HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: That alleged bug with RO 3.10
From: sbla2@cs.aukuni.ac.nz
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 20:27:50 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

mcg@waikato.ac.nz writes:

>In article <2N4zkNj024n@khantazi.welly.gen.nz>, banksie@khantazi.welly.gen.nz (Philip R. Banks) writes:
>>    Do other people remember a certain prat talking about a bug in RO 3.10
>> regarding menu clicking on the Info window of the Task Manager? Well I did
>> and when I was helping, well watching, a friend upgrade the A5000 we use
>> with 3.10 I decided to check on the validity of this claim. Low and behold
>> the bug refused to manifest itself.
>> 
>>    Now this really gets my goat as a direct result of this 'rumour' being
>> started a great discussion about the 'bugs' of RO 3.1 resulted. And the
>> funny thing is none of the alleged bugs reported thus far by these rumour
>> mills has been verified. This news group is a great way to get uptodate
>> information about what is happening in the Acorn world, but rumours like the
>> above mentioned one undermine the usefulness of this group. Especially when
>> the rumour is presented as fact.

>Umm, these bugs are probably appearing on machines that went from RO2->3.1; 
>inexperience with Ro3.1 and possible conflicts with hardware are to blame?


I have just upgraded to RO3.1 and it seems to work perfectly. The so called bug
in the info window does NOT appear on my machine. I suspect that it is
a hardware compatability or a configuration problem with people moving from
RO2.0 -> RO3.1. Every one having this bug seems to be moving from 2->3.

The ROM templates for the Filer and basic modules are still ugly, but a couple
of hours with the template editor adding "r?" validation strings to the
templates makes them look exceptional!

The filer icons no longer invert. They are drawn in darker colours. (just like
the Mac). Good One Acorn!

The configuration option "PrinterBufferSize" doesn't seem to make any difference
in printing on my LaserJet, even with a very large buffer (eg>512k).
It should buffer the data and print it in the background?

There is a new validation string "K", it's standard use in 'some' writables
in the templates is "Kar". Any ideas?

Paint has a problem when copying portions of a sprite between windows? RO3.0
did not have this bug!

To change the templates of the ROM applications you must copy off the small
boot application to disk. This is because the !run file sets the $path
when you run the application instead of just setting it in the !boot file!

Printing the the laser seems faster than RO3.0?


-- 
 ___   __   _ _               /                       / It is impossible to
|   | |  | | | |   Software  /    Shaun Blackmore    /  make anything foolproof
|---| |--| |   |   Supplies /                       /   because fools are so
|   | |  \ |   |           / sbla2@cs.aukuni.ac.nz /    ingenious.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: ELITE... A GREAT GAME ON THE ARCHIE.....                                        
From: Ikki@BEIZ.mediatex.ch (0642210101: Fernmeldedirektion Olten)
Date: 26 Sep 1992 18:15:50 CET
Organization: MEDIAtex AG, CH-8807 Freienbach/SZ

I m playing Elite on the Archie like
an addicted. I know Elite sience it was
released on the C=64, had it on the
Amiga too, and now on the Archie. It
has a lot of features more than the
other versions.
I collected a cargo-canister from a
pirate-ship I blasted off, and (you al-
ways see what you pick up) there was
written "Megaweed!!" on the monitor.
What does that mean? I checked my cargo-
hold, but didn t find anything like that
. Does somebody knows somehting about
that?
Thanks for all infos.
Internet: Ikki(at)BEIZ.mediatex.ch

|B                                    B|
|E           CH: VTX *3600#           E|
|I           D:  BTX *28881#          I|
|Z                                    Z|
From: mark@acorn.co.uk (Mark Taunton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: 'volatile' in Norcroft/Acorn C
Date: 30 Sep 92 13:27:28 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, UK

In article <9209300424.AA02872@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> lithgow@usl.com (Malcolm Lithgow) writes:
>[In message "Re: 'volatile' in Norcroft/Acorn C", Andrew P.Mell writes:]
>>Talking of ANSI compliance are the format specifiers for strftime()
>>well defined? The format specifiers for Sun cc are totally different
>>to those for Acorn/Norcroft C. Its a pain when porting.
>>
>>Who is right?
>
>Possibly neither. The I18N (internationalization) functions (including
>strftime()) have finally been standardized by the ISO MSE committee
>(MSE is Multi-Byte Extensions -- my speciality recently,
>unfortunately).
>
>New additions are an era specification, alternative digit specifiers,
>and a few other bits and pieces. Thrilling stuff. Since it was only
>standardized this year, I would not be surprised if neither Acorn nor
>Sun were up to date.

Nit-pick mode *ON*.

The question was about *ANSI* compliance, not about compliance with
recent ISO revisions/extensions to a language definition originally
based on the ANSI C standard.  The definition of the language that the
Acorn/Norcroft C compiler is designed to accept is identified by ANSI
X3.159-1989.  In this respect, the implementation of strftime() it
provides is intended to conform to that standard.  Sometime after the
full ISO C standard, complete with I8N stuff and whatever else,
becomes final, then you might perhaps see vendors such as Acorn
providing compilers to accept and implement it.  Until then, the
answer to Andy's question (though this is not an official Acorn
response) is:

"Yes, talking of ANSI compliance, the format parameters to strftime()
*are* well defined.  The Acorn C language system is designed and
intended to implement them according to the ANSI C standard."

Nit-pick mode *OFF*.

>-Malcolm.  lithgow@usl.com  These are merely my opinions.

Mark.                              ditto.
From: mcg@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Riscos 3 for sale (?)
Date: 28 Sep 92 19:03:17 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <1992Sep26.111148.19177@cs.utwente.nl>, kortink@cs.utwente.nl (John Kortink) writes:
> mcg@waikato.ac.nz writes :
> 
>>>[...]
>>> If anyone is upgrading from RISC OS 2.0 to RISC OS 3* and have any unwanted
>>> ROMs please email me (pb@cl.cam.ac.uk -- I don't read this newsgroup) as I
>>> want to upgrade some Arthur machines to the same level as some other
>>> machines. [ I have been trying to get 2.0 ROMs for ages, but they
>>> 'sold out' ]
>>[...]
>>If you want, when I get my 3.10 upgrade (yawn) you can have my 3.0 Roms
>>(price negotiable, ... of course).
> 
> Ah, as usual, there's at least two braincells working here. 3.0 ROMs are from
> A5000's. So they only work in A5000's (or possibly the new machines). So
> who would want them ? They already have them ! (Or 3.1) I suggest you eat 'm.
> 
> The obvious reason is he wants RO2 ROMs cheap. I'd say that's a fair trade
> (I have RO2 and RO3.1 switchable now in my A340, but most will ditch 2).
> 

AWWWWWWWWWW SHADDDUP!!!!!!

As usual, your sense of humour is as good as your programs (intended as an 
insult).
From Martin Glanvill		(mcg@waikato.ac.nz)

Dept. Maths 							      @@@@@/|@
University of Waikato						      @@@@/ |@
Hamilton							      @@@/__|@
New Zealand							      @@/   |@
								      @@@@@@@@

----------------****=====| A quote to make your day |======****-----------------
Harris's Law: Any philosophy that can be put "in a nutshell" belongs there.
                                        -- James Gibbons Hunekerm
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: fj_maddi@csd.brispoly.ac.uk (FJ Maddix)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Reviewing Arc products (was Re: multisync monitors)
Keywords: multisync
Date: 5 Oct 92 10:36:52 GMT
Organization: Bristol Polytechnic, England

I've used most of the monitors you mention. At home I have a Taxan 770+; at
work I use Eizo 9060 and Taxan 795.
  The Eizo has the edge for clarity, but the 795 isn't far behind and the
price is good for a Trinitron screen.

Frank.
From: vhancock@acorn.co.uk (vorn hancock)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: If you don't want to produce demos....
Date: 5 Oct 92 14:20:59 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

Hello all, 

I'm posting this on behalf of a software house. Please
respond to them, not me! :-)




* Programmers * 

Is there anyone out there who would like some work?  Le
Computer is a software house developing software for special
needs and the educational markets.  They are looking for
RISC OS programmers to develop programs for these markets. 
The money is not good but it would provide a medium for a
new programmer to break into these markets with a well-known
software house.

Contact Vanessa Lees at Le Computer, P.O. Box 29,
Chelmsford, Essex, CM3 1QS or telephone (0245) 362225.



 


We've all got Special Needs
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: kortink@cs.utwente.nl (John Kortink)
Subject: RISCOS 3.1 problems : CSD and configuration
Organization: University of Twente, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 12:32:52 GMT

I appear to have found a major bug in RISCOS 3.1. Correct me if I'm wrong.

When at the command-line, typing *DIR $.<whatever> does *not* set the CSD
correctly, causing all sorts of weird behavior. I discovered this when I
was trying to reload my CMOS (after a DEL-power-on), which was in some
directory on my harddisc, typed

*IDEFS
*DIR $.WORK.MODULES.MISCUTIL

An *EX at this stage shows a CSD of IDEFS::HardDisc4.WORK.MODULES.MISCUTIL,
i.e. *wrong*, and say's 'Not found' at the end of the listing. Then, wanting
to load my 'misc utils' module :

*MISCUTIL

produced an error 'File 'IDEFS::HardDisc4.$.WORK.MODULES.MISCUTIL.MISCUT'
not found', i.e. MISCUTIL truncated to MISCUT, but, for some reason, the $
now does appear in the search path. Total chaos I'd say.

This is, I think, a *MAJOR* problem for some 'CSD-minded' apps, and possibly
a number of games with 'hard-coded' ADFS::0 paths and the like.

Comments, Acorn ?

Another, but totally different 'bug' that came up during last night's half
an hour play with RISCOS 3.1 is that the !Configure util either does not
save or does not load some configuration settings. Saving the configuration
to me means saving it all, but !Configure does not reset (at least) the
configured filing system, or filer display option, which is mighty annoying
when the CMOS needs to be restored after a DEL- or R-power-on. Especially
restoring the filing system is not on, as this is essential. This forces me
to ignore !Configure's CMOS saving altogether and go for my own proper-and-
dumb 'full save'. Why oh why, Acorn ? Is there any reason for this ?

This came up in a half an hour play. Although I *really* like a lot of the
new features, the thought of what else will crop up in everyday use is
really haunting me. I am in the process of completely going 3.1, and I'm
afraid the firm ground I think I'm standing on may turn out to be a bit of
a swamp.


John Kortink

Student of Informatics at the University of Twente, The Netherlands
NETMAIL : kortink@cs.utwente.nl              DISCLAIMER : the usual
From: mcg@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: That alleged bug with RO 3.10
Date: 3 Oct 92 10:40:20 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <2N4zkNj024n@khantazi.welly.gen.nz>, banksie@khantazi.welly.gen.nz (Philip R. Banks) writes:
>    Do other people remember a certain prat talking about a bug in RO 3.10
> regarding menu clicking on the Info window of the Task Manager? Well I did
> and when I was helping, well watching, a friend upgrade the A5000 we use
> with 3.10 I decided to check on the validity of this claim. Low and behold
> the bug refused to manifest itself.
> 
>    Now this really gets my goat as a direct result of this 'rumour' being
> started a great discussion about the 'bugs' of RO 3.1 resulted. And the
> funny thing is none of the alleged bugs reported thus far by these rumour
> mills has been verified. This news group is a great way to get uptodate
> information about what is happening in the Acorn world, but rumours like the
> above mentioned one undermine the usefulness of this group. Especially when
> the rumour is presented as fact.

Umm, these bugs are probably appearing on machines that went from RO2->3.1; 
inexperience with Ro3.1 and possible conflicts with hardware are to blame?


>    Finally after having seen Risc OS 3.10 I want to congratulate Acorn on a
> job well done. Not is Risc OS 3.10 *not* slower than 3.0 it is infact
> faster. The difference working ADFSBuffers makes is amazing and that
> combined with other bug fixes makes this, IMO, an excellent peice of work.
> Also for those who want a laugh take a template editor and examine the
> 'power' template in the Switcher's resource directory...

Good! I'm (possibly) getting the upgrade on monday (touch wood).


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

Dept. Maths 							      @@@@@/|@
University of Waikato						      @@@@/ |@
Hamilton							      @@@/__|@
New Zealand							      @@/   |@
								      @@@@@@@@

----------------****=====| A quote to make your day |======****-----------------
REPUTATION: what others are not thinking about you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: pete@eo11.eoc.com (Peter Cockerell)
Subject: Re: Oh no ! More .....
Organization: EO, Inc.
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1992 23:34:27 GMT


[Lots of ranting about ARM assembler's superiority over C for writing
applications etc. omitted]

I can see where you're coming from, John, in terms of speed and
compactness, but I think a big issue that even ARM programmers will
have to address one day is portability. If you want to expand your
markets, you need to be able to sell your programs for other platforms.
As I mentioned in another posting, that's probably not that relevant to
most readers of the Acorn newsgroups, but it is important to many
commercial Acorn outfits (even the education ones).

We've just spent a year porting PenPoint from the 386 to the Hobbit.
That's hundreds of thousands of lines of code, of which only a couple of
thousand were assembler. A very large part of the effort was spent
converting the latter rather than the former. If the ratio of assembler
to C had been much higher, I think I would have just gone back to bed
and forgetten about it. The thought of converting something like
Impression to another architecture, even one which would map reasonably
well, would fill me with dread.

As I say, a lot of readers will poo-poo this because they don't need to
worry about it, and because ARM folk suffer more than most from an
unjustifiable sense of superiority. But what I say is: `Multi-platform
- it's the way to go.'

Regards, Pete
From: lithgow@usl.com (Malcolm Lithgow)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: The ARM Club
Date: 1 Oct 92 04:48:35 GMT

[In message "Re: The ARM Club", Gavin Flower writes:]
>In article <BvEoDy.3C2@newcastle.ac.uk> Oliver.Cornes@newcastle.ac.uk (Ollie W Cornes) writes:
>>I came across this in Eureka, the magazine for the ARM Club...
>>
>>"It is generally accepted that C is the language to use if you intend to
>>write a serious application of any complexity"
>>
>>Not meaning to pick too many holes or anything, but the two main
>>'Serious applications of any complexity' on the Arc, namely Impression
>>and ArtWorks are both written entirely in Assembler.
>
>They did say "generally accepted".
>
>Also, how well do you think these two packages could be adapted to
>take into acount the features of the newer ARM chips?  How will they
>cope with using the 32 bit address mode?  Not to mention some of the
>newer instructions that could well speed up or enable new features.

This is an interesting subject, and, at the risk of starting yet
another language war, I'd like to offer a few comments...

I imagine that Impression code is fairly heavily structured and
macro-based, so that it probably doesn't look that much like huge wads
assembler. Certainly, if I were to write an application the size and
style of Impression, I'd first write a really heavy-duty macro package,
and some very strict coding standards. And I'd take a looooong time in
the design phase.

Considering this, I imagine that it would be relatively easy to change
the code to take into account the features of new implementations of
the ARM. Specifically, I think it would take a couple of days to modify
the code to cope with the 32 bit address mode -- a reasonably clever
automatic replacement proggy (written in BASIC or C, of course) could
do the job. As for new instructions, I imagine that CC could tune their
code with much better precision, and so get a greater benefit out of
such things than people who use HLL's.

>Also, how easily can they incorporate compliance to new features of
>the operating system?

Just as easily as everyone else? Or, quite probably, even easier? Why
should this be a problem? The RISC OS interfaces are defined more
precisely at the Assembler level than they are at the C level, anyway.
Why should CC have anymore trouble than anyone else, unless they are
doing something naughty (which you can do in C, anyway).

>These are just some of the motivations for using "C" for "'Serious
>applications of any complexity' on the Arc".

I don't think these are very strong motivations. I think the main
motivation is that C makes it so much easier to translate algorithms
into source code, and thence into an executable. Oh, and it makes
things much easier to port -- so long as you don't spend too much of
your program in the user interface.

-Malcolm.  lithgow@usl.com  These are merely my opinions.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: gaspar@urz.unibas.ch
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: That alleged bug with RO 3.10
Date: 5 Oct 92 17:52:31 MET
Organization: University of Basel, Switzerland

In article <1992Oct4.202750.7682@cs.aukuni.ac.nz>, sbla2@cs.aukuni.ac.nz writes:
> mcg@waikato.ac.nz writes:
> 
> 
> I have just upgraded to RO3.1 and it seems to work perfectly. The so called bug
> in the info window does NOT appear on my machine. I suspect that it is
> a hardware compatability or a configuration problem with people moving from
> RO2.0 -> RO3.1. Every one having this bug seems to be moving from 2->3.

I have upgraded from 2->3 on a 410/1 and I have that bug too.
 
> The ROM templates for the Filer and basic modules are still ugly, but a couple
> of hours with the template editor adding "r?" validation strings to the
> templates makes them look exceptional!

What does this validation string do?
 
> The filer icons no longer invert. They are drawn in darker colours. (just like
> the Mac). Good One Acorn!
 
Yup!

I am also delighted to see that when there is a dialogue box displayed with
Ok/Cancel buttons, pressing ENTER activates Ok! Finally!
 
Could someone tell me, how to activate DragASprite? I lost the info somewhere.
Thanks.
 
laci

> -- 
>  ___   __   _ _               /                       / It is impossible to
> |   | |  | | | |   Software  /    Shaun Blackmore    /  make anything foolproof
> |---| |--| |   |   Supplies /                       /   because fools are so
> |   | |  \ |   |           / sbla2@cs.aukuni.ac.nz /    ingenious.
-- 

*******************************************************************************
*             Laci Gaspar, University Basel, Switzerland                      *
*******************************************************************************
From: vaughanm@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (Vaughan Marks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Emacs for A5000
Date: 5 Oct 92 12:38:20 GMT


Has emacs been ported to the Archimedes? I have a copy of microEmacs but its
pretty poor! Any news would be gladly recieved! Whilst on the subject of
microEmacs has anyone managed to change the default screen colours, I have 
tried without success...
Thanks in advance,

-- 


      _    _     _  __   ____    ________________________________________
   \ \\_\\ \\ _\_\\_\\ \ \\ \ \   \  Vaughan Marks: vaughanm@cs.man.ac.uk \
From: mcg@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Rom PCB Switcher (RE: Ro3)
Date: 3 Oct 92 10:56:22 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

In article <1992Oct2.174028.20008@csd.brispoly.ac.uk>, r_voisey@csd.brispoly.ac.uk (R Voisey) writes:
> In article <1992Oct1.192337.11167@waikato.ac.nz> mcg@waikato.ac.nz writes:
>>I'd be interested in knocking up a PCB (so long as the layout is single sided 
>>and is either free or at modest cost ; i.e. below 5 quid).
> 
> It would probably fit on single sided PCB, but we used double sided.  The layout
> it probably too fine for home etching in any case.

Who said anything about home etching?

> 
>>It shouldn't be too hard to design a PCB, given the appropriate Pin outputs and 
>>hardware details from Acorn....the problem is trying to weasel this information 
>>out of them!  
> 
> You don't need any information from Acorn - not even they have had the
> cheek to use non-standard EPROM pinouts!  Basically, for those who
> don't already know, the only lines that have to be switched between
> the two sets of EPROMS are the ~Chip_Select lines.  Make sure you
> tie the lines on the switched out set high, though!  They cannot
> be guaranteed to float high by themselves.

Yeah, yeah. A 1k to 2k resistor should do the trick for pulling the lines high.
 
From Martin Glanvill		(mcg@waikato.ac.nz)

Dept. Maths 							      @@@@@/|@
University of Waikato						      @@@@/ |@
Hamilton							      @@@/__|@
New Zealand							      @@/   |@
								      @@@@@@@@

----------------****=====| A quote to make your day |======****-----------------
"When the going gets tough, the tough get empirical" 	-- Jon Carroll
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk (David Alan Gilbert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Riscos 3 for sale (?)y
Date: 5 Oct 92 07:25:40 GMT

In <19105@acorn.co.uk> mhardy@acorn.co.uk (Michael Hardy) writes:

>There are Technical Reference Manuals available for all Archimedes
>computers. These all include full circuit diagrams, component lists, etc. So
>you don't have to 'weasel this information out': we've thought of you
>already! See your Acorn supplier for more details...

What - even A4x0/1 series - if so where????


>- Michael J Hardy

Dave
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- David Alan Gilbert - gilbertd@p4.cs.man.ac.uk - G7FHJ@GB7NWP                -
------(Programmers don't sleep - they just park their heads)-------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: amell@nyx.cs.du.edu (Andrew P.Mell)
Subject: Re: C?
Keywords: C, Assembler, Flame War
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix at U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 92 17:05:49 GMT

In article <1992Oct2.053848.28895@cam.compserv.utas.edu.au> cknight@esk.compserv.utas.edu.au (STRYQX (Chris Knight)) writes:
>
>COMPUTERWORLD 1 April
>
>                     CREATORS ADMIT UNIX, C HOAX
>

Yeah, yeah, that news report has been going the rounds for the past hundred 
years....

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: cudat@warwick.ac.uk (J M Hicks)
Subject: ChangeFSI (was: Riscos 3.10 matters)
Organization: Computing Services, Warwick University, UK
Date: Tue, 29 Sep 1992 13:03:28 GMT

In article <1992Sep22.102409.29219@cs.utwente.nl> kortink@cs.utwente.nl (John Kortink) writes:
>...I guess ChangeFSI has lost its considerable-income-generating
>properties for
>Acorn. ...

Did ChangeFSI ever have any income-generating properties?
It's listed in the Lancaster archive as "Shareware: No", by which
I assume it is free.
Am I wrong?
--
Jim Hicks, Computing Services, Warwick University, Coventry, England. CV4 7AL
cudat@csv.warwick.ac.uk
JANET: cudat@UK.AC.WARWICK.CSV
EARN, BITNET or NetNorth: cudat%CSV.WARWICK.AC.UK@UKACRL
Internet: cudat%csv.warwick.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
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