HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: Albert.Koelmans@newcastle.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.announce
Subject: Additions and/or replacements on the Newcastle Info Server
Date: 21 Dec 92 08:46:32 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.acorn
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

This is the last info server update before the Xmas break. I wish everyone a
happy Xmas and an equally happy 1993.

[ and is probably also the last c.s.a.an* posting before my Xmas break. So
  far, most replies I've seen about the posting of Press Releases appear
  to favour the status quo - so that's how it'll stay. 
  
  Happy Xmas, etc
  
  Alan
  
]  


Datasuite (3.56/2.23), appdoc (2.10), nspark(1.3) and sysbeep (1.53)
have all been replaced by the latest versions.


New software:

bastracker - by Julian Wright. Description:
This is an Amiga-ProTracker module player. It requires the recently
posted version of DataSuite to operate. It may run a little slow
on ARM2 machines, although I have included an ARM2 version of it.
This is my entry into the Arc demo competition, in the Basic
category - yes it's written completely in Basic!


discindex - by Stephen Mansfield. Description:
This is an ADFS disc indexing system which runs under RISC OS 3.1 (no testing
on earlier versions of OS have been carried out, it may work though).


killscreen - by Philip Banks. Description:
A short module that inhibits the display of that desktop startup screen. And
optionally runs an OSCLI command at the same time. More help is provided in
the text file inside the archive.

 
To retrieve a file from the archive, send a message to 
info-server@newcastle.ac.uk with the following content:

line-limit 1000
request: sources
topic: archimedes filename
request: end

where filename is replaced by the name of the file that you want.
A filename of 'index' will send you the latest index file.
A filename of 'tail_index' will send you the list of the last 50 files added
to the archive.

PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR SOFTWARE IS VIRUS FREE BEFORE SENDING IT TO ME


--

E-mail address:  Albert.Koelmans@newcastle.ac.uk
Computing Science Department, University of Newcastle upon Tyne,
Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK (telephone +44 091-2228155,fax 2228232) 

_______________________________________________________________________________

aglover@acorn.co.uk, moderator of comp.sys.acorn.announce. Submissions to
announce-request@acorn.co.uk, other related mail to announcer@acorn.co.uk.
From: gjo@brt.deakin.edu.au
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: MIDI interface woes
Date: 31 Dec 92 09:53:46 EST
Organization: C&CS, Deakin University
NNTP-Posting-Host: vax1.viccol.edu.au

I have a Serial Port/Vertical Twist/Leading Edge Sampler/MIDI interface
in my A5000.
I currently do all my MIDI stuff on my Atari ST.
I was planning on getting a Sequencer for the Acorn.
I think that all of EMR's software requires an Acorn MIDI interface to work.
Does anyone know if !Inspiration from AMP sound works with the MIDI
interface from Leading Edge? I have the Demo version of !Inspiration
and its graphics seem a bit dodgey under RISC OS 3.0 in mode 31.
(It doesn't have any MIDI functions enabled so I couldn't test the interface)
I was writing a simple sequencer of my own, but I found what appear to
be bugs in the MIDI software module, incomming MIDI data is not time
stamped if you use the MIDI fast clock.

I wrote to Leading Edge to report the bug and to try and get an update
to the MIDI module but I got no response.
Does anyone know what the current version of the MIDI module for this card is?

Perhaps I should buy a real Acorn MIDI podule? Anyone want to buy a
sampler/MIDI interface? Should I give up on the Acorn and write something
under OS/2 on my PC for the MIDI interface on my Sound Blaster? :-)

Greg O'Sullivan
(gjo@brt.deakin.edu.au)
Xref: sparky comp.sys.acorn:10189 comp.sys.acorn.tech:1143
From: arh16@cus.cam.ac.uk (A.R. Hamilton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn,comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Draw or Postscript -> EPS
Date: 31 Dec 92 05:44:09 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England


Thanks to everybody who replied 1st time around, however, despite all
suggestions, I still can't get EPS files from Draw into MSword5 on a
Macintosh.

I have tried the following:
1)     Draw a simple box in "Draw"
2)     Using the "GenericPS", or "Apple Laserwriter" RiscOS3 printer
drivers, create a file containing the postscript "hardcopy". This claims to
be EPSF-1.2, just as output from Macintosh applications is.
3)     Save two versions of the file to MS-DOS disc on A5000 under RiscOS3.1
       i)  As is
       ii) Load in "Edit", do "CR<->LF", save as second file
4)     Dismount MS-DOS disc from Arc
5)     Load Disc into Mac.
6)     Attempt to load EPS file into MSWord5 or Freehand => FAILURE.
       (Although the files print direct from Arc to an Apple laswerwriter
       ok)

This has me completely stumped.
Any help, as ever, gratefully received (via e-mail preferably)...
    Thanks,
           ARH.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Alex Hamilton                     Internet: arh16@cus.cam.ac.uk
SP Physics Group                  Janet:    arh16@uk.ac.cam.cus
Cavendish Laboratory              Tel: +44 (0)223 337229 (Direct)
Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.                +44 (0)223 337482 (Group Secretary)
From: arh16@cus.cam.ac.uk (A.R. Hamilton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Draw or Postscript -> EPS
Date: 26 Dec 92 07:49:15 GMT
Organization: U of Cambridge, England

(Please excuse any kludges - first attempt at posting)

A plea for help:
I have lots of Draw files on my Arch. which I'd like to port to a Mac & put
into Word5. To do this I need to convert them to "EPS", without losing
resolution (i.e. without going via sprites).

So, does anybody know how to convert Draw or Postscript files to EPS ?
(I know that there is a program called !EPSobject, but unfortuantely it goes
the wrong way)

Still on the subject of conversions, I have been told that Keith Sloan is an
expert in this area - does anybody have a contact address (e-mail if possible)
for him ?

Any help (via email if possible) greatly appreciated
        Thanks,
                ARH.
Alex Hamilton                     Internet: arh16@cus.cam.ac.uk
SP Physics Group                  Janet:    arh16@uk.ac.cam.cus
Cavendish Laboratory              Tel: +44 (0)223 337229 (Direct)
Cambridge CB3 0HE, U.K.                +44 (0)223 337482 (Group Secretary)
From: espgl@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Mr D Charalambakis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Heeeeeeeeeeelppppppp!!!!!!!
Date: 28 Dec 1992 11:51:52 -0000
Organization: Computing Services, University of Warwick, UK
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: oregano.csv.warwick.ac.uk

        I urgently need help. I bought a second hand Acorn A5000 Mscan
monitor which I am using with my A440/1 two months ago. Yesterday it
started doing this:

        after working for about 5 mins the screen starts flashing and then
it gets smaller and smaller until it desappears. Then the on/off indication
LED starts flashing. If I switch it off and let it stay for a while, I can
switch it on but it does the same thing again.

        Does anybody know what this problem is? Is it serious? Is it
expensive to fix if the monitor is not under guarrantee any more?

                Thank you very much for the help.

                Jim.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
E@mail : espgl@uk.ac.warwick.csv
         es1133@uk.ac.warwick.eng
From: jkh@whisker.lotus.ie (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Re: RISC OS 3 PRM's
Date: 30 Dec 92 02:22:16 GMT
	<588@rook.ukc.ac.uk> <6547@falcon.ukc.ac.uk> <5885@krafla.rhi.hi.is>
Organization: Lotus Development Ireland

In article <5885@krafla.rhi.hi.is> adamd@rhi.hi.is (Adam David) writes:

   >suggested porting Gcc to the Arc., as a third year project. I am seriously
   >considering this, but then how do I compile the compiler, without a compiler?

   Cross-compile first on another machine architecture that already has working
   Gcc and all support tools. I'm not saying it's easy though, I'd be willing to
   try if the standard Acorn filesystem was not so brain-damaged.

That's the approach I'm taking..  A 486 is the cross compilation platform.

				Jordan
--
Jordan Hubbard		Lotus Development Ireland	jkh@whisker.lotus.ie
I DO NOT SPEAK FOR LOTUS - IT HAS PLENTY OF LAWYERS TO DO THAT FOR IT ALREADY
From: arcturus@spuddy.uucp (Geoff Riley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Re: RO3 PRM`s and Desktop C
Date: 19 Dec 92 15:41:14 GMT
Organization: Spuddy's Public Usenet Domain

In article <gilbertd.724413387@cs.man.ac.uk> gilbertd@cs.man.ac.uk (David Alan Gilbert) writes:
>Also its a great way of finding bugs - if a pre-release version was
>given to lots of people, they could find bugs before it went on the
>market - something akin to free beta testing.  It would cost to
>distribute things like this, so why not ask people for some money,
>which would be refunded when they paid for the full release
>upgrade later.

It would also be nice if the details for the PRM's were a little easier
to get at before the PRM's are actually released... I've been having
great fun (?) trying to persaud the internal comms port to function the
way that it used to on RO2 - like with working hardware handshakes :-(
-- 
Cheerio,
        |~~~
        |__|eoff         (Fidonet address: 2:250/208)
   (uucp address: arcturus@spuddy.uucp  or  ...!uknet!axion!spuddy!arcturus)
 * Meeeow ! Call Spuddy on (0203) 638780/638693 for FREE mail & Usenet access *
From: blacka@logica.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Re: Admin: Review of c.s.a.a's usefulness to date
Date: 21 Dec 92 13:25:56 GMT

Please can the announcements continue as at present.

Information (that may be too commercially biased) is better
than silence.

Andrew Black
From: adamd@rhi.hi.is (Adam David)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Re: RISC OS 3 PRM's
Date: 29 Dec 92 19:04:18 GMT

In <6547@falcon.ukc.ac.uk> jtn@ukc.ac.uk (J.T.Noble) writes:

>suggested porting Gcc to the Arc., as a third year project. I am seriously
>considering this, but then how do I compile the compiler, without a compiler?

Cross-compile first on another machine architecture that already has working
Gcc and all support tools. I'm not saying it's easy though, I'd be willing to
try if the standard Acorn filesystem was not so brain-damaged.

--
Adam David. (adamd@rhi.hi.is)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
From: alla0008@student.tc.umn.edu (Graham Allan)
Subject: Re: Connecting ARC to VAX (was:RO3 PRM`s and Desktop C)
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 05:54:23 GMT

In article <1992Dec24.111448.25@condor> blacka@logica.co.uk writes:
><r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk> asked
>
>>I'd be interested to know how you've connected your Arch to the VAX, and with
>>what success (unless it's a plain serial connection with terminal emulator,
>
>Sorry - as you suspected, it's just a boring serial link,
>with terminal emulator  from ARCH at home via a modem to
>my work VAX.
>
>What you are suggesting about DECWINDOWS and X-terminal on
>ARCH sounds interesting.  I don't think it's relevant to my
>set - a dial up line would presumably be too slow
>for that sort of thing!

Actually a fast modem line is supposed to be quite usable for X-windows
(V32 or V32bis with compression), or so I'm told - as long as you don't
try running a page layout program or something stupid! I was quite interested
in using this from my arc to our VAX cluster (again with the Gnome X
server) but as far as I can tell none of the Acorn or Gnome TCP/IP stuff
supports the serial port.

Graham
From: blacka@logica.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Connecting ARC to VAX (was:RO3 PRM`s and Desktop C)
Date: 24 Dec 92 11:14:48 GMT

<r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk> asked

>I'd be interested to know how you've connected your Arch to the VAX, and with
>what success (unless it's a plain serial connection with terminal emulator,

Sorry - as you suspected, it's just a boring serial link,
with terminal emulator  from ARCH at home via a modem to
my work VAX.

What you are suggesting about DECWINDOWS and X-terminal on
ARCH sounds interesting.  I don't think it's relevant to my
set - a dial up line would presumably be too slow
for that sort of thing!

Andrew 


PS - I have tried to mail this to you, but twice  (on 22 and 23 dec) it has 
bounced with the error below.   Is you machine on "holiday"

Error occurred sending to the following user(s):
  <r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk> (via BEN.UKNET.AC.UK):
    %MX-F-RETRYEXCD, retry count exceeded
    -IPACP-E-DSNODS, Domain service: no domain servers could be contacted
From: rknight@gec-rl-hrc.co.uk (Roger Knight (B21))
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: EPS files
Date: 23 Dec 92 15:58:06 GMT
Organization: GEC Hirst Research Centre

pwatson@lincoln.gpsemi.com (Philip Watson) wrote:

>In article <1992Dec7.182144.12837@aston.ac.uk> Mik Davis,
>davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk writes:
>>  Can MSWord on a Mac not read Postscript files? - I was intending to
>use this
>>method myself to transfer some work done during the university vacation.
>Can
>>it be done?

>Well I've just tried it on a copy of Word 5.0 for Macintosh and it will
>load
>EPS files but not plain Postscript. (Maybe it's an extra cost option.)

Could someone explain the difference between PS and EPS, I thought the
the only difference is that EPS doesn't have a "SHOWPAGE" command.

I regularly draw diagrams in !Draw and import the RO2 !PrinterPS output
into MS Word 5.0 after deleting the "Copies" line at the bottom of the
file (Copies is an Acorn macro which calls showpage).

I recently tried to export the EPS from Mentor Graphics CAD tools into
!Artworks with no success whatsoever.  Have CC produced a proper EPS
interpreter for !Artworks? I suspect they've hard-coded the macros which
Corel Draw, Adobe etc. use in their EPS files instead of reading the
full PS prolog.

(- BTW I did find a way to get workstation graphics onto my Archie, but its
a bit contrived.  The route is :-
   X windows bitmap dump (xwd) -> PMB+ (PD s/w) GIF/TIFF -> !ChangeFSI -> Sprite
)

Happy Christmas everyone, this system is about to crash
for the holiday ( some of my computers may go down as well),

Roger Knight                  E-Mail: rknight@gec-rl-hrc.co.uk
VHDL Semi-Custom Design Group,
GEC-Marconi Ltd.,
Hirst Research Centre,
Wembley, UK
---------------------------------------
ENTITY STD_DISCLAIMER IS
   PORT ( i_said_it      : OUT bull;
          not_my_company : IN  disclaimer
        );
END;
From: dhmyrdal@flipper.pvv.unit.no (Dag H}kon Myrdal)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: EPS
Date: 23 Dec 1992 20:02:49 GMT
Organization: ProgramVareVerkstedet - UNIT
Distribution: comp
NNTP-Posting-Host: flipper.pvv.unit.no

In article <Bznw65.JD2@newcastle.ac.uk> you write:
>3. Set the file type to &808 (EPS) and try to convert it back to a DrawFile. 
>!EPSobject refuses to do this giving an "End of file" error.
>What's going wrong?
>-- Adrian.

!EPSobject isn't a PostScript-interpreter...
It relies on a certain type of EPS files, where the PostScript 
commands have certain defined abbreviations, like 'M' for 'move' etc.
This is true for Encapsulated PostScript as made by Adobe Illustrator,
but very few other programs define exactly the same abbrevations.
So, to read *any* EPS file, you would need a better converter.

There are also a PostScript program called 'distill', which can be run
using GhostScript that take as input any PostScript file, and make
it into a simpler EPS-file. Used two or more times one the same file,
this seem to end up with a file that !EPSobject will read.


--Dag Haakon



-- 
--Dag Haakon Myrdal,       dhmyrdal@pvv.unit.no         -
-  Werchsmeister Emeritus, Omega Verksted,              -
-  Idrettsveien 29,        N-5037 BERGEN, NORWAY        -
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: adfsbuffers
From: banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
Date: 22 Dec 92 12:33:19 NZST
Organization: Welligton City Council, Public Access.
NNTP-Posting-Host: kosmos.wcc.govt.nz

In article <1h2up3INNncc@lily.csv.warwick.ac.uk>, csudp@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Mr R E Broadley) writes:
> I have an A5000 with R3.0. I was told to set my adfsbuffers to 0K due to a bug
> in the OS, but this caused floppy disk read/write to be much too slow. What
> should I have my adfsbuffers set to?
> 
> Also, writing to a PC format disk is very slow. Might have have something
> incorrectly configured which is causing this?

   Yes the slowness is due to ADFSBuffers not being configured. However if
your machine has a hard drive (and I have yet to hear of an A5000 without one)
*DO NOT* configure ADFSBuffers on! There is a bug in the RO3.00 implementation
of ADFSBuffers that causes hard drive access' to deliver random Address
Exceptions, errors and occasionally corrupt freespace maps.

   Because the errors are random you will have a hard time tracking it down
if you aren't aware of this problem.

   What this means is that you will have to live with slow floppy access' till
you upgrade to RO3.1 which has that problem cured. (Mind you it has a nice
new one just for fun. Thankfully it is only a real problem when low 8- buffers
are configured.)

   Philip
From: aglover@acorn.co.uk (Alan Glover)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: ARCfs & password encryption
Date: 21 Dec 92 11:03:45 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

>Questions:
> Is it possible for her to recover the encrypted archives?

Probably not very easily. One thought - turn on the garble option, but
don't enter a password ... this may be what happened in the first
place.

> Could a virus have accessed the password encryption feature
> within ARCfs?
 
I don't know of any that do this.

Alan
_______________________________________________________________________________

aglover@acorn.co.uk, moderator of comp.sys.acorn.announce. Submissions to
announce-request@acorn.co.uk, other related mail to announcer@acorn.co.uk.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: altman@cryton.demon.co.uk (Hugo Fiennes)
Subject: Re: TeX/Wimp/Morley SCSIFS/keyboardhandler 
Distribution: world
Organization: The Serial Port
Reply-To: altman@cryton.demon.co.uk
X-Mailer: Simple NEWS 1.90 (ka9q DIS 1.19)
Date: Fri, 25 Dec 1992 00:01:12 +0000

In article <ARM200-921222012210-5D147CDB*@MHS> /G=Rhodri/S=James/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk writes:

>altman@cryton.demon.co.uk (Hugo Fiennes) writes:
>
>>In article <1992Dec16.101159.26305@gate.esat.kuleuven.ac.be>
>tytgat@esat.kuleuven.ac.be writes:
>
>>>4. Has anyone noticed this "bug" in the Morley SCSIFS :
>[...]
>>>   Morley claims that the drive must be mounted each time the user clicks
>>>   on the iconbar.  But ADFS doesn't mount the disc...
>>>   Can anyone shed some light on this.  Is the behaviour of the Morley card
>>>   normal ?
>>It's the way morley do it - obviously they execute a dir or similar command
>>to mount the disk, whereas the best way of causing filecore to mount the
>>disk but not set the CSD is to do something like read the attributes of
>>the $ directory object (what our filers do). I didn't know the morley
>>software did it, I'll shout at Gary today, I have to call him anyway....
>
>It's possible I'm being very thick here, but what's the problem with just
>issuing a Message_FilerOpenDir at the root of the relevant disc and letting
>FileCore sort the mess out?
Ah, but how do you get the nice disk name in the title of the filer window?
You have to read it, then issue a opendir scsi::diskname.$ ... having
windows topped with scsi::4.$ is a bit nasty, innit?

Hugo


-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                     "Did I say that? My lips didn't move..."
Hugo Fiennes - The Serial Port                      altman@cryton.demon.co.uk
                                                or altman@cix.compulink.co.uk
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: arcturus@spuddy.uucp (Geoff Riley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: ObjAsm: Conditional Includes
Date: 24 Dec 92 20:35:38 GMT
Organization: Spuddy's Public Usenet Domain

In article <FL.92Dec21124557@pierre.tools.de> fl@tools.de (Frank Lancaster) writes:
>I think Acorn's cc always inserts #line statements into the
>preprocessed code. I wanted to use the preprocessor only mode
>for something different than c but had to use a cpp on unix
>instead because I couldn't use the #line statements.

You could always put the preprosessor output through
awk/sed/perl/whatever to strip out the #line's.... ;-)
-- 
Cheerio,
        |~~~
        |__|eoff         (Fidonet address: 2:250/208)
   (uucp address: arcturus@spuddy.uucp  or  ...!uknet!axion!spuddy!arcturus)
 * Meeeow ! Call Spuddy on (0203) 638780/638693 for FREE mail & Usenet access *
From: banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Armadillo 16 bit sound sampler
Date: 22 Dec 92 12:27:23 NZST
Organization: Welligton City Council, Public Access.
NNTP-Posting-Host: kosmos.wcc.govt.nz

In article <ARM200-921219213022-6DAA049D*@MHS>, /G=Owen/S=Smith/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk writes:
> Today I upgraded a friend's A310 (4MB RAM, ARM3, Watford ST506, Acorn SCSI 
> + CDFS, IOTA Scanner, Watford ArchiTablet) to RISC OS 3.10. Most things 
> work fine, but one thing that doesn't is the Armadillo 16 bit sound 
> sampler. According to Malcom, Armadillo went out of business some time ago 
> so he can't ring them up to ask them about it. The symptoms are that when 
> starting !Highnote, you either get a total machine hang, a "Branch through 
> zero at location &3812CA4", or an "Internal error". (You have to start it 
> in mode 12 to even get this far.) Does anyone know what the problem is, 
> how to fix it, or know of anyone who might know? Has any other company 
> picked up the rights to the Armadillo kit?

   If I have got things right the problem is more than likely the removal of
read track from the ADFS_DiscOp functions. Highnote wants to read some hidden
track data (around track 80-81 odd) that gives it it's crucial branch table
to the rest of it's code.

   Personally I would go in favour of getting new sound sampling software.
Highnote is old Arthur software and has a few 'quirks' that make it very
irritating to use.

   At any rate if your friend has email access could you get him to email me
please? The only person I know of who has this kind of sampler is not email
connected and I'd like to get a few details about that sampler to support it
in some sampling code I am working on. (For those who want to know yes I am
going to support the Elektor sampler too. Just as soon as I get the code
sorted out for it I'll email you again about it.)

   Philip
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech