HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Improved filer
Date: 20 Dec 92 01:08:04 GMT
 <1992Dec15.131442.22909@reks.uia.ac.be> <gilbertd.724595093@cs.man.ac.uk> <1992Dec18.134353.1@vxdesy.desy.de>
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

burke@vxdesy.desy.de writes:

>You don't need a separate window, you can set the hot-key bit on the filer
>window. The problem is more one of clashes between a foreground application and
>hot keys (e.g. DeskEdit traps just about every normal keycode). You really need

WHY?
You can only have a filer-selection in a single window anyway, so where
is the problem with simply placing the input focus in the filer-window when
the selection is made, just as you would if, for example, you selected a piece
of text in !Edit or an object in !Draw... Why should a filer window be any
different?

-- 
_________________  "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: lorcan@avistic.demon.co.uk (Lorcan Mongey)
Reply-To: lorcan@avistic.demon.co.uk
Subject: Size of text in outline font?
X-Mailer: ReaderS for the Acorn Archimedes
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 00:48:10 +0000

In article <1992Dec10.103203.23111@reks.uia.ac.be>
derijkp@reks.uia.ac.be (Peter De Rijk) writes:

> The subject sais it. Could anyone tell me how I can get the size of a
> certain string in an outline font from BASIC. (I haven't got the PRM's) 
 
DIMbuffer%&100
string$="Hello world"
$buffer%=string$
SYS "Font_FindFont",,"Trinity.Medium",16*10,16*10 TO handle%
SYS "Font_StringWidth",handle%,buffer%,&FFFF,&FFFF,-1,LEN(string$)
    TO ,,len%
PRINTlen%
 
len% is in millipoints.
 
Lorcan
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: amclintock@cix.compulink.co.uk ("Cray Communications, Alex McL")
Subject: Re: Excessive Quoting [was Re: the Wimp_Poll blues]
Reply-To: amclintock@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 16:54:00 +0000



>Please can people try to keep quoting to a minimum? It is a great waste
>of time, bandwidth etc. We're supposed to be busy people, you know.
And some of us have to pay for phone bills!

AlexMC
From: pdenize@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Arch+Terminal, Yes I have it !!!
Date: 14 Dec 92 17:11:28 +1300
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand

>>: Has anyone got any info on connecting a terminal to your Arch and then using
>>: this to access the command line, leaving the Arch running the desktop.
>>: I have been thinking along the lines of using a taskwindow..but have had
>>: no real (working!) ideas.

I think I have Joe's Terminal stuff.  I have written it into C and it goes
really well.  I haven't tested it yet so .. (lets say, if I were Acorn) ... 
its ready to go.  Anyone wanting it early I might send it to, if I get lots of
replys then I might stay up late and then post it to Newcastle.

The last thing I remember is it dropped a char or two at 19200 baud, and the
configuration (although menued) was still hard coded.  There is also a problem 
when the user of the terminal types things like taskwindow, and the alerts are
sent to the desktop - it can quickly turn into a small game of annoy the other
user.

Paul Denize

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Denize                                Internet: PDenize@Waikato.ac.nz
Department of Computer Science
University of Waikato                         phone: ++64 7 8562-889
Hamilton                                                          Ext 8743
NEW ZEALAND                                   fax  : ++64 7 8560-135
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: burke@vxdesy.desy.de
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: variables (was: Re: Finding the CSD)
Date: 20 Dec 92 18:47:26 GMT
Organization: (DESY, Hamburg, Germany)

In article <1gvqktINNimb@flipper.pvv.unit.no>, dhmyrdal@flipper.pvv.unit.no (Dag H}kon Myrdal) writes:
> I think that the following should work:
> *set tmp <foo>
> *setmacro <foo> <tmp> <thing>
> *unset tmp
> But I have to admit that I have not tried it... :-)

No; *set tmp <foo> will set tmp to the current *value* of foo. What you want is
to get at the equivalence string, otherwise it stops being a macro.

e----><----p | Stephen Burke           | Internet: burke@vxdesy.desy.de
 H   H   1   | Gruppe FH1T (Liverpool) | DECnet:   vxdesy::burke (13313::burke)
 H   H  11   | DESY, Notkestrasse 85   | BITNET:   BURKE@DESYVAX or SB2@UKACRL
 HHHHH   1   | 2000 Hamburg 52         | JANET:    sb2@uk.ac.rl.ib
 H   H   1   | Germany                 | Phone:    + 49 40 8998 2282
 H   H 11111 | HERA, the world's largest electron microscope!
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: /G=Owen/S=Smith/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk
Subject: Re: High res Colour Printing in RISC OS 3.1
Organization: Yale CS Mail/News Gateway
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 14:59:09 GMT

maupb@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Mr J L Saunders) wrote:

(In reply to my stuff about not doing interlaced colour dot matrix
printing.)

>Why not just print the yellow first? This seems obvious to me.

Indeed for horizontal interlacing this is actually what happens. I realised
this while writing the technical documentation for the PRM. So 360 by 180
would be safe, but it'll probably still look bad because 8 head passes is
over the top. Anyway 180 by 180 on a 24 pin printer is fine, what isn't is
120 by 72 on an 8 pin printer, which is the maximum resolution without
interlacing. 240 by 72 would also be feasible, but what you really want is
120 by 144 which is vertically interlaced and so the yellow would overprint
on dark colours. To print the yellow first, you'd need to reverse feed the
paper by 1/216". A lot of printers don't support reverse paper feed at all,
and those that do tend to do it inacurrately. The sequence would be:

Yellow pass, forward paper feed 1/216 inch
Yellow pass, reverse paper feed 1/216 inch
Cyan pass, forward paper feed 1/216 inch
Cyan pass, reverse paper feed 1/216 inch
Magenta pass, forward paper feed 1/216 inch
Magenta pass, reverse paper feed 1/216 inch
Black pass, forward paper feed 1/216 inch
Black pass, forward paper feed 23/216 inch

Any bets on whether the paper will still be remotely close to where it ought
to be after this sequence? Whiplash and mechanical tolerances may well mean
that the reverse feeds do nothing at all and just take up the slack in the
gearing instead. Many of the newest dot matrix printer models have removed
support for the reverse paper feed command completely or have written DO NOT
USE in big letters in the manual. So using it does not seem like a good
idea.

Owen.
From: gpcec@westminster.ac.uk (Tom Kirby-Green)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Reading !Run vars
Date: 16 Dec 92 18:53:34 GMT
Organization: University of Westminster

Hi quick question...
	What the best method of getting hold of a Application's Obey dir'.
I'm using Desktop C - so basically I need the path that resspr etc uses
to find its resources. At the mo. I'm launching the file with the usual
!Run, but with the ugly line...

	Run <CADshell$Dir>.!RunImage "<CADshell$Dir>"

	Then using argv [1] to pick it up - theres gotta be a better way ;-)

		Thanks in advance - J.T.T.B. Tom.
-- 
/---| The University of Westminster : BSc Computer Science. Hons, Year 3 |---\
| Tom Kirby-Green            Email : gpcec@sun.pcl.ac.uk  or  Silence@Arcade |
\----------| "Merry XMas to all, and a Windows(tm) free new year". |---------/
From: coxjp@cs.man.ac.uk (Jonathan Cox)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Find the root path under RiscOS 3.1
Date: 15 Dec 92 15:07:54 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester

Some time ago somebody posted something about finding the URD or CSD from the
fileswitch system variables under RiscOS 3.1.  It was something like:-

<FileSwitch$<FileSwitch$CurrentFilingSystem>$URD>

Now if you try to use this to set another system variable to the root path,
with a command such as:-

set r <FileSwitch$CurrentFilingSystem>:<FileSwitch$<FileSwitch$CurrentFilingSystem>$URD>

you get

ADFS:$URD>

as GSTrans is not interpreting the nested angle brackets correctly.

The only solution I can come up with is:-

set r FileSwitch$<FileSwitch$CurrentFilingSystem>$URD
seteval r <r>
set r <FileSwitch$CurrentFilingSystem>:<r>

Is there a better way?

Jon.


--
Jonathan Cox.                              Email coxjp@cs.man.ac.uk
IT 301, Department of Computer Science,
University of Manchester,                  Tel: (+44) (0)61-275-6270
Manchester.  M13 9PL.  England.            Fax: (+44) (0)61-275-6280
From: jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: adfsbuffers
Date: 20 Dec 92 01:15:34 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept. University of Auckland

m_sattle@informatik.uni-kl.de (Matthias Sattler) writes:

>What are adfsbuffers really good for?

>They should speed up the (hard)disc access but in fact they don't.
>I tried many different tests (hd-speed tests, compiling c programs, ...)
>on the harddisc of my A540 (RO2) with adfsbuffers 0 and adfsbuffers 256k.
>EVERY test with adfsbuffers configured was slightly slower than the test
>without adfsbuffers.
>Hmmmmmm... funny isn't it?

Nope... not really... if you read the manual/help info on adfsbuffers, it states
that it sets the "number of 1024 byte buffers" used by ADFS. That is, I
get the impression that setting a large value for ADFSBuffers will NOT
have ANY effect on a SINGLE file, but using (e.g.) 256 buffers will allow
up to 256 files to be buffered simultaneously.
A value like 8 or 16 will probably be plenty - this will allow pretty much
all the files you ca expect to be open at any time to be buffered.

As you may now see, the true test of how well ADFS buffers works is to open
lots of files for read/writing, and see how different ADFS buffers values
affect this sort of operation...

-- 
_________________  "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: psyhsmb@unicorn.nott.ac.uk ()
Subject: Arc QWK Reader
Originator: psyhsmb@unicorn.nott.ac.uk
Organization: Cripps Computing Centre, University of Nottingham
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 09:54:34 GMT

Lachlan Arnott <larnott@jabaru.cec.edu.au> has asked me if I know
of any QWK quick-packet offline readers for the Archimedes.
Presumably some FIDO people in the UK will have the QWK packet system
running so maybe some readers exist for the Archimedes?

Please mail any responses direct to Lachlan.

Thanks,


Simon
From: burke@vxdesy.desy.de
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Improved filer
Date: 20 Dec 92 18:56:42 GMT
Organization: (DESY, Hamburg, Germany)

In article <1992Dec20.010804.5214@cs.aukuni.ac.nz>, jwil1@cs.aukuni.ac.nz (TMOTA) writes:
> burke@vxdesy.desy.de writes:
> 
>>You don't need a separate window, you can set the hot-key bit on the filer
>>window. The problem is more one of clashes between a foreground application and
>>hot keys (e.g. DeskEdit traps just about every normal keycode). You really need
> 
> WHY?
> You can only have a filer-selection in a single window anyway, so where
> is the problem with simply placing the input focus in the filer-window when

You could do this, but I'm not sure if it's in accord with Acorn's conventions
to give input focus to a display-type window. Also, what if you're filer allows
you to have selected files in more than one window?

  There's also a more general point that it would be nice to be able to send
hot-key codes to an application, rather than having to select a window; indeed
the whole idea of needing to open an invisible window (and use up a valuable
handle under RO 2!) just to get sent keypresses is remarkably silly. Why
couldn't you just request the key-press event with a bit in the poll mask?

e----><----p | Stephen Burke           | Internet: burke@vxdesy.desy.de
 H   H   1   | Gruppe FH1T (Liverpool) | DECnet:   vxdesy::burke (13313::burke)
 H   H  11   | DESY, Notkestrasse 85   | BITNET:   BURKE@DESYVAX or SB2@UKACRL
 HHHHH   1   | 2000 Hamburg 52         | JANET:    sb2@uk.ac.rl.ib
 H   H   1   | Germany                 | Phone:    + 49 40 8998 2282
 H   H 11111 | HERA, the world's largest electron microscope!
From: dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk (Denis Howe)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: Finding the CSD
Date: 18 Dec 92 13:57:55
Organization: Computing Department, Imperial College, London, UK
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk
In-reply-to: mybg@doc.ic.ac.uk's message of 15 Dec 1992 11:03:39

Denis Howe <dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk> wrote:

>Set FS <FileSwitch$CurrentFilingSystem>
>SetEval CSD "<FS>:"+FileSwitch$<FS>$CSD

In article <1gke2bINN2up@swan.doc.ic.ac.uk> mybg@doc.ic.ac.uk (M Y Ben
Gershon) wrote:

>I am sorry to disappoint you, but this does not work either!  It
>remains constant and is not altered when the csd is changed.

Some people are never satisfied.  :-) As Jason
<J.P.OBroin@newcastle.ac.uk> noted, to get that effect you'd need to
use SetMacro but I'm not sure even that would work, you might need
SetMacroEval, which doesn't exist!  Philip
<banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz> was nearer the mark saying you need a
code variable but this week's star prize goes to Good Ol' Owen "Who
put the OS in RISC OS?" Smith or, as his friends call him,
/G=Owen/S=Smith/O=SJ-Research/ADMD=INTERSPAN/C=GB/@mhs-relay.ac.uk,
who mailed in response to my RISC OS 2 solution:

>On RISC OS 3 (no snide remarks please I'm just being helpful) you can
>do it as an OS_FSControl 37 (canonicalise name) of "@", or you can
>build it up piecemeal using the various FileSwitch$* system
>variables.

The only time I want to know the CSD is in my desktop !Boot file so I
can make everything independent of the location of the root directory.
Here, my "static" solution is quite acceptable.
--
Denis Howe <dbh@doc.ic.ac.uk>
So Biggs, you're the idiot who bought all these IBM PCs.  You're fired!
From: graham@robots.ox.ac.uk (Graham Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: LQ500 text printing problem.
Date: 16 Dec 92 10:00:54 GMT
Organization: Robotics Research Group, Engineering Science Dept, Oxford, UK.
Originator: graham@lucrece.robots

Ok folks, can you give me some suggestions about this problem,

A friend has an A5000 with RO 3.0 and is using an Epson LQ500 
printer. Now Acorn don't supply an LQ500 printer driver so she
is using the LQ850 dirver instead. There are no problems with
graphics printing (stuff from Impression/Draw/anyting of that
sort) however text printing does not work. After every line
printed a from-feed is done.

Has anyone encountered this/found an answer? I would assume that
some printer codes are changed between models but this would
surprise me (I'm easily surprised). I've looked at the various
codes using PrinterEdit (or whatever its called) and they seem
ok.

A reply through email would be nice since I won't be reading
any news for a week or two soon (Merry Christmas everyone).

Graham Jones.  (graham@uk.ac.ox.robots)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows)
Subject: 35MHz ARM3
Organization: Nottingham University
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 18:52:53 GMT

Apologies if this question has been answered in the past.

Simply, how fast in use would an A400/1 series machine fitted with 35MHz
ARM3 be compared with an A5000 (25MHz ARM3 but 12MHz memory). The A400/1
would be fitted with a VIDC enhancer.

Thanks,


Simon
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Simon Burrows - Department of Computer Science - Nottingham University  |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| smb@cs.nott.ac.uk - psyhsmb@unicorn.nott.ac.uk - psyhsmb@mips.nott.ac.uk |
|        Tel +44 533 712030 (home) +44 602 515151 Ext 8929 (term)          |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------+


Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: m_sattle@informatik.uni-kl.de (Matthias Sattler)
Subject: Re: memory swapper
Organization: University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
Date: Fri, 11 Dec 1992 19:44:02 GMT

In article <1992Dec9.173426.15621@infodev.cam.ac.uk>,
idg10@cl.cam.ac.uk (I.D. Griffiths) writes:

>|> Is a memory swap program for RISC OS available?
>|> It should be possible but I havn't seen one up to now.
>|> 
>|> Matthias Sattler
>|> email: m_sattle@informatik.uni-kl.de
>|> (since some days the normal email adress works for me ;-) )
>Like RiscIX you mean?
>
>:-)
>
>Ian

If it is possible. 
I think some care has to be taken on RISC-OS but I can imagine
a working solution.

Mattias Sattler
email: m_sattle@informatik.uni-kl.de
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: smb@cs.nott.ac.uk (Simon Burrows)
Subject: Vision Digitiser [was Re: C compiler summary]
Keywords: A3000 C compiler wanted
Organization: Nottingham University
Date: Wed, 16 Dec 92 18:46:41 GMT

In article <1992Dec15.111601.1200@praxis.co.uk> tjh@praxis.co.uk (Tim Huckvale) writes:
>
>We are now buying the HCCS Vision Digitiser and a 20Mb IDE HD [assuming
>Watford Electronics ever answer their phone - TJH].

The HCCS Vision Digitiser is certainly popular, but how does it compare
with the Rombo VIDI Archimedes digitiser which supports colour and is
cheaper than the Vision digitiser once colour has been added?

The Vision digitiser board is very sparsely populated, whilst the Rombo
digitiser board is dense with chips and assorted logic.

Has anybody (apart from BAU) used the two side by side? The Rombo one
cost twice as much when BAU reviewed it, so I suspect that it might
be a better buy than the Vision card.

Thanks,


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

Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: steve@klaatu.demon.co.uk (Steve Loft)
Subject: ARM3 cache control in RISC OS 3.10
Reply-To: steve@klaatu.demon.co.uk
Distribution: world
X-Mailer: cppnews $Revision: 1.20 $
Organization: home
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 18:26:41 +0000

Since RISC OS 3.10 has support for the ARM 3, I assume there are some
SWI's for controlling the cache?  If so, could someone please post (or
mail me) the details?

Steve
-- 
|  Steve Loft                                  steve@klaatu.demon.co.uk   |
|  Doncaster,                                                             |
|  South Yorks.                                                           |
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
From: zrzm0111@helpdesk.rus.uni-stuttgart.de (MUFTI)
Subject: piping darkness into the wimp
Organization: User Help Desk, Comp.Center (RUS), U of Stuttgart, FRG
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1992 08:31:02 GMT

Hi

Is there a idea for the following problem:

I use program for a interpreter, which should do Wimppolling.

If the interpreter fails (cause no memory left or the like), it prints a
message to vdu:

I want to catch such a message (the wimp will not show it) and a commandwindow
will not survive the initialisation of the wimp)

If i try to catch the message with a pipe    { > output }   the desktop 
goes dark (with a few icons) and the wimppoll will write into the file
and there is no multitasking

If i try to catch the message with spool, all actions in the wimp will 
logged into the outputfile (which may increase to big) (This will also
take time (especially on a diskette based system))

In my opinion, we need a errorstream (something like { 2> })

so long
MUFTI

ps: I use Riscos 2.0, the interpreter is iconx
From: erikp@blade.stack.urc.tue.nl (Erik van de Pol)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Who is willing to donate for the Spice system?
Date: 17 Dec 92 14:23:47 GMT
Organization: MCGV Stack, Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands.
X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.1 PL6]

As you might know, my brother and I are continuously working on the port 
of Spice. The graphical post-processor (Nutmeg) can create Draw files.

It would be very nice if the user could print it's diagram directly from
Nutmeg instead of dragging it to Draw or something.

Now my question is obvious: is there someone out there who's written code
		 	    to print Draw diagrams to the standard printer
			    driver in C, with all dialogue boxes etc.

We have many many things to do, and I have the strong feeling that there must
be somebody who has written these routines. We do not want to invent the
wheel again.

Please: if you can help us (or have a pointer to -other- sources) contact me. It
	would be greatly appreciated...

Thanks in advance.

Erik.
-- 
.....................................................................
>> Erik van de Pol -- (erikp@stack.urc.tue.nl) -- Phone: 01659-4625
>> Snail: Mgr Nelislaan 10 / 4741AB / Hoeven / The Netherlands
>> Send flames to your local Fire Squad; they know how to handle them.
From: rap@nnsgs50.tcom.stc.co.uk (Richard Porter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: Re: adfsbuffers
Date: 18 Dec 1992 13:28:31 GMT
Organization: BNR Europe Limited
NNTP-Posting-Host: nnsgs50.lon40.nt.com

In article <1992Dec18.113330@informatik.uni-kl.de>
m_sattle@informatik.uni-kl.de (Matthias Sattler) writes:
>What are adfsbuffers really good for?

>They should speed up the (hard)disc access but in fact they don't.
>I tried many different tests (hd-speed tests, compiling c programs, ...)
>on the harddisc of my A540 (RO2) with adfsbuffers 0 and adfsbuffers 256k.
>EVERY test with adfsbuffers configured was slightly slower than the test
>without adfsbuffers.
>Hmmmmmm... funny isn't it?

Well, it's interesting that you should say that, but it doesn't concur
with my experience on an A5000. With ADFSbuffers set to 16 as in the
supplied configuration I found that Acorn DTP fell over at the slightest
excuse, particularly if you gave it anything difficult to do or didn't
give it all the available gigabytes before you started. The cure for this
was to set ADFSbuffers to 0.

Having done this I noticed that the desktop appeared to be much slower
and there was much more hard disk activity while it was redrawing windows,
particularly !Draw windows with a lot of text using disk-held fonts.

Richard
From: gilbertd@cs.man.ac.uk (David Alan Gilbert)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn.tech
Subject: RISC_OSLib Compiled for modules
Date: 14 Dec 92 10:06:38 GMT

Hi,

Risc User were kind enough to send me
a copy of the November issue a few
days ago, and in it there was a mention
of Risc_OSLib compiled for modules.  Now they
said that if you sent them a disc they
could provide it (I think).  I'm sure it
would save a lot of people a lot of
trouble if some kind sole from Acorn
could post it on here.  (If necessary
encoded so that only owners of Desktop C could use it)

Dave