HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: walker@twix.unx.sas.com (Doug Walker)
Subject: Re: SAS C6.1 datecmp bug [Was: Re: Advice to SAS/C 5.10b users]
Originator: walker@twix.unx.sas.com
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 19:02:29 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <monster.05uo@mbear.apana.org.au>, monster@mbear.apana.org.au (Martin Ozolins) writes:
|> > Right now, 6.2 is being held pending discovery of a weird memory-
|> > trashing bug on '040 machines that was introduced after 6.1 was
|> > shipped.  I apologize for the delay;  I'd love to be able to ship
|> > it right now, but until we locate this problem, we can't ship
|> > anything.
|> > 
|> 
|> Thats good, but since I do not have FTP access, I still have not gotten the
|> 6.1 patch, I have asked b4. How do I get the 6.1 & 6.2 patches ?

|> Martin Ozolins :Internet monster@mbear.apana.org.au

The 6.1 patch was uploaded to FTP, BIX, Compuserve, Genie, and
Portal.  I happen to know it made it to CIX in Britain as well.
Since it is freely redistributable, check your local BBS for it;
it should be making the rounds (I hope).

If you can't get it from a friend or a local BBS, tech support
can mail you a copy.  Unfortunately, they won't be able to do
that until after January 4, when the Institute as a whole reopens
after the holidays.

-- 
  *****
=*|_o_o|\\=====Doug Walker, Software Distiller====== BBS: (919)460-7430 =
 *|. o.| ||                                          1200/2400/9600 Dual
  | o  |//     For all you do, this bug's for you!
  ====== 
usenet: walker@unx.sas.com                            bix: djwalker 
Any opinions expressed are mine, not those of SAS Institute, Inc.
From: ad99s461@sycom.mi.org (Alex Deburie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Stupid C question
Distribution: world
X-BBS-Software: EXCELSIOR! V0.975
Date: 27 Dec 92 19:17:42 EST
Organization: Michigan Information eXchange

Okay, I've had SAS-C 6.0 for about 2 weeks and I'm very pleased. Between GST's 
and the Workbench interface, I doubt I could ask for a better introduction to 
C on the Amiga.

However, I have one very stupid (simple?) question. HOW DOES ONE COVERT A 
FLOATING POINT VALUE TO AN INTEGER???!!!  I see functions like modf(), but 
still that returns the integral part of the number as a float. And casting 
seems to always return a 0!

What should I do? Go back to BASIC?? ;^)

     -- Alex Deburie
        ad99s461@sycom.mi.org
From: pgl@bbs.draco.bison.mb.ca (Paul Linton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: AMOS - is it any good?
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 09:57:11 GMT
Organization: The Draco Unix System [BBS]

crystal@glia.biostr.washington.edu (Crystal) writes:

> I've been told that AMOS is some sort of "easy to program" language and that
> demos and "real" programs can be created with it.  
 
AMOS is a great language... it's not perfect, but it's very easy to use
and quite powerful.  Great for making games and such, but you can make
any sort of program with it.
 
> Is it a compiled language?  Or an interactive one?
 
Well, it is interpruted... But it also has a compiler.  The compiler is 
very fast, and easy to use.

> If I write a program in it, does the person who tries to run it also need to
> have AMOS on their system?  (Like GWBASIC...*washes mouth out with soap*)
> 
> ??
 
Nope.  With AMOS you get a program called "RAMOS" - a runtime version of 
AMOS.  This way anyone with RAMOS can see your programs.  Or, if you buy 
the Compiler, it becomes an executible object and can be run from either 
icon (Workbench) or CLI/Shell.

 
There's "extensions" that expand AMOS' commands.  Like AMOS 3D which will 
allow you to make 3D graphics for games like Elite or Red Zone.  TOME for 
making platform-type games.  LDOS and LSerial that'll expand the file and 
serial commands, plus it adds ARexx support, X/Y/Z modem file transfers 
and lots of other useful commands.
 
AMOS Professional was recently released.  It's doesn't have a compiler 
yet (should be out soon).  Pro is just like AMOS, only with more commands 
(AMOS has more than 500 itself), new editors (for samples, sprites, 
menus, etc.).  New commands for AREXX, MED, MIDI, and the parallel port.  
Plus more...
 
I could go on, and on... But, I already sound like a salesman from 
Europress.  :-)  If you have anymore specific questions, I'll see what I 
can do.
 


---
pgl@bbs.draco.bison.mb.ca (Paul Linton)
The Draco Unix System [BBS]
From: Counsellor@cup.portal.com (Benjamin Counsellor Reich)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: What is htonl() ?
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 19:02:06 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world

I would like to thank everyone who took the time to help
me out with my question.  This is the type of help that makes
the Internet so valuable.

Benjamin Reich
counsellor@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: vjh21@cas.org (Vince Herried ext 2877)
Subject: AmyDos 2.1 and Timezone
Organization: CAS
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 12:52:48 GMT

Hi, I just installed AmyDos 2.1 and have a question about
one of the new features.

Anyone know how to find out what your time zone it.
I'm guessing it is an extension to the preferences structure.
I'm assuming that it will be many moons before documentation
is available.  I've got most of the 2.0 docs.


I've got a ham radio application that I would like to record
the GMT value rather than local time.  I've gotten some code
from a friend in VE land to build in his own time zone
code but if it is built into WB, then I would like to use
the WB features.

Also, does anyone know, does the time zone track daylight
savings time?  My friends code does.


WB2.1 installed in my A3000 without a hitch.  It looks like a good
peace of work.  Love the fixes to the ASL file requester.


-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
				 |     Vincent Herried  (614) 447-3600 x 2877
				 |     Chemical Abstracts Service
 _____________________           |     P.O. Box 3012
(_)________________   \          |     Columbus, OH 43210-0012
  ________________|\   \         |
 (_)______________\_\   \        |     Current thought: People who cannot be
   ______________________\       |     understood are geniuses, so management
  (_)____________________|       |     assigns them the toughest projects.
				 |
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
From: tbills@cse.unl.edu (Trent Bills)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: GCC wont create executable
Date: 29 Dec 1992 20:25:28 GMT
Organization: University of Nebraska--Lincoln	
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: cse.unl.edu

I have compiled and worked with GCC2.2.2 on several
system, and have found the 2.2.2 c++ compiler to
be somewhat unreliable.  I tried to compile a version
of libg++ with it, and it failed (core dump) on several
modules.  I have had no such problems with GCC2.3.2, but
I don't think anyone has ported that version to the
Amiga yet.

 - Trent Bills
From: chucks@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Erik Funkenbusch)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: SAS 6.1 (ARGH!)
Date: 28 Dec 92 17:25:02 GMT
Organization: People-Net [pnet51], Minneapolis, MN.

Sorry.. had to get that off my chest.. ;)

Why, oh why could anyone imagine that supplying a struct 
Window * in a TagItem would cause SAS 6.1 to not only complain, but reject the
code as an Error 20:  invalid constant expression?  A TagItem does not use
constants, and a window pointer is certainly not a constant...  This is
annoying to say the least.

I've also run into a few other problems, and i'm not sure if this is the stubs
in the Amiga.lib or if it's just GadTools giving Enforcer hits.  Anyways,
GadToolsBox seems to want to give a ~0 for the GTLV_Labels TagItem (amont
other things) which causes FFFFFFFF to be passed in a3, which then tries to be
read by gadtools.  This gives nasty enforcer hits.  I solved this of course,
by just changing GTLV_Labels to NULL (which i suspect it's really supposed to
be, in spite of what GadToolsBox thinks)

I've also gotten Enforcer hits from cpr.  This had something to do with
selecting view/modules.  This is the enforcer report i get.

LONG-READ from 00000000                        PC: 004A3172
USP:  004205F8 SR: 0004 SW: 0749  (U0)(-)(-)  TCB: 0041BB60
Data: 00000000 00000000 00000070 00000170 00000000 00000009 00000000 00000003
Addr: 004147B5 0047B9C0 0044F0D0 0047DE88 0041A1D8 00000000 0042F336 --------
Stck: 00000009 00413DC4 0047E17C 0047E17C 00287D3C 00474358 0047DE2C 0047DD80
Stck: 004A64F2 00000000 00413C8C 00413C90 0047E17C 00418A88 00418A8C 00000070
Name: "Cpr"  Hunk 0000 Offset 0001A68A

LONG-READ from 00000000                        PC: 004A3176
USP:  004205F8 SR: 0004 SW: 0749  (U0)(-)(-)  TCB: 0041BB60
Data: 00000000 00000000 00000070 00000170 00000000 00000009 00000000 00000003
Addr: 00000000 0047B9C0 0044F0D0 0047DE88 0041A1D8 00000000 0042F336 --------
Stck: 00000009 00413DC4 0047E17C 0047E17C 00287D3C 00474358 0047DE2C 0047DD80
Stck: 004A64F2 00000000 00413C8C 00413C90 0047E17C 00418A88 00418A8C 00000070
Name: "Cpr"  Hunk 0000 Offset 0001A68E

I'd mail this to EMITS, however, as an idiot, (and the holidays) i haven't
sent in my registration yet.  Today, i will however.
From: dak@shannon (Pierre Baillargeon)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: IPC and shared memory
Date: 2 Jan 93 16:50:57 GMT
Organization: Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Jean-Guy Speton (Jean-Guy_Speton@tvbbs.wimsey.bc.ca) wrote:
: these lines?  The reason I'm asking is I intend on writing a multi-line
: door, but have questions as to how the different processes of the door will
: communicate with one another.  I have a few ideas in mind, but they all

  Another way of doing this would involve multiple thread.  Ypou then simply
use global variables to share information.  The drawback is that all your
functions must re-entrant.  To launch new process under 2.0 is easy.  Under
1.3, it's a little bit harder but many example of how to do it float around
(might I suggest easyproc2.lha on wuarhcive, system/amiga/incoming.  (yeah, it's
mine)).

--
"Pis Bourassa qui est toujours la.  Y'a pas d'remede contre le SIDA" - French B
...........................................................dak@info.polymtl.ca
From: laire@klee.uni-paderborn.de (Ralph Schmidt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Access to BIX developer sections or Developer's Mailing lis
Date: 24 Dec 1992 07:10:08 +0100
Organization: Universitaet Paderborn, Germany
NNTP-Posting-Host: klee.uni-paderborn.de

walker@twix.unx.sas.com (Doug Walker) writes:


>In article <1h7ttlINNai8@klee.uni-paderborn.de>, laire@klee.uni-paderborn.de (Ralph Schmidt) writes:
>|> The NON-US developer use ADSP, an UUCP network. Almost every land
>|> in europe+australia with a CBM-department has a node the local
>|> developers can call to get the ADSP groups and the Internet news
>|> groups. Furthermore you can also download software.

>ADSP-capable developers should also note the new group adsp.sas, 
>for SAS/C support.

Sorry, that i forgot the special SAS Newsgroup:-B

Regards..BTW..thank you for this SAS group!
-- 
Ralph Schmidt                                            laire@uni-paderborn.de
University of Paderborn (Germany)
From: rock@lakes.trenton.sc.us (Rockerboy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Hardware...
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 92 03:58:38 EST
Reply-To: rock@lakes.trenton.sc.us (Rockerboy)
Organization: Lakes Public Access

gujn@uniwa.uwa.edu.au (Jeremy Nelson) writes:

> Personally, I dunno.  But then I'm not a computer programmer.  But the
> statement from one of the programmers at Commodore about programming
> games made a lot of sense to me... of course he was talking about
> actually making money from programming and being succesful, not hacking
> for the hell of it.

I really have to ask this, if you are _not_ a programmer, either 
professionally or as a hobbyists, how can you consider yourself qualified 
to make a rational judgement on the issue of what can and cannot be done? 
 And on Chris Green's comments, I believe the types of games he was 
referring to are the type that most certainly _could_ be done through the 
OS, and probably _should_.  That does nothing to discredit the idea that 
many good games simply cannot go that way and keep up on anything but the 
highest level systems.

> Of course, on the Amiga it is simple... every game loads of the floppy disk,
> turfs the OS... no worries.  Of course if your machine has a hard disk,
> or heaven forbid a non-standard device with it's own software driver,
> installing the software there is going to be a problem.  But why worry?
> Almost EVERY amiga owner for the next 10 years is going to be running on a 7M
> machine which boots of an 840k floppy drive... aren't they?

The fact that this is prevalent, again, does not mean that it is merely 
the accessing of the hardware that causes it.  It goes deeper, to lazy 
programming.  I can think of few reasons why most games could not boot 
from workbench, and return to the OS when they're done.

> I have an A500.  I take great joy in downloading, unpacking, formatting,
> reading, running software, playing music... simultaneously.  My
> favourite game is WellTrix... because it multitasks.

I hardly think WellTrix matches up to some of the games I have played.  
On a low end machine, especially, your demands are a bit more than 
most 'big' games would be able to cope with.  I've no doubt that a 
heavier weight machine might be able to do it, but it is the low end 
market that I am concerned with, since I happen to be part of it. ;)

> Common guys, what sells computers is software which you plug in and
> it works.  Simple as that.  If you want a great machine you need to have
> a big installeed base, which needs great software.  If software isn't
> going to work on the new wonder machines, then people won't buy the
> wonder machines, and the hardware ages...
> -- 
> Jem.  Jeremy Nelson.  gujn@uniwa.uwa.edu.au       :\  =>  :) 

Well, that's my point, now, isn't it?  If you inundate the market with 
mediocre software, well, it's _there_, but it isn't necessarily as 
appealing as you might wish.
From: cliffwd@soda.berkeley.edu (Cliff Draper)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: C++
Date: 4 Jan 1993 03:18:02 GMT
Organization: U.C. Berkeley, CS Undergraduate Association
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: soda.berkeley.edu

As the final bugs get ironned out of SAS/C 6.1, I read further into my studies
of C++ and I wonder why the Amiga community hasn't switched over to this
"wonder" language.  I believe that a good amount of Amiga programmers are
either hacking in asm (to squeeze every gram of performance out of the
system) or in C.  I would like to see a greater emergence of people using
C++ and OOP.  A GUI is naturally object-oriented and so will the interfaces
of the future (be it pen, voice, or whatever) ... or at least for a while
(one can never be too terribly certain of the future of technology).

SAS has produced a wonderful product in a (now) good "integrated"
environment.  I see some C++ environments now entering the Amiga world, but
I think SAS should also compete.  (From what I've heard, Lattice C++ isn't
worth much and I never plan to buy it.)  They could keep their environment
and "just" add a C++ compiler.  We need at least AT&T 2.1 compliance.
SAS, you're loosing market share of the future.  OOP is where I want to
be and I'll get there one way or another.

-Cliff
 cliffwd@soda.Berkeley.Edu             UC Berkeley

"Simple things should be simple &
 complex things should be possible"  -Alan Kay
From: paulk@terapin.com (Paul Kienitz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: IPC and shared memory
Date: 31 Dec 92 20:16:40 PST
Organization: BBS

> I am looking for information on inter-process communications (IPC)
> and shared memory functions.  Do the Amiga libraries have any
> functions along these lines?
 
Sure, there's PutMsg() eh.
 
> The reason I'm asking is I intend on writing a multi-line door, but
> have questions as to how the different processes of the door will
> communicate with one another.  I have a few ideas in mind, but they
> all seem as if they will become extremely slow and inefficient with
> more than a few lines.
 
Last time I messed around with a multiplayer game on a mainframe, the
way it was done, which worked pretty well, was to have an area of
memory that all the processes knew about, accessed through a locking
mechanism to protect crucial sections of code.  The way to do this
under AmigaDOS is with a named SignalSemaphore.  Tasks can arbitrate
access to the data by taking locks on the semaphore, and the process
of finding the semaphore by name allows the different tasks to all
get pointers to the same piece of memory, which the semaphore happens
to be the first item in.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: mortene@Lise.Unit.NO (Morten Eriksen)
Subject: Re: New hardware reference guide?
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Sun, 27 Dec 92 19:29:24 GMT

In article <1992Dec27.154736.23376@mpifr-bonn.mpg.de>, mlelstv@specklec.mpifr-bonn.mpg.de (Michael van Elst) writes:
 > In <92329.140836K3023E2@ALIJKU11.BITNET> K3023E2@ALIJKU11.BITNET writes:
 > 
 > >         The only real effect of the absence of Specs is that there will be
 > >         no demos/(action) games for AA but just for ECS.
 > 
 > I don't think so. Demos might be a problem as 'coders' are of a special
 > mind set. But doing action games for AA is no problem.

Yep, that's proven, since Zool for the A1200 (AGA-spesific version) is now 
released.

But, here's a potential problem for the Amiga gameindustry:  people bothering to
learn coding on the MC680x0 chipset will be dramatically reduced if CBM don't
release a HRM for the AGA chipset. When amateur coders start programming (often
inspired by the eurodemos or games) they want something to happen on screen with
as little effort as possible. Coding dirty and directly to the hardware means 
that the coder just have to know the basic principles of machinecode, the RAM-
structure on the Amiga, the conversion between numbersystems and a few other 
things. Coding through the OS means, in addition to this, that him/her also must 
know a great deal about the Amiga ROM, opening and closing of libraries, 
allocation and freeing of memory, him/her needs documentation on the OS for loadsa
bucks, _many_ lines of sourcecode has to be written just to display a rasterbar
on a black screen e.g.(or how about making a text scroll across the screen), and 
so on. And this is just to get started! Very tedious and offputting. Lots of
talents would be waisted.

Without the demoscene and the games, be secured that the european Amigamarket
would break down (just look at the Archimedes, potentially a great computer, but
far too little support has made it an obscurity (at least outside GB)). Most
Amigaowners would probably turn to other computers, maybe the Atari Falcon, maybe
PC-clones. And I can't believe that the so-called 'serious' userbase of the Amiga
is big enough to make Commodore Amiga survive in todays tough competition from
Apple, IBM manufacturers, and now maybe even Atari. It seems to me they're not
too well established even today, after 7-8 years in business.

Commodore Amiga has made, and makes, lots of mistakes. Deciding not to release
a reference manual for the AGA-chipset would probably be one of their greatest to
date. This decision is like spitting in the face on a huge part of their userbase.


Morten
From: s37732v@snakemail.hut.fi (Markus Juhani Aalto)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: AllocRemember - how does it work?
Date: 03 Jan 93 10:23:45 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Distribution: inet
NNTP-Posting-Host: lk-hp-18.hut.fi
In-reply-to: cliffwd@soda.berkeley.edu's message of 3 Jan 1993 04:58:20 GMT

In article <1i5rpcINNj4j@agate.berkeley.edu> cliffwd@soda.berkeley.edu (Cliff Draper) writes:

   The AutoDocs describe this Intuition command.  But if your AutoDocs arn't
   handy....

   struct Remember  *remkey=NULL;

   char  *block1, *block2;

   if (!(block1=(char *) AllocRemember(&remkey, BLOCK1SIZE, MEMF_CLEAR)))
      fail("insufficient memory");
   if (!(block2=(char *) AllocRemember(&remkey, BLOCK2SIZE, MEMF_CLEAR)))
      fail("insufficient memory");
   /* use the 2 blocks as if you got them from AllocMem() */
   fail("all done");
   ...
   /* and within fail() */
   FreeRemember(*remkey, TRUE);

   You might also need some includes, but there's the bones.
   fail() can be called before, in-between, or after the AllocRember()'s and 
   all memory allocated through that one key will be released.

   -Cliff

FreeRemember should propably be FreeRemember(remkey,TRUE);

--


**************************************************************************
*         Markus Aalto              | Helsinki University of Technology  *
*                                   |                                    *
*  EMail: s37732v@vipunen.hut.fi    | Faculty of Electric Engineering    *
*  Fax:   358-0-8746991 (Sometimes) |                                    *
*                                   | Undergraduate in Computer Science  *
**************************************************************************
From: paulk@terapin.com (Paul Kienitz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Advice to SAS/C 5.10b users
Date: 25 Dec 92 17:20:21 GMT
Organization: BBS

> We'll get right on it.  It's obviously a bug in the biffing
> algorithm, or possibly the peephole optibiffer.
 
That was one reason I originally went with Aztec -- because of its
far more reliable biffing features.
From: mortene@Lise.Unit.NO (Morten Eriksen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Pascal
Date: 27 Dec 92 18:05:10 GMT
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology

In article <JyB8VB1w165w@coyote.datalog.com>, cobra@coyote.datalog.com (Ken Thompson) writes:
 > tlbechar@thunder.LakeheadU.Ca (Timothy Lee Bechard) writes:
 > 
 > > 
 > > 	I am looking for Pascal for the Amiga Computer... If anyone has a
 > > Public Domain / commercial version of it, would they please reply.
 > > 
 > > 	
 > > 
 > 
 >  
 > It's on a Fish Disk...sorry, I don't recall which one right off-hand, 
 > but it's called...er...PCQ; the version I have is V1.2; written by 
 > Patrick Quaid.
 > 
 
Or you could buy the commercial pascalcompiler Highspeed Pascal, which is nearly
completely Borland TurboPascal compatibel.

Morten
From: Elrador@cup.portal.com (Charles E Massey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Bug in cback?  (SAS C 6.1)
Date: Sat,  2 Jan 93 18:05:33 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Distribution: world

Hello,

  I have a strange problem:

I wrote a new program and decided I wanted it to run as a background
process, so I compiled it under SAS C 6.1 as
>sc myprog startup=cback nostandardio opt link

It works just fine under AmigaDOS 2.04, but it crashes all the time
under 1.3 with a guru number of 00000004 (illegal instruction).  To see
if perhaps this code was only supposed to work under 2.0, I
compiled it regularly with a standard startup and it WORKED JUST FINE
under 1.3.

So I've concluded that the problem must be the cback startup code that
crashes the program under ados 1.3.

Has anyone else ever had these problems?  If so and you know what the
problem is, can you share it with me.

Thanks,
charles  (elrador@cup.portal.com)