HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: gpcec@westminster.ac.uk (Tom Kirby-Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Customising RISC_OSLib, BETT 93
Date: 21 Jan 93 15:31:27 GMT
Organization: University of Westminster

In article <1993Jan21.112631.4972@cs.nott.ac.uk> smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows) writes:
>Where were Arxe Systems? I spent the whole day looking for them, and even
>asked the Acorn Information Providers, but to no avail. Lost without trace!

	The problem was, you where looking for a stand saying "Arxe". No, no,
look for the stand with the Chroma frame store widget... read the small 
notice tacked to the Arc's monitor, which announces that this is in fact
"arxe". Good advertising ;-) Hopefully they'll have sorted this out by Saturday.
-- 
/---| The University of Westminster : BSc Computer Science. Hons, Year 3 |---\
| Tom Kirby-Green            Email : gpcec@sun.pcl.ac.uk  or  Silence@Arcade |
\----------| "ARM or bust, this is a MS-Windows (tm) free zone." |-----------/
From: jmp@visionware.co.uk (John Pullan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Customising RISC_OSLib, BETT 93
Date: 22 Jan 93 09:25:16 GMT
Organization: VisionWare Ltd., Leeds, UK
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5

Tom Kirby-Green (gpcec@westminster.ac.uk) wrote:
: Calling RISC_OSLib users...
: 
: 	Is it ok to mix and match when using RISC_OSLib? For instance
: can I replace...
: 
: 	wimpt_init("LegoCAD");
: 
: 	...with my own ( that lets me pass the messages I'm interested in ).

Well, I had a look at doing this and gave up as being too risky. I
wrote my own routine to register my app as being 3.10 aware, i.e set up
R4 correctly for SWI wimp_initialise. that worked ok. The probelms
came when I started using the xfersend_sendbuf() function which calls
wimpt_gettask (or whatever its called ). Since I hadn't called wimpt_ call
to register my app the task id was not set up in the wimpt module and 
the application crashed. I suspect that if you are using RISCOS Lib then 
you have to build things on top of it and not replace things.


--
John
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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    Tel +44 532 788858.  Fax +44 532 304676.  Email jmp@visionware.co.uk
-------------- "VisionWare:   The home of DOS/UNIX/X integration" -------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: alla0008@student.tc.umn.edu (Graham Allan)
Subject: Re: TeX with more than 65531 words of memory
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1993 18:25:12 GMT

In article <1993Jan27.162120.12000@maths.tcd.ie> chughes@maths.tcd.ie (Conrad Hughes) writes:
>alla0008@student.tc.umn.edu (Graham Allan) writes:
>
>>TooLs GmbH sells a commercial port of TeX which is more recent than the
>>armatures one. I don't know what version it is though.
>If I remember correctly it was 2.93 or summat like that, but they
>may well have updated it since April 1990..  I'm trying to contact
>them myself to see if the product still exists, but the email
>address they gave (tex@tools.uucp) hasn't replied to me.  Does
>anyone know anything about their TeX?  In what way does it improve
>over armatures?

I know Frank Lancaster was working on updating it in summer 1991. I just
had a search through some ancient mbox files on assorted computers and
found what information I had at the time. For the sake of simplicity, I'll
just pass on some of the things he said about it (August 1991)...

> TeX 3.14 has been ported but is not being distributed yet, as we are
> writing a completely new DVI driver, which isn't going to be finished
> before the end of the year. It's going to be programmable in it's own
> (PACSAL based) programming language, and will give the user a great
> freedom of choice for the layout of DVI pages on a sheet.

I thought I had some other stuff about it but seem to have lost it. The
email address back then was: fl%tools.uucp@unido.informatik.uni-dortmund.de
(presumably insert relay of your choice instead of uni-dortmund?). TooLs
also moved their physical address about a year (maybe longer) ago so, yes,
getting in touch with them is tricky!

Graham.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows)
Subject: Re: BJ200 and TurboDriver
Organization: Nottingham University
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 93 12:45:01 GMT

In article <gilbertd.727691872@cs.man.ac.uk> gilbertd@cs.man.ac.uk (David Alan Gilbert) writes:
>There was once talk of CC being on the net,
>can anyone tell me the address, since I want
>to mail a bug report and a moan or two!

CC has a uucp mail link hanging off Acorn Computers Ltd, along with a number
of other companies such as Aleph One, Iota etc.
 
Try the address: support@cconcepts.uucp
I've had mail from them in the past.

Simon
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Burrows   smb@cs.nott.ac.uk  psyhsmb@unicorn.nott.ac.uk  +44 533 712030
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: thompsmr@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mark Thompson)
Subject: Re: Acorn v Research Machines
Organization: Aston University
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL241235]
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 12:33:39 GMT

	Whilst I was still at school a group of our fourth years won a national
maths compertition and won us a brand new Nimbus something or other. The
computer department promptly sold it and bought another Arc with the proceeds.

	However, the older RMs (The RML380Z or whatever) were put to good use
in the computer room - as foot rests.

	RM #1 in education? Yeah, right.


--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   Mark Thompson, Aston Uni, Dept. Elec. Eng   ThompsonMR@uk.ac.aston.spock  |
| "PC Owner?",'Yes',"Good. Out of the door, line on the left, one cross each."|
-------------------Disclaimer: It was like that when I got here----------------
From: barrett@turtle.fisher.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: RO3 Printer Drivers
Date: 25 Jan 93 10:24:33 CDT
Organization: Fisher Controls International, Austin, TX

A friend is trying to use a Cannon 1080A 9-pin dot matrix printer with RISC OS
3.1. Needless to say, it does not work correctly with any of the supplied
printer drivers. It almost works with the FX80 driver, but each page has a
spurious "A" printed on it. 

Problem is caused by the <27><0C> (set form length?) command that is sent
to the printer which causes a <27><0A> command to be incorrectly interpreted.

With the RISC OS 3.0 (with 3.1 ROMS) FX80 driver the problem is not present. 
However this causes other problems as some of the printer driver setup menus
do not work.

Has anyone got a printer driver that will work with RO3.1 and the Canon
printer (or the Taxan Kaga as used with the BBC - same printer) ?

****************************************************************************

There now follows a general moan about Acorn Printer Drivers

****************************************************************************

Acorn introduced a very good idea with the RISC OS printer drivers. This
defines a common interface between applications and printers, thus allowing
applications to share common printer drivers. Compare this to the PC world
where each application used to have to support all printers directly.

However for the Acorn system to be a success, printer drivers have to be made
available for a large number of printers. Acorn have failed to do this,
only a limited number of printers are supported by Acorn printer drivers.
In most cases, Acorn rely on printers being EPSON compatible or whatever - this
allows them to produce a 'generic' printer driver that can be used be a vast
number of different printers. However this leads to problems as many people
are finding out as the Acorn printer drivers do not always work correctly,
even on the printers for which they were designed.

Remember that most computer users use their machines mainly for simple word-
processing. This means that the usefulness of their computer judged by 
their success in printing what they have written. What is required is a list
of printer drivers as long as that supplied with say, Word Perfect. 

Ralph Barrett
Fisher.Rosemount Systems Division
Leicester UK
All opinions, errors etc. are mine and not the companies.

Xref: sparky comp.sys.acorn:10536 comp.sys.acorn.tech:1409
From: smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows)
Subject: Re: Acorn news release: Advance
Organization: Nottingham University
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 13:20:34 GMT

In article <1993Jan22.121746.19679@cs.nott.ac.uk> rsxdp@unicorn.nott.ac.uk (D.Pead) writes:
>Regarding my last message - Ive just registered the fact that they refer
>to a code in the OS ROMS.  Either this is a material inaccuracy on
>Acorns part or my last posting issued from the wrong part of my
>anatomy, sorry.

It sounds more like the person who wrote the news release got their
terminology wrong. It would be a major development if each set of
ROMS had a unique ID number - but then, what about users of older
versions of RISC OS? 

Simon
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Burrows   smb@cs.nott.ac.uk  psyhsmb@unicorn.nott.ac.uk  +44 533 712030
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: andyf@uk.sun.com ()
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Acorn v Research Machines
Date: 22 Jan 1993 13:26:31 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems Ltd.
Distribution: world
Reply-To: andyf@uk.sun.com
NNTP-Posting-Host: yama.uk.sun.com

In article 13225 leo@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Leo Hendry) writes:

>>RM can't escape the fact that the majority of schools buy Acorn
>>equipment. Also, an annual sales revenue doesn't tell you much about
>>their annual sales to education. (Although I can't imagine anyone
>>outside of education buying from RM, but then again I can't see why
>>anyone in education buys from RM either :-) ).
>
>The reason why education buys RM is that individual schools etc. don't have
>any choice - There is a county policy on which make of machines are bought
>which is arrived by somebody who doesn't know anything about computers.
>This should in theory have changed with LMS but it doesn't seem to have (at
>least not at my old school - I suppose they've got so many now that they have
>to stick with them.)

As has been mentioned above, many schools have to buy RM machines because it
is county policy.

Some time back, I was curious about why a certain county that I used to live
in chose to start buying RM when they had always had bought Acorn previously.

The result of my investigation was quite interesting. The sudden policy change
on computer buying was introduced after the appointment of a new IT director
for the county. Guess who this new recruit used to work for.......RM.......
Now, I'm not suggesting that this particular person was in any way biased 
against Acorn, but it does make you wonder.........

Just my two penneth....

Andy.

+--------------------------------------------------+-------------------------+
|     /\       Andrew Fox,			   | Disclaimer:	     |
|    \\ \      Product Support Engineer,	   |			     |
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+----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
From: ajdh@bnr.co.uk (Andrew J D Hurley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Watford Electronics
Date: 28 Jan 1993 09:34:56 GMT
Organization: BNR Europe Ltd, London Road, Harlow, England.
NNTP-Posting-Host: 47.164.64.53

In article <1993Jan27.105517.2173@dcs.warwick.ac.uk> gothick@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Gothick) writes:
>eivind@kih.no (eivind hagen) writes:
>
>>FLAME ON:
>>These guys are serious major league SUCKERS!!!
>>They NEVER ansver ANYTHING, I hate them!
>>FLAME OFF:
>
><Applause>

   ditto


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew J D Hurley ,   <><         |  Email:   A.J.D.Hurley@bnr.co.uk
                                  |   or      Andrew.Hurley.EG40@bnr.ca
BNR Europe Ltd., London Road,     |  route:   uunet!ukc!bnr!ajdh
Harlow, Essex CM17 9NA, UK.       |  Phone:   +44 279 402535
From: cudat@csv.warwick.ac.uk (J M Hicks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Ethernet on the Archimedes
Date: 22 Jan 93 10:25:37 GMT
Organization: Computing Services, University of Warwick, UK
NNTP-Posting-Host: violet.csv.warwick.ac.uk

In article <1993Jan21.100340.2676@dcs.warwick.ac.uk> thughes@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Tom Hughes) writes:
>In article <1jlrkbINNm1n@poppy.csv.warwick.ac.uk> cudat@csv.warwick.ac.uk (J M Hicks) writes:
>>... it doesn't seem possible to display eighty character
>>lines across the screen when using the VT220 terminal emulator (there
>>isn't enough room for eighty characters and the scroll bar), ...
>... Try using MODE 31 as this will give you more width, ...

Tom is, of course, quite right.  I had forgotten about the screen modes
such as mode 31 that give more pixels(?) across the screen.

>rumour has it that this mode is perfectly usable on an Acorn
>Multisync.

Well, I find the characters too small for my liking and the flicker
too annoying.  It's a matter of taste I suppose.
--
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
cudat@warwick.uucp
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: gothick@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Gothick)
Subject: Re: Watford Electronics
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 21:35:22 GMT

In article <C1K9qK.6sH@brunel.ac.uk> cs92dty@brunel.ac.uk (Danny T Yates) writes:
>Has anybody else had a similar problem with Watford?

I've had *many* problems with them, but I'll only describe the latest here.

Sequence of events:

1) I 'phone Watford and ask them if they have their 100Mb drive in stock.
   They say 'yes'
2) I drive to Watford.  They *don't* have it in stock, and haven't for 
   two weeks.
3) I leave $300 cash with them on the promise that they'll send it on
   Monday.
4) 5 1/2 weeks later, it arrives.
5) One month later, I upgrade to RISC-OS 3.1. The drive stops working.
6) 1 1/2 weeks later, I receive the necessary upgrade, having paid $17.50
   for it by credit card on the day I fitted RISC-OS 3.1.

Yes, you could call that a problem.

Matt
-- 
 Matthew B. M. Gibson:
 gothick@dcs.warwick.ac.uk - mgibson@nyx.cs.du.edu -  csudo@csv.warwick.ac.uk
 "Great.  I'm a million miles from home, about to be killed, with a 
  gung-ho iguana who tells me to relax"
Posted-Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 18:25:34 GMT
Received-Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 15:04:32 CST
Via: uk.ac.sussex.syma; Tue, 26 Jan 1993 18:38:02 +0000
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 18:25:34 GMT
From: johny@cogs.sussex.ac.uk (Lord Yak Da Hairy)
To: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Acorn news release: Advance
Summary: 
Followup-To: 
Organization: Order of the Holy Spleen
Keywords:
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn

In article <1k3ibeINN89c@bnsgd245.bnr.co.uk> rocky@nnsgs50.lon40.nt.com (Dave Kennard) writes:
>Further, the NCS price of L20 inclusive of VAT and postage seems
>competetive, is the inclusive price that much cheaper elsewhere?

Last I looked, CJE Micros had plenty of #20 upgrades. No idea what their
postage charges would be, and I don't have contact details, but they
advertise in the Acorn mags.

[No connection with CJE, honest!]

-- John Yeates (Lord Yak Da Hairy) --------------- johny@cogs.susx.ac.uk --
-- "Be a geezer - put grasshoppers in your freezer!" - The Mystery Chefs --
From: ssudavss@csug.cs.reading.ac.uk (Captain_Kwok)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Dongles affecting Printing
Date: 25 Jan 93 10:06:54 GMT
Organization: University of Reading

Has anybody out there noticed a little anomily that happens sometimes to
my system. I have an A5000, RO3.1, Canon BJ10EX and copies of Artworks and
Impression 2.

Sometimes when I try to print something to the printer it won't print anything.
When I look at the printer queue it says that it has done about 4% ( I assume
this has been downloaded to the printer).

Now for the strange part.......

It does this every time I try it until ... I run ArtWorks. This seems to
open up the parallel port and all printing is tickety boo. If I remove the
Artworks dongle I don't get this problem.

Note. I don't have to have Artworks loaded all of the time, I just have to
have run it and quit.

Any Ideas?

Steve
ssudavss@uk.ac.reading
From: rocky@nnsgs50.lon40.nt.com (Dave Kennard)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Acorn news release: Advance
Date: 25 Jan 93 14:58:30 GMT
Organization: Northern Telecom Europe
NNTP-Posting-Host: nnsgs50.lon40.nt.com

In article <1993Jan25.105332.3726@cs.nott.ac.uk> smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows) writes:
>At some stage Acorn has got to stop supporting RISC OS 2 in new software
>releases if good use is to be made of the extra functionality in RISC OS 3.
>RISC OS 3.00 was an interim release - almost a stopgap measure - and I reckon
>that anyone with this version would be well advised to pay the extra #20 to
>get the upgrade. 

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Re: my post of last week - my cheque fo L20 was written on 2nd September
1992 - to their credit (but not their bank balance!) NCS have not yet
cashed it.  Indeed, if they are unable to supply my with the RO 3.0 to 3.1
upgrade within the next 5 weeks, they will have to ask me to write another
one!

As I said last week..

ACORN,  WHERE ARE THE A5000 RO3.1 UPGRADES???

WE WANT THEM - PREFERABLY NOW!!!!

>Simon Burrows   smb@cs.nott.ac.uk  psyhsmb@unicorn.nott.ac.uk  +44 533 712030

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: rws@dstos3.dsto.gov.au
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: PC Cards
Date: 26 Jan 93 10:53:16 CST
Organization: Defence Science and Technology Organisation

With the recent discussion about PC cards for the Archimedes I was wondering
has anyone got one?  The things I am intereted in knowing are the following:

1)  How compatible are they?
2)  What is the windows performance like (given the ARM acceleration factor)?
    (comments for arm2 250 and 3 would be interesting)
3)  What is the non windows graphics performance like? (for example games)
4)  To what extent is VGA supported?  For example is 800*600*16 supported under
windows? Are 256 colour modes supported?
5)  Is there any high speed communication between the "PC" and the archimedes?
    in other words is it possible to use the 386/486 in your archimedes
    programming.
6)  General comments on usefulness and completeness as a PC setup.

##############################################################################
Russell Skingsley                                              Email:
Air Operations Division                                  rws@homer.dsto.gov.au
Defence Science and Technology Organisation             rws@dstos3.dsto.gov.au
         "Since I gave up hope I feel a lot better" - Steve Taylor
##############################################################################
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: steve@klaatu.demon.co.uk (Steve Loft)
Subject: Re: Acorn v Research Machines
Reply-To: steve@klaatu.demon.co.uk
Distribution: world
X-Mailer: cppnews $Revision: 1.20 $
Organization: home
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 20:15:09 +0000

In article <1993Jan21.173350.3032@cs.nott.ac.uk> smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows) writes:
>Annual Sales Revenue:
>
>RM............50 million UK pounds
>Acorn.........35 million UK pounds  
>

All this tells us is that RM's stuff is over-priced. :-)

Steve
-- 
|  Steve Loft                                  steve@klaatu.demon.co.uk   |
|  Doncaster,                                                             |
|  South Yorks.                                                           |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: crj10@phx.cam.ac.uk (Clive Jones)
Subject: Re: Watford Electronics
Telephone-Messages: +44 223 33 4900
Address: Christ's College, Cambridge CB2 3BU, ENGLAND.
Organization: Cambridge University Computer Laboratory
Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1993 18:27:42 GMT

In article <C1K9qK.6sH@brunel.ac.uk> cs92dty@brunel.ac.uk (Danny T Yates) writes:
>Has anybody else had a similar problem with Watford?

YES. They're the biggest load of crooks in the Acorn world, in my
opinion. I have personally never had the displeasure to try and buy
anything from them, but I do know how much hassle they have caused to
several people. Try asking about their PC card - ho ho. Go through one
of their adverts with a Berol Highlighter and mark all the false
statements. Admire their clear indication that the prices are
excluding VAT.

Even better, look at their advertising in PC magazines - if anything,
it's even worse.

One also hears that they and 4th Dimension are the two big offenders
in the advertising blackmail game. i.e. a magazine puts out a review
of one of their products that they don't like, and the company
threatens to stop placing their regular <n>-page mega-advert. Acorn
User now resorts to guarded statements like "although the Watford
Electronics ARM3 upgrade is cheaper, most people with experience of
buying from the two companies will automatically prefer one or the
other" (from memory, so not quite right) when comparing Aleph-1 and
Watford ARM3 upgrades.

Oh, it was also a Watford Electronics salesman, working freelance, who
screwed me out of my royalties on the music for a certain video game.
I eventually figured that it was easier to earn the money again than
to recover it in the small claims court, but I do sometimes regret not
getting the <expletive-deleted>. The guy was working as my agent - I
was younger then. I-8

Gosh, I seem to be a little peeved,

--Clive.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Dongles affecting Printing
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 23:29:38 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

ssudavss@csug.cs.reading.ac.uk (Captain_Kwok) writes:

>Sometimes when I try to print something to the printer it won't print anything.
>When I look at the printer queue it says that it has done about 4% ( I assume
>this has been downloaded to the printer).

Most likely, this hasn't got to the printer, the 4% of the data that has
been 'sent' will be waiting in your computer's printer buffer...

>It does this every time I try it until ... I run ArtWorks. This seems to
>open up the parallel port and all printing is tickety boo. If I remove the
>Artworks dongle I don't get this problem.

I get exactly the same problem with Impression 2's dongle: I can't talk to
my printer (e.g. print from Draw) until I have run Impression.
This seems to be related to the fact that if my printer was turned off when
I turned on my Arc (usually the case), the dongle fails entirely - I can't
use the parallel port, and Impression gives a 'hardware key not found' error.
I can fix this (and do) by unplugging the cable from the printer end for a
couple of seconds, which seems to 'clear' the dongle.
I have an Olivetti JP306 laser printer and an A5000.

The only suggestion I can give you is work out when it fails, and what you
can do to fix it, and then put up with it...
-- 
themasterofthearcanejwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nzthismessagewassentonrecycledelectrons
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn