HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: crj10@phx.cam.ac.uk (Clive Jones)
Subject: Re: Noticing when Shutdown is activated
Telephone-Messages: +44 223 33 4900
Address: Christ's College, Cambridge CB2 3BU, ENGLAND.
Organization: 6am Digital Playground
X-Furry-Character: Gerald_Duck
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 02:06:39 GMT

In article <BxytAB.8KB@newcastle.ac.uk>, unregistered@newcastle.ac.uk (Jason O'Broin) writes:
>
> In addition to this, I need to be able to distinguish between this and Exiting
> the desktop (ie. closing down the desktop is not the same as starting the
> shutdown procedure). Does anyone know the actual operations performed by
> shutdown. Ideally, I'd like to replace it completely.

I believe the mechanism is almost identical between RiscOS3.1 and previous
versions, in terms of its external interface. The difference between the
shutdown dbox and merely leaving the desktop is slight.

Basically, all tasks are first sent a PreQuit message (number 8). If none of
them respond, they're all sent Quit (0) messages. So - the former should be
handled if you want the opportunity to object to the shutdown, or the latter
can be handled if you just want to do something.

Under RiscOS3, the PreQuit message *may* have a flag word at address 20 in
the message block (if the block is large enough). The bottom bit of this is set
if it's your application being quit, or clear if a shutdown is happening.

--Clive.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: goodwin@edieng.enet.dec.com (Pete Goodwin)
Subject: Re: Getting 3rd Party Filing Systems To Use Showfree
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 08:57:15 GMT


In article <1992Nov16.212802.8912@black.ox.ac.uk>, u91pag@ecs.ox.ac.uk (Paul Gilkerson) writes...

ShowFree does update continually, I tried showfree -fs scsi 4 on an Oak SCSI
controller, and it updated when I copied files around. Must be something
strange about RISC Developments IDEFS.

Pete Goodwin
goodwin@edieng.enet.dec.com
From: adamd@rhi.hi.is (Adam David)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: removable mass storage ( Syquest, Floptical )
Date: 21 Nov 92 18:13:28 GMT

In <1ej06qINNd7g@iraul1.ira.uka.de> S_TILLENBURG@iravcl.ira.uka.de (|S| Stephan Tillenburg) writes:

>I read flopticals can read only MS-DOS standard formats
>( 9 sectors per track on DD and 18  sectors per track on HD )
>but you can't read 10 sectors per track on DD - disks

Is this a limitation of the device driver / filing system software on the
computer, or of the embedded SCSI firmware on the drive? It seems to me that
it is a question of whether the filing system recognises the disks rather
than a limitation of the drives.

The drive must recognise the media type in hardware and make the necessary
adjustments for head flux and transfer / rotational speed (depending on how
it's done). The SCSI driver accesses the drive as a raw sector device, so
any sectors physically present can be read and written. The filing system
is then responsible for making sense of different formats (which directory
entry corresponds to which file and where the file is on the disk). If the
filing system does not support variations on the MSDOS format, it is not
fair to blame the drive. Just because ED floppies are normally formatted
to 36 sectors of 512 bytes, it doesn't mean you can't format them to 23
sectors of 1024 bytes. The only restriction with the MSDOS disk definitions
(apart from the physical limitations of the media in the drive) is that all
tracks must contain the same number of sectors, numbered from 1 to n. Any
sectors which are physically missing from the format must be marked bad in
the FAT and don't expect consistent results if duplicate sectors (with the
same number) are present on the same track of read/write media.

--
Adam David (adamd@rhi.hi.is)
From: nrs@planet.bt.co.uk (Nick Shore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Ghostscript & fonts
Date: 17 Nov 92 16:45:17 GMT
Reply-To: nrs@planet.bt.co.uk
Organization: BT Labs, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich, UK.

Can anybody help me to get Ghostscript to show the fonts when previewing 
a  postscript file generated with the standard RO3 postscript printer driver.

All I get is can't find font and can't find default font.

Nick.








-- 
________________________________________________________________________
Nick Shore                                  British Telecom Laboratories,
nrs@planet.bt.co.uk                         B83 G16, Martlesham Heath,
                                            Ipswich, IP5 7RE, UK.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: zrzm0111@helpdesk.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (MUFTI)
Subject: Re: Modula 2/3
Organization: User Help Desk, Comp.Center (RUS), U of Stuttgart, FRG
Distribution: comp
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 18:30:17 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.124610.22046@infodev.cam.ac.uk> jna10@phx.cam.ac.uk (J.N. Abley) writes:
>And while I'm here, has anyone ported a modula 2/3 compiler to the Arc?
>I had an idea that most m2/3 compilers actually "compile" to C, so
>a port might not be all that hard...

