HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: goodwin@edieng.enet.dec.com (Pete Goodwin)
Subject: SCSI
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 12:09:16 GMT


I've just bought myself a Morley SCSI card; I had a second hand SCSI drive, I
needed the controller for it. I picked the Morley card after ringing around
talking to Oak, Morley and Cumana. Oak was the cheapest, with Cumana and Morley
50 pounds more expensive.

Oak uses a 50 pin IDC connector for external drives, Morley a 50 pin Centronics
and Cumana a 25 pin Dtype. Since I wanted to first try the drive out as an
external I needed to make sure I could sort out the cables. Cumana's 25 pin is
based on MAC; I was a bit surprised when I asked if they supplied details to be
told 'you can work it out from the pcb tracks' - not very helpful!

Anyway, I plugged in the Morley card, my disk drive, and after a bit of
fiddling, got the drive running. I've now got 50Mbytes SCSI - it seems it is
possible to get SCSI cards and odd drives working.

The Morley software as supplied in ROM and on disk made configuring very easy.
The formatter application goes through a few windows (desktop) asking questions
with defaults. I picked 'initialise structure' rather than low level format,
since the drive was already set up. That worked fine. Then I run the configure
program which assigned device 0 to SCSI::4 (basically the CMOS RAM settings).

I've not had any problems yet, apart from some boot files referring to adfs
(like DDE!). The quality of the manual I felt was a bit lacking - also the
external Centronics connector needed tweaking to make a cable plug in.

Pete Goodwin
goodwin@system.enet.dec.com
Date: Sun, 12 Apr 92 14:14:58 GMT
From: gt@sky.gun.de (Guido Thater)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: SLIP 4 the arc
Keywords: slip
Organization: RUCP Cologne

Is there a tool for Single Line IP (SLIP?)

Guido


  Guido Thater				E-Mail:		gt@sky.gun.de
  Universitaetsstr. 77a				 skywalker@pegasus.ch
  5000 Koeln 41				             gt@lutzifer.UUCP
  Germany
							   .
  							  /|
  							 /-|
							/  |rchimedes
From: switham@acorn.co.uk (Sean Witham)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Karma
Date: 16 Apr 92 15:46:59 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

In article <14200@acorn.co.uk> switham@acorn.co.uk (Sean Witham) writes:

>In article <DBH.92Apr8182056@wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk> dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk (Denis Howe) writes:
>
>>
>>And where the hell is a world warmed by gravitational tidal forces?
>
>Dunno, i'll ask the guys who are writing it for you if you like.
>
>I happen to know them. *8-)
>

It appears that Gas giants ARE the places to look, there are about 70 of them *8-)

_________________________________________________________________________

Sean Witham (Xeno)     JANET: switham@uk.co.acorn or xeno@uk.ac.city.cs

The above is my own personal view, as long as it doesn't get me into
any trouble. Any facts are given in good faith I take no responsibilty
for their use, in fact I'd be very surprised if you can understand it
at all after my English/Spelling.
From: dpirie@cix.compulink.co.uk (Douglas Pirie)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: RE: Personal Computer World
Date: 7 Apr 92 23:45:44 GMT
Reply-To: Douglas Pirie <dpirie@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Organization: Gated to News by demon.co.uk

rjb12@unix.brighton.ac.uk writes:
 
  > So I would like to compile a document, containing
  > appropriate comments from you, members of the Acorn
  > community, and send it to PCW. If you folk would care to
  > email me your points of view then ...
 
  You don't have access to CIX, by any chance? There have been a couple of 
long running arguments (for which read battles) in the pcw/letters 
conference in which myself (in small part) and a few others have tried in 
vain to put our case for sensible representation of the Arc. Unfortunately, 
when an Arc owner says "I think the Arc can do this as well as a PC..." it 
seems to get interpreted as "The Arc is the only machine in the world, all 
PCs are crap, and you're all a bunch of ...".
 
  I can't help feeling you're wasting your time, unfortunately, but if you 
can get into CIX there are some interesting (and well put) arguments 
floating around. A name to look for is "lorcan" (Liam Orcan??)
 
 
 
Douglas.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
From: 2105995@hydra.maths.unsw.OZ.AU ()
Subject: PRM error for FAQ list
Organization: Ban the Mac Association (Aust) PTY LTD etc
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 01:54:20 GMT


Someone was saying something about PRM errors needing to be in the FAQ
list.(i have lost the reference)
Maybe we need a Errata et Corrigenda list ( :) )
Anyway, can someone enter the error concerning the CMOS -Ram (remember the
one that created a flame-war?) *FX161 i think it was, anyway, it did
some pretty nasty things with the CMOS. I consider this a pretty worthy
candidate for the FAQ/Errata list.


                                 Cheers!
            __     _  ___    ___     _   _     _     _    _
          //  //  // //__   // \\   //| //|   //|   //|  //
         //_ //  //    //  //      // |// |  //_|  // | //
        //   \  // ___//   \\__// //      | //  | //  |//  
           President of the Ban the Mac Association( Aust. )
              Real Programmers (tm) program in 68000 code
              Real Artists (rm) use Mac-Paint
              Real Musicians (tm) use SoundBlaster Pro Cards
              Real Idiots (c) do all of the above
             reply to : s2105995@spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au
From: banksie@khantazi.welly.gen.nz (Philip R. Banks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Karma
Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1992 19:04:03 +1200
Reply-To: banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
Organization: My Arc.

rjb12@unix.brighton.ac.uk (Browning;f110or89;[05306) writes:

> Yup, I have Karma. The advice about searching around gas giants for
> tidally-warmed bodies is good.

   Why thank you. Nice to know those amateur astronomy nights weren't for
nothing.... :-)

> By the way, why do Karma's pulsars & neutron stars jump around all over the
> place? Is there any astronomical evidence for this?

   None that I know of. Unless they are trying to give the Pulsars a feeling
of 'Pulsing' in the game. The neutron stars should at worst be pulsing in
size slightly but not moving alot. Of course it could be the Auto Pilot is
holding you in an elliptical orbit rather than a 'stellar-stationary' one.
Around bodies of considerable gravitational mass any close elliptical orbit
is going to cause your ship to get flung around like a rag doll....

> By the way (2), Periscope have released v.0.5 of the Flight Trainer - upgrades
> are free (maybe something Acorn should think about with their PC emulator?).

    What I want to know is when is the life simulator coming out. While I
don't have the commercial flight trainer I do have access to a beta test
version of it and to be honest there is only so much relating to stars I can
do ya know? A little interaction between you and other life would be nice.

    Philip

--
Philip R. Banks                                                         @@@@@/|
Syntax: mail <banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz|banksie@khantazi.welly.gen.nz> @@@@/#|
                                                                        @@@/##|
What price the crown of a king on his throne,                           @@/---|
When you're chained in the dark all alone?  ---A.P.P.                   @/    |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Word 5, pagemaker + impression
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 05:06:10 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

ssurawls@susssys1.reading.ac.uk (Mister E) writes:

>This word 5 and impression argument looks like it could be a re-run of the
>RISC versus CISC argument!

Well, here at cs.aukuni, we are still running word 4 because people tried it
and decided it was too flakey (crashed too much) to use...

>Impression has fewer features implemented more efficiently to make it easier
>to use and faster as well. The more complex effects of other packages can be
>emulated with the basic effects in impressions, and the more complex effects
>were only used very infrequently. Making the program more simple made it more
>compact making more space for performance enhancments like caches (font). It
>was discovered during a study by Alan Turing in 1806 that in word 5 documents
>compiled on a PDP-1 using fortran, 20 features accounted for 80% of the
>layout, while 90% of the layout could be covered with 30 instuctions.

You must be mistaken. That was Babbage. Turing was the guy who realised that
a Word-5 document consisted of a small set of symbols that could be
written onto a conceptually infinite paper tape with a canon bj-10e printer.
Of course, the flaw in his reasoning was that a canon bj-10e doesn't come
with a tractor feed as standard - it's an optional extra - so the bigwigs
at Bletchley Park never gave him the budget he needed...

(However, the research at Bletchley Park during WW2 did prove that Word 5
was a superior means for encoding messages, because after Word had been
passed once over any text file, NOBODY could decode it!)

;-) Good to see some real nitty-gritty Acorn discussion on the net at last!
-- 
_________________  "I'd like to answer this question in two ways:
  /____ _ _/_ __       First in my normal voice, and then
 // / //_//_ /_/       in a silly, high-pitched whine." (Monty Python)
From: dhmyrdal@SOLAN.UNIT.NO (Dag H}kon Myrdal)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Acorn
Date: 10 Apr 92 09:16:56 GMT
Organization: University of Trondheim

In article <1992Apr9.105257.5196@cs.hw.ac.uk> Neil writes:
[...]
>	Totally agree. The old chesnut about price reduction is valid too.
>For about #1500 (ex VAT) an A5000, 2Mb, 40Mb IDE, Colour Multisync, LC
>pack. For #1599 Viglens product of the month. 486/33, 4Mb, 100Mb HD, Colour
>SVGA, Windows 3, Dos 5. (choice of 3 case styles Genie Micro 1599, Genie
>Exec and the other one add **ONE** pound only !!!
>
>	Not really much of a choice is it. I'd go for the Viglen personally
>and run Solaris 2.0 for i3/486 when it finally appears.
>

People seem to miss the fact that an A5000 is more exepensive to manufacture
than a PC clone due to development cost and a lot smaller volume production...
But I don't think Neil's example gives that obvious choise:

	 PC                    Acorn                     benefit if PC chosen:
	 ------------          --------------------      ---------------------
	 486/33                roughly=A5000/ARM3        0
	 4Mb RAM               2Mb RAM, 2Mb ROM          about 1Mb =#25
         100Mb IDE             40Mb IDE                  price difference =#100
	 Colour SVGA(1)        Colour MultiSync                           =-#80
	 Windows 3             roughly=Risc OS           0
	 Dos 5                 roughly=Risc OS           0
	 ????                  Draw, Edit, Paint         maybe = -#80 ???
	 ????(2)               Outline fonts             maybe = -#50 ???
	 ????(3)               Printer Drivers           ???
	 ---------------------------------------------------------------------
							 -#85 !!!

(1) According to the price list from one of the Norwegian PC importers,
    a SVGA monitor can be bought from about #200, but if you want a
    multisync, you will have to splash out a further #100
    Other price differences quoted, is from the same source...
(2) Adobe Type Manager, which gives similar performance (IMHO not as good
    as Acorn's, but nevertheless...) is said to be a part of Windows 3.1
    Currently, you have to pay extra for it, though...
(3) When you buy a printer, it is now common practise to get a printer driver
    for Windows with it... (IMHO Acorn's solution is still better... :-)

Of course, this figure is not nessecarily the only one to come out of
a calculation like this. You could easily come to other conclusions if
you wanted to. The point is that Neil's assumption that the PC is
better value-for-money than the Arc is not "The Truth"...


--Dag H.


--Dag Haakon Myrdal,             dhmyrdal@solan.unit.no -
-  Omega Verksted,               ED-avd, N-7034 NTH     -
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From: ee88jmf@brunel.ac.uk (J M Fielder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: >A5000 secrets: 3D icons
Date: 14 Apr 92 11:42:02 GMT
Reply-To: ee88jmf@brunel.ac.uk.brunel.ac.uk (J M Fielder)
Organization: Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK

In article <39180010@hpopd.pwd.hp.com> stuart@hpopd.pwd.hp.com (Stuart Hickinbottom) writes:
>As far as I know the 'solid dragging aware' apps. initiate the drag in a
>different way because they make a call to the supporting module by issuing
>an SWI to it (I assume).

If you have access to a RISC OS 3 machine, just look at the !Alarm
application. That (and all RISC OS 3 Acorn Apps) check the setting of
the *fx 162,128,x state, and if that is set correct, then they set a
flag. They then see if the DragASprite SWI is available. If it is then
they use a solid drag with shadow, otherwise they just call the normal
drag operation.

The DragASprite SWI takes a copy of the sprite to use, and therefore the
call is just the same as the normal drag SWI except you point a pointer to
the sprite and the sprite area.

>All opinions are my own only.
Dito

Joust
From: pcockere@abcl.co.uk (Pete Cockerell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Well done Acorn!!!!!!
Date: 15 Apr 92 09:16:49 GMT
Reply-To: pcockere@abcl.co.uk (Pete Cockerell)
Organization: EO Computer Ltd, Cambridge, UK

In article <1992Apr13.233113.7478@newcastle.ac.uk> D.M.Johnson@newcastle.ac.uk (Dave Johnson) writes:
>
>I have just seen a program about the BBC computer literacy project. It was
>amazing to discover that Acorn had developed a working prototype for the BBC
>model computer in just 4 days. Out of interest how long did the Archimedes
>take?
>
>Dave Johnson

Depends what you mean by `Archimedes'. I think the most impressive bit
about ARM history is that when the very first silicon came back from
VTI (in Germany I think), they plugged into an ARM second processor and
ran ARM BASIC programs, just like that. (Roger had been running ARM
BASIC programs for a while before that, using the ARM emulator running
on an NS16032 [as it was then] machine. He reckoned it was about the
only thing that that processor was good for, and even then it was only
marginally faster than his 4MHz 65C02 ARM emulator.)

Compared to the number of iterations that some other chips take to get
working (the aforementioned National chip springs to mind), I think it
was a fairly remarkable achievement. Of course, there were one or two
minor bugs in ARM1 (like the flags sometimes being set by instructions
that weren't otherise executed because of the condition flags), but
still and all. (In fact even that was a bonus because the need to go to
second silicon gave them the chance to sneak the MUL instructions
in...)

Things seems to have slowed down a bit since then...

Pete
From: mcg@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: XLISP 2.1d?????
Date: 7 Apr 92 12:57:29 +1200
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

Gidday,
      I've had to purge my e-mail (disc quota overflowing) so I've lost
someone's e-mail address.

	Could I get in contact with the person who was sending/going to send me 
the Arc version of XLISP 2.1d?

	Thanx,
		Martin
	(mcg@waikato.ac.nz)

-----------------------***===>>>| Ze Phantom |<<<===***-----------------------
Quote of the day:-TO ERR is human, to REALLY foul things up requires a COMPUTER!
Programmer's Motto #1:- If at first you don't succeed.... USE A BIGGER HAMMER!
From: bdb@cl.cam.ac.uk (Brian Brunswick)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Unix on the Arc
Date: 15 Apr 92 17:28:45 GMT
Reply-To: bdb@cl.cam.ac.uk (Brian Brunswick)
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK

Now we're seeing a free BSD, what are the chances of Acorn freeing
RISCiX, which is mostly unmodified BSD but an old version now?
BSD looks as though it would be realatively painless to port.
We don't have a broken processor, already have a good C compiler...
(though BSD sources (I've been playing with the filesystem) seem to need
pcc mode or at least bits of it) But why bother when acorn's done it.
Come on acorn, how about really stopping all those acorn bashers?
You might even get people to update riscix to recent BSD versions
for free....

That would really satisfy the net community, but perhaps be politically wrong
in that we would all stop developing good RiscOs programs....
But then again maybe we'd all buy two arcs, since riscos gives a really
nice terminal/filer front end...
Brian.Brunswick@cl.cam.ac.uk  Disclaimer.  Short sig rules!
From: pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk (Paul Moore)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: GRAPHDRAW and RO3
Date: 7 Apr 92 22:46:10 GMT
Reply-To: Paul Moore <pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk>
Organization: Gated to News by demon.co.uk

In his message banksie@khantazi.welly.gen.nz (Philip R. Banks) says
 
  > If this is no help then I wonder what is. Summary thanks
  > goes out to these people for their kind help. So how about
  > giving Acorn a break - they are trying very hard to help. Do
  > you really want Acorn to stop offering help over the net? I
  > know I don't.... 
 
Hear, hear!
 
Gustav.
 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Moore (pmoore@cix.compulink.co.uk)      |       Signature-free zone
------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: ssurawls@susssys1.reading.ac.uk (Mister E)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: >: >Bygone computers brought up to date
Date: 13 Apr 92 16:51:33 GMT

Andy Waddington writes;

>marlow@sys.uea.ac.uk (K. Marlow PG) writes [much trimmed]:
>
>>dreid@acorn.co.uk writes:
>>
>>>... (Otherwise the next generation...(showing my age here...)
>>>will not understand the real workings of a computer... just how to work
it.)
>>  Humm.. it is no longer the case that the next generation are required to
>>learn the internal workings of the machine, even most s/w writers don't
really
>>know *how* the computer executes the s/w, all they are worried about is that
>>it does it in a correct and repeatable manner.  It would be a funny world
>>indeed if as part of the driving test you have explain in detail the
>>workings of the internal combustion engine...  :-)
>>
>>
>>   Keith Marlow
>
>I'm sure the world would be a much better place if that was the case. I
>personally hate using equipment whose internal workings I don't understand.

Eee I can just see it now. Walking up to a door and having to dismantle the
lock before opening it. Starving to death because you are too hungry to read
the books that enable you to understand the workings of the human digestive
system. But the real killer is not thinking because you don't know how you do
it!

Ian


Posted Mon Apr 13 17:51:27 BST 1992

=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ 8< =+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Mr Ian Rawlings, Telephone Reading (0734) 662301
	EMAIL ssurawls@susssys1.rdg.ac.uk

>Why do they use powder soap on submarines?
>Because it takes longer to pick up.
From: gjocc@brt.deakin.edu.au
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: X11 on the Acorn?
Date: 6 Apr 92 21:00:27 GMT
Organization: Computer Services, Deakin University, Melbourne

I know you can get X server software for RISC-OS, but what about tools and
stuff for porting or developing X client software for RISC-OS?

Does the RISC-OS X reply on having TCP/IP or can you run X clients locally
on an the same Acorn machine you are using as an X display server?
(without the TCP/IP overheads?)


Greg O'Sullivan
(gjocc@brt.deakin.edu.au)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Isaac Asimov is dead
From: Gavin.Flower@comp.vuw.ac.nz (Gavin Flower)
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 22:20:33 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Dept. of Comp. Sci., Victoria Uni. of Wellington, New Zealand.


In article <14150@acorn.co.uk>, astevens@acorn.co.uk (Ashley Stevens) writes:
|> In article <1992Apr10.174613.20828@unix.brighton.ac.uk> rjb12@unix.brighton.ac.uk (Browning;f110or89;[05306) writes:

                 [bits about Isaac Asimov omitted]


|> Are you suggesting that Acorn releasing a good computer is a piece of
|> science fiction? ;-)

WEll, if it would help sell more machines...


Gavin

-- 
                     Tomorrow's Society
                         Depends on
                     Today's Children  - help us raise them properly!
******* These comments have no known correlation with dept. policy! *******
From: torbenm@diku.dk (Torben AEgidius Mogensen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Unix on the Arc
Date: 15 Apr 92 13:13:02 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, U of Copenhagen

torq@hal.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Andy Mell) writes:

>        If youve had your eyes on the PC public domain scene, you will no 
>doubt have noticed the whole gamut of 'free' unices coming out for the PC,
>specifically, Linux, 386BSD, BSD/386, and Gnu HURD. The first 3 are based
>on BSD 4.3 and the last one a combination of BSD 4.4 and Mach 3.0. Gnu HURD
>is not out yet, but I have access to the development source which runs on a
>386 and the pmax (mips)

>        Do you think its possible to embark on such a venture? and do you
>think its worthwhile? I do, and I know a few other people who read this

I would think Gnu HURD would be the best one to try: Gnu CC has
already been ported to the ARM (Running under RISC iX). Also, Gnu
software tend to be good quality and easily portable. On the other
hand, it would probably require more memory than the BSD 4.3 based
systems.

	Torben Mogensen (torbenm@diku.dk)
From: rjb12@unix.brighton.ac.uk (Browning;f110or89;[05306)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Personal Computer World: ** Update **
Date: 10 Apr 92 11:22:31 GMT
Organization: Brighton Polytechnic, UK

I've had eight replies so far to my request for articles which I can send
en masse to PCW.

I noticed Ian Rawlings' comment about sending letters individually ... fine,
but I think you'll find people will sit up and take notice more if a large 
document crashes down on their table - composed of contributions from people
*around the world*.

I'll wait another week for more contributions to come in. Sometime over the
weekend I'll post a small list of offending articles from PCW so people have
something to shoot at.

So ... keep those articles coming in. Help me flood my mailbox!!

Regards,

Rich.
-- 
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Rich Browning (rjb12@bton.unix)   *   Madness ...
Department of Computer Science    *   ... is merely a state of 
Brighton Polytechnic              *       intellectual independence
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-