HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: /G=Owen/S=Smith/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk
Subject: International Currency Sybol
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 11:34:21 GMT

ahersee@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Andrew Hersee) wrote:

>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

>               \.-./
>                | |
>               /`-'\

>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 ?

If you're talking about the character on the same key as the pound sign,
it's the International Currnency Symbol. It means "a random unspecified
currency" so you can stick it in front of a number and people know that you
are talking about a monetary quantity in an unspecified currency. That's the
theory anyway. In practice it's a minefield. The character appears at all
sorts of different locations in various different character sets (says he
putting his X.400 mail hat on) and has a nasty tendency to get used as a
catch all in character set conversions so you mail a dollar sign and it
comes out as an international currency symbol and vice versa. Indeed
Americans can be particularly insular about this - the standard X.400
character set (IA5 IRV - International Alpabet 5, International Reference
Version) is only 7 bit and it doesn't have a dollar sign or any other
currency symbol except the international currency symbol. Various American
customers of the company I worked for (Data General) insisted that we use
this character position for shipping around dollar signs instead. We
resisted (on the basis that it was wrong and that they and the systems they
were talking to should instead use a 16 bit character set) until they
threatened to take their money elsewhere, at which point we did them a
grungy patch :-(.

My advice - avoid this character like the plague. It's a top bit set
character too, which is another reason to avoid it if you want file
portability (anyone tried putting it on a DOS disk and then seeing what
MS-DOS thinks of it?).

Owen.
From: kers@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Chris Dollin)
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 1992 09:47:19 GMT
Subject: Re: Windows and Pains :-) OK, Panes ...
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Laboratories, Bristol, UK.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech

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

  In article ..., kers@hplb.hpl.hp.com (Chris Dollin) writes:
  > What is the *advantage* of defining a window to be a pane? I mean, when you
  > move the parent window, you have to move the pane *yourself* -- the WIMP
  > doesn't do it for you. What does making it a pane give you over making it
  > an ordinary window and tracking opens of its logical parent?
  > 
  > I read the WIMP section of the PRM several times, looking for an answer, 
  > some time ago, but found one not. Can anyone enlighten me?

   Look on page 1151 of the RO2 PRMs! Basically, panes *are* entirely up to the
   application to handle. The pane bit is only used:

     To highlight the tool window if the pane gets input focus
     To treat a pane as transparent if toggling the tool window's size

   The explanation also, incidentally, remarks that care should be exercised in
   choosing the order of window opening to avoid unnecessary redraws...

Looks to me, then, that a summary of your answer is "none" [*1]. (I read p1151.
Given all the other stuff you have to do, giving the main window the focus when
inside the pane is no big deal. And what does it mean, ``treating the pane as
tranparent when toggling''?)

[*1] Ie, there's no point in bothering with panes.
--

Regards,    | "C gains much of its vaunted efficiency by employing a very
Kers.       | powerful pre-processor, usually called a ``programmer''."
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: thughes@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Tom Hughes)
Subject: Re: removable mass storage ( Syquest, Floptical )
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 16:34:37 GMT

In article <1ej06qINNd7g@iraul1.ira.uka.de> S_TILLENBURG@iravcl.ira.uka.de (|S| Stephan Tillenburg) writes:
>I read flopticals can read only MS-DOS standard formats
>( 9 sectors per track on DD and 18  sectors per track on HD )
>but you can't read 10 sectors per track on DD - disks

As I understand it, current flopticals can read MS-DOS discs but not
Acorn discs. This is because the firmware for the floptical drives
assumes that the first sector on each track will be sector 1 (as per
DOS discs). Acorn discs start as sector 0. A recent magazine (BAU
about 2 months ago I think) said that Acorn was trying to get the
floptical manufacturers in the states to change this.

>( As I mentioned before - this is not my own experience with flopticals )

Same here.

Tom.

