HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: breese@monet.imada.ou.dk (Bjoern Reese)
Subject: Re:  New hardware reference guide?
Organization: Dept. of Math. & Computer Science, Odense University, Denmark
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 15:03:05 GMT

In article <alien.00ze@acheron.amigans.gen.nz> alien@acheron.amigans.gen.nz  
(Ross Smith) writes:
> In article <1992Nov10.135706.383@ugle.unit.no> mortene@Lise.Unit.NO (Morten  
Eriksen) writes:
> >>[10 demos for the full range of Amigas?]
> >[10 democoders with access to full range of Amigas?]
> 
> You've missed his point! The whole point of using the OS instead of hitting
> the metal is so that you can write a program that runs on every Amiga
> *without* having them all there to test it on! A demo-writer who writes
> something that only works on the particular machine(s) they have is guilty
> of exactly the sort of thing C='s "no more hardware docs" policy is intended
> to prevent.

How about the Lucasfilm game for the A4000 only? How about all the major
applications which in reality can't run on a A500, due to space and speed
limitations?

> 
> I think C= have got this one right. Don't let the programmers access
> machine-specific hardware, and we won't have anywhere near as much
> frustration with programs that don't work on new machines.
> 

When I buy a new machine, I intend to use it. I am a programmer - therefore
I program. I expect to be able to program as I like. It's my machine, it's
my choice. If I'll make commercial programs, my employees would want me to
make the programs run on any machine... and that's fine. But if I'll make
a demo or whatever, and it works on all machines it's fine... if not, pop
goes the weasel. My choice.

It's my computer, I bought it, and I can use it as I like. If C= wants any
order in the chaos, I think they'll better release a new hardware reference
guide.

--

Bjoern Reese                   |     Email: breese@imada.ou.dk
Odense University, Denmark     |     Voice: +45 65 932 182 (private)
From: mwm@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us (Mike Meyer)
Subject: Re: LISP - USE IT.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Distribution: world
X-NewsSoftware: Amiga Yarn 3.4, 1992/08/12 15:49:52
Keywords: 
Summary: 
Date: 13 Nov 92 00:13:06 PST
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica

In <KENTD.92Nov12113710@zappa.FtCollins.NCR.com>, kentd@FtCollins.NCR.com (Kent Dalton) wrote:
> You forgot GNU Emacs! It's by far my favorite LISP environment. :^)

Whoops; sorry about that. I just don't think of that LISP when it
comes to doing real work; it's to much of an "older" LISP. Now,
whether or not the GNU Emacs modes for the other LISPS work is an
interesting question. One of these days, I'll switch to GNU on my
Amiga, and see....

	<mike
From: bjst@sth.frontec.se (Bjorn Stenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: LISP - USE IT.
Date: 10 Nov 92 13:45:59 GMT
Organization: IDK/Frontec - System Design Group

mwm@contessa.palo-alto.ca.us (Mike Meyer) writes:
> Of course, it's no harder to write a LISP parser that reads in
> algebraic notation than it is for any other language. It's been done a
> number of time, and in those LISPs for which it was done (ITS LISP and
> InterLISP) it it was a generally available feature.
[...]
> I don't think anyone wanted that ability badly enough to perpetrate it
> on new implementations.

Of course. No one wants a new style of an old language. I'm not saying you
should alter LISP to be something else. I'm saying you should dump LISP
completely.

> > There are lots of other powerful and versatile languages which aren't
> > TORTURE to the user.
> Name one. The requirements are:
[ desciption of LISP deleted]

Please don't be silly, that doesn't help the discussion.
Why should I want a new LISP? I said I wanted a powerful script language with
straight, simple syntax which is easy for users (without LISP experience) to
learn. LISP is not such a language.

What languages to Amiga users come across these days?
Fortran? Cobol? LISP?

Nope. It's 'C', ARexx, Basic, Pascal and some others.
Even if every Amiga user can't program, most have seen and can understand
some of the basics of these languages.
A script language for the Amiga should have lots of things users recognize
from the languages they normally see. If it's hard to learn, people won't
use it at all and in that case why did I even bother to implement a script
language?

> Loosing any one of those is TORTURE.

Yes, if you want LISP. I don't. :-)

> Nope - I believe in using the language that is appropriate for the
> task. LISP is appropriate for a large number of tasks.

Very few languages are directly inappropriate, but there's always a few which
are more appropriate than others.

		-- Bjorn

       ///  Bjorn Stenberg, Stockholm, Sweden         bjst@sth.frontec.se
      ///  main() { printf(&unix["\021%six\012\0"],(unix)["have"]+"fun"-0x60);}
 \\\ ///  "- Your documentation no longer confuses me, old version!"
From: bjst@sth.frontec.se (Bjorn Stenberg)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: New hardware reference guide?
Date: 9 Nov 92 20:20:05 GMT
Organization: IDK/Frontec - System Design Group

eeklund@nyx.cs.du.edu (Eivind Eklund) writes:
> The problem is that I want my code to run on older machines too. SO - I
> need some doc on how to find out wether the machine is running the older
> chipset etc...

You don't really mean you want hard core hardware specs just to CHECK for
the hardware, do you?
There are (OS) routines for checking things like that. Please surprise me
with a reason why these routines wouldn't be good enough.

I still see no need for a HW ref. for AmigaDOS users. The search goes on. :-)

		-- Bjorn

       ///  Bjorn Stenberg, Stockholm, Sweden         bjst@sth.frontec.se
      ///  main() { printf(&unix["\021%six\012\0"],(unix)["have"]+"fun"-0x60);}
 \\\ ///  "- Your documentation no longer confuses me, old version!"
From: Dan_E_Babcock@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: cmpi.l #,d16(pc) with SAS6asm, A68K, etc
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 92 09:36:04 PST
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
  <1992Nov9.214255.19498@trl.oz.au>

>It is not a valid addressing mode for the 68K - I haven't got the '020

According to the Programmer's Reference Manual (the official 68K family
programming manual), d16(pc) is a valid EA for cmpi on the '020+ only.

Dan
From: epa@phys.ksu.edu (Eric P. Armstrong)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: LISP - USE IT.
Date: 11 Nov 1992 17:41:34 GMT
Organization: Kansas State University
NNTP-Posting-Host: bohr.phys.ksu.edu

In <BxIru5.K2r@fc.hp.com> koren@fc.hp.com (Steve Koren) writes:

>> A script language for the Amiga should have lots of things users recognize
>> from the languages they normally see. If it's hard to learn, people

>Do you think ARexx is a common language?  If you want something lots of
>people will understand, why not use an interpreted C as your
>interprocess scripting language?  Lots of folks would know that.  At
>least, a whole lot more than will grok ARexx.

Actually REXX is a fairly common language.  The campus mainframe (IBM
Beast) uses it, OS/2 uses it, and a couple of interpreters for unix
exist, commercial and otherwise.  I personally found it rather funny
when CBM adopted it as a script language since it was originally an
IBM product on IBM machines :-)  I would have rather seen something
more like perl with appropriate extensions used.  I don't know about
lisp, I'd rather use scheme.  (But then I see the people in the class
that uses scheme here on campus do. (Recursion, What's that?))

>   - steve
--
epa@phys.ksu.edu
From: schwamb@guppy.micro.umn.edu (Peter William Schwamb)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: PowerVisor 1.42 ????????????
Date: 13 Nov 92 17:25:51 GMT
Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis: Under Grad Workstation Lab.
Keywords: debug
Summary: Where is Power Visor 1.42 ??????????

I read somewhere that the author of PowerVisor released a new version 1.42 
and it is supposed to be out on the nets.

I CANT FIND IT ANYWHERE!   If someone has it, or knows where it is available,
please tell me.  I tried many places including wuarchive, amiga.phyich, 
nic.funet.


Thanks in advance.

 Pete Schwamb			schwamb@mermaid.micro.umn.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: koren@fc.hp.com (Steve Koren)
Subject: Re: LISP - USE IT.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 21:32:29 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Fort Collins Site
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1.3 PL5

> I'm saying you should dump LISP completely.

Ack!  When they pry it from my cold, dead fingers, maybe...

> Why should I want a new LISP? I said I wanted a powerful script
> language with straight, simple syntax which is easy for users (without
> LISP experience) to learn. LISP is not such a language.

I think it _is_ such a language.  Lets consider the parts of your
request:

  - Powerful.  LISP is certainly very powerful.

  - Straight, simple syntax.  I can't think of any language I've learned
    which has a more straightforward and simple syntax than LISP.
    Consider: you have lists, and that's just about all.  Control
    structures are lists.  Macro facilities are lists.  Variable
    assignments are lists.  Scoping constructs are lists.  Function
    definitions are lists.  Lists have a trivial syntax that takes maybe
    10 seconds to learn if you are having a bad day.  What could be
    simpler?  The only thing you really _need_ that isn't a list is a
    comment, and even then, it would be trivial to define a new list
    form called "comment" so comments could be lists too.  No irregular
    syntax to memorize like you have in ARexx, C, etc.

