From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 1 07:33:55 1995 Date: Wed, 01 Nov 1995 07:13:48 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <11472@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Bo Jangeborg X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 85 Lines: 9 Has just registered Z80 and asks about SAM... :-) Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 1 08:56:41 1995 Message-Id: <199511010855.JAA20850@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Bo Jangeborg To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 08:55:39 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <11472@bgserv.demon.co.uk> from "Brian Gaff Sam Dept." at Nov 1, 95 07:13:48 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 239 Lines: 13 > > > Has just registered Z80 and asks about SAM... > > :-) *grins* Just out of interest, does anybody know what Dave Whittaker actually DID for the SAM? And has anybody actually *GOT* the software he supposedly wrote? Thanks, Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 1 15:32:31 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 15:30:51 +0000 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: kedisk Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 658 Lines: 20 I have a fixed version (at last)... I finally worked out that my sam only resets if you don't keep it level, so I'm working on a desk rather than on the floor and everything is fine. So I fixed kedisk (I hope!) so it now works with MasterBasic and the screen compression is working -properly- at last. Anyone want me to upload it, or do you want to wait til I've changed the front-end to make it usable? Alternatively, I could just upload the new version of the code file (cdall) as that's all that's changed. I mean upload to nvg, of course, not to here (just thought I'd make that clear...) And I've got flu. Thanks, si. (*SNIFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF*) -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 1 18:01:48 1995 Date: Wed, 1 Nov 95 18:54:52 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: RE: Bo Jangeborg 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: 444 Lines: 21 > >Has just registered Z80 and asks about SAM... > >:-) > >Brian BTW, Robert van der Veeke met him at a science fiction convention in Amsterdam about half a year ago (I think). Apparently he'd given his SAM away to someone who collected ancient computers as museum pieces..... 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 Wed Nov 1 18:01:49 1995 Date: Wed, 1 Nov 95 18:51:43 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: RE: kedisk 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: 639 Lines: 23 >I have a fixed version (at last)... Does this mean that it will actually write largish code blocks (approx 200k) to a PC disc properly? >Anyone want me to upload it, or do you want to wait til I've >changed the front-end to make it usable? Alternatively, I could just >upload the new version of the code file (cdall) as that's all that's >changed. If the writing bit is fixed then PLEASE upload the code file, then I can put some of my stuff onto disc to upload to nvg. 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 Wed Nov 1 19:54:33 1995 From: "Will Easson (LongBow)" <9264201E@STUDENT.GLA.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 17:46:55 BST Subject: Re: kedisk X-Confirm-Reading-To: "Will Easson (LongBow)" <9264201E@STUDENT.GLA.AC.UK> X-Pmrqc: 1 Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Message-Id: <4919E95DFA@student.gla.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 319 Lines: 11 > > Anyone want me to upload it, or do you want to wait til I've > changed the front-end to make it usable? Alternatively, I could just > upload the new version of the code file (cdall) as that's all that's > changed. I'd wait, otherwise you'll have people pestering you for ever more for an updated version. Will From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 1 19:55:08 1995 From: "Will Easson (LongBow)" <9264201E@STUDENT.GLA.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 18:09:27 BST Subject: RE: Bo Jangeborg Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Message-Id: <497A8D7703@student.gla.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 315 Lines: 15 > > > > >Has just registered Z80 and asks about SAM... > > > >:-) > > > >Brian > > BTW, Robert van der Veeke met him at a science fiction convention in > Amsterdam about half a year ago (I think). Apparently he'd given > his SAM away to someone who collected ancient computers as museum > pieces..... B@st@rd. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 2 07:18:52 1995 Date: Thu, 02 Nov 1995 06:36:12 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <11497@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: kedisk X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 184 Lines: 12 I finally worked out that my sam only resets if you don't keep it level Erm, is this the new Spirit level attachment? Seriously, this is very odd! Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 2 09:35:36 1995 Message-Id: <199511020932.KAA04343@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: kedisk To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 09:31:46 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: from "Geoff Winkless" at Nov 1, 95 03:30:51 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1003 Lines: 27 > I finally worked out that my sam only resets if you don't keep it level, > so I'm working on a desk rather than on the floor and everything is > fine. So I fixed kedisk (I hope!) so it now works with MasterBasic > and the screen compression is working -properly- at last. Do you feel up to making it copy files to and fro in chunks so that you can have files ~500k in length or longer? :) Or even use the Meg... hell, it's there doing nothing on most peoples machines... > Anyone want me to upload it, or do you want to wait til I've > changed the front-end to make it usable? Alternatively, I could just > upload the new version of the code file (cdall) as that's all that's > changed. > > I mean upload to nvg, of course, not to here (just thought I'd make > that clear...) > > And I've got flu. Thanks, si. > > (*SNIFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF*) My apologies Geoff... I hope you feel consoled in the fact that my eyes feel like they've got someone gently standing on them in stilleto heels... Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 2 10:22:00 1995 Message-Id: <199511021018.KAA11994@figaro.york.ac.uk> From: gaw2@mailer.york.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 10:18:28 +0000 In-Reply-To: Simon.Cooke -- "Re: kedisk" (Nov 2, 9:31am) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92 (ORBIT)) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: kedisk Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 682 Lines: 21 On Nov 2, 9:31am in "Re: kedisk", warbled: ] Do you feel up to making it copy files to and fro in chunks so that you can ] have files ~500k in length or longer? :) Shouldn't be particularly difficult, yeah. ] Or even use the Meg... hell, it's there doing nothing on most peoples ] machines... Well if someone wants to send me some programming info (or even send me a meg they happen to have lying around... -hint- :-)... I will ] My apologies Geoff... I hope you feel consoled in the fact that my eyes feel ] like they've got someone gently standing on them in stilleto heels... I would, except that it means in about 2 weeks time I'll be feeling the same. *sigh* G. Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 2 10:22:37 1995 Message-Id: <199511021019.KAA12047@figaro.york.ac.uk> From: gaw2@mailer.york.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 10:19:33 +0000 In-Reply-To: drissen -- "RE: kedisk" (Nov 1, 6:51pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92 (ORBIT)) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 553 Lines: 18 On Nov 1, 6:51pm in "RE: kedisk", warbled: ] ] >I have a fixed version (at last)... ] ] Does this mean that it will actually write largish code blocks (approx 200k) ] to a PC disc properly? Does it not? I never had any problem with it. Please tell me where it goes wrong!! ] If the writing bit is fixed then PLEASE upload the code file, then I can put ] some of my stuff onto disc to upload to nvg. Well if you can tell me where and when it goes wrong, yes I will fix it. Honestly, people go around complaining to everyone but me... :) Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 2 10:28:01 1995 From: "Will Easson (LongBow)" <9264201E@STUDENT.GLA.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 10:01:23 BST Subject: Re: kedisk Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Message-Id: <5959311167@student.gla.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 572 Lines: 17 > I finally worked out that my sam only resets if you don't keep > it level > > Erm, is this the new Spirit level attachment? > > Seriously, this is very odd! > > Brian Sounds to me like a dodgy connection somewhere inside, perhaps some of the soldering is buggered now that it's passed its "estimated lifespan" (the specs say, if I remember correctly, that the SAMs component lifespan is five years. I got my SAM at Christmas of 1989. Six years and still working, though; maybe you've got a machine that likes to stick to its design parameters..!) -Will Easson From imc Thu Nov 2 12:34:45 1995 Subject: Re: kedisk To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 2 Nov 95 12:34:45 MET In-Reply-To: <199511020932.KAA04343@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 2, 95 9:31 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 246 Lines: 8 On Thu, 2 Nov 1995 09:31:46 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > Or even use the Meg... hell, it's there doing nothing on most peoples > machines... Oh yeah? Well I don't think I know many of these "most people" who have a Meg on their Sam... imc From imc Thu Nov 2 13:11:26 1995 Subject: Re: Important: VIRUS MESSAGE (NOT!) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 2 Nov 95 13:11:26 MET In-Reply-To: <33D7EE4C79@novell3.bham.ac.uk>; from "Oranges" at Nov 2, 95 12:33 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 875 Lines: 21 On Thu, 2 Nov 1995 12:33:10 GMT, Oranges said: > >From Judy O'Bier (JObier @aol.com): There is a computer virus that is being > sent across the Internet. If you receive an e-mail message with the subject > line "Good Times", DO NOT read the message, DELETE it immediately. For the nth time... THIS IS A HOAX! The only virus that's about is this message, which already spammed the net out of all proportion once this year (or maybe it was last year). PLEASE DO NOT PROPAGATE THIS MESSAGE - and tell anyone who sent it to you to stop doing so. > If the program is not stopped, the computer's > processor will be placed in an nth-complexity infinite binary loop - which > can severely damage the processor if left running that way too long. Surely this should have tipped you off to the fact that the writer of this message was talking BS. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 2 14:30:06 1995 Message-Id: <199511021328.NAA06484@sgi18.york.ac.uk> From: gaw2@mailer.york.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 13:28:30 +0000 In-Reply-To: DJG528 -- "Important: VIRUS MESSAGE" (Nov 2, 12:33pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92 (ORBIT)) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Important: VIRUS MESSAGE Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 437 Lines: 17 On Nov 2, 12:33pm in "Important: VIRUS MESSAGE", warbled: ] ] Thought you might find this intresting... [sniiiiiiip] PLEASE can you NOT post such INANE CRAP to this group. First, talk to someone who knows what they are talking about, then find out that a) Good Times is only a virus of the mind -- people like you keep distributing it!!! b) EVERYONE who has been on the net more than 3 weeks has seen it before... *sigh* Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 2 15:34:10 1995 From: Diggory Gray Organization: The University of Birmingham To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 13:48:40 GMT Subject: KE Disk & Errors Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Message-Id: <351A716156@novell3.bham.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 432 Lines: 9 Has anyone used the sector editor in KE-Disk to sort out errors? If you have a text file or something stuck on an error, the sector editor will be able to read the sector with the error ( most of the time ), this will be corupted, but all the same, you can resave the sector and then load up the file and alter any errors. Erm - Ok sorry I didn't know that the 'Good Times' thing was a hoax. Diggory Gray ( DJG528@bham.ac.uk ) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 2 15:59:25 1995 Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 15:50:27 +0000 (GMT) From: Daniel James Doore X-Sender: iq4d4385@jaffle-fddi To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: kedisk 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: 568 Lines: 18 On Wed, 1 Nov 1995, Geoff Winkless wrote: > Anyone want me to upload it, or do you want to wait til I've > changed the front-end to make it usable? Alternatively, I could just > upload the new version of the code file (cdall) as that's all that's > changed. Personally, I'd like to see a nice front end (mode 3 GUI would be nice :)) since this is my most used utility (bootlick, bootlick) Dan. +---------------------------------------+ | Dan Doore - Ex-Head Pod And Dogsbody | | D.J.Doore-iq4d4385@lmu.ac.uk | +---------------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 2 16:03:12 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, 02 Nov 1995 16:00:19 +0000 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no From: simon.cooke@umist.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: Re: kedisk Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 974 Lines: 38 >Status: > >On Thu, 2 Nov 1995 09:31:46 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: >> Or even use the Meg... hell, it's there doing nothing on most peoples >> machines... > >Oh yeah? Well I don't think I know many of these "most people" who have >a Meg on their Sam... > >imc Of the ones I know... Jonathan Taylor: 4Mb Bruce: 4Mb (unsurprising really) Andy Wright (xMb) John Wase (xMb) Chris White (3Mb last count... one was cannibalised to fix the other) Me: 1Mb Dave Ledbury: 1Mb Malcolm MacKenzie: 1Mb Steve Nutting: at least 1Mb ... Any more for any more? That's just the ones I can remember... Oh, and Colin MacDonald... 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 Nov 2 16:10:56 1995 Message-Id: <9511021609.AA28183@dxmint.cern.ch> From: Allan Skillman (Dr Kid) Subject: Re: kedisk To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 2 Nov 95 17:09:46 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Daniel James Doore" at Nov 2, 95 3:50 pm Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 210 Lines: 7 > > Personally, I'd like to see a nice front end (mode 3 GUI would be nice :)) > since this is my most used utility (bootlick, bootlick) How about a Driver Front end? Sounds like a project for........ Allan From imc Thu Nov 2 16:18:16 1995 Subject: Re: kedisk To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 2 Nov 95 16:18:16 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 2, 95 4:00 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 348 Lines: 14 On Thu, 02 Nov 1995 16:00:19 +0000, Simon Cooke said: > Jonathan Taylor: 4Mb > Bruce: 4Mb (unsurprising really) > Andy Wright (xMb) > John Wase (xMb) > Chris White (3Mb last count... one was cannibalised to fix the other) > Me: 1Mb > Dave Ledbury: 1Mb > Malcolm MacKenzie: 1Mb > Steve Nutting: at least 1Mb I've only met two of those people. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 2 17:20:45 1995 Message-Id: <199511021603.QAA08679@sgi18.york.ac.uk> From: gaw2@mailer.york.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 16:03:48 +0000 In-Reply-To: DJG528 -- "KE Disk & Errors" (Nov 2, 1:48pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92 (ORBIT)) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: KE Disk & Errors Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 647 Lines: 15 On Nov 2, 1:48pm in "KE Disk & Errors", warbled: ] Has anyone used the sector editor in KE-Disk to sort out errors? ] ] If you have a text file or something stuck on an error, the sector ] editor will be able to read the sector with the error ( most of the ] time ), this will be corupted, but all the same, you can resave the ] sector and then load up the file and alter any errors. You can actually do the same thing with read at... you just have to put up with loads of error messages... It's a shame I couldn't figure out a way to fit all the data on screen at once though -- the `switch halves' business is a pain in the arse. Geoff From imc Thu Nov 2 17:23:33 1995 Subject: Re: KE Disk & Errors To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 2 Nov 95 17:23:33 MET In-Reply-To: <199511021603.QAA08679@sgi18.york.ac.uk>; from "Geoff Winkless" at Nov 2, 95 4:03 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 422 Lines: 12 On Thu, 2 Nov 1995 16:03:48 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > You can actually do the same thing with read at... you just have to put up > with loads of error messages... I did that once... Unfortunately you also have to patch up the "next track/sector" bytes at the end of the corrupted sector, which you have to work out from the bitmap in the directory. That shouldn't be necessary with a user-friendly DOS IMHO... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 2 18:10:39 1995 From: "Will Easson (LongBow)" <9264201E@STUDENT.GLA.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 18:04:04 BST Subject: Re: kedisk Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Message-Id: <6163FD08B4@student.gla.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 298 Lines: 11 > > > > Personally, I'd like to see a nice front end (mode 3 GUI would be > > nice :)) since this is my most used utility (bootlick, bootlick) > > How about a Driver Front end? Sounds like a project for........ > > Allan Hey! Gets my vote! Lets get _some_ DRiVER software available, eh? -Will From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Nov 3 06:51:23 1995 Date: Fri, 03 Nov 1995 06:19:37 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <11525@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Important: VIRUS MESSAGE X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 489 Lines: 16 Dont start that Good Times thing again. The warning IS the problem. Its total bullshit and everyone knows about it from a year or so ago. Think about it. Lots of completely different readers, and platforms. It could not work on them all. If it were an ANSI bomb then only very few people have ANSI operating on Internet, probably those who access via BBS, thats all. Do not add to their fun by sending the warning to all groups, its going to get flamed! Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Nov 3 08:57:07 1995 From: Mr Andrew M Gale Message-Id: <9511030855.AA18672@central.surrey.ac.uk> Subject: Re: kedisk To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 3 Nov 95 8:55:38 GMT In-Reply-To: <9511021234.AA04543@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk>; from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Nov 2, 95 12:34 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 371 Lines: 15 > > On Thu, 2 Nov 1995 09:31:46 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > Or even use the Meg... hell, it's there doing nothing on most peoples > > machines... > > Oh yeah? Well I don't think I know many of these "most people" who have > a Meg on their Sam... > > imc Don't take things so literally! Obviously we are talking of the set of people who have megs... -ANdrew From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Nov 3 12:17:08 1995 Message-Id: <199511031215.NAA21574@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: New Uploads... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 12:15:23 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 249 Lines: 10 Hi everyone... New uploads to NVG are: SAM Prime issues 1 to 5 (the disk version, of course)... You can probably tell that the original upload of the prime1.td0 file screwed up, and you should be able to see which one's the correct one ;) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Nov 3 13:25:24 1995 Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 14:20:48 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511031320.AA03107@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: New Uploads... X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1578 Lines: 43 > Hi everyone... Hi! :) > > New uploads to NVG are: > > SAM Prime issues 1 to 5 (the disk version, of course)... I have moved them and others to apropriate places. There are some remaning files in the incoming directory. Perhaps somebody could help where to put these files? -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp nobody 313334 Oct 26 09:25 arcadia5.td0 -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 12251 Jun 5 17:44 dirs.zip -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 289345 Jul 24 12:27 hd_ide.zip -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 21647 Aug 1 10:11 mdii.pak -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp nobody 361016 Oct 26 09:26 metem7.td0 -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp nobody 351152 Oct 26 09:26 public3.td0 -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 15673 Jun 5 17:44 reader.ans -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 81408 Jun 5 17:44 reader.doc -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 151994 May 27 17:08 scad.zip -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 151996 Jun 5 17:45 scads.zip -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 11559 Aug 25 12:48 sfmod2et.pak -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 289 Aug 25 12:47 sfmod2et.txt -rw-r--r-- 1 frodet nettverk 6541 Nov 3 14:11 sfmod2et.zip -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 27779 Jul 26 14:59 spectile.zip > > You can probably tell that the original upload of the prime1.td0 file > screwed up, and you should be able to see which one's the correct one ;) Not to worry about now. On the matter of ftp. nvg might face problems in near future. The faculty want's to close it down. This will mean an end to the SAM archive. Do we have an alternative? > > Simon > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Nov 3 13:54:13 1995 Message-Id: <199511031336.OAA22420@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: New Uploads... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 13:36:50 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9511031320.AA03107@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 3, 95 02:20:48 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2314 Lines: 65 > I have moved them and others to apropriate places. There are some > remaning files in the incoming directory. Perhaps somebody could > help where to put these files? > > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp nobody 313334 Oct 26 09:25 arcadia5.td0 ^^^ magazine, arcadia section? > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 12251 Jun 5 17:44 dirs.zip ^^^^ dirs - misc. disc util for the PC - lists directory of a SAM disc in a PC drive A: (written by me) > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 289345 Jul 24 12:27 hd_ide.zip ^^^^ German Speccy mag docs on a DIY IDE drive for the Speccy... stick it in the Docs section > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 21647 Aug 1 10:11 mdii.pak ^^^ Steve Taylor's Mouse Driver v2.0 utility > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp nobody 361016 Oct 26 09:26 metem7.td0 Metempsychosis 7... crap magazine, mags misc? > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp nobody 351152 Oct 26 09:26 public3.td0 ^^^^ SAM Public 3 ... another crap one... again for mags/misc > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 15673 Jun 5 17:44 reader.ans > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 81408 Jun 5 17:44 reader.doc ^^^ text and MS Word v6.0 for windows files on how the FRED DOcument Reader file format is arranged. > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 151994 May 27 17:08 scad.zip ^^^^ bad file? > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 151996 Jun 5 17:45 scads.zip ^^^ correct file. SCADS (Sam Coupe Arcade Development System)... now PD, but you need to buy the manual from bob for 8ukp... anyone want to type it up? :) :) :) > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 11559 Aug 25 12:48 sfmod2et.pak > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 289 Aug 25 12:47 sfmod2et.txt > -rw-r--r-- 1 frodet nettverk 6541 Nov 3 14:11 sfmod2et.zip Stefan Drissen's Mod to Etracker converter > -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp ftpadmin 27779 Jul 26 14:59 spectile.zip Dan Doore's Spectiles game? > > > > You can probably tell that the original upload of the prime1.td0 file > > screwed up, and you should be able to see which one's the correct one ;) > > Not to worry about now. groovy ;) > On the matter of ftp. nvg might face problems in near future. > The faculty want's to close it down. This will mean an end to > the SAM archive. Do we have an alternative? I'd say use Jumper but for the lack of hard-disk space... :( Simon From imc Fri Nov 3 14:09:32 1995 Subject: Re: New Uploads... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 3 Nov 95 14:09:32 MET In-Reply-To: <199511031336.OAA22420@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 3, 95 1:36 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 167 Lines: 6 On Fri, 3 Nov 1995 13:36:50 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Something's wrong here. You wrote it at 13.36 GMT, not MET. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Nov 3 20:54:09 1995 Date: Fri, 3 Nov 95 20:09:02 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: RE: kedisk To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, 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: 1865 Lines: 52 On Thu, 2 Nov 1995 10:19:33 +0000 Geoff Winkless wrote: >On Nov 1, 6:51pm in "RE: kedisk", warbled: >] >] >I have a fixed version (at last)... >] >] Does this mean that it will actually write largish code blocks (approx 200k) >] to a PC disc properly? > >Does it not? I never had any problem with it. Please tell me where it >goes wrong!! Ok, here's what I did to test out its major bug: (shouldn't the programmer (ie Geoff) have done this in the first place?) Create a file which is 204800 bytes long. Every 512 bytes contains the same word. ie the bytes 0-511 contains &0000, 512-1023 contains &0001 etc, etc. I then saved this testfile to a sam disc, loaded it into KE disk and then saved it onto a PC disk and then reloaded it with my dos thing. The first 110592 bytes are fine. After that things start to go wrong. For some reason one byte is not written to the disc file every so many bytes. The end result is that the file which was originally 204800 bytes ends up fitting into a file that is 203712 bytes. What an amazing compression routine! Where the 1088 bytes difference went to, I don't know? BTW another somewhat annoying feature is when you want to load a file that it accepts the first file it finds with the same letters. Therefore if I want to load in "test" and the file "test .s" is located earlier on on the disc I have to rename "test" to something else! But then the TAB feature is lovely, allowing me to simply RENAME "test" TO "whatnot" and then being called Geoff. Anyway Geoff, I hope this helps you get that annoying bug out of the code, since I can't be stuffed (nor have the time) to write a write routine. L8R PPL > >Geoff > 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 Nov 4 07:10:24 1995 Date: Sat, 04 Nov 1995 06:37:45 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <11540@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: New Uploads... X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 133 Lines: 7 I was going to suggest Demon, but of course there would be little committed editing of directories. Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 6 19:59:52 1995 From: Colin G Piggot Date: Mon, 6 Nov 95 13:57:08 GMT Message-Id: <18663.9511061357@pasta.st-andrews.ac.uk> Pp-Warning: Illegal Received field on preceding line To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Scottish Show Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 607 Lines: 10 Both myself, and Jupiter Software (of Amalthea fame) will have stands at the scottish show on the 12th of Novemeber! See you there! __________________ __ ____ ___ ______________________ |Colin G Piggot | /| | | | | / | | |\ |(C) Colin G. Piggot | |cgp@st-and.ac.uk | / | | | |__| / |___| | \ |----------------------| | | / | | | | | / | | |__\ |*16* BIT SOUND STRIKES| |Presents The ... | / \ | |__| | | /___ | | | \ |THE SAM - HEARING IS | |_________________| /___\|=======SURROUND=======| \ |____________BELIEVING_| From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 7 01:43:56 1995 Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 02:42:27 +0100 (MET) From: "A.D.R." To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk 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: 551 Lines: 15 What has happened to ftp.nvg.unit.no? I just get anonymous access denied... I hope this is just because of some tecnical problem and not the definitive closure of which Frode was talking some time ago... :-( _ (_ i a o, Arne .------------------------------------------------------------. | Arne Di Russo - IRC: Balbo, #phonecards #linux | | Roma, Italy - ar@RMnet.it (mc8189@mclink.it adr@iol.it) | \------------------------------------------------------------/ \___________________> powered by LINUX <___________________/ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 7 05:32:44 1995 Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 06:32:23 +0100 (MET) From: "A.D.R." To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk 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: 470 Lines: 13 Sorry for the previous post about ftp.nvg.unit.no, now anonymous ftp works again. So it was probably just a temporary problem. _ (_ i a o, Arne .------------------------------------------------------------. | Arne Di Russo - IRC: Balbo, #phonecards #linux | | Roma, Italy - ar@RMnet.it (mc8189@mclink.it adr@iol.it) | \------------------------------------------------------------/ \___________________> powered by LINUX <___________________/ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 7 12:12:05 1995 Message-Id: <199511071210.NAA28234@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Scottish Show To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 12:02:55 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <18663.9511061357@pasta.st-andrews.ac.uk> from "Colin G Piggot" at Nov 6, 95 01:57:08 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 743 Lines: 24 > > > Both myself, and Jupiter Software (of Amalthea fame) will have stands at > the scottish show on the 12th of Novemeber! See you there! > Colin Piggot Coo! Come to think of it, I might be there too! (I'll be staying with some friends of mine in Glasgow the night before...) *grins* See you all there then, I hope! ps I may have v0.5 of Termite with me... it's really beginning to move now (got a totally redefineable keyboard, with up to 8k of macro space... macros fully defineable, and can contain any character you want...) Oh yeah, and I recently shaved 400 Tstates off my colour mode 3 6x8 character print routine, so I'm 'appy... what I thought was 2 hours wasted work ended up to lead to some interesting results... Cookie From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 8 14:34:41 1995 Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 14:22:59 +0000 (GMT) From: Daniel James Doore X-Sender: iq4d4385@jaffle-fddi To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk 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: 856 Lines: 18 One bug I would like to see fixed is the one that I always come a cropper with, when reading a sam disc the disk seems to *have* to have a copy of the dos on it or something similar, otherwise everything grinds to a halt with our old friend 'Invalid Colour' thinking it's an MS-DOS disc. Annoying as hell is this one. Dan. +========================================================================+ | Dan Doore - Ex-Head Pod And Dogsbody | D.J.Doore-iq4d4385@lmu.ac.uk | |------------------------------------------------------------------------| | WARNING!! Only read every so often, so you might have to wait a bit. | |------------------------------------------------------------------------| | Album on Dan's personal stereo today: REM Live - Monster Tour 1995 | +========================================================================+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 8 14:39:14 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 14:38:02 +0000 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: kedisk (new code) Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 868 Lines: 25 I'm just about to upload this to nvg /pub/sam-coupe/incoming -rw-rw-r-- 1 ftp 65534 3429 Nov 8 14:34 kdnew.zip Length Date Time Name ("^" ==> case ------ ---- ---- ---- conversion) 3869 07-10-80 01:00 cdall 256 11-08-95 14:33 read.me ------ ------- 4125 2 This fixes Steffan's bug (was a stupid mistake, sorry 'bout that. Had to do with forgetting to put the data pointer back to the beginning of a sector when it hit a write error and tried again... -sigh-) Also much quicker to write ms-dos files -- it now works out the entire cluster-map for a file before writing, thus doesn't need to do it while the disk spins... Which incidentally also means it tells you if there isn't enough space on a disk for your file -before- it writes 99% of it... ;-) Hope you like it. -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 9 11:38:50 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 11:37:55 +0000 In-Reply-To: D.J.Doore-iq4d4385 -- "RE: kedisk" (Nov 8, 2:22pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1110 Lines: 27 On Nov 8, 2:22pm in "RE: kedisk", warbled: ] One bug I would like to see fixed is the one that I always come a cropper ] with, when reading a sam disc the disk seems to *have* to have a copy of ] the dos on it or something similar, otherwise everything grinds to a halt ] with our old friend 'Invalid Colour' thinking it's an MS-DOS disc. Yeah, really it should check the stuff it outputs for illegal characters. As it is, it's quite difficult telling whether a disk is DOS or MS-Dos -- you can check for the disk type but on ST disks this sometimes doesn't show... ] Annoying as hell is this one. Yeah, I'm fixing the entire thing bit by bit. My aim is to make it completely transparent so you can just stick a DOS disk in and pretend it's a Coupe one, but whether that's as easy as it ought to be is another matter (read - it isn't...) Oh, also I have to fix it so it actually notices when it doesn't write a sector (which is happily rare...) And I'm making it check the disk before it saves... you all persuaded me that I'm the only person in the world who thinks otherwise :-) Cheers all -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Nov 10 15:30:38 1995 Date: Fri, 10 Nov 95 16:26:32 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, 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: 472 Lines: 21 On Wed, 8 Nov 1995 14:38:02 +0000 Geoff Winkless wrote: >This fixes Steffan's bug (was a stupid mistake, sorry 'bout that. Had to Aaaaaarrgh! Why do so many English people call me Steffan? >Hope you like it. I hope so too. Downloaded it the minute I heard of it, I've still got to try it out though. 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 imc Fri Nov 10 15:32:46 1995 Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 10 Nov 95 15:32:46 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Stefan Drissen" at Nov 10, 95 4:26 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 233 Lines: 7 On Fri, 10 Nov 95 16:26:32 PST, Stefan Drissen said: > Aaaaaarrgh! Why do so many English people call me Steffan? Beats me. (A former colleague of mine was actually called Steffan and it always looked wrong spelt like that). imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Nov 11 11:57:50 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 11:57:02 +0000 In-Reply-To: drissen -- "RE: kedisk (new code)" (Nov 10, 4:26pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2341 Lines: 54 On Nov 10, 4:26pm in "RE: kedisk (new code)", warbled: ] Aaaaaarrgh! Why do so many English people call me Steffan? Ooops. Sorry. My excuse is that I know your surname has two 's'es and I guess that just makes it more... orthogonal? My logical brain at work again. I'll remember now though. ] I hope so too. Downloaded it the minute I heard of it, I've still got to ] try it out though. Well, just to irritate you I've changed it again :) Not such a major change but one that a few people have asked for -- I've changed both the basic and the code so now it won't save Sam format on to a Dos disk, and vice versa. In fact, it will now save it as the right format each time. Aren't I nice to you (no more silly pressing return before you save...) It also uses the first couple of bytes of the FAT (sector 0,2!) to test whether it's a DOS disk or not -- so if you have a disk that Kedisk insists is a Sam disk and is definitely -not-, change the first two bytes to fx ff using a sector editor (just like the one found on a certain useful program... ;-) and everything should be fine. I understand that the ST doesn't set these bits when it formats a disk, (although the STe does) so you might have to change them yourself sometimes. However, as they refer to the cluster taken up by the root directory, they should always be fff. Not much else new in this version though. I'm sticking a teledisk copy up on nvg, what I'm planning to do next is make it so that kedisk sticks a copy of the directory information (file-type, start address, length, etc etc etc) as a header on a file (with a magic number KDSK) if you want, so that when you load it back on to the SAM it automatically puts the stuff in the right place when it saves. But that isn't yet implemented... :) Now if Allan had let me compile his proggy here I could have been writing it while I'm here on campus. But since I'm here most of the day and my Sam is at home, I'm afraid it probably won't be ready til Monday. Don't suppose anyone out there could type up the bits about the directory info from the Technical Manual? Mine's in leicester (duhhh) so I have no idea which bytes I need to save... Many thanks to all ] Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy ^ ^^ I'm sure it doesn't look as symmetrical. -sigh- Geoff aka MarsBar of Entropy ;-) -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Nov 11 13:08:07 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 13:07:26 +0000 In-Reply-To: geoffw -- "RE: kedisk (new code)" (Nov 11, 11:57am) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 600 Lines: 16 On Nov 11, 11:57am in "RE: kedisk (new code)", I warbled: ] Not much else new in this version though. I'm sticking a teledisk copy up ] on nvg Ho hum. Teledisk appears to dislike these Viglen 486-DX4s, don't quite know why. Anyway, until I sort it out I'll stick the new version of cdall up onto nvg, this won't actually save the right type until you press return, but it doesn't let you save DOS type on to Sam disks (although you have to change the basic to let the reverse be true...) I'll try and get teledisk to play properly, atm all it does is hang after reading a track. -sigh- Geoff -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Nov 11 13:22:41 1995 Date: Sat, 11 Nov 95 14:20:57 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, 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: 952 Lines: 27 On Sat, 11 Nov 1995 13:07:26 +0000 Geoff Winkless wrote: >On Nov 11, 11:57am in "RE: kedisk (new code)", I warbled: >] Not much else new in this version though. I'm sticking a teledisk copy up >] on nvg > >Ho hum. Teledisk appears to dislike these Viglen 486-DX4s, don't quite >know why. Anyway, until I sort it out I'll stick the new version of cdall You're not running Teledisk under Windows are you? This was my first major mistake... It actually didn't crash though - the disk image was just one load of rubbish. BTW Geoff, I check to see if a disc is PC or SAM by looking at the boot record and seeing if the physical format of the disc is possible or not (plus something else) I can mail you a source copy of my dos disc reader (as used in SAM MOD player) if you like.... 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 Nov 11 14:11:06 1995 Message-Id: <199511111410.OAA17309@tower.york.ac.uk> From: gaw2@mailer.york.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 14:10:46 +0000 In-Reply-To: drissen -- "RE: kedisk (new code)" (Nov 11, 2:20pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92 (ORBIT)) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1091 Lines: 24 On Nov 11, 2:20pm in "RE: kedisk (new code)", Steffan warbled: ] On Sat, 11 Nov 1995 13:07:26 +0000 Geoff Winkless wrote: ] >Ho hum. Teledisk appears to dislike these Viglen 486-DX4s, don't quite ] >know why. Anyway, until I sort it out I'll stick the new version of cdall ] ] You're not running Teledisk under Windows are you? This was my first major ] mistake... It actually didn't crash though - the disk image was just one ] load of rubbish. Naah, I'm not. I think it's these new PCs the university have -- I took it to DX-33 and it seems to be fine. I'll upload it in two secs. ] BTW Geoff, I check to see if a disc is PC or SAM by looking at the boot ] record and seeing if the physical format of the disc is possible or not ] (plus something else) I can mail you a source copy of my dos disc reader ] (as used in SAM MOD player) if you like.... Hmm. I -think- my method works every time. As I say, improper DOS disks won't work -- but that's the fault of the DOS formatter and not mine. It's part of the DOS spec that those bytes should be that. Thanx anyway :) Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Nov 11 14:40:27 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 14:39:33 +0000 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: ok, this isn't really sam-related, but... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 496 Lines: 12 ... I'm trying to play around with simon's dirs.c -- just for fun. Problem is the only compiler I have is Borland C++ for windows - which seems very nice (if a bit sludgy) but creates the problem that it can't find biosdisk. Now I'm sure there's a link option it's missing but I'm buggered if I can get it to find the library the contains that elusive function. I expect it's cos it's a DOS function but I really can't work out how to get it to use it... please someone help me? :-) Thanx -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Nov 11 15:51:01 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 15:49:03 +0000 In-Reply-To: geoffw -- "ok, this isn't really sam-related, but..." (Nov 11, 2:39pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: ok, this isn't really sam-related, but... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 784 Lines: 18 On Nov 11, 2:39pm in "ok, this isn't really sam-related, but...", warbled: ] ... I'm trying to play around with simon's dirs.c -- just for fun. Problem ] is the only compiler I have is Borland C++ for windows - which seems very ] nice (if a bit sludgy) but creates the problem that it can't find biosdisk. ] ] Now I'm sure there's a link option it's missing but I'm buggered if I can ] get it to find the library the contains that elusive function. I expect ] it's cos it's a DOS function but I really can't work out how to get it ] to use it... please someone help me? :-) I made it. Have to have a project, can't just compile a .c file - otherwise it won't compile for DOS. WHat fun. And the executable is 52k, about 3 times the size of simon's. Ho hum. Thanks anyway :) -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Nov 11 16:50:22 1995 Date: Sat, 11 Nov 95 17:44:24 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: dos disc detection To: SAM users X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, 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: 1893 Lines: 74 Hi Geoff (and the rest) here's how I detect a PC or SAM disc. I'm not at all familiar with the ST dos scheme so it may or may not work with it. ;detect SAM or PC disc routine by Stefan Drissen ;first read boot sector in at address "bootsector" LD HL,(bstotsecs) ;total sectors on disc LD DE,(bssecstrack) LD A,D OR E JR Z,notpcdisc ;no sectors per tracks XOR A LD BC,0 rblp: INC BC SBC HL,DE JR NC,rblp DEC BC ;BC = number of tracks ADD HL,DE LD A,H OR L JR NZ,notpcdisc ;tracks must be integer LD H,B LD L,C LD DE,(bssides) LD A,D OR E JR Z,notpcdisc ;must have at least one side XOR A rblp2: SBC HL,DE JR NC,rblp2 ADD HL,DE LD A,H ;tracks must be divisible by OR L ;number of sides JR NZ,notpcdisc ;if it gets to here then the disc is not a PC disc... bootsector: DEFS 3 bssysid: DEFM "01234567" bssecsize: DEFW 0 bsclusize: DEFB 0 bsressec: DEFW 0 bsnumfats: DEFB 0 bsrootentries: DEFW 0 bstotsecs: DEFW 0 bsformatid: DEFB 0 bssecsfat: DEFW 0 bssecstrack: DEFW 0 bssides: DEFW 0 bshiddensecs: DEFW 0,0 bsbigtot: DEFW 0,0 bsphysdrv: DEFB 0 DEFW 0 bsvolserial: DEFB 0,0,0,0 bsvolname: DEFM "01234567890" Have fun with that lot.... 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 Mon Nov 13 09:25:03 1995 Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 12:00:32 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <11676@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 162 Lines: 8 Teledisk is fine CREATING a disc in Windows, but not read one. Same goes for ANADISK. I think it times out looking for a sector. Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 10:13:07 1995 Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 06:41:08 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <11685@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: No Subject specified X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Original-Sender: owner-sam-users@no.unit.nvg Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 85 Lines: 6 Why is this screwing up the from on the list now... Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 10:18:15 1995 Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 09:11:19 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511130811.AA00759@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: No Subject specified X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Original-Sender: owner-sam-users@no.unit.nvg Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 281 Lines: 15 > From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 09:07 MET 1995 > From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) > > Why is this screwing up the from on the list now... What do you mean? None of the above are wrong. -Frode > > Brian > > -- > Brian Gaff Sam Dept. > From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 10:28:15 1995 Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 11:41:50 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <11667@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Sam Coms mod repost X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 5033 Lines: 104 =C4 SPECTRUM (2:254/242.2) =C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4= =C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4 SPECTRUM =C4 Msg : 47 of 49 = From : Johnathan Taylor 2:2501/302.4 Sat 11 Nov 95 0= 0:33 To : Chris Elsden = Subj : SAM COMMS interface fix (rough guide) = =C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4= =C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4=C4 .SOT: Hi Chris, On Oct 26 23:28 95, Chris Elsden of 2:2501/1 wrote to Johnathan Taylor: JT> I have made the Fix public and even the Sam makers have known about JT> the fix for years. CE> Could you possibly make it public again for new SAM Coupe owners CE> (me)? I don't have it as an ascii file... but here's a rough guide from memory (I don't want to powerdown my sam to get at one of the comms interfaces. THE fault was nothing to do with the way one of the pins on the RS232 conne= ctor was on the inapropriate pin... that's purely cosmetic and doesn't stop the interface from actually working! The fault that this fixes is that sometimes when the z80 tried to read the status register it would somtimes read 1's when there was really only 0's t= his would cause Tx routines to think the UART Tx channel was empty when it was = not and cause loss of Tx'd chars and the Rx routines to see a Rx'd char waiting= to be read in when there wasn't any and so duplicate the last Rx'd byte or get garbage. On SAM systems that load the PSU heavily with dual floppies and other inter= faces will probably have little problem, but those that use the AUX PSU on the SAM-Card-cage, well they'll normally see the worst of the problems. It's all to do with the supply voltage getting to the UART, above a certain level and it's incapable of pulling it's data lines low enough for the z80 = to read a logic 0 level. My fix simply inserts a forward biased silicon diode e.g. 1N4001 in series = with the UART's +5V line. This simply reduces the +V supply by 0.6V which is eno= ugh to return control of the data-lines to the UART. Note that this modification will invalidate any warrenty so continue at you= r own risk, I accept no liability for any mistakes you may make! open up the comms interface, with the 64way plug pointing down you should s= ee a 24pin skinny-dip chip called Z1 on the PCB, that is the UART. Just above that you'll see a disc-ceramic capacitor soldered to a pair of a= prx 1mm wide tracks that disappear under the UART just below it. Ok if you've not found the exact things I'm talking about then first look a= gain, if you still can't find them then A) maybe you shouldn't be attempting this= or B) You're not looking at a Sam-coupe comms interface so don't continue;-) With the comms interface in the same position cut the 1mm track on the right between the disc-ceramic capacitor and Z1 below it. This is the +5V supply line that goes straight to pin24 of Z1. Now to apply= the fix simply solder on the reverse of the PCB the silicon diode with the band= ed end of the diode going to pin24 of Z1 and the other end going to the disc-ceramic capacitor solder pad. please double check that you're connecti= ng it to the same side of Z1 that you cut the track or else the UART won't get it= 's positive supply as it's supposed to go via the diode. That's it! You now have an electrically reliable comms interface:-) Other possible modifications are to re-direct the DTR output to the RTS pin= on the socket which allows the UART to do transparent hardware flow-control wi= th error correcting modems and any other device that stops sending when told to (This does NOT include IBM-Clones as they always send at least 2 bytes after being told not to by hardware flow control) If you do swap DTR and RTS you can always add a 1K pull-up resistor to the = old DTR pin to fake DTR being active perminatly (some modems prefer that) Without DTR line there are still at least 2 ways to force a modem hangup un= der software control! Usual method is to use the delay+++delay ATH0 method OR configure the modem to hangup on receipt of a long-break signal. There is another mod that re-works the parallel printer port logic to creat= e two extra lines which I use as DCD and DTR but the amount of track cutting and = the complexity of the routing of the extra wire patches is far beyond the scope= of any textual description (and not to be recommended to any but the most experienced hardware hackers;-)) Regards Johnathan PS If anyone still has a copy of the original posting I did with the ASCII = art picture then please do re-post it:-) .EOT: --- * Origin: Essex Sam-Coupe Developments (2:2501/302.4) Anyone got a copy? Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From imc Mon Nov 13 12:09:36 1995 Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 13 Nov 95 12:09:36 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Nov 11, 95 11:57 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 271 Lines: 8 On Sat, 11 Nov 1995 11:57:02 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > Don't suppose anyone out there could type up the bits about the directory > info from the Technical Manual? Not really, but if you look at the source for samtools it should tell you all you need to know... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 13:55:07 1995 Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 14:36:03 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511131336.AA01207@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 525 Lines: 19 > On Sat, 11 Nov 1995 11:57:02 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > > Don't suppose anyone out there could type up the bits about the directory > > info from the Technical Manual? I have it. What do you want to know. > > Not really, but if you look at the source for samtools it should tell you > all you need to know... Apropos: What is sun/dkio.h? I just tried to compile it, but I got incomplete structure [blabla] fdk_char: cha. I guess that this is some sort of library that comes with the disc drive? Oder? > > imc > From imc Mon Nov 13 14:10:47 1995 Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 13 Nov 95 14:10:47 MET In-Reply-To: <9511131336.AA01207@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 13, 95 2:36 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 690 Lines: 25 On Mon, 13 Nov 1995 14:36:03 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > Apropos: What is sun/dkio.h? I just tried to compile it, but I got > incomplete structure [blabla] fdk_char: cha. > I guess that this is some sort of library that comes with the disc drive? Er... yeah. DKIO(4S) DEVICES AND NETWORK INTERFACES DKIO(4S) NAME dkio - generic disk control operations DESCRIPTION All Sun disk drivers support a set of ioctl(2) requests for disk formatting and labeling operations. Basic to these ioctl() requests are the definitions in /usr/include/sun/dkio.h: blah blah. I only #included it because they told me to. :-) imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 15:22:16 1995 Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 14:42:25 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <11700@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: No Subject specified X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 159 Lines: 9 It used to show in my list as Brian Gaff SAM Dept, it now appears as To: sam-users etc etc... I have not changed anything... Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From imc Mon Nov 13 15:25:44 1995 Subject: Re: No Subject specified To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 13 Nov 95 15:25:44 MET In-Reply-To: <11700@bgserv.demon.co.uk>; from "Brian Gaff Sam Dept." at Nov 13, 95 2:42 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 362 Lines: 9 On Mon, 13 Nov 1995 14:42:25 GMT, Brian Gaff Sam Dept. said: > It used to show in my list as Brian Gaff SAM Dept, it now > appears as To: sam-users etc etc... It still does appear (to us) as Brian Gaff SAM Dept. I'm fairly sure this is down to your mail software. I sometimes find that if a message is from myself then elm tells me who it is to instead. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 15:42:45 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 15:41:00 +0000 In-Reply-To: ft -- "RE: kedisk (new code)" (Nov 13, 2:36pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 692 Lines: 18 On Nov 13, 2:36pm in "RE: kedisk (new code)", warbled: ] > On Sat, 11 Nov 1995 11:57:02 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: ] > > Don't suppose anyone out there could type up the bits about the directory ] > > info from the Technical Manual? ] ] I have it. What do you want to know. Which bytes would it be necessary to copy to be able to completely reproduce a file as it was on the disk? Basically I want the stuff on which byte does what in the directory entry :) I've played around with Simon's dirs.c code enough to get it loading files off sam disks onto the PC, but I need the tech stuff for that too :) Really I suppose it would have been easier just to port samtools to the PC... -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 16:25:11 1995 Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:24:21 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511131624.AA01305@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 722 Lines: 26 > > Apropos: What is sun/dkio.h? I just tried to compile it, but I got > > incomplete structure [blabla] fdk_char: cha. > > > I guess that this is some sort of library that comes with the disc drive? > > Er... yeah. > > DKIO(4S) DEVICES AND NETWORK INTERFACES DKIO(4S) > > NAME > dkio - generic disk control operations > > DESCRIPTION > All Sun disk drivers support a set of ioctl(2) requests for > disk formatting and labeling operations. Basic to these > ioctl() requests are the definitions in > /usr/include/sun/dkio.h: Trouble is - I only have sys/dkio.h..... > > blah blah. > > I only #included it because they told me to. :-) -Frode From imc Mon Nov 13 16:29:19 1995 Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 13 Nov 95 16:29:19 MET In-Reply-To: <9511131624.AA01305@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 13, 95 5:24 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 216 Lines: 7 On Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:24:21 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > Trouble is - I only have sys/dkio.h..... Well I don't know where it came from - I only know what our manual page says. What does your manual page say? imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 16:33:35 1995 Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:26:20 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511131626.AA01376@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: No Subject specified X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 231 Lines: 13 > It used to show in my list as Brian Gaff SAM Dept, it now > appears as To: sam-users etc etc... > > I have not changed anything... Perhaps your provider has. I don't think there's anything changed at nvg. > > Brian -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 16:48:21 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 16:45:57 +0000 In-Reply-To: geoffw -- "RE: kedisk (new code)" (Nov 13, 3:41pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 542 Lines: 19 On Nov 13, 3:41pm in "RE: kedisk (new code)", warbled: ] I've played around with Simon's dirs.c code enough to get it loading files ] off sam disks onto the PC, but I need the tech stuff for that too :) ] ] Really I suppose it would have been easier just to port samtools to the ] PC... I just had a look at samtools, and no it wouldn't :) Quite how I'm supposed to get anything from such a completely unmaintainable piece of code I've no idea... -sigh- Is it something about Sam users that none can create readable C...? ;-) G. -- From imc Mon Nov 13 16:56:45 1995 Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 13 Nov 95 16:56:45 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Nov 13, 95 4:45 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 896 Lines: 26 On Mon, 13 Nov 1995 16:45:57 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > Quite how I'm supposed to get anything from such a completely unmaintainable > piece of code I've no idea... -sigh- Course it's maintainable (by me). > Is it something about Sam users that none can create readable C...? The fact that they don't choose to doesn't mean that they can... Anyway, I would have thought that... switch(entry[0]&63){ case 16: printf("%s: Basic",name); if(entry[242]<255) printf(", LINE %d",treek(242)); printf("\nProgram length: %d\n",treek(221)); printf("Program + numv: %d\n",treek(224)); printf("Program + gap: %d\n",treek(227)); tvar=ttext=0; break; was a perfectly good explanation of what various bytes in the directory mean for a Basic program. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 17:38:30 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:33:56 +0000 In-Reply-To: Ian.Collier -- "RE: kedisk (new code)" (Nov 13, 4:56pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1276 Lines: 34 On Nov 13, 4:56pm in "RE: kedisk (new code)", warbled: ] On Mon, 13 Nov 1995 16:45:57 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: ] > Quite how I'm supposed to get anything from such a completely unmaintainable ] > piece of code I've no idea... -sigh- ] ] Course it's maintainable (by me). Mumble mumble bloody academics mumble mumble real world mumble mumble grumble... ] Anyway, I would have thought that... ] ] switch(entry[0]&63){ ] case 16: printf("%s: Basic",name); ] if(entry[242]<255) ] printf(", LINE %d",treek(242)); ] printf("\nProgram length: %d\n",treek(221)); ] printf("Program + numv: %d\n",treek(224)); ] printf("Program + gap: %d\n",treek(227)); ] tvar=ttext=0; ] break; ] ] was a perfectly good explanation of what various bytes in the directory ] mean for a Basic program. Program + gap? Oh, yeah, silly me, now why wasn't that obvious? :-) So which of those actually tells you the length of the -file-? Or do I have to just load in sectors until it hits sector 0? And if so, how are you supposed to remove the empty crap on the end? I'd really rather not implement a sick hack just to load in basic files... -- From imc Mon Nov 13 17:48:36 1995 Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 13 Nov 95 17:48:36 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Nov 13, 95 5:33 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1351 Lines: 40 On Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:33:56 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > Mumble mumble bloody academics mumble mumble real world mumble mumble > grumble... Free software mumble mumble wrote it in my spare time yadda yadda what do you expect - documented code? blah blah. > ] Anyway, I would have thought that... > ] > ] switch(entry[0]&63){ > ] case 16: printf("%s: Basic",name); > ] if(entry[242]<255) > ] printf(", LINE %d",treek(242)); > ] printf("\nProgram length: %d\n",treek(221)); > ] printf("Program + numv: %d\n",treek(224)); > ] printf("Program + gap: %d\n",treek(227)); > ] tvar=ttext=0; > ] break; > ] > ] was a perfectly good explanation of what various bytes in the directory > ] mean for a Basic program. > Program + gap? Oh, yeah, silly me, now why wasn't that obvious? :-) Well you are supposed to know what these things mean as you are a Sam coder (it's also explained what these parameters are in the man page for samwrite). > So which of those actually tells you the length of the -file-? None of them. :-) This line does. B=l=treek(239); (or if you prefer) printf("%s: Code %d,%d",name, treek(236)+16384,treek(239)); imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 17:48:38 1995 Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 18:30:03 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511131730.AA02248@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: kedisk (new code) Cc: ft@edh.ericsson.se X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 6867 Lines: 198 > On Nov 13, 2:36pm in "RE: kedisk (new code)", warbled: > ] > On Sat, 11 Nov 1995 11:57:02 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > ] > > Don't suppose anyone out there could type up the bits about the directory > ] > > info from the Technical Manual? > ] > ] I have it. What do you want to know. > > Which bytes would it be necessary to copy to be able to completely reproduce > a file as it was on the disk? Basically I want the stuff on which byte does > what in the directory entry :) Who's taking care of the FAQ nowadays? This should be there. Anyway: SAM DISK OPERATING SYSTEM Introduction SAMDOS has been designed specifically for the SAM Coupe computer. It is similar to G+DOS as used with the MGT Plus D Spectrum disk interface. Disk Drive The internal SAM disk drive is a Citizen 3.5" slimline drive. Each drive is cased and fitted with the MGT disk controller interface, which utilises a VL-1772-02 floppy disk controller. By default the disks are formatted as double sided, 80 track per side, 10 secotrs per track, to the IBM 3740 standard. Disk Format We use 80 track per side, giving 160 tracks per disk. A track is made up of 10 data sectors, each giving 512 bytes of storage. The first 4 tracks of the disk are given up to the SAMDOS directory, leaving 156 tracks available for storage. This leaves available 1560 data sectors of 512 bytes (798720 bytes). Although each data sector can hold 512 bytes, only 510 bytes of them are available for storage. The last two bytes of the data sector are used by the DOS to locate the next part of the file stored. Byte 511 hold the next track used by the file, while byte 512 holds the next sector. DISK FILE HEADER At the beginning of each disk file there is a file header. The file header is 9 bytes long: SAMDOS type Plus D type 0 File tyep File type 1-2 Modulo length Length of file 3-4 Offset start Start address 5-6 Unused 7 Number of pages 8 Starting page number Details of the Plus D header can be found in the technical information for the Plus D. File Type Each file type in the SAMDOS is allocated a numeric identifier: 5 - ZX Snapshot file SNP 48k 16 - SAM BASIC program BAS 17 - Numeric array D ARRAY 18 - String array $ ARRAY 19 - Code file C 20 - Screen file SCREEN$ Modulo Length & Number of Pages In the SAMDOS header the length of the file is calculated by multiplying the number of pages (byte 7) by 16384 and adding the modulo length (word 1-2), LSB/MSB, ie the length MOD 16K. Offset Start & Starting Page Number Read starting page number (byte 8). AND this with 1FH to get the page number in the range 0 to 31. To find the start, multiply the page number by 16384, add the offset and subtract 4000H (since the ROM occupies 0-3FFFH). When SAMDOS is paged in it resides at 4000H, and ROM0 is placed at 0-3FFFH. SAMDOS Directory The first 4 tracks of the disk are allocated to the disk directory, starting at track 0, sector 1. These 4 tracks give us 40 sectors each split into two 256 bytes entries. Each of these entries will identify one file, thus allowing up to 80 entries in the directory. The format of each directory entry is as follows: (The User Information File Area (UIFA) will be described later - NOT! (FT:-)). Byte UIFA 0 0 Status/File type. This byte is allocated on of the file types listed previously, but is also used as a file status. If the byte is 0 then then file has been erased. If the file is HIDDEN the bit 7 is set. If the file is Protected then bit 6 is set. 1-10 1-10 Filename. This filename can be up to 10 characters. 11 MSB of the number of sectors used in the file. 12 LSB of the number of sectors used in the file. 13 Track number for start of file. 14 Sector number for start of file. 15-209 Sector address map (195 bytes) (detailed further on). 210-219 MGT Future and past (10 bytes). These were used in the PLUS D directory but are not used by the SAMDOS. They are allocated to MGT for future use. 220 15 Flags (MGT use only). 221-231 File type information 16-26 If the file type is 17 or 18 then these bytes contain the file type/length and name. 16 If the file type is 20 then these bytes contain the screen mode. 16-18 If the file type is 16 then these bytes contain the program length excluding variables. 19-21 If the file type is 16 then these bytes contain the program length plus numeric variables. 22-24 If the fiel type is 16 then these bytes contain the program lengtrh plus numeric variables and the gap length before string and array variables. 232-235 27-30 Spare 4 bytes (reserved). 236 31 Start page number, in bits 4-0, bits 7-5 are undefined. 237-238 32-33 Page offset (8000H-BFFFH). This is as per file header, although when the ROM passes a file to be saved, it starts it in section C of the addressing map. 239 34 Number of pages in length (as per file header). 240-241 35-36 Modulo 0 to 16383 length, ie length of file MOD 16384 (as per file header). 242-244 37-39 Execution address. Execution address, if CODE file, or line number if an autorunning BASIC program. 245-253 40-47 Spare 8 bytes. 254-255 For future use by MGT only. Sector Address Map SAMDOS allocates 195 bytes to the sector address map, giving 1560 bits, which is the exact number of sectors available for storage on the dirve. A sector address map is calculated for each directory entry. When a fiel is created a directory entry is made for that file. A sector address map is created by setting the specific bit(s) corresponding to the sector(s) allocated to the file. (Bit 0 of the first byt is allocated to trac4 sector 1). For example, if the file uses 5 sectors then fice corresponding bits in the sector adress map are set and svaed as part of the directory entry. Bit Address Map (BAM) The bit address map is not stored on the disk by SAMDOS. It is genereated by performing a bitwise OR of each file's sector address map. This then gives SAMDOS a usage map of the disk. When a file is created the first thing SAMDOS does is calculate the BAM and then by looking at the available sectors (ie bits not set), it can work out if there is room for the file. If there is room for the file, then the directory entry is created, including the sector address map specific to the new file, and the file is stored in the sectors which have been specified in the file's sector address map. > > I've played around with Simon's dirs.c code enough to get it loading files > off sam disks onto the PC, but I need the tech stuff for that too :) > > Really I suppose it would have been easier just to port samtools to the > PC... Oh! BTW Ian, I figured it out! The interface is different from SunOS and Solaris I guess. Still, I get that /dev/rfd0 is bussy.... -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 13 19:11:43 1995 From: tsp93ma@soton.ac.uk Message-Id: <199511131837.SAA29855@vision.soton.ac.uk> Subject: Re: SAMDOS Stuff & The FAQ To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 18:37:24 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9511131729.AA02232@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 13, 95 06:29:44 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 618 Lines: 23 To quote Frode Tenneboe: @/ Who's taking care of the FAQ nowadays? This should be there. @/ Anyway: @/ @/ SAM DISK OPERATING SYSTEM @/ Urm, well it was that Graham Goring bloke, though I would say most of it was Frequently asked anyway? How often do you get people as you questions about the Sam? (Negative me, nahhh) Anyway..... I'll add that lot to the web pages, and probably tag it into the FAQ I last got sometime in the next few days. Tim ....@/ -- Tim Paveley - Maths with Computer Science - University of Southampton Sam Coupe Web Pages: http://www.soton.ac.uk/~tsp93ma/Coupe/ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 14 15:06:30 1995 Message-Id: <199511141502.QAA31553@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> X-Within-Url: http://www.linux.org.uk/Linux8086.html To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Linux8086.html Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 15:02:32 +0000 From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 3836 Lines: 83 [IMAGE] LINUX EMBEDDABLE KERNEL SUBSET _________________________________________________________________ ELKS is a project to build a small kernel subset Linux that can run on small machines with limited processor and memory resources. The initial proposed targets are the intel 8086 and then the zilog Z80. [Yes Z80 should be possible - probably needing paged memory. Dave Braun's UZI is proof it can be done]. The first question people as (other than is this for real) is why? Several reasons actually: * An 8/16bit processor kernel is badly needed. There are really no other options except Minix (research & educational use only). A kernel that can run on this kind of hardware is useful for embedded systems projects and for third world deployment where 80x86 x>0 machines are not easily available. * A Linux kernel small enough to run on such systems ought to be understandable by one person, and because it is a subset also useful learning material to then look at the full kernel. * Hack Value. The processors chosen reflect those the authors have access to. Doing a 680x0 embeddable kernel capable of running without an MMU would also be an interesting project, although this would probably rule out swapping and make the implementation of fork() hard. Minix does this by copying which is messy but works. The project state so far: * Key goals have been chosen. + V7 and as much as possible POSIX compliance + Minix binary compatibility is desirable + Minix file system, as this performs best with small buffer cache + If possible networking built so we can use the Crynwr drivers with a rewritten core on the 80x86. + Ability to compile both with its own compiler and standard DOS compilers. + Capable of running programs from ROM. + 8086 combined I/D and split I/D (ie 64K or 64K code + 64K data) is a hard to avoid but acceptable limit. + Initial drivers will be BIOS drivers and real mode. + Use its own minix or possibly VT52 compatible console driver to avoid the size cost of VT2xx emulation. * We now have the 'bcc' GPL'd K&R compiler for minix running on Linux. * A system call library builder has been written. This writes 8086 system call modules from a descriptor file, and in future will also write the kernel side tables and potentially the function stubs. * The basic components of a standard I/O library from various sources are being investigated. Amiga PDC looks a possible source. * An 8086 assembly string library needs implementing to make good use of 8086 string operations (the compiler doesn't know how to use them). * As soon as possible we need to get the C library up and start building the needed tools under Minix ready to rebuild for Linux/8086. * The bootloader is at planning stage. This needs to load a Minix format split I&D image off floppy disk at 0x0400 and run it from 0x0420. We need volunteers to * Scan archives for small free applications to match the GNU ones used in the bigger Linux systems. * Join in extracting modules from the main Linux kernel, and in rewriting the 'oversized/overfeatured' bits like the console drivers. * Work on building the C library. * Work on the developing the boot loader. _________________________________________________________________ Linux.org.uk home page Page maintained by: elks@www.linux.org.uk From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 14 19:15:48 1995 Message-Id: <20130.199511140948@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: Ronaned? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 09:48:44 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199511131837.SAA29855@vision.soton.ac.uk> from "tsp93ma@soton.ac.uk" at Nov 13, 95 06:37:24 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] 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: 593 Lines: 18 Erm. What DID happen to Ronan? Why haven't we seen any of his/her postings lately? By the way. I couldn't make it to the Scottish show. Damn. I never seem to be able to make it to these shows. I'll try at Honest Bob's do in Gloucester next year, if it is still on. But knowing my luck, I'll have exams the day after, or something. Will -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A life spent making many mistakes is better than a life spent doing nothing" From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 15 07:30:19 1995 Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 06:22:44 GMT From: "Brian Gaff Sam Dept." Message-Id: <11730@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Serious - Chris Pile X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 456 Lines: 14 I just thought I would remind folk that the creator of Pro-Dos, Chris Pile is sentenced today. If you recall, he was convicted of creating and distributing computer viruses in the first case of its kind in the UK. For what its worth, I am almost sure he is protecting someone else, but I guess that is academic now. I offered to be a character witness, but he seemed to almost want to get convicted, so what can you do... Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 15 10:56:44 1995 Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 11:09:15 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511151009.AA06823@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 765 Lines: 19 Here I was, for the first time after New Year (Shock! Horror! Honest, it was the first opportunity I have had) connecting my SAM together with the intent to play around a little bit with Driver, SAMPaint and stuff like that. The first thing I discovered was that somebody (guess who) copied the Driver Extras disk onto the Driver disk, so I was there with two identical copies of the Extras disk, but without Driver itself. &*$%@ The second thing I tried to load was SAMPaint. OK! I haven't read the manual fully yet, but how is anybody to know which icon does what - there are not even figures in the manual. And how are one supposed to read the text in pop-up menues when you have a black background? So, what did I end up with? Playing Lemmings :) -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 15 13:09:15 1995 Message-Id: <199511151306.OAA14094@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: NVG's death, and Linux... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 13:05:37 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 774 Lines: 17 Hi everyone, Well, considering that ftp.nvg.unit.no is going to die soon, has anybody come up with a replacement yet? If I can get a BIIIIIIG hard-drive to fit into jumper, and schmooze the hierarchy there, they might let us put it on there - but the hard-drive is the sticky bit. If I could get a really cheap 1.2Gb HD for my PC, then I'd stick my 1/2Gb one on Jumper, and hey presto... we get the archive space back (if there's room for it, of course)... Anybody else got any bright ideas? micros.hensa.ac.uk perhaps? Also, I posted that Linux thing yesterday (go to http://www.linux.org.uk/ for more info)... looks like it might be interesting to see if a Z80 version of Linux comes along -- and it should be relatively easy to port it to the SAM if it does :) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 15 13:41:44 1995 Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 14:40:21 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511151340.AA08867@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: NVG's death, and Linux... X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1313 Lines: 40 > Hi everyone, Hi self! > > Well, considering that ftp.nvg.unit.no is going to die soon, has anybody > come up with a replacement yet? If I can get a BIIIIIIG hard-drive to fit > into jumper, and schmooze the hierarchy there, they might let us put it on > there - but the hard-drive is the sticky bit. If I could get a really cheap > 1.2Gb HD for my PC, then I'd stick my 1/2Gb one on Jumper, and hey presto... > we get the archive space back (if there's room for it, of course)... Well, it's not certain that nvg is going to die. The background is that they have to move out from their current premises and at the moment, they have no other place to stay. They are however working on something, but I don't know as yet. Besides, 1.2Gb HD is not that BIIIIG nowadays, nor particulary expensive. They are less than 200 quid here. And currently, the archive is less than 40Mb. > > Anybody else got any bright ideas? micros.hensa.ac.uk perhaps? I might have an alternative solution. I'll look into it during this week. > > Also, I posted that Linux thing yesterday (go to http://www.linux.org.uk/ > for more info)... looks like it might be interesting to see if a Z80 version > of Linux comes along -- and it should be relatively easy to port it to the > SAM if it does :) Agreed. -Frode > > Simon > From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 15 15:04:01 1995 Message-Id: From: Andrew M Gale Subject: Re: NVG's death, and Linux... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 14:56:05 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9511151340.AA08867@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 15, 95 02:40:21 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: 386 Lines: 12 > > > > Also, I posted that Linux thing yesterday (go to http://www.linux.org.uk/ > > for more info)... looks like it might be interesting to see if a Z80 version > > of Linux comes along -- and it should be relatively easy to port it to the > > SAM if it does :) > > Agreed. > And we'll probably get to see it at the same time as all these other projects we hear banded about..... From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 15 15:17:32 1995 Original-Received: from SAM.somewhere.ac.uk (somewhere.ac.uk [179.1.2.3]) by mail.somewhere.ac.uk (42.12/hub-12) with ESMTP id QUARG33 Pp-Warning: Illegal Received field on preceding line Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 23:06:16 +0000 (GMT) From: Gonzo To: Groovers Subject: Press Release Message-Id: Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1295 Lines: 31 Southampton, England. 26/10/1995 Sad Snail Productions Splits ---------------------------- The well known SAM Coupe coding team of Unc and Manga have split up. Together they brought the software house "Sad Snail Productions" to fame with the now classic 'EGGBuM'. Local sources report that Manga had been increasingly dissatisfied with the quality of Unc's programming, particularly his recent memory-killing menu botch, and was concerned that Unc was bringing the good name of Sad Snail Productions into disrepute. The final straw came when he discovered that he was in fact only an assistant managing director of the fledgeling company and not a full managing director as he had been led to believe. The guile of Unc for concealing this situation for so long is only to be wondered at. Rumour has it that Manga is setting up a rival company, possibly to be called "Unc is a Twat Productions", to produce quality SAM software. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sad Snail Productions is not a registered company (who else would want to use the name?). References: Unc - http://www.soton.ac.uk/~tsp93ma Manga - http://www.soton.ac.uk/~scp93ch Sad Snail Productions - http://www.soton.ac.uk/~tsp93ma/Coupe/snail END From imc Wed Nov 15 17:17:02 1995 Subject: Chris Pile sentenced To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 15 Nov 95 17:17:02 MET X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 2079 Lines: 49 This just in from CERT --------------------------------------------------------------------------- PUBLIC RELEASE UNLIMITED DISTRIBUTION Virus Writer Christopher Pile (Black Barron) Sent to Jail for 18 Months Wednesday 15 November 1995 Exeter, England A short while ago Christopher Pile was sentenced to 18 months Using the pseudonym Black Barron, Christopher Pile the unemployed 26 year old from Efford, Plymouth created the viruses Pathogen, Queeg and Smeg. At his trial on 26th May 1995, Pile pleaded guilty to eleven charges arising from his creation and release of these viruses. Ten counts related to instances where organisations had suffered unauthorised modification of their computer data by one of these viruses. The eleventh charge relates to inciting others to create computer viruses and hence cause unauthorised modifications. Although Pile's trial was in May the sentencing was delayed until November to allow both defence and prosecution counsel to argue the seriousness of these crimes. Pile's viruses were available on computer bulletin boards and on systems connected to the global Internet. Christopher Pile is the first person in the United Kingdom to be convicted of writing and distributing computer viruses. He is the first person in the world to be convicted of inciting others to create computer viruses. At the trial in May, Judge Jeremy Griggs described the case as unique and said it was "a dangerous practice to have engaged in". In October 1992 three Cornell University students were each sentenced to several hundred hours community service for creating and disseminating a computer virus. Unauthorised modification of information in a computer system is an offence under section 3 of the United Kingdom's Computer Misuse Act 1990. The maximum punishment under this section is five years imprisonment or an unlimited fine or both. Dennis Jackson tel: 01235 822340 JANET-CERT Coordinator fax: 01235 822398 UKERNA cert@cert.ja.net From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 16 09:32:50 1995 Message-Id: <199511160931.KAA28311@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Disk structure (again) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:31:23 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1349 Lines: 32 Right... I'm sitting down and designing the BDOS for all of my future projects... it'll be PD too, so it should provide a nice little core for people to use (though I won't be releasing the source -- so that if updates need to happen, people won't have splattered their code with undocumented routines). Basically, what kind of hooks do you want in the system? I'd be interesting to hear what kind of stuff, say, Linux has wrt disk access, etc etc... On another note, I talked to Nev Young at the show on Sunday... unfortunately, while it seems that his DOS is coming along nicely, he's done something rather silly with regards to the directory structure... It's all one block. Each file has a 2-byte directory-tag associated with it, set to -1 for an erased file... It's rather like MasterDOS... Unfortunately, if you have, say, 64k files on a disk, and you want to read the one at the end of the directory, it'll have to go through 65534 other files before it finds yours -- even if you use subdirectories. :( I think I've found a better way... I may limit filenames to 64 characters though :) (at the start of any directory branch on my DOS, you'll have a "." file... in this file, the current path, and linking information is stored... not sure about space allocation yet -- anybody got any ideas?) Anyway... back to the plot, Si Cooke From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 16 09:40:34 1995 Message-Id: From: simonc@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) Subject: SAM Coupe Archive gone??? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:39:52 +0000 (GMT) Cc: simonc@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 434 Lines: 11 Erm... anybody tried getting onto the SAM archive today? All I can get in /pub is "dummy_test_file" Argh! 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: +44 1942 886084 Fax: +44 1942 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!) | +- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc -------------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 16 09:46:36 1995 From: slawek@namu01.gwdg.de Message-Id: <9511160944.AA19898@namu24.gwdg.de> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Cc: slawek@namu01.gwdg.de Subject: Re: SAM Coupe Archive gone??? In-Reply-To: Your message of "Thu, 16 Nov 95 09:39:52 GMT." Date: Thu, 16 Nov 95 10:44:47 +0100 X-Mts: smtp Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 511 Lines: 17 >Erm... anybody tried getting onto the SAM archive today? > >All I can get in /pub is "dummy_test_file" > >Argh! >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: +44 1942 886084 Fax: +44 1942 886084 (ring voice first to confirm!) | >+- WWW: http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc -------------------------------------+ Hi, I have tried it too , but without success ... :-(( Slawek. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 16 10:43:51 1995 Message-Id: <8320.199511151334@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: NVG going to die?! Aaaarrrrgggghhh! To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 13:34:13 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199511151306.OAA14094@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 15, 95 01:05:37 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] 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: 1290 Lines: 32 > Well, considering that ftp.nvg.unit.no is going to die soon, has anybody > come up with a replacement yet? If I can get a BIIIIIIG hard-drive to fit > into jumper, and schmooze the hierarchy there, they might let us put it on > there - but the hard-drive is the sticky bit. If I could get a really cheap > 1.2Gb HD for my PC, then I'd stick my 1/2Gb one on Jumper, and hey presto... > we get the archive space back (if there's room for it, of course)... Just how much space are we talking about? I take it that it would require serious capacity (ie more than about 10megs). If all other avenues dry up, then I MIGHT be able to persuade the SRC here. But that is unlikely, given that their computer is supposed to be overstretched as it is. Preferable to losing the facility, though. I have 5megs personal space on my UNIX account, too, all of which can be "softwired" up to the main University web server. But 5 megs is probably a drop in the ocean compared to what we need. What's going to happen to this mailing list? Will -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A life spent making many mistakes is better than a life spent doing nothing" From imc Thu Nov 16 10:58:20 1995 Subject: Re: Disk structure (again) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 16 Nov 95 10:58:20 MET In-Reply-To: <199511160931.KAA28311@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 16, 95 9:31 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 465 Lines: 11 On Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:31:23 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > On another note, I talked to Nev Young at the show on Sunday... > unfortunately, while it seems that his DOS is coming along nicely, he's done > something rather silly with regards to the directory structure... > It's all one block. Each file has a 2-byte directory-tag associated with it, > set to -1 for an erased file... It's rather like MasterDOS... As we suspected after the October show... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 16 11:53:21 1995 Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 12:52:56 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511161152.AA11398@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: SAM Coupe Archive gone??? X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 207 Lines: 8 > Erm... anybody tried getting onto the SAM archive today? > > All I can get in /pub is "dummy_test_file" They are having problems with their www and ftp server. Should be fixed pretty soonish... -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 16 12:08:38 1995 Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 12:56:33 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511161156.AA11407@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: NVG going to die?! Aaaarrrrgggghhh! X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1342 Lines: 35 > > Well, considering that ftp.nvg.unit.no is going to die soon, has anybody > > come up with a replacement yet? If I can get a BIIIIIIG hard-drive to fit > > into jumper, and schmooze the hierarchy there, they might let us put it on > > there - but the hard-drive is the sticky bit. If I could get a really cheap > > 1.2Gb HD for my PC, then I'd stick my 1/2Gb one on Jumper, and hey presto... > > we get the archive space back (if there's room for it, of course)... > > Just how much space are we talking about? Aroudn 40Mb. > > I take it that it would require serious capacity (ie more than about > 10megs). Well, that's not serious capacity. :) > > If all other avenues dry up, then I MIGHT be able to persuade the SRC > here. But that is unlikely, given that their computer is supposed to be > overstretched as it is. Preferable to losing the facility, though. > > I have 5megs personal space on my UNIX account, too, all of which can be > "softwired" up to the main University web server. But 5 megs is probably > a drop in the ocean compared to what we need. > > What's going to happen to this mailing list? Don't panick...yet. :) Things does not look too bad for the future. There seem to be an arrangement for rooms, and in any case, the machines will still be there (more or less) with ftp, www and listmailer. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 16 12:36:22 1995 Message-Id: <199511161235.NAA30422@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Disk structure (again) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 12:35:21 +0100 (MET) Cc: simonc@nessie.mcc.ac.uk In-Reply-To: <9511161058.AA03347@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Nov 16, 95 10:58:20 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 558 Lines: 14 > > On Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:31:23 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > On another note, I talked to Nev Young at the show on Sunday... > > unfortunately, while it seems that his DOS is coming along nicely, he's done > > something rather silly with regards to the directory structure... > > > It's all one block. Each file has a 2-byte directory-tag associated with it, > > set to -1 for an erased file... It's rather like MasterDOS... > > As we suspected after the October show... Yeah, but the sad thing is that he's quite happy with it that way :( Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Nov 19 17:23:18 1995 Date: Sun, 19 Nov 95 18:17:24 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Uploads to NVG To: SAM users X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, 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: 931 Lines: 33 Hi all, for those of you uploading stuff to NVG please thoroughly check that the stuff you are uploading actually has been transferred to your PC properly. I've downloaded quite a bit of total rubbish lately. There are two areas of problems: 1. the PC file wasn't copied properly from the SAM (this should now not be a problem since Geoff has uploaded a fixed version of KE-disk). 2. the archiving program used (Rumsoft I think) has not packed the files properly. To get around uploading crap try unpacking your own file first. 1. Load the file off your PC disc. 2. Unpack it to a SAM disc. 3. Check to see if the program still works. The programs I ran into were all from a while back. The recent programs all seem to work fine. That was all. 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 Mon Nov 20 09:57:46 1995 Message-Id: <199511200956.KAA08595@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: David Ledbury To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 09:56:19 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 899 Lines: 21 Hi all... It seems that we may have been too hard on the man... for those of you who remember Gary (his "cohort") from the show, it seems that Gary has left for the lake-district with all of Dave's possessions (including his SAM), as well as some other nasty goings on which should remain private for the moment. Over the Gloucester trip matter though: The route (as tortuous and stupid as it was) was designed by Dave's weird friend York on an ageing copy of Autoroute (thus the only way I could recreate it on Autoroute was to take the shortest route as opposed to the quickest one, and plot the locations in by hand)... and Gary was the one who made all the decisions on who to pick up and where - including the decision to not pick up the Leeds people. Dave's in a very sorry state at the moment, so although he's incompetent, the Gloucester thing appears not to have been his fault. Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 20 10:31:36 1995 Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:29:37 +0000 (GMT) From: Tim Wells <93tgw@eng.cam.ac.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Techy question? Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 453 Lines: 14 Being far from my SAM & techincal manual at the moment, can anyone help me with the following questions: How does the SAM tell whether the current disk has a DOS on it? ie What stops it trying to boot up with eg a Tasword 2 file? How does the paging work on the 1Meg units? I read the bit in FORMAT, but that only gives you access to 512K - What about the other x.5K? And is there a page allocation table for the Megs somewhere? Thanks, Tim W. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 20 10:48:10 1995 Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 11:39:27 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511201039.AA16528@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: David Ledbury X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 989 Lines: 27 > Hi all... > > It seems that we may have been too hard on the man... for those of you who > remember Gary (his "cohort") from the show, it seems that Gary has left for > the lake-district with all of Dave's possessions (including his SAM), as > well as some other nasty goings on which should remain private for the > moment. > > Over the Gloucester trip matter though: > > The route (as tortuous and stupid as it was) was designed by Dave's weird > friend York on an ageing copy of Autoroute (thus the only way I could > recreate it on Autoroute was to take the shortest route as opposed to the > quickest one, and plot the locations in by hand)... and Gary was the one who > made all the decisions on who to pick up and where - including the decision > to not pick up the Leeds people. > > Dave's in a very sorry state at the moment, so although he's incompetent, > the Gloucester thing appears not to have been his fault. Eh..may I ask what this is about? > > Simon > -Frode From imc Mon Nov 20 11:43:05 1995 Subject: Re: David Ledbury To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 20 Nov 95 11:43:05 MET In-Reply-To: <9511201039.AA16528@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 20, 95 11:39 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 115 Lines: 6 On Mon, 20 Nov 1995 11:39:27 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > Eh..may I ask what this is about? Me too [TM] :-) imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 20 12:03:20 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 12:01:37 +0000 In-Reply-To: drissen -- "Uploads to NVG" (Nov 19, 6:17pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Uploads to NVG Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1622 Lines: 46 On Nov 19, 6:17pm in "Uploads to NVG", warbled: ] 1. the PC file wasn't copied properly from the SAM (this should now not be a ] problem since Geoff has uploaded a fixed version of KE-disk). ] 2. the archiving program used (Rumsoft I think) has not packed the files ] properly. Right - both of these problems will soon be fixed. samtoms.exe will be uploaded as soon as I finalise the header format. It's a lovely piece of C based around (almost ;-) -- I've basically rewritten it) Simon's dirs.c, which transfers files to and from Sam disks on the PC. I'm trying to get biosdisk to format aswell, but it's taking longer than I expected. The new header format (which is also being incorporated into Kedisk) includes the important bits from the directory sector (like filetype, start position, etc etc) and thus archivers are no longer needed. I -might- get around to including some sort of compression aswell. So, I need to know (before I spend hours on things people don't want) how many people would -use- o samtoms itself! o a command to format a sam disk on a PC o compression builtin to saved files (kindof like a zip format) I can't really see the point of compression, but some people seem to like it... formatting is just useful when you don't happen to have a Sam disk on you... probably you can download a PD formatter which will format a disk to 10 sectors/track though... Oh yeah, I forgot o samtoms currently lets you print out the contents of a sector -- would anyone make much use if I spent hours making it into a sector -editor- aswell? Cheers Geoff -- From imc Mon Nov 20 12:11:40 1995 Subject: Re: Uploads to NVG To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 20 Nov 95 12:11:40 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Nov 20, 95 12:01 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 509 Lines: 11 On Mon, 20 Nov 1995 12:01:37 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > I can't really see the point of compression, but some people seem to > like it... Please not another incompatible compression format! If people put files on nvg using this program I would like to be able for convenience's sake to get them on to my Sam without using either a PC or a copy of kedisk. Taking care of the new header shouldn't be too difficult, but if the files are compressed it should be with some standard utility such as zip. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 20 12:12:04 1995 Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 13:11:33 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511201211.AA17123@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Uploads to NVG X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1243 Lines: 35 > for those of you uploading stuff to NVG please thoroughly check that the > stuff you are uploading actually has been transferred to your PC properly. I used to do this when I had my SAM up and going - everything older than about 20.12.94 should be propperly checked. > > I've downloaded quite a bit of total rubbish lately. There are two areas of > problems: > > 1. the PC file wasn't copied properly from the SAM (this should now not be a > problem since Geoff has uploaded a fixed version of KE-disk). > > 2. the archiving program used (Rumsoft I think) has not packed the files > properly. I have experience similar problems, and I seem to remember that this was caused by not using SAMDOS for compressing and/or decompressing. And I also think there is an error in the build-in decompresser - I always use the external decompresser. > > To get around uploading crap try unpacking your own file first. > > 1. Load the file off your PC disc. > 2. Unpack it to a SAM disc. > 3. Check to see if the program still works. > > The programs I ran into were all from a while back. The recent programs all > seem to work fine. Would you care to list them so that they can be checked and removed if necessary? -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 20 12:21:18 1995 Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 13:20:26 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511201220.AA17236@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Uploads to NVG X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2065 Lines: 57 > On Nov 19, 6:17pm in "Uploads to NVG", warbled: > ] 1. the PC file wasn't copied properly from the SAM (this should now not be a > ] problem since Geoff has uploaded a fixed version of KE-disk). > > ] 2. the archiving program used (Rumsoft I think) has not packed the files > ] properly. > > Right - both of these problems will soon be fixed. samtoms.exe will be > uploaded as soon as I finalise the header format. > > It's a lovely piece of C based around (almost ;-) -- I've basically rewritten > it) Simon's dirs.c, which transfers files to and from Sam disks on the > PC. I'm trying to get biosdisk to format aswell, but it's taking > longer than I expected. > > The new header format (which is also being incorporated into Kedisk) includes > the important bits from the directory sector (like filetype, start position, > etc etc) and thus archivers are no longer needed. I -might- get around to > including some sort of compression aswell. > > So, I need to know (before I spend hours on things people don't want) > > how many people would -use- > > o samtoms itself! If it's good - count me in. > > o a command to format a sam disk on a PC Not absolute necessary. If you want a quick and dirty way - save the disc image of a formated SAM disk and then just dump it to the disc. > > o compression builtin to saved files (kindof like a zip format) Eh? Why? What is the use of compressed files without a uncompresser on the SAM? > > I can't really see the point of compression, but some people seem to > like it... formatting is just useful when you don't happen to have a Sam disk > on you... probably you can download a PD formatter which will format a disk > to 10 sectors/track though... > > Oh yeah, I forgot > > o samtoms currently lets you print out the contents of a sector -- would > anyone make much use if I spent hours making it into a sector -editor- > aswell? It could be handy, but if a transfer is faulty, I'd never take the time to hack sectors. And it is a _sam2ms_, right? :) -Frode From imc Mon Nov 20 12:21:41 1995 Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 20 Nov 95 12:21:41 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Tim Wells" at Nov 20, 95 10:29 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 624 Lines: 16 On Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:29:37 +0000 (GMT), Tim Wells said: > How does the SAM tell whether the current disk has a DOS on it? ie What > stops it trying to boot up with eg a Tasword 2 file? The Sam boots by loading track 4 sector 1 at 8000H in the last free page and checking that the four characters 'BOOT' are present at address 8100H. It then jumps to the code at 8009H and the DOS is responsible for loading the rest of itself, marking its page in the allocation table and setting various system variables such as the DOS page number and the default drive. > How does the paging work on the 1Meg units? No idea. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 20 13:59:38 1995 Message-Id: <199511201357.OAA12417@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Uploads to NVG To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 13:57:12 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9511201211.AA17123@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 20, 95 01:11:33 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 870 Lines: 20 > > 2. the archiving program used (Rumsoft I think) has not packed the files > > properly. > > I have experience similar problems, and I seem to remember that > this was caused by not using SAMDOS for compressing and/or > decompressing. And I also think there is an error in the build-in > decompresser - I always use the external decompresser. Noo... this isn't the problem... the problem appears to be when you let it use run-length compression on the data, and it finds that it can't compress it - it aborts rather ungracefully. Some people don't notice this, and don't realise that you have to reload the file and recompress it using option 2 only (the LZW compression method)... so you end up with a broken file. As a rule, if it doesn't work with option 3, (ie breaks out really quickly), reload & use option 2. It should all work fine then :) SImon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 20 14:02:25 1995 Message-Id: <199511201400.PAA12478@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: David Ledbury To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 13:59:57 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9511201039.AA16528@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 20, 95 11:39:27 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 517 Lines: 14 > > Dave's in a very sorry state at the moment, so although he's incompetent, > > the Gloucester thing appears not to have been his fault. > > Eh..may I ask what this is about? Well... Dave, Gary, York & the minibus were supposed to pick up about 4 or 5 people from Leeds train station on the day of the show. The minibus didn't turn up - it just bypassed leeds and went to pick up the people from Manchester. Apart from being a spectacular feat of bad mapwork, it left about 4 people over 100 pounds down. Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 20 16:45:04 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 16:42:32 +0000 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: ok... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 871 Lines: 25 So I've got the stuff out of the tech manual (thanks Frode!!) about directory information, but I now need a couple more things: It's going to be almost impossible to include directory information -- it's ridiculously difficult and not worth the bother... However, I think datestamping is nice, but I don't know which bytes are the date... Also, what do `flags', `MGT future and past' and `reserved' etc mean??? I don't want to stick samtoms up on nvg and then change the header format, since that would mean people would have different sorts of headers and I really don't want that to happen -- so I want it exactly right first time. So I need to be sure what people think ought to be stored and reproduced for a directory entry... Many thanks for info and suggestions -- I'll upload it as soon as I sort that out (although format doesn't work yet :)0) G. -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 20 18:11:55 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 18:13:14 +0000 Subject: Re: Techy question? Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <6149212DAB@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 883 Lines: 20 In reply to: Ian.Collier@comlab.oxford.ac.uk > On Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:29:37 +0000 (GMT), Tim Wells said: > > How does the SAM tell whether the current disk has a DOS on it? ie What > > stops it trying to boot up with eg a Tasword 2 file? > > The Sam boots by loading track 4 sector 1 at 8000H in the last free page and > checking that the four characters 'BOOT' are present at address 8100H. It > then jumps to the code at 8009H and the DOS is responsible for loading the > rest of itself, marking its page in the allocation table and setting various > system variables such as the DOS page number and the default drive. Where did you get this information from ? d8-> I've been looking everywhere for it! Does this mean that ANY code can, effectively, be stored as a bootblock? (as long as some sort of DOS is present / available) (eg, for software protection) dave From imc Mon Nov 20 18:21:52 1995 Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 20 Nov 95 18:21:52 MET In-Reply-To: <6149212DAB@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk>; from "Dave Hooper" at Nov 20, 95 6:13 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 403 Lines: 13 On Mon, 20 Nov 1995 18:13:14 +0000, Dave Hooper said: > Where did you get this information from ? d8-> I've been looking > everywhere for it! By reading the Sam ROM source code, believe it or not. :-) > Does this mean that ANY code can, effectively, be stored as a > bootblock? (as long as some sort of DOS is present / available) > (eg, for software protection) Yes. What is a DOS anyway? imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 20 18:22:19 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 18:22:13 +0000 Subject: Re: Uploads to NVG Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <616F521EDE@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1363 Lines: 39 In reply to: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) > o samtoms itself! Crikey! What IS it? (a PC-SAM utility for the PC?_ > o a command to format a sam disk on a PC Yes. I would also like to have the converse (ie format for a PC on a SAM). Any PD stuff available to do this? (I've writen a prog to do the above, but some PC-disk-format-emulators (eg, for Amiga) don't like the disc formatted like that...) > o compression builtin to saved files (kindof like a zip format) Probably not. *8-) > I can't really see the point of compression, but some people seem to > like it... formatting is just useful when you don't happen to have a Sam disk > on you... probably you can download a PD formatter which will format a disk > to 10 sectors/track though... > > Oh yeah, I forgot > > o samtoms currently lets you print out the contents of a sector -- would > anyone make much use if I spent hours making it into a sector -editor- > aswell? I would. Would it be possible to display the sector simultaneously as TEXT (non ascii (<32 or >126) as different color or hex); hex (or decimal via toggle); and a bitmap?? (An option to alter the width for the bitmap display, the height depends on this + sector size, and bits per pixel). That'd make it dead useful for some of the really weird stuff I get up to! '' \/ dave From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 20 18:56:15 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 18:58:01 +0000 Subject: SAM COUPE *emulators* ? Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <6208584FCF@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1324 Lines: 29 Just thought I'd ask . . . (I'm so totally out of touch with the Sam activities that I've only just found this, and then found out it's closing - is this true??) Can you obtain Sam Coupe emulators for, say, PCs, Amigas, whatever (anything that isn't a SAM basically)? Surely this would prolong Sam based activities, and until Si Cooke's accelerator cards get going (< Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, 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: 924 Lines: 29 On Mon, 20 Nov 1995 12:21:41 +0100 Ian.Collier@comlab.oxford.ac.uk wrote: >checking that the four characters 'BOOT' are present at address 8100H. It >then jumps to the code at 8009H and the DOS is responsible for loading the It actually checks for 'B','O','O','T'+128 :) >> How does the paging work on the 1Meg units? > >No idea. > It's got something to do with registers 128 and 129 and setting the external memory bit (bit 7?) on the HMPR (251). Why isn't a proper technical manual written so that we don't have to do all this guess work???? As for reading the SAM mouse, just wait until Based on an idea comes out, there's an excellent article in there. Indirectly BOAI will tell you how to use all the sound devices for playing samples too.... 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 Mon Nov 20 21:59:12 1995 Date: Mon, 20 Nov 95 21:21:41 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Uploads to NVG To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, NetManage Inc. Message-Id: Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 1320 Lines: 40 On Mon, 20 Nov 1995 12:01:37 +0000 Geoff Winkless wrote: >On Nov 19, 6:17pm in "Uploads to NVG", warbled: > o samtoms itself! Yes please!!!!!! A totally SAM solution would have been nice, but a PC solution is defintely nice too. > o a command to format a sam disk on a PC Not needed, I can walk the ten metres between the PC and SAM within 10 seconds... (could be useful for some people who don't have this luxury) > o compression builtin to saved files (kindof like a zip format) I'd apprectiate it (using a PC and needing less modem time) but I can see people without a PC and downloading with what-have-you hating this. > o samtoms currently lets you print out the contents of a sector -- would > anyone make much use if I spent hours making it into a sector -editor- > aswell? Naaah, don't add all these non-relevant features (ie stuff the sector printer as well). Just keep the program for the purpose it's for -> copying SAM files to PC. Does it also allow archives? This would be nice so that you can then pack both your basic loader as your code block into one PC file. Not doing this would add chaos to NVG. 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 Mon Nov 20 22:00:03 1995 Date: Mon, 20 Nov 95 21:28:41 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: RE: ok... + date info To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, 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: 1899 Lines: 56 On Mon, 20 Nov 1995 16:42:32 +0000 Geoff Winkless wrote: >So I've got the stuff out of the tech manual (thanks Frode!!) about >directory information, but I now need a couple more things: > >It's going to be almost impossible to include directory information -- >it's ridiculously difficult and not worth the bother... Why impossible???? Just copy the needed bytes from the SAM directory entry into your header and "the guy we all love"'s your uncle. (ie all but the 195 bitmap bytes = 61 bytes per file) >However, I think datestamping is nice, but I don't know which bytes are >the date... Just had a little look at the source of the loader of the SAM MOD player and came up with the following (and found out that the SAM MOD player will not accept SAM files dated in 2000 as having a valid date unless....) Since I'm not sure which bytes you mean with which bytes.... On the SAM: +245 = day (1-31) +246 = month (1-12) +247 = year (00-99) (I had 00 as invalid, but it's not is it...) On the PC: + 24 mmmddddd (day plus low bits of month) + 25 yyyyyyym (high bit of month and year-80) -> day = peek (x+24) band bin 00011111 -> month = peek (x+24) div 32 + 8 * peek (x+25) -> year = peek (x+25) div 2 + 1980 >Also, what do `flags', `MGT future and past' and `reserved' etc mean??? Some of them are used for the date (see above). Some are also used for the time and some were used for the snapshot files plus some are used for the totally crap subdirectory system (I think). >I don't want to stick samtoms up on nvg and then change the header format, >since that would mean people would have different sorts of headers and >I really don't want that to happen -- so I want it exactly right first time. Very wise. 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 Tue Nov 21 07:44:00 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 08:43:10 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511210743.AA01248@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Uploads to NVG X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 659 Lines: 15 > Noo... this isn't the problem... > > the problem appears to be when you let it use run-length compression on the > data, and it finds that it can't compress it - it aborts rather > ungracefully. Some people don't notice this, and don't realise that you have > to reload the file and recompress it using option 2 only (the LZW > compression method)... so you end up with a broken file. > > As a rule, if it doesn't work with option 3, (ie breaks out really quickly), > reload & use option 2. It should all work fine then :) I remember now. As a rule I used to not compress the files on the SAM as it'ld only reduce compression when using pkzip. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 07:44:37 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 08:44:27 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511210744.AA01251@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: David Ledbury X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 611 Lines: 16 > > > Dave's in a very sorry state at the moment, so although he's incompetent, > > > the Gloucester thing appears not to have been his fault. > > > > Eh..may I ask what this is about? > > Well... Dave, Gary, York & the minibus were supposed to pick up about 4 or > 5 people from Leeds train station on the day of the show. The minibus didn't > turn up - it just bypassed leeds and went to pick up the people from > Manchester. > > Apart from being a spectacular feat of bad mapwork, it left about 4 people > over 100 pounds down. What relevance has this here? :) Hope that is not 50 kilos each :) -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 07:47:52 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 08:47:37 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511210747.AA01254@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: SAM COUPE *emulators* ? X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1123 Lines: 37 > Just thought I'd ask . . . > (I'm so totally out of touch with the Sam activities that I've only > just found this, and then found out it's closing - is this true??) Is this some sort of conspiracy or ar my posts ignored? :) OK! I mentioned something about a possible closure, but this will ***most likely not happen***! Nothing is 100% yet, but that is my asumption. I will make a backup of the archives just in case. > > Can you obtain Sam Coupe emulators for, say, PCs, Amigas, whatever > (anything that isn't a SAM basically)? Surely this would prolong Sam Yes. > based activities, and until Si Cooke's accelerator cards get going > (< Plus, if such an emulator exists, and is PD, non-Sam owning folks out > there could get a taste of some fine software, and ping! you already > have a bigger market. > > (Am I being naive, and the above is a bit dumb, or is this a point?) > (Or are there some out now anyway??) Haven't you heard about nesting? :) > > I know this is stupid, hey, but is a PC emulator for the coupe > available? No. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 08:56:04 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 08:55:47 +0000 (GMT) From: Tim Wells <93tgw@eng.cam.ac.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Techy question? In-Reply-To: <9511201821.AA01459@boothp2.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: 664 Lines: 20 On Mon, 20 Nov 1995 Ian.Collier@comlab.oxford.ac.uk wrote: > On Mon, 20 Nov 1995 18:13:14 +0000, Dave Hooper said: > > Where did you get this information from ? d8-> I've been looking > > everywhere for it! > > By reading the Sam ROM source code, believe it or not. :-) Should have realised, I've spent enough time going through it in the past (to find out how the syntax checker worked, so I could add another BASIC command) > > Does this mean that ANY code can, effectively, be stored as a > > bootblock? (as long as some sort of DOS is present / available) > > (eg, for software protection) > Yes. What is a DOS anyway? Disk Operating System. Tim. From imc Tue Nov 21 10:58:25 1995 Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 95 10:58:25 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Tim Wells" at Nov 21, 95 8:55 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 364 Lines: 13 On Tue, 21 Nov 1995 08:55:47 +0000 (GMT), Tim Wells said: > > Yes. What is a DOS anyway? > Disk Operating System. Duh! What I _actually_ meant was: how would the Sam differentiate between booting up a DOS and booting up some other random program (that was written to be booted)? The answer is it can't. You can put anything you like in the boot sector. imc From imc Tue Nov 21 11:02:38 1995 Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 95 11:02:38 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Stefan Drissen" at Nov 20, 95 9:14 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 753 Lines: 21 On Mon, 20 Nov 95 21:14:53 PST, Stefan Drissen said: > It actually checks for 'B','O','O','T'+128 :) It actually ignores bits 5 and 7 so you can even write it in lower case if you want. Incidentally there are a few other magic numbers that you need to know about if you intend writing a DOS that is compatible with Sam BASIC. The ones I know about are... 8009 jumped to immediately after the first sector has been loaded 8100 must contain "BOOT" 4200 called when a hook code needs to be interpreted 4203 called when an error occurs 4206 called by the MGT Spectrum emulator when the break key is pressed. As you can see, the DOS is paged in to section B of the map during normal operation, but in section C when it is first booted. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 11:33:59 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 12:28:13 +0100 (MET) From: Ben Versteeg Subject: MB-02 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Message-Id: <199511211128.MAA12072@charm.il.ft.hse.nl> X-Envelope-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.NO X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8a] Content-Type: text Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 679 Lines: 19 Hello, Inner from Holland here, I was just talking (I'm still) to the inventor off the MB-02 interface for Spectrum. He is (almost) always on IRC on channel Z80. He also wrote a very good Dos which is able to make directories. What I wanted to know is: - What are the HD interfaces for Sam and Spectrum - How is the Dos growing ? Is there also a Dos for a Spectrum HD interface ? - Is there someone that was able to make an interface to use a PC keyboard for Spectrum ? - Is there a Mailing list for Spectrum owners ? Maybe some of you are able to awnser all my questions ! Thanks already (is my English good enough ?), Ben Versteeg, Inner products ben@charm.il.ft.hse.nl From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 11:54:49 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 11:52:23 +0000 In-Reply-To: drissen -- "RE: ok... + date info" (Nov 20, 9:28pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: ok... + date info Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1193 Lines: 32 On Nov 20, 9:28pm in "RE: ok... + date info", warbled: ] ] On Mon, 20 Nov 1995 16:42:32 +0000 Geoff Winkless wrote: ] >So I've got the stuff out of the tech manual (thanks Frode!!) about ] >directory information, but I now need a couple more things: ] > ] >It's going to be almost impossible to include directory information -- ] >it's ridiculously difficult and not worth the bother... ] ] Why impossible???? Just copy the needed bytes from the SAM directory entry ] into your header and "the guy we all love"'s your uncle. (ie all but the ] 195 bitmap bytes = 61 bytes per file) Naaah, I mean subdirectory information. Sorry. I mean, in order to work out which directory something is in, you have to look at the number of the directory (bytes 254+5) and then go through the entire directory structure to find out which directory name fits that, then you have to check to see whether that subdirectory that subdirectory is in, etc etc etc. To be honest, I think so few people actually bother using subdirectories, it isn't worth it. I'm going to download simon's dirs.c to find the rest of the directory info, can't be bothered to keep guessing :) Thanx all for the help -- From imc Tue Nov 21 12:12:38 1995 Subject: RE: ok... + date info To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 95 12:12:38 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Stefan Drissen" at Nov 20, 95 9:28 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1740 Lines: 45 On Mon, 20 Nov 95 21:28:41 PST, Stefan Drissen said: > On the SAM: > +245 = day (1-31) > +246 = month (1-12) > +247 = year (00-99) (I had 00 as invalid, but it's not is it...) If the day is 255 then either the file was saved in Samdos (which obviously doesn't have dates at all) or the date hadn't been set when the file was saved. Also... 248 = hour 249 = minute > >Also, what do `flags', `MGT future and past' and `reserved' etc mean??? "Spare" bytes are usually set to 255. "Flags" is usually set to 32 (it doesn't seem to mean anything as far as I can work out). "MGT Future and past" appears to contain a zero (byte 210) followed by a copy of the 9-byte file header; in other words... byte 211 equals byte 0 byte 212 equals byte 240 byte 213 equals byte 241 byte 214 equals byte 237 byte 215 equals byte 238 byte 216 equals byte 242 byte 217 equals byte 243 byte 218 equals byte 239 byte 219 equals byte 242. MasterDOS uses some of these areas as follows. The "MGT Future and past" section of the first directory entry contains the disk name. Bytes 245-249 hold the date as above. Byte 250 contains the sequence number of the file if it is a directory; byte 254 contains the sequence number of the directory that this file is in. Bytes 252-253 of the first directory entry contain the (random) serial number of the disk. Byte 255 of the first entry contains the number of extra directory tracks. All this you could have found out by examining a disk, which is what I did, except for the MasterDOS bits because I have the manual for that. A 48K snapshot file is slightly special. The 22 bytes of the directory entry starting with byte 22 contain the contents of the Z80 registers. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 12:22:20 1995 Message-Id: <199511211221.NAA24851@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Nev's Hard Drive To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 12:21:08 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1907 Lines: 45 Hi All... Well, I managed to borrow Derek Morgan's Hard Drive interface over the weekend... the verdict is: Ummmm... SLLLOOOOWWWW... and if I'd known that people would put up with a user interface where you had to do: call base+3,"dir 1 *" to list any files in the current directory, then I'd have had my DOS finished ages ago... Yep... if you're wondering, you do need the asterisk, otherwise you won't see ANY of the files in the current directory. It also accepts the CAT command (booh!), and SAVE & LOAD may well be implemented, but on our 20Mb HD, it keeps coming up with "status error &58" when we try and use nev's disk copy routine to get something onto the hard drive. Ho hum. Oh ... and he's using a 574 rather than a 374, so that's another couple of quid on the cost of the board, and he's got all the chips socketed (another few quid).... hmmmm.... and he's using the SLLLOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWW German design, where you have to: OUT (addressreg),addressyouwanttowriteto/readfrom IN A,(datareg) ; read lower part ... IN A,(datareg) ; read upper part I can't remember if there's an OUT between them, but he's doing it the hard way... the good thing is that you only need 2 ports for his design ;) HOWEVER he does it though, you can't do INIR to read all 512 bytes of a sector, or OTIR to write them, so it's slowing the interface down... Needless to say, I am sorely tempted to get our HD interface up & running (we think we may have worked out what was causing the crap we were getting - the solution *may* be to stick a couple of D-type latches to delay the IORQ decoding by a couple of clock cycles, but that won't slow down the operation - it's a purely hardware handshaking problem.) BUT... I don't want to tread on Nev's toes. Besides, there'll be an IDE interface on the Accelerator board (all it needs is a socket & some address decoding) when it comes out. Simon From imc Tue Nov 21 12:30:01 1995 Subject: Re: Nev's Hard Drive To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 95 12:30:01 MET In-Reply-To: <199511211221.NAA24851@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 21, 95 12:21 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 742 Lines: 26 On Tue, 21 Nov 1995 12:21:08 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > call base+3,"dir 1 *" I might have stuck to CALL base+3: DIR 1,"*" if I were writing it. > It also accepts the CAT > command (booh!), Hooray! :-) [from a +3 user] > he's got all the chips socketed > (another few quid).... Few quid? How many sockets are there on there - or did he buy them from Tandy? :-) Is it a production board or a prototype? It might be convenient for the chips to be socketed if the latter. I might also prefer them to be socketed if the former, in case something went wrong as it's a lot easier to replace a socketed chip than a soldered-in one. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 12:33:41 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 13:26:22 +0100 (MET) From: Ben Versteeg Subject: Hard Drives In-Reply-To: <199511211221.NAA24851@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 21, 95 12:21:08 pm To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Message-Id: <199511211226.NAA18770@charm.il.ft.hse.nl> X-Envelope-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.NO X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8a] Content-Type: text Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 419 Lines: 12 > BUT... I don't want to tread on Nev's toes. Besides, there'll be an IDE > interface on the Accelerator board (all it needs is a socket & some address > decoding) when it comes out. I don't know if you already read my mail, but I was wondering if someone could tell me everything about the accelarator board for Sam. Maybe you can. Please read the other mail first (too late)... Ben Versteeg ben@charm.il.ft.hse.nl From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 13:01:11 1995 Message-Id: <199511211254.NAA25514@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: ok... + date info To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 12:54:31 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9511211212.AA02097@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Nov 21, 95 12:12:39 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 581 Lines: 13 > > >Also, what do `flags', `MGT future and past' and `reserved' etc mean??? > > "Spare" bytes are usually set to 255. "Flags" is usually set to 32 (it > doesn't seem to mean anything as far as I can work out). "MGT Future and > past" appears to contain a zero (byte 210) followed by a copy of the 9-byte > file header; in other words... Ummm... I seem to remember that if you set bit 2, or bit 1 (can't remember which), it is similar to the effect of SAVE CHR$ 3+"filename" on a tape - ie you won't be able to merge the file. This works on both SAMDOS and MASTERDOS... Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 13:03:15 1995 Message-Id: <199511211301.OAA25588@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: MB-02 To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 13:00:34 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <199511211128.MAA12072@charm.il.ft.hse.nl> from "Ben Versteeg" at Nov 21, 95 12:28:13 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2102 Lines: 46 > What I wanted to know is: > - What are the HD interfaces for Sam and Spectrum Well, there's mine & Martin's drive (Rooksoft/Entropy) and Nev Young's one (S.D.Software/WestCoast/FORMAT) for the SAM... Ian Spencer designed one for the Speccy, and there's a generic one for ANY Z80 machine which Tilman Rey and Johnathan Taylor have had a hand in... (see comp.os.cpm) > - How is the Dos growing ? Is there also a Dos for a Spectrum HD interface ? There's no DOS or interface for the Spectrum being produced in this country (England) that I know of... the SAM's DOS... well, mine is on hold (we're working on the accelerator and a few other projects for now, considering that Nev's is near fully fledged release), but it should be REALLY funky [waits for postscript document of HPFS structure to print out]... aha.... thought so... anyway, back to the plot... Nev's requires you to use CALL's and doesn't work with BASIC files for now... but that should be rectified soon. Even in its very basic form, written in C, with no BASIC call handling, it's still 21K long. This does not bode well. > - Is there someone that was able to make an interface to use a PC keyboard > for Spectrum ? Well, there were rumours of one that would need Speccy Driver software to do it, so I don't imagine it working if you're actually trying to play a game with it... Martin Rookyard and I have designed one (using some cunning tricks, a clutch of resistors and a Z80 with 8K of ROM, 8K RAM) that will work with the SAM (and I suppose the Speccy too with only minor modifications to the connector on the back) which doesn't require driver software, but actually works a treat. More on that as it happens... but in the mean time, we're trying to find someone around UMIST willing to program GALs and PALs for us. > - Is there a Mailing list for Spectrum owners ? I think there was, but I also think that it's been superceded by the comp.sys.sinclair newsgroup. > Maybe some of you are able to awnser all my questions ! Hopefully :) > Thanks already (is my English good enough ?), Good enough for me! Simon Cooke From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 13:04:30 1995 Message-Id: <199511211303.OAA25643@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Nev's Hard Drive To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 13:02:55 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9511211230.AA02194@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Nov 21, 95 12:30:02 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1121 Lines: 26 > > On Tue, 21 Nov 1995 12:21:08 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > he's got all the chips socketed > > (another few quid).... > > Few quid? How many sockets are there on there - or did he buy them from > Tandy? :-) *grins* EVERY chip on the board is socketed, so that's at least 2 quid up on the price of it... :) > Is it a production board or a prototype? It might be convenient for > the chips to be socketed if the latter. I might also prefer them to > be socketed if the former, in case something went wrong as it's a lot > easier to replace a socketed chip than a soldered-in one. It's a production board, tinned but not laminated, and there's something you've got to remember with all this: All of the chips are LS TTL chips... so it's not likely that much will go wrong. However, with all the chips being socketed, the likelyhood of bad joints and connections occuring, and corrosion with time is greatly increased. Believe me, using sockets for everything is one guaranteed way of increasing problems in the future if you're using just TTL chips... Simon From imc Tue Nov 21 13:06:21 1995 Subject: Re: ok... + date info To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 95 13:06:21 MET In-Reply-To: <199511211254.NAA25514@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 21, 95 12:54 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 509 Lines: 11 On Tue, 21 Nov 1995 12:54:31 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: [presumably about "flags"] > Ummm... I seem to remember that if you set bit 2, or bit 1 (can't remember > which), it is similar to the effect of SAVE CHR$ 3+"filename" on a tape - ie > you won't be able to merge the file. This works on both SAMDOS and > MASTERDOS... I thought this was bit 6 of directory entry byte 0 - or is this stronger than simply PROTECTing the file? imc <--- didn't know about CHR$3 - I'll have to read the manual again... From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 13:07:58 1995 Message-Id: <199511211306.OAA25702@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Hard Drives To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 13:05:38 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <199511211226.NAA18770@charm.il.ft.hse.nl> from "Ben Versteeg" at Nov 21, 95 01:26:22 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1053 Lines: 24 > > > BUT... I don't want to tread on Nev's toes. Besides, there'll be an IDE > > interface on the Accelerator board (all it needs is a socket & some address > > decoding) when it comes out. > > I don't know if you already read my mail, but I was wondering if someone > could tell me everything about the accelarator board for Sam. > Maybe you can. > Please read the other mail first (too late)... Okay... the SAM Accelerator... Current plans indicate that it will use an 18 MHz Z380 chip as the processor, with 1Mb of RAM on the board (and SIMMs sockets to allow you to plug in more memory as and when you want it). There will be a 96 way Euroconnector coming out of the back of it (compatible with the existing SAM one) which will allow us to give peripherals access to the FULL 16 bit data and 32 bit address buses. There may also be an IDE hard drive socket on the board, as well as sockets for future expansion, and space for a 512k system ROM (the original will probably be only 32k). If you want more details than that, lemme know :) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 13:10:06 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 13:05:36 +0000 (GMT) From: Tim Wells <93tgw@eng.cam.ac.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Techy question? In-Reply-To: <9511211058.AA02053@boothp2.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: 538 Lines: 17 > > > Yes. What is a DOS anyway? > > > Disk Operating System. > > Duh! > > What I _actually_ meant was: how would the Sam differentiate between booting > up a DOS and booting up some other random program (that was written to be > booted)? The answer is it can't. You can put anything you like in the boot > sector. Yes, but you didn't say that did you :-) However, such a program would be practically of very little use unless it contained a way of loading something else from the disk. In which case it is a form of a DOS. Tim From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 13:22:34 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 13:25:00 +0000 Subject: Regarding protection. . . Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <747C192B3D@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 492 Lines: 12 I just wondered - you know that setting some bits make it impossible to merge a file . . . 1) Does this apply even to autoexecuting code files? (can they be merged in the first place?) 2) Does it stop people loading a BASIC file with LOAD "xxx" LINE 65300 to prevent it auto-running? 3) Do we have to resort to speccy-like software protection (eg, invalid ink codes, or saving basic as a code file incl. system variables, etc) ? Just wondering. . . dave Paranoia is a tool not a weapon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 13:50:14 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 14:45:11 +0100 (MET) From: Ben Versteeg Subject: Re: Hard Drives In-Reply-To: <199511211306.OAA25702@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 21, 95 01:05:38 pm To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Message-Id: <199511211345.OAA24617@charm.il.ft.hse.nl> X-Envelope-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.NO X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8a] Content-Type: text Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 219 Lines: 10 > Okay... the SAM Accelerator... > > ... > > If you want more details than that, lemme know :) Why is this built, is it only for hobby ? (maybe stupid question...) Can I pass this information to the Dutch magazine ? From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 14:27:06 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 14:06:34 +0000 Subject: Re: Hard Drives Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <752CFB2346@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 219 Lines: 5 Yes, I would like (very much) as much detail as you can give me on the Accelerator Card (within reason!), especially (and I know this is a toughie) a . . . projected cost. Cheers, dave Paranoia is a tool not a weapon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 14:38:38 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 14:02:50 +0000 (GMT) From: Daniel James Doore X-Sender: iq4d4385@jaffle-fddi To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Hard Drives In-Reply-To: <199511211306.OAA25702@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 601 Lines: 19 On Tue, 21 Nov 1995, Simon Cooke wrote: > Okay... the SAM Accelerator... [SNIP] > If you want more details than that, lemme know :) So, has the accelerator sort-of taken over from the HD I/F and the MultiROM, putting it all in one lump? It would definatley be worth the overdraft then :) Dan. +========================================================================+ | Dan Doore - Ex-Head Pod And Dogsbody | D.J.Doore-iq4d4385@lmu.ac.uk | | WARNING!! Only read every so often, so you might have to wait a bit. | +========================================================================+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 15:03:33 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 14:07:46 +0000 (GMT) From: Daniel James Doore X-Sender: iq4d4385@jaffle-fddi To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Techy question? In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 1004 Lines: 25 > > You can put anything you like in the boot sector. > > Yes, but you didn't say that did you :-) > However, such a program would be practically of very little use unless it > contained a way of loading something else from the disk. In which case it > is a form of a DOS. I'd disagree with that on the grounds that a DOS infers some sort of intergrated suite of programs for disc access and manipulation, and not just a loading routine. But that's just me being picky :) However I would imagine this sort of loader could be used in the protection of discs (addressing someone elses mail on the subject, or was it on files - too late cos it's gone now), if it hasn't already been done. Dan. +========================================================================+ | Dan Doore - Ex-Head Pod And Dogsbody | D.J.Doore-iq4d4385@lmu.ac.uk | | WARNING!! Only read every so often, so you might have to wait a bit. | +========================================================================+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 16:05:42 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 16:43:43 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: SAM COUPE *emulators* ? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no In-Reply-To: <6208584FCF@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.96] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1059 Lines: 23 On Tue, 21 Nov, Dave Hooper wrote a lot of things about emulators. First of all, just as Dave, I am totally out of the Sam scene right now (I hope to improve things however). I've joined this mailing-list for one or two weeks now, and I must say, I am a little disappointed about what is mailed (which has mainly got to do with me, not the mail). It's just that for 99% of the articles I just haven't got a clue on what's it all about. But okay, that's my fault, about emulation. Sam emulator's for alien computers. I have a Speccie emulator for my Acorn Archimedes and I do remember that somewhere, someone, somehow, mentioned he would make a Sam emulator too. For the PC I really don't know (has G. Lunter already done this?). PC emulation on the Sam? Even with a serious performance boost for the Sam I think this is quit unlikely. Besides, do we need/want it? Anyway, apart from this mailing-list, is there anywhere I can get more info about the current state of Sam (and Spectrum) soft- and hardware? **** David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) **** From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 16:14:48 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 16:08:29 +0000 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: samtoms.exe Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 465 Lines: 18 Just about to upload this to ftp.nvg.unit.no:/pub/sam-coupe/incoming/samtoms.exe I haven't included the C source because -I- haven't finished it yet so I don't want people playing with it until I have... ATM don't use the format option!!! I -think- there's still a petit buggette somewhere about missing off the last character of files, but I'm not sure cos I don't have a coupe disk on me to check... Enjoy, anyway, tell me if you find a bug! Cheers G. -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 16:17:28 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 16:49:32 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no In-Reply-To: <6149212DAB@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Message-Id: X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.96] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; CHARSET="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 480 Lines: 12 On Tue, 21 Nov, Dave Hooper wrote: > Does this mean that ANY code can, effectively, be stored as a > bootblock? (as long as some sort of DOS is present / available) > (eg, for software protection) Yes, and I (and a lot of others) have used this to load their games without having to load samdos first. Making it 'impossable' to copy the files to normal samdos files (and thus allowing copies to be made) and do more weird things. **** David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) **** From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 16:32:23 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 16:32:27 +0000 (GMT) From: Tim Wells <93tgw@eng.cam.ac.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Techy question? 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: 831 Lines: 20 > > > You can put anything you like in the boot sector. > > However, such a program would be practically of very little use unless it > > contained a way of loading something else from the disk. In which case it > > is a form of a DOS. > I'd disagree with that on the grounds that a DOS infers some sort of > intergrated suite of programs for disc access and manipulation, and not > just a loading routine. True. But when we get things like 'call base+3,"dir 1 *" '... > However I would imagine this sort of loader could be used in the > protection of discs (addressing someone elses mail on the subject, or was > it on files - too late cos it's gone now), if it hasn't already been done. I would be very surprised if it's not on one of many games that are around. I think it's also used on the Pro-Dos Boot disk. Tim. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 17:09:03 1995 Message-Id: From: Andrew M Gale Subject: format To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 16:31:50 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9511211212.AA02097@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Nov 21, 95 12:12:39 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: 664 Lines: 17 I just got a FORMAT mailshot this morning. I noticed that they were saying that they're going to stop producing versions with TV modulators because most users use a SCART connector, and to save price-hikes 'due to spiralling costs of components'. Fair enough, I thought - if anyone wante a UHF modulator they could buy a power pack from Greenweld. But then, horror! Is he, I wonder, thinking about not even including the MC1377P chip so you'll only be able to use RGB signals (ie not composite video)? If so, I expect we'll soon see SAMs with no sound chips because 'the only SAM users who use sound are demo coders', and you know how Bob hate demos! -Andrew From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 17:20:28 1995 Message-Id: From: Andrew M Gale Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 21 Nov 1995 17:18:00 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: from "Tim Wells" at Nov 21, 95 04:32:27 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: 579 Lines: 15 > > > However I would imagine this sort of loader could be used in the > > protection of discs (addressing someone elses mail on the subject, or was > > it on files - too late cos it's gone now), if it hasn't already been done. > > I would be very surprised if it's not on one of many games that are > around. I think it's also used on the Pro-Dos Boot disk. > Also, you can ignore the SAM format and just chuck your code in sectors/ tracks anyway you like - making loading quicker. Is this what Batz & Balls does? A few chugs of the disc and it's all ready to go! -Andy From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 21 21:25:32 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 95 22:22:55 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, 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: 700 Lines: 24 On Tue, 21 Nov 1995 17:18:00 +0000 (GMT) Andrew M Gale wrote: >Also, you can ignore the SAM format and just chuck your code in sectors/ >tracks anyway you like - making loading quicker. Is this what Batz & Balls >does? A few chugs of the disc and it's all ready to go! > >-Andy Yep it does, as does just about every "protected" game. Sophistry does too. The only problem is that when you also want to save files to the same disc that you are going to have to either devise your own dos system or adhere to the SAMDOS "system". 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 Tue Nov 21 22:14:07 1995 Date: Tue, 21 Nov 95 22:56:05 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: SAMTOMS "bugs" To: SAM users X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, 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: 917 Lines: 28 Hi Geoff, just downloaded SAMTOMS. First of all I tried using it while in MSDOS mode by exiting Windows 95. The program wouldn't accept anything at all, it kept complaining about not being able to "acurately 0,1" and bombed out. The next attempt was within a Win95 dos box. Finally I was able to get a directory reading and read in some files. Annoying bit number one. How about mentioning the ability to use quotes to identify files which contain invalid dos characters. Secondly how about making the file checking case insensitive. Then up popped a bug while trying to load something. It gave an error at 128,1 (partway in the middle of a file). I'm pretty sure that this sector is readable... Looking forward to a fixed version... 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 Wed Nov 22 08:14:17 1995 Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 07:29:38 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <11863@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Nev's Hard Drive X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 193 Lines: 8 Surely that complex way of getting at the HD must be tidued up. Its what screwed up the old Beta Disc on the Speccy! I thought Microdrives were bad enough..... Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 08:50:09 1995 Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 08:56:08 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511220756.AA06521@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: SAM COUPE *emulators* ? X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1710 Lines: 47 Hi there David! Welcome into the warmth :) > On Tue, 21 Nov, Dave Hooper wrote a lot of things about emulators. > > First of all, just as Dave, I am totally out of the Sam scene right now (I > hope to improve things however). I've joined this mailing-list for one or > two weeks now, and I must say, I am a little disappointed about what is > mailed (which has mainly got to do with me, not the mail). It's just that > for 99% of the articles I just haven't got a clue on what's it all about. Don't worry. I have the same problem and I've been here since the beginning. > > But okay, that's my fault, about emulation. > > Sam emulator's for alien computers. I have a Speccie emulator for my Acorn > Archimedes and I do remember that somewhere, someone, somehow, mentioned he > would make a Sam emulator too. For the PC I really don't know (has G. Lunter > already done this?). I guess we all have Speccy emulators for various computers. There have been discussions about a SAM emulator for the PC, but nothing concrete was done then and not since as to the best of my knowledge. For other platforms on the other hand....:) > > PC emulation on the Sam? Even with a serious performance boost for the Sam I > think this is quit unlikely. Besides, do we need/want it? No. Disc emulation is more than good enough. Though, I would prefer SGI binary compability before x86 :) > > Anyway, apart from this mailing-list, is there anywhere I can get more info > about the current state of Sam (and Spectrum) soft- and hardware? The most obvious place is Format and Fred Publishing. The addresses for these can be found on the sam web site. -Frode > > **** David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) **** > > From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 09:46:03 1995 Message-Id: <199511220944.KAA04888@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: format To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 09:43:38 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: from "Andrew M Gale" at Nov 21, 95 04:31:50 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 467 Lines: 12 > If so, I expect we'll soon see SAMs with no sound chips > because 'the only SAM users who use sound are demo coders', > and you know how Bob hate demos! Funny you should mention that... West Coast (sic) apparently have the last stocks of the SAA1099 in the world -- phillips have stopped making them, and will now only produce them in batches of 10,000... Sooo.. Siemens bought a load from WC recently to put in their signal boxes... looks bad, huh? Simon Cooke From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 10:13:42 1995 Message-Id: From: Andrew M Gale Subject: Re: format To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 10:09:42 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199511220944.KAA04888@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 22, 95 09:43:38 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: 1136 Lines: 28 > > > If so, I expect we'll soon see SAMs with no sound chips > > because 'the only SAM users who use sound are demo coders', > > and you know how Bob hate demos! > > Funny you should mention that... West Coast (sic) apparently have the last > stocks of the SAA1099 in the world -- phillips have stopped making them, and > will now only produce them in batches of 10,000... > > Sooo.. Siemens bought a load from WC recently to put in their signal > boxes... looks bad, huh? > > Simon Cooke I wonder how many SAM ASICs there are lying about? I mention this because - if there is such a poor shortage of vital components - then it would be a nice idea to have a 'new' SAM. Basically a completely new PCB with a faster Z80 (using acceleration techniques), none of that midi nonsense (people can add it if they want), a DAC for sample replaying, a centronics port, a socket for a VL1772 (which people can rip from their sam drive) and two connectors for standard PC drives. The people could do with it what they want - add a SAA1099 if they desire, put it in a PC case (with switch-mode PSU) and so on. A hobbyist's dream! -Andrew From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 11:19:00 1995 Message-Id: <24781.199511221116@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: Re: format To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 11:16:24 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199511220944.KAA04888@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 22, 95 09:43:38 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] 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: 332 Lines: 10 I take it then that SAMs are still being made? Will -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A sense of humour is not being able to laugh at a few jokes. It is the ability to laugh at yourself." From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 11:22:03 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 11:20:54 +0000 In-Reply-To: drissen -- "SAMTOMS "bugs"" (Nov 21, 10:56pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: SAMTOMS "bugs" Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1868 Lines: 51 On Nov 21, 10:56pm in "SAMTOMS "bugs"", warbled: ] just downloaded SAMTOMS. First of all I tried using it while in MSDOS mode ] by exiting Windows 95. The program wouldn't accept anything at all, it kept ] complaining about not being able to "acurately 0,1" and bombed out. Eek. What fun. "Accurately" is used because I load in the first 4 tracks all at once, so the error will always put "blah error at 0,1" even though it could be at 0,5 (for example). The accurately bit waits until the error has returned 4 times while trying to load the track, then loads the entire track sector by sector to tell you where the error is `accurately'... If the only error it returns is the "Accurately" one then I think something has changed between DOS and Win95 -- it should never return just this error, you should get (eg) four times saying "Can't find sector 0,1" first. I've compiled it for an 8086 - so it should work on any processor... ] The next attempt was within a Win95 dos box. Finally I was able to get a ] directory reading and read in some files. Sheesh. Weird. ] Annoying bit number one. How about mentioning the ability to use quotes to ] identify files which contain invalid dos characters. this is a feature of DOS, not of samtoms. I didn't even know you could! ] Secondly how about making the file checking case insensitive. Yeah, something to do on the way... ] Then up popped a bug while trying to load something. It gave an error at ] 128,1 (partway in the middle of a file). I'm pretty sure that this sector ] is readable... Aha... this is something I've never got around to checking, since I don't have a disk on me with lots of files (ie never went on to side 2)... I'll have a look at the code that does it. ] Looking forward to a fixed version... I'll do it now. Does it really just say `accurately at 0,1'? -sigh- -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 11:24:12 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 11:23:18 +0000 In-Reply-To: drissen -- "SAMTOMS "bugs"" (Nov 21, 10:56pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: SAMTOMS "bugs" Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 570 Lines: 32 On Nov 21, 10:56pm in "SAMTOMS "bugs"", warbled: ] Then up popped a bug while trying to load something. It gave an error at ] 128,1 (partway in the middle of a file). I'm pretty sure that this sector ] is readable... Oooooops. Idiot :-) Guess what I did: if (track > 128) { track-=128; head=1; } else { head=0; } Oh dear... :-) It should of course be if (track > 127)... -sigh- ] Looking forward to a fixed version... Which I will upload as soon as I check for other problems... It'll be ftp.nvg.unit.no:/pub/sam-coupe/incoming/samtoms2.exe Geoff -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 11:44:53 1995 Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 11:43:39 GMT From: Mark Godson Subject: Hello To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Message-Id: Priority: Normal Read-Receipt-To: Mark Godson Delivery-Receipt-To: Mark Godson Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 358 Lines: 11 My name is Mark Godson and I have recently subscribed to this mailing list. I have had a Sam for a few years now, but I have been outside the scene for ages. Can anyone tell me what is going on, news etc. Also I have a problem with the display of my sam, it won't display in colour through either the SCART socket or the tv input, cheers, M.Godson. From imc Wed Nov 22 11:52:47 1995 Subject: Re: Hello To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 95 11:52:47 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Mark Godson" at Nov 22, 95 11:43 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 540 Lines: 12 On Wed, 22 Nov 1995 11:43:39 GMT, Mark Godson said: > I have a problem with the display of my sam, it won't > display in colour through either the SCART socket or the tv > input, cheers, My Sam was a monochrome one for a couple of months also. When it arrived it was monochrome but I managed to get colour by twiddling the trimmer which is towards the front right of the circuit board. However, the colour eventually left altogether. I finally replaced the 4.433619MHz crystal (next to the trimmer) and it started working again. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 11:56:09 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 11:53:48 +0000 In-Reply-To: 9531427 -- "Re: Uploads to NVG" (Nov 20, 6:22pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Uploads to NVG Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2056 Lines: 51 On Nov 20, 6:22pm in "Re: Uploads to NVG", warbled: ] Crikey! What IS it? (a PC-SAM utility for the PC?_ Yes - in its infancy. ] Yes. I would also like to have the converse (ie format for a PC on a ] SAM). Any PD stuff available to do this? ISTR that PC-tools did this. As I've mentioned before, it's not really worth it, you can just format a Sam disk and then stick a boot sector on it from another PC disk. Remember to set the first two bytes of sector 0,2 to ff ff though... ] (I've writen a prog to do the above, but some PC-disk-format-emulators (eg, for ] Amiga) don't like the disc formatted like that...) Hmm. Depends how you do it. If it's just as I say, it may be the &fff mentioned above. It could also be the same problem as the ST used to have, a check for (IIRC) &55 &AA as the final two bytes of the first sector. (which is what samtoms uses, since it was based around Si's dirs.exe program originally...) ] > o compression builtin to saved files (kindof like a zip format) ] ] Probably not. *8-) Fairy nuff. ] > o samtoms currently lets you print out the contents of a sector -- would ] > anyone make much use if I spent hours making it into a sector -editor- ] > aswell? ] ] I would. Would it be possible to display the sector simultaneously as ] TEXT (non ascii (<32 or >126) as different color or hex); hex (or ] decimal via toggle); and a bitmap?? (An option to alter the width for ] the bitmap display, the height depends on this + sector size, and ] bits per pixel). That'd make it dead useful for some of the really weird stuff ] I get up to! ATM it outputs hex in white and ascii in green. Output as a bitmap would be bloody difficult and you'll have to pay me before I'd even consider it. As Frode (?) said, it's not really worth including a sector editor, there are several around (check on src.doc.ic.ac.uk:/computing/systems/ibmpc/simtel/msdos/diskutil for details!) which do the job perfectly well. I'll keep in the output code though cos it's only about 10 lines of code. Geoff -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 12:02:41 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 11:56:37 +0000 In-Reply-To: drissen -- "Re: Uploads to NVG" (Nov 20, 9:21pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Uploads to NVG Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 924 Lines: 24 On Nov 20, 9:21pm in "Re: Uploads to NVG", warbled: ] > o compression builtin to saved files (kindof like a zip format) ] ] I'd apprectiate it (using a PC and needing less modem time) but I can see ] people without a PC and downloading with what-have-you hating this. Yeah. I would of course make it so I could include the decompression in KEdisk -- as I'm already including the header format (as I write one, I add the new feature to the other), it would thus have to be pretty simple. Unless anyone has any z80 and C source for lempel-ziv compression of course... :) ] Does it also allow archives? This would be nice so that you can then pack ] both your basic loader as your code block into one PC file. Not doing this ] would add chaos to NVG. True. I'll probably just make it so it follows one file with the next. Not particularly difficult to do, either. Ian isn't going to like it though :) Geoff -- From imc Wed Nov 22 12:05:39 1995 Subject: Re: Uploads to NVG To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 95 12:05:39 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Nov 22, 95 11:56 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 429 Lines: 11 On Wed, 22 Nov 1995 11:56:37 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > ] Does it also allow archives? This would be nice so that you can then pack > ] both your basic loader as your code block into one PC file. Not doing this > ] would add chaos to NVG. > True. I'll probably just make it so it follows one file with the next. Not > particularly difficult to do, either. There's a program to do this already though, called zip... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 12:21:07 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 12:17:02 +0000 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: bugger Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1476 Lines: 50 Ian writes : "Spare" bytes are usually set to 255. "Flags" is usually set to 32 (it : doesn't seem to mean anything as far as I can work out). "MGT Future and : past" appears to contain a zero (byte 210) followed by a copy of the 9-byte : file header; in other words... : : byte 211 equals byte 0 : byte 212 equals byte 240 : byte 213 equals byte 241 : byte 214 equals byte 237 : byte 215 equals byte 238 : byte 216 equals byte 242 : byte 217 equals byte 243 It's this bit that bothers me (see later...) : byte 218 equals byte 239 : byte 219 equals byte 242. Before, Frode copied: : At the beginning of each disk file there is a file header. The : file header is 9 bytes long: : : 0 File type File type : 1-2 Modulo length Length of file : 3-4 Offset start Start address : 5-6 Unused : 7 Number of pages : 8 Starting page number : 242-244 37-39 Execution address. : Execution address, if CODE file, or line : number if an autorunning BASIC program. Now, Ian had 219 set to byte 242 -- I think this is probably a typo since he also has 216 set to 242... however, according to Frode (and the tech. manual) 5 and 6 in the file header are unused, while Ian appears to be inferring that they contain part of the execution address... Can someone verify one way or the other what a) bytes 5 and 6 in the file header do b) bytes 212, 213 and 219 in the directory info do... Also, what format is the "exec address"? Page, low high offset, or what? Many thanx -- From imc Wed Nov 22 12:28:51 1995 Subject: Re: bugger To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 95 12:28:51 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Nov 22, 95 12:17 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 965 Lines: 20 On Wed, 22 Nov 1995 12:17:02 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > Now, Ian had 219 set to byte 242 -- I think this is probably a typo since > he also has 216 set to 242... however, according to Frode (and the tech. > manual) 5 and 6 in the file header are unused, while Ian appears to > be inferring that they contain part of the execution address... Guilty your honour. I don't think I read the bit in the manual about the 9-byte header, so I made it up based on what I saw in various files. I sincerely doubt that it makes any difference whatsoever, since the information is incomplete and available more fully in the other documented places. And I did have that repeated byte, though that might have been an error when I typed in that particular bit of samwrite.c. > Also, what format is the "exec address"? Page, low high offset, or what? Yes, I think it is page, lo-offset, hi-offset. imc We could always look it up in the SamDOS source code, I suppose... :-) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 13:38:14 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 13:34:54 +0000 Subject: b&white, colour, STRETCHY, ETC... Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <79A25F39@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 671 Lines: 15 Hi, I have to admit that I have not experience B&W SAM syndrome, but I can say that on my TV, anything of a colour approaching WHITE (eg, colour #127 or #120, etc) turns out slightly GREEN. It doesn't do this with anything else (QL, Speccy, TV-programs!), and I was told by Charles Gill (at SamCo many moons ago) that it was a modulator problem. Also, the screen is considerably squashed, so circles aren't. I've fiddled inside the TV and found a Vertical-Stretch trimmer, which makes it look ok now, but when I watch TV I lose the subtitles off the bottom of the screen! Are there any modulator mods that can help? Cheers, dave Paranoia is a tool not a weapon From imc Wed Nov 22 13:45:09 1995 Subject: Re: b&white, colour, STRETCHY, ETC... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 95 13:45:09 MET In-Reply-To: <79A25F39@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk>; from "Dave Hooper" at Nov 22, 95 1:34 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 232 Lines: 7 On Wed, 22 Nov 1995 13:34:54 +0000, Dave Hooper said: > Also, the screen is considerably squashed, so circles aren't. Yes, pixels are 1.25 wider than high on the Sam, due to the design. There's not a lot you can do about it. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 14:42:52 1995 Message-Id: From: Andrew M Gale Subject: Re: b&white, colour, STRETCHY, ETC... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 14:25:59 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <79A25F39@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> from "Dave Hooper" at Nov 22, 95 01:34:54 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: 295 Lines: 8 The squashed circle is due the fact that the SAM's pixels aren't square - there's not much you can do about this, and a modulator change won't solve it. My friend's SAM also suffers from green white, although I haven't noticed it. It seems every SAM has it's own personality traits.... Andrew From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 14:45:08 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 14:45:35 +0000 Subject: Re: b&white, colour, STRETCHY, ETC... Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <1A77737F2@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 245 Lines: 8 Ok, so there may not be a *lot* you could do about it . . . But is there ANYTHING I can do? I'm sure there's loads of trimmers that I could twiddle with. Simon? Anyone? dave I like Princess Di but I couldn't eat a whole one (er, or something) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 15:48:25 1995 Message-Id: <199511221541.QAA09303@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 13:26:02 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: from "David Gommeren" at Nov 21, 95 04:49:32 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1094 Lines: 29 > > On Tue, 21 Nov, Dave Hooper wrote: > > Does this mean that ANY code can, effectively, be stored as a > > bootblock? (as long as some sort of DOS is present / available) > > (eg, for software protection) > > Yes, and I (and a lot of others) have used this to load their games without > having to load samdos first. Making it 'impossable' to copy the files to > normal samdos files (and thus allowing copies to be made) and do more weird > things. > > **** David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) **** Hiya David, Cookie of Entropy here :) We're working on a new technical mag for the SAM (called Based On An Idea)... fancy writing an article or two for us? (All I can offer is maybe a free copy or two of the mag though... we're going for a LARGE page count in order to fit it all in, and getting advertisers is very difficult :( ) Did you ever do any more demos, or any other programming since Batz N Balls? Especially any more music :) Oh well, I'll leave it at that. Talk to you soon (I've been meaning to write to you for 4 years or so now... better late than never!) Simon Cooke From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 17:27:31 1995 Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 15:41:22 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511221441.AA06758@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: b&white, colour, STRETCHY, ETC... X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 0 Lines: 21 From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 17:38:22 1995 Message-Id: <199511221541.QAA09301@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: format To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 13:23:23 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: from "Andrew M Gale" at Nov 22, 95 10:09:42 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1364 Lines: 30 > I wonder how many SAM ASICs there are lying about? I mention this > because - if there is such a poor shortage of vital components - > then it would be a nice idea to have a 'new' SAM. Basically a completely > new PCB with a faster Z80 (using acceleration techniques), none > of that midi nonsense (people can add it if they want), a DAC > for sample replaying, a centronics port, a socket for a VL1772 > (which people can rip from their sam drive) and two connectors > for standard PC drives. The people could do with it what they > want - add a SAA1099 if they desire, put it in a PC case > (with switch-mode PSU) and so on. A hobbyist's dream! Hmmm... somehow this is just what I was thinking of perhaps doing ;) There's about 10,000 (to 50,000) ASICs left at least... and Bruce has them all ;) A couple of changes I'd make though: The VL1772 would be one of those uPD devices which are totally programmable -- we'll read Mac and Amiga disks yet ;) (compatability through a virtual port system we're putting into the design, so that you can emulate external devices if you have to). And as for the SAA1099... what if stocks run out? :( The PSU thing could solve a lot of problems as well... In fact, this is probably the way that the Midget is going to go -- PC case based SAM, with a Midget "Card" which you can plug into it... Or perhaps not. Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 18:25:22 1995 Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 17:38:29 +0000 (GMT) From: Si Owen To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Sam drive device...? Message-Id: Organisation: Wordcraft International Ltd. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Smtp-Posting-Host: obobo.demon.co.uk [Wed, 22 Nov 95 18:02:21 GMT] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: post.demon.co.uk [Wed, 22 Nov 95 18:03:41 GMT] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 792 Lines: 20 Hi, I've been toying with the idea of writing a device driver to treat MS-DOS disks as a normal (logical) drive, and the SAMTOMS thread has got me thinking again. Have many of you started using Windows 95, or do most people stick with DOS? I was tempted to try and write a VxD for Win 95 to do the job, as I'm more familiar with Windows coding. A driver loaded from CONFIG.SYS looks easier, but I'm not sure if I can do everything from C. Anybody any preference? Si +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Si Owen | Email: si@obobo.demon.co.uk | | Wordcraft International Ltd, UK | Fax: +44-1332-295525 | +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ From imc Wed Nov 22 18:28:28 1995 Subject: Re: b&white, colour, STRETCHY, ETC... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 95 18:28:28 MET In-Reply-To: <1A77737F2@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk>; from "Dave Hooper" at Nov 22, 95 2:45 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1468 Lines: 30 On Wed, 22 Nov 1995 14:45:35 +0000, Dave Hooper said: > Ok, so there may not be a *lot* you could do about it . . . > But is there ANYTHING I can do? I'm sure there's loads of trimmers > that I could twiddle with. The height of the screen is determined by the number of scan lines it takes up (always 192 not including the border - guess why) and by the distance which the TV puts between scan lines. Most TVs fill the screen with about 250 lines although this varies quite a lot [remember, the Sam does not transmit an interleaved picture] so the height of the Sam screen is about 3/4 of the height of the TV screen. You can't change this without adjusting the TV and changing the height of all other TV programmes as well. The width of the screen is determined by the amount of time it takes to send the information for one screen line and by the TV's scan speed. The display works off the 6MHz clock, and coincidentally one pixel is sent per clock cycle. This means that the time for one line of pixels is 256 cycles. The time between successive horizontal sync pulses is 384 clock cycles, by the way. Most TVs scan the whole width of the screen in about 288 cycles, so the width of the Sam screen is about 8/9 of the width of the TV screen. You can't alter this without adjusting the TV and changing the width of all other TV programmes as well. Sorry. imc [Numbers made up from educated guesses... I wonder how accurate they will turn out to be. :-) ] From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 18:46:11 1995 Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 17:38:29 +0000 (GMT) From: Si Owen To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Sam drive device...? Message-Id: Organisation: Wordcraft International Ltd. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Smtp-Posting-Host: obobo.demon.co.uk [Wed, 22 Nov 95 18:02:21 GMT] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: post.demon.co.uk [Wed, 22 Nov 95 18:03:41 GMT] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 792 Lines: 20 Hi, I've been toying with the idea of writing a device driver to treat MS-DOS disks as a normal (logical) drive, and the SAMTOMS thread has got me thinking again. Have many of you started using Windows 95, or do most people stick with DOS? I was tempted to try and write a VxD for Win 95 to do the job, as I'm more familiar with Windows coding. A driver loaded from CONFIG.SYS looks easier, but I'm not sure if I can do everything from C. Anybody any preference? Si +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Si Owen | Email: si@obobo.demon.co.uk | | Wordcraft International Ltd, UK | Fax: +44-1332-295525 | +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 20:33:43 1995 From: Diggory Gray Organization: The University of Birmingham To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 17:44:10 GMT Subject: Re: b&white, colour, STRETCHY, ETC... Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Message-Id: <8E753388E@novell3.bham.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 456 Lines: 8 I noticed in an article about changing modulators ( to stop mains hum from the transformer from affecting the modulator ) in one of the SAM Co newsdisks ( 3 or 4 I think ) that some trimmers are not to be adjusted - this could be due to the sensitive nature of the components ( static sensistive etc. )...So be careful. I think the trimmers which should not be adjusted are the ones brass slots - but please check that! Diggory Gray ( DJG528@bham.ac.uk ) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 22 23:46:38 1995 Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 22:40:03 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.96] Original-Sender: owner-sam-users@no.unit.nvg Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 857 Lines: 21 On Wed, 22 Nov, Stefan Drissen wrote: > > On Tue, 21 Nov 1995 17:18:00 +0000 (GMT) Andrew M Gale wrote: > > >Also, you can ignore the SAM format and just chuck your code in sectors/ > >tracks anyway you like - making loading quicker. Is this what Batz & Balls > >does? A few chugs of the disc and it's all ready to go! > > > >-Andy > > Yep it does, as does just about every "protected" game. Sophistry does too. > The only problem is that when you also want to save files to the same disc > that you are going to have to either devise your own dos system or adhere to > the SAMDOS "system". Yep, anyone owning B&B could check sector 0,39,10 (I think, after taking a quick look at the source - anyone interested in any source files I might have?) to look at the games-settings and high-score table. **** David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) **** From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 23 01:30:58 1995 Date: Wed, 22 Nov 1995 22:26:35 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no In-Reply-To: <199511221541.QAA09303@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.96] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1299 Lines: 29 On Wed, 22 Nov, Simon Cooke wrote: > Hiya David, Cookie of Entropy here :) > > We're working on a new technical mag for the SAM (called Based On An > Idea)... fancy writing an article or two for us? (All I can offer is maybe a > free copy or two of the mag though... we're going for a LARGE page count in > order to fit it all in, and getting advertisers is very difficult :( ) Yes, yes, yes, I do, just tell what it should be about! > Did you ever do any more demos, or any other programming since Batz N > Balls? Especially any more music :) The only things I programmed for the Sam since then are half-finished demos, half-finished games and half finished soundtracks. I did however write some fine working communication software to connect my Sam to my Acorn computer to allow fast loading and saving of games (including Spectrum using normal tape commands). > Oh well, I'll leave it at that. Talk to you soon (I've been meaning to write > to you for 4 years or so now... better late than never!) I know, I still have some disks and cassettes and un-answered letters from a lot of people (to all those involved, I am deeply sorry, but I am an asshole - and a lazy one too). Isn't the internet a fantastic way to get in touch with everybody? **** David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) **** From imc Thu Nov 23 11:54:50 1995 Subject: Re: format To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 23 Nov 95 11:54:50 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Andrew M Gale" at Nov 21, 95 4:31 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 430 Lines: 11 On Tue, 21 Nov 1995 16:31:50 +0000 (GMT), Andrew M Gale said: > I just got a FORMAT mailshot this morning. I noticed that > they were saying that they're going to stop > producing versions with TV modulators because most users > use a SCART connector, and to save price-hikes 'due to > spiralling costs of components'. I thought modulators were pretty cheap. At any rate you can easily buy one from an electronics store. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 23 15:48:08 1995 Date: Thu, 23 Nov 1995 11:07:58 +0100 (MET) From: Ben Versteeg Subject: Spectrum mailing list In-Reply-To: <199511211301.OAA25588@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 21, 95 01:00:34 pm To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Message-Id: <199511231007.LAA14236@charm.il.ft.hse.nl> X-Envelope-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.NO X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8a] Content-Type: text Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7BIT Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1058 Lines: 25 Hi all Sam owners, I recently asked if there was a mailing list for Spectrum owners. I regret there isn't. There is still a lot to talk about in Speccy world, and I also know that there aren't many Sam owners in Europe exept for Britain. So, I want to know what te possibilities are to build a new Spectrum mailing list. This is the only way to collect all pieces of Spectrum news in Europe. I often talk to Spectrum owners via IRC, and I still find out new things. For example about the MB-02 interface for Spectrum. What I was surprised from is that there have been a few new magazines in Europe. This means that there is still interest. I still have not been able to collect enough money for a Sam (sorry Stefan) but I will be soon. But that will not mean Spectrum life has died. Here in holland there is one remaining magazine, with about 60 members. I am not able to put up a mailing list myself, just because of too little knowledge... Maybe there is still some deep-core spectrum owner who wants to help me... Ben Versteeg ben@charm.il.ft.hse.nl From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 23 16:04:32 1995 Date: Thu, 23 Nov 1995 17:03:46 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511231603.AA07447@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spectrum mailing list X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 498 Lines: 12 > I recently asked if there was a mailing list for Spectrum owners. > I regret there isn't. There is still a lot to talk about in Speccy world, > and I also know that there aren't many Sam owners in Europe exept for > Britain. Where have you been? First of all, there is a newsgroup comp.sys.sinclair - try this one out first. In case you don't have USENET access, this newsgroup is also mirrored in a mailing list which I at the moment can not give you any references to. But try c.s.s. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 23 16:04:33 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Thu, 23 Nov 1995 11:48:02 +0000 In-Reply-To: si -- "Sam drive device...?" (Nov 22, 5:38pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Sam drive device...? Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1953 Lines: 50 On Nov 22, 5:38pm in "Sam drive device...?", warbled: ] Hi, ] ] I've been toying with the idea of writing a device driver to treat MS-DOS ] disks as a normal (logical) drive, and the SAMTOMS thread has got me thinking ] again. Device driver to treat DOS disks as a normal drive, or to treat SAM disks as a normal drive? You've lost me... I take it you mean the latter -- in which case, yeah, I've been pondering it too... It's not actually that difficult -- Sam disks conform to the IBM format standard, so there's no hardware involved -- just use biosdisk(1...) to read a block of sectors. ] Have many of you started using Windows 95, or do most people stick with DOS? ] I was tempted to try and write a VxD for Win 95 to do the job, as I'm more ] familiar with Windows coding. A driver loaded from CONFIG.SYS looks easier, ] but I'm not sure if I can do everything from C. I'm sure you can do everything you will need to from C. I'm not 100% certain how you go about creating drivers -- that's something I'll have to read about... ] Anybody any preference? Yeah, it would be quite nice to do. The problem would be how to interrupt the DOS itself -- DOS just looks at Sam disks as "invalid media byte" - I'm not sure what the DOS mechanism would be to play around with it, it might end up being quite difficult. The way I see it is that the only time you need to use Sam disks on a PC is when you're transferring stuff... no-one actively wants to use a Sam disk on a PC, since the format is disgusting, the subdirectories nearly non-existent, and the whole thing entirely too reminiscent of a +D to be anything like nice. The opposite way, a device driver that sits in between the user and SAMDOS on the SAM itself and lets you use DOS disks completely transparently, is (IMHO) a tad more useful -- and depending on whether Simon gets his arse into gear before I do, one or the other of us is going to do it :) Nice idea though. G. -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Nov 24 09:32:02 1995 Message-Id: From: Andrew M Gale Subject: Re: Techy question? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 09:29:38 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: from "David Gommeren" at Nov 22, 95 10:40:03 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: 248 Lines: 6 Come on, I've been in here a long time typing up my final-year project interim report, and I expect to find plenty of mails to the sam list to cheer me up when I get in early to finish it off a few hours before the deadline.... understand?!!! -AG From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Nov 24 10:00:59 1995 Message-Id: From: Andrew M Gale Subject: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 09:45:05 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: from "David Gommeren" at Nov 22, 95 10:40:03 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: 538 Lines: 13 It occurred to me that it would be possible to make the SAM Spectrum 128 compatible with a bit of not-too-tricky logic. Assuming we said that all of the Spec 128s 16k pages had to reside in the top 256k, and all the pages were in a fixed position. Then, by looking at the address supplied to the DRAMs on 256k expander module, we could determine which block the z80 neede to access and shuffle the address lines to the DRAM as appropriate. Maybe it's not that easy after all.... something fot the super SAM-motherboard, hmm Simon? -AG From imc Fri Nov 24 11:03:21 1995 Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 24 Nov 95 11:03:21 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Andrew M Gale" at Nov 24, 95 9:45 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 405 Lines: 11 On Fri, 24 Nov 1995 09:45:05 +0000 (GMT), Andrew M Gale said: > It occurred to me that it would be possible to make the SAM > Spectrum 128 compatible with a bit of not-too-tricky logic. > something fot the super SAM-motherboard, hmm Simon? I heard a rumour that there's going to be a 128 emulator on the accelerator. Just out of interest... where are you going to get the sound chip from? imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Nov 24 13:07:46 1995 Message-Id: <11380.199511241249@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 12:49:01 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9511241103.AA04350@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Nov 24, 95 11:03:21 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] 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: 1070 Lines: 32 > > On Fri, 24 Nov 1995 09:45:05 +0000 (GMT), Andrew M Gale said: > > It occurred to me that it would be possible to make the SAM > > Spectrum 128 compatible with a bit of not-too-tricky logic. > > > something fot the super SAM-motherboard, hmm Simon? > > I heard a rumour that there's going to be a 128 emulator on the accelerator. > > Just out of interest... where are you going to get the sound chip from? > > imc > I take it that 128 sound chip calls couldn't be re-routed to the Philips? Then we could fart around with all sorts of things like enhancing sound in games from outside the game. I don't suppose anyone can run Elite 48k from their SAM? Mine gets all confused with the vector graphics and stuff, and stumbles at the slightest hint of space flight... Will -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A sense of humour is not being able to laugh at a few jokes. It is the ability to laugh at yourself." From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Nov 26 11:54:10 1995 Date: Sat, 25 Nov 95 13:20:03 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Upload to NVG To: SAM users X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, 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: 705 Lines: 23 Hi all! I've just uploaded the SAM MOD player 2 demo version (as on FRED 58) to NVG. Use pkunzip and Geoff's SAMTOMS2 program to put it onto a sam disc. Tim, I'm not sure if the subscribe procedure to the sam mailing list is included on your web pages? How about putting something about the list in Fred, Colin? Steve Taylor, there is a tiny glitch in the mouse driver. If you're using the mouse for more than 22.5 minutes then the screen blanks (due to no key being pressed) - how about resetting the timer when the mouse is moved? 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 Nov 26 11:57:58 1995 Date: Fri, 24 Nov 1995 14:14:32 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511241314.AA07971@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1014 Lines: 30 > > On Fri, 24 Nov 1995 09:45:05 +0000 (GMT), Andrew M Gale said: > > > It occurred to me that it would be possible to make the SAM > > > Spectrum 128 compatible with a bit of not-too-tricky logic. > > > > > something fot the super SAM-motherboard, hmm Simon? > > > > I heard a rumour that there's going to be a 128 emulator on the accelerator. > > > > Just out of interest... where are you going to get the sound chip from? > > > > imc > > > > I take it that 128 sound chip calls couldn't be re-routed to the > Philips? Then we could fart around with all sorts of things like > enhancing sound in games from outside the game. Eh...what are you asking about. There are already 128K conversions of games that does this. There are also demos that uses 128K music. > > I don't suppose anyone can run Elite 48k from their SAM? Mine gets all > confused with the vector graphics and stuff, and stumbles at the > slightest hint of space flight... I run Elite 48K on my SAM without problems. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 27 06:47:19 1995 Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 06:40:42 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <11961@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Terminals X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 414 Lines: 13 Right, I am out of action on SAM at present due to having loaned my comms interface out, so I cannot port over programs. I have a customer who has a chess compuyer with an RS232 who wants to store the date on the SAM. Can someone send me a Teledisc file with something suitable on it? PLEASE do not all send one, Email me and I will acceps one, if anyone has something. Thanks... Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 27 11:43:52 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 11:28:22 +0000 Subject: Spectrum emulation Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <5DD44A74F7@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 553 Lines: 15 Just out of interest, what sort of Speccy emulators are people using? I still use the MGT one, with a lucky change I made, which makes it more compatible. I think I loaded an original Speccy rom in then ran the snapshot code, but I can't remember. I don't think Elite works on it - It's the Elite 128 version, but that runs perfectly ok on my rubber keyed speccy, just not the sam. dave ** He wasn't always like this: At the age of 12 he was considerably shorter, had never had oral sex, and believed there was a rabbit hiding behind everything ** From imc Mon Nov 27 11:51:43 1995 Subject: Re: Spectrum emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 27 Nov 95 11:51:43 MET In-Reply-To: <5DD44A74F7@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk>; from "Dave Hooper" at Nov 27, 95 11:28 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 651 Lines: 14 On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 11:28:22 +0000, Dave Hooper said: > Just out of interest, what sort of Speccy emulators are people using? Assuming I have transferred all the files from the game on to a Sam disk, I load in a copy of a 48K ROM (I have several different ones; one of them has the keyboard scanner modified to accept the Sam's extra keys) at 65536, then load 'snapt.bin' from the MGT emulator. Then I load in all the code from the game (at 65536 higher than usual) and call a short machine code routine to set the paging system and run the game. Alternatively, after loading in the ROM and snapt.bin I just load the 48K snapshot of the game. imc From imc Mon Nov 27 12:00:13 1995 Subject: Re: Upload to NVG To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 27 Nov 95 12:00:13 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Stefan Drissen" at Nov 25, 95 1:20 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 445 Lines: 10 On Sat, 25 Nov 95 13:20:03 PST, Stefan Drissen said: > Steve Taylor, there is a tiny glitch in the mouse driver. If you're using > the mouse for more than 22.5 minutes then the screen blanks (due to no key > being pressed) - how about resetting the timer when the mouse is moved? Good idea, so you don't have to press a key which might do something. Why didn't Dr Wright program it to turn the screen on when you press a shift key?... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 27 12:33:00 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 12:16:30 +0000 In-Reply-To: 9531427 -- "Spectrum emulation" (Nov 27, 11:28am) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spectrum emulation Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 764 Lines: 19 On Nov 27, 11:28am in "Spectrum emulation", warbled: ] Just out of interest, what sort of Speccy emulators are people using? I use samtape from Lerm. A crappy front-end but not too bad all-in-all Also a bit impossible to load from tape from dodgy tapes, but you can't have everything. ] I still use the MGT one, with a lucky change I made, which makes it ] more compatible. My version of the MGT one never ever let me save to disk. Complete waste of time. I'd press the break button and it would save it, then I'd load the snap back in and it would crash. Ho hum. I did write my own emulator with multiple snaps and an attempt at stopping the break button writing several million copies of the registers to memory, but it never really worked properly. -- From imc Mon Nov 27 12:43:42 1995 Subject: Re: Spectrum emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 27 Nov 95 12:43:42 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Nov 27, 95 12:16 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1528 Lines: 34 On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 12:16:30 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > My version of the MGT one never ever let me save to disk. Complete waste > of time. I'd press the break button and it would save it, then I'd load > the snap back in and it would crash. Ho hum. Load it how? If you load it just after resetting the machine and booting up DOS then it will crash because it requires some code from the file 'snapt.bin' to be present in order to run. It is also quite likely to require at least a bit of ROM code - in the MGT emulator this is supplied by 'skelt.bin'. > I did write my own emulator with multiple snaps and an attempt at stopping > the break button writing several million copies of the registers to > memory, but it never really worked properly. The break button usually doesn't write several million copies of the registers. It does write several million copies of the return address and the AF register, which the MGT snapshot routine cleans up. The NMI routine looks a bit like... 66 PUSH AF a long delay using counters stored in memory (this makes sure all the bounces have finished before the routine continues). lp pop a return address off the stack and see if it is somewhere within the NMI routine. If so then loop, otherwise put it back and continue. Unfortunately the check on the address isn't really strict enough. It works for most purposes, but if you type "PRINT USR 102" in the emulated Spectrum then it cleans too much and you won't be able to get back without it crashing. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 27 12:50:03 1995 Message-Id: <199511271230.NAA09288@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Upload to NVG To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 12:30:00 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9511271200.AA00555@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Nov 27, 95 12:00:14 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 1046 Lines: 21 > > On Sat, 25 Nov 95 13:20:03 PST, Stefan Drissen said: > > Steve Taylor, there is a tiny glitch in the mouse driver. If you're using > > the mouse for more than 22.5 minutes then the screen blanks (due to no key > > being pressed) - how about resetting the timer when the mouse is moved? > > Good idea, so you don't have to press a key which might do something. Why > didn't Dr Wright program it to turn the screen on when you press a shift > key?... Because it checks if there's any data in the keyboard Q (bit 3 of FLAGS I think)... if not, then it assumes that a key isn't pending (ie no key has been pressed since the screen was turned off). And because it's checking flags, and the keyscan routine masks out the format effector keys (ctrl, shift, symbol shift, esc) it won't work for SHIFTted keys. Not to say that it couldn't be fixed, of course... just patch it so that if it's in the screen-off state (border colour>127), mask off the top bit of the border colour, out it to the border, and reset the keyboard counter... Simon From imc Mon Nov 27 13:04:20 1995 Subject: Re: Upload to NVG To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 27 Nov 95 13:04:20 MET In-Reply-To: <199511271230.NAA09288@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 27, 95 12:30 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1334 Lines: 27 On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 12:30:00 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > Good idea, so you don't have to press a key which might do something. Why > > didn't Dr Wright program it to turn the screen on when you press a shift > > key?... > Because it checks if there's any data in the keyboard Q (bit 3 of FLAGS I > think)... if not, then it assumes that a key isn't pending (ie no key has > been pressed since the screen was turned off). And because it's checking > flags, and the keyscan routine masks out the format effector keys (ctrl, shift, > symbol shift, esc) it won't work for SHIFTted keys. I know _what_ it does - I have the source, remember (and it doesn't check flags - the screen-off-counter is cleared by the keyscan routine as soon as it detects that a new key is down). But _why_ does it do that? > Not to say that it couldn't be fixed, of course... just patch it so that if > it's in the screen-off state (border colour>127), mask off the top bit of > the border colour, out it to the border, and reset the keyboard counter... Can you read the border port? I wasn't aware that you could. But anyway there is a screen-off system variable. However, if you don't want the screen to go off you can always poke the "don't turn the screen off" flag instead. But the point is that it shouldn't be necessary to do that. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 27 13:33:53 1995 Message-Id: <199511271325.OAA10144@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Upload to NVG To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 13:25:18 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9511271304.AA00794@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Nov 27, 95 01:04:21 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 956 Lines: 21 > > On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 12:30:00 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > I know _what_ it does - I have the source, remember (and it doesn't check > flags - the screen-off-counter is cleared by the keyscan routine as soon > as it detects that a new key is down). But _why_ does it do that? Ummm... because if you didn't remove the format effector keys, then the keyscan would work in a really nasty way :) > > Not to say that it couldn't be fixed, of course... just patch it so that if > > it's in the screen-off state (border colour>127), mask off the top bit of > > the border colour, out it to the border, and reset the keyboard counter... > > Can you read the border port? I wasn't aware that you could. But anyway > there is a screen-off system variable. However, if you don't want the > screen to go off you can always poke the "don't turn the screen off" flag > instead. Well, there's the BORDRCR system variable - or something like that. Simon From imc Mon Nov 27 13:49:55 1995 Subject: Re: Upload to NVG To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 27 Nov 95 13:49:55 MET In-Reply-To: <199511271325.OAA10144@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 27, 95 1:25 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 470 Lines: 10 On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 13:25:18 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > Ummm... because if you didn't remove the format effector keys, then the > keyscan would work in a really nasty way :) The screen off thing doesn't absolutely have to be in the place it is. If it were a bit earlier it might work. It doesn't even have to be part of the keyboard scan. Checking keys is easy with XOR A:IN A,(port) and that could be done at the same time as the counter is decremented. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 27 18:22:02 1995 Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 18:44:13 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511271744.AA10845@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 422 Lines: 17 > > > I don't suppose anyone can run Elite 48k from their SAM? Mine gets all > > > confused with the vector graphics and stuff, and stumbles at the > > > slightest hint of space flight... > > > > I run Elite 48K on my SAM without problems. > > > > -Frode > > > > How? I use my home brew emulator (48K ROM + snap-code from MGT ++). Oh..it's also a home-hacked version of Elite without the Lenslock thingy. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 27 19:18:02 1995 Message-Id: <13302.199511271659@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 16:59:28 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9511241314.AA07971@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 24, 95 02:14:32 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Original-Sender: owner-sam-users@nvg.unit.no Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 540 Lines: 20 > > > > I don't suppose anyone can run Elite 48k from their SAM? Mine gets all > > confused with the vector graphics and stuff, and stumbles at the > > slightest hint of space flight... > > I run Elite 48K on my SAM without problems. > > -Frode > How? -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A sense of humour is not being able to laugh at a few jokes. It is the ability to laugh at yourself." From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 27 19:33:26 1995 Message-Id: From: Andrew M Gale Subject: boai To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 18:21:32 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9511211102.AA02067@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Nov 21, 95 11:02:38 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: 121 Lines: 4 How is Based On An Idea.... coming along, and will it be out soon enough for Father Christmas to leave in my stocking?! From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Nov 27 19:36:09 1995 Date: Mon, 27 Nov 1995 18:19:11 +0000 (GMT) From: Tim Wells <93tgw@eng.cam.ac.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spectrum emulation In-Reply-To: <5DD44A74F7@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Message-Id: Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 291 Lines: 9 > Just out of interest, what sort of Speccy emulators are people using? I'm using the LERM emulator - I soon became sick of the MGT one. I have Elite running on it, although I think it's the 128K one. Never tried the 48K version, but as I've lost the lenslock, I'm unlikely to... Tim. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 10:37:25 1995 Message-Id: <199511281035.LAA21867@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: boai To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 10:34:44 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: from "Andrew M Gale" at Nov 27, 95 06:21:32 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 424 Lines: 11 > > How is Based On An Idea.... coming along, and will it > be out soon enough for Father Christmas to leave in > my stocking?! Well, it's nearly ready to roll... all put together, waiting for adverts at the moment, and most of the features are done (a couple need subbing though). The only problem I have is a lack of funds (I'm 110 quid over my overdraft limit), so it might be a while before it gets printed... Simon From imc Tue Nov 28 11:14:54 1995 Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 95 11:14:54 MET In-Reply-To: <9511271744.AA10845@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 27, 95 6:44 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 424 Lines: 10 On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 18:44:13 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > I use my home brew emulator (48K ROM + snap-code from MGT ++). > Oh..it's also a home-hacked version of Elite without the > Lenslock thingy. What on earth is the Lenslock anyway? I never even knew the Speccy version of Elite existed until last year, and when I found a copy of it at one of the ftp sites all it did was print a funny pattern on the screen... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 11:53:10 1995 Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 12:49:47 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511281149.AA11606@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1214 Lines: 29 > On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 18:44:13 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > > I use my home brew emulator (48K ROM + snap-code from MGT ++). > > Oh..it's also a home-hacked version of Elite without the > > Lenslock thingy. > > What on earth is the Lenslock anyway? I never even knew the Speccy version > of Elite existed until last year, and when I found a copy of it at one of > the ftp sites all it did was print a funny pattern on the screen... That's Lenslock for you :) You were supposed to look at the pattern through special optics, get a combination of two letters or numbers and type it in. Got lots of complaints as the probability of actually reading something remotely familiar to letters/numbers depended on several factors, as eye vision, size of TV, tube of TV and IQ of the player. I myself had little problems, but that did not stop me from hacking it, and really easy it was too. I remember that the package came with a short story (nice one too) and a keyboard overlay that only matched the rubber-keyed Spectrum. Oh, BTW! I was in touch with David Braben with the prospect of converting Elite to the SAM, but was blankly refused. :( -Frode who remembers playing Elite for ages and ages. > > imc > From imc Tue Nov 28 11:57:29 1995 Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 95 11:57:29 MET In-Reply-To: <9511281149.AA11606@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 28, 95 12:49 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 573 Lines: 13 On Tue, 28 Nov 1995 12:49:47 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > who remembers playing Elite for ages and ages. I actually played it on a PC XT for long enough to get up to elite. This was while I was working for IMI Computing. They had copies on all their PCs but I hacked it for them so that it didn't ask for a random word out of the manual. :-) The good thing about using an XT (when everyone else in the office had a nice PS/2 model) was that when I ran the game using colour shading rather than wire frame graphics it was quite slow and easier to control. :-) imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 12:17:41 1995 Message-Id: <199511281216.NAA22733@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 12:16:31 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9511281149.AA11606@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 28, 95 12:49:47 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 226 Lines: 8 > > > On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 18:44:13 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > Oh, BTW! I was in touch with David Braben with the prospect of converting > Elite to the SAM, but was blankly refused. :( How come you were refused???? Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 12:54:53 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 12:30:24 +0000 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: samtoms (bug... oops) Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 385 Lines: 13 Thanks to my stupidity, samtoms is bugged -- the length page entry is length>>16 instead of length>>14 and so anything over 16k in length will fail to be saved to sam disk correctly. I will upload the new (fixed) version to nvg any minute now. Sorry about this, but really, 16k modulus was stupid anyway ;-) ;-) AFAIK sam->ms is fine, as no=one has told me otherwise... Geoff -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 12:56:58 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 12:33:24 +0000 X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: before I forget Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 183 Lines: 12 It's in ftp.nvg.unit.no:/pub/sam-coupe/incoming/samtoms.new Download it, rename it to samtoms.exe and use at your leisure. I'll upload the C source in a sec :) Cheers Geoff -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 13:01:38 1995 Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 13:30:38 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511281230.AA11623@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 351 Lines: 15 > > > On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 18:44:13 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > > Oh, BTW! I was in touch with David Braben with the prospect of converting > > Elite to the SAM, but was blankly refused. :( > > How come you were refused???? Hmm...I think the wording was something like "....we don't feel that this is a suitable platform." > > Simon > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 13:03:46 1995 Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 12:17:55 +0000 (GMT) From: Daniel James Doore X-Sender: iq4d4385@jaffle-fddi To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spectrum emulation In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 595 Lines: 16 > Just out of interest, what sort of Speccy emulators are people using? I use LERM Samtape4, since it`s better than the MGT one and allowed me to play Steve Davies Snooker ;) I also use(d) a 48K ROM with saving additions from the MGT emulator, that works quite well for most stuff. Dan. +========================================================================+ | Dan Doore - Ex-Head Pod And Dogsbody | D.J.Doore-iq4d4385@lmu.ac.uk | | WARNING!! Only read every so often, so you might have to wait a bit. | +========================================================================+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 13:07:45 1995 Message-Id: <23195.199511281125@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: Re: boai To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 11:25:32 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199511281035.LAA21867@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 28, 95 10:34:44 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] 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: 13 Re: Based on an Idea; Count me in as a subscriber when it comes out..! Will -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A sense of humour is not being able to laugh at a few jokes. It is the ability to laugh at yourself." From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 13:11:26 1995 Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 13:29:39 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511281229.AA11620@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 815 Lines: 22 > I actually played it on a PC XT for long enough to get up to elite. This > was while I was working for IMI Computing. They had copies on all their > PCs but I hacked it for them so that it didn't ask for a random word out > of the manual. :-) > > The good thing about using an XT (when everyone else in the office had a > nice PS/2 model) was that when I ran the game using colour shading rather > than wire frame graphics it was quite slow and easier to control. :-) I had the chance to play Elite on a 386 and it was only marginally faster than the Speccy-version, though 10 times faster machine (on the paper), and I must say that the playability and feel of the Speccy version is way above the PC version. -Frode > > imc > PS: Check out http://who.the.fuck.wants.to.buy.from.micros0ft.com/ :))))) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 13:33:23 1995 Message-Id: <199511281317.OAA23264@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 13:17:01 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9511281230.AA11623@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 28, 95 01:30:38 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 213 Lines: 9 > Hmm...I think the wording was something like > > "....we don't feel that this is a suitable platform." That's rich when it's been on the Spectrum and the Beeb. Bah.. the guy needs to smell the coffee. Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 13:53:29 1995 Message-Id: <19568.9511281324@rs6-233.cls-4.bcc.ac.uk> Subject: Re: boai To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 13:24:30 +0000 (GMT) From: Mr Keith Turner Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <199511281035.LAA21867@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 28, 95 10:34:44 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: 691 Lines: 18 Andrew Gale asked: > > How is Based On An Idea.... coming along, and will it > > be out soon enough for Father Christmas to leave in > > my stocking?! Simon said: > Well, it's nearly ready to roll... all put together, waiting for adverts at > the moment, and most of the features are done (a couple need subbing > though). The only problem I have is a lack of funds (I'm 110 quid over my > overdraft limit), so it might be a while before it gets printed... I'm sure there are a few people on this list who will pay for their copies in advance, to help the cause. Where do we send the money? :) / To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 13:27:09 +0000 Subject: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <77CFD071BB@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1024 Lines: 24 Since the topic seems to be Elite now ;-) . . . Were there ANY differences between Elite 'officially 48K' and Elite 'called 128K but worked on a 48K anyway' versions? As far as I can see the only change was the 'get Elite status instantly' bug was removed (bastrads!) I think the launch sfx were different too :0) I also think the lenslock sucked. The idea was that it was some sort of software protection, but being constructed from flimsy plastic - and the fact that you had to bend it into a table shape - meant that they broke quite quickly, at least, mine did, which is the ONLY reason I got Elite 128 (no lenslock!) after mine broke for Elite and Tomahawk - NOT INTERCHANGABLE EITHER - nor could you get spares from ANYONE! And. . what does 'not a suitable platform' mean? The wrote Elite for the Tatung Einstein! Was that a suitable platform?? ** He wasn't always like this: At the age of 12 he was considerably shorter, had never had oral sex, and believed there was a rabbit hiding behind everything ** From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 14:35:45 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 14:20:16 +0000 Subject: Re: boai Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <78B2756925@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 202 Lines: 8 Hey, by the way, how much is it? o o \_/ ** He wasn't always like this: At the age of 12 he was considerably shorter, had never had oral sex, and believed there was a rabbit hiding behind everything ** From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 14:44:32 1995 Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 14:55:33 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511281355.AA11965@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 322 Lines: 16 > > Hmm...I think the wording was something like > > > > "....we don't feel that this is a suitable platform." > > That's rich when it's been on the Spectrum and the Beeb. > > Bah.. the guy needs to smell the coffee. Hmm..that's probably the problem. How much coffee would it be in for him? :) > > Simon > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 15:07:27 1995 Message-Id: <199511281403.PAA23764@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: boai To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 14:02:39 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <19568.9511281324@rs6-233.cls-4.bcc.ac.uk> from "Mr Keith Turner" at Nov 28, 95 01:24:30 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 835 Lines: 22 > Simon said: > > Well, it's nearly ready to roll... all put together, waiting for adverts at > > the moment, and most of the features are done (a couple need subbing > > though). The only problem I have is a lack of funds (I'm 110 quid over my > > overdraft limit), so it might be a while before it gets printed... > > I'm sure there are a few people on this list who will pay for their > copies in advance, to help the cause. Where do we send the money? :) Well, you send the money to: 1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP... cheques to M.Rookyard... It's 6 quid for a year's sub (for which you get 4 issues), or 2 quid per ish individually... To print, we'd need about ... ooooh... 11 subscribers for a year at the moment ;) Either that, or a few advertisers at 10 quid a full-page advert... Cheers, Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 16:35:29 1995 Message-Id: <20951.199511281344@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 13:44:51 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9511281149.AA11606@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 28, 95 12:49:47 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] 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: 504 Lines: 20 > > -Frode > who remembers playing Elite for ages and ages. > I still do. Can't bloody find that cloaking device. I'm absolutely invincible; not a thing can touch me I'm so good, but can't get the ruddy thing. Will -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A sense of humour is not being able to laugh at a few jokes. It is the ability to laugh at yourself." From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 16:41:52 1995 Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 15:09:19 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511281409.AA11973@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1282 Lines: 38 > Since the topic seems to be Elite now ;-) . . . > Were there ANY differences between Elite 'officially 48K' and Elite > 'called 128K but worked on a 48K anyway' versions? > As far as I can see the only change was the 'get Elite status > instantly' bug was removed (bastrads!) I think there are extra missions - at least on the 128K. I'm not exactly sure. > > I think the launch sfx were different too :0) > > I also think the lenslock sucked. The idea was that it was some sort > of software protection, but being constructed from flimsy plastic - > and the fact that you had to bend it into a table shape - meant that > they broke quite quickly, at least, mine did, which is the ONLY > reason I got Elite 128 (no lenslock!) after mine broke for Elite and > Tomahawk - NOT INTERCHANGABLE EITHER - nor could you get spares > from ANYONE! I used cardboard to strengthen the joints and taped the whole thing together. > > And. . what does 'not a suitable platform' mean? The wrote Elite for > the Tatung Einstein! Was that a suitable platform?? Beats me. Perhaps I'll ask him !? > ** > He wasn't always like this: At the age of 12 he was considerably > shorter, had never had oral sex, and believed there was a > rabbit hiding behind everything > ** Who? -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 16:57:47 1995 Message-Id: <20017.199511281342@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 13:42:36 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9511281114.AA01400@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Nov 28, 95 11:14:54 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 897 Lines: 22 > > What on earth is the Lenslock anyway? I never even knew the Speccy version > of Elite existed until last year, and when I found a copy of it at one of > the ftp sites all it did was print a funny pattern on the screen... That funny pattern is Lenslok. You needed a crappy plastic lens (mine broke, so I had to use my Multifaced version) to decode it, then input what you could read through it. The only other game that used it was Tomahawk (by Digital Integration) which Dave Marshall (MD of DI, and programmer) says was his finest hour, despite coming up with PC games like Tornado and Apache Longbow. Will -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A sense of humour is not being able to laugh at a few jokes. It is the ability to laugh at yourself." From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 17:00:44 1995 Message-Id: <18532.199511281338@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 13:38:43 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9511281230.AA11623@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 28, 95 01:30:38 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 888 Lines: 32 > > > > > On Mon, 27 Nov 1995 18:44:13 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > > > Oh, BTW! I was in touch with David Braben with the prospect of converting > > > Elite to the SAM, but was blankly refused. :( > > > > How come you were refused???? > > Hmm...I think the wording was something like > > "....we don't feel that this is a suitable platform." > Crap. If the Speccy 48K can do it, then the SAM can. Try writing back. Tell him that you won't make such a dog's bollocks of the job as he made of First Encounters (Elite 3). I'm p!