HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Mr. Iconise (again (again (again (...))))
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 03:59:21 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

OK. I have now verified that I'm doing exactly the same with my
Iconise code as everybody else is... I have several chunks of other
people's code in C and BASIC, and they are all but identical.
However, other people claim that thei code works, while mine suffers
from odd problems...

Those people who think they have got iconisation working, could you
please test one thing for me? Does it work on a 'blank' (unbooted)
RISC OS 3.10 machine?

I find that if I RMKill Pinboard, and then start it up again when
booting the desktop, my iconisation works perfectly.
If, however, I hold down shift when resetting to stop it booting, so
that Pinboard is not killed & started up, iconisation fails to work.

Is this problem due to some weird vagary of my code, or is it a bug
in Pinboard? The mere fact that I have a *Desktop <file> command
starting the desktop up instead of it being the default "language"
seems to have some kind of odd effect on Pinboard...

Can you get your code to work with Pinboard if you set the default
language to something else, and use *desktop to get going?
-- 
_________________  "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)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: tbwa1@phx.cam.ac.uk (Bruce Adam)
Subject: PC keyboard on an A3000?
Followup-To: tbwa1@phx.cam.ac.uk
Keywords: Keyboard
Organization: U of Cambridge Computer Lab, UK
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 12:05:28 GMT

I would like to re-box an A3000 and replace the existing keyboard with a
professional PC keyboard or something similar. I am aware of the alt keyboard/
mouse pads in the machine, and am also aware that I'd have to build some hardware
to get it to work. What I'd like to know - has anyone done this or does anyone
have any suggestions? Specs. on the Arc keyboard coding / PC keyboard coding
would be useful.

Any help at all would be appreciated, 'cos I'm not happy.

Cheers

Bruce Adam



Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: /G=Owen/S=Smith/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk
Subject: A4 power down
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 13:50:01 GMT

>torh@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Tor Houghton) wrote: 

>Whenever I boot up my A4, I get this boring/annoying message - "The
>system was previously shut down because the battery was exhausted." Now
>- this has never happened, so why in God's name does it appear all the
>time?

That message is printed on startup if bits 6-7 in CMOS RAM byte &1C (the
famed DragASprite byte) are set to 1. 0 means last shutdown was OK, 1 means
due to battery failure, 2 means due to battery failure and the auto shutdown
procedure failed to complete, and 3 is undefined. However having printed the
message, the Switcher then clears those bits back to 0. They should only get
set by !BatMgr if your battery dies on you. So the intriguing thing here is
why you keep getting this message. Is something in your boot sequence
messing with your CMOS RAM?

Try manually setting those bits to 0 or even to 2 (you get a different
message with 2), do a hard reset and see what happens. Setting the bits to 3
is also worth a try - the window should display a message telling you the
shutdown state is invalid.

Owen. (owen.smith%gb.interspan.sj-research@mhs-relay.ac.uk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: ahersee@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Andrew Hersee)
Subject: Re: Sprite dragging/New Filer/Replacement Toolsprites
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 1992 13:19:54 GMT

Hello again,

I have just finished adding another hack to my Filer module soon to be joined
with Nick's. It does the following:

 When closing the root directory of an archive with adjust the directory 
 containing the archive is opened.

This is done by looking for 'arcfs#' or 'SparkFS#' at the beginning of the
title bar and then working out via calls to the relevant archiver to find
out the path name. Can anyone out there think of any other filing system
which it would be useful to add a hack for?

Andrew Hersee

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                     Email: ahersee@dcs.warwick.ac.uk
                Snail Mail: Andrew Hersee
                            The Red House
                            Tallington
                            Nr. STAMFORD
                            Lincs
                            PE9 4RP

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: styrrell@nyx.cs.du.edu (Stuart Tyrrell)
Subject: Re: Modula 2/3
Organization: University of Denver, Dept. of Math & Comp. Sci.
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 15:33:47 GMT

crj10@phx.cam.ac.uk (Clive Jones) writes:

>I believe a standalone Modula-2 compiler for the Arc exists - it has certainly
>been mentioned since the days of Arthur, and the old APCS!