============================================================================
Tom Hughes, CS3

thughes@uk.ac.warwick.dcs            57 Shakleton Road
csugk@uk.ac.warwick.csv              Earlsdon
                                     Coventry
(0203) 673584                        CV5 6HT
============================================================================
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: troeste@Lise.Unit.NO (Trygve R|ste)
Subject: Re: MFM Harddisc size
Organization: Norwegian Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 92 16:26:18 GMT

In article <1992Nov17.180524.42564@urz.unibas.ch>, gaspar@urz.unibas.ch writes:
 > In article <1992Nov17.105656.22343@csd.uwe.ac.uk>, r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk (R Voisey) writes:
 > > In article <1992Nov16.103443.42555@urz.unibas.ch> gaspar@urz.unibas.ch writes:
 > >>As far as I can remember, the biggest harddisc size you could use with a
 > >>Archimedes 410/1 was around 50 Meg. under RISC OS 2.
 > > 
 > > You can use most drives up to around 80Megs quite easily, though for drives
 > > bigger than 50Megs you have to swap a link (to change sector size I think).
 >                                / ^^^^^^^^^^^
 > Could someone tell me what this means? 
 > I bought a second hand 80Meg Harddisk quite cheap. The problem is that it has
 > 9 heads and when I enter that parameter I get a message that I might! 
 > swap link 3 or something like that.
 > I'd be very happy if someone could enlighten me on that subject.
 > 
 > 
 > > Cheers
 > > 
 > > Bob
 > > -- 
 > >   Robert J. Voisey  :  r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk
 > >          -- Probug Software Developments --
 > > 162 Staplehill Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, Avon, England
 > -- 
 > 
 > THanks
 >           laci

I have used (and given up) two 80mb Imprims MFM drives on my 410/1. I had to 
switch a link inside the machine to select 9 heads. (I don't remember the exact 
link, but I may find it out). But what I want to tell is that these drives has
not worked well on my Arc. They both started to make an annoying 'click' sound 
after some months in use. It appeard more and more frequently. Sometimes when I 
tried to access them, the machine just hang, waiting for the drive to come up or 
something. This way I lost a lot of files, because the machine was hanging when I 
saved data. It seems that it is problems between the Arc and the drive, because
the drives has worked well on PCs after being used inside the Arc. I am now using
a 120mb Conner IDE drive with ICS IDE-podule/software which works perfectly
(even with RO3.10!)

A problem could be the number of sectors. To be able to read/write to the drive,
I had to format it with 32 sectors/track on the Arc. On the PC I used 17 (which
is the right size). Does ADFS use I kind of soft-sectoring? It looks like that,
because standard 40mb Seagate drives, has to be formatted with 32 sectors/track,
and they work well.

-Trygve
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: blacka@logica.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: problems with time on RISCOS 3.1
Date: 19 Nov 92 19:39:05 GMT

I recently discovered a number of problems in RISCOS3.1time
handling
  1.  C time() returns wring value if GMT is set
  2.  !Alarms generate spurious time change events
  3.  Time on DOS disks viewed on RISCOS is different from
      PC version
Has anyone else seen these?

1.  CLIB time() function returns a date other than today.
    - only  if the time is set to GMT (as opposed
     to BST) using Alarm Set Clock.
    The following lists the output of
       *time
       *today    (see C source below)

    BST
        Wed,18 Nov 1992.23:28:45
        18 Nov 92 23:28  ( internal 2b0ad1ad)
    GMT
        Wed,18 Nov 1992.22:29:08
        31 Mar 94 00:57  ( internal 2d9a1fdd)

2.   !Alarm seem somehow to create spurious time change
     events (see Alarm -> Alarms ... )
     The first two are genuine, the last for the 28th Feb
     is !Alarms invention

    Sunday, 28th March 1993
    2:00 am     This is an application alarm set by Alarm.

    Sunday, 24th October 1993
    2:00 am     This is an application alarm set by Alarm.

    Monday, 28th February 1994
    2:00 am     This is an application alarm set by Alarm.


3.  The time on DOS format disks is about half an hour
    different from that read on a real P*rs*n*l C*mp*t*r

    DCG          WR/     Text      10:58:52 10-Nov-1992  460 bytes
    DCG                460 10-11-92  10:13a

Andrew Black


Source for C program
--------------------
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int main(void)
{

   char text [64] ;
   time_t tod;  /* today */
   struct tm *l;
   time(&tod);

   l=localtime(&tod);   /* unpack */

   strftime(text,256,"%d %b %y %H:%M",l);
   printf ("%s  ( internal %x) \n",text ,(int)tod ) ;

}
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: /G=Owen/S=Smith/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Getting 3rd Party Filing Systems To Use Showfree
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 16:31:18 GMT

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

>The FreeSpace module knows, initially, how to deal with ADFS, RAMFS, NETFS,
>NFS and SCSIFS. Other filing systems have to register by calling:

(...details of SWIs and handlers deleted...)

Actually using this is a bit tricky. Brian Brunswick has working code which
uses this in Memphis (possibly not the released version). The biggest
problem is that when the FreeSpace module calls your handler routine, you
are in User mode and R13 points to the FreeSpace module's private stack in
it's workspace. This is of zero gauranteed depth ie. you can't use it, so
you have no stack (unless you want to over-write random bits of RMA). So you
need to supply your own stack, or not use any stack, or call SWI OS_EnterOS
to get the SVC stack. You can ease the problem by doing as little work
yourself as possible eg. call SWI OS_FSControl 49 (get free space) to do all
the work for you for free space reason code 2 (the other option for IDEFS
is to call IDEFS_DescribeDisc).

Next problem, FreeSpace calls you with the return address on the stack (the
one you can't use for anything) rather than in LR.

OS_FSControl 49 - reads free space on the disc or image file that holds a
specified object.

Entry:  r0 = 49
        r1 = pinter to name of object (null terminated)
Exit:   r0 = free space
        r1 = largest creatable object
        r2 = disc size

If you pass adfs::4.$.PC.Drive_C.DRDOS.TMP in r1, the information returned
in r0-r2 will be for the PC hard disk image Drive_C and not ADFS drive 4.

All of the above information is in the grey cover photocopied PRMs that were
available at the the Acorn User show.

It's a shame you can't do *ShowFree on a per directory basis, because if you
could then you could get a free space display for your PC partition. Also
since RISC OS 3 can get the free space of any image/disk on any filing
system, it's a shame the FreeSpace module doesn't just use this. Then filing
systems wouldn't have to bother with all this registering lark. These sound
like things for Nick and Andrew's filer improvements package to me.

You can intercept the *Free call made by IDEFSFiler with:

*SetMacro Alias$Free If "<Wimp$State>"="desktop" then ShowFree -FS
<FileSwitch$TemporaryFilingSystem> %0 else %Free %0

This should be enough for you to bolt interactive free space display on top
of any RISC OS 2 filing system you may have, unless IDEFSFiler does a *%Free
rather than *Free in which case you'd have to sit on OS_CLI in some way :-(.

Owen.
From: crj10@phx.cam.ac.uk (Clive Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: PipeFS
Date: 21 Nov 92 23:48:49 GMT
Organization: 6am Digital Playground
Telephone-Messages: +44 223 33 4900
Address: Christ's College, Cambridge CB2 3BU, ENGLAND.
X-Furry-Character: Gerald_Duck

In article <1992Nov19.205326.365@logica.co.uk>, blacka@logica.co.uk writes:
> Can someone explain pipefs to me. I gather you can write to
> pipefs::afile and someone else can read it.
> 
> My machine (RISCOS 3.1) just gives you unknown filling
> system.

The solution to this is simple - the filing system is PipeFS, but the prefix
is Pipe:. Try booting two task windows, and doing *BUILD Pipe:TestFile in the
first, and *TYPE Pipe:TestFile in the second. Then type into the first window.

--Clive.
From: drushall@cs.man.ac.uk (David Rushall)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Palette switching in Mode 15
Date: 16 Nov 92 16:55:53 GMT

I have a number of 'Spectrum 512', a 512-colours-on-the-screen picture format
for the Atari ST, which I would like to view on my A5000. The images would
fit on a Mode 15 screen, and could be displayed in all their glory if I had
some code to display a mode 15 screen, with a pallete switch at the beginning
of each scan line.

Would any kind person happen to have some code to display a mode 15 screen
in this way, that they were prepared to let me have? Or even some code to
display 'Spectrum 512' images?

Ideally, the code should work on any Acorn machine (obvious exceptions
disregarded), but if it only works with A5000/RO3.0 then that's good enough.

Any help would be appreciated,
Dave.

PS: If you do send me your code, please be assured I shall not distribute it
further without your concent.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: alla0008@student.tc.umn.edu (Graham Allan)
Subject: Re: INFO:Step by step disassembler.
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 16:22:48 GMT

In article <Bxwrup.KIs@dei.unipd.it> valerio@sabrina.dei.unipd.it ( Valerio Pulese ) writes:
>
>I have downloaded sarah but it isn't what I need .
>(good piece of software however)
>Is there something that could do a step by step run-mode.

Grasping at straws here, but wasn't there a debugger in the old
Programmers Toolkit thing. Let's see, there was asd and something called
either dbg or debug. One was the symbolic debugger; the other was a
machine-code debugger which could, I think, single step through code. It
could work through the serial port if you wanted to use an external terminal.

This was back in Arthur days, so who knows if it still works under RISC OS
3.1? I don't think I've even used it under RISC OS 2... which is why I
can't remember much about it! Anyway, if someone can confirm this would do
the job, the toolkit package is long defunct, so you might be able to pick
up a copy cheaply somewhere. I guess there must be similar (up-to-date)
tools with Desktop C, or Assembler, but that's not much good to you.

Graham						allan@mnhep8.hep.umn.edu
From: blacka@logica.co.uk
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: PipeFS 
Date: 19 Nov 92 20:53:25 GMT

Can someone explain pipefs to me. I gather you can write to
pipefs::afile and someone else can read it.

My machine (RISCOS 3.1) just gives you unknown filling
system.

Andrew Black
From: adamd@rhi.hi.is (Adam David)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Removable mass storage (Syquest,Flopticals...)
Keywords: Archimedes World
Date: 21 Nov 92 18:25:11 GMT

In <1992Nov20.193123.5780@cs.nott.ac.uk> smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows) writes:

>I'd recommend that you take the Syquest option at the current time. Each
>cartridge holds at least twice as much as a Floptical, and they work at
>hard disc speed, rather than flopticals which work at roughly the same speed
>as floppy discs. Syquest cartridges are also very robust.

Flopticals work about 3 times as fast as floppy drives on ordinary floppy
media. I don't have the figures for floptical disks handy, but it is closer
to hard disk performance than you suggest. If access to ordinary floppies
and data portability is not a consideration, one of the best options is a
128 MB rewritable optical disk drive. The physical format of the disks is
completely standardised, so with the right software any such disk can be
used in any computer which has these drives. Syquest is out on a limb by
comparison. Make sure the SCSI driver handles removable media properly
(always dismount disks before removing them) or data will get lost whatever
drive is chosen.

--
Adam David (adamd@rhi.hi.is)
From: dseal@armltd.co.uk (David Seal)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Handedness (was Re: Arm data sheets wanted.)
Date: 19 Nov 92 12:01:29 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: A.R.M. Ltd, Swaffham Bulbeck, Cambs, UK

In article <1992Nov12.102455.18141@odin.diku.dk> torbenm@diku.dk (Torben
AEgidius Mogensen) writes:

>J.Herbert1@lut.ac.uk (John O'Malley) writes:
>
>>Arm can be contacted on Janet at:
>
>>			uk.co.armltd
>
>Note that if you are outside Great Britain, the address should be
>
>			armltd.co.uk
>
>You know, the Brits drive on the left and read their addresses from
>the right ;-).

Sorry, not entirely true. We Brits drive on the left, and most of us write
email addresses from the left (e.g. armltd.co.uk). It's really quite
consistent... Unfortunately, there seem to quite a lot of people around, who
for some odd reason use left for some things and right for others. These
include many Europeans and Americans, who drive on the right and write email
addresses from the left, and the British JANET (Joint Academic NETwork, I
believe) designers who write email addresses from the right and (hopefully
:-) drive on the left.

Note for the humour-impaired: :-) :-) :-)

David Seal
dseal@armltd.co.uk

All opinions are mine only...
From: unregistered@newcastle.ac.uk (Jason O'Broin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Noticing when Shutdown is activated
Date: 19 Nov 92 13:25:23 GMT
Organization: Computing Laboratory, U of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK NE1 7RU.



Is there anyway of intercepting the RiscOs 3.1 Desktop shutdown mechanism? I need
to be able to do some processing before this is allowed to continue.

In addition to this, I need to be able to distinguish between this and Exiting
the desktop (ie. closing down the desktop is not the same as starting the
shutdown procedure). Does anyone know the actual operations performed by
shutdown. Ideally, I'd like to replace it completely.

Many Thanks,

Jason O'Broin
(nmsc084@uk.ac.newcastle.turing)

( 'To make some kind of difference                           QUEENSRYCHE
   Then everyone must know,                                    'Speak'
   Eradicate the fascists, Revolution will grow'        Operation : Mindcrime )
From: RMokady@acorn.co.uk (Ran Mokady)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Getting 3rd Party Filing Systems To Use Showfree
Date: 19 Nov 92 16:55:21 GMT
Organization: Acorn Computers Ltd, Cambridge, England

>
>Actually using this is a bit tricky. Brian Brunswick has working code which
>uses this in Memphis (possibly not the released version). The biggest
>problem is that when the FreeSpace module calls your handler routine, you
>are in User mode and R13 points to the FreeSpace module's private stack in
>it's workspace. This is of zero gauranteed depth ie. you can't use it, so
>you have no stack (unless you want to over-write random bits of RMA). So you
>need to supply your own stack, or not use any stack, or call SWI OS_EnterOS
>to get the SVC stack. You can ease the problem by doing as little work
>yourself as possible eg. call SWI OS_FSControl 49 (get free space) to do all
>the work for you for free space reason code 2 (the other option for IDEFS
>is to call IDEFS_DescribeDisc).
>

 This is not quite as bad as you try and present it ...

 By the same token, you are never guaranteed that there is any free space on
the SVC stack, and so should check every time before you push a register.

 The routines are called in USR mode, WITH SUFFICIENT STACK SPACE !

 Sufficient stack space means that you should not go around allocating
buffers out of the stack, or using deeply recursive algorithms, but you
should have no problem if you are just pushing a few registers on the stack.

 In fact, I'd be surprised if you ever get called when there are less that
256 bytes free on the stack, but don't quote me on it :-)


 In fact, from having a second look at the code, for some of the reason
codes you may be called in SVC mode, so don't go round allocating a stack
and making R13 point to it, or you may end up corrupting the SVC stack
pointer!


>Owen.

        Ran.


-----                    
RMokady@acorn.co.uk          |
Ran Mokady                   |  "We're children, Needing other children
Senior Software Engineer     |   And yet letting our grown up pride
Technical Support            |   Hide all the need inside
Acorn Computers              |   Acting more like children than children"
Cambridge, UK.               |
From: r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk (R Voisey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: MFM Harddisc size
Date: 17 Nov 92 10:56:56 GMT
Organization: University of the West of England, Bristol

In article <1992Nov16.103443.42555@urz.unibas.ch> gaspar@urz.unibas.ch writes:
>As far as I can remember, the biggest harddisc size you could use with a
>Archimedes 410/1 was around 50 Meg. under RISC OS 2.

You can use most drives up to around 80Megs quite easily, though for drives
bigger than 50Megs you have to swap a link (to change sector size I think).

Cheers

Bob
-- 
  Robert J. Voisey  :  r_voisey@csd.uwe.ac.uk
         -- Probug Software Developments --
162 Staplehill Rd, Fishponds, Bristol, Avon, England
From: crj10@phx.cam.ac.uk (Clive Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: removable mass storage ( Syquest, Floptical )
Date: 23 Nov 92 17:02:06 GMT
Organization: 6am Digital Playground
Telephone-Messages: +44 223 33 4900
Address: Christ's College, Cambridge CB2 3BU, ENGLAND.
X-Furry-Character: Gerald_Duck

In article <1992Nov21.163437.15129@dcs.warwick.ac.uk>, thughes@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Tom Hughes) writes:
>
> As I understand it, current flopticals can read MS-DOS discs but not
> Acorn discs. This is because the firmware for the floptical drives
> assumes that the first sector on each track will be sector 1 (as per
> DOS discs). Acorn discs start as sector 0. A recent magazine (BAU
> about 2 months ago I think) said that Acorn was trying to get the
> floptical manufacturers in the states to change this.

Acorn's not the only one. You will notice certain companies being very careful
to say that it can use existing 3.5" media, rather than that it can read
existing Acorn-format discs.

I know at least one company that is holding on to its release of flopticals
until Acorn-format DD and HD discs are supported - the manufacturers HAVE
committed themselves to fixing this problem, but it seems to be taking longer
than expected...

--Clive.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech