HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: aif@castle.ed.ac.uk (A I Freeman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: My A5000 won't format floppies...
Summary: A5000 fails to format floppy discs but will read, write and erase them.
Keywords: Floppy disc, Formattting
Date: 11 Nov 92 12:36:43 GMT
Distribution: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Organization: Edinburgh University

My A5000 has recently failed to format discs to any of the available
formats, including the "foreign" formats available. The problem
manifests itself when I click on the Format button in the Filer dialogue
box, whereupon the Filer pops up a "Protected disc" error box. I am
using the correct density of disc for the format and have checked that
the write-protect tab is in the write-enable position. I thought I might
have a hardware problem with the drive where it didn't recognise the
position of the write-protect tab correctly, but it will still save
files to and erase files from the floppy, as well as reading correctly.
Can anyone out there throw any light on this? Do I have a software
fault? My hard disc (a 105Mb IDE drive) works fine - mind you, I haven't
tried to format it!

Alistair Freeman
A.I.Freeman@uk.ac.ed
aif@uk.ac.ed.castle
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis)
Subject: Re: Sprite dragging/New Filer/Replacement Toolsprites
Organization: Aston University
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 14:02:56 GMT

ahersee@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Andrew Hersee) writes:
: Hello again,
: 
: I have just finished adding another hack to my Filer module soon to be joined
: with Nick's. It does the following:
: 
:  When closing the root directory of an archive with adjust the directory 
:  containing the archive is opened.
: 
: This is done by looking for 'arcfs#' or 'SparkFS#' at the beginning of the
: title bar and then working out via calls to the relevant archiver to find
: out the path name. Can anyone out there think of any other filing system
: which it would be useful to add a hack for?
: 

  is it not possible to look for <anything>#

  (being careful with net#0.254 etc)

-- 
___________________________________________.
 Mik Davis at Aston University, Birmingham |   .  .  __          .
                                           |   |\/|  | \  _,_  _  _
E-Mail: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk           |   |  |. |_/ |_| \/ |/_'
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: valerio@sabrina.dei.unipd.it ( Valerio Pulese )
Subject: Econet / Parallel port
Organization: D.E.I. Universita' di Padova, Italia
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 14:45:11 GMT

I need a high speed one-line input and one-line clock output in my 410
so I must know some tech spec:

I was thinking about the 'busy' and 'ack' signals on the parallel port.
what is the speed limit of the parallel port ?

Someone told me that there is a simple way to read and write on the
econet socket even without econet hardware.
I've heard that The Serial Port joystick-A/D interface uses it.

So tech wizards, if you "know-how",please send me more informations as
possible.
I promise that I will spread my project.
		Valerio

-- 
E-mail:   valerio@sabrina.dei.unipd.it
Man-mail: Valerio Pulese
	  V.Volturno 23/7 30038 Spinea VENICE - ITALY
From: AWilliams@melbourne.uucp (Alan Williams)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Driving the Real Time Clock
Date: 11 Nov 92 14:50:09 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

In article <721308024.4228@minster.york.ac.uk> 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.)?

Its a PCF 8583 and it comes from Philips, at least the data book I have does.  
The whole IIC chipset fills two hefty volumes and includes some quite 
remarkable devices.  It makes fascinating reading.  I have done a bit of work 
driving IIC from my Model B if you ever want 6502 code to do it! 

I am interested by the suggestion made recently in this news group, that this chip 
may have a mode where it becomes an 'engine hours' counter rather than a RTC.  
I have a customer who is reporting exactly these symptoms for his machine I 
will be rather pleased if I can find a soft fix.  Power on R sounds like a good 
start.  I am going home to night to read the data book!

I think that its the same chip in all machines ( except being in an smd pack these 
days) , the A4 loads a different IIC module so that may be the odd one out.

Alan.
 
The views expressed are my own and are not necessarily those of Acorn.
From: u2ls@csc.liv.ac.uk (L. Shakespeare)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: RISCOS lib in ROM?
Date: 4 Nov 92 09:51:56 GMT
Organization: Computer Science, Liverpool University

In article <1992Oct27.103150.23721@cs.nott.ac.uk>, rsxdp@unicorn.nott.ac.uk (D.Pead) writes:
> In article <1caatbINNsib@uniwa.uwa.edu.au> ernie@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Ernest Ong) writes:
> >By the existance of RISCOS directory in the
> >resources filing system, does that mean that RISCOS lib
> >has now been included in ROM. SharedCLibrary is now >188K.
> >
> >If this is so does anyone have access to a stubs object file?
> >
> >Alfred Tascon.
> 
> I think all that is in the Resources file is the "Messages" file, used
> 
> for multilingual support.  I don't think anybody in their right mind
> 
> (or Acorn for that matter :-) ) would commit RISC-OS Lib to ROM!


RISC-OS Lib was included in some early developement versions of Risc OS3.  I don't think that Acorn acually put it in the full release tho.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: gtoal@ibmpcug.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: RiscOSLib for ISO-Pascal
Organization: The IBM PC User Group, UK.
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 02:36:06 GMT

In article <1992Nov5.163553.11099@ugle.unit.no> troeste@Lise.Unit.NO (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.

Oh - I should have said this earlier; I only recently discovered that Acorn
ad released Edward's excellent Pascal to the world, non-commercially.

*FULL MARKS* to acorn for an excellent decision.  It really was the
right thing to do given that you had good reasons not to market it.

I was wondering though - it des *not* seem to have been well publicised.
Why don't you arrange with one of the magazines (BAU?) to publish it
as a cover disk?  That would be a major coup for a magazine and excellent
publicity for Acorn.

Graham
--
From: goodwin@edieng.enet.dec.com (Pete Goodwin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Windows and Pains :-) OK, Panes ...
Date: 13 Nov 92 08:53:08 GMT
Article-I.D.: rdg.1992Nov13.085705.5745
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


In article <1992Nov13.151857.12151@waikato.ac.nz>, pdenize@waikato.ac.nz writes...

>But when the user clicks on the top of the back window I get an open event and
>then have to open the other in front again.  Thus when the user holds the title
>bar the pane flashes (albeit very fast)

Change the order in which you open the window and pane window. I found this
when I fooled around with panes.

Pete Goodwin
goodwin@edieng.enet.dec.com
From: mhw@minster.york.ac.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Driving the Real Time Clock
Date: 9 Nov 92 11:20:26 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of York, England

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.)?

Thanks,

-Mark.
From: bwc@waikato.ac.nz (Ug!)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: RiscOSLib for ISO-Pascal
Date: 6 Nov 92 12:24:48 +1300
Organization: Vooniersity fo Kaiwato

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!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis)
Subject: Re: Dragasprite in the filer window
Organization: Aston University
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 12:03:10 GMT

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.

-- 
___________________________________________.
 Mik Davis at Aston University, Birmingham |   .  .  __          .
                                           |   |\/|  | \  _,_  _  _
E-Mail: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk           |   |  |. |_/ |_| \/ |/_'
From: jtn@ukc.ac.uk (J.T.Noble)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Arm data sheets wanted.
Summary: Anyone at armltd listening?
Date: 12 Nov 92 18:07:39 GMT
Reply-To: jtn@ukc.ac.uk (Jim Noble)
Distribution: eunet
Organization: Computing Lab, University of Kent at Canterbury, UK.

J.Herbert1@lut.ac.uk (John O'Malley) writes in article <1992Nov11.134332.3466@lut.ac.uk>
>Arm can be contacted on Janet at:	uk.co.armltd
>	I'm afraid I don't know who to contact... sorry.
>				Jim.
Perhaps some nice chappy/chappess at armltd could post a series of official 
specs. to csa.tech? I'm sure that there any many interested folk who would like
that. Perhaps even some info. on current developments (if the preverbial beans
can be spilt :-)

--
ttfn,
	Jim.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: ahersee@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Andrew Hersee)
Subject: Re: Sprite dragging/New Filer/Replacement ToolSprites
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 11:44:24 GMT

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

>If you have to have a special character, there's nothing to say that
>the filer *has* to display it. The only problem with *not* displaying
>it would be that people might not realise it's there, and forget it
>when using the command line, etc. but in that case you could have an
>option to not display the character (for those who are linkely to
>remember), and what's more you could even extent that to including not
>displaying the '!' for application dirs as well.
>
>Failing that, for extra confusion, you could make the special
>character a hard space - err... perhapse not! :-)

Ooops.
I think you have the wrong end of the stick. The character only exists
in the sprite name not the directory name. So you would have a directory
called 'Games' and sprites called '*games' and 's*games'. Just thought
can't have 'sm*' for small sprite names since the sprite name can only
be 12 characters long thus it would have to be 's*' since the max
filename size is 10 characters.

Andrew 

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

                     Email: ahersee@dcs.warwick.ac.uk
                Snail Mail: Andrew Hersee
                            The Red House
                            Tallington
                            Nr. STAMFORD
                            Lincs
                            PE9 4RP

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




Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: elsas@fwi.uva.nl (Peter Alexander van Elsas (I87))
Subject: HELP: IDE Harddisk + RISCOS3.1 = error?
Summary: HELP: IDE Harddisk + RISCOS3.1 = error?
Keywords: IDE
Organization: FWI, University of Amsterdam
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 08:43:56 GMT

I just received RISCOS3.1 two days ago. After installing it I started up my
computer and everything seemed allright. However when clicking on my IDE filer
icon I got the strange error: Error from IDEFS Filer : Disk not Understood
- Has it been formatted? I tried to set one IDE drive in !Configure but that
resulted in another icon and a bad drive error when clicking on it. It seems
that the two modules IDEFS and IDEFSFiler are loaded from my interface but
this also results in having two configure options for IDEDiscs. Can someone
please explain what is happening? I have a A410/1 with an IDEA harddisk 
interface from Ian Copestake Software and SF & PS. The harddisk is a 120mb
drive from western digital. Please mail me any comment or thoughts, or if
you think others will benefit also post!
		Thanks,
			Alexander.
(No point going on without my harddisk?!&*#$@)

-------------------------------------------------------------------
in real life:	Alexander van Elsas
		Student at the University of Amsterdam
		email:elsas@fwi.uva.nl
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: thompsmr@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mark Thompson)
Subject: Re: Acorn Roadshow in York?
Organization: Aston University
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 09:24:05 GMT

dcw-a@minster.york.ac.uk writes:
: Hmmm, not quite a technical question, but a quick one. I heard at some point that there was going to be an acorn roadshow or similar event up here in York somewhere around now (15th?). Anyone know anything about this and who will be there???
: 
: 	Doug.
: 	
: 	
	Will Hugh Skully be there?

		Oh, ACORN roadshow... Sorry.

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   Mark Thompson, Aston Uni, Dept. Elec. Eng   ThompsonMR@uk.ac.aston.spock  |
| "PC Owner?",'Yes',"Good. Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each."|
-------------------Disclaimer: It was like that when I got here----------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis)
Subject: Re: Sprite dragging/New Filer/Replacement ToolSprites
Organization: Aston University
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 09:55:45 GMT

MJW19@phx.cam.ac.uk (Michael Williams) writes:
: Being able to rename a file by editing the filename a la Macintosh would be
: nice too, oh, and how about using a saveas dialogue to move files in the same
: way as you can to copy? Finally, a "nice" feature would be if it could allow
: spaces in filenames (on renaming, copying etc.) and convert them to hard spaces
: in the software before telling FileSwitch what to do.

  hum, editing filenames isn't very 'RiscOS-like' and could incurr the wrath
of Apple ltd.
  A move option on the menu is reasonable but it isn't THAT hard to hold down
SHIFT is it?
  Space conversion would be nice, I agree but what would the filer do on
reading the filename back...does it leave the hard spaces in or does it 
convert them back to soft ones. I get the impression that this could confuse
some apps (and possibly some users) if they specify the fie in one way and it
ends up with a slightly different name. Having said that, I can't think of
any specific examples..




-- 
___________________________________________.
 Mik Davis at Aston University, Birmingham |   .  .  __          .
                                           |   |\/|  | \  _,_  _  _
E-Mail: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk           |   |  |. |_/ |_| \/ |/_'
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: thughes@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Tom Hughes)
Subject: Re: Need testers for new template editor
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 10:08:35 GMT

In article <-pbqmnb@SantaFe.edu> andy@laguna.santafe.edu (Andy Mell) writes:
>Well, if youre interested, warwick university changed their domain names
>recently. They were once cs.warwick.ac.uk and cu.warwick.ac.uk but had to 
>be changed to csd.warwick.ac.uk and something else because mail was
>getting routed to czechoslovakia and cuba on the odd occasion..

This change happened just over a year ago, when we got our Internet
connection. The computer services domain, cu.warwick.ac.uk became
csv.warwick.ac.uk, and the computer science domain cs.warwick.ac.uk
became dcs.warwick.ac.uk - There is not csd.warwick.ac.uk that I know
of.

Tom.

============================================================================
Tom Hughes, CS3

thughes@uk.ac.warwick.dcs            57 Shakleton Road
csugk@uk.ac.warwick.csv              Earlsdon
                                     Coventry
(0203) 673584                        CV5 6HT
============================================================================
From: mcg@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: ADFS maps
Date: 11 Nov 92 15:16:06 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <ARM200-921109172536-1C45F389*@MHS>, /G=Rhodri/S=James/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk writes:
> ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer) writes:
> 
>>Over the weekend I suddenly (well over the period of a few mins) lost
>>3.5Meg of my hard disc free space. I was archiving some files and what
>>appeared to happen is that every time a new file was placed in the
>>archive (producing a copy of the archive temporarily) the old one at
>>the end was NOT being added to the free space map (or is it taken
>>away?) on my IDE (A5000) hard disc.
> 
> I suspect that you are the victim of map rot.  It can happen that when doing
> lots of writing/deleting, RiscOS fails to link now unused areas of disc onto
> the free list, resulting in a number of phantom objects in the map, rotting
> away the free space.  Owen tells me that RO 3.1 is the least prone to map
> rot, by the way.  It's also the only version on which I've actually observed
> the problem, but never mind.
> 

How does compacting the drive affect this "rotting" of the free map. 

Also, could you post the alternative methods for recovering the free space map; 
this will be interesting to know for future reference.

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

   -----------*********======| Have a nice day |======*********-----------
							              ######## 
	 			    ^				      #####/|#
University of Waikato		    0  				      ####/.|#
Hamilton			   -|-	 			      ###/__|#
New Zealand			    ^				      ##/   |#
				  _/ \_				      ########
                      
----------------****=====| A quote to make your day |======****-----------------
Yesterday I was a dog.  Today I'm a dog.  Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog.
 Sigh!  There's so little hope for advancement!		-- Snoopy
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: rabin@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Rabin Ezra;PhD;E200)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: ARMXX & MHz
Date: 13 Nov 92 16:27:40 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, QMW, University of London

I suspect that these are for programs that don't break cache too much. With
the ARM2, the memory system keeps up reasonably well. With the ARM3 the cache
helps to hide the effects of slow memory, though as soon as the cache breaks
the performance drops to that of an ARM2, or slightly worse. The ARM600 gains
a write back buffer which decouples the core from memory even more, but again
if you have massive inline code you can slow the processor right down.
       Rabin Ezra
-- 
Rabin Ezra, PhD Student                         Internet: rabin@dcs.qmw.ac.uk
Dept of Computer Science,                       UUCP:  rabin@qmw-dcs.UUCP
Queen Mary and Westfield College,               JANET: rabin@uk.ac.qmw.dcs
Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, G.B.
From: blacka@logica.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Throwback
Date: 13 Nov 92 23:08:47 GMT
Distribution: comp

In article <1992Nov11.124336.21914@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, jna10@cl.cam.ac.uk (J.N. Abley) writes:
> Does anybody have any information about how throwback works? I thought

might be stating the obvious, but they are defined in 
DDE manual p 218.   Do you want me to send more info?
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis)
Subject: Re: Sprite dragging/New Filer/Replacement ToolSprites
Organization: Aston University
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 11:56:08 GMT

ahersee@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Andrew Hersee) writes:
: ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer) writes:
: 
: Ooops.
: I think you have the wrong end of the stick. The character only exists
: in the sprite name not the directory name. So you would have a directory
: called 'Games' and sprites called '*games' and 's*games'. Just thought
: can't have 'sm*' for small sprite names since the sprite name can only
: be 12 characters long thus it would have to be 's*' since the max
: filename size is 10 characters.
: 

  So what you are saying is that directories keep their original names but
just have a set of sprites for the use of - yes, good idea. Maybe * still
isn't a good idea though. might clash with wildcard systems (I know paint
doesn't have any system which needs you to type in a possibly wildcarded
sprite name but this ought to be forward compatible :)  )

-- 
___________________________________________.
 Mik Davis at Aston University, Birmingham |   .  .  __          .
                                           |   |\/|  | \  _,_  _  _
E-Mail: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk           |   |  |. |_/ |_| \/ |/_'
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: MMBCorle@cen.ex.ac.uk (Martin Corley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: ms timer
Date: 11 Nov 92 17:55:55 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: University of Exeter, UK

Has anyone tackled the problem of providing an accurate millisecond
timer for the Arc?  Anyone prepared to give me any pointers/code?

Thanks

Martin
-- 
Martin Corley                                         ---------
University of Exeter                         M.M.B.Corley @ cen.ex.ac.uk
Exeter, UK                                            ---------
From: ph10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Philip Hazel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Need testers for new template editor
Date: 5 Nov 92 10:00:48 GMT
Organization: University of Cambridge Computing Service

In article <1992Nov4.224653.18283@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, nas20@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith) writes:
|> In article <1992Nov4.152310.7575@infodev.cam.ac.uk> MJW19@phx.cam.ac.uk (M.J. Williams) writes:
|> >In article <#v!q#dm@SantaFe.edu> andy@laguna.santafe.edu (Andy Mell) writes:
|> >>Try phx.cam.ac.uk instead, JANET uses reverse address mappings instead of
|> >>the usual internet standard.
|> >
|> >No, internet uses reverse address mappings instead of the usual JANET standard
|> >8-).
|>
|> Oh God - who cares ?? I got the email weeks ago .... simple rule: if it
|> doesn't work, try the other way around !! Whatever happened to intelligent
|> mailers ??? sigh ...

They got confused by addresses like uk.sun.com and uk.tele.nokia.fi. I'm just
waiting for the day somebody in Chile creates the address uk.ac.cam.cl...


--
Internet: P.Hazel@ucs.cam.ac.uk       University Computing Service,
JANET:    P.Hazel@uk.ac.cam.ucs       Computer Laboratory, Pembroke St,
Phone:    +44 223 334714              Cambridge CB2 3QG, England.
From: auj@aber.ac.uk (Professor Coypu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: real time and IIC
Date: 12 Nov 92 16:35:20 GMT
Organization: Prifysgol Cymru (University of Wales) Aberystwyth

In an earlier article ee91mds2@brunel.ac.uk (Mark D Smith) writes:

>This sounds a rather odd problem, why should the RTC only stop counting when
>it is being powered from the battery rather than the mains? 

The Arc reads the RTC when it powers up, but for speed it keeps
a software copy of the clock in memory while it is turned on. So the clock
could have `seized up' at a certain figure and this figure would be read
at each power on, but counted forwards normally from then on under interrupt
control. (What I think I mean is that *every* time the machine reboots it
would start counting from the same point)

Alun.
-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Alun Jones, Computer Science Dept. | Email : auj@uk.ac.aber       |
| U.W. Aberystwyth, Wales            | GW1URF (Packet coming soon!) |
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Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech