HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: loek@pico8.nt.el.utwente.nl (Loek L. Frederiks)
Subject: RISCOS 3.1, the final conclusions..
Summary: Why is it so slow.
Keywords: RISCOS 3.1
Organization: Utwente
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 09:06:16 GMT

In order to summarize a few things about RISCOS 3.1, here is my
posting about 3.1.

During the last couple of days, I have e-mailed with a few
people from Acorn about RISCOS 3.1 & ARM2.

- Built-in applications, such as !Draw, !Edit and !Paint are faster,
  because they are in ROM.

- If you are using outline fonts, things go much faster. Acorn please
  confirm has RISCOS 3.1 12 built-in fonts (RISCOS 3.0 contained only
  3 fonts).

- The desktop in RISCOS 2.0 was sometimes slow, if you were doing some
  time-critical things. I am using a counter (hour/minutes/seconds/milliseconds)
  in a window in my MIDI sequencer. This is already (in BASIC/ARM code) a little
  bit painfull. It takes up too much desktop bandwidth. If Acorn has changed
  the redraw methods and the construction of the windows. Thus sprites instead
  of the BFONT/rectange fill method, things are much slower. If for instance, you
  move a window, and the counter must be running at the same time, the counter
  may completely stop. This means that animations in the desktop are too slow.
  Acorn is Meastro still working fine ? Has Acorn changed the construction of
  the windows, because of the High-Resolution window borders ?

- If you accessing files or doing some other filesystem tasks, the filer
  gets high priority. On ARM2/RISCOS2 machines you had to wait till your
  drive had done the job, so I think ARM2 users will still wait till the
  filer has completed its task. If you are formatting a floppy, and moving
  some windows in the desktop at the same time, I think you drink a cup
  of coffee and just sit and wait. To be honest, you can always turn the
  multi-tasking filer off. Besides, this I think that ARM2 users are no
  "power users". Thus while their files are saved, they already doing
  some other desktop job. Power users are always in a hurry ? Has somebody
  tried to use a soundtracker program (ProTrack) and to format a floppy at
  the same time ?
                                                              
To my opinion, nothing has changed a lot. The only difference is that application
writers have to be carefull when writing their code. Make things always as
fast as possible and don't use clumsy constructions.

Loek.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: A3010 views
From: banksie@khantazi.welly.gen.nz (Philip R. Banks)
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 11:02:37 +1200
Reply-To: banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
Followup-To: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Organization: My Arc.

cadwallader@forty2.enet.dec.com writes:

>       BTW - if this isn't the right group, is there another for
> general discussion, (comp.sys.acorn.misc type thing?)

   This sounds like a discussion for comp.sys.acorn.advocacy. Followups have
been redirected to it.

   To answer your question I think the A3010 & A3020 will take off. They are
good cheap crunch machines. Something the Amiga suffers from is a serious
lack of processor grunt in the lower end models like the 500 & 600. This is
where the Arc has it's strength, and processor grunt is good for more
serious tasks than games (Although complex simulators benefit from it of
course. :-) ). Not to mention Amigas have to fight hard to shake off the
title of games machine whereas Arc appeal to home buyers (parents mostly) by
being an 'educational' machine...

    Philip

--
Philip R. Banks  Syntax: mail < banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz >            @@@@@/|
                                                                        @@@@/#|
                                                                        @@@/##|
Fate protects fools, little children and ships named Enterprise.        @@/---|
 ---Commander Riker, ST:TNG 'Contagion'                                 @/    |
From: nbvs@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nicko van Someren on ely.cl.cam.ac.uk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: RISC OS 3.10 Secret message
Date: 10 Sep 92 13:17:04 GMT
Reply-To: nbvs@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nicko van Someren)
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK

The other day I was looking through the template files stored in ResourceFS
in the RISC OS 3.10 ROM.  In the template file for the switcher there is
a dialogue box called power.  It appears to contain a secret message left
by the RISC OS team.  Take a look :-)

Nicko
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Nicko van Someren, nbvs@cl.cam.ac.uk, (44) 223 358707 or (44) 860 498903    |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
From: lithgow@usl.com (Malcolm Lithgow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: RISC OS 3.10
Date: 8 Sep 92 01:11:23 GMT

[In message "Re: RISC OS 3.10", Graham Toal writes:]
>In article <ladrgfINN9vo@cronkite> andyf@yama.uk.sun.com writes:
>>The upgrade for the older machines consists of a ROM carrier board which enables
>
>Does anyone else find it hilarious that the best answer to a question phrased
>as 'will acorn please tell me ...' comes from Sun customer support? :-)

Does anyone else find it hilarious that someone who didn't see all the
answers jumps to such prejudiced conclusions?

Please, if you must find time to attack Acorn, at least find a way to
do it with all the facts. Sometimes reading c.s.a reminds me of reading
PCW (ie. 'let's just criticise Acorn and who gives a damn about
facts').

Incidentally -- isn't it peculiar that Andy, at Sun Microsystems, is
one of the more vocal Acorn-praisers, and so is a certain person from
UNIX System Laboratories, Pacific -- two vendors that actually write
and sell UNIX (as opposed to buying or using it). Hilarious, eh?

-Malcolm.  lithgow@usl.com  These are merely my slightly annoyed opinions.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: StrongED II version 1.10
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1992 00:16:40 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

guttorm@hp825.bih.no (Guttorm Vik) writes:

>I see that some people (violently) dislikes my error-boxes. These people might
>want to stick to !Edit, 'cause the boxes haven't changed. There are some 
>improvements though: ESC removes them, but if there is a menu open, this is
>closed (That's the WIMPs doing). Also: The drag-a-box => boom error is fixed.

A hint: Allow a click on the error box to make it go away.
Or even (shock! horror!) put an "ok" button on it so we can click it to
say "yes, I've read it and I don't really want it in the way for the next
4.97 seconds". (I can read errors like "Welcome to StrongEd" and ".$.%"
pretty quickly you know)

As a general rule, put in anything that will make life easier for the user,
especially if it takes little or no work/code to do so.

This rule works exceptionally well, except in the case where the author
him/her-self is not bothered by awful things like the aforementioned error
boxes, and so does not realise how much they bother users...
-- 
_________________  "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: lithgow@usl.com (Malcolm Lithgow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Thanks for the help
Date: 10 Sep 92 00:39:03 GMT

Once again c.s.a has responded kindly and voluminously to my requests.

Much thanks to everyone who replied.

I'll take this opportunity to say that (1) I have not mailed any of the
messages that I received to anyone else and (2) I will not do so
without the permission of the original mailer. Sorry if my rash
promises before upset anyone. (But, if anyone does want some info, I'm
happy to ask the author if I can send it to you.)

I have now decided most of the stuff I want to buy, and as soon as I
get my Japanese credit card, I'll order it. Of course, if the Japanese
banks continue to shunt me around, I'll give up and use my Australian
card. :-(

-Malcolm.  lithgow@usl.com  These are merely my opinions.

P.S. Does anyone have any experience using 340MB SCSI HD's on the Arc?
From: frankp@blade (Frank van de Pol)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: OAK SCSI Problems
Summary: Can anybody clearify problems with OAK SCSI
Keywords: OAK, SCSI, Problems
Date: 14 Sep 92 13:29:08 GMT
Organization: MCGV Stack, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4

Help, I have problems with my SCSI harddrive when I use video modes
with a high bandwidth on the memory system.

The problems arrise while loading files. If I load a small file (say < 30 kB), 
while the current wimp mode is 12, everything goes OK, but when I use
a better video mode (mode 20 for example) or larger files. Pieces of the
file are corrupted.

The weird thing is that I have no problems with starting programs (which
also involves loading...) or saving. Copying files also goes right.
As the problem seems to be caused by using a bandwidth too high, I wrote
a simple piece of vector code to blank the screen (disable video dma).
The result is that the problems occured far less!!!! BUT when I use mode
21 or 28, the files still suffer from  corruption. (And the constant     
flashing of the screen when loading (linking C programs!!!)) drives me
mad.)

Does anybody know a solution ?

Has it something to do with my old MEMC1 ?

I assume the drive is OK (as the problems can be reduced by simple software)


List of hardware:

   Drive:  Seagate 177N
   Controller: Oak SCSI (with old ROM / placing new ROM doen't solve the
                         problem)
   Computer:  Archimedes A310 with 4 MB memory and MEMC1 (the old one).

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE (etc.)


========================------------------> 
#define NAME    "Frank van de Pol"     /| :  a typical PC boot sequence: :-(
#define ADDRESS "mgr. Nelislaan 10"   / | :  tick, tick, tick, .(etc)., tick
#define CITY    "4741 AB Hoeven"     /--| :  bhuurrrrrr, bruzzzzzz, pieereep
#define COUNTRY "The Netherlands"   /   | :  doggadoggadoggadoggadogga brrrr
#define EMAIL   "frankp@stack.urc.tue.nl" :  530 kB free memory (of 8MEG???)


Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: cadwallader@forty2.enet.dec.com ()
Subject: Re: A3010 views
Reply-To: cadwallader@forty2.enet.dec.com ()
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 15:51:27 GMT


Hi Pete!,

>Are the `AA' chipset going to be released for the lower end Amigas? 24 bit
>graphics is still not standard on the Archimedes, although there are some new
>boards in the pipeline, and a couple of existing ones.

Aaah, the golden question! :-) If you look at the specs I sent you (the
modes table) and assuming that these PRELIMINARY specs hold, you will notice
that present bandwidth (i.e. ALL models) *could* support 320*256 8-bitplanes.

My opinion is that new AA models will span the range, but not all AA chip
modes will be available on all machines (after all 1280*512 256 colours
is a hefty mode! = costly).

I DO know that the Amiga4000 is shown TODAY at World Of Commodore, Pasadena.
I expect it to honour ALL modes; full 256 cols in any mode up to 1280*512,
256,000+ cols HAM mode in any res, out of 24-bit palette with improved sprites,
scrolling, dual playfield (16 cols per 2 hardware playfields). I expect a
mid-range to low machine which will honour modes up to x2 bandwidth which is
256 cols in up to 640*512 and 256,000+ HAM the same. I would love to see AA
in low-end machines but this is the most doubtful. We will have a better idea
next week anyway, since rumours will become reality.

> As for whether it
>will take off, more than likely!

Great! The Arc (oops! I mean the `A' range :-) ) deserve more support.

>>	FWIW - I have seen A310s and such in action and haven't been
>>"stunned" as I expected.

When I first had my "taste" of an Arc "doing something" more than just
sitting in a shop switched on - I expected a REAL treat because of all the
RISC chip hype. I had obviously underestimated the power of the Amiga's
dedicated chips because the huge gulf I expected to see between the 2
machines was virtually non-existent. After talking to you and Matt I have
been very surprised how similar the two machines are, with respect to
OS etc... (however RISCOS doesn't have to suffer the limitations of 68000
e.g. no hardware-protection of tasks possible...). I have seen that both
have good and bad, e.g. multitasking filing has been the `norm' on Amiga
but `new' on RISCOS3, whereas outline fonts were the `norm' on Arc and
are `new' under Release2.0 on Amiga etc.. etc...

That's what I meant in a nutshell, I expected to be really blown away by
an incredible machine, and instead saw areas in which it was lacking in
comparison to Amiga, as well as areas in which it was better!

Anyways, what does everyone else see the A3010 as? If CBM are disappointing
with their coming-year marketing I *might* be able to buy an A3010 in a
few months as a `taste' so I can decide which machine I prefer...

								- JIM CAD*
From: smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: where can I get RISC OS 3.1?
Date: 8 Sep 92 18:37:54 GMT
Organization: Nottingham University

In article <1850001@tnord06.grenoble.hp.com> mjb@tnord06.grenoble.hp.com (Mike Bright) writes:
>
>
>... on a related theme ...
>
>Does anyone know of an Acorn dealer in France?

RISC OS 3.10 upgrades seem to be in rather short supply in this country!
Watford Electronics held a grand opening of their new Headquarters the
other day, and didn't have a single upgrade.

I think the supply situation is extremely erratic. I phoned up a dealer
last night, and he brought up the subject of upgrades. He is supplied
directly by Acorn, and has no upgrades. The swear-words which he
directed towards Acorn are unrepeatable!!

My local dealer had large numbers in stock. Maybe he still has.
I bought several and ended up shipping them all to friends, before
buying more sets for myself!

Of course the lack of upgrades might make people look harder at the
new machines. Perhaps this is deliberate??

Simon.
From: nicho@VNET.IBM.COM
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: A cry for help
Date: 15 Sep 92 07:42:07 GMT
Reply-To: nicho@vnet.ibm.com


   Would some kind soul be able to send me a new !PrinterDM
application please ?? I trashed mine last night, and naturally the
backup diskette has read errors <sigh>. If I could get one soon I
would be most grateful.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
               ** Of course I don't speak for IBM **
Greg Nicholls ... nicho@vnet.ibm.com or nicho@olympus.demon.co.uk
                  voice/fax: 44-794-516038
From: D.S.Walker@bradford.ac.uk (Simeon Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Limit on files per directory
Date: 14 Sep 92 10:17:31 GMT
Organization: University of Bradford, UK
Originator: 91909178@ccw405

In article <H.9USsmGstiAU@mips.ruessel.sub.org> naddy@mips.ruessel.sub.org writes:
>In <1992Sep10.101512.15274@bradford.ac.uk>, Simeon Walker writes:
>
>> A while back on c.s.a I read about ADFS having a limit of 77 files per
>> directory.    [...]                    What I ended up with was a
>> directory with 102 files in it, over 80 of which were 12K chunks of
>> uucode.
>
>Err? I think this is impossible.
>The 77 files per directory limit is not imposed by ADFS itself but some
>higher instance in the filing system hierarchy, FileCore, I guess. All

This is what I have been told, I am definately going to try it again...
The number of files was given by a count of the dir, not by my eyes,
though there certainly was a lot of them.

>entries of directory are stored in 2kB (fixed). This gives 26 bytes per
>entry plus a few bytes for extra purposes. There simply isn't enough
>room two accomodate more entries.
>Both on ADFS and SCSI I've run a couple of times into this annoying
>limit. On the other hand the fixed directory size allows for easier
>caching of directory entries -- compared to my Atari ST's DOS-like
>filing system RISC OS file management is blindingly fast.
>
>
>bye
>-- 
>Christian "naddy" Weisgerber, Germany           naddy@mips.ruessel.sub.org


-- 
Sim. ----------------------------------------------------------- Simeon Walker,
----------------------------------------- Department of Electrical Engineering,
D.S.Walker@bradford.ac.uk -------------------- University of Bradford, England.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: blekken@fwi.uva.nl (Erwin 'Yaaah' Blekkenhorst (I88))
Subject: Re: Looking for literature...
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 09:43:59 GMT

torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen) writes:

>Stephen Furbar (sp?) from Manchester University has written a book
>called something like "RISC computer structure" (The exact title
>escapes me), which describes the ARM in detail. Furbar is ine of the
>designers of the original ARM.

>	Torben Mogensen (torbenm@diku.dk)

This probably should be:

	VLSI RISC Architecture and Organization
	Stephen B. Furber
	ISBN 0-8247-8151-1

Erwin


-- 
  _____ ____
   /     /__)  ------------------------------------ x
  /--   / \    Erwin Blekkenhorst                   x University Of Amsterdam
 /___  /___)   blekken@fwi.uva.nl                   x
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: maupb@warwick.ac.uk (Mr J L Saunders)
Subject: Re: SCSI Card Capabilities
Organization: Computing Services, Warwick University, UK
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 02:43:56 GMT
X-Posted-From: clover.csv.warwick.ac.uk
X-Posted-Through: sol.ctr.columbia.edu


I read that the Morley card in conjunction with Fujitsu winchesters achieves
about 2.1 MB/s transfer rate. In another magazine, the Fujitsu drive was
quoted as being SCSI2. What I don't get is why noone has brought out a SCSI2
interface to take advantage of this. The only answer I can think of is that the
memory on the Arc is so small that all this speed would be wasted, although
I could see it being useful in searching large databases...

Your comments are welcome...

Jason

-- 
                       Jason L Saunders [ RouE ]      
                     email: maupb@csv.warwick.ac.uk
snail: Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UK
From: nas20@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: For sale: 2nd hand HD discs with Archie PD
Date: 14 Sep 92 18:38:39 GMT
Reply-To: nas20@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith)
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK

I recently bought a 128MB MO (Magneto-Optical) drive in an attempt 
to solve my storage problems ;-) So I am now in the position of having
over 150 branded HD discs that I don't really need anymore ...

If anyone is interested in buying all, or some of these discs, please
email me for more details. In particular, I have copies of some 
interesting PD progs that are rather a pain to FTP or get via mail
servers (eg, gcc 2.22, SRC Modula3, complete TeX, EarthMap database,
WordHound, etc) which I would be happy to split up onto to multiple
discs ...

Please note I am *not* trying to set up a PD library, or trying to
make a profit, or whatever - I just want to get rid of these discs
at a fair price, and hopefully help a few people out at the same 
time.

Feel free to flame me for this shocking misuse of the net - just do it
via email will ya ? Or better { > null: }

Nick.
--
Nick Smith, Churchill College, Cambridge, UK.  %$%  Email: nas20@uk.ac.cam.phx
sig quote wanted - must be under guarantee.   $%$  --- Usual disclaimer. ---
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips,comp.mail.sendmail
From: lgy@landau.phys.washington.edu (Laurence Yaffe)
Subject: Re: Sendmail and NIS on RISC OS
Organization: University of Washington
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 01:24:28 GMT

trevc@sal.reading.sgi.com (Trevor Cotton) writes:

>In article <1992Sep4.145517.1@idicl1.idi.battelle.org>, hamparian@idicl1.idi.battelle.org writes:
>|> Hello, I am running Risc/os 4.52. Sendmail says it is version 5.61. I am 
>|> trying to get sendmail to understand
>|> the NIS aliases map. There doesn't seem to be a way of doing this. Is it 
>|> just possible that this version of Risc/os doesn't support that?

>Three versions of sendmail are provided with RISC/os, sendmail.named, 
>sendmail.nonamed and sendmail.nis. By default, sendmail is linked
>to sendmail.named.

>To use NIS, link /usr/lib/sendmail to /usr/lib/sendmail.nis, and configure
>/etc/vis.conf to resolve hostnames using 'nis'. As root, issue the commands
># cd /usr/lib
># rm sendmail
># ln sendmail.nis sendmail

>and put the following entry in /etc/vis.conf

>hosts:	files nis

>If mail aliases are expected to be resolved via NIS with a MIPS system
>acting as the server, you must link sendmail to sendmail.nis prior to
>building the NIS maps with ypinit.

>See the online Release Notes (/usr/pkg/rn/RISCos-4.52) for more information.

  Regrettably, there is no way (with any of the versions of sendmail in 4.52)
to use a nameserver for host name lookup and NIS for mail aliases.
/usr/lib/sendmail.nis is entirely useless if you demand DNS name service, and
/usr/lib/sendmail.named will not use NIS for mail aliases regardless
of what's in your /etc/vis.conf file.  (This is the biggest hole I've
noticed in the otherwise very nice /etc/vis.conf setup.)

  To cope with the perfectly sensible desire for centralized mail aliases
together with DNS name service, we have entirely switched to a slightly
modified version of sendmail which can use MB (mailbox) records in a DNS
pseudo-domain as the source for mail aliases.  This version of sendmail
is available from ftphost.cac.washington.edu.  Building was no problem
under RISCos-4.52 (or SunOS or Ultrix).  This use of MB records is
described as experimental, but we've been very pleased with how it all
works.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Laurence G. Yaffe		Internet: lgy@newton.phys.washington.edu
University of Washington	Bitnet:   yaffe@uwaphast.bitnet
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: rex@cs.su.oz.au (Rex Monty di Bona)
Subject: Re: what is the driver for a CDROM
Reply-To: rex@cluster.cs.su.oz (Rex Monty di Bona)
Organization: Basser Dept of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Australia
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 02:18:12 GMT

In article <1992Sep4.164835.3119@tandem.com> chop_michael@.tandem.com (Michael Chop) writes:
> does anyone out there know what the device driver is for a MIPS magnum
> 3000, (3030).  i've looked and looked through the man pages and even MIPS
> itself, and can not find the device and SCSIid i should be using.  
> 
> HELP!!!  somebody must have an external CDROM out there somewhere connected to
> a MIPS...

Firstly, what version of the OS are you running?  I know 4.52 won't work
with a CDROM (or I couldn't get it working, and after hacking the device
driver it requires large changes to get it to work on 4.52) 5.0 should
work, but I haven't used it....  Since the magnum 4000's come with CDROM
one would expect it to work :-)  Any scsi device under RISC/OS can be addresses
as /dev/[r]scsi/sdc0d[device id]s[number] where the r is for character devices
ie, tapes, the device id is the SCSI id and the number depends on the type of
device, so, for example the Q120 tape can be accessed as either
/dev/rscsi/sdc0d6s0, or as /dev/rmt/Q120-0

crw-------   7 root     sys       33, 96 Dec  2  1991 /dev/rmt/Q120-0
crw-------   7 root     sys       33, 96 Dec  2  1991 /dev/rscsi/sdc0d6s0

Now, if only SGI would ship our machine I could test the CDROM out...
--
Rex di Bona (rex@cs.su.oz.au)		 Penguin Lust is NOT immoral
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips
From: jo@vax135att.com (Joseph Othmer)
Subject: amd on RISCos 4.5[12]
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Holmdel
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 12:22:21 GMT
Keywords: amd automounter

Has any one ported the AMD automounter (not SUN's automounter) to RISCos 4.5[12]?
I am interested in getting the patches.


-- 
Joe Othmer, Visual Communications Research Dept. AT&T Bell Laboratories,
Holmdel, NJ, 07733 Voice: 908 949-6975  FAX: 908 949-3697
UUCP: att!vax135!jo    INTERNET: jo@vax135.att.com

Newsgroups: comp.sys.mips