$$ed off; I haven't had any caffeine for at least three hours. Will -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A sense of humour is not being able to laugh at a few jokes. It is the ability to laugh at yourself." From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Nov 28 17:34:02 1995 Message-Id: <6719.199511281539@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 15:39:21 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <77CFD071BB@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> from "Dave Hooper" at Nov 28, 95 01:27:09 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] 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: 1360 Lines: 36 > Were there ANY differences between Elite 'officially 48K' and Elite > 'called 128K but worked on a 48K anyway' versions? > As far as I can see the only change was the 'get Elite status > instantly' bug was removed (bastrads!) > > I think the launch sfx were different too :0) There was a change in ships. The 128K version didn't have adders (I think), and replaced them with Kraits. Nicer to shoot at, 'cos they didn't have missiles. When they came in those 3 or 4 strong groups with the sidewinders, I went for the Kraits first, cos then I wouldn't have a missile trying to ram itself up my arse while I was vapourising the rest of the buggers. The Elite instantly bug got boring after a while. While we're on epic games, anyone remember Carrier Command? It was actually better than the Atari ST and Amiga versions (I hear they didn't have the time lapse, and they had it so that you could stand off out of range and blast the enemies to hell without getting a scratch). Anyway. Elite. It'd be excellent to have it on the SAM. -Will "I've had my coffee now" Easson -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A sense of humour is not being able to laugh at a few jokes. It is the ability to laugh at yourself." From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 08:13:16 1995 Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 06:43:18 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <12011@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 364 Lines: 15 Lenslok was a jund of prism in plastic. A code was printed on screen so only peering at it through the plastic would resolve the cpde. You then had to type it in to get in. It was a waste of time as you could not do it with certain common eye conditions! imc... This is the man who never saw the best trading game on the Speccy! Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 10:46:45 1995 Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 09:36:58 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511290836.AA12856@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 145 Lines: 10 > imc... > This is the man who never saw the best trading game on the > Speccy! The best trading game? The best game ever! > > Brian -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 10:53:07 1995 Message-Id: <199511291027.LAA02472@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: boai To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 10:26:48 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <78B2756925@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> from "Dave Hooper" at Nov 28, 95 02:20:16 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 586 Lines: 17 > > Hey, by the way, how much is it? I think I've already put that up on here (but here goes again anyway): It's 6 quid for a year's sub (which entails 4 issues of the mag, and possibly the occasional cover disk -- though that depends on how much stuff we can scrape together). Or you can get single issues for 2 quid a piece. Cheques made payable to M. Rookyard, send 'em with your name & address to Simon Cooke, 1 Dovey Close, Astley, Tyldesley, Manchester, M29 7NP... And I think I'll put that up on the web pages, just in case :) (http://jumper.mcc.ac.uk/~simonc/boai) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 12:18:24 1995 Message-Id: <27050.199511291158@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 11:57:59 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9511290836.AA12856@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Nov 29, 95 09:36:58 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] 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: 1037 Lines: 36 > > > imc... > > This is the man who never saw the best trading game on the > > Speccy! > > The best trading game? The best game ever! > > > > > Brian > > -Frode Indeed. But I never could be bothered trading, and was a pure and simple combateer, with a little piracy, gunrunning, and drugs pushing when I needed a little extra cash. God how I rejoiced as my first Fer-De-Lance exploded. Fun times, eh? Incidentally, the Fer De Lance doesn't make an appearance in Frontier or First Encounters (history tells us that the police made them illegal). Don't make games like they used to. I doubt I'll still be playing Terminal Velocity in ten years (doesn't seem that long ago I made my maiden flight in Elite...). Will (getting all nostalgic now...) -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A sense of humour is not being able to laugh at a few jokes. It is the ability to laugh at yourself." From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 13:22:09 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 13:25:00 +0000 Subject: Accelerator board... Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <8FC7726450@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 863 Lines: 21 Hey, I thought I'd ask about the accelerator again - we haven't had a bit of that for a while. . . :) Where does it *GO*? I was most upset when I realised that practically every Sam thingy (except 256K upgrade) bolted on the back, and if you needed more than one you also needed that card cage thingy - I didn't have room for it, so I never bought one, and hence never bought anything more than a Comms interface! Is the Z380 just a fast Z80 (presumably not). IF not then I suppose you could use the 16bit functionality and stuff - how would that work? Also (Simon) I'd be interested to know for what major use you are building the board - what has motivated its construction? cheers, dave ** He wasn't always like this: At the age of 12 he was considerably shorter, had never had oral sex, and believed there was a rabbit hiding behind everything ** From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 13:59:16 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 13:19:53 +0000 Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <8FB1A677BC@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 478 Lines: 10 Err, I'm sure Elite 48 had Kraits too, but there again I haven't played for a while now. . . I didn't know either version had Adders! Also, was it a 'feature' or a 'bug' that, when you shot an asteroid, occasionally a couple of Kraits and a Sidewinder flew off to kick your butt, and the asteroid shot back . . ? ** He wasn't always like this: At the age of 12 he was considerably shorter, had never had oral sex, and believed there was a rabbit hiding behind everything ** From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 14:23:20 1995 Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 13:50:21 +0000 (GMT) From: Tim Wells <93tgw@eng.cam.ac.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) In-Reply-To: <77CFD071BB@eigg.sms.ed.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: 721 Lines: 22 > Since the topic seems to be Elite now ;-) . . . > Were there ANY differences between Elite 'officially 48K' and Elite > 'called 128K but worked on a 48K anyway' versions? > As far as I can see the only change was the 'get Elite status > instantly' bug was removed (bastrads!) > > I think the launch sfx were different too :0) Not sure about that, but there were two main differences that I saw: Only on the 128K version, would the space stations launch Vipers if attacked. My 48K version would just not let you dock there. (bugged?) 'S' symbol to show you were near a space station was slightly different. Oh yes, and the various hacks for when I wanted to go on serious killing sprees were different! Tim. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 17:02:59 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 14:48:09 +0000 Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) Priority: urgent X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <912A6173A4@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 763 Lines: 20 I've just remembered that in 128 the space stations occasionally launched Pythons ('realistic space traffic' or something) which often made it harder to dock! (You'd be approaching dead slow, then a python would launch from the space station and appear directly in front of you, and ram you!) The 48 version was just as easy to dock tho' ;-) Oddly, i only ever got the supernova mission on the 48 version. But let's change topic: Anyone who wants to see a Sam version: How would it be coded (mode 4 is a little to slow, no? Or am I wrong? Or is THAT what the accelerator for??!! :) ) dave ** He wasn't always like this: At the age of 12 he was considerably shorter, had never had oral sex, and believed there was a rabbit hiding behind everything ** From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 17:13:50 1995 Message-Id: <1711.199511291445@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> From: William Easson <9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 14:45:10 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <8FB1A677BC@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> from "Dave Hooper" at Nov 29, 95 01:19:53 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] 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: 1149 Lines: 29 > > Err, I'm sure Elite 48 had Kraits too, but there again I haven't > played for a while now. . . I didn't know either version had Adders! > Also, was it a 'feature' or a 'bug' that, when you shot an asteroid, > occasionally a couple of Kraits and a Sidewinder flew off to kick > your butt, and the asteroid shot back . . ? Yeah. I think that was meant to be an anaconda-class cruiser, but they probably couldn't fit the vector matrices etc into the 48k memory, so they just used the info for the asteroid instead. I went in close to see how they moved to decide whether they were anacondas or asteroids; anacodas didn't rotate and move like asteroids. Once I'd decided, I'd just blast the bugger anyway (quicker than flying past, and you got cargo into the bargain). I still think the 128K version lacked adders and replaced them with kraits, though. Will. -- E-Mail: 9264201e@udcf.gla.ac.uk WWW: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/WebSoc/~9264201e/ and: http://www.gla.ac.uk/Clubs/GUVZS/ and: http://www.src.gla.ac.uk/users/club02/GUVZS/ "A sense of humour is not being able to laugh at a few jokes. It is the ability to laugh at yourself." From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 17:49:50 1995 Date: Wed, 29 Nov 95 16:48:55 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: Spec 128 emulation To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no X-Mailer: Chameleon ENGP1, TCP/IP for Windows, 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: 664 Lines: 21 On Tue, 28 Nov 1995 13:42:36 +0000 (GMT) William Easson wrote: >That funny pattern is Lenslok. You needed a crappy plastic lens (mine >broke, so I had to use my Multifaced version) to decode it, then input >what you could read through it. The only other game that used it was >Tomahawk (by Digital Integration) which Dave Marshall (MD of DI, and >programmer) says was his finest hour, despite coming up >with PC games like Tornado and Apache Longbow. TT Racer (also by DI) used Lenslock too.... ;) 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 imc Wed Nov 29 18:17:00 1995 Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 29 Nov 95 18:17:00 MET In-Reply-To: <912A6173A4@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk>; from "Dave Hooper" at Nov 29, 95 2:48 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 504 Lines: 12 On Wed, 29 Nov 1995 14:48:09 +0000, Dave Hooper said: > But let's change topic: > Anyone who wants to see a Sam version: > How would it be coded (mode 4 is a little to slow, no? Or am I wrong? > Or is THAT what the accelerator for??!! :) ) I imagine, as per BBC, we might have a mode 1 wireframe display and a mode 4 instrument panel. There's not much you can do tp improve it except by going to full colour shading, which would have to be in mode 4. However, if the machine's fast enough... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 18:37:48 1995 Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 18:29:55 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511291729.AA13955@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 652 Lines: 16 > But let's change topic: > Anyone who wants to see a Sam version: > How would it be coded (mode 4 is a little to slow, no? Or am I wrong? > Or is THAT what the accelerator for??!! :) ) Hmm...Si and I had a small ..eh... exchange of ideas a couple of moons ago...:) Mode 3 would be nice though. And you don't really need that many colours. It shouldn't be too much of a problem to update 2/3 screen of wireframe in 120KT. Filed WF is more tricky though - depending on the complexity and number of objects present, it should be feasable within the timing constraints at 25Hz I'd guess. OK! I'll get in touch with David Braben again and ask him. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 19:26:49 1995 Message-Id: <199511291406.PAA04966@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Accelerator board... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 14:06:04 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <8FC7726450@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> from "Dave Hooper" at Nov 29, 95 01:25:00 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 4413 Lines: 85 > Hey, I thought I'd ask about the accelerator again - we haven't had a > bit of that for a while. . . :) Okey dokey then :) > Where does it *GO*? I was most upset when I realised that practically > every Sam thingy (except 256K upgrade) bolted on the back, and if you > needed more than one you also needed that card cage thingy - I didn't > have room for it, so I never bought one, and hence never bought > anything more than a Comms interface! Umm.. unfortunately, unless you're a dab hand at soldering and don't mind opening up your SAM and removing the euroconnector, adding a 96-pin one, soldering the accelerator board to the pins one by one, and then finding that it doesn't work because of the arcane methods involved, you're going to have to plug it into the back. This isn't too bad; it'll have a through connector, and we're making it in surface mount technology (no choice with the Z380 I'm afraid), so with a bit of luck it won't have a massive footprint.. > Is the Z380 just a fast Z80 (presumably not). IF not then I suppose > you could use the 16bit functionality and stuff - how would that > work? It's more than just a fast Z80 - it's a Z80 with 32 bit registers, multiply & divide instructions, 4 register sets (one of which we've reserved as our own SYSTEM set), loads more new instructions besides.. It also has built in pipelining, so most instructions execute in between 2 and 3 cycles. As well as a 16 bit data bus, it has a 32 bit address bus. The Accelerator will work in 2 or 3 modes... Mode 0 will be the standard SAM Compatibility mode, which will work with an 8 bit data bus, 16 bit address bus -- yet if you want to, you'll still be able to use all the new instructions in this mode (this is going to cause problems with things that use the R register, or those that use SLL or any other undocumented instructions, other than the IX based ones (IXL, IXH, IYL, IYH)). You'll also be able to get to the upper halves of the 32-bit registers through what are called Decoder Directive instructions (they effectively change the operating word size of the following instructions) - similar to ED or CB, but instead of changing instructions, they just alter the size that they operate on. In mode 0, the virtual i/o will work (allows you to emulate any hardware device you like in software - handy if someone alters, say, the disk controller chips). Speed is gained by using a memory-mirror, which is read from whenever the Z380 needs to do a read, and written to (as well as the ASIC's memory) whenever a write has to be performed [Note 1]. In mode 1, the system takes on a new role, in that we now allow you to use (as the standard operating mode) a 16 bit address bus, and a full 4 Gigabyte contiguous address space. Not only that, but the 1Mb SIMM which was the memory-mirror in mode 0, becomes the Accelerator's memory space (Which can be upgraded by inserting more SIMMs). Somewhere in the memory map, you'll still have access to the ASIC/Internal memory (necessary for the screen!), but it'll be much easier to implement things like C, or even a UNIX based operating system, which many SAM Users members have expressed an interest in doing. There may or may not be a MMU in the pipeline; it depends on discussions which we're having with Zilog. > Also (Simon) I'd be interested to know for what major use you are > building the board - what has motivated its construction? Speed, speed and more speed. Seeing that Bob Brenchley has gone on the record saying that the ASIC upgrade never existed (which it did - anybody with Bruce's phone number should ask him), it's now the only way to bring the SAM up there with the big boys, yet keep the flavour of the machine. If we don't do something soon, the SAM will have its last breath -- I won't say it'll die out -- I think it might already be in the process of doing that, and has been doing so since late 1992. Also, (Martin's main reason for being involved, aside from the fun inherent in the venture) is because all of the principles involved -- including with the MultiROM, the IDE hard drive interface, etc etc -- in designing this hardware can be applied to creating a base machine spec for the MiDGET, so even though these devices are for the SAM, through making them we have the knowledge necessary to do a lot more. Hope that answers your question, Simon From imc Wed Nov 29 19:33:00 1995 Subject: Re: Accelerator board... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 29 Nov 95 19:33:00 MET In-Reply-To: <199511291406.PAA04966@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 29, 95 2:06 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 361 Lines: 8 On Wed, 29 Nov 1995 14:06:04 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > Speed is gained by using a memory-mirror, which is > read from whenever the Z380 needs to do a read, and written to (as well > as the ASIC's memory) whenever a write has to be performed [Note 1]. Don't you just hate it when someone refers to a footnote that isn't there... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Nov 29 20:00:09 1995 Date: Tue, 28 Nov 1995 17:30:05 +0000 (GMT) From: Si Owen To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) In-Reply-To: <77CFD071BB@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Message-Id: Organisation: Wordcraft International Ltd. X-Smtp-Posting-Host: obobo.demon.co.uk [Wed, 29 Nov 95 17:06:42 GMT] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: post.demon.co.uk [Wed, 29 Nov 95 17:16:58 GMT] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 1180 Lines: 29 On Tue, 28 Nov 1995, Dave Hooper wrote: > Since the topic seems to be Elite now ;-) . . . > Were there ANY differences between Elite 'officially 48K' and Elite > 'called 128K but worked on a 48K anyway' versions? > As far as I can see the only change was the 'get Elite status > instantly' bug was removed (bastrads!) They also fixed shooting at space-stations. In the 48k (only) version you didn't get any vipers come out to get you - a fun improvement for the 128k (compatible) version! :-) > I also think the lenslock sucked. The idea was that it was some sort > of software protection. I hacked it out of Art Studio and added it to the original tape of a game I bought for a friend. He nearly took it back to the shop cos he didn't have a lenslok in the box! The code was always 'SI'!!! Hey, have we gone a bit off-subject for a Sam group? Si +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Si Owen | Email: si@obobo.demon.co.uk | | Wordcraft International Ltd, UK | Fax: +44-1332-295525 | +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 30 08:44:04 1995 Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 09:10:47 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9511300810.AA14266@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Accelerator board... X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 699 Lines: 20 > Umm.. unfortunately, unless you're a dab hand at soldering and don't mind > opening up your SAM and removing the euroconnector, adding a 96-pin one, > soldering the accelerator board to the pins one by one, and then finding > that it doesn't work because of the arcane methods involved, you're going > to have to plug it into the back. This isn't too bad; it'll have a > through connector, and we're making it in surface mount technology (no > choice with the Z380 I'm afraid), so with a bit of luck it won't have a > massive footprint.. How about applying SMD technology to the connector(s) also? :) > Hope that answers your question, Nice for the rest of us too. > Simon > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 30 10:53:59 1995 Message-Id: <199511301015.LAA15367@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Accelerator board... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 10:14:43 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <199511291406.PAA04966@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Nov 29, 95 02:06:04 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2159 Lines: 43 Thanks Ian! It would appear that I have been spoiled with MS Word's automatic footnote stuff ;) > In mode 0, the virtual i/o will work (allows you to emulate any hardware > device you like in software - handy if someone alters, say, the disk > controller chips). Speed is gained by using a memory-mirror, which is > read from whenever the Z380 needs to do a read, and written to (as well > as the ASIC's memory) whenever a write has to be performed [Note 1]. [Note 1] The memory system is to a greater or lesser extent user-definable, in terms of memory contention. The current design dictates that there will be four octal latches, each of which holds a bit pattern, each bit corresponding to a page in the SAM's internal memory map. If the bit is reset, then the Accelerator will treat that page as it was doing at the show (reads are done exclusively from the fast memory-mirror, writes wait for the ASIC, and write to both the memory-mirror and the SAM's internal memory). If the bit is set, however, then writes occur to the memory-mirror ONLY, thus reducing (or possibly removing altogether) the memory contention for accesses to that 16k page. Waits are also taken through for I/O instructions (though we have some fiddling to do with this, based on the Stack and an interrupt system to provide the virtual ports). Since (at a quick glance) approximately 85% of all memory accesses are memory reads, this means that the Z380 will run at the equivalent of about 15MHz rather than the full 18MHz (which, given that the SAM runs normally at about 4MHz, is a threefold increase in the speed of the system... taking into account the Z380's reduced instruction cycles, this gives a machine which should run at approx. 6 times the current SAM speed). Bringing in the flexible contention system, some pages will run at the full 18MHz, and in these cases, the speed will be approx. 8 times the current SAM speed.* *all of these figures are currently best-guess estimates; due to the Z380 manuals not documenting the instruction prefetch pipeline, we can only guess at how fast it'll go. [filling in the gaps... phew...] Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 30 16:58:46 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 17:00:10 +0000 Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) Priority: urgent X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 685 Lines: 17 Er, I don't think we want a wirey wireframe. I think filled WF is the way to go, using dithered shading (ala checkerboard) would be easy enough, what with having two pixels per byte. How much screen can YOU update each frame? (I must confess to knowing very few tricks to speed up anything - as I said earlier my 'record' for a MOD-esque player used vast amounts of memory and ran at a fantastic 6Khz (er, or less, possibly). I can copy byte-for-byte about 1/8 of a screen) No way can you do 2/3 screen in 25Hz! dave ** He wasn't always like this: At the age of 12 he was considerably shorter, had never had oral sex, and believed there was a rabbit hiding behind everything ** From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 30 17:19:19 1995 Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 17:06:45 +0000 (GMT) From: Si Owen To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) In-Reply-To: <9511291817.AA11244@booth4.ecs.ox.ac.uk> Message-Id: Organisation: Wordcraft International Ltd. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII X-Smtp-Posting-Host: obobo.demon.co.uk [Thu, 30 Nov 95 17:06:59 GMT] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: post.demon.co.uk [Thu, 30 Nov 95 17:12:56 GMT] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 848 Lines: 19 On Wed, 29 Nov 1995 Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk wrote: > On Wed, 29 Nov 1995 14:48:09 +0000, Dave Hooper said: > I imagine, as per BBC, we might have a mode 1 wireframe display and a mode 4 > instrument panel. There's not much you can do tp improve it except by going > to full colour shading, which would have to be in mode 4. However, if the > machine's fast enough... Mode 1 is slowed down to near Speccy speed, the other modes are not. Best use mode 2, especially since it has a more appropriate screen layout :-) Si +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Si Owen | Email: si@obobo.demon.co.uk | | Wordcraft International Ltd, UK | Fax: +44-1332-295525 | +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ From imc Thu Nov 30 17:24:50 1995 Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 30 Nov 95 17:24:50 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Si Owen" at Nov 30, 95 5:06 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 370 Lines: 10 On Thu, 30 Nov 1995 17:06:45 +0000 (GMT), Si Owen said: > On Wed, 29 Nov 1995 Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk wrote: > > I imagine, as per BBC, we might have a mode 1 wireframe display > Mode 1 is slowed down to near Speccy speed, the other modes are not. Best use > mode 2, especially since it has a more appropriate screen layout :-) Oops, that's what I meant. :-) imc From imc Thu Nov 30 17:30:38 1995 Subject: Re: Elite (..whilst we're on the subject . . .) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 30 Nov 95 17:30:38 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Dave Hooper" at Nov 30, 95 5:00 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 896 Lines: 20 On Thu, 30 Nov 1995 17:00:10 +0000, Dave Hooper said: > Er, I don't think we want a wirey wireframe. I think filled WF is the > way to go, using dithered shading (ala checkerboard) would be easy > enough, what with having two pixels per byte. As I said, you have two choices: either a mode 2 white wireframe for speed or a mode 3/4 coloured shaded thing for beauty. My instinct reaction is that the latter would be too slow, but I would be happy to be proved wrong. A mode 3 white wireframe might be a useful compromise (to get the better resolution) but on the whole I think that for a white wireframe I'd rather have the speed of mode 2. For a coloured shaded thing I'd be interested to hear opinions on whether a higher resolution fewer coloured thing is better than a lower resolution more coloured thing. You would probably survive on black, white, red and yellow if you had to. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 30 18:14:47 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 16:55:06 +0000 Subject: Re: Accelerator board... Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 679 Lines: 18 > Also, (Martin's main reason for being involved, aside from the fun > inherent in the venture) is because all of the > principles involved -- including with the MultiROM, the IDE hard drive > interface, etc etc -- in designing this hardware can be applied to > creating a base machine spec for the MiDGET, so even though these devices > are for the SAM, through making them we have the knowledge necessary to > do a lot more. Er, (blimey), what's the MiDGET? You boys making a computer up there, eh? :) dave ** He wasn't always like this: At the age of 12 he was considerably shorter, had never had oral sex, and believed there was a rabbit hiding behind everything ** From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 30 19:16:26 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 16:50:43 +0000 Subject: Re: Accelerator board... Priority: urgent X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1291 Lines: 28 > Since (at a quick glance) approximately 85% of all memory accesses are > memory reads, this means that the Z380 will run at the equivalent of > about 15MHz rather than the full 18MHz (which, given that the SAM runs > normally at about 4MHz, is a threefold increase in the speed of the > system... taking into account the Z380's reduced instruction cycles, this > gives a machine which should run at approx. 6 times the current SAM > speed). Bringing in the flexible contention system, some pages will run > at the full 18MHz, and in these cases, the speed will be approx. 8 times > the current SAM speed.* > Er, Si . . doesn't the SAM run at 6Mhz . . ? I thought I'd also just say the following. . According to a (questionably reliable) source, a friend of a friend has managed to run a Pentium processor at several hundred Mhz with carefully controlled usage of Liquid Nitrogen as a heatsink. . . Presumably this is not likely, since the processor would freak out if run at much above its specific clock rate, would it not? What *actually* governs the maximum clock rate at which you can run a processor? dave ** He wasn't always like this: At the age of 12 he was considerably shorter, had never had oral sex, and believed there was a rabbit hiding behind everything ** From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 30 20:08:52 1995 Date: Wed, 29 Nov 1995 21:11:40 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Carrier Command To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no In-Reply-To: <6719.199511281539@lenzie.cent.gla.ac.uk> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.96] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 608 Lines: 14 On Wed, 29 Nov, William Easson wrote: > While we're on epic games, anyone remember Carrier Command? It was > actually better than the Atari ST and Amiga versions (I hear they didn't > have the time lapse, and they had it so that you could stand off out of > range and blast the enemies to hell without getting a scratch). I liked 'Carrier Command', I unfortunately lossed my copy when I sold my Spectrum +2 (grey-model) - I know I never should have done that, but I really needed the cash at that moment. Does somebody know where I can get a copy of 'Carrier Command'? David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Nov 30 20:22:46 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 20:08:01 +0000 In-Reply-To: 9531427 -- "Re: Accelerator board..." (Nov 30, 4:50pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Accelerator board... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1401 Lines: 34 On Nov 30, 4:50pm in "Re: Accelerator board...", Dave warbled: ] Er, Si . . doesn't the SAM run at 6Mhz . . ? Correction -- the sam is -clocked- at 6MHz. Because of asic waits and various other nasties, it gets rather less than that. ] According to a (questionably reliable) source, a friend of a friend ] has managed to run a Pentium processor at several hundred Mhz with ] carefully controlled usage of Liquid Nitrogen as a heatsink. . . ] Presumably this is not likely, since the processor would freak out if ] run at much above its specific clock rate, would it not? No. ] What *actually* governs the maximum clock rate at which you can run a ] processor? The amount of time it takes for a transistor to switch from a 0 to a 1, iirc. Which (if you use .2u [1] technology) can be got down to allow a lot more than 200MHz. If you really wanted to be silly, using Gallium Arsenide chips would allow a rate of around 2GHz. But no-one's built a z80 using GA yet... dunno why ;-) [2] [1] Note that this might be wrong, I'm typing from memory and it's a long time since I read about it. All I know is that this is the technology DEC use for their super chips, and are also planning to use for their ARM chip: the StrongARM, the first of which is to be clocked at around 160MHz (who needs a pentium anyway...) [2] yes I do. But it was a nice idea... these fuckers are -expensive- Geoff --