HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: r_voisey@kiwi.uwe.ac.uk (R Voisey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Re: Re: RO3 PRM`s and Desktop C
Date: 16 Dec 92 10:35:31 GMT
Reply-To: r_voisey@csd.bristol-poly.ac.uk
Organization: The University of the West of England (The Magic Roundabout)

In article <KERS.92Dec10144744@cdollin.hpl.hp.com>, kers@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Chris Dollin) writes:

|> Who else remembers the OS8 (and Tenex?) reaction to ``make love''?

.. not war ..

I wonder what happenned if you were trying to build love.c .. ;-)

Bob

-- 
  Robert J. Voisey  :  r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk
         -- Probug Software Developments --
162 Staplehill Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, Avon, England
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
From: jkh@whisker.lotus.ie (Jordan K. Hubbard)
Subject: Re: Extended BASIC
Organization: Lotus Development Ireland
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 16:45:42 GMT

	Are you sure you ever wrote a program in C? The only argument
	that I agree with is 4). Argument 1) is simply not true
	because C has an extensive set of string manipulation routines
	that give you the same funcxtionality that BASIC does. 2) is a
	bit true, but you easily write them yourself in about 5
	minutes

Oh come now.  While I'd be the last to defend Basic programming over C,
most basics do a much nicer job of letting you stick strings together than
C does.

Consider the following nonsensical example (but not using ARM basic, since
I don't know it, your mileage may differ):

5  X = 10
10 Y = 20
20 OUT$ = "The sum of " + STR(X) + " and " + STR(Y) + " is " + STR(X+Y)
30 INPUT "Unit of measurement? ", UNIT$
40 A$ = A$ + " " + UNIT$
40 PRINT A$

Whereas the C counterpart would be:

main()
{
	char out[256];	/* And better hope it's big enough! */
	char units[50];
	int x = 10, y = 20;

	sprintf(out, "The sum of %d and %d is %d ", x, y, x + y);
	printf("Unit of measurement? ");
	fflush(stdout);
	fgets(units, 50, stdin);
	strcat(out, " ");
	strcat(out, units);
	/* Or: sprintf(&units[strlen(units) + 1], " %s", units); */
	printf("%s\n", out);
}


I think the basic code is easier to understand, not to mention more robust
in the face of long strings.

But writing large systems in basic is still simply not on - full stop.
Sure, you can DO it, but I wouldn't touch the result with a stick.

The only exceptions to this rule are some of the newer structured
basics, like HP Business Basic or Microsoft Basic for Windows
(actually quite nice!).

I wish that Acorn had provided a halfway decent basic, considering
that they were shipping it with the machine.  It could have been so
much more than what I've seen in the manual so far.  Same goes for
Amiga basic - Commodore made the same mistake (well, Amiga basic was
so bad they've now dropped support for it).

					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
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Re: RO3 PRM`s and Desktop C 
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 21:39:18 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

altman@cryton.demon.co.uk (Hugo Fiennes) writes:


>Why can't acorn do an apple and release (to developers or to anyone who
>signs something saying they don't care about the bugs, but want to have
>a play with the new xxx module) development modules when they have reached
>a usable state (eg used inside acorn) but not gone through QA? eg in the
>APDA catalogue you get notes like:

I suspect that the Acorn chappies will cite some rubbish about their name
being on the product, and if a buggy product gets out with their name on it
then they will be considered responsible by normal consumers... they therefore
don't want to risk a 'leak'....

However, having seen the quality of the 1989 'pirate' leaked version of the
OS, which was pretty good, and very stable, and the quality of the official
release of Edit, Draw, Paint, Desktop C, etc. I can't help thinking that
Acorn's Kwality Kontrol department is a retrograde step in their software
development cycle... If I'd had RISC OS 3.10 for a week before they released
it to the public, I could have given them a good long list of unacceptable
bugs and bad-publicity interface problems... it does make you wonder
who "tests" acorn software before it's released... Sure the basic internal
code might be sound, but what use is this if the interface (the first and
in many cases the only part of the program that the user sees) is visibly
buggy? My personal reaction is "If it crashes when I click on the spraycan
icon, then god knows what the rest of the code is like!", and my trust-
quotient drops considerably.

>Better to be able to play, and suggest new features, etc, than be told
>'thats it, & we can't change it now because it's been QA'ed'

Hear hear! What about including a special text message in all such prerelease
modules/programs so that it is easy to see that this is NOT an official
QA release, but a prerelease version that will not be supported by Acorn
if anything bad happens?

I think most users would prefer to have the use of new features PLUS a couple
of bugs, than have all the old bugs but no new features. This is what I like
about Impression: if a new feature is implemented, I don't have to wait
*THREE YEARS* before I can benefit from its use. Of course, I take the risk
of encountering a new bug, or I can sit back about 2 versions from the
latest release and let other people discover the bugs. But at least it's
all MY OWN CHOICE!
-- 
_________________  "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.advocacy
From: idg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (I.D. Griffiths)
Subject: Re: Re: RO3 PRM`s and Desktop C
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 02:27:01 GMT

In article <KERS.92Dec10144744@cdollin.hpl.hp.com>, kers@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Chris Dollin) writes:
|> In article ... alla0008@student.tc.umn.edu (Graham Allan) writes:
|> 
|>    Never used DDT... good name, though.
|> 
|> And straight out of history. OS8 (running on PDP-8's) had a debugger, descended
|> from the earlier ODT (Octal Debugging Technique?), which they called DDT
|> (Dynamic Debugging Technique). I wonder if Acorn think they invented the pun?
|> Surely not.
|> 
|> Who else remembers the OS8 (and Tenex?) reaction to ``make love''?
|> --
|> 
|> Regards, Kers.
|> "If anything anyone lacks, they'll find it all ready in stacks."

Well, they're not the only people actually.  CPM-80 had it's Dynamic Debugging
Tool.

Ian Griffiths
From: aglover@acorn.co.uk (Alan Glover)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Re: Admin: Review of c.s.a.a's usefulness to date
Date: 17 Dec 92 08:53:47 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

So far the only issue which has arisen is that of posting press
releases (Acorn, and any others that are submitted!).

Changing the textual style is out.  The press releases from Acorn that
I feed to the group are the same as are fed to anyone else on their
circulation list.  Edited articles would have to (in effect) be
re-released as press releases.  It would also increase the operational
overhead for running the group quite considerably.

So three options exist:
  
  a) Continue as now, and remember that they are *Press Releases* - a
little trumpet blowing is to be expected.

  b) Post a preceding message, so people who pay per message read can
skip them.

  c) Don't post them at all.
  
>From the discussion so far, I think a) or b) are the most likely
outcomes. I prefer a), but might be convinced otherwise....
          
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.
From: cs92dty@brunel.ac.uk (Danny T Yates)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Pascal (was Re: Extended BASIC)
Date: 15 Dec 92 21:02:33 GMT
Organization: Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

Having read the 'Re: Extended BASIC' articles I am interested to know whether
there is a decent Pascal compiler for the Arc?

When I say decent I don't mean anti-pascal (sorry - ANSI-Pascal!) I mean
_really_ decent... Like Turbo Pascal 6 (or even Borland Pascal 7 with objects)
on the PCs. The memory management on these is quite exceptional, and the
compilation speed is breathtaking to say the least.

If such a compiler exists (preferably object orientated) can you let me know?
If not, does anyone plan to write one - or is one on it's way?  

Thanks in advance,

Dan.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
From: rsxdp@unicorn.nott.ac.uk (D.Pead)
Subject: Re: RO3 PRM`s and Desktop C
Organization: Shell Centre for Maths Education, University of Nottingham
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 10:38:58 GMT

In article <20721@acorn.co.uk> steve@acorn.co.uk (Steve "daffy" Hunt) writes:

>Ah yes, there's a long and proud tradition of using this name for
>debuggers.  Wasn't there a debugger called DDT under TOPS-10 too?
>

And under a certain OS known as CP/M if my memory serves me right! (I think
they re-named it to SID or something under CP/M+)

On the subject of names - "Zap" was always a traditional name for memory/disc
editors back in the TRS80, CP/M, Superbrain era.  Presumably the author of
!Zap (highly recommended) knew this.

So it's nice to know that, after all these years, you can still run Zap and
DDT...



Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
From: idg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (I.D. Griffiths)
Subject: Re: RO3 PRM`s and Desktop C
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 02:30:40 GMT

In article <marlow.724077249@radon.sys.uea.ac.uk>, marlow@sys.uea.ac.uk (Keith Marlow PG) writes:
|> S.Hickinbottom@lut.ac.uk writes:
|> 	Yep, the remote debugging facility was really nice to use & quite 
|> stable, you had the facility to get straight down to the job at hand.  To me
|> all the menus just seem to serve to get in the way & aren't a substitute for
|> a proper command line driven interface.  If anything the menuing and windowing
|> should have been in addition to the command line not a replacement for. Can we
|> have the command line back Acorn?
|> 
I second that.  (...third, fourth, whatever.)

Also, when dialogues are up, like the Display one, any chance that the icons
could be activated by ctrl-First letter of command or something like that,
so that at least some things can be achieved from the keyboard.

Ian Grriffiths
From: steve@acorn.co.uk (Steve "daffy" Hunt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Re: RO3 PRM`s and Desktop C
Date: 12 Dec 92 01:15:24 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Limited, Cambridge, UK
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL8]

Brian McCrone (ge@gserv1.dl.ac.uk) wrote:
: The PDP7 (which never had any operating system) did come with the
: Digital Debugging Tape

Ah yes, there's a long and proud tradition of using this name for
debuggers.  Wasn't there a debugger called DDT under TOPS-10 too?

-- Steve
-- 
				Steve Hunt	steve@acorn.co.uk
From: J.P.OBroin@newcastle.ac.uk (Jason O'Broin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Re: Extended BASIC
Date: 14 Dec 92 17:32:41 GMT
Organization: Computing Laboratory, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK NE1 7RU.


In article <1g9q05INNn87@oak4.doc.ic.ac.uk>, ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer) writes:
>In article <1992Dec10.133739.6131@odin.diku.dk> torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen) writes:
>>py92djm@cen.ex.ac.uk writes:
>>
>>numbers through memory addresses. And as for alloc(), DIM does that.
>
>but what about free()? One of these days I'll get round to releasing
>my dynamic memory library for Basic which supplies versions of malloc,
>realloc, free, etc. for Basic.
>

RiscOs does have some Heap management support built into it. As I don't have any
manuals to hand, I don't know how effective these are. However, if we are to
continue to C analogy, there should be no problem in requiring that memory 
allocation be done by external language constructs (ie. OS_Heap vs. malloc
library).  

[ comments about pointers and records deleted ]

>
>Ian
>

Jason
( 'History shows again and again                          BLUE OYSTER CULT
   How nature points up                                      'Godzilla'
   The folly of men'                                          Spectres        )
From: dcw-a@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Re: RO 3 PRM's
Date: 11 Dec 92 14:42:50 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England

In article <1992Dec8.132723.5471@reks.uia.ac.be> derijkp@reks.uia.ac.be (Peter De Rijk) writes:
>R Voisey (r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk) wrote:
>: Actually I hadn't noticed..  I was under the impression that almost all of
>: RISCOS (particularly the kernel)  was written in asm..

>I believe (and I might be incorrect here of course) that !Edit, !Printers,
>!Draw, and some other applications as well were written in C. Maybe I'm 
>driving things a bit too far by counting these as being a part of RISC OS.
>They are however distributed together with RISCOS, and some of them are 
>even on the RISCOS ROMs (3.1), so I thought I could do so.
>Whether they form a 'considerable' part is indeed debatable. Lets just say
>RISC OS would be severly cripled without them.
>
>Peter

	I was under the impression that large amounts of RO3 were written in C
whereas a lot of RO2 was written in Assembler directly. It is interesting that
RO3 definately _feels_ faster. BTW The language that the OS is written in is always
an interesting one. Anyone remember the BASIC Wimp stuff under Arthur?

	Doug.

**************************************************************************
**********             JANET : dcw-a@minster.york.ac.uk          *********
* Snail Mail : Doug Winter, 8 Melbourne Court, York, YO1 5AS             *
* Disclaimer : If any of the above is true, I apologise ...              *
* The opinions expressed above are my personal views and not necessarily *
*              the opinions of any past or present employer.             *
**************************************************************************
From: kers@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Chris Dollin)
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 13:35:39 GMT
Subject: Re: Extended BASIC
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy

In article ... torh@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Tor Houghton) writes:

   What would be nice in a new BASIC is lists, like in POP-11.

Oh, come on!

If we can want lists as in Pop11, then we can want the *works* of Pop11 lists.
That includes dynamic lists built on repeaters [*1]. To do this, functions
should be first-class [*2]. Now we have first-class functions and lists, we
need garbage collection [*3]. 

If you implement FCFs and Ls, then you've got most of the machinery for dynamic
structures. You probably had to implement them to get the lists. Perhaps we
should have words [*4] as well -- give us something to put in the lists and
make interesting structures like parse trees, window trees, etc. Now we've got
words, we might as well have tables which take words to meanings, so that's
properties [5]. Fortunately having first-class procedures can make it easy to
implement properties. Did I mention that we should have full lexical scoping?

See, once you let a *bit* of Pop in, the rest comes sniffing in behind! Just
watch out, or I'll tell you more! (Serious questions can be aasked in
comp.lang.pop). 

[1] A ``repeater'' is a procedure that, when called, delivers the ``next''
item from some source, finally delivering a recognised no-more-guv item when
the source is exhausted (or even very tired).

[2] Passable as parameters, returnable as results, storeable in in data
structures -- and no, I don't mean as strings you can EVAL.

[3] Because otherwise it's too bloody hard to keep track of when you've
finished with pieces of list.

[4] A ``word'' (aka ``symbol'' in Lisp) is an object with a name such that
there is at most one object with any given name.

[5] A property is a procedure (function) mapping ``key'' values to ``data''
values. It's updatable.





--

Regards, Kers.
"If anything anyone lacks, they'll find it all ready in stacks."
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
From: gpvos@cs.vu.nl (Gerben 'P' Vos)
Subject: Re: Admin: Review of c.s.a.a's usefulness to date
Organization: Fac. Wiskunde & Informatica, VU, Amsterdam
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 15:14:48 GMT

Denis Howe writes:

>                                                                  On
>the whole I think the No Advertising rule should be applied fairly to
>all net users and all groups except those where it is explicitly
>allowed.  It would be selfish of us to say "Acorn is a special case
>for us".

I'm not against announcements of important products, but sometimes the tone
of the published press releases is, IMHO, too much advertisement-like. But,
as Simon Burrows pointed out, Acorn probably won't edit them especially for
us. I'd rather have it the way it is now than have no information at all.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G e r b e n   V o s   <><
Aconet: 8500/104!Gerben Vos  Internet: gpvos@cs.vu.nl
[1] UNIX is a trademark of Unix Systems Laboratories, a subsidiary of AT&T[2].
[2] AT&T is a modem test command.
From: gpalmer@cs.strath.ac.uk (Gary J Palmer IE91)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
Subject: Re: RO 3 PRM's
Date: 15 Dec 92 17:31:29 GMT
Organization: Comp. Sci. Dept., Strathclyde Univ., Glasgow, Scotland.

In article <1992Dec8.132723.5471@reks.uia.ac.be> derijkp@reks.uia.ac.be (Peter De Rijk) writes:
->I believe (and I might be incorrect here of course) that !Edit, !Printers,
->!Draw, and some other applications as well were written in C.

!printers written in C??? Really??? Look in the resources directory, and 
look in the printers resource directory, spot the *BASIC* code!!

->Maybe I'm 
->driving things a bit too far by counting these as being a part of RISC OS.
->They are however distributed together with RISCOS, and some of them are 
->even on the RISCOS ROMs (3.1), so I thought I could do so.
->Whether they form a 'considerable' part is indeed debatable. Lets just say
->RISC OS would be severly cripled without them.

I'd think that anything that is supplied with the OS and is documented in the
same manual as the OS can be counted as part of the OS. (Extreme case following
(-: ) e.g. Under Unix clones, the OS is strictly the kernel (on most
systems /vmunix), but I would love someone to show me a Unix without programs
like 'ls', 'ps', 'sh'!!! The answer simply is that Unix would be close to 
useless without these supporting programs, and they are often considered
part of the OS, so I would think it fair to say that !Edit, etc are part
of RISCOS3.1

Yours

Gary
-- 
JANET		: gpalmer@uk.ac.strath.cs
Other Nets	: gpalmer%cs.strath.ac.uk@ plus one of :-
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#include <std.disclaimer> | WATCH OUT . Here comes the ARM700!!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
From: burke@vxdesy.desy.de
Subject: Re: Extended BASIC
Organization: (DESY, Hamburg, Germany)
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 1992 18:30:02 GMT

In article <6707@tuegate.tue.nl>, erikp@blade.stack.urc.tue.nl (Erik van de Pol) writes:
> program that is more or less bug-free...*8-). And BASIC is horrible to read,
> especially if you have a _large_ program.

Um, I think this depends on how you write it :-)... and how many people can
work out what this does without tidying it (or running it):

extern int putchar(int);char *c="-=+X#";int main(){float a,b,d,r,i;int x,y\
,t;for(y=0;y<25;y++){i=2.2/25*y-1.1;for(x=0;x<80;x++){r=2.8/80*x-2.1;t=b=d\
=0;do{a=b*b-d*d+r;d=2*b*d+i;b=a;t++;}while(t<32&&b*b+d*d<4);putchar(t<32?c\
[t>>4?4:t>>3?3:t>>2?2:t>>1?1:0]:' ');}putchar(y<24?'\n':'\n');}return;}

And while we're wasting bandwidth :-)

#######
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#####    #    #  #    #  ######  #####    ####
#        #####   #    #  #    #  #            #
#        #   #   #    #  #    #  #       #    #
#        #    #   ####   #    #  ######   ####

#######
#        ######   ####    #####
#        #       #          #
#####    #####    ####      #
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#        #       #    #     #
#        ######   ####      #

e----><----p | Stephen Burke           | Internet: burke@vxdesy.desy.de
 H   H   1   | Gruppe FH1T (Liverpool) | DECnet:   vxdesy::burke (13313::burke)
 H   H  11   | DESY, Notkestrasse 85   | BITNET:   BURKE@DESYVAX or SB2@UKACRL
 HHHHH   1   | 2000 Hamburg 52         | JANET:    sb2@uk.ac.rl.ib
 H   H   1   | Germany                 | Phone:    + 49 40 8998 2282
 H   H 11111 | HERA, the world's largest electron microscope!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.advocacy
From: idg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (I.D. Griffiths)
Subject: Re: RO 3 PRM's
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1992 02:41:48 GMT

In article <724084970.28284@minster.york.ac.uk>, dcw-a@minster.york.ac.uk writes:
|> >I believe (and I might be incorrect here of course) that !Edit, !Printers,
|> >!Draw, and some other applications as well were written in C. Maybe I'm 
|> >driving things a bit too far by counting these as being a part of RISC OS.
|> >They are however distributed together with RISCOS, and some of them are 
|> >even on the RISCOS ROMs (3.1), so I thought I could do so.
|> >Whether they form a 'considerable' part is indeed debatable. Lets just say
|> >RISC OS would be severly cripled without them.
|> >
|> >Peter

Well, probably not actually.  I use !StrongEd, CC's Turbodriver for the
BJC800, and Artworks as mentioned there, and would not be sad to see their
counterparts missing from the ROM, but then that's just me, and I have the
advantage of having been emplyed by CC for the last two programs, so it's
cheaper for me.  :-)   On the other hand it's nice tto have them therre as
standard even if they're not quite as good as they could be.

Speaking of which, why does Acorn's BJC800 driver produce such dire output
from Artworks?  I've not tried it with anything else, but while it's dithering
seemed quite reasonable over single colours, when prrinting out CC's ubiquitous
Apple picture, it decided it was only going to use about 7 shades of green
to do it rather than the 100 or so which are required to look any good.  What
I don't understand is why it went all banded when the dithering used looks
patently capable of doing loads of colours.  (it seems to be a fairly good
random dither.)
Is it artworks or Acorn?

|> 
|> 	I was under the impression that large amounts of RO3 were written in C
|> whereas a lot of RO2 was written in Assembler directly. It is interesting that
|> RO3 definately _feels_ faster. BTW The language that the OS is written in is always
|> an interesting one. Anyone remember the BASIC Wimp stuff under Arthur?
|> 
|> 	Doug.
|> 

Well, anything after Clib in Ro3 is probably in C, in the module list.

Ro3 feels a damn sight slower than 2.   Start up time is a lot longer (althouggh
3.10 is better than 3.0) but lots of little things are slower, like the menu
over the palette icon, window border redraws even when not using lots of pretty
tool sprites.

Oh yes, any chance of being told what the algorithm used to work out where tool
sprites are plotted and the size ofwindow borders given the size of tool sprites
is?  It seems entirely arbitrary - the tools move about when you change other
ones, and it's possible to terminally crash the desktop with certain combinations
of sizes.

Ian Griffiths