Acorn reckon they had a M2 compiler for their own internal use in the
early days, but they have no intentions of releasing it to us (I mean, the
Arc's so good, it doesn't really NEED a nice lovely structured language
like M2/3, does it? Acorn would rather we hack around in C)

Stuart.

All views expressed are mine only (except when I get in trouble for them,
when it's anybody's fault!)

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: osi@zombie.oulu.fi (Ossi Lindvall )
Subject: curses.h
Organization: University of Oulu, Finland
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 15:41:09 GMT



is there a port of curses to the ARC?
From: veijalai@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Tony Veijalainen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Sprite dragging/New Filer/Replacement ToolSprites
Date: 12 Nov 92 16:07:13 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

Mik Davis (davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk) wrote:
>   hum, editing filenames isn't very 'RiscOS-like' and could incurr the wrath
> of Apple ltd.

(Following is based on my experience from Arthur days to present RISC OS
2 days on Acorn Archimedes "A340M")

I second ! A name is associated with a file and to get in renaming mode
when try to drag from name is really annoying. How about a
"rename/save/move  as" window when single-clicking file shift press
(analoguous to shift drag).

A major lacking point in addition of tree view in Acorn filer is that it
doesn't keep track of the size of selected files and it does not allow
selection in multiple directories. Also very annoying is when you click
menu over one filer window when you have one file selected in other window and
get it used in info (not really an contradiction in previous sentence).

One problematic point in RISC OS interface is the way it use adjust drag
or click.  In one place it means keep menu/window showing, in other
context it means "make directory disapear after double click"! So mayby
it would be appropriate to stress in documation this two adjusts: the
drag/click one and double click one.  But the adjust drag copy with
adjust is the inconsistent one, that mayby we must live with!

Hint of week: if you want to make a filer window with only bottom corner
showing and do not use a back drop program, then you can rid of it by
adjust draging a file on background!

>   Space conversion would be nice, I agree but what would the filer do on

No, no, no !!! If you want space use alt-space. I'd very much like if
names with alt-space would also be shown in double quotationmarks
outside desktop (like in systemvariables etc)

Is there BTW still problems with paths with pseudo-filesystems in them
and are IconSprites, Obey etc now all multitasking? Are macroes finally
truly working?

-- 
Tony Veijalainen	e-Mail: Tony.Veijalainen@helsinki.fi (preferred)
 		(finger veijalai@plootu.helsinki.fi for more information)
From: ahersee@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Andrew Hersee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: New Iconizer
Date: 9 Nov 92 12:46:17 GMT
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England

Right then, Can someone please help me. I am writing a new Iconizer
for RO3. In Acorn's docs they state:
  
  When a new iconizer starts up:

                    It broadcasts a Message_WindowInfo with
 
                    +20 0.   (Window handle 0)
                    +24
                    
                    An iconizer receiving this message should reopen 
                    all iconized windows, and quit.

                    All applications should ignore such a message.

Below is an extract from my code which basically shows you what I am
initialising the task with and the message I am broadcasting. Can
anyone out there explain what I am doing wrong? Why won't Pinboard
open all it's iconized windows and then let me claim any
message_windowinfo messages?


 message_iconize=&400CA
 message_windowinfo=&400CB
 message_windowclosed=&400CC

 mess%!0=17
 mess%!4=18
 mess%!8=&400C8
 mess%!12=&400C9
 mess%!16=&400CA
 mess%!20=&400CB
 mess%!24=&400CC
 mess%!32=0
 SYS "Wimp_Initialise",310,&4B534154,"Iconizer",mess% TO wimp,us%

 !bk%=56:bk%!12=0:bk%!16=message_windowinfo
 bk%!20=0:bk%!24=0
 ignorewindowinfo=TRUE :So that we know not to quit when we receive it
 SYS "Wimp_SendMessage",17,bk%,0
 myref=bk%!8
 

It looks as though I may have to write my own Pinboard which would be
a real pain since Pinboard is quit fast at redrawing the background.

Thanks


Andrew Hersee
From: ee91mds2@brunel.ac.uk (Mark D Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: DragASprite in the Filer Window
Date: 8 Nov 92 12:48:55 GMT
Organization: Brunel University, West London, UK


In article <1992Nov5.120310.6954@aston.ac.uk> Mik Davis writes:
:ernie@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Ernest Ong) writes:
:: shunger@waikato.ac.nz wrote:
:: : 
:: : "Is it possible to make the filer dragasprite (and text) by patching the 
:: : filer ?" -this would make the UI consistant and look *FANTASTIC*.
:: 
:: Me too, I would love to get filer to 'DragASprite'.
:: Any info much app.
:
:  erm - see the discussion on "ForceADrag" which apparently is a module 
:which RiscUser published a while back to do just this.

No, 'ForceADrag' only forces old (Risc-OS 2) apps to use DragASprite from
save dialogue boxes.

Regards,

-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|  M    M   AAA   RRRR   K  K   Janet email: ee91mds2@brunel.ac.uk            |
|  MM  MM  A   A  R   R  K K    Subject: Microelectronic Systems Design       |
|  M MM M  AAAAA  RRRR   KK     Establishment: Brunel University, U.K.        |
|  M    M  A   A  R R    K K                                                  |
|  M    M  A   A  R  RR  K  K                                                 |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: crj10@phx.cam.ac.uk (Clive Jones)
Subject: Re: Modula 2/3
Telephone-Messages: +44 223 33 4900
Address: Christ's College, Cambridge CB2 3BU, ENGLAND.
Organization: 6am Digital Playground
X-Furry-Character: Gerald_Duck
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 22:38:39 GMT

In article <1992Nov11.124610.22046@infodev.cam.ac.uk>, jna10@cl.cam.ac.uk (J.N. Abley) writes:
> And while I'm here, has anyone ported a modula 2/3 compiler to the Arc?

I believe a standalone Modula-2 compiler for the Arc exists - it has certainly
been mentioned since the days of Arthur, and the old APCS!

Modula-3 certainly doesn't exist for RiscOS3, and it is my suspicion that it
never will, at least in its DEC/SRC incarnation. To say that the compiler is
grungy is an understatement, and it's quite heavyweight - you'd need a good
few megabytes of RAM, and tens of megabytes of hard disc.

> I had an idea that most m2/3 compilers actually "compile" to C, so
> a port might not be all that hard...

It DOES, incidentally, work OK on RiscIx - the Lab (cl.cam.ac.uk, that is) has
it running - I just doubt they keep it all on the local hard discs...

--Clive.
From: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: ADFS maps
Date: 9 Nov 92 13:15:47 GMT
Organization: Aston University

ijp@doc.ic.ac.uk (Ian Palmer) writes:
: In article <1992Nov9.113440.11646@aston.ac.uk> davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis) writes:
:    
: >  As no-one else had ever mentioned this, I assumed it was a problem with RO3.0
: >and just urged the owner of the A5000 to get the upgrade asap.
: >  Were you running RO3.1??
: 
: Nope, still using damn 3.00 (still waiting for 3.1, and waiting, and
: waiting.............................:-( ) But it was ArcFS that I was
: using at the time, but I didn't think it could have been anything
: particularly to do with it, as I would think (and hope) that is only
: uses legal OS calls, thus it must be a problem with (at least) RO3.00,
: which only seems to be highlighted when using ArcFS 2.
: 

  This certainly seems to be the case (ArcFS 2 and RO3) has anyone else had this
problem
  More to the point, has anyone else found a less drastic solution to it...

-- 
___________________________________________.
 Mik Davis at Aston University, Birmingham |   .  .  __          .
                                           |   |\/|  | \  _,_  _  _
E-Mail: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk           |   |  |. |_/ |_| \/ |/_'
From: J.Herbert1@lut.ac.uk (John O'Malley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: RE: Arm data sheets wanted.
Date: 11 Nov 92 13:43:32 GMT
Reply-To: J.Herbert1@lut.ac.uk (John O'Malley)
Distribution: eunet
Organization: Loughborough University, UK.

Arm can be contacted on Janet at:

			uk.co.armltd

	I'm afraid I don't know who to contact... sorry.

				Jim.
-- 
==================================================================
|  James Herbert	|				         |
| J.Herbert1@lut.ac.uk 	|	You see that PC compatible....   |
|	        	|	That's you that is.	         |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis)
Subject: Re: Sprite dragging/New Filer/Replacement Toolsprites
Organization: Aston University
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 12:02:28 GMT

ahersee@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Andrew Hersee) writes:
: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis) writes:
: >  As this project would seem to involve altering the filer in a fairly major
: >way, how about allowing directories to have sprites anyway (rather that having
: >to use up one of your characters labelling it) I don't know whether this would 
: >be anything like possible realy though.
: >  If we must have a 'special character' to mark a directory which has an icon
: >then can we have somethin unobtrusive like '-' NOT '*' or '?' etc. "~' might
: >be quite usefull...
: 
: Well I used to not have a label like you suggest. But the problem I had with
: this was that if another application went and did an IconSprite to include a
: sprite for it's windows and it so happened that I had a directory called that
: my sprite would get redefined. (Good example Arch World's Waiter program
: often had a sprite called Games)

  yes, I know what you are saying but there ought to be some way of getting 
around this using filetypes, after all, what are filetypes for if not to
do what 'filename extensions' do in DOS etc. And where's the point in having a
special filename character/extension when the directory has (presumably) a 
unique filetype anyway. What is needed is a system whereby a sprite is only
used for a directory if the name matches *AND* the file it's being used for
is of type 'directory'.

: 
: I now use a special character I never have used '*'. In my original letter I
: used * since the character I use does not exist in unix. I did in fact
: state this in the article. The character I use is the one that looks like:
: 
: 
:                \.-./
:                 | |
:                /`-'\
: 
: Well nearly anyway :-) Nothing uses that at the moment and I have never seen
: a sprite in the icon sprite pool with that character in it. Anyone know what
: that character is called ?

  I don't know what it's called but you are probably right about it not getting
used much.

-- 
___________________________________________.
 Mik Davis at Aston University, Birmingham |   .  .  __          .
                                           |   |\/|  | \  _,_  _  _
E-Mail: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk           |   |  |. |_/ |_| \/ |/_'
From: smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: real time and IIC
Date: 5 Nov 92 19:27:40 GMT
Organization: Nottingham University

In article <Bx8x68.3ID@dcs.ed.ac.uk> gst@dcs.ed.ac.uk (George Taylor) writes:
>At the risk of bringing up the subject of IIC_Control again I recently 
>made the following observation:
>
>Using the call with the previously mentioned parameters (I do not intend 
>to post these) I managed to get my A5000 real time clock to stop counting...
[stuff deleted]

>I would have thought that the newer machines might not suffer from this 
>problem. An A3010 in Dixons suffered more severe symptoms though I didn't
>have the operrtunity to look at it in detail.

Why didn't you get the opportunity? Were you chucked out of the shop for 
damaging one of their computers..? Doesn't sound a good idea.

Simon
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Simon Burrows   smb@cs.nott.ac.uk  psyhsmb@unicorn.nott.ac.uk  +44 533 712030
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: alla0008@student.tc.umn.edu ()
Subject: Re: RiscOSLib for ISO-Pascal
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 05:46:45 GMT

In article <BxDLw7.DHH@ibmpcug.co.uk> gtoal@ibmpcug.co.uk (Graham Toal) writes:
>Oh - I should have said this earlier; I only recently discovered that Acorn
>ad released Edward's excellent Pascal to the world, non-commercially.
>
>*FULL MARKS* to acorn for an excellent decision.  It really was the
>right thing to do given that you had good reasons not to market it.
>
>I was wondering though - it des *not* seem to have been well publicised.
>Why don't you arrange with one of the magazines (BAU?) to publish it
>as a cover disk?  That would be a major coup for a magazine and excellent
>publicity for Acorn.

This is an excellent idea - but it might need to have quite a lot of other
bits and pieces included for it to be useful to many people (ie, those who
don't already have Desktop C). It would need to have the FrontEnd module,
etc, and the linker, to start with, and maybe the 'C' libraries too. Now,
*that*, as a fully-functional Pascal setup, would be an amazing
non-commercial release! Probably rather too much for Acorn to contemplate
though... I guess the libraries account for most of the cost of the C
package. I just can't help feeling there might be a lot of disappointed
people when they realise they have this Pascal compiler but can't use it
without buying Desktop C or Assembler. Not Acorn's fault, but you can see
how it might rebound publicity-wise. Still a nice idea, well worth
thinking about. 

Graham						allan@mnhep8.hep.umn.edu
						gta@st-andrews.ac.uk

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: nas20@cl.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith)
Subject: Re: Sprite dragging/New Filer/Replacement Toolsprites
Reply-To: nas20@phx.cam.ac.uk (Nick Smith)
Organization: U of Cambridge Comp Lab, UK
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 13:43:28 GMT

In article <1992Nov12.120228.26592@aston.ac.uk> davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis) writes:
>ahersee@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Andrew Hersee) writes:
>: davism@uhura.aston.ac.uk (Mik Davis) writes:
>: >  As this project would seem to involve altering the filer in a fairly major
>: >way, how about allowing directories to have sprites anyway (rather that having

My first comment on seeing today's posts to c.s.a.t was WOAH! While, yes,
a lot of suggestions may be useful to Acorn for future official versions of
the filer, we are doing a patch hack without the benefit of 'real' source
code. I for one want to do the minimum possible to the filer to get the
results we are looking for.

As far as the development of the project goes - I volunteer to write all the
filer patch/hack code. Since Andrew mentioned apps, I nominate him to write
some nice apps ;-) Seriously, if you send me your modified filer Andrew, I 
could start work on integrating/expanding/etc - what do you think ? I don't 
think it is possible for 2 people to work on the same small piece of code - 
not in assembler anyway!

The way I am proposing to do this is to make the minimum possible patches
to the filer - which then communicate with another module which contains the
bulk of the code, provided SWI's, *commands, etc.

Re: all the toolsprites/etc. would anyone who does these like to email me
with them ? I will collect them, and then post them all in one archive to
Newcastle/etc when we have a reasonable collection.

New idea: Paul Fidler <praf1@uk.ac.cam.phx> suggested ages ago that we should
write a hack which maintains 2 or 3 sprite pools which are used as the
Wimp sprite pool depending on whether you are in low, high, or high mono
modes. When you change mode, you get the correct sprites. I think I will
put this is the main hack, since it is such an excellent idea! Just the sort
of thing Acorn might have/should have done ... Of course they probably
argue that most of their 'educational market' only ever use 1 screen mode,
and they are probably correct ...
--
Nick Smith, Rm.226, Churchill College, Cambridge ! Email: nas20@uk.ac.cam.phx
.sig quote wanted - must be under guarantee.     ! Tel: (0223) 465596
From: cabr07@ccsun.strath.ac.uk ("G.N.Sinclair")
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: IFEL ARM3
Date: 5 Nov 92 18:18:25 GMT
Organization: Strathclyde University Physics

In article <720892086.11951@minster.york.ac.uk> tjh-a@minster.york.ac.uk writes:
>
>Has anyone seen the IFEL advert for an ARM3 with connections
>for access to address/data busses for (they say) you to 
>connect an FPU. Has anyone seen this board yet? Is it available
>yet? How much is the FPU going to cost if it is released (by 
>IFEL, I presume)?

I sent for further information.  The card is listed as (if I remember
rightly) costing 179 pounds - introductory offer.  They freely admit
that the card is untested with an FPU and say that IF it works then it
should be regarded as a bonus.  I guess the price will rise when/if they
confirm that it works.

Gordon.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Receiving message 0x502, and win' Work Area flags...
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 00:53:25 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

gpcec@westminster.ac.uk (Tom Kirby-Green) writes:

>wimp library - I figure its the ONLY way to learn ). Now the problem is I
>don't seem to be receiving Message_HelpRequest from the !Help app.
>        This message no. is 0x502. Now I know I can pick up messages because

Are you sure? I though it was 0x501... and the Helpreply was 0x502 (or is
my memory failing me again?!)

An easy test to do is to put a debugging 'printf' into your message handler
and print out the recieved message numbers... I use

bbc_vdu(26); bbc_vdu(4); /* get the cursor in VDU4 mode at top left of scren*/
printf("Message number: %x", blah);

or you could just use the printf, and redirect your programs output to
a file
(in !Run, change
  Run <Obey$Dir>.blah
to
  Run <Obey$Dir>.blah > <Obey$Dir>.output
)

This way, you'll know *what* messages you're actually recieving, which is
always a good place to start working out why nothing's happening...
-- 
_________________  "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)