  - Easy to learn.  I think I got a basic fluency with LISP faster than
    pretty much anything else.  Granted, it is hard to _master_ it, but
    that is because it is so powerful.  But to get a basic fluency with
    the language is not hard, because you don't have to worry so much
    about learning different syntaxes for each of many language
    constructs.  Also, if you don't like prefix notation, you can change
    it without too much difficulty.  In fact, I bet I could write a LISP
    program in just a few lines which changes standard prefix LISP to
    postfix LISP, and it could be done on the fly also.  Try changing
    your C compiler to let you use pre or postfix C operators!
    (ie, a = 1 2 3 4 +; not even #define magic will let you do that).

> What languages to Amiga users come across these days?
> Fortran? Cobol? LISP?
> Nope. It's 'C', ARexx, Basic, Pascal and some others.

Depends on the user.  I use C the most (90%), LISP next (8%), and ARexx
last (2%).  I only use ARexx to glue things together, not to write
programs in.  To me, ARexx's only redeeming value is that someone,
probable while drunk (:-), picked it to use as an interprocess script
language.  But there's nothing about that which LISP couldn't do in a
more structured manner.

> A script language for the Amiga should have lots of things users recognize
> from the languages they normally see. If it's hard to learn, people

Do you think ARexx is a common language?  If you want something lots of
people will understand, why not use an interpreted C as your
interprocess scripting language?  Lots of folks would know that.  At
least, a whole lot more than will grok ARexx.

   - steve
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: jamie@cdevil.unx.sas.com (James Cooper)
Subject: Re: cmpi.l #,d16(pc) with SAS6asm, A68K, etc
Originator: jamie@cdevil.unx.sas.com
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 14:47:20 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <1992Nov9.214255.19498@trl.oz.au>, aduncan@rhea.trl.OZ.AU (Allan Duncan) writes:
>From article <1dlshuINN6f6@werple.apana.org.au>, by bytey@werple.apana.org.au (Chris Hames):
>>     It seems most assemblers think cmpi.l #,d16(pc) is an invalid
>> instruction when it is valid as far as I know and good old Aztec will
>> pass it and Resource will disassemble.
>>
>>     So are the assemblers just assuming that because most of the time the
>> stuff on the right is a destination and hence cannot be pc relative or is
>> it only available on 68020+ or something ?
>
>It is not a valid addressing mode for the 68K - I haven't got the '020
>book here to check on whether it became valid for it.
>CMP and CMPA both support it, but I presume you know that.

Interesting.  The "M68000 Programmer's Reference Manual" from Motorola
shows this as a valid addressing mode for this instruction for the whole
M68000 family...

-- 
---------------
Jim Cooper
(jamie@unx.sas.com)                             bix: jcooper

Any opinions expressed herein are mine (Mine, all mine!  Ha, ha, ha!),
and not necessarily those of my employer.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: aduncan@rhea.trl.OZ.AU (Allan Duncan)
Subject: Subtasks, IEEE library pointers - y.a.Q
Organization: Telecom Research Labs, Melbourne, Australia
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 20:59:21 GMT

I watched with interest while the knowledgable amongst us discussed the
topic of shared pointers and subtasks, coming to the conclusion that
sharing for the Maths at least was A Bad Thing.
Various panacea were put forward for SAS v6, particularly the use of an
appropriate pragma.  While this is quite clear for the subtask case, I
am interested in moving onto a SubProcess that is not load-seg'd (ie
inline with my main code), with the purpose of using DOS from it.

For the most part this seems straight forward, by I wonder what happens
if I do a printf( "%f...) - whose IEEE pointer gets used (the main
program, I think) _and does it matter_ (I think so)?

Allan Duncan		ACSnet	 a.duncan@trl.oz
(+613) 253 6708		Internet a.duncan@trl.oz.au
Fax    253 6664		UUCP	 {uunet,hplabs,ukc}!munnari!trl.oz.au!a.duncan
    Telecom Research Labs, PO Box 249, Clayton, Victoria, 3168, Australia.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: csg019@cch.coventry.ac.uk (-~=Zaphod=~-)
Subject: Re: New hardware reference guide?
Organization: Coventry University
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 11:57:22 GMT

In article <1992Nov5.184557.17342@sth.frontec.se> bjst@sth.frontec.se (Bjorn Stenberg) writes:
>breese@monet.imada.ou.dk (Bjoern Reese) writes:
>>`ample speed' huh? What if you still own an old and slow Amiga (which is what
>>the majority of the game-playing people do) ? Sure, the software will run nice
>>and smoothly on the new machines, but imagine running an `access-to-the-
>>hardware-through-the-OS-only' game on an old machine.
>
>You're forgetting something here.
>There *ARE* no old, slow machines with this hardware (AGA) and there won't
>ever be any with less than a 68020 inside, which will guarantee 'ample speed'
>for your code.

So are you saying we dump all the amiga's without the AGA chipset? 

Thats a few million amigas.



-- 
******************************************************************************
*        ///  O O   A member of S.H.I.T. (Super High Intelligence Team) ///  *
*       ///    u    Fight, defeat and kill organized laming.           ///   *
****\\\X//****\-/********csg019@uk.ac.cov.cck ok ?**************** \\\X//*****
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: walker@twix.unx.sas.com (Doug Walker)
Subject: Re: SAS/C 6 ctrl-c killer?
Originator: walker@twix.unx.sas.com
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 13:51:05 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <Bob_Rye.05m0@guru.apana.org.au>, Bob_Rye@guru.apana.org.au (Bob Rye) writes:
|> 
|> Hello all, I have just converted my source file over to SAS/C version 6,
|> and have finally got it compiling without error! The problem is that the
|> ctrl-c break checking is still working even though I have used:
|> 
|> int CXBRK(void)                                                            
|> {                                                                          
|> return(0);
|> }
|> 
|> and chkabort() in the same way. How do I stop SAS/C 6 from reading ctrl-c
|> breaks? Thanks in advance!
|> 

Look up chkabort() in the manual.  The name has changed to __chkabort(),
you need to use the new name.  (Note TWO underscores).

The name for CXBRK has changed to _CXBRK.  (ONE underscore).  However,
you do not need to replace _CXBRK.  Replacing __chkabort will remove
all references to it.  This was also true in V5.x.

The name changes were made to bring the library into conformance with
the ANSI specification, which states that the library functions that
are not mandated by the standard must begin with either two underscores
or one underscore and a capital letter.  This is so you can safely
code all names that don't fit this criterion without having to worry
about whether you are accidentally running into a predefined name on
some other compiler someplace.

|> Bob!
-- 
  *****
=*|_o_o|\\=====Doug Walker, Software Distiller====== BBS: (919)460-7430 =
 *|. o.| ||                                          1200/2400/9600 Dual
  | o  |//     For all you do, this bug's for you!
  ====== 
usenet: walker@unx.sas.com                            bix: djwalker 
Any opinions expressed are mine, not those of SAS Institute, Inc.
From: hadig@rama.informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Thomas Hadig)
Subject: Bug in SAS/C 6.0 library : strstr ()
Summary: Bug in strstr (SAS/C 6.0) : strstr can't handle empty strings
Keywords: strstr, SAS/C 6.0
Organization: Rechnerbetrieb Informatik  /  RWTH Aachen
Date: 13 Nov 92 11:11:22 GMT

Hi,

i have found a bug in the SAS/C Amiga 6.0 library function strstr :

char * strstr (char *s1, char *s2);

strstr searches the substring s2 in the string s1 and returns the
starting address of the substring s2 in s1 or NULL if not found.

BUG :

If you call strstr with an empty string s1, strstr will continue the
search instead of returning NULL.

Example :

char s1[]="\0test";
printf ("%d\n",strstr(s1,"test")-s1);

Output will be 1.

(Has been reported to EMITS)

Bye,
Thomas

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thomas Hadig, Otto-Petersen-Haus Zi.1009, Ruetscher Str.155, D-51 Aachen
       hadig@rog.rwth-aachen.de
       hadig@pool.informatik.rwth-aachen.de
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: fletcher@netcom.com (F. Sullivan Segal)
Subject: Re: What is wrong with this very simple c program?
Organization:  bottom up!
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 20:10:38 GMT

In article <1992Nov10.184406.25907@sol.UVic.CA> aramsey@ugly.UVic.CA (Aaron  Ramsey) writes:
>guru error on this is 81000004. I can't figure out why such a simple program
>should be doing this. I tried setting my stack very very high to see if
>that made any difference (stack 200000) but it still did the same. If I use
>Here is the code.
>
>#include <stdio.h>
>
>main()
>{
>   int zoop[1000];
#   define ZOOPMAX 1000
#   define ZOOPINC 5
    int zoop[ZOOPMAX];
>      int counter;
>	 
>	    printf ("started....");
>	       for (counter = 0; counter < 5000; counter += 5) {
	       for (counter = 0; counter < ZOOPMAX*ZOOPINC; counter += ZOOPINC) 
	       {
>		     zoop[counter] = counter;
		     zoop[counter/ZOOPINC] = counter;
>			}
>			   printf("done....");
>			   }
>
>
>			   Well... I hope somebody can see my mistake....
>
>			   -Aaron  
>

All C arrays are indexed by ones, beginning at zero.  To access by fives,
divide down to ones.

P.S.  
    Really ugly indentation style. 

--
                           -F. Sullivan Segal
_______________________________________________________________
 _
/V\  E-Credibility:  (n -- ME) The unguaranteed likelyhood that
 '   the electronic mail you are reading is genuine rather than
someone's made up crap.
_______________________________________________________________
Mail to: fletcher@netcom.com
From: peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: Listview -vs- Intuiticks
Date: 6 Nov 92 22:50:49 GMT
Reply-To: peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Commodore-Amiga, Inc.  West Chester, PA.

In article <1992Nov6.131900.5867@cci632.cci.com> den@cci632.cci.com (Dennis J. Buttery) writes:
>I'll try this again, seeing as I did not receive any responses last time!

If you try to limit your postings to 80 colums (instead of hundreds),
more people could read them...  Now back to the question:

>I took a romp through the RKM's and found that the IDCMP_LISTVIEW flag
>is sub-defined with the INTUITICKS flag.  My question is...  How can I use
>Listview gadgets without getting this stream of INTUITICKS waking up
>the application??????

You must be able to handle INTUITICKS.  Fortunately, a well-written
event loop has no problem handling (in your case, basically ignoring)
INTUITICKS at the relatively slow rate (10 a second) that they arrive.

Unless you're doing something upon every message without first checking
to see if it's a class you really care about, there shouldn't be a problem.

>                                              -DJB-

     Peter
--
Peter Cherna, User Interface Development Group, Commodore-Amiga, Inc.
{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!peter    peter@cbmvax.commodore.com
My opinions do not necessarily represent the opinions of my employer.
"I believe it's bad luck to be superstitious."
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
From: walker@twix.unx.sas.com (Doug Walker)
Subject: Re: SAS/C 6.00 problems
Originator: walker@twix.unx.sas.com
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 13:59:27 GMT
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.


In article <1992Nov5.181414.23233@cnmss.tredydev.unisys.com>, efb@cnmss.tredydev.unisys.com (Edward Bacon) writes:
|> Some one recently praised scmsg, and I would like to add my $.02.
|> I really like it and the "openness" it provides to integrate
|> editors, the compiler and make.  I had a few problems using the
|> TurboText scripts provided.  I discovered that you must define the
|> SAS environment (assigns and path) before starting the rxmaster.
|> If you do not do this, build cannot find sc (when started from
|> TurboText).

True; lots of people have discovered this.  Glad you figured it out
on your own.  (We learn more about the product from the users every
day 8^)

|> NFS: As TurboText has a different port for each document, I would like
|> to set the portname that scmsg uses for the editor in a more dynamic
|> fashion (e.g. by an ENV variable or AREXX command to scmsg).  I have
|> written a script to figure out the document port and use it to goto
|> line number of the selected error, but I'm telling scmsg to talk to
|> AREXX first.

There is an undocumented AREXX command in SCMSG that will set the 
AREXX port name.  (It was implemented at the last minute, too late
to document, but it will be documented online in the upcoming 6.1
patch release.)  Use

    'opts portname whatever'

to set the REXX port name in scmsg.

-- 
  *****
=*|_o_o|\\=====Doug Walker, Software Distiller====== BBS: (919)460-7430 =
 *|. o.| ||                                          1200/2400/9600 Dual
  | o  |//     For all you do, this bug's for you!
  ====== 
usenet: walker@unx.sas.com                            bix: djwalker 
Any opinions expressed are mine, not those of SAS Institute, Inc.
From: mk59200@cs.tut.fi (Kolkka Markku Olavi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: New hardware reference guide?
Date: 5 Nov 92 11:41:07 GMT
Organization: Tampere University of Technology
NNTP-Posting-Host: naakka.cs.tut.fi

In article <36661@cbmvax.commodore.com> peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) writes:
>In article <1992Nov03.173522.27765@bmerh85.bnr.ca> Hamish.Macdonald@x400gate.bnr.ca (Hamish Macdonald) writes:
>>What about those wanting to write their own operating system?
>
>Easy.  Build it on top of the lower-level primitives.  Instead of considering
>the hardware as the bottom level, consider the graphics view/viewport and
>rendering primitives to be the "bottom" level.

Is it possible to completely replace the exec.library with something
like the Mach or Amoeba microkernel and continue using the graphics.library?

--
	Markku Kolkka
	mk59200@cc.tut.fi