HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: j08i@alf.zfn.uni-bremen.de (Kai Schlichting)
Subject: Re: Updates
Organization: Univ. Bremen, Informatik
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 21:06:31 GMT


pping in from far away....
i dare say john kortnik should rather mail his 'service announcements'
to the 'registered folks' he mentions,instead of wasting
ppls time and money with this 'announcement'
if he denies ANY storage of his programs on bbs/servers
he has definitely not understood how shareware is
distrributed nowadays.
sending disks and 'swapping' on meetings is the glory of the past
of the 64' users.
bye,Kai
*still on holidays, not readfing news,but mail is welcome*
*sorry for typos*

--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Phone : +49 421 556803  (away in the summer ! starting July 1st !)
email: j08i@rs550.zfn.uni-bremen.de             !University
       kai.schlichting@rs550.zfn.uni-bremen.de  !University
From: jbiggs@armltd.uucp (John Biggs)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Acorn Press Release 6 of 8 (A3000 range)
Date: 3 Sep 92 11:22:06 GMT
Organization: Advanced RISC Machines Ltd

torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen) writes:

>A good (and not unrealistic?) solution would be a single chip with an
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>ARM 3 equivalent, write buffer (as on the ARM 600), controller chips
>and FPU, clocked around 40 MHz. Improved versions of VIDC and MEMC
>would be handy, but they may be hard to use without modifying larger
>portions of the software and hardware. I don't think Acorn will use
>MEMC 2. A more realistic solution would be something closer to MEMC 1a,
>but using a two level page table similar to MEMC 2.

Might as well put a keyboard on the same die too, it'll be big enough!!




-- 
--John (jbiggs@armltd.co.uk)
From: bsalter@acorn.co.uk (Brian Salter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Birmingham Open Day News Release
Date: 2 Sep 92 14:18:42 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England


 British Olympic Hurdlers Compete for
Gold - Again!

Release Date 2.9.92 Colin Jackson and
Tony Jarrett - Britain's top ranking
hurdlers, are making guest appearances
at the World of Acorn event to be held
in Birmingham on the 12th and 13th
September.  Colin and Tony will be
challenging visitors to compete against
them in an exciting new athletics
simulation called Quest for Gold.

The game runs on Acorn's range of 32-bit
RISC computers.  Developed by Krisalis
Software, Quest for Gold is a detailed
athletic simulation of track and field
events, including both training and
competition.

Quest for Gold is being included in
Acorn's Learning Curve and Family
Solution packs, designed for the home
computing environment. The concept of
the Learning Curve pulls together the
needs of computing in schools, at the
office and in the home, whereas the
Family Solution represents an ideal
introduction to home computing. 

The World of Acorn will be the first
public showing in the Midlands of
Acorn's new range of powerful 32-bit
computers which start from under #500.
Members of Acorn will be on hand
demonstrating the equipment and showing
how they can fulfill a variety of
computing requirements including
education, business, word processing,
desktop publishing, art, music and
leisure activities. 

Also exhibiting at the event will be
dealers from the Birmingham area and
several leading software houses. 

The World of Acorn is being held at the
National Motorcycle Museum, Coventry
Road, Bicken Hill, Birmingham on
Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th September
from 10am until 4pm.

Further Information from
Simon Lovesey
Acorn Computers
Cambridge CB1 4JN
Tel 0223 245200
From: stuartb@spider.co.uk (Stuart Boutell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: A3000 owners haven't lost out! (Was Re: New Acorn Kit ...)
Summary: A3000 people have not been conned - they can Arm 3 upgrade.
Keywords: A3000
Date: 28 Aug 92 16:02:08 GMT
Organization: Spider Systems Limited, Edinburgh, UK

In article <1992Aug28.095612.3481@cs.hw.ac.uk> neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite) writes:
>Buy and A3000 with colour monitor now and get free RISCOS 3.1 when it comes out
>for ~700 UKpounds (educ price ??) it's a REALLY good deal. 2 months later,
>out pop 2 better spec'd A30x0 machines at a cheaper price with RISCOS 3.1
>anyway.
>
>If that was me, I'd be fairly pissed off.

Oh, I don't know - at least the A3000 owners can stick an ARM3/Future
processor upgrades in their machines...

As far as I can see, the A30x0 and A40x0 owners won't be able to have
similar processor upgrades, unless the upgrade board includes the VIDC,
MEMC, IOC and IOEC stuff too...

> As would recent A5000 buyers when
>they hear of the #100 UKpounds reduction (not before time and not enough
>of a price cut, though in the right direction).

I agree with the price cut sentiments!

>Neil

StuartB

Opinions are my own, etc
-- 
Stuart Boutell, Spider Systems Ltd, Edinburgh - stuartb@spider.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: lezz@merlin.dev.cdx.mot.com (Lezz Giles)
Subject: Re: OS differences and improvements (Was Re: new PC's, what's happening acorn?)
Reply-To: lezz@merlin.dev.cdx.mot.com (Lezz Giles)
Organization: Motorola Codex, Canton, MA
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 13:49:24 GMT

(lots of garbage on why VM is terrible deleted (as it should be :-)

Anybody who thinks that VM doesn't and cannot work should (a) try using
a decent computer, and (b) take a decent computer science course.  For
many years I worked on an Amdahl mainframe supporting around 200 users
running a SVR2-1/2 (i.e. halfway between release 2 and release 3) Unix.
It worked extremely well - you could easily live with the illusion that
you were the only user on the system.  Basically, the underlying operations
required by a VM are so fast and implemented at such a low level in hardware
that the overhead is tiny and totally unnoticed.  "Ah but" I hear you cry,
"That's fine for mainframes, but what about smaller systems!".  I'm currently
on a DECstation - a single user workstation with X windows.  I don't
notice the VM at all.  I've also seen HP, Sun, etc. etc workstations with
VM and with the same illusion of no VM.

Virtual memory is a fact of life, and virtual memory works extremely well.
Before anybody flames me back, make sure that you have satisfied both
conditions (a) and (b) above.

lezz "what, me elitist?" Giles
From: long@scr.slb.com (Peter Long)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Font control in DTP
Date: 27 Aug 92 10:33:31 GMT
Organization: Schlumberger Laboratory for Computer Science



	Can anyone help?

	I have been trying to use the Acorn DTP on a A5000, and wish
to use fonts other than those found in ROM, in particular SYMBOL, i.e.
greek characters. I have managed to get DTP to recognise symbol as a
font, display it on the screen and then print it to a dot matrix
printer. However I would like to use a postscript printer, laserwriter
II NTX, for the final copy and this just prints courier font when I
use symbols. I assume I have to either force DTP to download the font
or pursuade the laserwriter to use its own symbol or greek font. Where
can I find info on how to do this ?

	Thanks in advance 

		Peter Long
From: arc@Ingres.COM (Andy Cowling)
Subject: Re: New Acorn Kit out today (27/08/92)
In-reply-to: neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk's message of 27 Aug 92 10:53:42 GMT
Organization: Eurotech, Ingres (London)
Date: 27 Aug 92 12:16:56 GMT


>>>>> On 27 Aug 92 10:53:42 GMT, neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite) said:


  >> From Today's Computer Section in The Guardian (Thursday 27/08/92)

lots of good stuff deleted....

  >> One application which works surprisingly well on the new machines
  >> is the new version of PC-Soft, Acorn's PC emulator. The long
  >> standing problem of lethargic CGA-resolution graphics has been
  >> solved: the latest release now behaves like a perfectly
  >> respectable PC/XT with a colour VGA screen.

How does PC-Soft differ from PC-EM (1.8) ?
Upgrades available ? 
If so, when, how much ?

--
Andy Cowling (arc@ingres.com)
Ingres Ltd, (Special Engineering Group), 15-19 Britten St, London SW3 3TY
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: felixa@microsoft.com (Felix GTi Andrew)
Subject: You call that support Re: Acorn pushes out small dealers
Date: 23 Aug 92 19:36:13 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

With referece to the posting about better Acorn support at dealer level ..
somone wrote in Acorns defence ...

>they were told "we have to get back to you on that" or "sorry our technical
>person is off on two weeks holiday, my advice is don't switch the computer
>on again 'till they get back"?  Is it acceptable for an 'Acorn Dealer' to

The last time I was in England when I rang Acorn about a problem with cmhg
I was told to ring my dealer. So I rang my dealer. He knew nothing about
cmhg, but did say that he could ring Acorn and get back to me on that one.
A few days later I rang the dealer back - he hadn't got much help from
acorn - mainly because he had no idea what an entry veneer was, so couldnt
really explain the problem.

So I rang Sue wall and other people like that (taking the unofficial way)
and they got someone in touch with me - I was supposed to send in 
my code, I couldnt talk to the person about it - well needless to say
I left England in search of some better support ...
Poor developer support can kill a company/machine/users

	Have fun - write cool code

		Felix
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: WimpPoly part 3
From: banksie@khantazi.welly.gen.nz (Philip R. Banks)
Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 16:43:23 +1200
Reply-To: banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
Organization: My Arc.

arcturus@spuddy.uucp (Geoff Riley) writes:

> I've got that one, but I'm missing part 2... has something disrupted the
> flow for this one?

   I don't think so. I would just put these problems down to the vagaries of
Usenet. If you want the full thing I have it all now, and will be putting on
the nz archive RSN, and could send it to desperate types while Albert is
away...

    Philip

P.S. Thanks to all of those people who sent part 3 to me. Your help was much
appreciated.

--
Philip R. Banks  Syntax: mail < banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz >            @@@@@/|
                                                                        @@@@/#|
                                                                        @@@/##|
Fate protects fools, little children and ships named Enterprise.        @@/---|
 ---Commander Riker, ST:TNG 'Contagion'                                 @/    |
From: bh2@doc.ic.ac.uk (B Hogan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: StrongED II version 1.10
Date: 2 Sep 92 15:31:43 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Computing, Imperial College, London, England
NNTP-Posting-Host: gummo.doc.ic.ac.uk

In article <1992Aug26.154648.2138@alf.uib.no> guttorm@hp825.bih.no (Guttorm Vik) writes:
>StrongED II is now finished. I've sent it off to all my registered users today,
>and I'll release it to the rest of the world in a months time.
>It's actually quite good..
> _
>(-)rmStrong

But have you got rid of those bloody stupid error windows? They have got
to be one of the worse bits of user interface I have yet come across:
  completely non standard
  look totally out of place
  an unnecesary quirk
  they are damn annoying because you can't get rid of them when they are
  sitting right over the bit of text you want to edit (and dragging them
  often crashed the machine on version 1.00)
  ...lots of expletives...
  very, very, etc, stupid.

Looking through StrongHelp I noticed the comment on Wimp_ReportError
saying not to use it "because it's non-multitasking". So what!?!
I just hit escape to get rid of it, total time on screen less than
half a second (including reading the error). StrongEd error, total time
on screen about 5 seconds (10 times longer!) of sheer mind blowing
frustration as I try to find something to do with this bloody stupid
plinthy thing that is sitting in the middle of my screen. Arrrrrggghhh!

If the new version of StrongEd is sufficiently complete and reliable for
me to start using it I may be forced to hack the Dialogue module so that
that it simply calls Wimp_ReportError. It will make me feel so much
happier :-)

Bryan H.

Email: bh2%dirty.doc.ic.ac.uk@doc.ic.ac.uk    (hopefully)

PS. Just remembered a problem I found with V1.00 - it doesn't acknowledge
load messages. This means some programs think that the Wimp$Scrap transfer
failed and generate an error (fortunately in a standard error window :-).
From: cadwallader@forty2.enet.dec.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: ACORN'S NEW BABIES
Date: 4 Sep 92 15:57:27 GMT
Reply-To: cadwallader@forty2.enet.dec.com ()
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


Hi All,

	Here's my reaction to the A3010:

	I was hoping to be very cheerfully impressed by a nice entry-level
Arc for us with not-so-many pennies. PCW this month carries a review, and
it revealed a lot of details. I must say I was not impressed! The machine is 
clearly pitched at Amig600 ground and as such it loses in all but CPU speed
IMO. Before I explain, I'm talking terms of strategy and marketing, i.e.
how I see the machine filling it's role against the Amiga.

	My main gripe was the price <-> expansion gap. The machine seems
to be pitched at the games market. When it comes to the crunch, using Saturday 
morning Dixons-shopping mentality who will buy a `games machine' costing
#500 when they can get another `games machine' with many times the number
of titles for #299? I don't think Joe Public will consider Mips and such!

	It seemed idiotic to me to avoid putting in the IDE connector of the
3020 machine. If you add a HD you are `maxed out' (until 3rd party offer a
solution). Even the A600 has more expansion options (that says a lot too! :-) 
As for the `people don't want that sort of thing at that level' idea, I think
they will if other vendors (/|\ Falcon, CBM forthcoming Amigas) will offer
it. In 6 months it will be a whole different ballgame, CBM & /|\ are pushing
for cheap, easy HD support VERY strongly now.

	I don't know, something about it just doesn't feel RIGHT!? I'd
still like to get some hands on & hope to be proved wrong...

	Comments?

								- JIM CAD*
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: OS differences and improvements (Was Re: new PC's, what's happening acorn?)
From: Gavin.Flower@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Gavin Flower)
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 00:47:03 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Sci., Victoria Uni. of Wellington, New Zealand.

In article <1992Sep2.191659.2721@siesoft.co.uk> tomc@siesoft.co.uk writes:
>Gavin.Flower@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Gavin Flower) writes:
>: You must remember that UNIX was designed as a user friendly operating
>: system - people who worked 8 days a week, 25 hours a day, didn't have
>: time to type more characters than they had too.  Especially using
>: Teletypes at 10, or less, characters per second.  They also had a
>: sense of humour.
>
>UNIX was designed as a development environment, not a user friendly
>operating system. RISC OS was designed to be user friendly hence the
>nice GUI, the same idea behind Windows NT etc. UNIX is anything but
>user friendly. This doesn't mean it's bad though, it's by far the most
>powerful and flexible operating system I've ever used. I love it ;-)

Sorry, I should have been more clear - the users that UNIX was
developed for, were the very people who were going to be using it!
UNIX was designed to be user friendly for development work, and for
office automation for engineers.  It was apparently sold to management
as a way to get better quality reports from engineering staff.

It is important to know what the intended user base is, before one
talks about whether somethong is user friendly.  Also, as I said in my
original post - "easy to learn" is often confused with "ease of use".

For Acorns main markets, Risc-OS is far more user friendly than UNIX,
for the environment I'm in at university, UNIX is the more user
friendly.  Both O/S's could benefit from implementing some aspects of
the other.

When are we going to get proper pipelining, file indirection, and
decent script language for Risc-OS?? - Without silly "{}"'s.

I'm sure most Arc users, who have to work with X-windows could easily
think of some improvements they wold like from Risc-OS.


Gavin
-- 
Tomorrow's Society                              | flower_g@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
    Depends on                                   ----------------------------
Today's Children  - help us raise them properly! 
*******  These comments have no known correlation with dept. policy!  *******
From: neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: New Acorn Kit out today (27/08/92)
Date: 28 Aug 92 09:56:12 GMT
Organization: Dept of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Scotland

In article <10380@baird.cs.strath.ac.uk> sproven@cs.strath.ac.uk (Simon B Proven IE91) writes:
>
>>	RISCOS 3.1 FINALLY. START THE PARTY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>>	(bet there will be massive delays supplying though !!)
>
>And what about the price!  #49 for the lot is another bargain (that price
>will stay till mid-1993)

I suppose after all the hassle over RISCOS 3 this upgrade is being done at
cost, or minimal profit. Or I would hope anyway. 

Gold Star to Acorn.

>>	All in all this seems like a reasonable shot in the arm. Still
>>        a touch expensive compared to the competition (esp the A4000 which
>>	is close to the A5000).
>
>Well... they have reduced the A5000 by #100 and doubled the hard disk size,
>so that's an improvement.  As for comparing with the Amiga 600, the 600
>doesn't have *anything* like the CPU speed of the A3010.

That wasn't in the article. Acorn reducing the price of a machine. pinch,
pinch. Yup, it's real. Last time this happened the MD (Brian Long) got an
Italian boot up the arse.

>>	Now we know why Acorn were desperate to shit the A3000's over the
>>	summer with the tacky special offer.
>
>It's their right to stay afloat - would you rather they went under due to
>a few thousand unsold computers in a warehouse?
>

Acorn always do this though (or marketing does).

People who bought a B+128 days before the Master was wheeled out.......

Buy and A3000 with colour monitor now and get free RISCOS 3.1 when it comes out
for ~700 UKpounds (educ price ??) it's a REALLY good deal. 2 months later,
out pop 2 better spec'd A30x0 machines at a cheaper price with RISCOS 3.1
anyway.

If that was me, I'd be fairly pissed off. As would recent A5000 buyers when
they hear of the #100 UKpounds reduction (not before time and not enough
of a price cut, though in the right direction).

Neil


****************************| Sig' Time |*********************************
JANET: 	  neilp@uk.ac.hw.cs   *   Neil Postlethwaite, Rm G.25, 
INTERNET: neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk   *   Dept of Computer Science,  
UUCP: 	  ..!uknet!hwcs!neilp *   Heriot-Watt University, Riccarton Campus
                              *   Edinburgh, EH14 4AS, United Kingdom.
------------------------------*-------------------------------------------
Computer Science Account      *   Phone +44 (0)31 449-5111 x4174
From: sproven@cs.strath.ac.uk (Simon B Proven IE91)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: New Acorn Kit out today (27/08/92)
Date: 27 Aug 92 12:33:53 GMT
Organization: Comp. Sci. Dept., Strathclyde Univ., Glasgow, Scotland.

In article <1992Aug27.105342.25467@cs.hw.ac.uk> neilp@cs.hw.ac.uk (Neil Postlethwaite) writes:
>Comment: A3010 *Green Function keys* yeuch. Still it may appeal to the
>         Nintendo crown I s'pose.

Actually it looks ok - no worse than red function keys anyway.

>	RISCOS 3.1 FINALLY. START THE PARTY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>	(bet there will be massive delays supplying though !!)

And what about the price!  #49 for the lot is another bargain (that price
will stay till mid-1993)

>	All in all this seems like a reasonable shot in the arm. Still
>        a touch expensive compared to the competition (esp the A4000 which
>	is close to the A5000).

Well... they have reduced the A5000 by #100 and doubled the hard disk size,
so that's an improvement.  As for comparing with the Amiga 600, the 600
doesn't have *anything* like the CPU speed of the A3010.

>	Now we know why Acorn were desperate to shit the A3000's over the
>	summer with the tacky special offer.

It's their right to stay afloat - would you rather they went under due to
a few thousand unsold computers in a warehouse?

I reckon now's the right time to write the best game yet for the Arc.  ;)

>Neil

mad@bike
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: kortink@cs.utwente.nl (John Kortink)
Subject: Re: OS differences and improvements
Organization: University of Twente, Dept. of Computer Science
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 10:57:42 GMT

steve@acorn.co.uk (Steve "daffy" Hunt) writes :

>[...]
>As far as the choice of command names goes, I once saw an interesting
>paper in the proceedings of some HCI conference or other.  It
>presented the results of a study into how easy people found it to
>memorise command names.  They found no significant difference between
>memorability of "obvious" versus "abstract" names.

That's the most sensible thing I have heard yet in this never-ending
boring argument about 'good' or 'bad' command names.

When I use Unix, there is nothing cryptic at all about command names
like ls, cat and grep. *You know what they do*, after you use them
a couple of times, and you always do if you use the OS in question
seriously.

Sure, it's annoying that things like DIR and CD etc have slightly
different meanings for Acorn and other machines, but that's something
we have to live with (Acorn's fault principally :-), not to discuss
it ad infinitum. Actually, there's nothing to discuss !

John Kortink

Student of Informatics at the University of Twente, The Netherlands
NETMAIL : kortink@cs.utwente.nl              DISCLAIMER : the usual
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn,comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: smackinla@cc.curtin.edu.au
Subject: GCC for ARM2/3 & pricing info?
Organization: Curtin University of Technology
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 12:47:15 GMT


Hi. Can anyone fill me in on what's been done to port GCC to the ARM2/3
processors? I'm not really interested in binaries for Acorn machines, but
in the source that I can perhaps use as a cross-compiler for an ARM based
machine on my IBM contemptible.

So, has a back end for GCC been written for ARM2/3 processors? And if so,
where can I get the source?

On another note altogether, can anyone give me any current pricing info on
both the ARM2 and ARM3 chipsets (including the ARM250 and ARM600 if it's
actually available yet)?

Pat -- Have a day!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: gtoal@ibmpcug.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: TeX ... not running more than 3 times
Organization: The IBM PC User Group, UK.
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 00:32:03 GMT

In article <1992Aug25.114047.10343@waikato.ac.nz> pdenize@waikato.ac.nz writes:
:I found that Tex cannot be run more than three times due to the following
:command:
:
:*Set Run$Path <Run$Path>, <TeX$Dir>.<TeX$which>Li*., <TeX$Dir>.TeXLi*.
:
:Has anyone fixed this problem before I do ?

Put the run$path stuff in TeX's !Boot instead
of it's !Run
--