HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ee88jmf@brunel.ac.uk (J M Fielder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: ARM assembly format.
Date: 8 Apr 92 12:02:31 GMT
Reply-To: ee88jmf@brunel.ac.uk.brunel.ac.uk (J M Fielder)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK

In article <1992Apr2.094715.15123@aber.ac.uk> dmf@aber.ac.uk (Darren Michael Forbes) writes:
>>> dmf@aber.ac.uk (Darren Michael Forbes) writes:
>>>     MR=MR+MX0*MY0(RND) ; {An accumulated addition with rounding}

>   This is drifting of the ARM subject.  The ARM is not capable of
>complex single instructions like my example (I wouldn't expect it to
>be)

It can do the above.....

	MLA R0, R1, R2, R3

	Which is R0 = R1 * R2 + R3

The multiplier certainly doesn't have all of the wizzy features of the 2100's
multiplier, but it is pretty good even so (shame it takes more than one cycle
to execute :-(

Another nifty thing is the multifunction instructions of the 2100 series

       MR = MR+MX0*MY0(SS) , MX0 = PM(I0,M0) , MY0 = DM(I4,M4) ;

       All executed in one istruction

In arm assembler it would be

       MLA   R0 , R1, R2, R0
       LDR   R1 , [R4] , #a
       LDR   R2 , [R5] , #b

Where

       MR = R0
       MX0 = R1
       MY0 = R2
       I0 = R4
       I4 = R5
       M0 = #a
       M1 = #a

However, it would take even more instructions from the ARM to do exactly
the same, as I0 / M0 and I4 / M4 form a circlular buffer of length L0 / L4
(some more registers in the 2100).

Very useful for things like image convolution etc. I have a working system
of a 2101 doing image convolution, and it is typically 8-10 times as quick
as a fully optimised ARM based solution.

Means that a 512x512x256 grey level image can be edge detected in around 0.7
seconds.

The ARM is lovely for general purpose things (like ALL of its instructions can
be conditional, only some of the 2100 series instructions can) but there are
really hoopy application specific processors out there.

Hope that is of interest, if anyone wants to know more (about the podule or
the 2100 series) please mail me to save bandwidth.

Joust
From: devijt1@imec.be (Jo Tytgat)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: >>>New !Creator
Date: 7 Apr 92 15:57:30 GMT
Reply-To: devijt1@imec.UUCP (Jo Tytgat)
Organization: IMEC vzw, Leuven, Belgium

In article <2251@sys.uea.ac.uk> marlow@sys.uea.ac.uk (K. Marlow PG) writes:
>
>  Perhaps what he should do is write to a special file the UIN with details
>saying when the s/w for first and last run on that machine.. then when
>the UIN changes it creates a new entry and continues updating that.  That
>way you would be able to move the s/w around at will, it would be possible
>to see from the file if you have been using it on two machines at the same
>time.. which requires you to have two copies..

Hmm, maybe I do not see the point of your method but suppose one makes a
copy of his/her s/w before its first use and (s)he uses copy no 1 on
machine A and copy no 2 on machine B at the same time.

Can you also detect this situation, Keith ?

John
BASS
From: kjetilho@ifi.uio.no (Kjetil Torgrim Homme)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: help! checkmap fails
Date: 8 Apr 92 03:03:16 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Originator: kjetilho@holmenkollen.ifi.uio.no

In article <9204060724.AA18880@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> lithgow@uslp.UUCP writes:
> Is it my imagination, or are Philip and I, and the Acorn employees, the
> only Acorn-computer-lovers in this group? ;-)

Count me in :)

> A few months back I lauded ADFS's wonderful structure. [...]

Apropos praise: The disk formatter is simply fantastic. I usually use
the cheapest disks available to me, and on many occasions, on disks
which PC's, Mac's and Amiga's (yes, I've checked) refuse to format, my
Archimedes happily finds 700kB or even a full 800kB usable.  I even
have some single-sided disks, on which my Archimedes puts 500kB,
without errors :)

I hope they get the "FileCore in use" bug ruled out before RISC OS 3's
release in the summer (Acorn has said that much, haven't they? So my
dealer claims, anyway).


Kjetil T.
From: ge@gserv1.dl.ac.uk (Brian McCrone)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: >Ethernet
Date: 6 Apr 92 13:13:09 GMT
Reply-To: ge@gserv1.dl.ac.uk
Organization: Daresbury Laboratory, UK

In article 9203311658@susssys1.rdg.ac.uk, ssurawls@susssys1.reading.ac.uk (Mister E) writes:
>All this talk about the wizzness of ethernet compared to econet is all very
>fine, but I seem to remember someone posting that the Acorn nfs programs only
>run at about 80K per second. Not a lot!

80K bytes/sec is quite typical of any NFS system
From: fj_maddi@csd.brispoly.ac.uk (FJ Maddix)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Message passing
Date: 8 Apr 92 08:55:53 GMT
Organization: Bristol Polytechnic, England

Can anyone help?
I want to write an 'intelligent' bulletin board system. (Yes, I know about
ArcBbs).
At the moment, it looks as though ArcScript (in ArcTerm) is the right way
to handle the comms bits, and Genesis II the right way to handle the user-
friendly bits (I teach HCI, so that bit *has* to be right).
  My problem is... how to get them to talk? If I write a module, they can
only talk to it via "OSCLI" commands which don't return anything.
  Neither of these apps. knows anything about Impulse II.
  Shared files on RAMDisc would be clumsy & slow.
What?
Frank (No Sig) Maddix.
From: ssurawls@susssys1.reading.ac.uk (Mister E)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: >A5000 disc format recognising
Date: 13 Apr 92 15:10:11 GMT

From an exibition put on by Rhodri James;

>>Does the A5000 recognise its disc types automatically and can you override
>>them? What I mean is if you put a 2 meg disc in and select format does it
>>default to 1.6 meg or 800K, and could you force it to format a 2 meg disc to
>>800K?

>No, it doesn't recognise the disc coating.  Think about it for a minute.

Umm, OK I thought about it, and have come to the conclusion that you have
never noticed the extra hole on the left of a high density disc that
identifies it as such :-)

>>And also, does anyone know how flexible the A5000 disc controller is, ie is
>>mac and amiga format reading a possibility? I have heard great things about
>>it....

>No again, unfortunately.  Mac discs require a variable speed *drive*, and I
>remember the relevant Acorn people turning green at the mere mention of
>Amiga format :-)

All these conflicting opinions! I suppose I should be grateful for the number
of truths that I can choose from!

Ian


Posted Mon Apr 13 16:10:05 BST 1992

=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Mr Ian Rawlings, Telephone Reading (0734) 662301
	EMAIL ssurawls@susssys1.rdg.ac.uk

A Dublin lawyer died in poverty and many barristers of the city sub-
scribed to a fund for his funeral. The Lord Chief Justice of Orbury
was asked to donate a shilling. "Only a shilling?" said the man. "Only
a shilling to bury an attorney? Here's a guinea; go and bury 20 of them."
From: devijt1@imec.be (Jo Tytgat)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: VIDC independant tracker play routines
Date: 14 Apr 92 15:36:08 GMT
Reply-To: devijt1@imec.UUCP (Jo Tytgat)
Organization: IMEC vzw, Leuven, Belgium

In article <1992Apr13.125337.12504@ugle.unit.no> kim@Lise.Unit.NO (Kim Gunnar St|vring yhus) writes:
>>>torq@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Andy Mell)
>>banksie@khantazi.welly.gen.nz (Philip R. Banks)
>Me: kim@lise1.lise.unit.no (Kim 0)
>
>>> 6 Watts? hoho, I've had my Arc hooked up to an 8KW amp rig, It was a nice
>>> sound really made you jump in your seat, but theres a rather annoying
>>> little buzz in the background wwhich I couldnt get rid of, even with gold
>>> plated leads.
>
>That sound is caused by SoundDMA's time-dithering, trying to squeeze anything
>into it's 20.8kHz sample rate. *Tuning &3550 seems to generate least dithering,
>giving 1 sample per 'sample'.

I would say that the noise you hear in 'background' comes from the not enough
stabilised power lines near the VIDC and its amplifiers..  The A5000 seems
no longer to suffer from this problem.

>By the way, I just measured the archimede audio-filter. It is 4'th order,
>24dB/Octave, starting at approx 3.5 kHz. The inbuilt speaker however, seemed to
	      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Do you mean the -3 dB point ?

>be more sensitive to high pitches, compensating a little for the filter. This
>makes everything very unpredictable, and I will therefore use the unfiltered
>output, which, by the way, actually is filtered too, but only 1'st order. You
>can't get great sound with a filter that removes virtually anything above 5kHz!
					  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

What is 'virtually anything' ? -10 dB, -50 dB, -100 dB ???

In a digital to analogue convertion filtering *has* to happen unless you want
the spectrum of your signal also at 2, 3, 4, ... times your play-back rate.  It
is a pity that the filter in the Archimedes can not be programmed (perhaps for
the next machine Acorn ?) ...

>Kim 0

John TYTGAT
devijt1@imec.be
BASS
From: nizar@concour.cs.concordia.ca (SABRA nizar.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: A3000 PSU, RAM upgrades, RGB output intensity, and RF interference
Keywords: hardware screwup
Date: 14 Apr 92 23:25:53 GMT
Organization: Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec

In article <1992Apr13.105953.10842@cns.umist.ac.uk> rogersh%p2g@uk.ac.man.cs (rogersh) writes:
>
>	There was a major problem with my A3000 PSU which I discovered
>last night and fixed. Other A3000s are probably suffering from the
>same problem - read on...
>

	Aha! Exactly what I needed to know... I have had this problem with my
A3000 for ages, and I never figured out what was wrong... 

>	Hope this helps people out there - If my machine was like this
>then it's quite likely other A3000 PSUs (made in Taiwan in bulk) are also
>suffering similarly. Certainly I've seen articles on this newsgroup
>complaining of exactly the right symptoms. If anyone else subsequently
>discovers they do have this problem then please mail me, post an
>article, or mail Acorn. If this is a frequent problem then the right people
>(Acorn) need to be made aware of it.
>
	Oh yes, this helps a lot... thanx for the great info....
	I have this problem too, so Acorn, take note!
>
>	-Huw

	-Nizar.
>
>[ H.J.Rogers  INTERNET: rogersh%p4@cs.man.ac.uk                    ]
>[    ,_,      JANET: rogersh%p4@uk.ac.man.cs                       ]
>[  :-(_)-o   "I'll be back..."                                     ]
>[   _} {_    "Computer Science is an engineering discipline."      ]


-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
     _________________               ! " Ask not what your computer can do for
!\  !   __       _   /               !  you.  Ask  what you  can do  for  your
! \ ! !  /  /\  !   /                !  computer. "  -  Someone famous, 1980's
!  \! ! /_ /__\ !  /__               !
                     /    !   _      ! EMail:   n_sabra@pavo.concordia.ca
Tel. (514)747-1238  / /\  !\ !  /\   !          nizar@sunkisd.cs.concordia.ca
     (514)748-7524 / /__\ !/ ! /__\  !          nizar@concour.cs.concordia.ca
                                     !
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
From: dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk (Denis Howe)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Karma v.0.5? or is it 1.05?
Date: 14 Apr 92 16:49:42 GMT
	<1992Apr10.110557.18171@unix.brighton.ac.uk>
Organization: Computing Department, Imperial College, London, UK

In article <1992Apr10.110557.18171@unix.brighton.ac.uk>
rjb12@unix.brighton.ac.uk (Browning;f110or89;[05306) wrote:

>By the way (2), Periscope have released v.0.5 of the Flight Trainer

Huh?  v.0.5?  I started on 1.00 and now have 1.05.  Does this mean
they're undeveloping it (restoring old bugs, removing features)?  or
did I fly too close to that black hole?  :-)

Anyway, it's nice to know there are two of us. ;-D
--
Denis Howe <dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk>	virus infected .sig - do not copy
From: pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk (Paul Moore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: killer 1.26 expires May 1
Date: 7 Apr 92 22:46:15 GMT
Reply-To: Paul Moore <pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Organization: Gated to News by demon.co.uk

Alan Glover says:
 
  > a) using old anti-virus programs is a health hazard, which
  > can lead to data loss (eg when that version of !Killer is
  > only aware of one strain 
 
Yes, but using old anti-virus programs is better than using *no* anti-virus 
programs (the Module/!Killer example is, I suspect, an isolated example - in 
most cases an old program would simply miss new (unknown) viruses).
 
I am fairly unworried about viruses (a *bad thing*, I know, but I've never 
actually seen one, so I get blase...) I use, and greatly appreciate, 
!Killer, because it was free, and therefore easy to get (just a download 
away). I am unlikely to bother getting a commercial version, as finding out 
prices/addresses, writing a letter to order it, etc, is just too much hassle 
(by the way, I teach advanced courses in laziness :-).
 
I suspect I am not completely alone in this attitude.
 
Note - !Killer is Alan's program, and he has a right to do whatever he wants 
with it. He feels that commercial distribution is the best approach, and I 
certainly have no basis for disagreeing. But I will regret it when my copy 
goes *poof*..........
 
Gustav.
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Moore                   | All opinions expressed in the above
(pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk) | posting are worth what you paid for them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: shunger@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: RE: !inspiration demo 
Date: 16 Apr 92 12:50:20 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

The !Inspiration demo is avaliable from Ampsound in the U.K
I'm unsure whether it is PD or not as there is no copyright
documentation whatsoever just the program.

Anyway could someone in the U.K Ftp or whatever it to the
newcastle server ?

The demo I have is about one year old (version 1.05) more
features may of been added since (more than likely).

e.g Someone mentioned !inspiration with stave notation 
my version doesn't have this.

If someone does get a demo of !inspiration (updated) please
post details.

----------------------------------------------------------

Stephen
From: lithgow@uslp.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Arm and 486 and things
Date: 13 Apr 92 01:44:56 GMT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.9204130451.AA05324

[In message "Re: Arm and 486 and things", Edouard Malachi     Poor writes:]
>Hmmm... Take a look at, say, Pagemaker or Word 5 and then compare to Impression.
>
>They really don't stand a chance in that feild. I'd say they are more likely to
>move their 600dpi printer or (possible) their scanner across...

I presume that you mean that Pagemaker and Word (especially Word 5, which
can't even do fonts on screen), don't stand a chance? ;-)

Seriously, I've played with Pagemaker 4 and Mac Word 4 on a Mac IIci
here, and they don't compare at all with Impression. Both programs are
clunky, clumsy, slow, crude, and expensive (though Pagemaker has suddenly
dropped to a quarter of its original price, apparently).

These disadvantages don't outweigh the number of extra features that they
have, especially when 95% of those extra features will be used 1% of the
time. (There are only a few features I miss on Impression, and Pagemaker
doesn't even implement Impression's missing DTP features powerfully!)

Of course, try and tell this to the computer illiterates who make these
programs top sellers, and you may as well go jump in a lake.

People seem to have missed something in the original post, it says
Windows programming, assembly language, and graphics. I very much doubt
CC will bother attempting to port Impression to Windows (because of the
competition and the fact that even a '486 would have trouble equalling an
A3000 running Impression). I think they're going to go for some niche
market.

Good on 'em, I say. (Although writing in Intel assembler is a perfect
example of masochism.)

-Malcolm      lithgow@usl.com      These are my opinions. So there.
From: ssurawls@susssys1.reading.ac.uk (Mister E)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: >>Personal Computer World
Date: 8 Apr 92 15:19:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: susssys1.25126.9204081519

As Ian Palmer pointed out, one of the reasons why most software houses stopped
producing BBC software was because Acorn dropped it. IBM is dropping the PC
soon-ish (according to a certain magazine) to work on cheap RISC workstations,
it's a shame that there are so many clones, then perhaps the PC would die!

As for this PCW letter-writing thing, perhaps it would be better if we started
sending letters to offenders individually, as perhaps 15 or 30 annoyed letters
storming through the door may make some people actually do something and take
some notice!

It has been suggested to me that perhaps if some people monitored other user
groups for archimedes slander then we could wipe it out on the net. This was
the tactic employed by amiga and atari users, and has been successful. But is
there much archimedes abuse on the net? About the only time I have seen any
archie talk in another group is in comp.graphics, where they were talking
about the new VIDC2, and how wonderful and cheap it is going to be (25 quid
apparently, for 32-bit colour with lots of goodies!). All I have seen is
favourable.

Who was it who said he would co-ordinate slander-bashing attempts? I think I
will keep an eye out for future anti-arcness. Actually most of it seems to be
here, in comp.sys.acorn! And I was one of the culprits.... A reformed man I
think, as I have been forced onto macs recently.

Ian


Posted Wed Apr 8 16:19:38 BST 1992

=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Mr Ian Rawlings, Telephone Reading (0734) 662301
	EMAIL ssurawls@susssys1.rdg.ac.uk

        I went down the street to the 24-hour grocery.  When I got
        there, the guy was locking the front door.  I said, "Hey, the
        sign says you're open 24 hours."  He said, "Yes, but not in a
        row."
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: felixa@microsoft.com (Felix ANDREW)
Subject: Re: Signal from interrupt routine to app.
Date: 07 Apr 92 22:13:32 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corp.
Keywords: CLIV

In article <3868@mercury.brunel.ac.uk> ee88jmf@brunel.ac.uk.brunel.ac.uk (J M Fielder) writes:
>In article <1992Mar23.130541.2217@ugle.unit.no> troeste@solan.unit.no (Trygve R|ste) writes:
>>If it is possible some way to send wimp messages from within service code,
>>CLI command-code, SWIs, interrupts etc. I would be very thankful if anyone
>>knows how to do this!
>
>Easy in theory, harder in pratice. Send a serive call / upcall that is then
>trapped by a user mode piece of code, then use that to send the message.
>
Sitting on the CLIV is a doddle as Nicko says.
In a recent Archimedes world article by Paul Fellows
he makes reference to a utility I wrote about 2 years ago. It allowed
you to perform a *RENAME instead of a *COPY fd following a SHIFT DRAG
from RIscOS2 desktop.
The way this was trapped was to redirect the CLIv, check the string *COPY etc 
for the fd portion and then issue a WimpSend message to a task that loaded 
the module - then it was up to the Wimp app to perform whatever operations
it wanted to do, ie *RENAME or *COPY.
This by the way also trapped the virus that performed
a *WIPE :4.$ ~fr unsing the same method of trapping.

