press him for more.



There is 1 Reply.

#: 16368 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    01-Sep-92  22:18:34
Sb: #16366-#sh
Fm: Carl Kreider 71076,76
To: Steve Wegert 76703,4255 (X)

Ah ha.  You worry about the one thing I *have* fixed.  So I guess I should get
you a copy and docs.  I'll put it in the queue.

(acutally, there was a builtin called setuid that, well, could be best
described as a security cavern)

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16374 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    02-Sep-92  17:32:03
Sb: #16368-sh
Fm: Steve Wegert 76703,4255
To: Carl Kreider 71076,76

Hot dog!

I'll keep my eyes peeled for your lastest offering. I really miss the history
option I had with shell+. I understand sh will take care of this for me.

Steve



#: 16356 S9/Utilities
    31-Aug-92  22:34:19
Sb: #Ar update status
Fm: Carl Kreider 71076,76
To: all

I decided to try to clean up the ar mess before I start on the CD-ROM
driver/manager.  I still haven't received all the mods from the hackers, but
those who didn't send will just lose out.  I've spent a day so far and it will
be a bit more.  I have one VMS port, one  DOS port, two Unix ports, and a
couple folks hacks to try to merge into one.  None of these nice people had the
foresight to contact me for the latest version of my sources before starting,
so of course I can't just diff them each against my source.  Even worse, there
is inbreeding among some of these other versions.  So the task is not as easy
as I thought it would be.

To those waiting with bated breath (and those who are swearing under it) blame
your friendly neighborhood hacker for the delay.  The final upgrade is under
way and there will be a release.  I ain't saying when, but it is now a sure
thing.  Anyone who has multiple service connections is free to paraphrase this
there, and perhaps copy it.  I don't know how CIS feels, but I would like it to
be copied.

Carl

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16365 S9/Utilities
    01-Sep-92  17:32:27
Sb: #16356-Ar update status
Fm: Steve Wegert 76703,4255
To: Carl Kreider 71076,76 (X)

Carl,

It's your message ... do with it what you like! :-)

Actually ... in drips and drabs, and so long as it's mentioned that it
originated from CompuServe, I doubt that the powers that be much care one way
or the other if a message is cross posted.

And ... that pretty much what Ken did over on Delphi

Ste<opinions ... everyones got 'em>ve



#: 16357 S10/OS9/6809 (CoCo)
    31-Aug-92  23:11:35
Sb: #16304-Rammer help
Fm: BOB LEET 72020,2536
To: Kevin Darling 76703,4227 (X)

Kev,

        Thanks for your help on Internet.  I didn't know is was so easy to get
to and fro around the U.S. computer networks. 
        
        Thanks for the help with Rammer too.  Just one question: Right now, I
am loading it from the startup file.  It still is not providing me enough space
to format, do you think it will help buy loading it in the Boot File.  I have
not used DDIR yet to see what it does, but will soon. 

        I am recovering from a recent H/D crash. That along with school has me
really bogged down as far as COCOing goes.

                See you later, Bob//////


#: 16358 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    31-Aug-92  23:40:58
Sb: #Combining C and asm
Fm: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203
To: all

Is there any way to share C-language #defines with assembler routines? What I
want to do is something like this... First off, in a C file I define something:

 #define FOO 12345

Now, in a #asm section I want to use the contant FOO like this:

 #asm
 asmfunc:
  move.l #FOO,d0
  ....
 #endasm

Of course, what happens now is that cpp stops working when it hits #asm
sections and FOO is assembled as an external reference which never gets
resolved. Anyone with some brilliant thoughts?

There are 2 Replies.

#: 16361 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    01-Sep-92  06:48:19
Sb: #16358-#Combining C and asm
Fm: Bob Santy 76417,714
To: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203 (X)

Bob:

Sorry if you think this is a kludge, but it works!  Try a coding style like
this:

 #asm
 FOO set 12345
 #endasm

 extern int FOO; /* if C source will need the definition */

 cfunction()
 {
     int x = FOO;

 #asm
  move.l #FOO,d0
 #endasm

     printf( "%d\n", x );
 }

The example shows a definition (once in assembler) that can be seen by asm AND
C.  Granted it isn't terribly clean.  Hope this helps.

Bob

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16369 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    01-Sep-92  22:26:37
Sb: #16361-Combining C and asm
Fm: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203
To: Bob Santy 76417,714 (X)

Bob & Kev: Thanks for the help. I'd not thought of using a variable...of course
this will work. But, unfortunately, it's not the best for my application. I
have a table of about 200 contants. Copying the all to variables would take a
fair amount of memory, plus it'd probably slow things down a bit. (Which brings
up a sore point with C...if you have a long list of order contants you have to
#define each of them...#define ONE 1;#define TWO 2;etc. A shortcut for that
would be nice. I wonder, maybe enum would help?)

On the other hand...if I take a hint from Kevin's reply... I only need a few of
the 200 or so constants in my asm stuff. So I guess I could just do this:

 <file1.h>

 #define FOO 12345

 <file2.c>

 int fooint=FOO;
 #asm
 foofunc:
  move.l fooint(a6),d0
  ...
 #endasm

This way I'd just have to have duplicates for the 2 or 3 constants I _really_
need to play assember with. Thanks to all.

#: 16362 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    01-Sep-92  08:05:04
Sb: #16358-Combining C and asm
Fm: Kevin Darling 76703,4227
To: Bob van der Poel 76510,2203 (X)

Bob,

Well, I guess you could simply include the assembler equate, too:

 #define FOO 12345
 #asm
 FOO equ 12345
 #endasm

But what I do instead is to take such constants, and store them as variables:

 #define FOOVAL 12345
 static int foo;  /* foo is a variable */

 void setfoo()    /* This function called by main on init */
   {
    foo = FOOVAL;
   }

 void dofoo()    /* This function called to use foo from asm */
   {
   #asm
   move.l foo(a6),d0
   ...
   #endasm
   }

#: 16378 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    03-Sep-92  18:14:19
Sb: #16290-#more ??
Fm: Kevin Darling 76703,4227
To: LARRY OLSON 72227,3467 (X)

Larry,

Amiga fonts are any size, usually proportional, and some have 4 or 16 colors.

Most are set up for use in video titling software, and are pretty huge (40 to
70 pixels high).  So at this point, my support is very simple... just output.
It's also fairly slow, as I draw them dot per dot (they're bitplane packed).

Later on, I'll come up with a conversion utility to some new and quicker
format, but for now usage is easy:  simply merge the binaries you downloaded
into a special graphics buffer group.

So much to do; so little time :-)

PS: yes, C usually buffers output.  Others here can tell you how to prevent
that if wished.  (you can also use the flush commands to flush the buffer)

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16382 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    04-Sep-92  00:42:52
Sb: #16378-#more ??
Fm: LARRY OLSON 72227,3467
To: Kevin Darling 76703,4227 (X)

Kevin,
   So the characters in the Amiga fonts, would be used like an object in a
Get/Put buffer or are they used just like a regular font ?
  Are these fonts anything like those Harvard Graphics ?

larry

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16384 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    04-Sep-92  11:29:44
Sb: #16382-#more ??
Fm: Kevin Darling 76703,4227
To: LARRY OLSON 72227,3467 (X)

The AMiga fonts can be used as normal fonts, but they often don't have all the
characters you'd expect (some sets miss punctuation, others have no lowercase,
etc).  So you print with them (I figured this was easier).

As I mentioned, the support is very rough right now;  no pixel per pixel start
coordinate setting yet, for example.  And I need to rethink the way color fonts
(4 or 16 colors) are utilized.  But as rough as it is, you can still make some
pretty title screens :-)

Soon I'll rewrite the entire text output stuff to make use of multisize fonts,
etc.  (Right now I use the pixac for speed, and it's optimized for word
bounds).

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16388 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    05-Sep-92  01:23:15
Sb: #16384-#more ??
Fm: LARRY OLSON 72227,3467
To: Kevin Darling 76703,4227 (X)

Kevin,
   It sounds like, if you can work them in, the system will have the hard part
of a Home Publisher type program, built in. The mind boggles :-)

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16392 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    05-Sep-92  14:31:35
Sb: #16388-more ??
Fm: Kevin Darling 76703,4227
To: LARRY OLSON 72227,3467

Actually, the hard part will be that a desktop pub program will have to keep
track of all the proportional spacing and char positions (something I can't do
for a program).  That'll take some hard work (but obviously not impossible
since it's been done elsewhere) on someone's part :-)

#: 16379 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    03-Sep-92  18:15:07
Sb: #16345-#Windio for MM/1
Fm: Kevin Darling 76703,4227
To: GLEN HATHAWAY 71446,166 (X)

Hi Glen,

As soon as testers tell me that there's no outstanding bugs in the latest
version (v46), it'll be posted to everyone.  Should be just a few days.

What I think we're going to do with the function keys is this:  each program
will need to have all its functions available via ctrl or alt key combos... but
the fn keys can also be setup (via a program config file or module) to return
any desired combination of keycodes.

Thus a user can override these assignments if he wishes, and set up ones which
match his own preferences or most-used functions.

This stuff is also handy with older apps.  For example, you can (and I have)
set up global system defaults so that my function keys return commonly used
umacs key combos (load, save, quit, etc).  After playing with this a while,
I've realized that I also need to add a "training" option (like I hear Puppo's
keyboard interface had)... so that you can make a macro on the fly (hit F12,
then the function key to train, then the keystrokes you wish it to return, then
F12 to stop training).  Whatcha think?

kevin

There is 1 Reply.

#: 16380 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    03-Sep-92  23:03:02
Sb: #16379-Windio for MM/1
Fm: GLEN HATHAWAY 71446,166
To: Kevin Darling 76703,4227 (X)

Hi Kevin... The 'training' mode sounds like a good idea. The re-configurable
keyboard is a good idea; very flexible - unfortunately, it's also a whole new
'can of worms' for programmers! I guess you could have your program reset
things to suit itself, tho... and switch back when done.
 Anyway, I'm waiting for V46 - will there be docs? Even crude notes would be
adequate for now...
 Now get back to work! :-) See ya!
 Glen Hathaway - COMPER - 71446,166

#: 16385 S10/OS9/6809 (CoCo)
    04-Sep-92  11:33:19
Sb: Floppy Disk Slot
Fm: Lee Veal 74726,1752
To: All

Under OS9 Lvl 2, are floppy disk controllers slot dependent?

Does a floppy disk controller have to be in slot 4?

I know that the Burke&Burke hard drive device descriptors had a "slot"
designation in them, is there some sort of slot setting in a floppy disk
descriptor used by CC3Disk, SDisk3 or other FD driver?

Thanks,

Lee



#: 16386 S10/OS9/6809 (CoCo)
    04-Sep-92  11:38:13
Sb: Gale Force upgrades
Fm: Lee Veal 74726,1752
To: All

Has anyone applied the Gale Force upgrades to take advantage of all the Hitachi
6309 features?

If so have you been pleased with the performance?

Thanks,

Lee

#: 16387 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    05-Sep-92  00:37:43
Sb: #lzh file needs fixing
Fm: Stephen Seneker 75020,3611
To: all

I have a .lzh file I NEED to fix... any ideas?  lha can extract the first four
files, then it craps out.  The .lzh is a fairly complete set of documentation
and sample C code for IFF files.  I got it from a FTP site in Europe(slow)
forwiss.uni-passau.de (if interested).  So far I only have bits and pieces...



There is 1 Reply.

#: 16391 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
    05-Sep-92  14:30:03
Sb: #16387-lzh file needs fixing
Fm: Kevin Darling 76703,4227
To: Stephen Seneker 75020,3611 (X)

Stephen - why does it stop?  Can you tell from the archive directory?

Like, perhaps it has some filenames with non-os9 characters? ("-","\", etc)

With those, sometimes you can use dEd and change them in the .lzh file... and
get a good extract.

If it's not a filename problem, then it could be a bad file.

Press <CR> !>