HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: ARM and the New Apple Personal Digital Assistant
Date: 15 Apr 92 13:03:18 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

lithgow@uslp.UUCP writes:

>This is from this week's Unigram.X.

>	Apple could introduce its first Personal Digital Assistant at the
>	Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago next month, MacWeek says.
>	The device uses an infra- red link to connect to a desktop
>	computer or to other Personal Digital Assistants, and it will use
>	a low-power RISC processor - Cambridge, UK-based Advanced RISC
>	Machines Ltd's ARM600 presumably,

>P.S. Note the 'presumably' after 'ARM600' in the quote. Also remember
>that Unigram.X is an English rag that is uncommonly proud of English
>products (cw PCW).

Another possibility is the "hobbit" processor - a low power implementation
of the CRISP architecture (a registerless RISC). I hope it is an ARM, but
won't bet on it.

	Torben Mogensen (torbenm@diku.dk)
QUIT
ensen (torbenm@diku.dk)
From: mcg@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Well done Acorn!!!!!!
Date: 14 Apr 92 08:13:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: waikato.1992Apr14.201303.7422
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <1992Apr13.233113.7478@newcastle.ac.uk>, D.M.Johnson@newcastle.ac.uk (Dave Johnson) writes:
> 
> I have just seen a program about the BBC computer literacy project. It was
> amazing to discover that Acorn had developed a working prototype for the BBC
> model computer in just 4 days. Out of interest how long did the Archimedes
> take?

Well, if you've seen the PCB layout diagram for the Beeb, 4 days sounds about 
right.....

	Wonders will never cease to amaze me........
From: banksie@khantazi.welly.gen.nz (Philip R. Banks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Grumbles about RO3 PRMs
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 18:42:52 +1200
Reply-To: banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
Organization: My Arc.

ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer) writes:

> 1) Analogies have to be, to some extent, different to the real
> circumstances for two reasons, first to make them analogies, and the
> other to make the point without allowing any prejuduces relating to
> the situation in hand. I could have easily made my analogy stonger,
> but chose not to, but my analogy still held.

   Certainly your analogy held. About as well as the Strong Nuclear force
holds over a distance of around 10 metres. (To use an analogy.... :-) )
Analogies also have the nasty habit of being biased in favor of the point
you want to make, usually more so than the validity of the analogy back to
the original situation. I feel your analogy did not relate back well to your
situation.

> 2) My main, and origional point, which got lost somewhere along the
> line was mainly about lack of information Acorn give about the
> manuals. My main point is that I wish Acorn would settle the point as
> to whether or not there is going to be an upgrade of the PRMs (RO2 to
> RO3) and if so, what approx are the prices involved.
> 
> As I see it this moddicum of information can not 'hit their sales' as
> everyone seems to point out. Quite the contrary (if the upgrades will
> be available). If I know that I will be able to upgrade at a
> reasonable amount, I may actually buy the RO2 PRMs for the interim
> time, if I don't know - I won't.

   <Sarcasm On> Oh no. Of course it can't hit their sales. I mean eveyone
will just rush out and buy those back stocks of RO2 PRM's won't they when
the news of the RO3 PRM's comes out. How possibly could that affect sales?
<Sarcasm Off>

   Can you please at least presume that Acorn have a good reason for it?
Barring their marketing section the majority of Acorn seem exceedingly
competent and more than aware of issues like this. Credit them with having
the sense to not do this unless they are sure it is neccesary.

    Philip

--
Philip R. Banks                                                         @@@@@/|
Syntax: mail <banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz|banksie@khantazi.welly.gen.nz> @@@@/#|
                                                                        @@@/##|
What price the crown of a king on his throne,                           @@/---|
When you're chained in the dark all alone?  ---A.P.P.                   @/    |
From: neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: PC Emulator. ANOTHER upgrade !!!! Now v1.8
Date: 12 Apr 92 09:59:54 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Scotland


	Also from the pages of May BBC Acorn User.

	New version of the Archimedes PC Emulator released. Now it is up
to v1.8. The upgrade policy seems to have changed after suitable moaning
to Acorn. The upgrade offer will run from May to June/July. It will cost
#9 (yes NINE pounds !) from v1.6 or v1.7 -----> v1.8.

	The new version has new code for better VGA, general bug fixes
etc ... Glad I never upgraded to 1.7. Saved myself #15.

	For the 9 pounds upgrade, this also includes a SITE LICENCE for
educational establishments (I kid you not !).

	Further details from Acorn, as they say.....

	Neil
From: rogersh%t3l@uk.ac.man.cs (rogersh)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: RMA allocation/deallocation/reallocation strategies
Date: 6 Apr 92 16:17:13 GMT
Organization: XFM


	Am writing a C kernel running in the RMA which makes a lot of
calls to malloc()/realloc()/free(). I'm wondering whether to alias
these calls direct to the SWI equivalents for RMA memory allocation,
or whether to interpose some extra code inbetween. My own malloc()
is orders of magnitude faster than Acorn's heap manager, and I am
reluctant to use the latter. Further, the RMA heap free lists are not
maintained on a per-module basis as far as I can ascertain, and this has
bad implications for fragmentation. Also the standard optimization of
hashing free lists on block size is not done by the heap manager.

	One idea that occurs is to request page size aligned blocks
from the RMA, and perform heap management within these blocks. This
would allow the RMA to allocate and free these blocks using memory
mapping. However I am unsure whether it would in fact take advantage of
this, particularly w.r.t recent discussion on RMA usage in
comp.sys.acorn.

	Another idea is to ignore the RMA heap and remap pages direct
from the WIMP's free/next slots, but this involves screwing with
RiscOS internals and I don't want to do that.

	If there is some option for modules who want to dynamically
allocate workspace outside the RMA then I'd like to know...

	-Huw

[ 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."      ]
From: ssurawls@susssys1.reading.ac.uk (Mister E)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: >Risc Developments A3000 20MB HD
Date: 13 Apr 92 16:24:49 GMT
Article-I.D.: susssys1.8375.9204131624

All this talk about hard discs going down! Has anyone had any troubles with
the Oak 16-bit card? I have had it for over 2 years now and have NEVER EVER
EVER had any problems at *all*. And I have REALLY treated it badly. It used to
get plugged in and out while I carted my A3000 around, and for the last year
and a bit it has been in the back of a 310, without the supporting metalwork.
It is being held up only by the strength of the connecting pins.

And not a single complaint.

And now they have reduced the price to about 100 quid. I advise anyone out
there to forget about all this "peak transfer" rubbish. I personally wouldn't
buy a hard disc interface that can wipe out my files at the rate of 4 megs per
second!

There seems to be only two interfaces that can compete with oaks veteran,
proven design. Acorns (very expensive but certainly the best) and, um, another
one that claims 6 megs per second peak. How long before it trashes you files
eh!

Note that I have no links with oak, apart from being a satisfied customer.

Actually, the only complaint I do have is that it took a while to arrive.
About one month, which is a mere tick of the watford clock but a long time for
me!

Ian


Posted Mon Apr 13 17:24:44 BST 1992

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

>Why do they use powder soap on submarines?
>Because it takes longer to pick up.
From: lithgow@uslp.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Clever filesystems (Was Re: help! checkmap fails)
Date: 9 Apr 92 06:51:03 GMT

Mark Tauton paints a very rosy picture of UNIX file systems:
> [Lots of juicy techinical details deleted]
>  "Complete loss" of the filesystem is unheard of.

You're probably right here. I'm too used to working with machines with
weird drivers and alpha versions of the OS, I suppose. Generally
file-systems are trashed by programs other than fsck.

>>This is one of the huge faults of UNIX as a desktop machine. Veritas
>>fixes this. (And about time, too!) (BTW, the RS/6000 version of AIX also
>>has a file system that fixes this, I'm not sure who else does.)
>
>I'm not certain of the precise reference of "this" - if long fsck
>times are considered a fault, then the mechanisms I have mentioned, to
>avoid fsck on reboot in normal use, should answer the point.

But fsck isn't used in normal reboots, is it? SVR4 always unmounts file
systems before shutting down. Doesn't everyone. (The fasthalt presumably
does the same as BSD's.)

> If
>filesystem recovery on system crashes is at issue, then the Berkeley
>FFS is a sufficient improvement on the System V filesystem the author
>seems to be familiar with, that all he needs to do is switch to a
>system based on that (e.g. RISC iX ;-).

The machine I use already has a 300MB ufs filesystem (ufs is the copy of
Sun's version, I believe, of the BSD file system that is sold with SVR4.)
This FS takes about the same time to fsck as the 300MB s5 (System 5) file
system on the same machine. Both FS's are about 90%-80% full, contain
thousands of files, and take about 7-8 minutes each to fsck. (On a 33MHz,
cached 386 AT&T box.) My system is currently in a state where it crashes
once every two or three days. (I would like to change this, but
re-installation would take at least two days, because of all the extra
stuff in there!) Even when healthy, it would crash every month or so, for
various reasons.

>In any case, RISC iX (at least) is now very reliable and very rarely
crashes.

The R140 sounds like a much superior UNIX system than a 386/486 box
running <insert your favourite intel UNIX>, but I'd still prefer RISC OS
any day (unless I was using it as a server, of course).

>Problem?  What problem?  :-).

Yes it does. ;-)

>Mark.

Thanks for the info, Mark.

- Malcolm.
lithgow@usl.com
These are my rather ignorant opinions. Time to shut up, I think.
From: neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Acorn
Date: 9 Apr 92 10:52:57 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Scotland

In article <marlow.702742863@s1.sys.uea.ac.uk> marlow@sys.uea.ac.uk (K. Marlow PG) writes:

>  So I would put occasional adverts in newspapers like the Telegraph and
>Independent (maybe more adverts around the start of school terms?),
>along with adverts in Computer Shopper and additional adverts in weekly
>magazines around Christmas.  Not particularly high impact, but constant &
>permanent (.. ah now where was that Acorn advert? ..)
>

	Totally agree. The old chesnut about price reduction is valid too.
For about #1500 (ex VAT) an A5000, 2Mb, 40Mb IDE, Colour Multisync, LC
pack. For #1599 Viglens product of the month. 486/33, 4Mb, 100Mb HD, Colour
SVGA, Windows 3, Dos 5. (choice of 3 case styles Genie Micro 1599, Genie
Exec and the other one add **ONE** pound only !!!

	Not really much of a choice is it. I'd go for the Viglen personally
and run Solaris 2.0 for i3/486 when it finally appears.

	Neil
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: 8 bit stuff...
From: epoo1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Edouard Malachi     Poor           )
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 23:40:30 GMT
 <1992Apr11.005240.23207@cs.aukuni.ac.nz> <1at6o+j014n@khantazi.welly.gen.nz> <1992Apr13.215427.14759@cs.aukuni.ac.nz>
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

In <1992Apr13.215427.14759@cs.aukuni.ac.nz> jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA) writes:

>banksie@khantazi.welly.gen.nz (Philip R. Banks) writes:

>>jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA) writes:

>>> us one of the best collections of PD in this hemisphere (I'm sure), so we
>>   I wouldn't be so sure about having the best collection of PD.... :-)

>I did say "one of the best"... a while back, I'm sure I had the best collection
>in NZ (I had a *lot* of incoming discs!) but things have dried up a bit
>recently... but I still feel that between myself and Edouard, we have a pretty
>good collection...

Don't give in jason! Best is best! :-)

> [...how things should be posted...]

>Basically, I think the main idea is to do our best... I think a FIFO queue
>would suffice in most cases (look at the current volume passing through cba
>and you will see what I mean...), but if volume starts to get high, then
>some kind of priority might be installed... certainly we would want to
>ensure that the small files were inserted between big posts so that you
>always get something every couple of days and you don't spend 3 weeks
>waiting for 3 big posts to go by just so that a really useful 2k module can
>be posted...

Well if you say there at most 3 posting per day, then you simply post parts
63 and 64 of ghostscript V3 as well and part 1 (out of 1) of something
useful... Everyones happy (as that is what most other groups do I believe)

Edouard.
From: ssurawls@susssys1.reading.ac.uk (Mister E)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: >>>>help! checkmap fails
Date: 13 Apr 92 14:13:08 GMT

TMOTA said;

> A warning: Don't *ever* use the reset button when break will work... Use
> ctrl-break rather than ctrl-reset... ONLY use reset if ctrl-break fails to
> have the desired effect... This is because filecore disables break while
> vital disc updates are being done, so you can't cause problems with maps
> with ctrl-breaks. However, reset can't be disabled, so it is possible to
> interrupt a map-write half-way through with reset, which trashes your
> disc...

I have never used reset on my machine, but that was because it didn't work!

Now that I have a new machine I was wandering through the manuals, and this
advice was not to be found. The manual states that to start the machine again
you press CTRL-RESET. It may be in another part of the manual, but it would be
better in the basic explanation, eg "The keyboard is the long thing with blobs
on. On the top edge, where the curly thing joins to it, there is a large flat
button. Press CTRL (one of the blobs) and this button when the machine needs
restarting, but only if CTRL (that blob again) BREAK (and a friend) does not
work."

Or something like that. To their credit they have put a shutdown app in memory
triggered by a keypress, but if the computer has crashed, it's a bit like
trying to get a disc out of a dead mac!

Ian


Posted Mon Apr 13 15:13:00 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."
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Lemmings sounds and !boot files
From: Gavin.Flower@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Gavin Flower)
Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1992 22:49:04 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Sci., Victoria Uni. of Wellington, New Zealand.


In article <4967@merlin.ukc.ac.uk>, jrmt@ukc.ac.uk (Jon Thackray) writes:
           [...]
|> Oh yes, and here's an idea for anyone wanting a challenge - I'm sure a
|> desktop version of Lemmings would go down well - building bridges between 
|> windows and complete with self exploding lemmings - or even a multitasking
|> version of lemmings, in a window, for a bit of fun.

I can just imagine, blowing up a lemming on the edge of a window, and lemmings
falling out and going SPLAT on the iconbar!

Gavin

-- 
                     Tomorrow's Society
                         Depends on
                     Today's Children  - help us raise them properly!
******* These comments have no known correlation with dept. policy! *******
From: aralph@cix.compulink.co.uk (Alan Ralph)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: CIX
Date: 10 Apr 92 04:15:08 GMT
Reply-To: Alan Ralph <aralph@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Organization: Gated to News by demon.co.uk

ssurawls@susssys1.reading.ac.uk (Mister E) writes:
>How does your average computer pleebie get access to CIX? I got there a
>long time ago but have forgotten how to do it :-|

Fire up your modem and computer, set your comms software to 8-N-1, and
dial 081 399 5252 (up to v22bis and MNP 5).... and have that credit card
ready!

Alan.
From: /G=Rhodri/S=James/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@MHS-RELAY.AC.UK
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Personal Computer World
Date: 9 Apr 92 15:09:39 GMT

nicho@VNET.IBM.COM (Greg Nicholls) writes:

In <ARM200-920408131517-35F9C7D7*@MHS>,
 /G=Rhodri/S=James/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk writes:

>>The original PCs were 8086-based machines.......
>  I was trying to finish this, but I can't let this one lie.
> Have you heard of an 8088 ?????

Apologies, I never was much good at remembering random numbers
---
Rhodri James                   *  Disclaimer:  These are my opinions, not
SJ Research Ltd, Cambridge     *    those of my company UNLESS I SAY SO!
Rhodri.James%gb.INTERSPAN.sj   *  
            @mhs-relay.ac.uk   *  
   or                          *             Wombats are go!
rmj10@phx.cam.ac.uk            *
From: sproven@cs.strath.ac.uk (Simon B Proven IE91)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Disc questions
Date: 6 Apr 92 18:51:15 GMT
Organization: Comp. Sci. Dept., Strathclyde Univ., Glasgow, Scotland.

In article <1992Apr5.213156.25606@comp.vuw.ac.nz> Gavin.Flower@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Gavin Flower) writes:
>
>of faster disc I/O.  These discs had one head per platter.  Therefore I suspect
>that Acorn would NOT provide such a feature - most people wanting high
>performance on I/O and being trusting of discs.

I once got a Disk Error when saving a file to my Oak SCSI hard disc.  The
error turned out to be in the middle of the file.  *verify didn't detect
the error but I *defected the sector out.

>
>Gavin

+-- Simon "Mad@Bike" Proven ---------------------------------------------+
|- _ -  - _ -   .__o    /  <sproven@cs.strath.ac.uk> or                  |
|-  -  - _ -  _-\_<,   /   <caa650@ccsun.strath.ac.uk>                   | 
\____________(*)/'(*)_/____Real_peeps_ride_bike_:)_______________________/
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Scandal: Acorn betrays customers! (:-)
From: julian@bridge.welly.gen.nz (Julian Wright)
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 08:14:07 +1200
Reply-To: wright_j@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz (Julian Wright)
Organization: USS Enterprise, NCC 1701a

osmith@acorn.co.uk (Owen Smith) writes:

> RISC OS 3 polls the drives slowly (once a second) if it needs to step the
> head to get "disc changed" to work - watch the disc light on an A5000 blink
> once a second when it is looking for a disc. This feature will also work
> with A400/1, A540 and A3000 machines if you change the cable when you
> install RISC OS 3.

What happens if a second drive is installed in a RISC OS 3 equipped machine,
which is capable of asserting "disc changed" without mechanical action? I
presume if it is the only drive RO3 will poll it at 1/10 second intervals,
but what if you have one of each type of drive? Will RO3 poll the second
drive at 1/10 sec intervals and the original drive still at 1 second
intervals? If not, it'd be kind of a nice idea...

Also (and here's a really potentially controversial option) perhaps a
configurable option to "Auto mount" a disc when it is inserted in the drive,
opening it's root filer window if this is the first time the disc has been
seen. After all, what's the first thing you do after putting a new disc in
the drive?

It could be configured off by default, and configured on by people
with "silent disc-changed" drives, or those willing to put up with the
clicking. Also then the option to override this by holding down SHIFT when a
disc is inserted, perhaps.

Of course, this could get rather aggrivating after a while, if some way was
not found to either speed up the disc format sensing or *background* it...

    Cheers, Julian.
--
----------------------------| RO2:SYS 68,59243844 |--------------------------
wright_j@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz |---------------------| "I'm sig of sicknatures!"
----------------------------| RO3:SYS 68,60816742 |--------------------------
--
From: nicho@VNET.IBM.COM
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: >Shouldn't this stop ?
Date: 6 Apr 92 08:25:57 GMT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.9204060850.AA22344
Reply-To: nicho@vnet.ibm.com

In <18077.9204021647@susssys1.rdg.ac.uk> Mister E writes:
> ---- a whole lot of useless drivel I can't be bothered to repeat --

 Mister Ian Rawlings ... can you kindly take your childish blubbering
off c.s.a. You are worse than rude Sir, you are boring.
 -----------------------------------------------------------------
               ** Of course I don't speak for IBM **
Greg Nicholls ... nicho@vnet.ibm.com or nicho@cix.compulink.co.uk
                  voice/fax: 44-794-516038
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: 8 bit stuff...
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 00:52:40 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

epoo1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (Edouard Malachi     Poor           ) writes:

>Formal offer: I offer my services as moderator for comp.binaries.acorn from
>	      this account (Auckland University.) Jason Williams would be
>	      willing to help (or co-moderate, if that seems OK) from
>	      his Account here also. Our main aims would be to provide
>	      a steady flow of parts at two or three a day, every day.

erg! Seems I'll have to be more careful with my in-the-corridor conversations!
Anyway, I'd jump at the chance so long as it doesn't wreak havoc with my
bank account (I have to pay for *incoming* email! Arrgh!)

The first thing that I (we) would guarantee with this offer of moderation
(apart from knowing enough about usenet & UNIX to actually post stuff on
a regular basis, even if we're on holiday...) is that when you send us stuff,
we will reply via email ASAP in order to confirm that we have got the stuff
OK... Paying to email a binary to the moderator is bad enough without then
having to wait 6 months to see if anything gets posted and start wondering
"did he even receive the file?"

The other thing is that both Edouard and myself are more likely to have more
time (and interest) than the current moderators in which to serve.
We are also already involved in running the ABUG II BBS, and have between
us one of the best collections of PD in this hemisphere (I'm sure), so we
know what is good and what is not, and we know a virus when we see one
and we know how to organise/post/etc binaries properly.

Oh, yeah... and we will definitely include a short description of each file
at the top of the posting so that you don't have to decode all 20 parts
of a huge post just to find out what the hell is in it!

-- 
_________________  "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)