Risc User published parts of it (I think) and Archimedes World 'took' it too.
If you want the source, then I can send it to you - its old, but easy to use.

FOr those of you knowledgeable about these things, perhaps you can work out
how I managed to issue a *COPY from the Wimp task which didnt get trapped by
the CLIV module (and it doesnt work on RO3 - from what I know)

Have fun, write good code
	Felix
From: zzassgl@uts.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Lane)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Personal Computer World
Date: 7 Apr 92 14:01:27 GMT
Organization: Manchester Computing Centre, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, England.


Similar feelings about PCW from me too. It seems much more than just an
"lets ignore minority machines" attitude.  The editor (presumably it is the
editor who inserts the comments in the letters page) does seem to be
actively working against Acorn.  Over the years PCW has always tended
towards the view that UK schools should be teaching, for example, Lotus
1-2-3 running on IBM clones, but in the recent replies to letters they have
really gone over the top.  Whilst I am somewhat biased having spent my own
money on Acorn machines over the years I do find it quite daft that schools
should, if following PCW's policy, should spent what little money they have
for IT on following the Intel/IBM/Microsoft moving target.  Presummably next
year PCW will be complaining that the schools haven't replaced all their
current software with Windows 3.1 (or Windows NT, or OS2 2.0 or Unix or some
other flavour of the month!) 


Have you noticed how bland the editorial is these days.  When they replaced
Guy Kewney a lot of the cutting criticism of the PC market disappeared.  The
whole magazine is now very tedious; review after review of badge engineered
IBM clones; and is a mass review of relational databases really what the
public wants?

Why on earth did they publish the review of the graphics software package
(can't remember its name). By the sixth paragraph it was clear that the
software was an early version that just did not work - yet they went on for
another two full pages before comming to the conclusion that it was rubbish. 

They also have a neat trick of "reviewing" something three times. First a
short half page short review, then a month or so later the full review and
finally the long-term test review a couple of months later. It fills the
pages but really its just a con to get you to buy the magazine each time a
package that interests you is mentioned.  

BYTE has gone in the same direction. I'll never buy either again without
carefully reading the contents pages.

-- 
Geoff. Lane.                                  Janet: zzassgl@uk.ac.mcc.uts
UTS Sys Admin, Manchester Computing Centre, Oxford Rd, Manchester, M13 9PL
From: kai@nicedel.north.de (Kai Schlichting)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: strange entry in Discrecord
Keywords: Discrecord
Date: 11 Apr 92 00:24:07 GMT
Article-I.D.: arc.1ALMvaj010n
Organization: Archimedes !RUCP Users

Hello,there seems to be a error in the PRM's regarding Disc records.
reference : PRM III,p 1013 bytes 12-15 which should be discadr. of root dir.
This value from an ADFS-Disc turns out to be &05200100 , but the discadr
of the root dir is definitely &800, so whats the PRM talking about here ???
The same applies with SCSI discs (just tested with HCCS-Controler)
so how will I find out about the real rootdir discadr ?
ciao boris
(boris@nicedel.north.de   writing from guest account)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: sgccreg@citec.oz.au (Rob Geraghty)
Subject: Re: NZ got axed, so sue him
Organization: CITEC
Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1992 08:38:17 GMT

kortink@cs.utwente.nl (John Kortink) writes:
>Philip has warned and warned and warned again that you should *only*
>access the NZ server from outside for material not easily found elsewhere.
>He has proof this request is *not* honoured by a lot of people.

>So now it got axed. So he's pissed off. I would be, you would be. And he's
>got to be thanked for trying to provide the service to us all.

Thankyou to all the people who removed the only info-server I can access
easily - I cannot ftp, or use telnet.  I can't even mail anyone in the uk!
Now without the nz server, my only access to net software is the
german info-server...

>Grow up, people. We are already spilling an enormous amount of negative
>energy on here.

Agreed.  Couldn't we spend a little less bandwidth on argument and a little
more on constructive discussion?  How about *mailing* your flame wars instead
of *posting* them  (no flames please ;-)

Rob

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn