HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Archimedes <-> Unix timestamp conversion
From: pgut1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Peter Gutmann)
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:48:08 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

Does anyone know how to convert from the 5-byte file timestamp to the
standard seconds-since-1970 4-byte Unix one?  I've tried the following:

  Take the exec.address (equivalent to time/256)
  Shift left once (equivalent to time/128, roughly the time in seconds)
  If the high bit of the remaining time byte is set, add one
		  (compensate for individual seconds)
  Subtract the difference between the Archimedes and Unix epochs.

This is a quick and dirty way of dividing the 5-byte centisecond value to a
4-byte second one, and then adjusting for the difference in the epoch. The
only problem is this gives garbled time values.

Does anyone have any code to do this conversion?

Thanks in advance,
Peter.
--
    pgut1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz || peterg@kcbbs.gen.nz || peter@nacjack.gen.nz
			     (In order of preference)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Palette utility obscurity
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:37:50 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

ericl@cs.kuleuven.ac.be (Eric Lafortune) writes:

>On page 1257 in the PRM we can read about the Message_PaletteChange :
[...]

>Does this mean that when a Wimp program changes a colour in a 16 colour
>mode using "VDU 19, <colour number>, 16, <red>, <green>, <blue>", the
>palette utility automatically issues a redraw of the screen ???

NO. You should only use the WIMP calls to set the palette when running
on the desktop, I think... I don't think the WIMP traps VDU 19's...

[...]

[...make a red sprite ...]
[...change palette for red colour...]
>Your red sprite will change into a white one.  As you can see there has
>been *no* redraw.  To be sure of that last fact we will issue a
>broadcast message ourselves by :

If you use Wimp colour-setting calls, this shouldn't be a problem.

If not:
  * If you call ColourTrans_InvalidateCache any subsequent redraws should
    do their best to get the colour right given the new palette.
  * Issue your own redraw broadcast
-- 
_________________  "I'd like to answer this question in two ways:
  /____ _ _/_ __       First in my normal voice, and then
 // / //_//_ /_/       in a silly, high-pitched whine." (Monty Python)
From: guttorm@hp825.bih.no (Guttorm Vik)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Throwback
Date: 8 Oct 92 18:07:17 GMT
Organization: Bergen College of Engineering, Bergen, Norway.

There is a small inconsistency between how C uses throwback and how the 
manual describes it. The manual says that the strings to be thrown should be
\0 terminated, but C throws \0a terminated (newline) strings instead.

I discovered this bug when one of my users complained that throwback didn't
work properly in StrongED 1.10. I had just made a testprogram that sent out
throwback messages according to the definition, and when everything seemed to
work, I released it. How was I to know that C hadn't read the same manual as
I did... B)

Fuck C anyway... (whoops, sorry about that..)
 _
(-)rmStrong
From: mhardy@acorn.co.uk (Michael Hardy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Real Icon Dragging.
Date: 8 Oct 92 09:17:36 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

In article <1992Oct7.182116.15067@cs.nott.ac.uk> smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows) writes:

>In article <1992Oct7.134701.24557@aisb.ed.ac.uk> ainsjc@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Steffan) writes:
>>In article <1992Oct7.161818.11278@waikato.ac.nz> bwc@waikato.ac.nz (Ug!) writes:
>>>Hi!  Could someone tell me what the FX call is to write the CMOS-RAM bit
>>>to turn the icon-dragging on?  (Assuming it still works in RiscOS 3.1)
>
>The easiest way (although it is cheating somewhat) is to type
>*FX 162,28,3. This enables solid icon drags with shadows.

Without wishing to sound too critical, this is not a good way to do it,
since you are also altering the state of seven other bits which control
other aspects of FileSwitch and the Wimp. A better way is to read the byte,
set bit 1, and then write it back. This is the program that I use:

   REM Toggle state of DragASprite bit in CMOS

   REM Read byte
   SYS "OS_Byte",161,&1C TO ,,byte%
   REM EOR byte with mask for bit 1
   byte% = byte% EOR 1<<1
   REM Write byte back again
   SYS "OS_Byte",162,&1C,byte%
   END

You *must* use the OS_Byte calls, otherwise the checksum byte will become
incorrect. This byte is calculated on a power-on reset, and then maintained
by the OS_Byte calls (in other words, they don't recalculate it, but merely
update it in a manner that is appropriate to the changes made).