Here in Stuttgart we tried 3 Days to compile m2c with unixlib, it compiles
without problems, but it does not run ...

so long
MUFTI
From: colin@archie.integrity.nl (Colin Smale)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Can I get a Podule ROM upgraded?
Keywords: MIDI, Modules, Upgrades
Date: 23 Nov 92 22:25:10 GMT
Reply-To: colin@archie.integrity.nl
Organization: Colin Smale's Archimedes Rucp installation test

Anyone know if I can get a podule ROM upgraded? I have an Acorn Podule
with 1MHz bus, user port and Midi Expansion. What I'm after is the MIDI
Podule Module, if you know what I mean. *help modules says:
I/O Podule      1.06 (15 Sep 1987)
MIDI podule     2.00 (17 Dec 1987)

        but some software I have just received seems to require MIDI
Podule version 3.

Does anyone know what's changed between version 2 and version 3?

On a ever-so-slightly different note, the abovementioned Podule (that's what
it was called when I bought it!) doesn't want to fit nicely in my A5000. It
fitted fine in the old A440, but now wither the backplane is in the wrong
place, or the whole motherboard assembly is misplaced within the box, or the
Official Dimensions have changed. The connector makes contact sufficiently
to enable the computer to recognize and use the ROMS but I can't get a beep
out of the MIDI. Anyone else have this problem? Any solutions, other than
ones involving hacksaws?


Colin Smale

-- 
Snail-mail:	Colin Smale, Spechtenkamp 87, NL-3607 KE Maarssenbroek, NL
Tel.:		+31 3465 69038 (voice)
E-mail: 	colin@integrity.nl
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: bdb@cl.cam.ac.uk (Brian Brunswick)
Subject: Re: Getting 3rd Party Filing Systems To Use Showfree
Reply-To: Brian.Brunswick@cl.cam.ac.uk (Brian Brunswick)
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 23:14:23 GMT

In article <20250@acorn.co.uk> RMokady@acorn.co.uk (Ran Mokady) writes:
( Quoting Owen smith at start0
>>
>>Actually using this is a bit tricky. Brian Brunswick has working code which
>>uses this in Memphis (possibly not the released version). The biggest
>>problem is that when the FreeSpace module calls your handler routine, you
>>are in User mode and R13 points to the FreeSpace module's private stack in
>>it's workspace. This is of zero gauranteed depth ie. you can't use it, so
>>you have no stack (unless you want to over-write random bits of RMA). So you
>>need to supply your own stack, or not use any stack, or call SWI OS_EnterOS
>>to get the SVC stack. You can ease the problem by doing as little work
>>yourself as possible eg. call SWI OS_FSControl 49 (get free space) to do all
>>the work for you for free space reason code 2 (the other option for IDEFS
>>is to call IDEFS_DescribeDisc).
>>
>
> This is not quite as bad as you try and present it ...
>
> By the same token, you are never guaranteed that there is any free space on
>the SVC stack, and so should check every time before you push a register.
>
> The routines are called in USR mode, WITH SUFFICIENT STACK SPACE !
>
...
> In fact, from having a second look at the code, for some of the reason
>codes you may be called in SVC mode, so don't go round allocating a stack
>and making R13 point to it, or you may end up corrupting the SVC stack
>pointer!


It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't been writing in C with cmhg
style headers on the entrance, that fix up the stack chunks for you.
I was mystified as to why my routines kept reporting out of memory
errors for allocating from the rma... until I found out the the stack
pointer that I was being passed was in the RMA, so that the stub
routine ahppily put the C relocation offsets over the beginning of the
RMA area, corrupting its heap, so allocation failed. Of course, when I
returned an error the exit routine UNcorrupted them again...
Eventually I wrote some m/c stubs that used FSControl freespace,
and settled for implementing the fscontrol properly in call my fses.

--
Brian.Brunswick@cl.cam.ac.uk  Disclaimer.  Short sig rules!
From: gaspar@urz.unibas.ch
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: MFM Harddisc size
Date: 20 Nov 92 17:35:51 MET
Organization: University of Basel, Switzerland

In article <1992Nov19.090920.8363@csd.uwe.ac.uk>, r_voisey@garlic.uwe.ac.uk (R Voisey) writes:
> In article <1992Nov17.180524.42564@urz.unibas.ch>, gaspar@urz.unibas.ch writes:
> 
> |> > bigger than 50Megs you have to swap a link (to change sector size I think).
> |>                                / ^^^^^^^^^^^
> |> Could someone tell me what this means? 
> 
> |> 9 heads and when I enter that parameter I get a message that I might! 
> |> swap link 3 or something like that.
> 
[ text deleted]
   So, if you want to swap link 3 you have to take the lid off your
> machine, and find J3. 
[text deleted

> 
> Hope that helps

Yes it helped! Thanks. The jumper wasn't called J3 though. There are two 
jumpers next to the cables that go to the drive and they are calld PL8 and PL9.
I tried out every combination of setting and it worked with BOTH jumpers 
changed. Does someone (maybe from Acorn?) know if that's ok?

The problem wasn't solved completely because the drive should have 88 Meg
capacity. After formatting with 17 Sect/Track, 9 Heads and 1024 Cylinders
(The controller cannot cope with more that 1024, I think. The drive has 1073
cylinders), I had about 40 Meg free on the drive. Where is the rest???

I tried to format the drive with 32 Sect/Track and it worked. But this is
probably not advisable to do.
Any ideas?

> Bob
> 
> -- 
>   Robert J. Voisey  :  r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk
>          -- Probug Software Developments --
> 162 Staplehill Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, Avon, England

laci
-- 

*******************************************************************************
*             Laci Gaspar, University Basel, Switzerland                      *
*******************************************************************************
From: pdenize@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Remote Terminal - Taskwindow
Date: 23 Nov 92 12:16:24 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand


I have spent the weekend attempting to hook a VT320 into the serial port and
then use it as a "taskwindow" while someone else uses my Archimedes desktop.

I thought maybe that piping the I/O might work.

taskwindow { < serial: > serial: }

I got little closer.  I wrote a program to do this by piping the output of 
each command but many commands will not work with the redirection.  And
errors when the command is types incorrectly appeared on the Archimedes not the
remote terminal.

Considering that some terminals get ditched working more are becoming available
and I thought this would be a healthy addition.

I get the feeling that this redirection can be achieved by running a prog
multi-tasking on the Arch but it just seemed more difficult that I first
envisaged.

Has anyone else tried this sort of thing.


Paul Denize

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Denize                                Internet: PDenize@Waikato.ac.nz
Department of Computer Science
University of Waikato                         phone: ++64 7 8562-889
Hamilton                                                          Ext 8743
NEW ZEALAND                                   fax  : ++64 7 8560-135
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ferdinan@oeinck.waterland.wlink.nl (ferdinand oeinck)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: squash swi
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 21:14:33 CET
Organization: My own node in Groningen, NL.

Does someone who has the description of the Squash SWI's, they are named
Squash_Compress and Squash_Decompress be so kind to mail me or post that
description?
Ferdinand.
From: torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Up-ing the Speed of My A310.
Date: 18 Nov 92 10:24:23 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

smiths@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Little SteeeveS) writes:

>A few months ago there was a lot of talk in this group of increasing
> the speed of A310's by replacing the RAM and using a faster crystal
> to clock the machine.

>Last Christmas I upgraded my machine to 4Megs (by Craddock Ltd ) and so
> I find myself thinking on these lines...
>In a 4 meg upgrade I believe the old RAM is discarded and completely replaced. Therefore this 4meg is quite modern RAM. Is it therfore capable of going faster?
>i.e. can I whip out my 8MHz crystal and replace it with a 12Mhz one? ( I assume the new Riscos 3 ROMS will survive this but will the new RAM).

Don't expect the memory to be able to run faster even if it is newer,
it will always be cheaper to use slow RAM. As for changing the
crystal, the apparent conclusion to the discussion on this group is
that it can't be done, as the same clock feeds the IOC etc. Making IOC
run faster will make the timing of i/o go wrong. The new machines that
use 12MHz memory still use a 8MHz IOC, and some advanced circuitry to
interface these. It would be very difficult (if possible at all) to
add such circuitry to an A310. So I fear we are stuck with 8MHz memory
on our A310's. But our speed can still be improved by using ARM3's,
and in the future by adding FPU's and later ARM chips with write
buffers (which makes slow memory less of a problem).

It would be nice if Acorn (or someone else) would make a new
motherboard with empty sockets that allow us A310 (and A400) users to
plug in the useful chips from our old machines. I can't see this
happening though, as there would not be sufficient economic reason to
do this. But maybe we will be able sometime to buy motherboards of
e.g. A5000 and fit them in our own cases with old keyboards, disks
etc. But don't bet on it.

	Torben Mogensen (torbenm@diku.dk)
From: rocky@nnsgs50.lon40.nt.com (Dave Kennard)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: RiscOSLib for ISO-Pascal
Date: 17 Nov 1992 08:17:54 GMT
Organization: Northern Telecom Europe
NNTP-Posting-Host: nnsgs50.lon40.nt.com

In article <Bxq1D9.6yH@ibmpcug.co.uk> gtoal@ibmpcug.co.uk (Graham Toal) writes:
>In article <1dljraINNns1@bnsgd245.bnr.co.uk> rocky@nnsgs50.lon40.nt.com (Dave Kennard) writes:
>>They have - sort of!  The Desktop Pascal compiler has been released
>>by Archive magazine through Norwich Computer services 'Careware' disks
>>(i.e. PD with a small charity element).  The disk {Careware 17 if memory
>>serves) is L5.00 from NCS.

>No, I meant in a magazine people read.

Well, it (Archive) contains more readable material than most of the Arc
press, and look what you missed out on by NOT reading it!

>G

Dave Kennard

-- 
+-+ +-+ +- | | |  |  Regards,  Dave Kennard.
| | | | |  |/   \/  Dept. 92941, Northern Telecom Ltd, Oakleigh Road South,
|-+ | | |  |\   /  New Southgate, LONDON. N11 1HB, England, UK, (etc..)
| \ +-+ +- | | /  Voice (+44) 01-945-2195 <rocky@nnsgs50.lon40.nt.com>
From: blacka@logica.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Removable mass storage (Syquest,Flopticals...)
Date: 19 Nov 92 19:56:18 GMT

In article <5593@krafla.rhi.hi.is>, adamd@rhi.hi.is (Adam David) writes:

> The nice thing about flopticals is that they handle all the useful 3.5"
> magnetic floppies too. 

I have heard it said that flopticals are unable to handle
high density disks (eg 1.4M DOS disks).  Can anyone clarify
this?   I am tossing up between Syquest and Flopticals.
The ability to read/write 1.4M disks from work could swing
the balance.

NB I have RISCOS3.1 on a 420 (in case that is relevant)

Andrew Black
From: r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk (R Voisey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Removable mass storage (Syquest,Flopticals...)
Date: 23 Nov 92 13:12:21 GMT
Organization: University of the West of England, Bristol

In article <1992Nov19.195618.364@logica.co.uk> blacka@logica.co.uk writes:

>I have heard it said that flopticals are unable to handle
>high density disks (eg 1.4M DOS disks).  Can anyone clarify
>this?   I am tossing up between Syquest and Flopticals.
>The ability to read/write 1.4M disks from work could swing
>the balance.

They can read ANY linear disk (ie  not low density Mac) WITH THE
EXCEPTION of Archimedes disks.

However, I'm not sure if anybody's filers actually cope with
PC disks yet (they didn't last time I looked).  The problem
with reading Arch disks may or  may not be resolved - it's
in Acorn's  hands (although it's  not their fault - just
Insite being awkward).

I suggest you call Morley or The Serial Port and find  out
how  far they've  got with their respective filers.

Cheers

Bob


-- 
  Robert J. Voisey  :  r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk
         -- Probug Software Developments --
162 Staplehill Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, Avon, England
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows)
Subject: Re: Removable mass storage (Syquest,Flopticals...)
Keywords: Archimedes World
Organization: Nottingham University
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 19:31:23 GMT

In article <722260463.8150@minster.york.ac.uk> dcw-a@minster.york.ac.uk writes:
>Well, according to _Archimedes World_ none of the floptical drives available
>for the arc at this time can cope with normal magnetic media. Bit of a bummer
>really. Although I must admit the source of this information isn't exactly
>famous for accuracy...

I'd recommend that you take the Syquest option at the current time. Each
cartridge holds at least twice as much as a Floptical, and they work at
hard disc speed, rather than flopticals which work at roughly the same speed
as floppy discs. Syquest cartridges are also very robust.

BTW, I don't think that Arc World are any worse than the other magazines.
I must say that I was impressed with the efficiency of BBC Acorn User this
month - converting the VIDC20 announcement into news print so quickly..!
I wonder why none of the other big magazines achieved this?

Simon
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Burrows   smb@cs.nott.ac.uk  psyhsmb@unicorn.nott.ac.uk  +44 533 712030
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: nrs@planet.bt.co.uk (Nick Shore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Ghostscript and fonts
Summary: How to get Ghostscript to find fonts
Keywords: Ghostscript
Date: 17 Nov 92 16:28:06 GMT
Organization: BT Labs, Martlesham Heath, Ipswich, UK.

I think this has been asked before, but can someone please tell me how to get
Ghostscript to locate fonts when previewing files generated by Impression etc
using the standard RO3 postscript drivers.

All I get is the error: can't find default font.

If someone can help then please get in touch.

Thanks in advance,

Nick.

-- 
________________________________________________________________________
Nick Shore                                  British Telecom Laboratories,
nrs@planet.bt.co.uk                         B83 G16, Martlesham Heath,
                                            Ipswich, IP5 7RE, UK.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: valerio@sabrina.dei.unipd.it ( Valerio Pulese )
Subject: INFO:Step by step disassembler.
Organization: D.E.I. Universita' di Padova, Italia
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 10:59:12 GMT


I have downloaded sarah but it isn't what I need .
(good piece of software however)
Is there something that could do a step by step run-mode.

Still waiting an answer for my article on parallel/econet socket.

I retry :

I need a high speed serial input (bit-stream).
Parallel port could be very simple to read but which are its limits in
frequency? Econet socket have been used by Vertical Twist.Could
someone  tell me some informations.

Use news,email,snail mail,pidgeons,pony express...
but pleeease reply.
Thanks in advance.

Best regards 
			Valerio
-- 
E-mail:   valerio@sabrina.dei.unipd.it
Man-mail: Valerio Pulese
	  V.Volturno 23/7 30038 Spinea VENICE - ITALY
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: goodwin@edieng.enet.dec.com (Pete Goodwin)
Subject: Re: RO3.1, C dbox's and 3d icons
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 21:21:39 GMT


In article <921119230327@kernow.demon.co.uk>, vulch@kernow.demon.co.uk (Anthony Frost) writes...
> 
>  > I knew about the bug in 3.1 with 3d icons on exit, and I've
>  > coded around that. What I didn't know was that there's
>  > another bug - actually more serious. 
> 
>  > On some occaisons, I get an 'Internal Trap', then EVERY task
>  > generates an address exception until the desktop vanishes
>  > leaving me at the '*' prompt. Anyone else seen this one? 
> 
>Yup! At 03873B74? I think it is the same bug rather than a different one
>though. I got round it by replacing the dbox_dispose() with a call to an
>alarm function in the same way as for closing a normal window. pass "(void
>*) d" as the alarm handle and you can cast it back and dispose of it when
>all is clear. I am told setting the button type to one of the notify on
>release flavours is an alternative cure.

At address 03873B6C (close!). I fixed it with a delayed dispose (via alarm).
Unfortunately, using 'release' didn't solve the problem.

Pete Goodwin
goodwin@edieng.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: thughes@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Tom Hughes)
Subject: Re: Noticing when Shutdown is activated
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 14:19:17 GMT

In article <BxytAB.8KB@newcastle.ac.uk> unregistered@newcastle.ac.uk (Jason O'Broin) writes:
>Is there anyway of intercepting the RiscOs 3.1 Desktop shutdown mechanism? I need
>to be able to do some processing before this is allowed to continue.
>In addition to this, I need to be able to distinguish between this and Exiting
>the desktop (ie. closing down the desktop is not the same as starting the
>shutdown procedure). Does anyone know the actual operations performed by
>shutdown. Ideally, I'd like to replace it completely.

I believe there is a service call (Service_Shutdown?) which is issued
when a shutdown occurs. I think one of its parameters is a flag to say
whether it is an 'exit' or a 'shutdown'. I suspect that this call is
only issued after the Wimp and OS have done most of their shutdown
processing.

I'll have a look in my PRMs tonight and flesh out the details for you.

Tom.

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

thughes@uk.ac.warwick.dcs            57 Shakleton Road
csugk@uk.ac.warwick.csv              Earlsdon
                                     Coventry
(0203) 673584                        CV5 6HT
============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech,comp.sys.acorn,comp.sys.acorn.advocacy