From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 1 09:20:12 1995 From: "Doore, Dan [MIS]" To: sam-users Subject: Upload to nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 01 Aug 95 09:17:00 PDT Message-Id: <301E53E8@courier.lmu.ac.uk> Encoding: 15 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 373 Lines: 15 Steve Taylor's Mouse Driver II has been uploaded to nvg. The file is in Rumsoft .PAK format so use the unpacker or load the code at 32000 and CALL 32000. It contains the driver, documentation and demo programs. Dan. Dan Doore - Operations Head Pod & Dogsbody 'No job too trivial' --- SMTP: d.j.doore@lmu.ac.uk MailSig 1.6 - Homer's Mmmms: [9F09] ham (ghostly Homer) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 3 18:18:19 1995 Date: Thu, 3 Aug 1995 18:19:42 +0100 (BST) From: Tim Wells To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Upload to nvg.unit.no X-Sender: tgw1001@imap.hermes.cam.ac.uk In-Reply-To: <301D076D@courier.lmu.ac.uk> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 764 Lines: 17 > > I downloaded this and had a look - nearly didn't bother when it told me > > told boot up Samdos... > > That's just a precaution, When I got the disc with Mouse Driver 2 on it had > both Mdos and Mbasic on it, and when I tried to use plain Mdos it crashed. > And crashed. And crashed. I fact, the test programs on the disc crashed > with > plain Mdos, so I thought 'Sod it' and used 'advised' that Samdos should be > loaded since I couldn't be arsed to mess around with it. Yep you were right - works fine with Samdos, and both Mdos + Mbasic, but Mdos on its own gives a crash. If I get a spare moment over the weekend, I'll dig the disassembler out and have a look at it. ================== Tim Wells - ================== From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 6 16:06:40 1995 From: David Zambonini To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sun, 6 Aug 1995 15:39:33 GMT Subject: Helloee? Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: <186E0311496@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 36 Lines: 4 Is there anybody there? :) DMZ === From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 6 17:04:58 1995 Message-Id: <27083.9508061537@rs6-233.cls-4.bcc.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Helloee? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sun, 6 Aug 1995 16:37:55 +0100 (BST) From: Mr Keith Turner In-Reply-To: <186E0311496@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> from "David Zambonini" at Aug 6, 95 03:39:33 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 599 Lines: 18 DMZ called out: > Is there anybody there? Probably. It's difficult to tell. You could be dreaming. Or you could be a solipsist. Or the sam-users mailing list could be a very elaborate practical joke entirely perpetrated by a single system administrator at nvg.unit.no masquerading as twenty Sam enthusiasts. In order to avoid terminal insanity it might be safest to assume that there is somebody there. ;) A more specific question: Is there anybody out there who can tell me how I can get hold of a copy of the Sam Technical manual, or any information on programming for DRiVER. Cheers, / To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sun, 6 Aug 1995 17:17:18 GMT Subject: Re: Helloee? Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Message-Id: <18881251373@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1119 Lines: 28 > Probably. It's difficult to tell. You could be dreaming. Or you could > be a solipsist. Or the sam-users mailing list could be a very > elaborate practical joke entirely perpetrated by a single system > administrator at nvg.unit.no masquerading as twenty Sam enthusiasts. Eek. Now there is a thought. Perhaps I'm the ONLY user on the group and all other messages are created by an AI program..... On second thoughts, how do *YOU* know that you aren't the only subscriber and all other users are merely..... ;) > In order to avoid terminal insanity it might be safest to assume that > there is somebody there. ;) Naah... I know that I'm certainly not. :) > Is there anybody out there who can tell me how I can get hold of a > copy of the Sam Technical manual, or any information on programming for > DRiVER. I believe that the information required for programming for DRiVER was published on FRED under the m/c programming articles.. dunno which issues, tho.. I'll have to check... DMZ === P.S. Solipsist - That word doesn't exist in my world. Have you read 'Against a Dark Background' by Banks? From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 6 18:00:02 1995 Message-Id: <9508061633.AA16153@dxmint.cern.ch> From: Allan Skillman (Dr Kid) Subject: Re: Helloee? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sun, 6 Aug 95 18:33:00 METDST In-Reply-To: <18881251373@physx1s.cf.ac.uk>; from "David Zambonini" at Aug 6, 95 5:17 pm Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 174 Lines: 9 There's a copy of the Fred articles on Driver somewhere on nvg. I downloaded it a while back. As far as I know I'm a real person.....but you mever know do you Allan -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 6 23:31:53 1995 From: David Zambonini To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sun, 6 Aug 1995 22:56:02 GMT Subject: Re: Helloee? Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: <18E277C093A@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 98 Lines: 8 > As far as I know I'm a real person.....but you mever know do you > > Allan I'm not. DMZ === From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 7 00:00:31 1995 Message-Id: <9508062233.AA12828@dxmint.cern.ch> From: Allan Skillman (Dr Kid) Subject: Re: Helloee? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 7 Aug 95 0:33:36 METDST In-Reply-To: <18E277C093A@physx1s.cf.ac.uk>; from "David Zambonini" at Aug 6, 95 10:56 pm Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 95 Lines: 10 > I'm not. > > DMZ > === > Looks like we have a candidate for the Turing test :) Allan -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 7 00:36:13 1995 From: David Zambonini To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 7 Aug 1995 00:10:19 GMT Subject: Re: Helloee? Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Message-Id: <18F64990322@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 478 Lines: 17 > Looks like we have a candidate for the Turing test :) > > Allan ME? Naaahhh.. I'm as human as the next person {lie mode off} ;) Hmmm.. makes you think, doesn't it? It should be fairly difficult to make a sentient machine..... how many sentient humans do you know? :) To quote the most famous line from a Bladerunner live roleplay we had here in Cardiff a few years ago:- During Void-Comp test: Bladerunner:"Tell me about your mother" Replicant:"1000100111011" DMZ === From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 7 00:39:33 1995 Message-Id: <9508062312.AA03449@dxmint.cern.ch> From: Allan Skillman (Dr Kid) Subject: Re: Helloee? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 7 Aug 95 1:12:25 METDST In-Reply-To: <18F64990322@physx1s.cf.ac.uk>; from "David Zambonini" at Aug 7, 95 12:10 (midnight) Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 130 Lines: 5 No doubt the next `add on' for the SAM will be an AI module so that our machines can use the mailing list themselves :) Allan -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 7 01:08:18 1995 From: David Zambonini To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 7 Aug 1995 00:42:57 GMT Subject: Re: Helloee? Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Message-Id: <18FEFD13A1B@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 162 Lines: 7 > No doubt the next `add on' for the SAM will be an AI module so that our > machines can use the mailing list themselves :) What do you mean, next? :) DMZ === From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 7 07:33:11 1995 Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1995 06:52:44 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <9962@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Helloee? X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 164 Lines: 12 In message <186E0311496@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> David Zambonini writes: > Is there anybody there? :) > > DMZ > === > Oh no, not again! Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 7 07:33:19 1995 Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1995 06:55:49 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <9963@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Helloee? X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 318 Lines: 11 Ah, but does this mean that the SAM does not really exist either? Someone order one and see if it arrives! :-) PS, we need a source of Floppy disc drive belts for the 1Mv Citizen drives. There seems to be an epedemic of slipping belts. I was on Fido and see a message there about it. Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From imc Mon Aug 7 11:00:31 1995 Subject: Re: Helloee? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 7 Aug 95 11:00:32 BST In-Reply-To: <18881251373@physx1s.cf.ac.uk>; from "David Zambonini" at Aug 6, 95 5:17 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 595 Lines: 15 > > Is there anybody out there who can tell me how I can get hold of a > > copy of the Sam Technical manual, or any information on programming for > > DRiVER. > I believe that the information required for programming for DRiVER > was published on FRED under the m/c programming articles.. dunno > which issues, tho.. I'll have to check... These are at ftp.nvg.unit.no in /pub/sam-coupe/docs concatenated together into a file called driver-instructions.txt . As for the technical manual, well... Simon was allegedly going to write a new one, but I don't know what's happened to that. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 7 12:08:52 1995 From: "Doore, Dan [MIS]" To: sam-users Subject: Re: Helloee? Date: Mon, 07 Aug 95 12:07:00 PDT Message-Id: <3026649C@courier.lmu.ac.uk> Encoding: 16 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 491 Lines: 16 > These are at ftp.nvg.unit.no in /pub/sam-coupe/docs concatenated together > into a file called driver-instructions.txt . > > As for the technical manual, well... Simon was allegedly going to write a > new one, but I don't know what's happened to that. The 'unfinished' version is in the same directory as coupe.zip (I think..) Dan. Dan Doore - Operations Head Pod & Dogsbody 'No job too trivial' --- SMTP: d.j.doore@lmu.ac.uk MailSig 1.6 - Chalkboard: [2F33] I will not use abbrev. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 7 12:33:18 1995 Date: Mon, 7 Aug 1995 13:33:16 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508071133.AA22433@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Helloee? X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 804 Lines: 19 > > These are at ftp.nvg.unit.no in /pub/sam-coupe/docs concatenated together > > into a file called driver-instructions.txt . > > > > As for the technical manual, well... Simon was allegedly going to write a > > new one, but I don't know what's happened to that. > > The 'unfinished' version is in the same directory as coupe.zip (I think..) Hum. There must be quite a mess there right now. I have just returned to Norway - started working on tuesday. I have moved, but brought my SAMs with me and will hook them up as soon as I get a place to put it, and the time. It does not look too bad with respect to time, but my new flat is in a mess right now. I'll probably be in business soon. And then I will do some cleaing up at ftp.nvg.unit.no. Bear with me another couple of days.... Cheers -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 7 14:06:54 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 06 Aug 1995 13:57:51 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: COMET TO ASCII v1.2 RELEASE Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1942 Lines: 42 Hi Everyone - Guess what I just finished writing version 1.2 of? :) Yep - now, the COMET to ASCII program I wrote way-back, can do the reverse - so as well as producing neat ASCII renditions of your COMET source, it can produce lovely COMET renditions of any ASCII Z80 source file you care to throw at it. Features include: Automatic input format detection (No line terminators / CR / LF line termination) Numeric format conversion: Converts between prefixed hex format (0x0000), prefixed octal (010), postfixed binary, hex and octal (eg 01010b, 0FA32h, 034o) and COMET formats. Octal is converted to hexadecimal by the program. Hash code conversion (converts #'s to &'s at the start of hex numbers) Converts INCBIN to MDAT, INCLUDE to INC, DB, DW, DM and DS to DEFB, DWFW, DEFM and DEFS. If anyone can come up with some more features to add, lemme know. This'll be put up on the FTP site probably tomorrow morning, under the title "COMET2A.TD0". Full instructions, etc are in the file. There will also be a PAK version, but this will not include the QDOSv1.2 update which comes as part of the COMET2ASCII disk package. This software is a freeware Entropy release. Bug reports, etc (there shouldn't be any - but there is an interesting anomaly where if you pass the file through COMET->ASCII and then through ASCII-> COMET, it'll strip any erroneous spacing. Probably something to do with the number conversion routines). should be sent to Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk Cheers, Simon (Cookie of Entropy). +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ ANNOUNCING the Your Sinclair WWW Archive: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc/ys Warning: Currently under construction in some places From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 7 22:12:06 1995 To: SAM-USERS@nvg.unit.no Subject: re: comet to ascii v1.2 relea Date: Mon, 7 Aug 95 22:55:00 CEST From: Arne Di Russo Message-Id: <9508072255.aa11120@ax433.mclink.it> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 533 Lines: 20 Scritto il giorno 07-Ago-95 da simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk: SI> Yep - now, the COMET to ASCII program I wrote way-back, can do the reverse [...] SI> This'll be put up on the FTP site probably tomorrow morning, under the SI> title "COMET2A.TD0". Full instructions, etc are in the file. Great!! Now I just need the Comet package for a perfect MC dev. environment, anyone wants to upload Comet too??!! ;-)))))) SI> Cheers, SI> Simon (Cookie of Entropy). Ciao, Arne --- MMMR v4.00unr * Always looking for railways-phonecards... From imc Tue Aug 8 10:55:54 1995 Subject: re: comet to ascii v1.2 relea To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 8 Aug 95 10:55:54 BST In-Reply-To: <9508072255.aa11120@ax433.mclink.it>; from "Arne Di Russo" at Aug 7, 95 10:55 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 177 Lines: 6 On Mon, 7 Aug 95 22:55:00 CEST, Arne Di Russo said: > anyone wants to upload Comet too??!! ;-)))))) I'm afraid that's not possible as it crashed into Jupiter last year... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 8 11:11:36 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1995 10:58:19 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Helloee? Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1258 Lines: 26 >As for the technical manual, well... Simon was allegedly going to write a >new one, but I don't know what's happened to that. It's there in the void... lurking... Actually, it'll come soon - with lots of hardware docs and kits. Stefan Drissen? Are you there? If so, can you send me that list of instruction timings or whatever that you allegedly sent to FRED way back when, so I can have a look at it and include it? I'm trying to work out whether or not to keep any of the BASIC stuff in... use the original as a framework, that kind of thing... I'm still undecided. BUT I have got my hands on a really beautiful piece of text on debugging and optimising Z80 machine code (they do it the way I've been doing it subconsciously for years -- but it's all in text!!!), so I'll see if I can include that in there. Simon +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ ANNOUNCING the Your Sinclair WWW Archive: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc/ys Warning: Currently under construction in some places From imc Tue Aug 8 13:30:13 1995 Subject: Re: Helloee? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 8 Aug 95 13:30:13 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Simon Cooke" at Aug 7, 95 10:58 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 649 Lines: 14 On Mon, 07 Aug 1995 10:58:19 +0100, Simon Cooke said: > Stefan > Drissen? Are you there? If so, can you send me that list of instruction > timings or whatever that you allegedly sent to FRED way back when, so I can > have a look at it and include it? If it's the one I'm thinking of then don't bother as it was complete rubbish (oh now I've done it... I'm now going to get an insulting letter back). Anyway, almost all instructions are just rounded up to the next multiple of 4. A few take 4 extra. Anyone who tells you that "LD A,7" takes 9.3 cycles is obviously lying. :-) imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 8 14:17:47 1995 From: David Zambonini To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 8 Aug 1995 14:17:34 GMT Subject: re: comet to ascii v1.2 relea Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: <1B5893350A3@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 145 Lines: 8 > > anyone wants to upload Comet too??!! ;-)))))) > > I'm afraid that's not possible as it crashed into Jupiter last year... *groan* DMZ === From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 8 14:21:36 1995 From: David Zambonini To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 8 Aug 1995 14:19:57 GMT Subject: Re: Helloee? Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: <1B5930B2713@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 224 Lines: 11 > Anyone who tells you that "LD A,7" takes 9.3 > cycles is obviously lying. :-) > > imc > Aha. obviously you haff not heard of mein multi-phasic proccessor. (said in cliched bad 'german scientist' B movie style) DMZ === From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 8 20:51:56 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1995 20:43:05 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Well, it's up there Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 647 Lines: 18 Well, COMET to ASCII has been uploaded. It's in INCOMING, files are: COMET2A.TXT - information file COMET2A.PAK - Archiver 2 packed file archive COMET2A.TD0 - Teledisk compressed file archive Enjoy :) Cookie +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ ANNOUNCING the Your Sinclair WWW Archive: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc/ys Warning: Currently under construction in some places From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 8 23:36:07 1995 From: Lucien Murray-Pitts Subject: **Ignore** TEST TEST TEST TEST To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Phone: (031)-2296182 Date: Tue, 8 Aug 95 23:35:25 BST Message-Id: <9508082335.aa19293@uk.ac.ed.castle> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 45 Lines: 9 *sigh* _Yawn_ Meow? *ehhum* *snore* From imc Wed Aug 9 10:44:18 1995 Subject: Cycles To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 9 Aug 95 10:44:18 BST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 178 Lines: 5 Sorry to ask a spectrum question on this list, but does anyone know the number of T-states per scan line on the 48K speccy, and how many scan lines there are in each frame? imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 9 10:55:44 1995 Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 11:55:25 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508090955.AA25068@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Cycles X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 357 Lines: 12 > Sorry to ask a spectrum question on this list, but does anyone know the > number of T-states per scan line on the 48K speccy, and how many scan lines > there are in each frame? 224 T-states per scan line and 312.5 scanlines per frame. (in my experience, 312.5 scanlines is a bit (but only slightly) inaccurate, but should be close enough) > > imc > From imc Wed Aug 9 10:59:01 1995 Subject: Re: Cycles To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 9 Aug 95 10:59:01 BST In-Reply-To: <9508090955.AA25068@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Aug 9, 95 11:55 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 506 Lines: 16 On Wed, 9 Aug 1995 11:55:25 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > 224 T-states per scan line Thanks (as long as you're sure :-) ). On the +3 it is 228, which is why I asked. > 312.5 scanlines per frame. No thanks. :-) The answer has to be an integer, and is not necessarily exactly the same as the PAL standard. For example, the +3 has 311. This information should be written in the reference section in the speccy manual (because it is relevant to the contended memory). imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 9 12:06:57 1995 Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 13:07:00 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508091107.AA25094@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Cycles X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 990 Lines: 30 > On Wed, 9 Aug 1995 11:55:25 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > > 224 T-states per scan line > > Thanks (as long as you're sure :-) ). On the +3 it is 228, which is why I > asked. I'm sure. It's 228 on all 128K models (I'm a bit unsure about the original Sinclair 128K, though). However, there is also a difference between the +2 and the +2A/+3 being that one is 'in synch' on the first cycle of a four cycle cycle, while the other is on the second. > > > 312.5 scanlines per frame. > > No thanks. :-) > The answer has to be an integer, and is not necessarily exactly the same as > the PAL standard. For example, the +3 has 311. For all practical purposes, I used 312,5 - I never tried to synch the screen without using HALT anyway. And for the +3, 312,5 gives a nice frequency of 3,5625 MHz.... > > This information should be written in the reference section in the speccy > manual (because it is relevant to the contended memory). It is? > > imc > From imc Wed Aug 9 12:12:58 1995 Subject: Re: Cycles To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 9 Aug 95 12:12:58 BST In-Reply-To: <9508091107.AA25094@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Aug 9, 95 1:07 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 833 Lines: 21 On Wed, 9 Aug 1995 13:07:00 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > I'm sure. It's 228 on all 128K models (I'm a bit unsure about the original > Sinclair 128K, though). However, there is also a difference between > the +2 and the +2A/+3 being that one is 'in synch' on the first cycle > of a four cycle cycle, while the other is on the second. Ah but which is which? :-) Do you happen to know what the relationship is between the interrupts and the TV scan? > > This information should be written in the reference section in the speccy > > manual (because it is relevant to the contended memory). > It is? Yes, it is relevant because the memory is only contended while the screen is being drawn. The +3 manual specifically says that this happens for 128 out of every 228 cycles in each scan line, and for 192 out of 311 scan lines. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 9 12:43:27 1995 Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 13:41:12 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508091141.AA25380@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Cycles X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1284 Lines: 35 > On Wed, 9 Aug 1995 13:07:00 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > > I'm sure. It's 228 on all 128K models (I'm a bit unsure about the original > > Sinclair 128K, though). However, there is also a difference between > > the +2 and the +2A/+3 being that one is 'in synch' on the first cycle > > of a four cycle cycle, while the other is on the second. > > Ah but which is which? :-) I knew that ..once. :) I'm 90% sure it was the +3 that was on the first, while the +2 was on the second. It's all in the code for TNT....:) > > Do you happen to know what the relationship is between the interrupts and the > TV scan? You mean which one comes first and how much? > > > > This information should be written in the reference section in the speccy > > > manual (because it is relevant to the contended memory). > > > It is? > > Yes, it is relevant because the memory is only contended while the screen is > being drawn. The +3 manual specifically says that this happens for 128 out > of every 228 cycles in each scan line, and for 192 out of 311 scan lines. Yes. Then you meant "...should _have_ been written..."? :) Are you sure about the 311 lines btw? I once drove pretty close to th limit of a frame, and I'm pretty sure that was more than 311 * 228 cycles.... > > imc > -Frode From imc Wed Aug 9 12:54:02 1995 Subject: Re: Cycles To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 9 Aug 95 12:54:02 BST In-Reply-To: <9508091141.AA25380@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Aug 9, 95 1:41 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1109 Lines: 27 On Wed, 9 Aug 1995 13:41:12 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > > Do you happen to know what the relationship is between the interrupts and the > > TV scan? > You mean which one comes first and how much? Yes. By experiment I seem to have found that on the +3 the scan line reaches the start of the screen 14367 cycles after the interrupt is generated. > Yes. Then you meant "...should _have_ been written..."? :) I don't know whether it is or not. Do you mean that it isn't? > Are you sure about the 311 lines btw? I once drove pretty close to th limit > of a frame, and I'm pretty sure that was more than 311 * 228 cycles.... Yes, very sure. I wrote a timing program which displays a striped border without using the HALT instruction inside the loop. This allows me to mess around with the timing and find out exactly how long the delay was by looking at the position of the pattern. You can have a snapshot of it if you like. :-) The reason for all this is that I have implemented the stripey border effect in xz80 and at the moment it mimics the +3 precisely, but I don't have 48K speccy info. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 9 13:37:07 1995 Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 14:23:28 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508091223.AA25661@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Cycles X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1565 Lines: 44 > On Wed, 9 Aug 1995 13:41:12 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > > > Do you happen to know what the relationship is between the interrupts and the > > > TV scan? > > > You mean which one comes first and how much? > > Yes. By experiment I seem to have found that on the +3 the scan line reaches > the start of the screen 14367 cycles after the interrupt is generated. It was many moons ago since I messed around with that. Your figure seems accurate, in which case it's the +3 that's on the second cycle of a four cycle cycle. Then my guess is that the 48K is at 14112 cycles. > > > Yes. Then you meant "...should _have_ been written..."? :) > > I don't know whether it is or not. Do you mean that it isn't? It's not. For the 48K. > > > Are you sure about the 311 lines btw? I once drove pretty close to th limit > > of a frame, and I'm pretty sure that was more than 311 * 228 cycles.... > > Yes, very sure. I wrote a timing program which displays a striped border > without using the HALT instruction inside the loop. This allows me to > mess around with the timing and find out exactly how long the delay was > by looking at the position of the pattern. You can have a snapshot of > it if you like. :-) OK! I'll believe you if you can provide proof that you are competent enough to count that high. :) > > The reason for all this is that I have implemented the stripey border effect > in xz80 and at the moment it mimics the +3 precisely, but I don't have 48K > speccy info. The demo TNT should be a nice test. It's on nvg. :) > > imc > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 9 13:48:21 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 08 Aug 1995 13:37:37 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: SAM Hardware notes (was Re: Helloee?) Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2085 Lines: 43 >Anyway, almost all instructions are just rounded up to the next multiple >of 4. A few take 4 extra. Anyone who tells you that "LD A,7" takes 9.3 >cycles is obviously lying. :-) Okay... well, I'm getting the ASIC documentation from Bruce Gordon with the week (yep, that's right - the full documentation of how the ASIC works, as done for Maplins when they were interested in buying up Bruce's old stock)... with a bit of luck, that'll explain it all. Interesting note: On hacking at the 1Mb board I've got, it uses the CPU CLK line and the REFRESH line to update the contents of the DRAMs... now, there's a whopping great GAL on that board... so, what I reckon is that the CPU CLK line is being used to generate CAS/RAS timing for memory reads, and the REFRESH line is being used in conjunction with it to produce the necessary refresh signals... Anyone got a >6MHz storage scope who can back me up on this one? :) Other hardware notes (just for amusement factor): The ASIC is decoupled from the Z80 bus by a bank of 470ohm resistors... and its bus is tied low. The Z80's bus, however, is tied high... what this means is that: 1) unfortunately, you can't really read the ASIC's output from the back of the SAM unless you tristate the Z80 -- and even then, I'm not sure if the ASIC has enough pulling power to drop the data lines enough. 2) it's possible to override what the Z80 sees when it reads one of the ASIC's ports... or even when it reads memory..... soooo..... Hardware 128k speccy emulator anybody??? :) :) :) Simon ps the forthcoming accelerator design may incorporate a ... you guessed it ... 128k spectrum emulator. Neat, huh? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ ANNOUNCING the Your Sinclair WWW Archive: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc/ys Warning: Currently under construction in some places From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 9 13:48:23 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 08 Aug 1995 13:37:44 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Ian's little brother and his caustic wit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 989 Lines: 22 Hi Ian, and everyone else... Is it me, or does Andrew still have a big chip on his shoulder? I dunno... I thought we'd sorted all this out at the last show, but no... he's still fuming at me left right and centre, and being very insulting. It actually got to the point where I was nearly sitting down and working all through the night last night to write a demo for FRED, just to prove that I'm still out here, and to answer some of his criticisms... but fortunately the urge passed... I've got too much serious work to do. :( Yours unhappily, Simon +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ ANNOUNCING the Your Sinclair WWW Archive: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc/ys Warning: Currently under construction in some places From imc Wed Aug 9 14:00:22 1995 Subject: Re: Ian's little brother and his caustic wit To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 9 Aug 95 14:00:22 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Simon Cooke" at Aug 8, 95 1:37 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 258 Lines: 10 On Tue, 08 Aug 1995 13:37:44 +0100, Simon Cooke said: > Hi Ian, and everyone else... > Is it me, or does Andrew still have a big chip on his shoulder? What has he done now? (You don't expect me to know what he does during his spare time, do you?...) imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 9 16:14:02 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 08 Aug 1995 16:04:17 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Ian's little brother and his caustic wit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 907 Lines: 25 >Status: RO > >On Tue, 08 Aug 1995 13:37:44 +0100, Simon Cooke said: >> Hi Ian, and everyone else... > >> Is it me, or does Andrew still have a big chip on his shoulder? > >What has he done now? > >(You don't expect me to know what he does during his spare time, do you?...) *grins* Well, I've heard from "sources who would like to remain anonymous" that basically in part 2 of his new demo, he slags me & entropy off no end... try nabbing a copy and reading it! Simon +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ ANNOUNCING the Your Sinclair WWW Archive: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc/ys Warning: Currently under construction in some places From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 9 23:07:28 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 08 Aug 1995 22:58:18 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Pet hate number 1001 - MasterBasic compatibility Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1655 Lines: 35 >This irks me as well, though I have never used MBasic. Naturally the >utilities that I have written all use the documented interface to the >system heap, and reserve utility slots in high memory as described by >the technical manual. > >However, some programs that shall remain nameless just stuff their code in >there, making sure that the machine crashes at the earliest opportunity. >What's more, they don't tell anyone that the stuff is in there so it doesn't >matter which order you load the blasted things in. Unless, that is, you >load the offending utility first and manually inspect the heap to see how >much it used before poking the appropriate system variable. *raises his hand and owns up* Okay, so the doc reader program, and the Anti-aliaser program, and the Reporter program all use the heap... as does the Megablast demo... *apologises profusely* Chimera, my new document browser, will not use the heap. So you can rest easy :) Simon ps Anyone want to help design a standard for swapping pages and programs to the 1Mb memory on a keycombination / on program request? I'm most interested in possibly switching BASIC programs in and out ... should be reasonably easy... anyone tried it already? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ ANNOUNCING the Your Sinclair WWW Archive: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc/ys Warning: Currently under construction in some places From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 9 23:07:28 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 08 Aug 1995 22:58:20 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Pet hate number 1001 - MasterBasic compatibility Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 803 Lines: 18 >It this why certain programs and utilities crash horribly when loaded one >after the other? > >I have resorted to resetting my sam after doing anything involving M/Code >as this seems to be the only safe way to do it. Who knows? But I wish soomeone would explain to me why Steve Taylor's Clock routine only works if you have Masterbasic installed... grrr... Simon +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ ANNOUNCING the Your Sinclair WWW Archive: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc/ys Warning: Currently under construction in some places From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 10 06:46:07 1995 Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 06:37:55 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <10046@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: 1Mb X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 206 Lines: 12 I gather from Bob that the 1Mb packs are no more. Did not ask what replaces it... SIMM packs maybe? I notice some chat about SAM in the FIDO OBSOLETE echo, by the way... Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From imc Thu Aug 10 10:50:02 1995 Subject: Re: Pet hate number 1001 - MasterBasic compatibility To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 10 Aug 95 10:50:02 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Simon Cooke" at Aug 8, 95 10:58 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 434 Lines: 11 On Tue, 08 Aug 1995 22:58:18 +0100, Simon Cooke said: > Okay, so the doc reader program, and the Anti-aliaser program, and the > Reporter program all use the heap... as does the Megablast demo... > Chimera, my new document browser, will not use the heap. So you can rest easy :) You don't have to refrain from using the heap; you just have to use it properly by going through the system interfaces. What's so hard about that? imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 10 15:00:08 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 09 Aug 1995 14:51:07 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: 1Mb Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1220 Lines: 28 >I gather from Bob that the 1Mb packs are no more. Did not ask >what replaces it... SIMM packs maybe? Nope - nothing is going to replace it. I talked to Bob a while ago on the phone about this. He said that with the hard drive coming out, people arne't going to want or need more than 512k of memory (Bill Gates - you've got a competitor, but this guy goes lower than 640k!!!).. which is a shame, because I've got lots of ideas for software which will be greatly enhanced by having external memory. Having said that, if we can convince Bruce to blow the GALs necessary for us, we now know enough to put the RYAN into practice, using cheap SIMMs... we've even got a 1Mb simms module to test the design with. I think Bob really is just waiting for the SAM to die. He's never really progressed from the Spectrum... wanting to replace DIR with CAT proves that much... Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From imc Thu Aug 10 15:05:34 1995 Subject: Re: 1Mb To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 10 Aug 95 15:05:34 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Simon Cooke" at Aug 9, 95 2:51 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 640 Lines: 16 On Wed, 09 Aug 1995 14:51:07 +0100, Simon Cooke said: By the way, your date header is screwed... > I talked to Bob a while ago on the phone about this. He said that with the > hard drive coming out, people arne't going to want or need more than 512k of > memory (Bill Gates - you've got a competitor, but this guy goes lower than > 640k!!!).. which is a shame, because I've got lots of ideas for software > which will be greatly enhanced by having external memory. I happen to have an idea that would use quite a lot of memory. It has to do with TeX... A really good dvi printer would use about 700K for a bitmap of the page. ;-) imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 10 15:11:05 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 09 Aug 1995 15:02:18 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Pet hate number 1001 - MasterBasic compatibility Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 636 Lines: 17 >> Chimera, my new document browser, will not use the heap. So you can rest easy :) > >You don't have to refrain from using the heap; you just have to use it >properly by going through the system interfaces. What's so hard about >that? Well, I was young... I was foolish... :) :) :) Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From imc Thu Aug 10 15:14:23 1995 Subject: Re: Cycles To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 10 Aug 95 15:14:23 BST In-Reply-To: <9508091223.AA25661@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Aug 9, 95 2:23 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 174 Lines: 6 On Wed, 9 Aug 1995 14:23:28 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > The demo TNT should be a nice test. It's on nvg. :) It's no good as SPCONV claims that it is a 128K snapshot. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 10 17:35:55 1995 From: David Zambonini To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 17:35:24 GMT Subject: Re: Cycles Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: <1E8DD0D7CEA@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 155 Lines: 10 Raleigh. :) DMZ === (Sorry, couldn't think of anything else to mention..) (PS am soon placing EMU<-->SNA<-->Z80 Converter Alpha up on the FTP site) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 11 07:38:38 1995 Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 08:38:27 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508110638.AA28925@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Cycles X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 254 Lines: 9 > On Wed, 9 Aug 1995 14:23:28 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > > The demo TNT should be a nice test. It's on nvg. :) > > It's no good as SPCONV claims that it is a 128K snapshot. It is. You were supposed to emulate the border effects of a 128K? > imc > From imc Fri Aug 11 10:54:26 1995 Subject: Re: Cycles To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 11 Aug 95 10:54:26 BST In-Reply-To: <9508110638.AA28925@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Aug 11, 95 8:38 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 348 Lines: 9 On Fri, 11 Aug 1995 08:38:27 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > It is. You were supposed to emulate the border effects of a 128K? No, I was supposed to emulate the border effects of a 48K because it's a 48K emulator (at the moment). I can do the +3 already because I've got one at home to test but my 48K is 160 miles away so I can't test that. imc From imc Fri Aug 11 11:04:07 1995 Subject: Re: Ian's little brother and his caustic wit To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 11 Aug 95 11:04:07 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Simon Cooke" at Aug 8, 95 4:04 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 506 Lines: 11 On Tue, 08 Aug 1995 16:04:17 +0100, Simon Cooke said: > Well, I've heard from "sources who would like to remain anonymous" that > basically in part 2 of his new demo, he slags me & entropy off no end... try > nabbing a copy and reading it! I have read the text for his next demo and it seems perfectly OK except for one small mention [which, as it happens, is due to Stefan Drissen digging up the old `isn't your S a rip-off of the Entropy logo' theme again]. Maybe that demo isn't the one you mean. imc From imc Fri Aug 11 12:31:52 1995 Subject: Instruction timing To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 11 Aug 95 12:31:52 BST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 6511 Lines: 127 Here is a program I wrote some time ago to time instructions on the Sam. Insert your favourite instruction(s) at line 30 (instead of the NOP that's there) and run it, whereupon it should tell you how many T-states it takes. (Use any of the main registers, but don't write a 201 (RET) unless you change line 60 of the program). 10 CLEAR 59999 20 DATA 33,0,0,6,10,217 30 DATA 0 40 DATA 217,16,60005-(x+1),43,124,181,32,60003-(x+1),201 50 LET x=60000: RESTORE 20 60 READ y: POKE x,y: LET x=x+1: IF y <> 201 THEN GO TO 60 70 OUT 254,128 80 PAUSE 1: DPOKE 23672,0: CALL 60000: LET t= DPEEK 23672 90 BORDER 0 100 LET m=t*115850 110 LET i=(m/65536-32)/10-24 120 LET j= INT (i+.5): IF ABS (i-j)>.25 THEN PRINT "Some uncertainty exists" 130 PRINT j;" Tstates" In modes 3 and 4, when the screen is turned off, the ASIC limits main memory accesses (that is, accesses within the 512K of built-in RAM but not in the ROM or the external RAM) to 1 every 4 clock cycles. This also applies when the screen is on and the TV scan is not in the middle of drawing something that is on the screen. If it is drawing something (this applies for 256 cycles in each scan line of 384 cycles and for 192 of every 312 scan lines) then the ASIC limits memory accesses to 1 every 8 clock cycles. I will describe what happens in the former case. Since the CPU clearly has to fetch each instruction from memory before executing it, each instruction must start on a cycle number which is a multiple of 4. For example, if the instructions INC DE:EXX are executed then since INC DE takes 6 cycles the EXX must wait a further 2 cycles before being executed. [Aside: the memory access actually occurs on the third cycle of an instruction, so what happens is that the CPU starts fetching the EXX immediately but has to wait for 2 cycles during the instruction fetch.] We usually include the two cycles in the timing for INC DE and say that INC DE takes 8 cycles, since that is more convenient. Interestingly enough, INC DE has the distinction of being an instruction that takes the same length of time whether the screen is being drawn or not. Most instructions that are not memory intensive and do not use I/O simply have their times rounded up to the next multiple of 4 for the above reason. For example: instruction official time Sam time INC r 4 4 INC rr 6 8 INC IX 10 12 ADD HL,rr 11 12 ADD IX,rr 15 16 LD r,n 7 8 LD rr,nn 10 12 JR cc,d if cc 12 else 7 if cc 12 else 8 JP cc,nn 10 12 RET cc if cc 10 else 5 if cc 12 else 8. Instructions that are memory intensive sometimes take more time. This depends on what each instruction does. The Z80 is usually, though not always, predictable in the amount of time it takes to do something. For example (the left-hand column gives letters by which these actions will be referred to later on): ref action time F instruction fetch 4 [includes execution time for simple loads & ALU] A memory access 3 L 8-bit ALU 1 I 16-bit inc/dec 3 [except PC, and SP during stack operations] J relative jump 5 X add d to IX 5. A memory access and increment operation, which happens during instruction fetches, double byte memory fetches, block operations and stack operations, takes only 3 cycles, presumably because an increment circuit is built in to the memory access path of the Z80. In the case of the PUSH instruction the stack pointer has to be decremented before the first memory access; this takes 1 cycle (referred to as D below. This also applies to the DEC BC cycle of an LDIR instruction). So the following instruction timings result. Elements of the form w2 in the right-hand column denote cycles during which the CPU has to wait for a memory access. instruction official time Sam time PUSH rr F+D+A+A = 11 F+D+w3+A+w1+A+w1 = 16 POP rr F+A+A = 10 F+A+w1+A+w1 = 12 CALL cc,nn F+A+A+D+A+A = 17 F+A+w1+A+D+A+w1+A+w1 = 20 [if cc] CALL cc,nn F+A+A = 10 F+A+w1+A+w1 = 12 [if not cc] LD HL,(nn) F+A+A+A+A = 16 F+A+w1+A+w1+A+w1+A+w1 = 20 DJNZ d F+L+A+J = 13 F+L+w3+A+J = 16 [if B>0] DJNZ d F+L+A = 8 F+L+w3+A+w1 = 12 [if B=0] LDIR F+F+A+A+1+D+J=21 F+F+A+w1+A+1+D+J+w2 = 24 [if BC>0] LDIR F+F+A+A+1+D = 16 F+F+A+w1+A+1+D+w3 = 20 [if BC=0] (since LDIR and OTIR take the same amount of time officially, and since an I/O operation takes one cycle longer than a memory access, the Z80 must for some reason insert the extra 1 into an LDIR, which is shown above). Interestingly enough, if DE points to the ROM when an LDIR is carried out then there are no wait states in the case that BC=0 and the operation takes 16 cycles. I/O operations are slightly different from memory fetches. Officially they take 4 cycles because the Z80's I/O cycle is the same as a memory cycle but with an added wait state. However, I/O ports 248-255 inclusive are contended by the ASIC, which allows only one access every 8 cycles. For this reason, the time taken by an I/O instruction depends upon where it is in the program. For example, OUT (254),A usually takes 12 cycles (F+A+w1+O, where O is the I/O operation) but if two of them are executed in sequence then the second one will take 16 cycles (F+A+w5+O). Assuming that each instruction starts on an 8-cycle boundary, we have the following. instruction official time Sam time OUT (C),r F+F+O = 12 F+F+O = 12 NOP:OUT (C),r F+F+F+O = 16 F+F+F+w4+O = 20 [if c>247] OUT (n),A F+A+O = 11 F+A+w1+O = 12 [if n>247] OUT (n),A F+A+O = 11 F+A+O+w1 = 12 [if n<248] OTIR F+F+A+O+L+J = 21 F+F+A+w5+O+L+J+w2 = 28 [if c>247 & b>0] OTIR F+F+A+O+L = 16 F+F+A+w5+O+L+w3 = 24 [if c>247 & b=0] NOP:OTIR F+F+F+A+O+L+J=25 F+F+F+A+w1+O+L+J+w2=28 [if c>247 & b>0] NOP:OTIR F+F+F+A+O+L = 20 F+F+F+A+w1+O+L+w3 = 24 [if c>247 & b=0] OTIR F+F+A+O+L+J = 21 F+F+A+O+L+J+w3 = 24 [if c<248 b>0] OTIR F+F+A+O+L = 16 F+F+A+O+L = 16 [if c<248 b=0] And that's what I know about instruction timings. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 11 16:16:48 1995 Message-Id: <54574.9508111514@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Pet hate number 1001 - MasterBasic compatibility To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 11 Aug 1995 16:14:37 +0100 (BST) From: Mr Keith Turner In-Reply-To: <9508100950.AA05444@boothp1.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Aug 10, 95 11:50:02 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 350 Lines: 12 imc said: > You don't have to refrain from using the heap; you just have to use it > properly by going through the system interfaces. What's so hard about > that? Is it documented in the Technical Manual (which I am still looking for)? If somebody could send me a specific pointer to the relevant information then I'd be happy to comply. / To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sat, 12 Aug 1995 11:00:21 GMT Subject: Chaos 3 Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Message-Id: <2124D6A4604@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 951 Lines: 27 Okay... okay.. I've finally decided to get round to writing it. And it'll be the last one I do... ever. So, any suggestions? I'm here to give the public what they want.. :) So far I have:- *My volume bars off chaos 2 looking a lot snazzier than before, and whir in from the sides of the screen quite nicely. * A nifty logo. * Possibility of sampled sound (yes, OK Ian, I still reckon its possible..) * A scrolly between the volume bars (a sinewave, of course) * A lot of blank space up the top of the screen. Before I get any funny comments like "whats he putting this up here for?" or "oh god, not another demo", I just want to get it out of the way since some people have been asking about it... mainly because I forgot to include a "this will be the last chaos demo" on #2... :) Yeah! Power to those on the net who are also spoddy enough to be on here over the summer!.. :) DMZ === [ I haven't got a mailsig, and proud of it.. :) ] From imc Sun Aug 13 12:29:16 1995 Subject: Instruction timing To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sun, 13 Aug 95 12:29:16 BST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1985 Lines: 54 I wrote: > I 16-bit inc/dec 3 [except PC, and SP during stack operations] ^ This should probably be 2. >stack pointer has to be decremented before the first memory access; this >takes 1 cycle (referred to as D below. This also applies to the DEC BC >cycle of an LDIR instruction). Not that it makes much difference but I've decided that the DEC BC of an LDIR instruction is of the I kind mentioned above. That also means I don't have to add an extra cycle to make it add up. However I do have to add an extra 3 cycles to a CPIR instruction to make it add up. Possibly this is a fake memory cycle which corresponds to the 'store in (DE)' phase of the LDIR. > OTIR F+F+A+O+L = 16 F+F+A+w5+O+L+w3 = 24 [if c>247 & b=0] > OTIR F+F+A+O+L = 16 F+F+A+O+L = 16 [if c<248 b=0] This is incorrect since the DEC B seems to come before the output. In other words, if you do LD BC,&10F8 OTIR then ports 0FF8, 0EF8, ..., 00F8 will be accessed. Strangely enough, if you do LD BC,&10FE INIR then ports 10FE, 0FFE, ...,01FE will be accessed - in other words the DEC B comes after the input. Unfortunately, I cannot come up with a theory which agrees exactly with experiment. Here is a complete table of the times taken by block instructions. +-----+----+----+----+----+ | src| N | N | C | C | N = not contended | dest| N | C | N | C | C = contended +=====+====+====+====+====+ |LDI | 16 | 20 | 16 | 20 | |LDIR | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 | Note that for fooR the time given is for |CPI | 16 | | 16 | | when the counter is non-zero. When the |CPIR | 24 | | 24 | | counter is zero the time is as for foo. |INI | 16 | 20 | 24 | 24 | |INIR | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 | When foo = fooR = 24 then foo might |OUTI | 16 | 24 | 20 | 24 | take 20 or 24 depending on when it is |OTIR | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 | initiated. +-----+----+----+----+----+ imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 14 10:21:31 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 13 Aug 1995 10:11:43 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Ian's little brother and his caustic wit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1300 Lines: 27 >I have read the text for his next demo and it seems perfectly OK except for >one small mention [which, as it happens, is due to Stefan Drissen digging >up the old `isn't your S a rip-off of the Entropy logo' theme again]. >Maybe that demo isn't the one you mean. It was the comments about Entropy being a closed shop (it isn't - it's just very full... and unproductive. About the only person who's doing anything is Stefan -- although there's lots of others working on stuff behind the scenes), and it being the "Simon Cooke Fan Club"... also, he quoted me from a letter which was sent when we were in the middle of the good old slanging match, and I thought we'd sorted that out at the last Gloucester show. I was even going to get him free Internet dial-up access, if you could get him an actual account on one of the Comlab machines or something. I don't know if I should now. It's moot anyway, as I don't even know if he's got a modem. Pah. Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 14 10:21:31 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 13 Aug 1995 10:11:47 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: 1Mb Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 749 Lines: 21 >By the way, your date header is screwed... Nawww... it's working on BST at the moment :) >I happen to have an idea that would use quite a lot of memory. It has to do >with TeX... > >A really good dvi printer would use about 700K for a bitmap of the page. ;-) > I know... he, to put it politely, is a wazzock. Still, that means that me & Martin can go ahead with our SIMMs using memory thingy. Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 14 10:21:32 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 13 Aug 1995 10:11:41 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Chaos 3 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1310 Lines: 35 >Okay... okay.. I've finally decided to get round to writing it. And >it'll be the last one I do... ever. Last demo ever? >So, any suggestions? I'm here to give the public what they want.. :) > >So far I have:- >*My volume bars off chaos 2 looking a lot snazzier than before, and > whir in from the sides of the screen quite nicely. >* A nifty logo. >* Possibility of sampled sound (yes, OK Ian, I still reckon its > possible..) >* A scrolly between the volume bars (a sinewave, of course) >* A lot of blank space up the top of the screen. ?! A lot of blank space? >Before I get any funny comments like "whats he putting this up here >for?" or "oh god, not another demo", I just want to get it out of the >way since some people have been asking about it... mainly because I >forgot to include a "this will be the last chaos demo" on #2... :) >Yeah! Power to those on the net who are also spoddy enough to be on >here over the summer!.. :) *grins* Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From imc Mon Aug 14 11:30:03 1995 Subject: Re: 1Mb To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 14 Aug 95 11:30:03 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Simon Cooke" at Aug 13, 95 10:11 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 261 Lines: 9 On Sun, 13 Aug 1995 10:11:47 +0100, Simon Cooke said: > >By the way, your date header is screwed... > Nawww... it's working on BST at the moment :) Err, do you live in a timezone called BST which is on the other side of the International Date Line? ;-) imc From imc Mon Aug 14 11:34:21 1995 Subject: Re: Ian's little brother and his caustic wit To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 14 Aug 95 11:34:21 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Simon Cooke" at Aug 13, 95 10:11 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Status: RO Content-Length: 894 Lines: 21 On Sun, 13 Aug 1995 10:11:43 +0100, Simon Cooke said: > scenes), and it being the "Simon Cooke Fan Club"... also, he quoted me from > a letter which was sent when we were in the middle of the good old slanging > match, and I thought we'd sorted that out at the last Gloucester show. I don't remember that. Anyway, I'll tell him to cut it out... > I was even going to get him free Internet dial-up access, if you could get > him an actual account on one of the Comlab machines or something. You know me, root@ecs... (not). > I don't > know if I should now. It's moot anyway, as I don't even know if he's got a > modem. No he hasn't. What would he want one for? He also hasn't got a telephone anywhere near his Sam, and the one telephone in the house is connected via an ancient junction box rather than a BT socket. imc From imc Mon Aug 14 11:47:50 1995 Subject: Re: Pet hate number 1001 - MasterBasic compatibility To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 14 Aug 95 11:47:50 BST In-Reply-To: <54574.9508111514@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>; from "Mr Keith Turner" at Aug 11, 95 4:14 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1634 Lines: 36 On Fri, 11 Aug 1995 16:14:37 +0100 (BST), Mr Keith Turner said: > > You don't have to refrain from using the heap; you just have to use it > > properly by going through the system interfaces. What's so hard about > > that? > Is it documented in the Technical Manual (which I am still looking for)? Yes... > If somebody could send me a specific pointer to the relevant information > then I'd be happy to comply. The system heap is that area of memory between 4000 and 4B00, which is also shared by the BASIC stack (growing downwards from 4B00) and it is for user programs that need a bit of storage that is always paged in. It occupies the region between HEAPST [dpeek &5BCA] (which is usually 4000) and HEAPEND [dpeek $5BC8]. Anyway, it's very simple: to reserve some space you just call JHEAPROOM at 0106 with BC containing the number of spaces, and if there is enough room it will return with the carry flag set and HL pointing to the start of the reserved space. It's polite not to reserve too much space and to put non-essential routines somewhere else in memory. There is a page allocation table at 5100. The byte stored at (5100+x) gives information about page x (0 <= x < 32). If it is zero, the page is free. FF means the page does not exist (on a 256K machine). All other numbers mean the page is occupied. The number 20 (hex) means that the page is a utility page. Utility pages are further subdivided into 16 1K-long slots, except the last slot which is 1008 bytes long. The last 16 bytes of each utility page say whether the slots are occupied. FF denotes an occupied slot and 00 denotes a free slot. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 14 21:18:55 1995 Date: Sun, 13 Aug 1995 18:41:38 GMT From: marc@failure.demon.co.uk (marc broster) Message-Id: <518@failure.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Chaos 3 X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 334 Lines: 14 In message <2124D6A4604@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> David Zambonini writes: > Yeah! Power to those on the net who are also spoddy enough to be on ^^^^^^ what. any sam-users read usenet? or is everyone too busy writing pointless assembly routines for an outdated 8-bit machine? marc broster From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 14 22:57:16 1995 From: stefan.drissen@tic.iaf.nl Original-Received: by tic.iaf.nl id 0XJV9003 Mon, 14 Aug 95 23:52:59 -0600 Pp-Warning: Illegal Received field on preceding line Message-Id: <9508142352.0XJV900@tic.iaf.nl> Organization: Internet Connection BBS X-Mailer: TBBS/PIMP v3.11 Date: Mon, 14 Aug 95 23:52:59 -0600 Subject: Back again.... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 3627 Lines: 60 Hello all, after a nice week in Italy with my parents and sister and then two weeks partying in the Spanish Lloret de Mar I am finally back behind a screen. That should explain my quietness the last few weeks. Therefore I could also not send an insulting message to Ian about my list of instruction timings. First of all, the list that appeared on Fred (many years ago!) was simply a basic indication that you couldn't use the official timings. I then went along and tested all the instruction speeds as compared to the speed of a NOP (with the screen on!) I then converted the relative speeds which I got from the tests to "t-state values". For this I am sorry since it is the improper use of the word t-state. If you check out the speed of a LD A,7 compared to a NOP then you should see that this instruction takes 9.3/4=2.3 times more time. Later on I also wrote in a letter to Fred (which was included) that my values were not totally correct and that I would send a new list as soon as I got it finished. I never finished this list. What the list comprised of was basically the time (in t-states!) taken by an instruction during screen and border time. I then saw that tendency for 4 cycle instructions existed and that some other funny things were going on that I aborted. When writing the burstplayer (as part of the SAM mod player v2.02 and the soon to be released WAV player) I discovered that I couldn't exchange little routines which theoretically had the same t-state length and chucked in the timing towel and aligned everything with palette colour changes - which was a hell of a hassle (5 different devices with 4 different sound routines). I wish I could get this damn Pentium to sample the sam's output at a massive frequency so that I could get timings aligned that way - but alas, no pc programming for me. BTW I have go a Z80 cross assembler for dos which is public domain - it also does 8086 and something else. Haven't used it yet since Comet is still handling nicely but the documentation makes it seem very good, it even includes auto-optimization of instructions! I must say that your (Ian's) explaination of t-states looked very impressive and thorough. I must say I still prefer the try and cry method. Still on the insult line, I don't see why I should get a slam for "recently" mentioning the sigma/entropy logo thing - since the last I talked of it was with Andrew at the Gloucester show (some 4 months ago!). I can't help it that when I see a graphic of a twisted sigma that I thought it looked like a twisted E. What's the big deal with it anyway? I couldn't care less if it was the Entropy E itself (as a manner of speaking). Looking forward to seeing the demo though. Also looking forward to the Chaos 3, David. On the subject of demo's anyone incorporated a MOD tune in their demo yet? Right, end of subject. Next, the accelerator sounds nifty (hmmm, 20 times the speed - that should allow 16 channel mods playing at 44 khz in background mode) We would need move internal memory to store the better mods though. What would the costs of the accelerator be though? Next question, how's the hard-drive (or dos) coming along? BTW Simon, could you mail me a teledisk copy of the comet-ascii thing - it might work nicely together with this very rough disassembler I've got which disassembles to a text file (open-type via streams aaaaaaggggh!). Ummm, that sort of rounds things up for me, time to get to sleep after having sat in the bus for a bloody 28 hours (5 hours due to the bus breaking down!). CUL8R Solar Flare of Entropy (aka Stefan.Drissen@tic.iaf.nl) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 15 09:17:11 1995 From: "Doore, Dan [MIS]" To: sam-users Subject: Re: Chaos 3 Date: Tue, 15 Aug 95 09:15:00 PDT Message-Id: <3030C83E@courier.lmu.ac.uk> Encoding: 30 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 744 Lines: 30 > In message <2124D6A4604@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> David Zambonini writes: > > Yeah! Power to those on the net who are also spoddy enough to be on > ^^^^^^ > what. > > > any sam-users read usenet? or is everyone too busy writing pointless assembly > routines for an outdated 8-bit machine? > > marc broster A pod with a connection. Look mate, their is enough crap circulating the wonders of the Internet without some pod trying to sound clever by insulting a list server. Fuck off back to usenet, I'm sure they would appreciate your rapier-like wit. marc@failure, how apt. Dan. Dan Doore - Operations Soon-to-be-ex-head Pod & Dogsbody 'Still no job too trivial' --- SMTP: d.j.doore@lmu.ac.uk From imc Tue Aug 15 11:48:08 1995 Subject: Re: Back again.... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 15 Aug 95 11:48:08 BST In-Reply-To: <9508142352.0XJV900@tic.iaf.nl>; from "stefan.drissen@tic.iaf.nl" at Aug 14, 95 11:52 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 2396 Lines: 51 On Mon, 14 Aug 95 23:52:59 -0600, stefan.drissen@tic.iaf.nl said: > If you check out the speed of a LD > A,7 compared to a NOP then you should see that this instruction takes 9.3/4=2.3 > times more time. OK, on average, in mode 4, if the screen is turned on, then LD A,7 should take approximately 10.06 T-states. But it is _actually_ taking either 8 or 16 depending on where it is on the screen. If the screen is off then it always takes 8. I think this explanation is more instructive than just "it takes 10.06 T-states". I already posted one program that can time instructions; here is another. begin 644 tstate.bin M(0#^?!$!_@$``3;][;`J_?TBU>HA^\GS(OW][4?M7OL^`#+7Z@X-Q78!!I,0 M_@T@^P``S0#Z.M?JIR``/@0."-/^Q@7F!P85$/X-(/.OT_[!K]O^+^8?(`T- >(,LZU^KN`3+7ZAB_\RK5ZB+]_>U6/C_M1_O)```` ` end Load it in at 60000 and POKE 64000,201 (important!). Print some markers on the top line of the screen (for example, a sequence of digits) and then PAUSE 10:CALL 60000. What you should see is some coloured stripes just above the markers and a vertical line aligned with the left-hand side of the screen. Press a key (any key that is on port 254) to stop it. All you have to do is poke some instructions in at 64000, ending with RET, and the CPU meter will tell you how long they took, not including the RET. Each character square moved by the meter is 8 T-states, and if the meter oscillates between two positions then the true result is half way between the two. Note that the instructions you poke in will be executed on an 8-cycle boundary in such a way that both IN A,(254) and NOP:IN A,(254) take 24 cycles. Both the programs measure the instructions with the screen off, but the one in BASIC can be changed (with difficulty) to leave the screen on. This one can't. It should be quite easy to make a complete table of instruction timings, if that is particularly desired. I find my logical explanation cam predict the result in most cases, however. > Still on the insult line, I don't see why I should get a slam for "recently" > mentioning the sigma/entropy logo thing - since the last I talked of it was > with Andrew at the Gloucester show (some 4 months ago!). He probably wrote the text some time ago, and anyway I don't think your name is mentioned in connection with this. He just got a bit cheesed off with people mentioning it. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 15 15:12:13 1995 From: David Zambonini To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 15 Aug 1995 15:11:50 GMT Subject: T-states Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: <25E8A610A9A@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 232 Lines: 9 My god. I've been using Stefans' list of T-state values for ages now. No wonder my programs always ran faster than I thought... :) Ever wondered what a pod was? DMZ === [no mailsig., but still waiting for IDEAS for Chaos 3 :) ] From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 15 18:29:37 1995 Message-Id: <21653.9508151728@rs6-233.cls-4.bcc.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Pet hate number 1001 - MasterBasic compatibility To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 15 Aug 1995 18:28:18 +0100 (BST) From: Mr Keith Turner In-Reply-To: <9508141047.AA00526@boothp1.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Aug 14, 95 12:47:50 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 358 Lines: 10 imc very helpfully described reserving space on the heap: > Anyway, it's very simple: to reserve some space you just call JHEAPROOM at > 0106 with BC containing the number of spaces, and if there is enough room > it will return with the carry flag set and HL pointing to the start of the > reserved space. Thanks Ian! A message worth printing out. / To: sam-users Subject: RE: T-states Date: Tue, 15 Aug 95 16:09:00 PDT Message-Id: <303149FD@courier.lmu.ac.uk> Encoding: 22 TEXT X-Mailer: Microsoft Mail V3.0 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 413 Lines: 22 > > Ever wondered what a pod was? Many have asked, it's just a generic term, a bit like 'bloke' In our office it has been suggested that 'pods' stands for 'People Of Dodgy Surnames'. Can't think why. :) Dan. Dan Doore - Operations Soon-to-be-ex-head Pod & Dogsbody 'Still no job too trivial' --- SMTP: d.j.doore@lmu.ac.uk MailSig 1.6 - "As an actor, my eyeballs need to look their whitest!"- pitchman From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 16 10:26:37 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Tue, 15 Aug 1995 10:16:04 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Chaos 3 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1491 Lines: 32 >In message <2124D6A4604@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> David Zambonini writes: >> Yeah! Power to those on the net who are also spoddy enough to be on > ^^^^^^ >what. >any sam-users read usenet? or is everyone too busy writing pointless assembly >routines for an outdated 8-bit machine? I read Usenet, sure. But I do have lots of better things to do with my time too. And any assembly routines I write are 100% pure useful-for-other-things. First of all, it hones my writing skills, and secondly, a good many can be transplanted to other projects on other machines. >marc broster If anyone's wondering, I assume that this is the same Marc Broster who wrote the DWC demo on Fred 50... with its absolutely appalling perspective. Yuck. Other than that, it was a technical masterpiece. I must say though, that if I had to take up nearly 512k to do the 3d graphics routines for a game, I'm sure I wouldn't have room in the memory to do Elite afterwards. If you need THAT much memory for a 3d line drawing routine, you're doing it *WRONG*. He's also a fellow member of Mnemotech with David Zambonini. Simon Cooke -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 16 14:50:10 1995 From: David Zambonini To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 14:48:15 GMT Subject: RE: T-states Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: <27628CE24B9@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 428 Lines: 19 > > > > Ever wondered what a pod was? > > Many have asked, it's just a generic term, a bit like 'bloke' > > In our office it has been suggested that 'pods' stands for > 'People Of Dodgy Surnames'. > > Can't think why. > > :) > You know, I have absolutely no idea why they could come up with that one either.. :) Zambonini replying to Doore.... =========================== Mailsig - still absent, but there you go... :P From imc Wed Aug 16 14:53:23 1995 Subject: The Heap To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 16 Aug 95 14:53:23 BST X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 262 Lines: 6 I made an error in my explanation of the system heap. I said that 0106 returns with HL pointing to the reserved space. It turns out that DE actually has this function. HL seems to return pointing to the location just after the end of the reserved space. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 16 14:58:16 1995 From: David Zambonini To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 14:54:50 GMT Subject: Re: Chaos 3 Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: <27644F07E21@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1427 Lines: 33 > >> Yeah! Power to those on the net who are also spoddy enough to be on > > ^^^^^^ > >what. > >any sam-users read usenet? or is everyone too busy writing pointless assembly > >routines for an outdated 8-bit machine? > > I read Usenet, sure. But I do have lots of better things to do with my time too. > > And any assembly routines I write are 100% pure useful-for-other-things. > First of all, it hones my writing skills, and secondly, a good many can be > transplanted to other projects on other machines. > > >marc broster > > If anyone's wondering, I assume that this is the same Marc Broster who wrote > the DWC demo on Fred 50... with its absolutely appalling perspective. Yuck. > Other than that, it was a technical masterpiece. I must say though, that if > I had to take up nearly 512k to do the 3d graphics routines for a game, I'm > sure I wouldn't have room in the memory to do Elite afterwards. If you need > THAT much memory for a 3d line drawing routine, you're doing it *WRONG*. > > He's also a fellow member of Mnemotech with David Zambonini. Here, there was nothing wrong with the perspective on DWC as far as I could see... its just a matter of ...err... perspective. I certainly wouldn't go making comments about demos that I am unworthy even to look at (like DWC :) ). Anyway, you failed to mention the other Mnemotech member on here.. :) DMZ === From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 17 01:16:30 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 01:16:01 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Back again.... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2365 Lines: 46 >Right, end of subject. Next, the accelerator sounds nifty (hmmm, 20 times the >speed - that should allow 16 channel mods playing at 44 khz in background mode) >We would need more internal memory to store the better mods though. What >would the costs of the accelerator be though? Well... I'm not sure about the 16 channel mods... namely because IO will still run at standard SAM speeds (well, IO to any ASIC driven port will... below 248, I think it'll run at full speed). The cost? Well, we're still working on that. Let us build up a prototype first. I'd say that under fifty pounds is overly optimistic... and under 80 may be possible, but probably unlikely. >Next question, how's the >hard-drive (or dos) coming along? BTW Simon, could you mail me a teledisk copy >of the comet-ascii thing - it might work nicely together with this very rough >disassembler I've got which disassembles to a text file (open-type via streams >aaaaaaggggh!). Well the hard-drive is currently undergoing timing testings to try and work out why I'm getting spurious data reads back if I don't read the DRQ bit between each data read. Time to build up a new prototype I think. Nev's hard drive isn't much further along either - I've heard that this is because he's relying on being able to write the DOS in SAM C (he doesn't like machine code). Also, he's recently hit problems with his interface seemingly being only compatible with the first drive he tested... probably the same probs that we've been having.... As for the DOS, I'm designing new instructions, and trying as hard as possible to work out how to make the DOS sectional so that you can use BOOT 1 for a mini-just-get-it-going DOS, BOOT 2 if you want all of the extras (BOOT 2 will be a 32k dos, boot 1 a 16k one). If anyone has any ideas for new DOS commands, and/or hook codes I'd be more than happy to hear them. I'm also going to try to put in support for Steve Taylor's LOAD * command too, if I ever get around to hacking his code. Time is short, alas. Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 17 09:05:06 1995 Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 09:02:53 +0100 (BST) From: Steve Taylor X-Sender: sct1000@blue.csi.cam.ac.uk To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Back again.... In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1058 Lines: 23 On Thu, 17 Aug 1995, Simon Cooke wrote: > If anyone has any ideas for new DOS commands, and/or hook codes I'd be more > than happy to hear them. I'm also going to try to put in support for Steve > Taylor's LOAD * command too, if I ever get around to hacking his code. Time > is short, alas. You shouldn't need to hack the code, Si: the command just looks at the size of the file, reserves enough utility slots/pages for it (or reports an error), loads it to the correct place, and runs it. You should know the protocols by now ;) If something like this had been in the original DOS people wouldn't be experiencing the kind of heap incompatibility problems etc. that they've been moaning about recently. Oh well.... Steve. +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Steve Taylor sct1000@cam.ac.uk | | Pembroke College http://nikita.pem.cam.ac.uk/sct1000/ | | Cambridge CB2 1RF | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ From imc Thu Aug 17 12:54:31 1995 Subject: Re: Back again.... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 17 Aug 95 12:54:32 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Simon Cooke" at Aug 17, 95 1:16 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 274 Lines: 8 On Thu, 17 Aug 1995 01:16:01 +0100, Simon Cooke said: > If anyone has any ideas for new DOS commands, and/or hook codes I'd be more > than happy to hear them. Well the list of DOS system calls on the +3 seems fairly complete, so you might get some ideas from there... imc From imc Thu Aug 17 12:59:47 1995 Subject: Re: Back again.... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 17 Aug 95 12:59:47 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Steve Taylor" at Aug 17, 95 9:02 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 878 Lines: 17 On Thu, 17 Aug 1995 09:02:53 +0100 (BST), Steve Taylor said: > You shouldn't need to hack the code, Si: the command just looks at the > size of the file, reserves enough utility slots/pages for it (or reports > an error), loads it to the correct place, and runs it. You should know > the protocols by now ;) If something like this had been in the original > DOS people wouldn't be experiencing the kind of heap incompatibility > problems etc. that they've been moaning about recently. Oh well.... I don't think so. The utility area and the system heap are two different areas. In fact, programs that are in utility pages usually need to stick some stuff in the system heap as well, so this LOAD * will only solve half the problem. It also might be wasteful of space, because the program on disk might be quite a bit longer than it is when it is resident in memory. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 17 14:11:01 1995 Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 15:11:11 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508171311.AA12004@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Back again.... X-Sun-Charset: ISO-8859-1 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2068 Lines: 41 > > Well the hard-drive is currently undergoing timing testings to try and work > out why I'm getting spurious data reads back if I don't read the DRQ bit > between each data read. Time to build up a new prototype I think. Nev's hard Well...the problem solves itself if you read DRQ between each data read, eh? ;) > drive isn't much further along either - I've heard that this is because he's > relying on being able to write the DOS in SAM C (he doesn't like machine > code). Also, he's recently hit problems with his interface seemingly being > only compatible with the first drive he tested... probably the same probs > that we've been having.... > > As for the DOS, I'm designing new instructions, and trying as hard as > possible to work out how to make the DOS sectional so that you can use BOOT > 1 for a mini-just-get-it-going DOS, BOOT 2 if you want all of the extras > (BOOT 2 will be a 32k dos, boot 1 a 16k one). > > If anyone has any ideas for new DOS commands, and/or hook codes I'd be more > than happy to hear them. I'm also going to try to put in support for Steve > Taylor's LOAD * command too, if I ever get around to hacking his code. Time > is short, alas. commands: Why not give it the BASIC-commands you can find in MasterDOS, GDOS, SAMDOS, and whatever else and give them a UNIX feel? Like piping, redirection and stuff like that. LOAD without "" would be nice, giving only the filename insted of LOAD "filename" would also be nice. Keyword/ filename completion with TAB would be cool too :) hook codes: I'm quite sure you'll be able to get the most esensial ones. One important aspect is to make them generic enough, say so you can write anything from one byte to maxMB to one file and decide if you want to overwrite or append. It would also be nice if there were as few file types as possible, and that you can do exactly the same operations on all types. It would also be interesting to have the ports act as files so that you could 'save' to the printer-port to print stuff. Not highly original, but though.... My 5 xre. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 17 15:07:49 1995 Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 15:06:41 +0100 (BST) From: Steve Taylor X-Sender: sct1000@blue.csi.cam.ac.uk To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Back again.... In-Reply-To: <9508171159.AA08137@boothp1.ecs.ox.ac.uk> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1435 Lines: 31 On Thu, 17 Aug 1995 Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk wrote: > On Thu, 17 Aug 1995 09:02:53 +0100 (BST), Steve Taylor said: > > You shouldn't need to hack the code, Si: the command just looks at the > > size of the file, reserves enough utility slots/pages for it (or reports > > an error), loads it to the correct place, and runs it. You should know > > the protocols by now ;) If something like this had been in the original > > DOS people wouldn't be experiencing the kind of heap incompatibility > > problems etc. that they've been moaning about recently. Oh well.... > > I don't think so. > > The utility area and the system heap are two different areas. In fact, > programs that are in utility pages usually need to stick some stuff in > the system heap as well, so this LOAD * will only solve half the problem. > It also might be wasteful of space, because the program on disk might be > quite a bit longer than it is when it is resident in memory. > > imc > I don't think you quite understood: I meant that people wouldn't be sticking huge programs in the heap if installing them was easier. +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | Steve Taylor sct1000@cam.ac.uk | | Pembroke College http://nikita.pem.cam.ac.uk/sct1000/ | | Cambridge CB2 1RF | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ From imc Thu Aug 17 15:10:15 1995 Subject: Re: Back again.... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 17 Aug 95 15:10:15 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Steve Taylor" at Aug 17, 95 3:06 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 514 Lines: 12 On Thu, 17 Aug 1995 15:06:41 +0100 (BST), Steve Taylor said: > I don't think you quite understood: I meant that people wouldn't be > sticking huge programs in the heap if installing them was easier. Hmmm, possibly. :-) Some of these programs might want to be paged in all the time though. The correct answer is to place some small paging routines in the heap and put the rest of the program in a utility slot. But even with LOAD * it will still be easier to load the thing directly into the system heap. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 17 19:50:46 1995 From: R J Partington Message-Id: <199508171833.TAA04952@heffer.demon.co.uk> Subject: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 19:33:31 +0100 (BST) In-Reply-To: <9508171311.AA12004@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Aug 17, 95 03:11:11 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 611 Lines: 15 Frode Tenneboe wrote... > commands: Why not give it the BASIC-commands you can find in MasterDOS, > GDOS, SAMDOS, and whatever else and give them a UNIX feel? Like piping, What about UNIX for the sam? Or would that be stretching credibility? > to overwrite or append. It would also be nice if there were as few file > types as possible, and that you can do exactly the same operations on > all types. WRT filetypes: can we have `proper' filetypes, where there's a magic number in the file (or some other thing) rather than relying on filetypes? A file should have to called *.jpg (eg) to be a jpeg etc. rjp From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 17 23:08:34 1995 Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 22:51:40 GMT From: marc@failure.demon.co.uk (marc broster) Message-Id: <567@failure.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: dead wild cat X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 754 Lines: 43 In message <27644F07E21@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> David Zambonini writes: > > Here, there was nothing wrong with the perspective on DWC as far as I > could see... its just a matter of ...err... perspective. I certainly I thought the perspective was way off, but i deicded it was a nice effect, and i couldn't be arsed to change it. > wouldn't go making comments about demos that I am unworthy even to > look at (like DWC :) ). > Your saying dead wild cat was better than your demos? Yeah, sure, perhaps it was more involved that what you've written, but it took me fucking ages to write, while you can put together decent demos in a few days. Which, incidently, was one of the main reasons i stopped coding. marc broster marc broster From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 18 00:11:55 1995 Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 21:40:57 GMT From: marc@failure.demon.co.uk (marc broster) Message-Id: <562@failure.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Chaos 3 X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2297 Lines: 53 In message Simon Cooke writes: > >In message <2124D6A4604@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> David Zambonini writes: > >> Yeah! Power to those on the net who are also spoddy enough to be on > > ^^^^^^ > >what. > >any sam-users read usenet? or is everyone too busy writing pointless assembly > >routines for an outdated 8-bit machine? > > I read Usenet, sure. But I do have lots of better things to do with my time too. > It's great when you come back from the pub, if you can still read. > And any assembly routines I write are 100% pure useful-for-other-things. > First of all, it hones my writing skills, and secondly, a good many can be > transplanted to other projects on other machines. If you like. I suppose assembly is okay if you can do it well, i tended to make loads of real stupid mistakes, so even writing a scroller took me an afternoon. High level languages take care of all the trival crap, leaving you free to concentrate on the programming. > > >marc broster > > If anyone's wondering, I assume that this is the same Marc Broster who wrote > the DWC demo on Fred 50... with its absolutely appalling perspective. Yuck. > Other than that, it was a technical masterpiece. I must say though, that if > I had to take up nearly 512k to do the 3d graphics routines for a game, I'm > sure I wouldn't have room in the memory to do Elite afterwards. If you need > THAT much memory for a 3d line drawing routine, you're doing it *WRONG*. Yep, that's me. You taking the piss with the 'Other than that, it was a technical masterpiece'? (scarcasm doesn't travel too well over ascii) If your not, thanks for the compliment, i'd like to know what sections of the code you're on about. I'd give you an explaination on how i used 512k for the demo (would have used more if available) on tuesday, i'am going away for the weekend, and i'am too tired to type now. > > He's also a fellow member of Mnemotech with David Zambonini. True, but it's doubtfull i'll be doing anything else on the coupe. I've been meaning to write a neural network in C, which i suppose i could compile using sam-C, but i seem to be spending most of my time reading AI books and downloading alt.binaries.pictures.tasteless. sigh. marc broster From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 18 09:08:34 1995 From: slawek@namu01.gwdg.de Message-Id: <9508180802.AA18899@namu26.gwdg.de> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Cc: slawek@namu01.gwdg.de Subject: HD IDE Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 10:02:34 +0200 X-Mts: smtp Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 69 Lines: 3 I had uploaded a IDE circuit to nvg... in file hd_ide.zip . Slawek. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 18 10:10:16 1995 Date: Thu, 17 Aug 95 23:32:48 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: RE: 16 channels - no probs To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2017 Lines: 36 In replying to the stuff on the accelerator Cookie said: >Well... I'm not sure about the 16 channel mods... namely because IO will >still run at standard SAM speeds (well, IO to any ASIC driven port will... >below 248, I think it'll run at full speed). When playing 16 channel mods I was not implying actually using a 16 channel device. Mixing the sound into four channels will do quite nicely - add a volume boost feature and bob's your uncle (thank god he's not!). When outputting to say the SAMdac you would end up with 5 bits for each channel since it's got two 8 bit outputs = four 7 bit outputs = eight 6 bit outputs = five 5 bit outputs. Because you are mixing 16 five bit samples together they still sound amazing. The extra processing power would therefore be used for mixing and not for outputting. 16 channels is four times the amount of 4 channels therefore with a sam running at four times the speed I can output a 16 channel mod at 10.4khz (as the current mod player does). Some extra power would be used to beef the sample speed up to 15.6khz, and even more could bring it up to 31.2khz - the problem then being that half of your line interrupt time is being used to pause for the second sample output on a line. Anyway, enough on the mod stuff (has everybody bought a copy of the SAM MOD player version 2.02 yet by the way???? Only five pounds. Just needed to put that small plug in there :) since I was rambling away about mods) With the Quazar you would finally have a good use for 16 bit mode since even with mixing the quality would be excellent. BTW does anybody know if Craig Turberfield has still got an e-mail address. I checked out his WWW homepage and mailed to the address included but got my message thrown back in my face. That covers me for the moment. Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) (not quite sure if this address works???) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From imc Fri Aug 18 12:21:54 1995 Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 12:21:54 BST In-Reply-To: <199508171833.TAA04952@heffer.demon.co.uk>; from "R J Partington" at Aug 17, 95 7:33 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 895 Lines: 18 On Thu, 17 Aug 1995 19:33:31 +0100 (BST), R J Partington said: > WRT filetypes: can we have `proper' filetypes, where there's a magic > number in the file (or some other thing) rather than relying on > filetypes? A file should have to called *.jpg (eg) to be a jpeg etc. (I assume you meant there to be a 'not' in there?) Anyway, this has always been the case on the Sam and other sensible systems. I often call bits of code "*.bin" even though I don't have to. What the filetype bit of the name is actually for is to give a hint as to what's in the file. If it's called abc.jpg then it's likely to be a JPEG picture, although it would still work if it were called zyx.bas. Some filetypes contain more hints than others. For example, if you want to compile a C program you should call it foo.c or else the compiler won't know it is a C program. Anyway that's enough random waffle... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 18 13:41:10 1995 Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 14:40:32 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508181240.AA01706@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 999 Lines: 20 > Anyway, this has always been the case on the Sam and other sensible systems. > I often call bits of code "*.bin" even though I don't have to. But the SAM is stil insensible enough to differ between the filetypes BASIC, CODE, SCREEN, OPENTYPE, etc. > What the filetype bit of the name is actually for is to give a hint as to > what's in the file. If it's called abc.jpg then it's likely to be a JPEG > picture, although it would still work if it were called zyx.bas. Some > filetypes contain more hints than others. For example, if you want to > compile a C program you should call it foo.c or else the compiler won't > know it is a C program. Anyway that's enough random waffle... But you can call a BASIC-program "foo.c" if you want to - the ".c" does not have anything to do with the filetype. The filetype is determined from the first byte of the directory-entry. The postfix should not be important for the operating system - an excelent example of the oposite is MessDos.... -Frode From imc Fri Aug 18 14:24:26 1995 Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 14:24:26 BST In-Reply-To: <9508181240.AA01706@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Aug 18, 95 2:40 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 842 Lines: 22 On Fri, 18 Aug 1995 14:40:32 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > But the SAM is stil insensible enough to differ between the filetypes > BASIC, CODE, SCREEN, OPENTYPE, etc. These distinctions are not in the name, but in the directory entry. There is only a small difference between that and putting the difference in a magic number at the start of the file. > But you can call a BASIC-program "foo.c" if you want to - the ".c" True. > does not have anything to do with the filetype. The filetype is > determined from the first byte of the directory-entry. The postfix > should not be important for the operating system - an excelent example > of the oposite is MessDos.... But lots of utilities use file suffixes for convenience. You _can_ get the Unix C compiler to compile a C program that doesn't end with ".c", but it's nontrivial. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 18 14:48:02 1995 Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 15:44:30 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508181344.AA01742@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1435 Lines: 36 > On Fri, 18 Aug 1995 14:40:32 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > > But the SAM is stil insensible enough to differ between the filetypes > > BASIC, CODE, SCREEN, OPENTYPE, etc. > > These distinctions are not in the name, but in the directory entry. There > is only a small difference between that and putting the difference in a > magic number at the start of the file. I'm not talking about the name. The name should be anything you want without the restriction some crappy OS puts on the filesystem. The point of having a magic number in the start of the file or in the directory entry is almost equaly insensible. > > > But you can call a BASIC-program "foo.c" if you want to - the ".c" > > True. > > > does not have anything to do with the filetype. The filetype is > > determined from the first byte of the directory-entry. The postfix > > should not be important for the operating system - an excelent example > > of the oposite is MessDos.... > > But lots of utilities use file suffixes for convenience. You _can_ get the > Unix C compiler to compile a C program that doesn't end with ".c", but it's > nontrivial. Neither am I talking about the utilities. I'm talking about the DOS. The situation for the SAM is a bit special as it have to separate BASIC-programs from other files. However, this is the only distinction I think a future DOS for the SAM should have. No more SCREEN files, OPENTYPE, bla bla.... -Frode From imc Fri Aug 18 14:55:20 1995 Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 14:55:20 BST In-Reply-To: <9508181344.AA01742@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Aug 18, 95 3:44 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 650 Lines: 16 On Fri, 18 Aug 1995 15:44:30 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > The > point of having a magic number in the start of the file or in the > directory entry is almost equaly insensible. How are you supposed to know what the file is for if it doesn't have a magic number in it? > The situation for the SAM is a bit special as it have to separate > BASIC-programs from other files. However, this is the only distinction > I think a future DOS for the SAM should have. No more SCREEN files, > OPENTYPE, bla bla.... What about string and number arrays? And what's wrong with SCREEN files? imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 18 15:00:16 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 14:59:42 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Back again.... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 853 Lines: 19 >On Thu, 17 Aug 1995 01:16:01 +0100, Simon Cooke said: >> If anyone has any ideas for new DOS commands, and/or hook codes I'd be more >> than happy to hear them. > >Well the list of DOS system calls on the +3 seems fairly complete, so you >might get some ideas from there... okeydokey... I've got them in a manual somewhere - from what I remember though, they're very similar to CPM. Would it be a better idea to just bung an entire set of CPM style hooks in there? (But not with the terminal stuff?) Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 18 15:26:56 1995 Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 16:16:41 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 480 Lines: 16 On the filetypes subject: How about having a reserved text field of say 32 bytes at the start of each file which allows the user/utility to bung a tag in there. This would remove the need for someone to be appointed as magic-number allocator since I'm sure everybody could work out a unique enough tag for a file. Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 18 20:07:20 1995 From: R J Partington Message-Id: <199508181905.UAA07144@heffer.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 20:05:52 +0100 (BST) In-Reply-To: from "Stefan Drissen" at Aug 18, 95 04:16:41 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 328 Lines: 14 Stefan Drissen wrote... > > On the filetypes subject: > > How about having a reserved text field of say > 32 bytes at the start of each file which How about doing it like the Mac? 4 bytes for the `filetype', 4 bytes for the creator of the file. So like, a GIF created by Photoshop gets something like PSHP/GIF? rjp From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 18 22:54:06 1995 Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 23:38:23 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Filethoughts... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1446 Lines: 32 I've been doing some thinking about the filetype question. A magic number was mentioned and I mentioned having a 32 byte tag field. (this could be improper use of the word tag field). Firstly a magic number is rubbish. Any operating system will have to know beforehand what all the magic numbers signify. This is an impossible task. The OS would start out with the basic say 24 SAM file types as magic numbers and wouldn't recognise any new ones which were created until a new version of the OS is spread to EVERYONE. So ban the magic numbers. The MSDOS extension system is rather good I think, just that the names are a bit short. So have a dos with say 24 characters for the name and 8 for the extension. The extension would have to really be an extension and not a half-solution like it is with masterdos having anything after a dot as an extension. Variable places for extensions are no fun to work with. Since the SAM is basically a BASIC orientated machine the dos would have to incorporate something to recognize a few standard extensions and handle these nicely for BASIC - such as the BASIC file and the arrays. In my view therefore the extension system is the ideal way of sorting out different "filetypes". What have you lot got to say about that? Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 18 22:54:07 1995 Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 23:47:45 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: LOAD * sort of To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 710 Lines: 18 Also on the subject of the dos. How about having autoexecute files which are executed at the offset in the page that the file is loaded in rather than having the CALL going to a fixed address (including page number). SAMDOS calls the same address regardless of what address you load the file at. Since most code is written to run in any page anyway it's a bit silly that the autoexecute does not accommodate this. The whole paragraph above could be a load of bollocks since I'm sure SAMDOS works in that way, I just thought I'd mention it. Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 18 22:57:31 1995 Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 23:52:36 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 725 Lines: 22 >How about doing it like the Mac? 4 bytes for the `filetype', >4 bytes for the creator of the file. So like, a GIF created by >Photoshop gets something like PSHP/GIF? > >rjp This kind of approach appeals to me too - what would the creator thing be used for, after all the update speed of programs on the SAM is very minimal indeed. Would it actually matter if a GIF is created with PSHP or something else? I doubt it. But then if you look at the document formats on the PC, a creator field would be handy to identify the conversion type needed.... Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 19 01:11:00 1995 From: R J Partington Message-Id: <199508190009.BAA00174@heffer.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Filethoughts... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sat, 19 Aug 1995 01:09:07 +0100 (BST) In-Reply-To: from "Stefan Drissen" at Aug 18, 95 11:38:23 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1594 Lines: 45 Stefan Drissen wrote... > Firstly a magic number is rubbish. Any operating system will have to > know beforehand what all the magic numbers signify. Why? Only the applications that need to understand a particular filetype need to know the magic number. eg Linux itself doesn't know what 'GIF' means at the start of a file -- it attaches no significance to that. However, xv knows that 'GIF' at the start means it's a GIF image, and so can be handled appropriately. > This is an impossible task. Even if you had to distribute a list of magic numbers, /etc/magic from any unix box covers a wide range of filetypes, and is 75k on my linux box. Hardly huge, and that includes a lot that could easily be done away with for the SAM. > The OS would start out with the basic say 24 SAM file types > as magic numbers and wouldn't recognise any new ones which were created > until a new version of the OS is spread to EVERYONE. It's not the job of the OS to recognise files though (although you'd have to make array files/screen$/basic files recognisable -- probably). Like I said, it's the application that uses magic numbers. If you need the OS to understand them, get `file' and port that to the SAM. > The MSDOS extension system is rather good I think, :) > just that the names are a bit short. > So have a dos with say 24 characters for the name and 8 for the extension. 8 byte extensions???? > The extension would have to really be an extension But then the OS still has to know what all the extensions mean, doesn't it? > What have you lot got to say about that? See above ^ rjp From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 19 01:16:02 1995 From: R J Partington Message-Id: <199508190014.BAA00197@heffer.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sat, 19 Aug 1995 01:14:49 +0100 (BST) In-Reply-To: from "Stefan Drissen" at Aug 18, 95 11:52:36 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 627 Lines: 20 Stefan Drissen wrote... > > what would the creator thing be used for, A 4 letter code for the program that created the file. > Would it actually matter if a GIF is created with PSHP or something else? Probably not for GIFS. But for documents (say for Chimera) the creator could be CHM1, meaning Chimera version 1.0, or CHM2, meaning Chimera v2.0. That's what MS apps on the Mac do AFAIK. Word 6 would be MSW6, Word 5=MSW5. It's probably better to have a seperate version field though IMO. > you look at the document formats on the PC, > a creator field would be handy to identify > the conversion type needed.... :) rjp From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 19 07:19:03 1995 Date: Sat, 19 Aug 1995 07:09:41 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <10225@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Telling the world? X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 499 Lines: 13 I was browsing, as you do, on Fidonet today, and noticed a lot of mis-info on the SAM on the OBSOLETE echo. It occurred to me that if any of you folks actually have salable products, you could dradt files, no longer than 16K for Fido, that explain what the device does, and where to get it, prices etc. I would be willing to post them. Keep them low key, as some moserators seem to think selling anything is a dirty business even if we are talking minority markets! Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 20 11:26:57 1995 Date: Sun, 20 Aug 95 12:18:37 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Filethoughts... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1753 Lines: 46 R Parlington wrote... (in reply to me) >Stefan Drissen wrote... > >> Firstly a magic number is rubbish. Any operating system will have to >> know beforehand what all the magic numbers signify. > >Why? Only the applications that need to understand a particular filetype >need to know the magic number. eg Linux itself doesn't know what 'GIF' >means at the start of a file -- it attaches no significance to that. >However, xv knows that 'GIF' at the start means it's a GIF image, and >so can be handled appropriately. Wouldn't it then be easier for the user if the file type was contained as legible text rather than some number? After all, isn't a combination of 4 text charachters just a big magic number (in the range [0..96*96*96*96-1])? >It's not the job of the OS to recognise files though (although you'd have >to make array files/screen$/basic files recognisable -- probably). Like >I said, it's the application that uses magic numbers. If you need the OS >to understand them, get `file' and port that to the SAM. This is what I mean with the OS having to recognize certain file types. The OS doesn't have to recognize the other types. But it would be nice to know what kind of files are on a disc when you do a DIR. >> The MSDOS extension system is rather good I think, > >:) > >> just that the names are a bit short. >> So have a dos with say 24 characters for the name and 8 for the extension. > >8 byte extensions???? Why not? Wouldn't you be able to give better descriptions to the file types this way instead of cramming everything into silly three letter names? Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 20 11:46:12 1995 Date: Sun, 20 Aug 95 12:30:15 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Couldn't resist... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2777 Lines: 48 Hi all, just received Format today (shouldn't that be spelt in bold capital letters?). And I can't help quoting good old Bob in his reply to one of the letters on page 31 (vol 8 no 12). "...As to PD, if we are sent PD programs by their authors, giving details of where they can be obtained, then we will cover them in the news pages and/or arrange a review. What we are not interested in, nor are our readers judging from the letters we get, is demo software just written to give 'scrolly' messages and flash graphics. I will do everything I can to encourage new programming talent and to help in the developement of software (both serious or games) that is why INDUG was originally formed. My question to you would be "Why waste time writing a mindless demo when you could use the same effort to write a utility program or a simple game which would earn you far more glory and, just possibly, some money as well?". " end of quote Ha, ha, ha. He manages it just about every time doesn't he? So all you demo coders, stop it! And even if you stop Bob won't help you, because he is only interested in NEW programming talent. So please stop wasting your time. Millions of readers letters to Format have stated that they are not interested in demos. Why don't we ever get to see any of these anti-demo reader's letters in Format (sorry for forgetting caps and bold again). A simple game possibly earning you some money is a bit exaggerated. A rather good game earning you a _little bit_ of money is more realistic. As to the same amount of effort. A simple game costs a heck of a lot more effort than an excellent demo. And I'm sure that the glory lies with the excellent demo and not the simple game. Bob is of course allowed his own opinion, it's just a pity that his opinion has the massive backing of Format (caps bold :) ). So everybody just keep doing what you're doing. I like demos (maybe I should tell Bob that - but I suppose the coders horseshoe did that and didn't have much effect either). On another subject. Also in Format (you know, with the big letters) the next SAM gathering in Gloucester was announced to be on Saturday October 14th 1995. Same time, same venue. Since that is only two months away I think it's time we all started warbling about who's going and who's not and what they'll be looking like this time and what they'll be bringing along with them. At the moment I myself am not sure if I can make it due to an exam being somewhere in the neighbourhood of that date (I think). Speaking of which, I've got an exam tomorrow morning, bye.... Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 20 11:59:44 1995 From: R J Partington Message-Id: <199508200953.KAA00230@heffer.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Filethoughts... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 10:53:25 +0100 (BST) In-Reply-To: from "Stefan Drissen" at Aug 20, 95 12:18:37 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 924 Lines: 29 Stefan Drissen wrote... > > Wouldn't it then be easier for the user if the file type was > contained as legible text rather than some number? Probably. But why bother making it easier for the user? :) You've got `file' if you want to know what type of file it is (well, when someone ports it...) > This is what I mean with the OS having to recognize certain file types. Personally though, I'm opposed to any sort of imposed filetyping (from the OS), but that's probably because I'm used to unix (which doesn't have any filetypes imposed by the OS AFAICT). > But it would be nice to know what kind of files are on > a disc when you do a DIR. Use `file'... > Why not? Wouldn't you be able to give better descriptions to the > file types this way instead of cramming everything into silly three > letter names? Probably, but how are you going to fit a reasonable number of 32.8 filenames on the SAM's screen? :) rjp From imc Sun Aug 20 12:40:45 1995 Subject: Re: Couldn't resist... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sun, 20 Aug 95 12:40:45 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Stefan Drissen" at Aug 20, 95 12:30 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 538 Lines: 11 On Sun, 20 Aug 95 12:30:15 PDT, Stefan Drissen said: > On another subject. Also in Format (you know, with the big letters) the next SAM > gathering in Gloucester was announced to be on Saturday October 14th 1995. Same > time, same venue. Since that is only two months away I think it's time we all started > warbling about who's going and who's not and what they'll be looking like this time and > what they'll be bringing along with them. No reason why I shouldn't be there... (they don't have REXX symposiums in October). imc From imc Sun Aug 20 12:45:05 1995 Subject: Re: Filethoughts... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sun, 20 Aug 95 12:45:05 BST In-Reply-To: <199508200953.KAA00230@heffer.demon.co.uk>; from "R J Partington" at Aug 20, 95 10:53 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 876 Lines: 21 On Sun, 20 Aug 1995 10:53:25 +0100 (BST), R J Partington said: > Personally though, I'm opposed to any sort of imposed filetyping (from > the OS), but that's probably because I'm used to unix (which doesn't > have any filetypes imposed by the OS AFAICT). Yes it does - executables. In fact there are several kinds of executable: as well as ZMAGIC, NMAGIC and OMAGIC there are also interpreted files which start with "#!". Each of these is recognised by the kernel when you do an execve(). The same will probably be true of the Sam: BASIC "executables" will have a magic number which is recognised by the system. Machine code executables might have one. Other random pieces of code will have magic numbers that are not recognised by the base OS. > Probably, but how are you going to fit a reasonable number of 32.8 > filenames on the SAM's screen? :) Mode 3? :-) imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 20 18:49:35 1995 Date: Sun, 20 Aug 95 19:46:33 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Planateers???? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 294 Lines: 11 Does anybody know why majordomo went along and subscribed me to the "planateers" mailing list????? I definitely did not ask for it! Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 20 18:55:36 1995 Date: Sun, 20 Aug 95 19:51:20 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Filethoughts... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1100 Lines: 33 In reply to me R Parlington wrote... >> Wouldn't it then be easier for the user if the file type was >> contained as legible text rather than some number? > >Probably. But why bother making it easier for the user? :) >You've got `file' if you want to know what type of file it is >(well, when someone ports it...) Umm, isn't it supposed to be the software written for the user, and not the other way round? The machine should accomodate us. We shouldn't have to accomodate the machine. >> Why not? Wouldn't you be able to give better descriptions to the >> file types this way instead of cramming everything into silly three >> letter names? > >Probably, but how are you going to fit a reasonable number of 32.8 >filenames on the SAM's screen? :) I actually intended 32 charachters for the total filename, thus 24 for the name and 8 for the extension. Fits nicely on a mode 4 screen and as Ian said, mode 3 will do nicely too. Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 20 18:58:00 1995 Date: Sun, 20 Aug 95 19:55:03 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Planeteers. To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 351 Lines: 13 Strange thing number 2. Is majordomo a program or something? I just noticed that the planeteers subscription came from my local provider (@pi.net) and not @nvg.unit.no. Sorry about that. Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 07:18:37 1995 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 08:18:49 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508210618.AA02974@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 403 Lines: 10 > On the filetypes subject: > > How about having a reserved text field of say 32 bytes at the start of each file which > allows the user/utility to bung a tag in there. This would remove the need for someone > to be appointed as magic-number allocator since I'm sure everybody could work out a > unique enough tag for a file. But why have such a tag anyway? I see no pratical use for it. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 07:54:37 1995 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 08:49:45 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508210649.AA03021@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Planeteers. X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 247 Lines: 6 > Strange thing number 2. Is majordomo a program or something? I just noticed that the > planeteers subscription came from my local provider (@pi.net) and not @nvg.unit.no. Majordomo is a list-server, and used at quit a lot of sites. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 10:50:43 1995 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 11:47:27 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 780 Lines: 27 >> On the filetypes subject: >> >> How about having a reserved text field of say 32 bytes at the start of each file which >> allows the user/utility to bung a tag in there. This would remove the need for someone >> to be appointed as magic-number allocator since I'm sure everybody could work out a >> unique enough tag for a file. > >But why have such a tag anyway? I see no pratical use for it. > > -Frode So that you can tell what the file is used for. You don't want to go around loading music modules into SAMpaint do you? Having a tag simplifies the process of identifying what the file is used for. Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 11:14:34 1995 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 12:14:54 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508211014.AA03184@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1187 Lines: 29 > > >> On the filetypes subject: > >> > >> How about having a reserved text field of say 32 bytes at the start of each file which > >> allows the user/utility to bung a tag in there. This would remove the need for > someone > >> to be appointed as magic-number allocator since I'm sure everybody could work out > a > >> unique enough tag for a file. > > > >But why have such a tag anyway? I see no pratical use for it. > > > > -Frode > > So that you can tell what the file is used for. You don't want to go around loading music > modules into SAMpaint do you? Having a tag simplifies the process of identifying what > the file is used for. Why should you care? If I'd like to load my music modules into SAMpaint, I regard that as my privilege. And if I for some reason wants to load my BASIC programs into my WP so that I can run a macro on it to convert it into plain text and print it out formated on landscape in 3 columns I would like to do that without mindless programs/OS/software developers putting restrictions on what I can and can not do with my software. And if you want to have that tag somewhere in the file, you would have to load the file anyway. -Frode From imc Mon Aug 21 12:32:05 1995 Subject: Re: Filethoughts... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 12:32:05 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Stefan Drissen" at Aug 20, 95 7:51 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 637 Lines: 13 On Sun, 20 Aug 95 19:51:20 PDT, Stefan Drissen said: > I actually intended 32 charachters for the total filename, thus 24 for the name and 8 for > the extension. Fits nicely on a mode 4 screen and as Ian said, mode 3 will do nicely too. Of course, one would hope that you didn't have to use all 32 (and that the names would not be space-padded). Most people would not use long names so an ls like the Unix one which prints as many columns as will fit on the screen would be convenient. imc PS one of the first things I did when I got MasterDos was POKE that variable which stops the names from being space-padded before the dot... From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 14:21:35 1995 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 15:15:37 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1437 Lines: 35 On the subject of extensions Frode said... >> So that you can tell what the file is used for. You don't want to go around loading music >> modules into SAMpaint do you? Having a tag simplifies the process of identifying what >> the file is used for. > >Why should you care? If I'd like to load my music modules into SAMpaint, >I regard that as my privilege. And if I for some reason wants to load my >BASIC programs into my WP so that I can run a macro on it to convert it >into plain text and print it out formated on landscape in 3 columns I would >like to do that without mindless programs/OS/software developers putting >restrictions on what I can and can not do with my software. > >And if you want to have that tag somewhere in the file, you would have >to load the file anyway. First of all the tag I intended is as an extension and therefore part of the directory entry. Sure let any program load anything in. But I WANT to KNOW what type of file it is. If I get a discful of stuff then I don't want to go along and try out all the files on all my programs to see what programs it works with. An extension system is _essential_!. Sure let WP load in the basic file, if it knows it's a basic file then it could offer the possible best conversion method. Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 14:27:05 1995 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 15:19:30 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: FRED 60 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 955 Lines: 29 Just got FRED 60 today, damn. Why do these things always happen when I've got an exam to revise for tomorrow??? It is rather brilliant. The Mnemodemo is great. The menu also by a Mnemotech member (I must say that it's funny that the Entropy bods get greeted first though :) ) Jellytext looks cool. BTW the Lightbulbs music is all converted mods (I'll upload my very barelooking mc routine sometime). The text editor is the BEST I have seen on the SAM to date, chuck away the secretary, bye bye Spell Master, bye bye Tasword. The dynamic text whatsit is great for writing scrolly texts. No more word wrap on and rejustify the lot. The keyboard buffer is excellent too. Anonimity does it again, cool (but why tell James R Curry that I thought he did Scads stuff?) Enuf of this, Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From imc Mon Aug 21 14:28:10 1995 Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 14:28:10 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Stefan Drissen" at Aug 21, 95 3:15 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 572 Lines: 10 I've got the answer. Use a 4-byte magic number (either in the file or in the directory - in the file is easier for the program that creates it or that wants to know what kind of file it is, but in the directory is easier for the DIR command). Have an /etc/magic file that the user can alter or obtain from somewhere. Write a program which is able to update the DOS with the /etc/magic file and install the new DOS on the disk. Write a DIR program that can (optionally) look at the magic number of each file and the /etc/magic file and print out what the file is. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 15:13:09 1995 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 16:12:24 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508211412.AA03445@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1032 Lines: 24 First of all Stefan, Don't want to be picky, but your lines are way too long. Please restrict yourself to max 80 char. per line. > First of all the tag I intended is as an extension and therefore part of the directory entry. So, a suffix to the filename? > > Sure let any program load anything in. But I WANT to KNOW what type of file it is. If I > get a discful of stuff then I don't want to go along and try out all the files on all my > programs to see what programs it works with. An extension system is _essential_!. > > Sure let WP load in the basic file, if it knows it's a basic file then it could offer the > possible best conversion method. You are talking about convensions. That is OK. Let's call mod-files something.mod, native screens for something.scr, text files for something.txt or whatever, but don't impose this on the DOS! If I for some reason wants to call a text-file for just "tjalabais" without any suffix, or "tjalla.bais" I want to do that. A file should be transparent for the DOS. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 15:49:43 1995 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 16:46:31 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 843 Lines: 24 >I've got the answer. Use a 4-byte magic number (either in the file or in >the directory - in the file is easier for the program that creates it or >that wants to know what kind of file it is, but in the directory is easier >for the DIR command). Have an /etc/magic file that the user can alter or >obtain from somewhere. Write a program which is able to update the DOS >with the /etc/magic file and install the new DOS on the disk. Write a >DIR program that can (optionally) look at the magic number of each file >and the /etc/magic file and print out what the file is. > >imc > Wouldn't it be just as easy to have a 4 character text field? No need for the magic file then. Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From imc Mon Aug 21 15:52:30 1995 Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 15:52:30 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Stefan Drissen" at Aug 21, 95 4:46 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 427 Lines: 11 On Mon, 21 Aug 95 16:46:31 PDT, Stefan Drissen said: > Wouldn't it be just as easy to have a 4 character text field? No need for the magic file > then. There's nothing to stop you storing text characters in there. Many magic numbers on Unix consist of printable characters. It doesn't even have to be 4 bytes. "#!" is a magic number on Unix. A Unix magic number is the first of bytes in the file. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 15:54:10 1995 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 16:48:02 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1387 Lines: 42 Hi all, Frode wrote... >First of all Stefan, Don't want to be picky, but your lines are >way too long. Please restrict yourself to max 80 char. per line. > Sorry, but I am NOT going to count how many characters is on each line. This mailer handles everything rather nicely from my point of view. (Windows Netmanage - truetype font for the mailer). >> First of all the tag I intended is as an extension and therefore part of the directory entry. > >So, a suffix to the filename? > :) > >You are talking about convensions. That is OK. Let's call mod-files >something.mod, native screens for something.scr, text files for >something.txt or whatever, but don't impose this on the DOS! If >I for some reason wants to call a text-file for just "tjalabais" >without any suffix, or "tjalla.bais" I want to do that. A file >should be transparent for the DOS. > > -Frode > I don't agree with you on that. The DOS will always impose some restrictions on the file names. One example is the length of the filename. Using suffixes just makes things so easy for utilities and stuff to list only readable files and is also easy for the user so that he knows what kind of file he's dealing with. Maybe I'm just used to ms-dos. Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands From imc Mon Aug 21 15:58:08 1995 Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 15:58:08 BST In-Reply-To: ; from "Stefan Drissen" at Aug 21, 95 4:48 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 685 Lines: 20 On Mon, 21 Aug 95 16:48:02 PDT, Stefan Drissen said: > Sorry, but I am NOT going to count how many characters is on each line. This mailer > handles everything rather nicely from my point of view. (Windows Netmanage - > truetype font for the mailer). TTTTT H H EEEEE N N CCC H H AAA N N GGG EEEEE T H H E NN N C C H H A A NN N G G E T HHHHH EEE N N N C HHHHH AAAAA N N N G EEE T H H E N NN C C H H A A N NN G GGG E T H H EEEEE N N CCC H H A A N N GGG EEEEE III TTTTT !! I T !! I T !! I T III T !! Did it display that nicely? imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 16:17:54 1995 Message-Id: <26916.9508211516@rs6-233.cls-4.bcc.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 16:16:14 +0100 (BST) From: Mr Keith Turner In-Reply-To: from "Stefan Drissen" at Aug 21, 95 04:48:02 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1095 Lines: 26 > Frode wrote... > >First of all Stefan, Don't want to be picky, but your lines are > >way too long. Please restrict yourself to max 80 char. per line. Stefan said: > Sorry, but I am NOT going to count how many characters is on each line. > This m > ailer > handles everything rather nicely from my point of view. (Windows Netmanage > - truetype font for the mailer). Well, I don't know anything about "m ailer"s, (whatever they are) but any e-mail application which makes it almost impossible for the sender to generate tolerably readable messages is in my opinion broken. Features like using proportionately spaced fonts for mail messages may look pretty when you are composing the mail, but you will give headaches to the people reading your mail on anything but precisely the same mailer, and as a result your e-mail messages will look like they came from somebody who either knows very little about computers or doesn't want anybody to pay attention to what they are saying. It's the electronic equivalent of mumbling and is basically impolite. / To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Planateers???? X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 465 Lines: 18 In message Stefan Drissen writes: > Does anybody know why majordomo went along and subscribed me to the "planateers" > mailing list????? I definitely did not ask for it! > > Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy > > E-mail: stefan@pop.pi.net (Stefan Drissen) > S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands > > > > > Maybe he thought you were an alien? :-) Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 16:37:25 1995 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:37:41 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508211537.AA03481@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1824 Lines: 49 > Hi all, > > Frode wrote... > >First of all Stefan, Don't want to be picky, but your lines are > >way too long. Please restrict yourself to max 80 char. per line. > > > Sorry, but I am NOT going to count how many characters is on each line. This mailer > handles everything rather nicely from my point of view. (Windows Netmanage - > truetype font for the mailer). If you can't specify how many characters per line in your mailer, it's broken. And trutype fonts don't look rather nice in ASCII... > > >> First of all the tag I intended is as an extension and therefore part of the directory > entry. > > > >So, a suffix to the filename? > > > > :) Whatever that means. > > > > >You are talking about convensions. That is OK. Let's call mod-files > >something.mod, native screens for something.scr, text files for > >something.txt or whatever, but don't impose this on the DOS! If > >I for some reason wants to call a text-file for just "tjalabais" > >without any suffix, or "tjalla.bais" I want to do that. A file > >should be transparent for the DOS. > > > > -Frode > > > I don't agree with you on that. The DOS will always impose some restrictions on the file > names. One example is the length of the filename. Using suffixes just makes things so > easy for utilities and stuff to list only readable files and is also easy for the user so that > he knows what kind of file he's dealing with. Maybe I'm just used to ms-dos. A file should be able to fill an entire disk - this is a restriction imposed by the disc, not the DOS. The DOS should treat a file like a file and nothign but a file. And as I said, using suffixes is perfectly OK as long as this is not part of some 'built in feature' of the DOS. And if you think MessDOS is a nice operating system, try a _real_ operatingsystem. :) -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 16:41:37 1995 Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:41:50 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508211541.AA03496@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 669 Lines: 20 > On Mon, 21 Aug 95 16:46:31 PDT, Stefan Drissen said: > > Wouldn't it be just as easy to have a 4 character text field? No need for the magic file > > then. > > There's nothing to stop you storing text characters in there. Many magic > numbers on Unix consist of printable characters. > > It doesn't even have to be 4 bytes. "#!" is a magic number on Unix. > A Unix magic number is the first of bytes in the file. You are streching it a bit here. :) "#!" only signals execv() that is shuld use the folowing path to interpret the text-file. And 'magic numbers' are really not supported by the filesystem itself on UNIX. > > imc > -Frode From imc Mon Aug 21 16:50:21 1995 Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 21 Aug 95 16:50:21 BST In-Reply-To: <9508211541.AA03496@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Aug 21, 95 5:41 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 636 Lines: 15 On Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:41:50 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > You are streching it a bit here. :) "#!" only signals execv() that > is shuld use the folowing path to interpret the text-file. And > 'magic numbers' are really not supported by the filesystem itself > on UNIX. No, not by the filesystem. And nor should they be. I thought this was the entire point of the conversation. The operating system recognises several magic numbers as signifying executable files. And yes, "#!" is a magic number. On this system it is not in /etc/magic but it is built into the file command and the same goes for ZMAGIC, NMAGIC and OMAGIC. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 21 17:09:31 1995 Message-Id: <18030.9508211608@rs6-233.cls-4.bcc.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 17:08:12 +0100 (BST) From: Mr Keith Turner In-Reply-To: from "Stefan Drissen" at Aug 21, 95 04:46:31 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 3897 Lines: 78 This is a bit long, so don't read unless you are actually interested in the file-type/suffix debate. Okay, I'm going to stick my neck out and summarise the pro's and con's of some existing file type identification mechanisms. 1) MS-DOS: A three character suffix Pros: Doesn't take up much space. You and your applications don't have to open the file to find out what is in it. Cons: Too short and vague, so people unintentionally use the same suffix for different file types, rendering the suffix merely advisory. 2) Mac Finder: A four character Creator field and a four character Type field Pros: A bit more expressive. The Type field is usable for sharing data in well-known formats (e.g. GIF) between applications but the Creator field allows applications to be sure they are reading data they wrote. Cons: Creator fields have to be registered with the makers Apple to be sure of uniqueness. When given a Macintosh file, in practice you usually have to have a copy of the application it was created by in order to read it, even if it is a theoretically portable file format like GIF or ASCII CR/LF delimited text. 3) Unix files: A little OS-related file typing, no application file typing. Pros: If application writers or users want to use suffixes they can, but they don't have to. Suffix concatenation is widely supported, e.g. "input.c.Z" is clearly a compressed C program file and there is no limit to the size of suffixes so "AvonGorge.jpeg" and "system.twmrc" are valid filenames (although the latter may only mean something to X windows experts). Cons: Difficult to tell what a file contains or what application created the file, unless the application uses a suffix that you know, or it is an OS-typed file like an executable. The standard Unix utility "/bin/file" can identify some files by looking at the contents of the file for magic strings, magic numbers or identifiable syntax, but it ignores meaningful suffixes and needs to be kept up to date. 4) SAM MasterDOS: Some OS-related file typing, some suffix support. Pros: Similar to DOS if you stick to 3 character suffixes and use the default configuration. Similar to Unix, if you change the setting which truncates and aligns suffixes in DIR listings. Cons: Similar to DOS if you stick to 3 character suffixes and use the default configuration. Similar to Unix, if you change the setting which truncates and aligns suffixes in DIR listings. I personally like the Unix approach, where the OS only enforces file typing where it matters to the OS. On the SAM, as mentioned here already, only the various BASIC file types need to be known to the OS. In fact it would probably be desirable if "OPENTYPE" files were indistinguishable in practice from "CODE" files. A way to get round the disadvantages of the Unix approach is to encourage application writers to use well-known suffixes for well-known file formats and choose descriptive suffixes for application-specific file formats. I don't think limiting the size of suffixes encourages people to use descriptive suffixes, so having fixed length suffixes is counter-productive. It should be up to the application writer to assess the trade-off between the size of the suffix and the amount of space left for the user to choose a name. I say: A new OS for the Sam should use file types to distinguish files where it really matters to the OS+GUI (e.g. BASIC files, Driver files) but leave any other file typing to applications. Application writers should be persuaded to use descriptive suffixes. If it is felt helpful, some body could set themselves up as the official registry of file suffixes, and could even supply a utility like "/bin/file" but no OS has to be rewritten to support new applications. / Message-Id: <199508211842.TAA00180@obobo.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 19:42:01 +0100 (BST) In-Reply-To: <9508210618.AA02974@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Aug 21, 95 08:18:49 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1267 Lines: 28 Frode Tenneboe wrote: > > > On the filetypes subject: > > > > How about having a reserved text field of say 32 bytes at the start of each > > file which allows the user/utility to bung a tag in there. This would > > remove the need for someone to be appointed as magic-number allocator since > > I'm sure everybody could work out a unique enough tag for a file. > > But why have such a tag anyway? I see no pratical use for it. > I agree. It's up to the application to recognise its own files, and ignore any others. BASIC programs can always be stored with their own header, so they can still be loaded as BASIC programs. It's a shame that the Sam didn't start out this way. What about code files? Will their loading address just be part of the header (like size/depth is to a bitmap?)?. With Unix and MS-DOS code files, they are relocated, and don't have absolute loading addresses, but this can't _easily_ be done with the Sam. Si +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Si Owen | Email: si@obobo.demon.co.uk | | Wordcraft International Ltd, UK | Fax: +44-1332-295525 | +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 22 07:56:26 1995 Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 08:55:48 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508220655.AA03795@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1003 Lines: 27 > > You are streching it a bit here. :) "#!" only signals execv() that > > is shuld use the folowing path to interpret the text-file. And > > 'magic numbers' are really not supported by the filesystem itself > > on UNIX. > > No, not by the filesystem. And nor should they be. I thought this was the > entire point of the conversation. They should not be - true. :) > The operating system recognises several magic numbers as signifying > executable files. And yes, "#!" is a magic number. On this system > it is not in /etc/magic but it is built into the file command and the > same goes for ZMAGIC, NMAGIC and OMAGIC. Then you also might define the first 512 characters of a text file as a magic number too. If file(1) does not find any other 'magic number' it 'guesses' from the first 512 bytes. Try file(1) on a C-program that contains more than 512 bytes of non C-code. And "#!" doesn't uniqely distinguish a file - on the other hand a line starting with "#!" does. > > imc > -Frode From imc Tue Aug 22 11:13:50 1995 Subject: Re: Filetypes To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 22 Aug 95 11:13:50 BST In-Reply-To: <9508220655.AA03795@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Aug 22, 95 8:55 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 740 Lines: 20 On Tue, 22 Aug 1995 08:55:48 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > Then you also might define the first 512 characters of a text file as a > magic number too. :-) > And "#!" doesn't > uniqely distinguish a file - on the other hand a line starting with > "#!" does. I don't know what you mean. If the file starts with "#!" then that certainly does give a very strong hint as to what the file is. In the same manner, if the file starts with "%!" then you know it's probably a PostScript document (and that _is_ in /etc/magic). If it's at the start of the file and if any utility other than "file" looks at it to find out what the file is then it's a magic number as far as I'm concerned. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 22 11:32:56 1995 Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 12:31:35 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508221031.AA04086@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1176 Lines: 36 > On Tue, 22 Aug 1995 08:55:48 +0200, Frode Tenneboe said: > > Then you also might define the first 512 characters of a text file as a > > magic number too. > > :-) > > > And "#!" doesn't > > uniqely distinguish a file - on the other hand a line starting with > > "#!" does. > > I don't know what you mean. If the file starts with "#!" then that > certainly does give a very strong hint as to what the file is. In the You only know that it's some sort of script-file, not for which script-language. > same manner, if the file starts with "%!" then you know it's probably a > PostScript document (and that _is_ in /etc/magic). The key-word here is 'probably' - nothing magic about that. :) > > If it's at the start of the file and if any utility other than "file" > looks at it to find out what the file is then it's a magic number as > far as I'm concerned. > The UNIX 'magic number' does not necessarily have to be at the start of a file. But of course, a magic number posibility is perfectly ok as long as I can forget about it without violating system integrity and causing 'core dump'. ;) > imc > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 22 12:05:30 1995 Date: Tue, 22 Aug 1995 13:05:32 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508221105.AA04148@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 824 Lines: 25 > > You only know that it's some sort of script-file, not for which > > script-language. > > You also know that the name of the interpreter follows. The /etc/magic file > contains several instances where the thing after the magic number is looked > at to classify the file further. But "#!" is not in /etc/magic, and if it were, you will have all kinds of trouble updating that file whenever a new interpreter pops up. file(1) handles this as a 'special case' by recognizing that it's a "#!"-file and gives the following path as it's "nn executeable". > > > The UNIX 'magic number' does not necessarily have to be at the start > > of a file. > > I thought it did. What instance can you think of where it isn't? Well, for the IslandWrite utility the 'magic number' is "pgscriptver" at byte 4->. > > imc > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Aug 22 13:19:08 1995 Date: Tue, 22 Aug 95 14:07:34 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: my mailer To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2113 Lines: 46 When I apparently was hassling everybody with 80+ lines Mr Keith said... >Well, I don't know anything about "m >ailer"s, (whatever they are) but any e-mail application which makes it >almost impossible for the sender to generate tolerably readable >messages is in my opinion broken. Features like using proportionately >spaced fonts for mail messages may look pretty when you are composing >the mail, but you will give headaches to the people reading your mail >on anything but precisely the same mailer, and as a result your e-mail >messages will look like they came from somebody who either knows very >little about computers or doesn't want anybody to pay attention to >what they are saying. It's the electronic equivalent of mumbling and >is basically impolite. > >/ To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Cc: slawek@namu01.gwdg.de Subject: Re: Filetypes Date: Wed, 23 Aug 95 10:36:27 +0200 X-Mts: smtp Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 295 Lines: 9 Without a HD on a Sam is this all only a joke for me ;-) Frode , I have a question to You : I been writind a dos for my HD system and I wrote a doc file about my file format . I know You can german , can You transfer my doc file into english , please ? I can't do it . slawek@namu01.gwdg.de From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 23 11:50:48 1995 Date: Wed, 23 Aug 1995 12:50:43 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508231050.AA04765@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 580 Lines: 20 > Without a HD on a Sam is this all only a joke for me ;-) It's called "standardization" :-) > > Frode , I have a question to You : > I been writind a dos for my HD system and I wrote a doc file about my file > format . I know You can german , can You transfer my doc file into english , > please ? > I can't do it . It really depends on the work-load. I am currently still a bit overworked - temporarily I hope. My computer-techincal German isn't all that good either.... I can give it a try, but I won't guarantee a finishing-date. -Frode > > slawek@namu01.gwdg.de > From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Aug 23 23:59:37 1995 Date: Wed, 23 Aug 95 17:32:12 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Planateers???? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 524 Lines: 20 >Maybe he thought you were an alien? :-) > >Brian Let me see, my jelly content is low, but this human mask should still be holding up ok. Strange. ;-) The real reason is that my internet provider is called Planet Internet which is a division of Dutch Telecom (PTT). They can now let me know whenever they're going to disrupt the line due to maintenance. Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: drissen@pi.net S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands T-mail: +31-73-414969 From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Aug 24 16:04:17 1995 Date: Thu, 24 Aug 1995 15:54:45 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <10341@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Money and survival X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 441 Lines: 13 Now I owe Bob a fair amount of money for adverts. I am getting problems doing Pro-Dos justice here. I was thinking of offering it to him. Comments? I have not asked him, and I hope those here who pass on things to him will not say anything to him. The reason I am posting this is because I know Simon was thinking of doing a ROM, and I also know that Bob is not unconditionally appreciated in some circles. Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 25 09:21:15 1995 From: slawek@namu01.gwdg.de Message-Id: <9508250805.AA12778@namu26.gwdg.de> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Cc: slawek@namu01.gwdg.de Subject: Re: Filetypes In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 23 Aug 95 12:50:43 +0200." <9508231050.AA04765@asmal.edh-net> Date: Fri, 25 Aug 95 10:05:13 +0200 X-Mts: smtp Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 214 Lines: 7 I think we have now a standard on Sam ?! Thanks Frode , that You will make them for me !!! I will make a teledisk copy of my Disk and upload this to nvg.... My file is no long , but in Edi Pro format ... Slawek. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 25 09:44:44 1995 Date: Fri, 25 Aug 1995 10:45:18 +0200 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9508250845.AA07479@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Filetypes X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 310 Lines: 18 > I think we have now a standard on Sam ?! A future standard. > > Thanks Frode , that You will make them for me !!! I said I will try...:) > I will make a teledisk copy of my Disk and upload this to nvg.... > My file is no long , but in Edi Pro format ... Edi Pro? What is that? > > Slawek. > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 25 11:52:33 1995 Date: Fri, 25 Aug 95 12:43:08 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Upload To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 360 Lines: 15 I've just uploaded my Amiga MOD -> ETracker convertor. Its in the incoming directory as SFMOD2ET.PAK, load in at 32000 then CALL 32000. The source code is also included. That was all really. Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: drissen@pi.net S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands T-mail: +31-73-414969 From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 25 12:21:04 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 25 Aug 1995 12:20:08 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Filetypes Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1304 Lines: 27 >Probably not for GIFS. But for documents (say for Chimera) the creator >could be CHM1, meaning Chimera version 1.0, or CHM2, meaning Chimera v2.0. >That's what MS apps on the Mac do AFAIK. Word 6 would be MSW6, Word 5=MSW5. >It's probably better to have a seperate version field though IMO. Having mentioned Chimera, it actually uses magic-numbers in files as it stands. Take the original Document reader - it either needs to find the string (c)1991 Cookie or (c) 1992 Entropy in the .dcp file, or it won't work. Chimera gets rid of the need for separate DCP and MAG files (bad idea anyway) and supports the JYN file type that was created for the document compressor. As for other stuff... well, I'm going to have autodetect on the file-type and content, but it'll still need user interaction some times. And certain file extensions will be reserved for certain things - *.htx for Milan Salajka's Hypertext format, for example. Still, I'm rambling. Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 25 14:17:15 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 25 Aug 1995 14:15:51 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Money and survival Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1009 Lines: 23 >Status: >Now I owe Bob a fair amount of money for adverts. I am getting >problems doing Pro-Dos justice here. I was thinking of offering >it to him. Comments? I have not asked him, and I hope those here >who pass on things to him will not say anything to him. The >reason I am posting this is because I know Simon was thinking of >doing a ROM, and I also know that Bob is not unconditionally >appreciated in some circles. Brian, if it came to that, I'd try and buy ProDos off you :) And as far as I know, Bob will not let me use anything that he has the rights to in a ROM I do - especially as it will be hardware, and with very low profit margins. :( Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 25 14:17:16 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Fri, 25 Aug 1995 14:15:55 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Upload Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 752 Lines: 18 >I've just uploaded my Amiga MOD -> ETracker convertor. Its in the incoming >directory as SFMOD2ET.PAK, load in at 32000 then CALL 32000. The source code >is also included. > >That was all really. *grins* Any chance that you could FFT the samples to get the dominant frequency and amplitude for each 1/50th of a second period, and build up the Etracker Instruments for us all as well? :) :) :) Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Aug 25 16:14:46 1995 Date: Fri, 25 Aug 95 17:09:56 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Upload To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 913 Lines: 27 Simon says... >*grins* Any chance that you could FFT the samples to get the dominant >frequency and amplitude for each 1/50th of a second period, and build up the >Etracker Instruments for us all as well? :) :) :) > >Simon Umm, I beg your pardon. I was thinking of writing a MODule playback routine in which you do design your own instruments and then the mod is played back using all the protracker effects etc. Each instrument would be designed twice. Once with modulation and one without. Each instrument would also receive a priority rating. This in case more than two modulated instruments needed to be used. The whole thing would be rather easy. But so much to do.... Do remember SAM95 was supposed to be released yesterday ;-). Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: drissen@pi.net S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands T-mail: +31-73-414969 From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 26 11:55:15 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 11:53:47 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: FRED 60 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1142 Lines: 40 >Just got FRED 60 today, damn. Why do these things always happen when I've got an >exam to revise for tomorrow??? *grins* >It is rather brilliant. The Mnemodemo is great. The menu also by a Mnemotech member >(I must say that it's funny that the Entropy bods get greeted first though :) ) Cool... not seen the menu yet! >Jellytext looks cool. What is it? >BTW the Lightbulbs music is all converted mods (I'll upload my very barelooking mc >routine sometime). Lightbulbs? >The text editor is the BEST I have seen on the SAM to date, chuck away the secretary, >bye bye Spell Master, bye bye Tasword. The dynamic text whatsit is great for writing >scrolly texts. No more word wrap on and rejustify the lot. The keyboard buffer is >excellent too. Which editor? Which editor? Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 26 11:55:17 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 11:53:46 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Filetypes Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 548 Lines: 17 >Edi Pro? What is that? You know Rumsoft? It's his editor program. What annoys me is that I've been dying to get hold of this for ages, yet I can't get a copy. UPLOAD IT TO THE FTP SITe!!!!! :) Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 26 11:55:18 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 11:53:52 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Back again.... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1969 Lines: 39 >> Well the hard-drive is currently undergoing timing testings to try and work >> out why I'm getting spurious data reads back if I don't read the DRQ bit >> between each data read. Time to build up a new prototype I think. Nev's hard > >Well...the problem solves itself if you read DRQ between each data read, eh? ;) Yeah, but the data throughput is cut down by at least 50%, probably more. >commands: Why not give it the BASIC-commands you can find in MasterDOS, >GDOS, SAMDOS, and whatever else and give them a UNIX feel? Like piping, >redirection and stuff like that. LOAD without "" would be nice, giving >only the filename insted of LOAD "filename" would also be nice. Keyword/ >filename completion with TAB would be cool too :) Well, I'm planning some kind of shell program - don't expect anything fancy and unixy at first though... It'll take a bit of digging to work out exactly what's needed too... >hook codes: I'm quite sure you'll be able to get the most esensial ones. >One important aspect is to make them generic enough, say so you can >write anything from one byte to maxMB to one file and decide if you want >to overwrite or append. It would also be nice if there were as few file >types as possible, and that you can do exactly the same operations on >all types. It would also be interesting to have the ports act as files >so that you could 'save' to the printer-port to print stuff. Not highly >original, but though.... Yeah... I was thinking of adding some devices. At the moment, there's no way that that would fit into the 16k the DOS takes up, so it'll be in the extended half probably. Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 26 11:55:20 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 11:53:55 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: dead wild cat Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1487 Lines: 31 >In message <27644F07E21@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> David Zambonini writes: [David saying DWC was superb deleted] >Your saying dead wild cat was better than your demos? Yeah, sure, perhaps it >was more involved that what you've written, but it took me fucking ages to >write, while you can put together decent demos in a few days. Which, >incidently, was one of the main reasons i stopped coding. >marc broster Marc, how about me and you form a coalition - the "Kill a too-clever-for-his-own-good Demo Coder" foundation? :) Actually, David's demos is one of the reasons (as well as wanting to do lots of other stuff, like utilities, and to make some money) that I'm not going to do any more demos... well, not for a while at least. DAMN impressive. Nothing technically astounding, but polished to shine so fine you can see your face in it. DAVID>>>> Just thought I'd mention that I'm going to use a technique similar to the one you've used in SMURF 2 to speed up text printing. I've not got my SAM with me at the moment, but it prints characters using the Interlace method you mentioned. The data isn't hardcoded for space reasons though... Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 26 14:21:17 1995 From: David Zambonini To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 14:22:21 GMT Subject: Re: dead wild cat Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.22 Message-Id: <64C3594FA2@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2637 Lines: 68 > >In message <27644F07E21@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> David Zambonini writes: > [David saying DWC was superb deleted] > > >Your saying dead wild cat was better than your demos? Yeah, sure, perhaps it > >was more involved that what you've written, but it took me fucking ages to > >write, while you can put together decent demos in a few days. Which, > >incidently, was one of the main reasons i stopped coding. > >marc broster A few days? A week, maybe... I get the routines up and running in a few days, but only after thinking about what I'm going to do next for about four months.. and the time I quote doesn't include polishing the finished product, either... So get back to coding.. of course it's hard work... and why should you, one of the best coders, decide to stop? We *need* you... > Marc, how about me and you form a coalition - the "Kill a > too-clever-for-his-own-good Demo Coder" foundation? :) You'll be first against the wall, Si... :) > Actually, David's demos is one of the reasons (as well as wanting to do lots > of other stuff, like utilities, and to make some money) that I'm not going > to do any more demos... well, not for a while at least. DAMN impressive. > Nothing technically astounding, but polished to shine so fine you can see > your face in it. Damn. I'm sure I didn't see *my* face in them... hmm... perhaps I should cut down on the Marc Broster sprites.. :) > DAVID>>>> Just thought I'd mention that I'm going to use a technique similar > to the one you've used in SMURF 2 to speed up text printing. I've not got my > SAM with me at the moment, but it prints characters using the Interlace > method you mentioned. The data isn't hardcoded for space reasons though... Yup. The speed increments should be fairly impressive... just over 6 T- states per pixel. Oh, If you use a word method for storing the character data and then use the stack pointer as a update pointer, you can increase the speed it takes a text screen to update by yet more. ( I always find that it's the sprite control routine that takes up a lot of time, so if you cut it down to nothing, you're cooking.. (no pun intended.. :) ) ) I'm afraid you'll have to snail me for exactly what I mean, though... Ah, that appears to be it. And now to the important news... I'm leaving Cardiff *today* No more net access... sob. That means don't bother to reply to this, btw.. :) Right... Snail: David Zambonini 29 Heol Glantawe Ystradgynlais Swansea SA9 1ES Phone: (01639) 84 4472 Hmmm.. what was it again..? unsubscribe sam-users.... *sigh* DMZ === [ I never did use a mailsig. , did I? ] From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 26 14:28:16 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 14:13:07 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Filetypes Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1256 Lines: 33 >On Mon, 21 Aug 95 16:48:02 PDT, Stefan Drissen said: >> Sorry, but I am NOT going to count how many characters is on each line. This mailer >> handles everything rather nicely from my point of view. (Windows Netmanage - >> truetype font for the mailer). > >TTTTT H H EEEEE N N CCC H H AAA N N GGG EEEEE > T H H E NN N C C H H A A NN N G G E > T HHHHH EEE N N N C HHHHH AAAAA N N N G EEE > T H H E N NN C C H H A A N NN G GGG E > T H H EEEEE N N CCC H H A A N N GGG EEEEE > > III TTTTT !! > I T !! > I T !! > I T > III T !! > >Did it display that nicely? It did on mine, but then I'm using Eudora - a damn fine freeware mailer, which has auto word-wrap at 76 columns... smashing :) (Oh yeah, and it also has the font set to Courier... but that's kinda obvious). Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 26 14:48:23 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 14:13:12 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Upload Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1626 Lines: 42 >Status: > >Simon says... >>*grins* Any chance that you could FFT the samples to get the dominant >>frequency and amplitude for each 1/50th of a second period, and build up the >>Etracker Instruments for us all as well? :) :) :) >> >>Simon > >Umm, I beg your pardon. I was thinking of writing a MODule playback routine >in which you do design your own instruments and then the mod is played back >using all the protracker effects etc. Excellent! >Each instrument would be designed twice. Once with modulation and one >without. Each instrument would also receive a priority rating. This in case >more than two modulated instruments needed to be used. The whole thing would >be rather easy. But so much to do.... Do remember SAM95 was supposed to be >released yesterday ;-). *grins* Well, what I meant above was to take the samples and perform a fast-fourier transform on them, thus getting the main frequency each one consists of for a given 50th of a second (and the amplitude during that time)... It should sound at least comparable to the original sample that way. I've got a fair few routines to do FFT's... alas, I can't work out how to renormalise the frequency data at the end, so I can't work out how to get the info back out of them... Oh well Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 26 14:50:44 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sat, 26 Aug 1995 14:13:09 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: Filetypes Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 4296 Lines: 80 >This is a bit long, so don't read unless you are actually interested in >the file-type/suffix debate. [Excellent break-down deleted] >I personally like the Unix approach, where the OS only enforces file >typing where it matters to the OS. On the SAM, as mentioned here >already, only the various BASIC file types need to be known to the OS. >In fact it would probably be desirable if "OPENTYPE" files >were indistinguishable in practice from "CODE" files. Okay... here's a few ways of doing things: \begin ramble If we need new file types, we could do with an EXEC type - which will load in the first x (as specified in the file header) bytes to a buffer area (above the current screen? free pages?), which in turn can be called (code must be relocatable), and can request memory pages, and then ask the DOS to load in specific length chunks. Something like a modified +D header at the start could specify it (note that because this is a new file type, we don't need to keep the +D one if we REALLY don't want to... and new format discs (EDOS et al), won't use the +D info. So let's stick a magic number at the beginning of the EXEC file, just so that if it's copied to a DOS disk, we don't need to worry about bringing it back in the correct format. Let's make it a 4 character one (but not starting with MZ :) )... hey, EXEC (with bit 7 set on the C) sounds nice. :) After the EXEC we need some kind of length byte for the amount of code that we're bringing in in this chunk. Let's make that a 16-bit word, and add the restriction that you can't have more than 8192 bytes of code in there. Code to that length will then be loaded in at &E000 and called -- BUT that shouldn't be relied upon. We need totally relocatable code in that section - god knows what future DOS writers might do. The code in that section will use hook-codes to reserve memory for itself, and to load itself into the memory map, and install any heap stuff that might be needed - so guess what? We can use this load-method for driver code as well as for neat & tidy applications. The hook codes used will not allow data to be loaded into any page other than a screen, blank or a specified page type - should stop bad apps treading on other people's toes. As for OPENTYPE files, looking through the DOS source, there appears to be a couple of types of them - remnants from the Speccy DOSes etc... all in all this shouldn't really matter, but perhaps we need a conversion program or command which can take one file type and transform it into another. "Floating" code files is something I'd like - ie CODE ones without a start address - just a length, which would REQUIRE you to specify a start address. Maybe these ARE Opentype files? :) If the DOS is done correctly, it shouldn't be difficult to have files as long as you want, or as short as you want, just using the hook codes. I'm going to leaf through the UNIX commands et al, and see what I can come up with. When the hard drive comes along, by all means, people can start using magic numbers all over the place - it won't matter then, as the DOS will be able to leaf through a file in /etc/ and get the info it needs out of it. Until then I don't think we really need them... especially as things like GIF files, IFF files, PKZIP files etc all have their own Magic numbers built in anyway. By all means, stick one at the beginning of your data files - I already have done in some cases - but save them under the CODE type perhaps? Anybody come up with a good way of copying files to MS-DOS disks, retaining the file headers etc, yet also leaving say ASCII files unharmed if the PC wants to read them? I was going to use the reserved 10 bytes in the directory area, but I don't know if they're used by OS/2 or Novell Netware... \ramble off I'll leave it at that for now. Come up with the hook codes you've always wanted to see (I'm going to stick CRC ones in the DOS too), and lemme know what they are... Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Aug 26 22:05:31 1995 To: SAM-USERS@nvg.unit.no Subject: email address of colin macdon Date: Sat, 26 Aug 95 23:02:07 CEST From: Arne Di Russo Message-Id: <9508262302.aa27469@ax433.mclink.it> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 185 Lines: 11 Hi! I need the email address of Colin Macdonald, I had it but I don't find it anymore. Could somebody please email me his address? Thanks in advance. Bye, Arne --- MMMR v4.00unr * From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 27 11:18:47 1995 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 95 12:14:38 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: RE: email address of colin macdon To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 514 Lines: 26 >Hi! > >I need the email address of Colin Macdonald, I had it but >I don't find it anymore. >Could somebody please email me his address? >Thanks in advance. > >Bye, Arne Here it is... (and don't lose it again! ;) ) I'm not sure if he's "in" at the moment though due to the academic year not having started yet or something. mcscs3cgm@dct.ac.uk L8R Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: drissen@pi.net S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands T-mail: +31-73-414969 From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 27 11:18:48 1995 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 95 11:48:53 PDT From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: FRED 60 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon - TCP/IP for Windows by NetManage, Inc. Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=us-ascii Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1451 Lines: 52 >>It is rather brilliant. The Mnemodemo is great. The menu also by a >Mnemotech member >>(I must say that it's funny that the Entropy bods get greeted first though :) ) > >Cool... not seen the menu yet! Just your four mode 2 line scrollies at 4 different speeds with some nice volume bars and a good looking screen. >>Jellytext looks cool. > >What is it? It's a kind of teletext text section written by Matt Round, very effective and humourous. People can have their own home pages on that. >>BTW the Lightbulbs music is all converted mods (I'll upload my very >barelooking mc >>routine sometime). > >Lightbulbs? A demo by Martijn Groen. Nothing spectacular but using lightbulbs in various lit stages as volume meters which turned out looking very nice indeed. >>The text editor is the BEST I have seen on the SAM to date, chuck away the >secretary, >>bye bye Spell Master, bye bye Tasword. The dynamic text whatsit is great >for writing >>scrolly texts. No more word wrap on and rejustify the lot. The keyboard >buffer is >>excellent too. > >Which editor? Which editor? It's Pro-Type, written in C - meaning Colin Macdonald is very pleased. It's at version 0.2 at the moment and very basic but when it gets to version 1.0 it should be rather brilliant. >Simon Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: drissen@pi.net S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands T-mail: +31-73-414969 From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 27 16:58:09 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 16:57:35 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: FRED 60 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 627 Lines: 17 >It's Pro-Type, written in C - meaning Colin Macdonald is very pleased. It's >at version 0.2 at the moment and very basic but when it gets to version 1.0 >it should be rather brilliant. Excellent! (Gotta remember to get hold of a copy of Fred soon... 59 and 60 I think) Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Aug 27 16:58:10 1995 Message-Id: X-Sender: scooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 16:57:37 +0100 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Change of Address... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 520 Lines: 16 Hi everyone, I'm now moving back to the old 18 braemar drive address for a spell... the phone number there is 0161 282 5051 ... basically, just check the .sig Later, Simon -!- Mains Hum: A sine of the times??? +- Email:Simon.Cooke@umist.ac.uk ---- Fidonet: 2:250/124.2 (Simon Cooke) -+ | Snail:1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP, UK | | Tel: (01942) 886084 Fax: (01942) 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!)| +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc ----------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Aug 28 19:00:25 1995 Date: Sun, 27 Aug 1995 18:09:07 GMT From: marc@failure.demon.co.uk (marc broster) Message-Id: <677@failure.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: dead wild cat X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 3834 Lines: 81 In message <64C3594FA2@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> David Zambonini writes: > > >In message <27644F07E21@physx1s.cf.ac.uk> David Zambonini writes: > > [David saying DWC was superb deleted] > > > > >Your saying dead wild cat was better than your demos? Yeah, sure, perhaps it > > >was more involved that what you've written, but it took me fucking ages to > > >write, while you can put together decent demos in a few days. Which, > > >incidently, was one of the main reasons i stopped coding. > > >marc broster > > A few days? A week, maybe... I get the routines up and running in a Ohhhh, a whole week? Your obviously not as good as i thought you were.... > few days, but only after thinking about what I'm going to do next for > about four months.. and the time I quote doesn't include polishing > the finished product, either... So get back to coding.. of course > it's hard work... and why should you, one of the best coders, decide > to stop? We *need* you... "One of the best coders". heh heh. As for 'needing' me, yeah, the SAM scene has fallen apart over the last few years, just as people were getting more out of the machine, some of the eariler 'pros', David Gommeran (sp? The guy who did tetris while everyone else was doing BASIC BLITZ routines), ESI, the guy who used to be 'Masters of Magic', etc, have moved on, but i guess it's not surprising. The SAMs good for playing around on, but there's bigger fish to catch. That said, there have been some new people in recent times, but i doubt they'll be many more. As for me, it's that my interests have changed, if i still wanted to do assembly, i would use the SAM. Out of interest, how about we compile a list of some of the 'pros' who worked on the SAM, past and present, we could do a kind of time line. Be interesting to see who's left. > > Marc, how about me and you form a coalition - the "Kill a > > too-clever-for-his-own-good Demo Coder" foundation? :) > > You'll be first against the wall, Si... :) We would have to pick lots to decide who's going to see off Andrew... > > Actually, David's demos is one of the reasons (as well as wanting to do lots > > of other stuff, like utilities, and to make some money) that I'm not going > > to do any more demos... well, not for a while at least. DAMN impressive. > > Nothing technically astounding, but polished to shine so fine you can see > > your face in it. > > Damn. I'm sure I didn't see *my* face in them... hmm... perhaps I > should cut down on the Marc Broster sprites.. :) > Marc Broster sprites? Cool. Anybody want to enlighten me as to what he's on about? I doubt he's using scanned pictues of me in his demos. > > DAVID>>>> Just thought I'd mention that I'm going to use a technique similar > > to the one you've used in SMURF 2 to speed up text printing. I've not got my > > SAM with me at the moment, but it prints characters using the Interlace > > method you mentioned. The data isn't hardcoded for space reasons though... > > Yup. The speed increments should be fairly impressive... just over 6 T- > states per pixel. Oh, If you use a word method for storing the > character data and then use the stack pointer as a update pointer, > you can increase the speed it takes a text screen to update by yet > more. ( I always find that it's the sprite control routine that takes > up a lot of time, so if you cut it down to nothing, you're cooking.. > (no pun intended.. :) ) ) I'm afraid you'll have to snail me for > exactly what I mean, though... > Likewise, what's SMURF 2? As for the sprite control routine, what David said is true, on the SAM you want to be spending most of your time plotting sprites (if your doing a game that is) rather than deciding where to plot them. I'd designed a real fast control routine for my shoot'em up, shame i never wrote it. marc broster