The other thing to note is that you *must* do a power-on reset when
upgrading from RISC OS 2 to RISC OS 3, not just to initialise the checksum,
but more importantly  because the CMOS usage differs between the versions.

- Michael J Hardy

  Technical Publications    Email:      mhardy@acorn.co.uk
  Acorn Computers Ltd       Telephone:  +44 223 254352
  Cambridge TechnoPark      Fax:        +44 223 254270
  645 Newmarket Road        Telex:      817875 ACORN G
  Cambridge CB5 8PB
  England                   Disclaimer: All opinions are my own, not Acorn's
From: esutt@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Mr A E Hersee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Another RO3 bug to watch out for.
Date: 14 Oct 92 09:13:39 GMT
Organization: Computing Services, University of Warwick, UK
NNTP-Posting-Host: lily.csv.warwick.ac.uk

Last night I was writing a nice little application that needed to grab hotkeys
that the wimp passes around. So what do I do I test to see if the WIMP is 
greater than 299 and if it is I open my window with -3 ie behind the pinboard
where iconized windows live. Thus it will never be seen. On RO2 it opens it at
the back ie -2. Now in RO3 when I receive a Wimp_KeyPressed message I process
the key or pass it on using SWI Wimp_ProcessKey. Now the RO2 PRM's state that
this is the correct action and indeed it is. They state that the wimp will 
then pass the key on to other applications until it gets to the window at the
back and then stop. But if your window is the back one the WIMP just keeps 
passing the message to you thus you keep returning it to the WIMP like a good
little app and it gives it back tou you, and hey we find ourselves in a 
infinite circle. So to get round this I have to open the window at -2 not -3.
Just a warning incase you wonder why your little app decides to crash in a
VERY simple routine.
From: Robert.Turner@brunel.ac.uk (Robert Turner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Query - Modems
Date: 8 Oct 92 14:32:20 GMT
Organization: Brunel University, West London, UK

Hi

Well, with the BAU show coming up, I am thinking about what I want to
spend my loverly lolly on. I am currently debating buying a modem, in
order to contact to  the Uni here, but can't seem to find any adverts in
the MU (sorry, AC).

Anyway, does anyone have any suggestions about modems (either stay away
froms or best buys), and before I even start to look, is there a good
VT100 (220....) emulator for the Arc that can connect to the Sun UN*X
boxes here at Uni?

Any help appreciated, from  wherever and whoever.

Rob

-- 
 _________________________________________________________________________
/                            |                                            \
|   Rob Turner, PC Support   |     email : Robert.Turner@brunel.ac.uk     |
|   Brunel University        |                                            |
|   London, England          |   Life is worth living, and then you die.  |
\____________________________|____________________________________________/
From: vaughanm@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Vaughan Marks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Wanted: Playing Card Graphics
Date: 11 Oct 92 20:59:44 GMT


Does anyone have (or know of) any decent playing card graphics that
I may use in an application? I would like to use sprites, rather than
'constructing' cards with graphic primitives for speed and simplicity. 
Im writing a desktop card game, but would like to use full-face cards
rather than some nasty half baked effort of showing a small corner.

Any help/advice comments welcome.

Cheers,
-- 
       _    _     _  __   ____    ________________________________________
   \ \\_\\ \\ _\_\\_\\ \ \\ \ \   \  Vaughan Marks: vaughanm@cs.man.ac.uk \
    \_\\ \\_\\_\\ \\ \\ \_\\ \ \   \_______________________________________\
From: jjjbokma@cs.ruu.nl (John Bokma)
Subject: RO3.10 info wanted
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 13:18:55 GMT
Organization: Utrecht University, Dept. of Computer Science
Keywords: RO3.10

Are there already text files which describe the new features of RISC OS 3.10
?? Can somebody please mail them to me??

Thanks,

John
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Mr Iconise, again
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 1992 23:15:46 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

OK. Thanks to the guys at Acorn who helped me out with the Iconise protocol
messages. I have just one question:

Is pinboard broken, or am I doing something wrong? (It's hard to tell because
the instructions for Message_WindowInfo are so unhelpful and vague)

I appeal to the techpubs people at Acorn to *please* rewrite the page about
iconisation: It is *very* difficult to understand (especially the implied
context switches between iconiser and client)

I have coded the folowing:
On receipt of Messge_WindowInfo, I call Wimp_Poll once to allow the Un-Acked
message to get back to Pinboard, thus getting the iconisation to occur. I
then send (Wimp_SendMessage,17) a msg_WindowInfo to pinboard, thus getting
the correct icon and title.

In my attempts to get this working, I have tried *every* combination of
message types, acks, etc., and *only* the above seems to work (if I ack,
the machine locks up, most of the rest of the time, I get a blank title and
the "ic_?" sprite...)
The half-way point (without the Wimp_Poll in the middle) is when the title
text is correct, and for about 1/10th of a second, the icon is correct, and
then the icon is replaced by "ic_?".

Arrrgh!

So, anyway, I had it working, by using a Wimp_Poll... And then I reset my
machine and started it up without my normal boot sequence (i.e. a "blank"
RISC OS 3.10 A5000). Hey, presto! It's BROKEN again!
It works fine if I boot from my hard drive...

Arrrrgh! Why?

Has anybody ever actually tested pinboard with an application that supplies
sprite names *other* than the same name as the application's taskname?
(i.e. taskname = "edit", icon = "ic_edit"; taskname = "dsedit ii", icon =
"dsed-1" or "dsed-2" or "dsed-t"?)

Help! I'm at my wits end over what must qualify as the simplest message
protocol available! Arrrgh!
-- 
_________________  "I'd like to answer this question in two ways:
  /____ _ _/_ __       First in my normal voice, and then
 // / //_//_ /_/       in a silly, high-pitched whine." (Monty Python)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: idg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (I.D. Griffiths)
Subject: Re: Archimedes <-> Unix timestamp conversion
Reply-To: idg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (I.D. Griffiths)
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 15:17:38 GMT

In article <1992Oct9.004808.4421@cs.aukuni.ac.nz>, pgut1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz
(Peter Gutmann) writes:
|> Does anyone know how to convert from the 5-byte file timestamp to the
|> standard seconds-since-1970 4-byte Unix one?

Yup, had to do that one this summer...

Find out how to offset things from 1970 in Acorn format.  Easily done thus:

temp$=TIME$
TIME$="...acorny type date for 1st jan 1970"
OS_Word thingy to read time
TIME$=temp$

This will give you a value to subtract from Acorn dates to get them relative to
1970.

Then, divide by 100.  OK, so this is not a fun thing to have to do particularly
in assembler, but it is the only way to do it properly.   Getting the time
roughly in seconds isn't particularly helpful.  It's relatively easy going in
the other direction.  (I had to write both routines this summer, but I suspect
the direction you wish to go in ended up being in the C bit...)

Ian Griffiths
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: felixa@microsoft.com (Felix GTi Andrew)
Subject: Re: Hard disc formatters! HELP!
Date: 07 Oct 92 21:39:30 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

>Perhaps you need a Keyboard Interface, allowing you to use PC keyboards, mice
>and so forth..  (advertise?  moi?)

Cool - does this allow me to connect a Compaq or a Dell keyboard to my arc?
My Compaq has one of those BIG connectors, and the Dell has a little one.
I'd prefer the dell.

Also I use Microsoft Ballpoint mice - can I connect these too?

Do you provide a switcher with them too so that I can switch the output of
the input decives to different processors?

How much do they cost?

Thanks
	Felix

PS Do you take dollars? 8-)
From: nas20@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: iconizing, modems, ro3 etc
Date: 15 Oct 92 10:19:51 GMT
Reply-To: nas20@phx.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith)
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK

In article <gilbertd.718961656@p4.cs.man.ac.uk> gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (David Alan Gilbert) writes:
>In <memo.677982@cix.compulink.co.uk> plebeau@cix.compulink.co.uk (Paul Lebeau) writes:
>>Unfortunately, there is no Arc software to drive fax modems, that
>>I know of.  A colleague has written some simple code to drive our
>>modem.  Is there any demand out there for us to develop this
>>commercially?  How many of you have fax modems?
>
>Dave Pilling sent me a little advert together with SparkFS
>saying that they were aiming to have a fax program out around
>now for cheap fax modems.
>
>>Paul LeBeau
>
>Dave Gilbert

David Pilling has his ArcFAX software available now (see adds in this
months' Archive/??) I have yet to play with it, but being a David Pilling
production it has to be good !

Hugo Fiennes (of The Serial Port) was talking about some snazzy modems 
bundled with the latest ARCterm7 + ArcFAX (obviously the modems can send
& receive G3 faxes)



--
--
Nick Smith, Rm.226, Churchill College, Cambridge. ! Email: nas20@uk.ac.cam.phx
sig quote wanted - must be under guarantee.      ! Tel: (0223) 465596
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: idg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (I.D. Griffiths)
Subject: Re: More than 4 expansion cards ??
Reply-To: idg10@phx.cam.ac.uk (I.D. Griffiths)
Organization: U of Cambridge, England
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 15:12:18 GMT


In article <1b3506INNjc4@swan.doc.ic.ac.uk>, mybg@doc.ic.ac.uk (M Y Ben
Gershon) writes:
|> 
|> Does anyone know of any way to have more than 4 expansion cards on an Acorn
|> RISC computer (540 in my case)?  I recall reading that it cannot be done
|> directly (ie some form of internal expansion which would allow more than 4
|> cards to be USED simultaneously), due to OS limitations, and
assumptions made
|> by various card manufacturers about the address mappings used by the
4 'basic'
|> cards.
|> 
|> What would interest me would be an expansion which allowed, say, 2
additional
|> cards to be added, with some form of physical switch to toggle between them
|> and two of the 'resident' cards.
|> 

Well there's no technical reason why you couldn't, but I wouldn't advocate the
ability to switch between them while running.  Between resets maybe.

|> Has anyone got any ideas?  I am not an electronics buff, so I
wouldn't be able
|> to build anything, but maybe someone out there is developing something... I
|> am getting absolutely desparate, as I have 4 cards installed, but two newly
|> released cards also seem very interesting!
|> 
|> Michael Ben-Gershon

Well, relatively simple, there's usually a spare input on the 4 line decoders
in most circuits due to the large number of enable signals supplied (although
you can find a use for all at once, so Acorn may have done) but it would be
trivial to build the address decode logic to allow for this.  My worry would be
just how far you can take signals away from the motherboard.

Ian Griffiths
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Message_Iconise
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 00:30:43 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

pcolmer@acorn.co.uk (Philip Colmer) writes:

>In article <1992Oct5.222352.10182@cs.aukuni.ac.nz> jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA) writes:

>>As far as I can tell, the PRMs say the message numbers are 0x400c10
>>and 0x400c11 respectively. However, these numbers don't work.
>           ^^
> These two digits should be hex! ie 0x400CA and 400CB.

Yeah... I was suspicious of this...

>Note that if you only have the one iconized sprite you want to use,
>the easiest thing is to call it ic_<task name> and don't bother
>responding to any of the messages, eg ic_edit, ic_filer, ic_draw,
>ic_paint. For consistency, you should use ic_? from the Wimp's sprite
>pool and then usually put the small version of the filetype sprite in
>the middle of it.

I did... first of all, I had to use a hard space in "dsedit ii" to get it
all working, and now I get an icon with '' underneath it (no name at all),
so I really want to reply to messages to get things working properly...
Now that I have the correct info, I should have it running RSN... thanks.
-- 
_________________  "I'd like to answer this question in two ways:
  /____ _ _/_ __       First in my normal voice, and then
 // / //_//_ /_/       in a silly, high-pitched whine." (Monty Python)
From: gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (David Alan Gilbert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: RISC-OS apps in modules
Date: 13 Oct 92 07:45:06 GMT

In <1992Oct12.161759.2143@infodev.cam.ac.uk> idg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (I.D. Griffiths) writes:

<stuff about cmgh and the c compiler and problems etc. >

>*logon from within a task window under NFS causes the machine to hang.  (yup!
>NFS is written in C, even some of the low level bits...)  So basically if two
>tasks written in C are running at once, the machine will hang.  Obviously this
>only applies to SVC mode C, since user mode apps obviously seem to work.

Oh! Thats why Desktop C is incompatible with NFS!
Doesn't that meen you could never write a filing system
using cmhg - since everything using it would fall over?
(Ah yes....NFS!)

What limitations arise from this - i.e. I have written
a module in C and it works OK.  It provides a *command,
and a number of SWI's.  Both of these seem to work OK
in a task window - why should they - especialy the star command
which prints out quite a bit of information.

Does it meen I cant call a SWI in another C module, even if I preserve
R14_svc?  If so, would it fail if it wrote any data to (say) an NFS
mounted file?  - Or is this completely different?

Dave
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- David Alan Gilbert - gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk - G7FHJ@GB7NWP                -
------(Programmers don't sleep - they just park their heads)-------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk (Paul Moore)
Subject: iconizing, modems, ro3 etc
Reply-To: pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 18:05:07 +0000


plebeau@cix.compulink.co.uk says:
 
 
  > Does anyone know whether there is a new version of SparkFS
  > that doesn't interfere with RO3 Shift-Ctrl-F12 closedown.
  > (If you have SparkFS on the iconbar and do a closedown, you
  > need to hit escape twice before the closedown goes through. 
  > The version I have access to is 1.05. 
 
I have 1.10, and have not had this problem...
 
Gustav.
From: enevill@acorn.co.uk (Edward Nevill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: RISC-OS apps in modules
Date: 16 Oct 92 10:27:51 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

In article <gilbertd.718962306@p4.cs.man.ac.uk> gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (David Alan Gilbert) writes:

>In <1992Oct12.161759.2143@infodev.cam.ac.uk> idg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (I.D. Griffiths) writes:
>
><stuff about cmgh and the c compiler and problems etc. >
>
>>*logon from within a task window under NFS causes the machine to hang.  (yup!
>>NFS is written in C, even some of the low level bits...)  So basically if two
>>tasks written in C are running at once, the machine will hang.  Obviously this
>>only applies to SVC mode C, since user mode apps obviously seem to work.
>
>Oh! Thats why Desktop C is incompatible with NFS!
>Doesn't that meen you could never write a filing system
>using cmhg - since everything using it would fall over?
>(Ah yes....NFS!)

No, this occurs because of a bug in the Internet module which is nothing to
do with it being written in C / Assembler or any other language.

You can run multiple C tasks modules simultaneously. Each CMHG entry point
saves the old values of the static data relocations, installs its static
data relocations, calls the entry point and restores the old static data
relocations. 

>What limitations arise from this - i.e. I have written
>a module in C and it works OK.  It provides a *command,
>and a number of SWI's.  Both of these seem to work OK
>in a task window - why should they - especialy the star command
>which prints out quite a bit of information.

No limitations whatsoever.

>Does it meen I cant call a SWI in another C module, even if I preserve
>R14_svc?  If so, would it fail if it wrote any data to (say) an NFS
>mounted file?  - Or is this completely different?

You can call SWIs in other C modules. If you are using _kernel_swi you
do not need to worry about saving R14_svc. _kernel_swi does this before
calling the SWI.

Edward (enevill@acorn.co.uk)

....
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
....
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From: smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Real Icon Dragging.
Date: 7 Oct 92 18:21:16 GMT
Organization: Nottingham University

In article <1992Oct7.134701.24557@aisb.ed.ac.uk> ainsjc@aisb.ed.ac.uk (Steffan) writes:
>In article <1992Oct7.161818.11278@waikato.ac.nz> bwc@waikato.ac.nz (Ug!) writes:
>>Hi!  Could someone tell me what the FX call is to write the CMOS-RAM bit
>>to turn the icon-dragging on?  (Assuming it still works in RiscOS 3.1)

The easiest way (although it is cheating somewhat) is to type
*FX 162,28,3. This enables solid icon drags with shadows.

Nick Smith has written a module to force all application file drags to
use DragAsprite - it's on the Risc User magazine disc this month.

Simon B.
From: psyhsmb@unicorn.nott.ac.uk (S.Burrows)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: RISC-OS 3.10 Features
Date: 7 Oct 92 10:42:26 GMT
Organization: Cripps Computing Centre, University of Nottingham

In article <1992Oct7.095813.10753@cs.nott.ac.uk> 
rsxdp@unicorn.nott.ac.uk (D.Pead) writes:

>Ive seen talk about the "interface" style slabbed icons in RO3.1,
>but some people may not have noticed that it also supports the
>automatic pointer changing feature of "Interface".

Incidentally, anyone using "Interface" should use version 2.xx, as this
is more RISC OS 3 friendly.

Simon B.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Burrows  psyhsmb@unicorn.nott.ac.uk  Please say hello at the BAU Show!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------