HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ee91mds2@brunel.ac.uk (Mark D Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Removable mass storage (Syquest,Flopticals...)
Date: 6 Nov 92 10:52:39 GMT
Organization: Brunel University, West London, UK

I am looking to buy a removable mass storage system to replace my ever
growing collection of floppies and to backup my two 40MByte hard disks. I
have been looking at various options, including flopticals and syquest
drives and, at the moment, a 44MByte syquest drive looks to be the best
solution. Anyone got any other suggestions? Is anyone selling any
second-hand flopticals/syquest drives (obviously, this is only any good if
the vendor lives close to here, i.e. in south-east England). Can I expect to
get anything much cheaper from a non-Acorn supplier (I already have a SCSI
card). If so, how much cheaper. I will probably go and have a look round the
computer shopper show (talking of which, is anyone else going - perhaps we
could arrange a meet). In case it makes any difference, I have a 4MByte
A5000 with Risc-OS 3.10 and a 16 bit uncached Morley SCSI card. Please mail
any comments on this subject direct to me and I will summerise in a posting.

Thanks,

Mark Smith.

See you at the ARM Club open day - Sunday 15th November, Mill Hill School, N. London.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  M    M   AAA   RRRR   K  K   Janet email: ee91mds2@brunel.ac.uk            |
|  MM  MM  A   A  R   R  K K    Subject: Microelectronic Systems Design       |
|  M MM M  AAAAA  RRRR   KK     Establishment: Brunel University, U.K.        |
|  M    M  A   A  R R    K K                                                  |
|  M    M  A   A  R  RR  K  K                                                 |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: troeste@Lise.Unit.NO (Trygve R|ste)
Subject: Re: RiscOSLib for ISO-Pascal
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 92 17:22:34 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.122448.12002@waikato.ac.nz>, bwc@waikato.ac.nz (Ug!) writes:
 > Trygve R|ste writes:
 > > Anyone got some example programs accessing the RiscOS library from ISO pascal
 > > 4.01? One problem I encountered was that I couldn't get a pointer to a record
 > > which is defined normally in a procedure. Nearly all of the RiscOS functions
 > > needs a pointer to a record as one of the parameters.
 > 
 > Hmm.  Can't you just define the extern routine as having a VAR parameter?  I
 > would imagine that this would be the easiest way.
 > 							Ug!

Well, then I have to rewrite all the 30-40 headerfiles which contains the
interface to RiscOSLib. I don't know who has made them (is it Acorn?). They where
following an DDE frontend which was made for ISO pascal 4.00/4.01.

Anyone having any experience with this interface to RiscOSLib, please contact me
at:
  troeste@solan.unit.no

-Trygve
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: nas20@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith)
Subject: Re: Modula 2/3
Reply-To: nas20@phx.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith)
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 00:26:49 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.223839.9171@infodev.cam.ac.uk> crj10@phx.cam.ac.uk (Clive Jones) writes:
>X-Furry-Character: Gerald_Duck
Urg ...

>
>In article <1992Nov11.124610.22046@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, jna10@cl.cam.ac.uk (J.N. Abley) writes:
>> And while I'm here, has anyone ported a modula 2/3 compiler to the Arc?
>
>I believe a standalone Modula-2 compiler for the Arc exists - it has certainly
>been mentioned since the days of Arthur, and the old APCS!
>
>Modula-3 certainly doesn't exist for RiscOS3, and it is my suspicion that it
>never will, at least in its DEC/SRC incarnation. To say that the compiler is
>grungy is an understatement, and it's quite heavyweight - you'd need a good
>few megabytes of RAM, and tens of megabytes of hard disc.

I think you over-estimate the size of Modula 3 itself - I have ftp'd the
SRC DEC Modula-3 distribution, and while all the X libraries, etc. are
really quite large - you could have a RISC OS binary < 2MB (the executable)
and the core libraries & headers in less than 10 MB of harddisc. I fear
that you would need 8MB of RAM to run the compiler though ...

I'd don't believe the job of porting is that difficult (he says!), but for
the time being, I think I'll stick with running it under RISCiX thanks !
--
Nick Smith, Rm.226, Churchill College, Cambridge ! Email: nas20@uk.ac.cam.phx
.sig quote wanted - must be under guarantee.     ! Tel: (0223) 465596
From: torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: ARMXX & MHz
Date: 13 Nov 92 16:33:40 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

cs89jmb@brunel.ac.uk (Aeon Flux) writes:


>Salutations,

>Not being a real techy I was pondering this question last night and wondering
>why I couldn't come up with an answer.

>An Arm2 runs at 8Mhz and has approx "mippage" of 4
>An Arm3 runs at 26Mhz and has approx "mippage" of 13

>Rumour has it that the next ArmX chip runs at 50Mhz and has approx mippage of
>28

>Now then, what I don't understand is the Arm3 has a 4k cache which helps to 
>speed things up, right?
>The Arm3 (most common ones) are approx 3 times faster than an Arm2 - is this 
>because they are clocked 3 times faster?

Basically, yes.

>If so, where does the cache help?

If you run an 26MHz ARM3 from 8MHz memory, it can't get its
instructions fast enough to run at the full 26MHz. If the instructions
happen to be in the cache (which runs at the same speed as the
processor) it can run these at full speed. The cache also helps on
loads, if the value to be loaded happens to be in the cache. On the
ARM3 the cache doesn't help on stores - these are still written to
main memory. On the ARM600/ARM610 a write buffer makes the processor
able to continue with the next instruction before a store is
completed.

On the A5000 and A4 the main memory is 12MHz, which helps on memory
accesses that doesn't use the cache. Thus the A5000 is faster than an
A300/A400 with ARM3 added, though the difference is not so great as
between ARM2s running from 8 or 12MHz memory (like the new A3010
etc.).

I expect the ARM700 (or whatever) to have a write buffer similar to
the A600, and I expect it to run at better than 30MHz. 50MHz is
possible - it mainly comes down to fabrication techology, and some of
the current manufacturers of ARM chips should have the necessary
technology. It may make the chips more expensive, so maybe only the
high end machines will run at this speed.

A more important question is what MEMC it is going to use. The MEMC1a
is too limited in the amount of memory at can address. The ARM600 has
a built-in MEMC that is capable of addressing all the memory you are
likely to want to put on an ARM based computer, but it also has
several other advanced features which assists protection and garbage
collection, features which RISC OS is not likely to be able to use,
and RISCix neither. So maybe we will see a MEMC with a similar
translation table structure as on the ARM600, but with a simpler
protection scheme (similar to that of MEMC1a).

A machine using 50MHz ARM700, a good MEMC, VIDC20, an FPU (which
should be just about ready) and simple memory extension up to or above
128MB will be quite impressive, but also somewhat more expensive than
even the A540 is today.

	Torben Mogensen (torbenm@diku.dk)
From: ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: ADFS maps
Date: 9 Nov 92 12:03:52 GMT
Organization: Department of Computing, Imperial College, University of London, UK.
NNTP-Posting-Host: oak6.doc.ic.ac.uk

In article <1992Nov9.113440.11646@aston.ac.uk> davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis) writes:
   
>  As no-one else had ever mentioned this, I assumed it was a problem with RO3.0
>and just urged the owner of the A5000 to get the upgrade asap.
>  Were you running RO3.1??

Nope, still using damn 3.00 (still waiting for 3.1, and waiting, and
waiting.............................:-( ) But it was ArcFS that I was
using at the time, but I didn't think it could have been anything
particularly to do with it, as I would think (and hope) that is only
uses legal OS calls, thus it must be a problem with (at least) RO3.00,
which only seems to be highlighted when using ArcFS 2.

Ian

-- 
                            E-mail : ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk
 ___           __       Snail mail : Department of Computing, Huxley Building,
  /  _   _    /_/ _   / _ _   _  _   Imperial College, 180 Queens Gate,
_/_ (_|_| )  /   (_|_(_| ) )_|/_)    London. SW7 2BZ. England.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: sdaveyj@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: Re: PostScript Silly buggers & ST506 HDs
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 07:09:56 GMT

In article <1992Nov9.132206.12471@aston.ac.uk>, robertej@cs.aston.ac.uk (Thinkpix) writes:
> This is a message from a very slightly annoyed person, I'm using a 4mb A310 running
> RISCOS 2 and Acorn DTP, my main prob is that the postscript files I export are doing
> FA when they hit the LaserWriter here in the university, the support staff say helpfull
> things like "different dialects in this language" and "non-standard systems" when I 
> mention the word Acorn. The thing is files from my old A3000 (I'll kill the bugger who
> nicked it!) used to work while I was doing my A-level projects.

I used an A3000 with postcript most of the time no worries but I did find that
If I created a postcript file of more than about 128K long the lazer printer
would sit an read for 5min and then do nothing. You may be having this problem

Try removing some of the complex objects, and printing, then put the paper in
again and print the complex object.

 
> The second hit is about a 5.25 inch Microscience HD I've been given, apparently it's
> a 21 Mb ST506 MFM device, but I haven't a clue as to how I can connect it to my Archie,
> is it worth the hassle? Can anybody suggest a method or make me an offer for it?

You can make it work using a Morley ST506 adapter. You will need a power supply
for the drive, probably 12V 3A and 5V 1A (I have a 40Mb) It's a bit
of a fiddle to make a box up. But it will work.

Most importantly TURN THE HARDDISC OFF BEFORE THE COMPUTER or you will get
loads of lovely CORRUPTION.

> 
> Multiple thanks in anticipation...

        Thank you

                     John
From: duplain@rtf.bt.co.uk (Andy Duplain)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Exception handling in C.
Date: 10 Nov 92 10:16:51 GMT
Organization: BT Customer Systems, Brighton, UK

In article <1992Nov9.135023.12048@waikato.ac.nz> bwc@waikato.ac.nz (Ug!) writes:
>I'd like to discuss a few things about what I am implementing at the moment,
>first among them being the issue of exception handling in C.
>
>Exception handling is always a messy business, and C doesn't cope
>particularly well with it, although in fact I've yet to meet a language
>which does.
				
	Exception handling should not be a part of any language -- it is
	part of the Operating System.
	
	[ stuff deleted ]
	
>How do other people cope with exceptions?  Is there something I'm missing?
>I've noticed that my way of doing adds the additional ability to cope well
>with internationalisation, which is an added bonus.
	  
	Acorn provide what looks like good support for exception handler in
	the shared C library stub code.  When a runtime library for a
	language wants to use functions in the shared c library it passes
	a kernel_languagedescription structure to the shared c library
	initialisation function which tell it where to find user-supplied
	functions to handle various events etc.  I don't know how one
	would access these functions from the Acorn shared c library
	stubs but presumably they have included hooks to allow the user
	to have some say in what happens.

-- 
Andy Duplain, BT Customer Systems, Brighton, UK.            duplain@rtf.bt.co.uk
#define	DISCLAIMER      My views and opinions are my own, and not my company's
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: styrrell@nyx.cs.du.edu (Stuart Tyrrell)
Subject: Re: Driving the Real Time Clock
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 15:18:59 GMT

mhw@minster.york.ac.uk writes:

>Can someone tell me the part number of the real time clock/non-volatile
>RAM chip used in the A3xx and A4xx series machines and suggest where I
>might be able to get hold of data sheets from? Are the same parts used
>in the newer machines (i.e. A5000 and co.)?

Yes, the chip is a Philips chip no PCF8583. The details are available in
the general philips data book range (I think it's book 4 - the one on IIC
products anyway!). If you are at an academic institution, the electronics
dept should have them somewhere! or try the library.

Hope this helps,


Stuart.
From: mcg@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Decay of Optical vs Magnetic (re: Rem mass storage)
Date: 13 Nov 92 08:37:42 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <5593@krafla.rhi.hi.is>, adamd@rhi.hi.is (Adam David) writes:
> ee91mds2@brunel.ac.uk (Mark D Smith) writes:

[cut] 

>  The data on optical disks decays slower than on
> magnetic disks, so is good for relatively long-term storage.
> 

Umm, this last statement is dependent on how long you leave a magnetic disc
beside a montior or in the sun. If you do neither, and store the disc out of 
harm's way, then I'd almost say the optical disc would decay (slightly) faster 
(dust particles get in the grooves (altering the defractive properties of the 
medium) and the plastic cracks with old age e.t.c...)

Has anyone done any experiments to determine which decays faster?



		From Martin Glanvill	(mcg@waikato.ac.nz)

   -----------*********======| Have a nice day |======*********-----------
							              ######## 
	 			    ^				      #####/|#
University of Waikato		    0  				      ####/.|#
Hamilton			   -|-	 			      ###/__|#
New Zealand			    ^				      ##/   |#
				  _/ \_				      ########
                      
----------------****=====| A quote to make your day |======****-----------------
Captain BlackAdder:	When I joined the service, we were still fighting 
		colonial wars; when you saw someone in a skirt, you shot him
		and nicked his country.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis)
Subject: Re: FTP
Organization: Aston University
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 12:06:06 GMT

cs89jmb@brunel.ac.uk (Aeon Flux) writes:
: JR Vaughan (vaughajr@cs.aston.ac.uk) wrote:

: : How in God's name do I use FTP from my SparcStation here at Aston?
: : 
: : If you need any further info on my set-up, then please contact me.
: : P.S. I am also thinking of uploading some stuff to any prospective sites!!!
: : 
: 
: Get a copy of FTPTool and compile that (excellent piece of s/ware)
: 
: If you can't find it I might be able to mail it to ya'
: 
: ALTERNATIVELY you can mail me and I'll give a brief explanation of ftp.

  ALTERNATIVELY, just run the FTPTool from the "Network Programs" menu on
any of the CompSci SPARCs (which I assume is what you are meaning)

I think this discussion should possibly be in the group aston.anything 
(local distribution here at Aston)

  You could also ask the CompSci support desk...

-- 
___________________________________________.
 Mik Davis at Aston University, Birmingham |   .  .  __          .
                                           |   |\/|  | \  _,_  _  _
E-Mail: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk           |   |  |. |_/ |_| \/ |/_'
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: goodwin@edieng.enet.dec.com (Pete Goodwin)
Subject: Re: HELP: IDE Harddisk + RISCOS3.1 = error?
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 07:37:50 GMT


In article <ARM200-921109222155-341836EE*@MHS>, /G=Owen/S=Smith/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk writes...

>I'm not aware of an actual specific scenario which can cause this, but a
>number of other people are having trouble with hard drives and RISC OS 3 eg.
>Pete Goodwin and his Morley SCSI card.

Morley tell me the drive is timing out after a seek operation, and the Arc is
waiting for the drive to respond, and hence it hangs.

Morley also tell me RO3.1 is measurably slower on accessing the SCSI drive
(since they measured it).

The problem only seems to occur on RZ drives - everyone else's drive works fine
- so Morley say. I've not heard anyone else complain about Morley's SCSI
controller.

Owen, the modules you sent are showing the same symptoms - the system hangs. It
happens very rarely, but makes it unreliable.

Ho hum.

Pete Goodwin
goodwin@edieng.enet.dec.com
From: auj@aber.ac.uk (Professor Coypu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: IOC Timer 1
Date: 11 Nov 92 10:41:05 GMT
Organization: Prifysgol Cymru (University of Wales) Aberystwyth


Hi there techies!

 Does anyone know how to access the IOC timer 1 in a `legal' way ? 

 I have looked in the PRM's and failed to find anything useful, except the
 hardware address, which seems to me to be a non-portable way of accessing
 it.  If this is the only way,  could someone tell me how to set the timer 
 going? I have tried the ways *I* think are obvious and failed (writing to
 the latch and then the go location). 
 
 Any pointers would be greatly appreciated...

 The  reason I need this  is because I wish to generate a 1200 baud signal 
 to drive  an amateur  packet  radio modem.  This signal is HDLC based and 
 does not use stop bits.  The RS423 chip appears to  force stop bits  into 
 the signal  and the only way round this I  can think of (without  delving
 deeply  into  hardware) is to  generate the serial  output  myself  using 
 interrupts.

 All sane suggestions welcome,

Alun.

P.S.  Anyone knowing how to get the serial chip to generate output without 
      stop bits will also be welcomed with open arms...
-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Alun Jones, Computer Science Dept. | Email : auj@uk.ac.aber       |
| U.W. Aberystwyth, Wales            | GW1URF (Packet coming soon!) |
+--Hi, I'm a signature Virus :-) Copy me into your sig to join in.--+
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: charlie@uk.tele.nokia.fi (Charlie Brown)
Subject: Re: Exception handling in C.
Organization: Nokia Telecommunications, Cambridge, UK
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 13:58:21 GMT

It's not quite what you're talking about, but there was quite a cute
article in Byte (Aug 91 (p259) and I know that's a bit late for Byte
to have published a useful article :-) describing exception handling
in C using macros. It's not nearly as silly as it sounds, although I
couldn't say it's beautiful. The author is Jonathan Amsterdam (who I
assume is the eponymous writer of the Amsterdam Compiler Kit, though
I could be completely wrong about that).

Charlie
fcqv

Any opinions are my own and are not necessarily those of my company.
From: jmp@visionware.co.uk (John Pullan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: DragAsprite
Date: 6 Nov 92 10:20:12 GMT
Organization: VisionWare Ltd., Leeds, UK
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

As a supplementry question on the subject of DragASprite, how do I get my own
application to drag a sprite from its saveas box ?

!Edit etc. all do it perfectly (Although the filer dosen't ?)

At the moment the app is written in C (ANSI 4) and uses RiscOs Lib's saveas()
function.

--
John
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          VISIONWARE LTD, 57 Cardigan Lane, LEEDS LS4 2LE, England
    Tel +44 532 788858.  Fax +44 532 304676.  Email jmp@visionware.co.uk
-------------- "VisionWare:   The home of DOS/UNIX/X integration" -------------
From: dcw-a@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Sprite dragging/New Filer/Replacement Toolsprites
Date: 13 Nov 92 10:51:06 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England

In article <1992Nov12.120228.26592@aston.ac.uk> davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis) writes:
> 
> I now use a special character I never have used '*'. In my original letter I
> used * since the character I use does not exist in unix. I did in fact
> state this in the article. The character I use is the one that looks like:
> 
> 
>                \.-./
>                 | |
>                /`-'\
> 
> Well nearly anyway :-) Nothing uses that at the moment and I have never seen
> a sprite in the icon sprite pool with that character in it. Anyone know what
> that character is called ?
>
>
	Well, I wouldn't swear to it but I think it is called an International Monetary Symbol
or something similar, and is used to signify all currency that you don't have a character for.
No word of a lie. (well, I may be wrong...)


	Doug. (dcw-a@minster.york.ac.uk)
From: nas20@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: DragASprite in the Filer Window
Date: 8 Nov 92 18:01:52 GMT
Reply-To: nas20@phx.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith)
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK

In article <BxEE9K.2vC@brunel.ac.uk> ee91mds2@brunel.ac.uk (Mark D Smith) writes:
>
>In article <1992Nov5.120310.6954@aston.ac.uk> Mik Davis writes:
>:ernie@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Ernest Ong) writes:
>:: shunger@waikato.ac.nz wrote:
>:: : 
>:: : "Is it possible to make the filer dragasprite (and text) by patching the 
>:: : filer ?" -this would make the UI consistant and look *FANTASTIC*.
>:: 
>:: Me too, I would love to get filer to 'DragASprite'.
>:: Any info much app.
>:
>:  erm - see the discussion on "ForceADrag" which apparently is a module 
>:which RiscUser published a while back to do just this.
>
>No, 'ForceADrag' only forces old (Risc-OS 2) apps to use DragASprite from
>save dialogue boxes.

Actually it makes all apps use DragASprite from save boxes - but see the
thread going on in c.s.a - it has now mutated (as threads do 8-( into
hacking about with the Filer, etc, etc.
--
Nick Smith, Rm.226, Churchill College, Cambridge ! Email: nas20@uk.ac.cam.phx
.sig quote wanted - must be under guarantee.     ! Tel: (0223) 465596
From: duplain@rtf.bt.co.uk (Andy Duplain)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: RiscOSLib for ISO-Pascal
Date: 10 Nov 92 10:06:27 GMT
Organization: BT Customer Systems, Brighton, UK

In article <1992Nov8.054645.1589@news2.cis.umn.edu> alla0008@student.tc.umn.edu writes:

	[ stuff deleted ]

>package. I just can't help feeling there might be a lot of disappointed
>people when they realise they have this Pascal compiler but can't use it
>without buying Desktop C or Assembler. Not Acorn's fault, but you can see
                             ^^^^^^^^^
>how it might rebound publicity-wise. Still a nice idea, well worth
>thinking about. 
				      
	Having the assembler doesn't help that much, though it comes with
	the DDE (linker, debugger, librarian etc.), it doesn't come with
	the C libraries or Shared C library stubs (or documentation about
	the latter :-).

-- 
Andy Duplain, BT Customer Systems, Brighton, UK.            duplain@rtf.bt.co.uk
#define	DISCLAIMER      My views and opinions are my own, and not my company's
From: cfpayne@uswnvg.com (Carmella Payne)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: qq
Date: 10 Nov 92 06:27:55 GMT
Organization: U S WEST NewVector Group, Inc.
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

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