From imc Mon Dec 11 11:28:21 1995 Subject: Re: Sam games and stuff. . . To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 95 11:28:21 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 10, 95 2:27 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 661 Lines: 14 On Sun, 10 Dec 1995 14:27:03 +0000, Simon Cooke said: > Well, to boast, I regularly cook Chinese stir-frys (strip beef in black bean > sauce, custom jobs (sweet & sour usually, home made sauce...), Orange & mint > chicken with garlic mashed potatoes... full Sunday lunches, pizzas, chilli > con carne's and spaghetti bolognaises... poached salmon in a lemon butter > sauce... I could go on, but I'm getting hungry ;) > (And I'm boasting... but who cares? I've got a country to defend ;) Not that > it's worth defending these days, mind you...) I cook a mean omelette. Sometimes. But I really can't be bothered to do anything fancy. I live on toast... imc From imc Mon Dec 11 11:30:44 1995 Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 95 11:30:44 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Dec 10, 95 6:43 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 435 Lines: 12 On Sun, 10 Dec 1995 18:43:26 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > On Dec 10, 5:44pm in "Sam Newsgroup", warbled: > ] Lookijg at the turnover here, I reckpn we should go for a > ] newsgroup. Its getting awkward to thread emails! > Anyone for comp.sys.sam-coupe? Remember that you need at least 100 more yes votes than no votes. Given that the total membership of this mailing list is at the moment 37 I think that is a bit unlikely. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 11:53:30 1995 From: tsp93ma@soton.ac.uk Message-Id: <199512111123.LAA25706@vision.soton.ac.uk> Subject: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no (Sam Coupe Mailing List) Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 11:22:59 +0000 (GMT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 385 Lines: 14 Hullo! Nice idea this, but what about the poor people who don't have usenet access and just have email? Can some sort of forwarding to email or the like be done to them? It's not to hard to find, ie a gopher news server, but awkward? Unc ....@/ -- 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 Mon Dec 11 12:11:50 1995 Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 12:21:39 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512111121.AA29833@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: Sam games and stuff. . . X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 358 Lines: 11 > Just don't run Winshit95(TM) at all, get Linux and you won't have any > FTP or gen. app. error problems anymore... btw this is supposed to be a > SAM Coupe mailing list... this is not intended as a flame, I'm just fed up > of hearing everywhere talk about Winshit95(TM)... :-( I agree, but please don't post as root. _ > (_ i a o, Arne -Frode From imc Mon Dec 11 12:15:24 1995 Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 95 12:15:24 MET In-Reply-To: <9512111121.AA29833@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 11, 95 12:21 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 84 Lines: 3 Having said that, a newsgroup called comp.sys.oric just landed at my server... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 13:06:25 1995 Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 14:06:44 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512111306.AA29888@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 633 Lines: 18 > Having said that, a newsgroup called comp.sys.oric just landed at my server... I believe that oric has a much larger mass of users than SAM Coupe has, but it is a rahter neat idea. However, a mailing-list is a bit more intimiate, don't you think? Besides, what should it be called? comp.sys.sam-coupe won't work for SAM Elite, would it. And comp.sys.sam is not the thing to call it as there is/was a defense computer system that was called sam I think. an comp.sys.sam-coupe-&-elite sounds a bit daft. Anyway, enough warbling. If we quit the warbling, it should not be too difficult to follow any tread here. > > imc -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 13:13:53 1995 Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 13:04:27 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512111204.AA29857@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Sam games and stuff. . . X-Sun-Charset: ISO-8859-1 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 584 Lines: 14 > Well, to boast, I regularly cook Chinese stir-frys (strip beef in black bean > sauce, custom jobs (sweet & sour usually, home made sauce...), Orange & mint > chicken with garlic mashed potatoes... full Sunday lunches, pizzas, chilli > con carne's and spaghetti bolognaises... poached salmon in a lemon butter > sauce... I could go on, but I'm getting hungry ;) Then I'll be tempted to guess that you'r the exception that confirms the rule :) Come back to me when you can make 'pinnekjøtt' with mashed swede (!), sauerkraut and rothkraut and damped potatos? :) > > Simon -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 13:18:03 1995 Message-Id: <199512111317.OAA08852@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Sam games and stuff. . . To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 13:17:12 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512111204.AA29857@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 11, 95 01:04:27 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Status: RO Content-Length: 323 Lines: 12 > Then I'll be tempted to guess that you'r the exception that confirms th= e rule :) > Come back to me when you can make 'pinnekj=F8tt' with mashed swede (!), > sauerkraut and rothkraut and damped potatos? :) Go on, what's the recipe... And is a mashed swede what you saw when you were in Sweden recently? *ahem* Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 13:20:55 1995 Message-Id: <199512111319.OAA08888@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 13:19:10 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512111306.AA29888@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 11, 95 02:06:44 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: 425 Lines: 14 > Besides, what should it be called? comp.sys.sam-coupe won't work > for SAM Elite, would it. And comp.sys.sam is not the thing to call > it as there is/was a defense computer system that was called > sam I think. an comp.sys.sam-coupe-&-elite sounds a bit daft. You heathen, Frode! Tsk... calling the Elite a real SAM :( Should be comp.sys.sam-coupe-&-bastard-half-brother or even comp.sys.sam-coupe-&-the-mutant Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 13:22:03 1995 Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 12:20:00 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512111120.AA29830@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: Sam games and stuff. . . X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 660 Lines: 19 > No, none of that. I can download fine. It's just when I try to upload > using Netmanage Chameleon FTP that it says that it is starting upload, the > connection is opened but then nothing happens. > > With WinFTP there is no problem though... Very strange. Would you be kind enough to report this to agulbra@nvg.unit.no? > > BTW don't run Win95 with only a meg or so free on the hard disc. Lots and > lots of 0E general application errors galore as soon as you try to run more > than one program. (EVEN with 16 MB internal memory) You do know that 16 MB is the absolute minimum for Win95? > Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 13:26:30 1995 Message-Id: <199512111238.NAA08486@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 12:38:00 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512111215.AA00666@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 11, 95 12:15:24 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: 145 Lines: 5 > Having said that, a newsgroup called comp.sys.oric just landed at my server... Yeah... I noticed that one. Didn't pick it up though ;) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 13:49:01 1995 Message-Id: From: Andrew M Gale Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 13:33:05 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199512111319.OAA08888@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 11, 95 01:19:10 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: 592 Lines: 22 > > > Besides, what should it be called? comp.sys.sam-coupe won't work > > for SAM Elite, would it. And comp.sys.sam is not the thing to call > > it as there is/was a defense computer system that was called > > sam I think. an comp.sys.sam-coupe-&-elite sounds a bit daft. > > You heathen, Frode! > > Tsk... calling the Elite a real SAM :( > > Should be comp.sys.sam-coupe-&-bastard-half-brother > > or even comp.sys.sam-coupe-&-the-mutant > > Simon And what about comp.sys.sam512 ?? But funnily enough, my SamCo SAM 512 had MGT Sam Coupe plastered all over it. Odd that, isn't it? From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 14:14:47 1995 Message-Id: <199512111358.NAA00843@b25b-03.sucs.soton.ac.uk> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 13:58:36 +0000 (GMT) From: "T.S.Paveley" In-Reply-To: from "Andrew M Gale" at Dec 11, 95 01:33:05 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 438 Lines: 18 @/ And what about comp.sys.sam512 ?? @/ @/ But funnily enough, my SamCo SAM 512 had MGT Sam Coupe plastered @/ all over it. Odd that, isn't it? comp.sys.mgt? let's face it, +2 talk doesn't go in comp.sys.amstrad.... (well, actually it might, I don't know, but you know what I mean, perhaps) ....@/ -- 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 Mon Dec 11 14:14:47 1995 Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 15:13:04 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512111413.AA29923@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Sam games and stuff. . . X-Sun-Charset: ISO-8859-1 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 489 Lines: 17 > > Then I'll be tempted to guess that you'r the exception that confirms the rule :) > > Come back to me when you can make 'pinnekjøtt' with mashed swede (!), > > sauerkraut and rothkraut and damped potatos? :) > > Go on, what's the recipe... Come one, you should know. ;) Well, if you'r very interested I can give it to you :) > > And is a mashed swede what you saw when you were in Sweden recently? Actually, that's what was left when I was finished with them. :) > Simon -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 14:20:59 1995 Message-Id: <199512111419.PAA09772@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Sam games and stuff. . . To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 14:19:23 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512111413.AA29923@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 11, 95 03:13:04 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL21] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII From: Simon Cooke Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Status: RO Content-Length: 480 Lines: 16 > > > Come back to me when you can make 'pinnekj=F8tt' with mashed swede = (!), > > > sauerkraut and rothkraut and damped potatos? :) > >=20 > > Go on, what's the recipe... >=20 > Come one, you should know. ;) Well, if you'r very interested I can > give it to you :) Well... my cook-book can't handle the non-ASCII characters ;)=20 Send me a copy :) If it sounds nice, I'll knock it together (as long as I= =20 can get the ingredients not too expensively from Tescos) =20 Simon From imc Mon Dec 11 14:24:33 1995 Subject: Re: Sam games and stuff. . . To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 95 14:24:33 MET In-Reply-To: <199512111419.PAA09772@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 11, 95 2:19 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 370 Lines: 12 On Mon, 11 Dec 1995 14:19:23 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > Well... my cook-book can't handle the non-ASCII characters ;)=20 > > Send me a copy :) If it sounds nice, I'll knock it together (as long as I= > =20 > can get the ingredients not too expensively from Tescos) > =20 Aargh! Get this MIME out of here! And stop typing spaces at the ends of your lines. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 14:33:53 1995 Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 15:14:38 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512111414.AA29926@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 615 Lines: 24 > > Besides, what should it be called? comp.sys.sam-coupe won't work > > for SAM Elite, would it. And comp.sys.sam is not the thing to call > > it as there is/was a defense computer system that was called > > sam I think. an comp.sys.sam-coupe-&-elite sounds a bit daft. > > You heathen, Frode! > > Tsk... calling the Elite a real SAM :( Did I say that? Oh..forgive me, it must be all this swedish influence... > > Should be comp.sys.sam-coupe-&-bastard-half-brother > > or even comp.sys.sam-coupe-&-the-mutant ...or comp.sys.sam-coupe-&-here-we-are-full-of-bullocks-(not-sandra)-! :) > > Simon > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 14:39:47 1995 Message-Id: <199512111438.PAA10002@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Sam games and stuff. . . To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 14:38:03 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512111424.AA00473@booth62.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 11, 95 02:24:33 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: 422 Lines: 15 > On Mon, 11 Dec 1995 14:19:23 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > Well... my cook-book can't handle the non-ASCII characters ;)=20 > > > > Send me a copy :) If it sounds nice, I'll knock it together (as long as I= > > =20 > > can get the ingredients not too expensively from Tescos) > > =20 > > Aargh! Get this MIME out of here! And stop typing spaces at the ends of your > lines. > > imc Hey! 'snot my doing! Simon From imc Mon Dec 11 14:56:23 1995 Subject: Re: Sam games and stuff. . . To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 95 14:56:23 MET In-Reply-To: <199512111438.PAA10002@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 11, 95 2:38 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 518 Lines: 13 On Mon, 11 Dec 1995 14:38:03 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > Hey! 'snot my doing! They all say that... The fact is that the default action for MIME is to panic when it sees an 8-bit character (such as Frode's cute crossed-out o) and encode everything in this stupid way, including the spaces at the ends of your lines (and no one else put those there except you!). The person who decided that should be shot. Anyway, you will have to find some way of detaching MIME from Elm or else to turn this action off. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 15:46:44 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 15:43:32 +0000 Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe Priority: urgent X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <46C5683A2E@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 145 Lines: 8 I'm scared! What's a Sam Elite? dave Seetheworldasitusedtobewhenyouusedto beinit,whenyouwerealiveandwhenyouwere inloveandwhenithappenedtoyou.. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 16:17:39 1995 Message-Id: <199512111613.RAA11180@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 16:13:10 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <46C5683A2E@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> from "Dave Hooper" at Dec 11, 95 03:43:32 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: 357 Lines: 12 > I'm scared! > What's a Sam Elite? it's a SAM with the default drive (drive 1) on the right, a parallel printer socket hanging off the back of the keyboard, and a ROM v3.1 which has *NO* changes in it from v3.0 - just a version change for the sake of it. Ummm... and inside, it looks like a pile of crap. Literally. Bodges all over the place. Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 11 21:08:22 1995 Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 20:35:57 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup To: Sam List In-Reply-To: <9512111130.AA00468@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.99] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 827 Lines: 22 On Mon 11 Dec, Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk wrote: > On Sun, 10 Dec 1995 18:43:26 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > > On Dec 10, 5:44pm in "Sam Newsgroup", warbled: > > ] Lookijg at the turnover here, I reckpn we should go for a > > ] newsgroup. Its getting awkward to thread emails! > > > Anyone for comp.sys.sam-coupe? > > Remember that you need at least 100 more yes votes than no votes. Given > that the total membership of this mailing list is at the moment 37 I think > that is a bit unlikely. What? Only *37*? So if you all didn't babble about cooking, the number of messages for each day would be almost zero? And if we weren't complaining about Mime, it would be less than zero? I thought by writing to this mailing-list I would reach instant stardom! Well, there go my dreams. David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 03:12:07 1995 From: R J Partington Message-Id: <199512120309.DAA00299@heffer.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 03:09:42 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: from "David Gommeren" at Dec 11, 95 08:35:57 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Smtp-Posting-Host: heffer.demon.co.uk [Tue, 12 Dec 95 3:09:47 GMT] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: post.demon.co.uk [Tue, 12 Dec 95 3:10:41 GMT] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 856 Lines: 24 David Gommeren wrote... > > On Mon 11 Dec, Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk wrote: > > On Sun, 10 Dec 1995 18:43:26 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > > > On Dec 10, 5:44pm in "Sam Newsgroup", warbled: > > > ] Lookijg at the turnover here, I reckpn we should go for a > > > ] newsgroup. Its getting awkward to thread emails! > > > > > Anyone for comp.sys.sam-coupe? > > > > Remember that you need at least 100 more yes votes than no votes. Given > > that the total membership of this mailing list is at the moment 37 I think > > that is a bit unlikely. Why doesn't someone set up an NNTP server on their machine, create the comp.sys.sam-coupe newsgroup and make it exportable so that Demon can then pick it up? If that'll work... And don't look at me. I tried running an NNTP server on this machine, and you can't even connect to it from localhost. :( rjp From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 07:41:12 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 08:41:34 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512120741.AA00319@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1402 Lines: 40 > David Gommeren wrote... > > > > On Mon 11 Dec, Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk wrote: > > > On Sun, 10 Dec 1995 18:43:26 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > > > > On Dec 10, 5:44pm in "Sam Newsgroup", warbled: > > > > ] Lookijg at the turnover here, I reckpn we should go for a > > > > ] newsgroup. Its getting awkward to thread emails! > > > > > > > Anyone for comp.sys.sam-coupe? > > > > > > Remember that you need at least 100 more yes votes than no votes. Given > > > that the total membership of this mailing list is at the moment 37 I think > > > that is a bit unlikely. > > Why doesn't someone set up an NNTP server on their machine, > create the comp.sys.sam-coupe newsgroup and make it exportable so that > Demon can then pick it up? First of all, it's not just that easy to create a news-group. It should go throug the right channels for everybody to pick it up. Secondly, a mailing list is in fact less overhead for the net than a news-group with this number of recepient > If that'll work... > > And don't look at me. I tried running an NNTP server on this machine, > and you can't even connect to it from localhost. :( Well, then you have a problem :) -Frode > rjp Oh! About MIME. This is the standard e-mail encoding and complaints about use of it goes directly into /dev/null. :) If anybody has a mailer that does not support this protocol they should consider upgrading. ;) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 07:56:07 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 07:28:10 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <12378@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 933 Lines: 31 Cooking? Obscure Unix Software???? This is getting very boring. Question. I was talking to the QL folk the other day, and they say that Miracle are stopping making their current card as our amazing government has made selling untested equipment a CRIMINAL offence. This testing is for RF emmissions. I believe its an EC directive and goes under the title EMC. Testing costs 2000 UKP. So, who is going to test all the Sam addons made after the start date in a few weeks time? Who will shop Bob to the DTI police? Not funny, and though I agree with the idea of the legislation, the way our lot are interpreting it is just stupid. Can you imagine some small niche company running on a showestring being able to test their design, let alone pay the test fee each time they need to change something? Comment. nvg was quite fast yesterday, has something altered, or is it just a flash in the pan? Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 08:30:11 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 09:28:51 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512120828.AA00345@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1376 Lines: 37 > Cooking? Obscure Unix Software???? > This is getting very boring. > > Question. I was talking to the QL folk the other day, and they > say that Miracle are stopping making their current card as our > amazing government has made selling untested equipment a > CRIMINAL offence. This testing is for RF emmissions. I believe > its an EC directive and goes under the title EMC. Testing costs > 2000 UKP. I don't know about any testing, but all equipment marketed in EEC countries must meet EMC requirements. More info can be found at http://www.emclab.umr.edu/emceec.html and http://www.emclab.umr.edu/cispr.html. > > So, who is going to test all the Sam addons made after the start > date in a few weeks time? Who will shop Bob to the DTI police? > Not funny, and though I agree with the idea of the legislation, > the way our lot are interpreting it is just stupid. Can you > imagine some small niche company running on a showestring being > able to test their design, let alone pay the test fee each time > they need to change something? As long as the device itself does not generate these "high" pulsing rates in question (9000+ Hz), I think we are safe. The SAM itself on the other hand.....*Sobb* > > Comment. nvg was quite fast yesterday, has something altered, or > is it just a flash in the pan? > There is a new version of the ftp-daemon running. -Frode From imc Tue Dec 12 11:19:09 1995 Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 12 Dec 95 11:19:09 MET In-Reply-To: <9512120741.AA00319@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 12, 95 8:41 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 710 Lines: 15 On Tue, 12 Dec 1995 08:41:34 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > Oh! About MIME. This is the standard e-mail encoding and complaints > about use of it goes directly into /dev/null. :) If anybody has > a mailer that does not support this protocol they should consider > upgrading. ;) Standard? Since when? I don't want some arbitrary standard enforced on me, thank you very much. And it isn't standard until it's built into /usr/ucb/mail. This system does not have any supported MIME tools apart from pine, and even that's been installed for less than two months. Mail should have been designed properly in the first place to make all this unnecessary. Mail between IBM VM systems never had this problem. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 11:52:13 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 95 12:50:30 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Finally on the WWW To: SAM users 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: 445 Lines: 18 Hi! Just thought I'd announce my homepage: www.pi.net/~drissen It's still pretty much under construction, but you can download version 2.04 of that program which I won't mention. I've just noticed that the file has been moved to the temp directory for downloading on NVG too. L8R Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: drissen@pi.net S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands T-mail: +31-73-414969 From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 12:04:40 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 13:04:52 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512121204.AA01087@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1030 Lines: 27 > On Tue, 12 Dec 1995 08:41:34 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > > Oh! About MIME. This is the standard e-mail encoding and complaints > > about use of it goes directly into /dev/null. :) If anybody has > > a mailer that does not support this protocol they should consider > > upgrading. ;) > > Standard? Since when? I don't want some arbitrary standard enforced > on me, thank you very much. And it isn't standard until it's built into > /usr/ucb/mail. This system does not have any supported MIME tools apart > from pine, and even that's been installed for less than two months. Since around June 1992. Take a look at RFC 1341 (methinks). /usr/ucb/mail (should) conform to RFC 822. > > Mail should have been designed properly in the first place to make all this > unnecessary. Mail between IBM VM systems never had this problem. You really can't blame anybody else than the US. Even IBM had difficulties in realizing that there were other languages in the world that used letters other than a to z. > > imc > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 15:08:54 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 15:04:49 +0000 (GMT) From: Daniel James Doore X-Sender: iq4d4385@jaffle-fddi To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup In-Reply-To: <9512121119.AA01199@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: 1595 Lines: 33 > On Tue, 12 Dec 1995 08:41:34 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > > Oh! About MIME. This is the standard e-mail encoding and complaints > > about use of it goes directly into /dev/null. :) If anybody has > > a mailer that does not support this protocol they should consider > > upgrading. ;) > > Standard? Since when? I don't want some arbitrary standard enforced > on me, thank you very much. And it isn't standard until it's built into > /usr/ucb/mail. This system does not have any supported MIME tools apart > from pine, and even that's been installed for less than two months. Rubbish. MIME has been standard since it was standardised. I have the MIME proposals somewhere from when I did my Standards module a few years back. Mail itself if 7-bit ASCII as you well know and some group (I think it was ECMA or ISO) put forward a de jure standard for allowing the mail protocols to become more flexible. > Mail should have been designed properly in the first place to make all this > unnecessary. Mail between IBM VM systems never had this problem. Mail _was_ designed properly when it was set out, but the times are a changing and the advent of multimedia and the transmission of other data through mail (sound, video etc.) ment that the existing system was inadequate. 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 Dec 12 15:49:46 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 16:44:44 +0100 (MET) From: Ben Versteeg Subject: Sam Newsgroup To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Message-Id: <199512121544.QAA12955@charm.il.ft.hse.nl> X-Envelope-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.NO X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8a] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: RO Content-Length: 476 Lines: 9 I still do not get it ... Is there already a newsgroup for Sam ??? --------------------------------------------------------------------- Inner Products Holland / /| / /| / / --- / --- Ben Versteeg / / | / / | / / --- /__ | ben@charm.il.ft.hse.nl / / | / / | / / / / www.il.ft.hse.nl/~ben / / |/ / |/ / --- / | --------------------------------------------------------------------- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 15:53:42 1995 Message-Id: <199512121552.QAA22767@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 15:51:36 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) 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: 1931 Lines: 43 Hi all.. I'm gonna propose a couple of things now. Hope you all don't mind something slightly (but only slightly) serious for a moment. FILE HEADERS ============ Much debate has occured (okay, a couple of postings actually) on FIDONET since SAMTOMS.EXE was posted up on the Dalmation BBS. It would appeart the KDSK headers are the way to go; they can actually very well represent the internal (SAMDOS/MASTERDOS) format of a file when said file has been converted to an MSDOS or other system -- and will still retain it when the file has been brought back off the other system, onto the SAM. There are other advantages to using the KDSK headers; namely in the use of the XMODEM file protocol. As all of the necessary file information is in the KDSK header (except, possibly the file length; I have to confirm this with Geoff) to reconstruct the file at the far end, it may be useful to use the KDSK header in file transfer environments such as communications. What I am proposing is this: 1) That Geoff sit down when he's recovered from the work I've asked him to do, and document the KDSK header in full. 2) That the KDSK header is standardised, preferably with an optional CRC-32 checksum, or a simple xor/addition checksum. (okay, so it's standard now, but could do with a little expansion I think). 3) That my new dos (EDOS) -- when I get around to writing it!!! -- uses the KDSK headers when converting files to / from MSDOS disks - and possibly other formats (CP/M, etc). The EDOS file formats have yet to be specified, but will probably have a unix-like or hpfs-like structure. We also need to come up with a way of transferring files *without* using the headers - for BMP files perhaps? How should this be done? Through a new "code with length specified only" file type (how similar is this to an Opentype file?) Or in some other way? Brain-cells in gear, mon amis - I need your Input :) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 16:13:09 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 17:11:15 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512121611.AA01502@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 152 Lines: 7 > I still do not get it ... > Is there already a newsgroup for Sam ??? No, and there won't be (unless it's pirated) - at least for some time. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 16:26:39 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 16:22:17 +0000 In-Reply-To: Simon.Cooke -- "Proposals..." (Dec 12, 3:51pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2151 Lines: 63 On Dec 12, 3:51pm in "Proposals...", warbled: ] Hi all.. Hello... ] There are other advantages to using the KDSK headers; namely in the use ] of the XMODEM file protocol. As all of the necessary file information ] is in the KDSK header (except, possibly the file length; I have to ] confirm this with Geoff) to reconstruct the file at the far end, it may Yes it is. ] What I am proposing is this: ] ] 1) That Geoff sit down when he's recovered from the work I've asked him ] to do, and document the KDSK header in full. Hmmm. Thing is, I'm wondering whether to change it (sad, isn't it :) First off, I want to have a version byte as byte 5 (after the KDSK one). This would mean if things ever got changed for any reason software would be able to tell how to decode the header properly. ] 2) That the KDSK header is standardised, preferably with an optional ] CRC-32 checksum, or a simple xor/addition checksum. (okay, so it's crc-32? Hmmmmm. You want to make this easy for z80 decode, don't you. Not. :) ] standard now, but could do with a little expansion I think). Yeah. I want to stick the date and time in too. And special cases for snaps and opentype files... ] We also need to come up with a way of transferring files *without* ] using the headers - for BMP files perhaps? How should this be done? ] Through a new "code with length specified only" file type (how similar ] is this to an Opentype file?) Or in some other way? You what? Why? You mean you want a way to specify that no header should be transferred onto the front of the file for an MS-Dos disk? How about save "d1:RAW:myfile.nme" ? If you're worried about filetypes -- don't be: ms-dos doesn't have them, you're thinking the wrong way around it. ] Brain-cells in gear, mon amis - I need your Input :) I always preferred input LINE and it's mes amis, not mon amis. Mon ami. :) On another subject entirely: Has the new samtoms (ie tthe non-bugged version) been put up on nvg yet? I can't spare the net time to look :) Could someone post it to the dalmation bbs if so, I didn't realise it would need updating somewhere else aswell. Cheers -- Geoff From imc Tue Dec 12 16:35:09 1995 Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 12 Dec 95 16:35:09 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Dec 12, 95 4:22 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 500 Lines: 13 On Tue, 12 Dec 1995 16:22:17 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > You what? Why? You mean you want a way to specify that no header should > be transferred onto the front of the file for an MS-Dos disk? Yes. Especially for text files, as we don't want to have unprintable rubbish at the top of them. > If you're worried about filetypes -- don't be: ms-dos doesn't have them, I don't think he was. Just that if you have a BMP or GIF then the presence of an extra header would upset the PC software. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 17:01:22 1995 Message-Id: <199512121658.RAA23607@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 16:58:03 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: from "Geoff Winkless" at Dec 12, 95 04:22:17 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: 2387 Lines: 71 > ] 1) That Geoff sit down when he's recovered from the work I've asked him > ] to do, and document the KDSK header in full. > > Hmmm. Thing is, I'm wondering whether to change it (sad, isn't it :) > > First off, I want to have a version byte as byte 5 (after the KDSK one). > This would mean if things ever got changed for any reason software would > be able to tell how to decode the header properly. That'd be good :) > ] 2) That the KDSK header is standardised, preferably with an optional > ] CRC-32 checksum, or a simple xor/addition checksum. (okay, so it's > > crc-32? Hmmmmm. You want to make this easy for z80 decode, don't you. Not. :) Well... that's why I said optional :) (EDOS will have CRC16 and 32 built in; needs it for some stuff) What you could have is something like: magic number [4] "KDSK" version number [1] checksum type [1] length of data [2] data [...] checksum (if specified) [max 4]? > ] standard now, but could do with a little expansion I think). > > Yeah. I want to stick the date and time in too. And special cases for > snaps and opentype files... *grins* Looks like it's going to be fun.. > ] We also need to come up with a way of transferring files *without* > ] using the headers - for BMP files perhaps? How should this be done? > ] Through a new "code with length specified only" file type (how similar > ] is this to an Opentype file?) Or in some other way? > > You what? Why? You mean you want a way to specify that no header should > be transferred onto the front of the file for an MS-Dos disk? How about > save "d1:RAW:myfile.nme" ? Yep.. :) > If you're worried about filetypes -- don't be: ms-dos doesn't have them, > you're thinking the wrong way around it. No, I'm thinking of what if you convert a SAM screen to BMP format, then copy it using SAMTOMs (or equivalent) and the PC can't read it because it has a KDSK header on it... but I like the "d1:RAW:" idea... nice, small and functional. Better than a "RAW" keyword at the end... > and it's mes amis, not mon amis. Mon ami. :) *grins* > On another subject entirely: > > Has the new samtoms (ie tthe non-bugged version) been put up on nvg > yet? I can't spare the net time to look :) Dunno yet... > Could someone post it to the dalmation bbs if so, I didn't realise > it would need updating somewhere else aswell. Sure, will do on Saturday :) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 17:56:14 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:36:26 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512121736.AA01549@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 626 Lines: 15 > > You what? Why? You mean you want a way to specify that no header should > > be transferred onto the front of the file for an MS-Dos disk? How about > > save "d1:RAW:myfile.nme" ? > > No, I'm thinking of what if you convert a SAM screen to BMP format, > then copy it using SAMTOMs (or equivalent) and the PC can't read it > because it has a KDSK header on it... but I like the "d1:RAW:" idea... > nice, small and functional. Better than a "RAW" keyword at the end... How about SAVE RAW "d1:foo"? This makes it very analogous to the SAM BASIC verb-adverb construction, eg. PRINT AT...., LIST FROM..TO..., etc. -Frode From imc Tue Dec 12 17:58:41 1995 Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 12 Dec 95 17:58:41 MET In-Reply-To: <9512121736.AA01549@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 12, 95 6:36 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 233 Lines: 8 On Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:36:26 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > How about SAVE RAW "d1:foo"? This makes it very analogous to > the SAM BASIC verb-adverb construction, eg. PRINT AT...., > LIST FROM..TO..., etc. and indeed SAVE OVER. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 18:11:36 1995 Message-Id: <199512121809.TAA24594@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:08:38 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512121758.AA01772@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 12, 95 05:58:41 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: 476 Lines: 16 > On Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:36:26 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > > How about SAVE RAW "d1:foo"? This makes it very analogous to > > the SAM BASIC verb-adverb construction, eg. PRINT AT...., > > LIST FROM..TO..., etc. > > and indeed SAVE OVER. Oh yes... the other good reason for that format is, of course, that Steve Taylor nicked the last one for Driver ;) I'm trying to find a nice way to extend them & give us another 100 or so... but it's so far not too easy... Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 18:14:43 1995 Message-Id: <199512121804.TAA24528@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:03:53 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512121736.AA01549@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 12, 95 06:36:26 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: 765 Lines: 17 > > > You what? Why? You mean you want a way to specify that no header should > > > be transferred onto the front of the file for an MS-Dos disk? How about > > > save "d1:RAW:myfile.nme" ? > > > > No, I'm thinking of what if you convert a SAM screen to BMP format, > > then copy it using SAMTOMs (or equivalent) and the PC can't read it > > because it has a KDSK header on it... but I like the "d1:RAW:" idea... > > nice, small and functional. Better than a "RAW" keyword at the end... > > How about SAVE RAW "d1:foo"? This makes it very analogous to > the SAM BASIC verb-adverb construction, eg. PRINT AT...., > LIST FROM..TO..., etc. Hmmm... possibly - but it also makes it a pain for other software to use the same format without going via BASIC... Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 18:14:44 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:12:52 +0000 In-Reply-To: Simon.Cooke -- "Re: Proposals..." (Dec 12, 4:58pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 536 Lines: 18 Frode wrote: ] How about SAVE RAW "d1:foo"? This makes it very analogous to ] the SAM BASIC verb-adverb construction, eg. PRINT AT...., ] LIST FROM..TO..., etc. Ian wrote ] ] and indeed SAVE OVER. But makes it very difficult to enter as a filename. The nice thing about having (for example) d1: inside the quotes is that you can specify while inputting from a program where you want the file to save. Having it with RAW inside also means people could have the header there if they wanted to. Which is how it -should- be. -- Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 18:17:35 1995 Date: Mon, 11 Dec 1995 17:11:29 +0000 (GMT) From: Si Owen To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: RE: Sam games and stuff. . . In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Organisation: Wordcraft International Ltd. X-Smtp-Posting-Host: obobo.demon.co.uk [Tue, 12 Dec 95 17:12:27 GMT] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: post.demon.co.uk [Tue, 12 Dec 95 17:13:31 GMT] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 850 Lines: 18 On Sun, 10 Dec 1995, Stefan Drissen wrote: > BTW don't run Win95 with only a meg or so free on the hard disc. Lots and > lots of 0E general application errors galore as soon as you try to run more > than one program. (EVEN with 16 MB internal memory) Tell me about it! I much preferred the static swap file - you know where you stand, and don't get nearly as much disk thrashing! For 16-bit apps, the amount of free memory stays the same (nearly total physical RAM), regardless of how much is actually free. *sigh* Si +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Si Owen | Email: si@obobo.demon.co.uk | | Wordcraft International Ltd, UK | Fax: +44-1332-295525 | +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ From imc Tue Dec 12 18:19:08 1995 Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 12 Dec 95 18:19:08 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Dec 12, 95 6:12 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 982 Lines: 21 On Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:12:52 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > But makes it very difficult to enter as a filename. The nice thing about > having (for example) d1: inside the quotes is that you can specify while > inputting from a program where you want the file to save. Having it with > RAW inside also means people could have the header there if they wanted to. > Which is how it -should- be. All I can say is: Yack! The "LINE x" thing doesn't go inside the quotes. The "protect" and "hide" things don't go inside the quotes. Only the location of the file goes in the quotes. If you want to provide a way of making a raw file from machine code then by all means fo it, but it doesn't have to go in the filename to do that. Besides, a file created from machine code will not initially have a file type anyway and thus probably wouldn't have a header unless you provided a way for the machine code to give it a file type - and you are not going to put *that* in the filename. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 18:29:44 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 19:30:06 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512121830.AA01593@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 808 Lines: 26 > Frode wrote: > ] How about SAVE RAW "d1:foo"? This makes it very analogous to > ] the SAM BASIC verb-adverb construction, eg. PRINT AT...., > ] LIST FROM..TO..., etc. > > Ian wrote > ] > ] and indeed SAVE OVER. > > But makes it very difficult to enter as a filename. The nice thing about > having (for example) d1: inside the quotes is that you can specify while > inputting from a program where you want the file to save. Having it with > RAW inside also means people could have the header there if they wanted to. > Which is how it -should- be. You mean like SAVE "d1: RAW: OVER: DUPLICATE: REVERSE: foo" ? :) If this was Windooze you'd have buttons to click on, menues to select from and the whole word at your hand with a click of the mouse....eh...what am I warbling about? -Frode > Geoff > From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 18:36:37 1995 Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 19:37:13 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512121837.AA01596@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1361 Lines: 31 > > > > You what? Why? You mean you want a way to specify that no header should > > > > be transferred onto the front of the file for an MS-Dos disk? How about > > > > save "d1:RAW:myfile.nme" ? > > > > > > No, I'm thinking of what if you convert a SAM screen to BMP format, > > > then copy it using SAMTOMs (or equivalent) and the PC can't read it > > > because it has a KDSK header on it... but I like the "d1:RAW:" idea... > > > nice, small and functional. Better than a "RAW" keyword at the end... > > > > How about SAVE RAW "d1:foo"? This makes it very analogous to > > the SAM BASIC verb-adverb construction, eg. PRINT AT...., > > LIST FROM..TO..., etc. > > Hmmm... possibly - but it also makes it a pain for other software to > use the same format without going via BASIC... With 'other software' I assume you mean application software that you write in some language or the other. But how do you do now when you want to save something from say MC? You use a hook-code, right? I asume that's what you have in mind for EDOS? Well, the would be one hook for SAVE, one for LOAD, one for ...., one for SAVE OVER, one for SAVE RAW. OK! This might grow into a fair bit of hooks when you simply need to only give... say the E register with what mode you want to SAVE, eg. 0=normal, 1=over, 2=raw, 4=reverse, 7=over+raw+reverse. :) -Frode > Simon > From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 18:47:30 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:46:32 +0000 In-Reply-To: Ian.Collier -- "Re: Proposals..." (Dec 12, 6:19pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2570 Lines: 55 On Dec 12, 6:19pm in "Re: Proposals...", ian warbled: ] On Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:12:52 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: ] > But makes it very difficult to enter as a filename. The nice thing about ] > having (for example) d1: inside the quotes is that you can specify while ] > inputting from a program where you want the file to save. Having it with ] > RAW inside also means people could have the header there if they wanted to. ] > Which is how it -should- be. ] ] All I can say is: Yack! Well, you're entitled to your opinion. Even if it -is- wrong. ] The "LINE x" thing doesn't go inside the quotes. The "protect" and "hide" ] things don't go inside the quotes. Only the location of the file goes in ] the quotes. RIght. The "LINE x" thing doesn't go inside the quotes. So what? When was the last time you had to supply a "LINE x" value from inside a program??? The "OVER" outside (as frode pointed out) was always a mistake anyway, but at least the DOS then prompts if OVER isn't specified: the USER then has control. ALWAYS the USER should have control. The "protect" and "hide" things are changed later from dos. How can you change later whether or not you want something to have a header on it or not. Load in the whole file and save it out again with the header on the front??? How is a program that converts to bmp (say) supposed to know whether or not you want a header saved on the front of it? Is it supposed to GUESS? Windows tries to GUESS what the user wants and invariably gets it WRONG. The USER should have control over how a file is saved. NOT the programmer. What's the point in converting every single damn piece of code in the world to work with Edos so that it will save with KDSK headers to MS-Dos disks if you want it to? Which is what would have to happen if you wanted your way to work. ] Besides, a file created from machine code will not initially have a file ] type anyway and thus probably wouldn't have a header unless you provided ] a way for the machine code to give it a file type - and you are not going ] to put *that* in the filename. What? Since when does a file created from machine code not have a file type??? Bollocks. You type save "filename" code 16384, 32 what have you done? Given it a file type, a start position and a length. If that's not creating a header, I don't know what is. THe point about KDSK headers is so that that header (which would normally be stored on the sam disk) is stored at the front of the file on an MS-Dos disk. Saying that a code file will not have a file type is wank. -- Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 18:53:51 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:49:42 +0000 In-Reply-To: ft -- "Re: Proposals..." (Dec 12, 7:30pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 625 Lines: 16 On Dec 12, 7:30pm in "Re: Proposals...", Frode warbled: ] You mean like SAVE "d1: RAW: OVER: DUPLICATE: REVERSE: foo" ? :) No. OVER doesn't need to be specified, as I've mentioned before. The user already has control over the overwriting of files to disk, through the "Overwrite Y/N" prompt mechanism. It would be stupid to ask the user if he/she wanted raw file saving every time they saved to an MS-Dos disk. ] If this was Windooze you'd have buttons to click on, menues to ] select from and the whole word at your hand with a click of the ] mouse....eh...what am I warbling about? You're asking -us-? :) :) -- Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 18:53:51 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:52:17 +0000 In-Reply-To: ft -- "Re: Proposals..." (Dec 12, 7:37pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 870 Lines: 24 On Dec 12, 7:37pm in "Re: Proposals...", Frode warbled: ] With 'other software' I assume you mean application software that ] you write in some language or the other. But how do you do now ] when you want to save something from say MC? You use a hook-code, ] right? I asume that's what you have in mind for EDOS? Well, ] the would be one hook for SAVE, one for LOAD, one for ...., ] one for SAVE OVER, one for SAVE RAW. OK! Why? Of course there wouldn't. That's exactly what we're trying to stop. We don't want users to have to make different hook calls just to be able to save as a RAW file. ] a fair bit of hooks when you simply need to only give... ] say the E register with what mode you want to SAVE, eg. ] 0=normal, 1=over, 2=raw, 4=reverse, 7=over+raw+reverse. :) And what's stopping you doing that??? I'm lost. Sorry. Your logic is beyond me. -- Geoff From imc Tue Dec 12 18:56:41 1995 Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 12 Dec 95 18:56:41 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Dec 12, 95 6:46 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1982 Lines: 47 On Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:46:32 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > RIght. The "LINE x" thing doesn't go inside the quotes. So what? When was the > last time you had to supply a "LINE x" value from inside a program??? Quite often actually. I have a number of BASIC programs that save themselves. But that's probably beside the point. > "OVER" outside (as frode pointed out) was always a mistake anyway, but at I didn't hear Frode saying it was a mistake. > least the DOS then prompts if OVER isn't specified: the USER then has > control. No, the program has control. If it decides to save OVER something then I can't do anything about it. That is, however, also beside the point. > The "protect" and "hide" things are changed later from dos. How can you change > later whether or not you want something to have a header on it or not. Load > in the whole file and save it out again with the header on the front??? First, I did not say that I wanted to change it later, just that putting it in the filename is yucky. Second, I think Simon was saying that the files would only grow headers whenever they were copied to MSDOS. > How is a program that converts to bmp (say) supposed to know whether or not > you want a header saved on the front of it? Is it supposed to GUESS? No. But then I didn't say you weren't allowed to specify it, just that you should specify it in a different way than by putting it in the file name. > What's the point in converting every single damn piece of code in the > world to work with Edos so that it will save with KDSK headers to MS-Dos > disks if you want it to? Which is what would have to happen if you wanted > your way to work. I said nothing of the sort! > What? Since when does a file created from machine code not have a file type??? > Bollocks. You type > save "filename" code 16384, 32 Ahem, that is a file created _from_ *BASIC*, _containing_ machine code. What I was talking about was a file created _from_ machine code. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 19:14:55 1995 Message-Id: <199512121849.TAA25140@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 18:49:19 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512121837.AA01596@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 12, 95 07:37:13 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: 906 Lines: 22 > > Hmmm... possibly - but it also makes it a pain for other software to > > use the same format without going via BASIC... > > With 'other software' I assume you mean application software that > you write in some language or the other. But how do you do now > when you want to save something from say MC? You use a hook-code, > right? I asume that's what you have in mind for EDOS? Well, > the would be one hook for SAVE, one for LOAD, one for ...., > one for SAVE OVER, one for SAVE RAW. OK! This might grow into > a fair bit of hooks when you simply need to only give... > say the E register with what mode you want to SAVE, eg. > 0=normal, 1=over, 2=raw, 4=reverse, 7=over+raw+reverse. :) Hmmm... true. But the "lack of prefixes" still holds. It's gonna be a bast whichever way we do it if people start doing this: SAVE OVER RAW ABS ":madfile:" CODE 32768,40000 LZW MODE "u+rw" *grins* :) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 12 21:17:06 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Tue, 12 Dec 1995 21:15:46 +0000 In-Reply-To: Ian.Collier -- "Re: Proposals..." (Dec 12, 6:56pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2736 Lines: 65 On Dec 12, 6:56pm in "Re: Proposals...", warbled: ] Quite often actually. I have a number of BASIC programs that save ] themselves. But that's probably beside the point. But when does someone get asked from an INPUT line within a program to save that basic program, and when do they need to specify the line number to save at? ] > "OVER" outside (as frode pointed out) was always a mistake anyway, but at ] I didn't hear Frode saying it was a mistake. Frode pointed out that it was outside the quotes. You and he then went on to specify perfectly good reasons as to why that was a bad thing :) ] No, the program has control. If it decides to save OVER something then I ] can't do anything about it. That is, however, also beside the point. IMHO programs shouldn't SAVE OVER anything. ] First, I did not say that I wanted to change it later, just that putting it ] in the filename is yucky. So how else do you expect people to add in that they want to make a file protected when it is saved? In the same vein, how do you expect people to specify that they want something to have a header on it. ] Second, I think Simon was saying that the files ] would only grow headers whenever they were copied to MSDOS. Yes, but the point is that EDOS etc will use MSDos disks -as- Coupe ones as much as is possible -- and thus it will need to be completely transparent to programs whether or not a file is being saved to coupe or ms-dos disk. ] No. But then I didn't say you weren't allowed to specify it, just that you ] should specify it in a different way than by putting it in the file name. So how do you suggest? Making changes to every single program is the only viable alternative. ] > What's the point in converting every single damn piece of code in the ] > world to work with Edos so that it will save with KDSK headers to MS-Dos ] > disks if you want it to? Which is what would have to happen if you wanted ] > your way to work. ] ] I said nothing of the sort! Yes you did. If you make it so that a change in programming SYNTAX is required (which it would be to have SAVE RAW "blah") then you have to change each and every program just to allow a raw save. Whereas having it as part of the filename means that if you want to make a program save a raw file to disk, you just add "RAW" to the filename when you save it. ] Ahem, that is a file created _from_ *BASIC*, _containing_ machine code. ] What I was talking about was a file created _from_ machine code. How, exactly? Using a UIFA? That sounds rather like a file created from machine code. And that very definitely has a header. I think a) you don't understand what we're trying to do, and b) I'm not exactly sure what you're getting at... -- Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 07:54:01 1995 Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 08:53:41 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512130753.AA01913@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1247 Lines: 38 > On Dec 12, 7:30pm in "Re: Proposals...", Frode warbled: > ] You mean like SAVE "d1: RAW: OVER: DUPLICATE: REVERSE: foo" ? :) > > No. OVER doesn't need to be specified, as I've mentioned before. The > user already has control over the overwriting of files to disk, through > the "Overwrite Y/N" prompt mechanism. It would be stupid to ask the user > if he/she wanted raw file saving every time they saved to an MS-Dos disk. OK! If we now leave out OVER you still have a few problems: 1) Redesign the UIFA to which will make it incompatible with existing software, at least not written in BASIC. 2) Make it a bitch to use from basic depeding how the syntax will be. What will happen if you try to save something like: SAVE "d1:RAW.DAT" or SAVE "d1:foo.raw" or SAVE "d1:raw_data_for_bmp" or SAVE "d1:raw:like_he**" etc. I'm not saying that it's a bad idea, I'm merely supporting Si's comment in that it will be a bitch both ways. Which one is worse? > > ] If this was Windooze you'd have buttons to click on, menues to > ] select from and the whole word at your hand with a click of the > ] mouse....eh...what am I warbling about? > > You're asking -us-? :) :) What about..it was a rethorical question? :) > > -- > Geoff -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 08:40:53 1995 Message-Id: From: ee31ag@ee.surrey.ac.uk (Andrew M Gale) Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 08:39:09 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199512111613.RAA11180@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 11, 95 04:13:10 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 457 Lines: 15 > > it's a SAM with the default drive (drive 1) on the right, a parallel > printer socket hanging off the back of the keyboard, and a ROM v3.1 > which has *NO* changes in it from v3.0 - just a version change for the > sake of it. > > Ummm... and inside, it looks like a pile of crap. Literally. Bodges all > over the place. > > Simon Is it really that much of a bodge? I know the disc drive is dubious, but at least it's cheap for a 2nd drive.... From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 08:44:37 1995 Message-Id: From: ee31ag@ee.surrey.ac.uk (Andrew M Gale) Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 08:43:25 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <12378@bgserv.demon.co.uk> from "Brian Gaff Sam Dept." at Dec 12, 95 07:28:10 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 865 Lines: 21 > Question. I was talking to the QL folk the other day, and they > say that Miracle are stopping making their current card as our > amazing government has made selling untested equipment a > CRIMINAL offence. This testing is for RF emmissions. I believe > its an EC directive and goes under the title EMC. Testing costs > 2000 UKP. > > So, who is going to test all the Sam addons made after the start > date in a few weeks time? Who will shop Bob to the DTI police? > Not funny, and though I agree with the idea of the legislation, > the way our lot are interpreting it is just stupid. Can you > imagine some small niche company running on a showestring being > able to test their design, let alone pay the test fee each time > they need to change something? > This is very worrying indeed...... And what of the accelerator and many other millions of add-ons? From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 08:57:20 1995 Message-Id: <199512130855.JAA31806@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 08:55:33 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512130753.AA01913@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 13, 95 08:53:41 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: 2773 Lines: 72 > OK! If we now leave out OVER you still have a few problems: > > 1) Redesign the UIFA to which will make it incompatible with existing > software, at least not written in BASIC. To be brutally honest, the existing UIFA is woefully inadequate anyway; I'm thinking of redesigning the entire DOS from scratch, and have it in two modules -- a SAMOS section (which will have all the disk read/write and file handling, as well as memory management & process handling calls), and a B-DIF section, which (as you may have guessed) stands for BASIC-DOS InterFace.. MasterDOS already ignores the existing UIFA methods for LOAD & SAVE commands - it patches in its own processor to handle the long filenames. I'm going to outright copy the UNIX file handling commands for SAMOS - if anyone has any objections, please make them *now* and not later. There will be file access rights built in too, but these will default to world readable, and will only be visible in directories if you set a flag in the DVARs.. > 2) Make it a bitch to use from basic depeding how the syntax > will be. What will happen if you try to save something like: > > SAVE "d1:RAW.DAT" or > SAVE "d1:foo.raw" or > SAVE "d1:raw_data_for_bmp" or > SAVE "d1:raw:like_he**" etc. > > I'm not saying that it's a bad idea, I'm merely supporting Si's > comment in that it will be a bitch both ways. Which one is worse? > Well... everything but the last one will be given a KDSK header, the last one won't, and will lose all flavour, colour and texture (and file specific information) - unless it is being written to a SAMDOS disk. EDOS SAVE COMMAND: SAVE {ABS} {OVER} {PROTECT} {HIDE} "::" [1] in ABS mode, the :RAW: thing won't work - a file will be added to a SAMDOS OR MASTERDOS DISK ONLY! with the name of "d1:RAW:whatever" [2] OVER, PROTECT & HIDE modes should be obvious [3] devices: currently, d1-d7, c1-c8, p1-p2... possibly hd1-...? [4] expressions: the expression part (ALWAYS enclosed by two colons) has expressions for the file output type, separated by either semi-colons or commas - which would people prefer? So you'd get something like this, possibly: SAVE PROTECT "d1:RAW,TXL:etcetcetc" or even for screen type files... SAVE PROTECT "d1:RAW,GIF:blah.gif" but again, we're getting messier... I'm going to add devices to the file system too, so we can have: SAVE "p1:filename" SAVE "p2:filename" SAVE "c1:data" --> SAVE "c8:data" <--- there may be a hole at C4 and C8 due to the real time clock... Dunno about the others, but SAMDOS allows up to 3 character devices, so I might expand on that a little more. Or would people like the /dev/ structure? Come to think of it... how does /dev/... work? Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 09:30:22 1995 Message-Id: <199512130928.KAA32193@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 09:28:21 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: from "Andrew M Gale" at Dec 13, 95 08:39:09 am 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: 864 Lines: 23 > > it's a SAM with the default drive (drive 1) on the right, a parallel > > printer socket hanging off the back of the keyboard, and a ROM v3.1 > > which has *NO* changes in it from v3.0 - just a version change for the > > sake of it. > > > > Ummm... and inside, it looks like a pile of crap. Literally. Bodges all > > over the place. > > > > Simon > > > Is it really that much of a bodge? I know the disc drive is dubious, > but at least it's cheap for a 2nd drive.... Yep, it is that much of a bodge.. You wouldn't believe the amount of crap that has to be done to the board inside to get (a) the parallel socket wired up & working and (b) to swap the drives over... :( And the drives? Pathetic. They look awful, what with half a blanking plate filed off around them. I wouldn't buy one. Simon (who may buy one of Dave Tonk's nice shiny old SAMs From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 09:32:12 1995 Message-Id: <199512130930.KAA32231@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Sam Newsgroup To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 09:30:21 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: from "Andrew M Gale" at Dec 13, 95 08:43:25 am 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: 910 Lines: 22 > > > Question. I was talking to the QL folk the other day, and they > > say that Miracle are stopping making their current card as our > > amazing government has made selling untested equipment a > > CRIMINAL offence. This testing is for RF emmissions. I believe > > its an EC directive and goes under the title EMC. Testing costs > > 2000 UKP. > > > > So, who is going to test all the Sam addons made after the start > > date in a few weeks time? Who will shop Bob to the DTI police? > > Not funny, and though I agree with the idea of the legislation, > > the way our lot are interpreting it is just stupid. Can you > > imagine some small niche company running on a showestring being > > able to test their design, let alone pay the test fee each time > > they need to change something? > > > > > This is very worrying indeed...... > > And what of the accelerator and many other millions of add-ons? > From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 10:48:11 1995 Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 11:48:10 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512131048.AA02058@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 684 Lines: 19 > > Is it really that much of a bodge? I know the disc drive is dubious, > > but at least it's cheap for a 2nd drive.... > > Yep, it is that much of a bodge.. You wouldn't believe the amount of crap > that has to be done to the board inside to get (a) the parallel socket > wired up & working and (b) to swap the drives over... :( Why the heck did they swap the drives???????? And I can believe the crap about the parallel socket. > > And the drives? Pathetic. They look awful, what with half a blanking > plate filed off around them. I wouldn't buy one. > > Simon (who may buy one of Dave Tonk's nice shiny old SAMs > > -Frode they don't make SAMs the way they used to. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 10:54:23 1995 Message-Id: <199512131052.LAA00292@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 10:52:24 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512131048.AA02058@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 13, 95 11:48:10 am 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: 789 Lines: 20 > > Yep, it is that much of a bodge.. You wouldn't believe the amount of crap > > that has to be done to the board inside to get (a) the parallel socket > > wired up & working and (b) to swap the drives over... :( > > Why the heck did they swap the drives???????? It's a three letter word, which should not be spoken in polite company, beginning with B, and ending in OB. Once you're used to the idea of having the drive on the left, in an left-to-right glyph ordering society, it actually makes good sense to have drive 1 on the left, drive 2 on the right. The other way round would be good for Arab countries, however :) > And I can believe the crap about the parallel socket. 'snasty - very nasty indeed. Poor Adrian Parker & Mark Hall, that's all I have to say. :( Simon From imc Wed Dec 13 11:24:20 1995 Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 11:24:20 MET In-Reply-To: <199512130855.JAA31806@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 13, 95 8:55 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1791 Lines: 45 On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 08:55:33 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > I'm going to outright copy the UNIX file handling commands for SAMOS Namely? > > SAVE {ABS} {OVER} {PROTECT} {HIDE} > "::" Ug, well I might live with that. > [3] devices: currently, d1-d7, c1-c8, p1-p2... possibly hd1-...? c1-c8? p1-p2? Wassat? Is one of them the network, like what you can do with the native Sam but not with SamDOS, and MasterDOS might do it but with a different format that I haven't worked out yet? What about t1-255? > SAVE PROTECT "d1:RAW,TXL:etcetcetc" > or even for screen type files... > SAVE PROTECT "d1:RAW,GIF:blah.gif" What is TXL, and what difference would TXL or GIF or anything make? > Dunno about the others, but SAMDOS allows up to 3 character devices, so I > might expand on that a little more. Or would people like the /dev/ structure? > Come to think of it... how does /dev/... work? Well if you stat a file in /dev you will find that it has a mode which says that it is a special file (indicated by 'b' or 'c' as the first character of 'ls -l') and it is allocated two device numbers (written instead of the file size in 'ls -l'). The major device number specifies what kind of device it is (for instance disk, terminal or whatever) and the minor device number gives further information (for instance the disk number or terminal number). When you call a system function to access the file, the kernel notices that it is a special file and calls an appropriate routine based on the device numbers instead of calling the normal file access routine. The /dev structure might be appropriate for some things but since files sent to devices do not have names you can't use it for such things as tape or network. imc From imc Wed Dec 13 11:25:53 1995 Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 11:25:53 MET In-Reply-To: <199512130928.KAA32193@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 13, 95 9:28 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 290 Lines: 9 On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 09:28:21 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > Simon (who may buy one of Dave Tonk's nice shiny old SAMs That's who I got mine from, which is why it has the drive in the correct place and the correct size. :-) On the down side, I did need to replace the PAL crystal. imc From imc Wed Dec 13 11:34:51 1995 Subject: Date To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 11:34:51 MET X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 180 Lines: 5 I may have falsely accused Simon of having an incorrect date header. My sam-users mails are also now coming back with incorrect MET dates on them. Curiouser and curiouser... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 11:53:37 1995 Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 12:52:16 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512131152.AA02197@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Date X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 297 Lines: 12 > I may have falsely accused Simon of having an incorrect date header. My > sam-users mails are also now coming back with incorrect MET dates on them. > Curiouser and curiouser... This happend sometimes between Nov 22 and 23 - talk to your admin and ask what he changed :) > > imc > -Frode From imc Wed Dec 13 12:14:29 1995 Subject: Re: Date To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 12:14:29 MET In-Reply-To: <9512131152.AA02197@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 13, 95 12:52 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 721 Lines: 18 On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 12:52:16 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > > I may have falsely accused Simon of having an incorrect date header. My > > sam-users mails are also now coming back with incorrect MET dates on them. > > Curiouser and curiouser... > This happend sometimes between Nov 22 and 23 - talk to your admin > and ask what he changed :) Or yours? :-) I do know that we had a mail server upgrade at around that time, but our sysadmin is competent enough not to set it to MET. This, and the fact that Simon's mails also say MET, seem to indicate that the change is happening somewhere in middle Europe. I suppose one possibility is that it can't parse the timezone out of the date header and so adds its own. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 12:54:14 1995 Message-Id: From: ee31ag@ee.surrey.ac.uk (Andrew M Gale) Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 12:35:45 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199512130928.KAA32193@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 13, 95 09:28:21 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 791 Lines: 20 > > Is it really that much of a bodge? I know the disc drive is dubious, > > but at least it's cheap for a 2nd drive.... > > Yep, it is that much of a bodge.. You wouldn't believe the amount of crap > that has to be done to the board inside to get (a) the parallel socket > wired up & working and (b) to swap the drives over... :( > > And the drives? Pathetic. They look awful, what with half a blanking > plate filed off around them. I wouldn't buy one. > > Simon (who may buy one of Dave Tonk's nice shiny old SAMs > I thought most of the drive & printer stuff was on the little PCB that connect to one of the drive ports - all that you'd need other that that is a wire for PRINTL, a lead to the printer cable, and a cable to the drive. I can't believe it's all that bad! -AG From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 13:17:22 1995 Message-Id: <199512131308.OAA01889@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 13:08:33 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: from "Andrew M Gale" at Dec 13, 95 12:35:45 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: 450 Lines: 11 > I thought most of the drive & printer stuff was on the little PCB > that connect to one of the drive ports - all that you'd need other > that that is a wire for PRINTL, a lead to the printer cable, and > a cable to the drive. I can't believe it's all that bad! It looked nastier than that inside the ones I saw... However, I also believe in Occam's Razor (or rather, Occam's principle of least buggery with a [nearly] working design) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 13:34:53 1995 Message-Id: From: ee31ag@ee.surrey.ac.uk (Andrew M Gale) Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 12:41:34 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199512131052.LAA00292@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 13, 95 10:52:24 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 960 Lines: 24 > Once you're used to the idea of having the drive on the left, in an > left-to-right glyph ordering society, it actually makes good sense to > have drive 1 on the left, drive 2 on the right. The other way round would > be good for Arab countries, however :) > Hmm. An interesting story is how some soap powder manufacturer had three pictures on the advert, one showing a dirty shirt, one showing the the shirt being washed in 'super-suds', and the third showing the shirt all nice and white. Unfortunately they forgot that the inhabitants of the particular country read from right- to -left. On the drives point, has Bob changed the position just because he prefers it like that? He seems to have a problem with disc drives, doen't he? - He always goes on about how he's modified his dos so you type 'cat' not 'dir', and that he had tried to convince Bruce & Alan to use 5.25" drives. Perhaps that's next - a 5.25" drive on the right-hand side. -AG From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 15:54:43 1995 Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 14:43:08 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512131343.AA02483@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 475 Lines: 11 > On the drives point, has Bob changed the position just because > he prefers it like that? He seems to have a problem with disc > drives, doen't he? - He always goes on about how he's modified > his dos so you type 'cat' not 'dir', and that he had tried to > convince Bruce & Alan to use 5.25" drives. Perhaps that's next - > a 5.25" drive on the right-hand side. I'd rather fancy him doing 3" or 8" or even better 2" (the canon standard) discs. Perhaps SS SD :) -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 16:08:06 1995 Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 14:35:49 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512131335.AA02458@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Date X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 906 Lines: 25 > On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 12:52:16 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > > > I may have falsely accused Simon of having an incorrect date header. My > > > sam-users mails are also now coming back with incorrect MET dates on them. > > > Curiouser and curiouser... > > > This happend sometimes between Nov 22 and 23 - talk to your admin > > and ask what he changed :) > > Or yours? :-) > > I do know that we had a mail server upgrade at around that time, but > our sysadmin is competent enough not to set it to MET. This, and the > fact that Simon's mails also say MET, seem to indicate that the change > is happening somewhere in middle Europe. I suppose one possibility is > that it can't parse the timezone out of the date header and so adds its > own. But it seems to work nicely for Andrew, Geoff and the others from the Isles. Do you know if something has happened to the mail routing? > > imc > -Frode From imc Wed Dec 13 16:10:18 1995 Subject: Re: Date To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 16:10:18 MET In-Reply-To: <9512131335.AA02458@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 13, 95 2:35 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 302 Lines: 9 On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 14:35:49 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > But it seems to work nicely for Andrew, Geoff and the others from > the Isles. Do you know if something has happened to the mail > routing? It's OK I've reproduced the problem within Oxford, so our admin is now going to hear about it... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 16:15:21 1995 Message-Id: <199512131314.OAA01959@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 13:14:28 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512131124.AA02297@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 13, 95 11:24:20 am 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: 2062 Lines: 58 > On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 08:55:33 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > I'm going to outright copy the UNIX file handling commands for SAMOS > > Namely? Well... more the C ones... I'll copy some of the structure of fopen, fclose, etc etc so as to make it easy to patch a good C into the DOS, and also to make proper file handling easier. You must realise, that not having programmed much C, I'm working blind here :) > > > > SAVE {ABS} {OVER} {PROTECT} {HIDE} > > "::" > > Ug, well I might live with that. > > > [3] devices: currently, d1-d7, c1-c8, p1-p2... possibly hd1-...? > > c1-c8? p1-p2? Wassat? Is one of them the network, like what you can > do with the native Sam but not with SamDOS, and MasterDOS might do it > but with a different format that I haven't worked out yet? c1-c8 are the comms interfaces, p1-p2 are the parallel printer sockets... I forgot the network ones :) > What about t1-255? True :) And that ! > > SAVE PROTECT "d1:RAW,TXL:etcetcetc" > > or even for screen type files... > > SAVE PROTECT "d1:RAW,GIF:blah.gif" > > What is TXL, and what difference would TXL or GIF or anything make? I was thinking TXL, as it was the only way that I could think of writing "COOKED" without introducing misunderstandings in the use of RAW... TXL = translate, or translate to ASCII format... (local end of line character conventions) How about NOH for no header, (or NOHR)...? GIF would enable you to save out screens in GIF format through the DOS - but I think that's beginning to drift a little from what we've been trying to do with the RAW anyway - it's something which SHOULD be outside the filename :) So... any other ideas for the :: ? [dev info] Hmm.. the only thing I can see now is that if we stuck with the unix system (which is great - no need for multiple partitions, or lots of stupid drive numbers), and didn't have a hard drive - or even if we did have one - people might start getting confused. Have to think about that one. Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 16:34:55 1995 Message-Id: <9512131556.AA28254@dxmint.cern.ch> From: Allan Skillman (Dr Kid) Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 16:56:26 MET In-Reply-To: <9512131343.AA02483@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 13, 95 2:43 pm Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 260 Lines: 12 > > ...convince Bruce & Alan to use 5.25" drives. Perhaps that's next - > > a 5.25" drive on the right-hand side. > > I'd rather fancy him doing 3" or 8" or even better 2" (the > canon standard) discs. Perhaps SS SD :) > How about Microdrives ;) Allan -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 17:06:16 1995 Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 18:06:07 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512131706.AA02719@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 328 Lines: 13 > > > ...convince Bruce & Alan to use 5.25" drives. Perhaps that's next - > > > a 5.25" drive on the right-hand side. > > > > I'd rather fancy him doing 3" or 8" or even better 2" (the > > canon standard) discs. Perhaps SS SD :) > > > How about Microdrives ;) Trouble is - they don't make them anymore... -Frode > > Allan From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 17:39:04 1995 Message-Id: <9512131737.AA03399@dxmint.cern.ch> From: Allan Skillman (Dr Kid) Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 18:37:06 MET In-Reply-To: <9512131706.AA02719@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 13, 95 6:06 pm Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 192 Lines: 12 > > How about Microdrives ;) > > Trouble is - they don't make them anymore... > No problem - Bob can have some made in horrible cream plastic :) Allan (Must change that Dr Kid id) > -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 17:55:45 1995 Message-Id: <199512131743.SAA05040@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 17:43:26 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512131737.AA03399@dxmint.cern.ch> from "Allan Skillman" at Dec 13, 95 06:37:06 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: 440 Lines: 15 > > > How about Microdrives ;) > > > > Trouble is - they don't make them anymore... > > > No problem - Bob can have some made in horrible cream plastic :) Sod that. Solve half of the SAM's interface and power problems and stick the SAM, avec SAMBUS in a PC case. You'd need a PC Keyboard Interface building though :) (guess why we're working on one?) > Allan (Must change that Dr Kid id) It's professor Kid now, isn't it? :) Simon From imc Wed Dec 13 18:01:08 1995 Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 18:01:08 MET In-Reply-To: <199512131314.OAA01959@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 13, 95 1:14 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1413 Lines: 32 On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 13:14:28 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 08:55:33 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > > I'm going to outright copy the UNIX file handling commands for SAMOS > > Namely? > Well... more the C ones... I'll copy some of the structure of fopen, > fclose, etc etc so as to make it easy to patch a good C into the DOS, and > also to make proper file handling easier. They aren't "commands" as such though, are they? > I was thinking TXL, as it was the only way that I could think of writing > "COOKED" without introducing misunderstandings in the use of RAW... > TXL = translate, or translate to ASCII format... (local end of line > character conventions) That is sometimes written "CRLF". > GIF would enable you to save out screens in GIF format through the DOS - I don't see why that should be built in to the DOS. > Hmm.. the only thing I can see now is that if we stuck with the unix > system (which is great - no need for multiple partitions, or lots of > stupid drive numbers), and didn't have a hard drive - or even if we did > have one - people might start getting confused. Oh - the other thing about Unix devices is that each /dev/thing occupies an inode and has an entry in a directory. In other words, they take disk space and the disk needs to be mounted before you can use them. On a machine with only floppies this might not be a good idea. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 18:15:16 1995 Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 19:04:11 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512131804.AA02816@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 630 Lines: 25 > > > > How about Microdrives ;) > > > > > > Trouble is - they don't make them anymore... > > > > > No problem - Bob can have some made in horrible cream plastic :) > > Sod that. Solve half of the SAM's interface and power problems and stick the > SAM, avec SAMBUS in a PC case. You'd need a PC Keyboard Interface > building though :) (guess why we're working on one?) Hey! That's my idea! I suppose it'll support SVGA, F-SCSI/EIDE, Gravis Ultra-whatever, Zip-disk, the whole lot? > > > Allan (Must change that Dr Kid id) > > It's professor Kid now, isn't it? :) Doctor. > > Simon > -Frode BSc.....sort of....MSc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 18:34:33 1995 Message-Id: <9512131826.AA21037@dxmint.cern.ch> From: Allan Skillman (Dr Kid) Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 19:26:52 MET In-Reply-To: <199512131743.SAA05040@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 13, 95 5:43 pm Mailer: Elm [revision: 70.85] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 278 Lines: 12 > > > Allan (Must change that Dr Kid id) > > It's professor Kid now, isn't it? :) > > Simon > Its an old Joke - Some of the US guys out here at CERN thought I was just too young for a Grad. student - they used to call me Kid. Then when I graduated it became Dr Kid :) -- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 18:39:55 1995 Message-Id: <199512131819.TAA05453@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 18:19:17 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512131804.AA02816@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 13, 95 07:04:11 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: 517 Lines: 12 > > Sod that. Solve half of the SAM's interface and power problems and stick the > > SAM, avec SAMBUS in a PC case. You'd need a PC Keyboard Interface > > building though :) (guess why we're working on one?) > > Hey! That's my idea! I suppose it'll support SVGA, F-SCSI/EIDE, > Gravis Ultra-whatever, Zip-disk, the whole lot? Ummmm..... well, the problem is that I don't know enough about the PC bus to do that... and to tell the truth, although it has become the standard, it's a pain in the backside. Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 18:44:13 1995 Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 19:27:20 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512131827.AA02823@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1696 Lines: 44 > On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 13:14:28 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > > On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 08:55:33 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > > > I'm going to outright copy the UNIX file handling commands for SAMOS > > > Namely? > > Well... more the C ones... I'll copy some of the structure of fopen, > > fclose, etc etc so as to make it easy to patch a good C into the DOS, and > > also to make proper file handling easier. > > They aren't "commands" as such though, are they? Come on..poor lad hasn't programmed too much in C you know. Should be fairly obvious what he meant. :) > > > I was thinking TXL, as it was the only way that I could think of writing > > "COOKED" without introducing misunderstandings in the use of RAW... > > TXL = translate, or translate to ASCII format... (local end of line > > character conventions) > > That is sometimes written "CRLF". > > > GIF would enable you to save out screens in GIF format through the DOS - > > I don't see why that should be built in to the DOS. Agreed. No other DOS I know of supports GIF-files.. > > > Hmm.. the only thing I can see now is that if we stuck with the unix > > system (which is great - no need for multiple partitions, or lots of > > stupid drive numbers), and didn't have a hard drive - or even if we did > > have one - people might start getting confused. > > Oh - the other thing about Unix devices is that each /dev/thing occupies an > inode and has an entry in a directory. In other words, they take disk space > and the disk needs to be mounted before you can use them. On a machine with > only floppies this might not be a good idea. On some unices the /dev directory is RAM-disc. > > imc > -Frode From imc Wed Dec 13 18:49:37 1995 Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 18:49:37 MET In-Reply-To: <9512131827.AA02823@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 13, 95 7:27 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 764 Lines: 17 On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 19:27:20 +0100, Frode Tenneboe said: > Come on..poor lad hasn't programmed too much in C you know. > Should be fairly obvious what he meant. :) It still isn't obvious (to me) what he meant. fopen is a C function call. It's not something you would ever type in BASIC, and in machine code it would either be a hook code or an address to call rather than the name "fopen". If he means that he will be designing hook codes in such a way that it is easy to hang some C things off them such as fopen then all very well - I don't see why there should be any objection to that. > On some unices the /dev directory is RAM-disc. True, but I don't think you necessarily want to force people to have a RAM-disc if they only have a 512K machine. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 18:53:59 1995 Message-Id: <199512131841.TAA05734@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 18:41:11 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512131826.AA21037@dxmint.cern.ch> from "Allan Skillman" at Dec 13, 95 07:26:52 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: 296 Lines: 10 > > > Allan (Must change that Dr Kid id) > > It's professor Kid now, isn't it? :) > > Simon > Its an old Joke - Some of the US guys out here at CERN thought I was just too > young for a Grad. student - they used to call me Kid. Then when I graduated it > became Dr Kid :) Light dawns :) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 19:05:36 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 19:08:10 +0000 Subject: Sam in a PC case... Priority: urgent X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <7B03E37A2@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1339 Lines: 29 I thought it was about time someone changed the damn subject bar! Ok, I don't think it would be, but *is it* possible to interface 'yer' PC cards to a SAM? As I say, probably not, and so if you couldn't then there'd be no support for SCSI, SVGA etc. You see? Unless of course, someone designed a Z80-compatible SVGA graphics processing card. But that'd cost 2 grand ;) Gotta go, I've got pre-Christmas exams and stuff. Happy XMAS then ;) _/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Dave Hooper - 1st Year Computer Science & Maths BSc | | At the University Of Edinburgh, Scotland | | email: d.c.hooper@sms.ed.ac.uk | | smail: why bother? | | www: http://www.geopages.com/Athens.1436 | | ####### UNDER CONSTRUCTION !! ####### | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 19:06:30 1995 From: Mr Andrew M Gale Message-Id: <9512131843.AA29551@central.surrey.ac.uk> Subject: asics To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 18:43:11 GMT In-Reply-To: <9512131804.AA02816@asmal.edh-net>; from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 13, 95 7:04 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 844 Lines: 15 What is the situation with the SAM - I mean, who has the rights to the design? See, I was wondering if, since Bruce has loads of asics left, whether Bob would kick up a hoo-hah if someone tried to use it in something else. It's just that I was thinking it would make the core of a nice little SBC - most SBCs can only communicate via a serial port, but one with a video output would be quite nice for certain applications. What with one asic, one z80, two 256Kx4 drams, a monochrome o/p (using a transistor and a few resistors), a serial port and a bit of glue, a toilet roll tube and some sticky-backed plastic we could have a nice cheap controller. Oh, and a ROM might be handy (in fact, a modified SAM basic would be quite nice and sufficiently fast for certain control applications. And a PIA might be nice. And an IEEE-488 bus, and a.... From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 19:54:08 1995 Message-Id: <199512131906.UAA05952@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 19:05:47 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512131801.AA03072@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 13, 95 06:01:09 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: 2215 Lines: 51 > On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 13:14:28 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > They aren't "commands" as such though, are they? Ummm... okay... access methods? > > I was thinking TXL, as it was the only way that I could think of writing > > "COOKED" without introducing misunderstandings in the use of RAW... > > TXL = translate, or translate to ASCII format... (local end of line > > character conventions) > > That is sometimes written "CRLF". Right... in that case, CRLF might be it :) Okay.. instead of "RAW", how about NOH or NOHR? Votes please? > > GIF would enable you to save out screens in GIF format through the DOS - > > I don't see why that should be built in to the DOS. Well... I thought it would be a nice addition - handy to have. Also the same code could be used to (de)compress files automatically, so putting it in wouldn't be so much overhead for the other benefits to be gleaned. You could argue the same about putting SCREEN$ files into the DOS... but that's not quite what you're getting at. Same problem as with the FORMAT command (though it's damn useful to have that in there where you can get to it if you need it in a hurry). Creeping Featuritis. How about if I make it so that you can output BMP format files as well as normal ones? > > Hmm.. the only thing I can see now is that if we stuck with the unix > > system (which is great - no need for multiple partitions, or lots of > > stupid drive numbers), and didn't have a hard drive - or even if we did > > have one - people might start getting confused. > > Oh - the other thing about Unix devices is that each /dev/thing occupies an > inode and has an entry in a directory. In other words, they take disk space > and the disk needs to be mounted before you can use them. On a machine with > only floppies this might not be a good idea. Okay... I was thinking about having the new devices running off a table-based driver system. On startup, the system looks through the boot disk for a (you guessed it) config file. Loads up the drivers, installs them on the appropriate device name via a doubly linked list (or singly linked one; not decided yet). I'll sit down and work out more on this over christmas. Simon From imc Wed Dec 13 19:59:05 1995 Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 95 19:59:05 MET In-Reply-To: <199512131906.UAA05952@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 13, 95 7:05 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 691 Lines: 18 On Wed, 13 Dec 1995 19:05:47 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > > > I don't see why that should be built in to the DOS. > Well... I thought it would be a nice addition - handy to have. Also the > same code could be used to (de)compress files automatically, so putting > it in wouldn't be so much overhead for the other benefits to be gleaned. > How about if I make it so that you can output BMP format files as well as > normal ones? Is it that hard to load a converter program? It's not as if folks are forever putting Sam screens on their Dos box (are they?) Also, would it be able to load GIFs/BMPs, and if so the what would it do with ones that have more than 16 colours? imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 13 21:54:03 1995 From: R J Partington Message-Id: <199512132108.VAA00239@heffer.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 21:08:22 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199512131906.UAA05952@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 13, 95 07:05:47 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: heffer.demon.co.uk [Wed, 13 Dec 95 21:08:27 GMT] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: post.demon.co.uk [Wed, 13 Dec 95 21:08:49 GMT] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 822 Lines: 23 Simon Cooke wrote... > > Okay.. instead of "RAW", how about NOH or NOHR? Votes please? How about accessing a different device? So instead of something like DF0: (I can't remember how the sam does drive names - it's been quite a while since I used one), have RF0: And MS-DOS disks could be MS0: (which could imply no header). > Well... I thought it would be a nice addition - handy to have. Also the > same code could be used to (de)compress files automatically, so putting > it in wouldn't be so much overhead for the other benefits to be gleaned. Maybe the compression bits should be in a seperate part, so they can easily be replaced or upgraded. (Like the Archimedes) > How about if I make it so that you can output BMP format files as well as > normal ones? This Dos is beginning to sound like Emacs... Rob From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 08:15:21 1995 Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 09:12:15 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512140812.AA03137@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Proposals... X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1764 Lines: 67 > Simon Cooke wrote... > > > > Okay.. instead of "RAW", how about NOH or NOHR? Votes please? HLS - headerless? [I wrote] > > On some unices the /dev directory is RAM-disc. > [Ian wrote] > True, but I don't think you necessarily want to force people to have a > RAM-disc if they only have a 512K machine. [Rob wrote] > > How about accessing a different device? So instead of something like > DF0: (I can't remember how the sam does drive names - it's been quite > a while since I used one), have RF0: > > And MS-DOS disks could be MS0: (which could imply no header). I like this idea. However, it might turn out to be a problem if you want to save a file with header on MS-DOS disks. However, one could at mount time define how data should be written. mount -edos hd0a / mount -msdos -headerless fd0 /diskette_A mount -mdos fd1 /diskette_B mount -edos hd0c /usr mount -ext2 hd1a /usr/home/frodet/my_linux_ZIP_drive (OK! I like the unix file structure) You can then (that is before all this) partition some memory and use it for devices - it won't use up that much memory. > > > Well... I thought it would be a nice addition - handy to have. Also the > > same code could be used to (de)compress files automatically, so putting > > it in wouldn't be so much overhead for the other benefits to be gleaned. > > Maybe the compression bits should be in a seperate part, so they can > easily be replaced or upgraded. (Like the Archimedes) Hey..how about filters. :) cat file.bmp | gif_filter > file.gif, or gif_filter < file.bmp > file.gif I like this baby already. :) > > > How about if I make it so that you can output BMP format files as well as > > normal ones? > > This Dos is beginning to sound like Emacs... Ah.... > > Rob > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 08:20:21 1995 Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 09:20:14 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512140820.AA03140@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 706 Lines: 19 > > > Sod that. Solve half of the SAM's interface and power problems and stick the > > > SAM, avec SAMBUS in a PC case. You'd need a PC Keyboard Interface > > > building though :) (guess why we're working on one?) > > > > Hey! That's my idea! I suppose it'll support SVGA, F-SCSI/EIDE, > > Gravis Ultra-whatever, Zip-disk, the whole lot? > > Ummmm..... well, the problem is that I don't know enough about the PC bus > to do that... and to tell the truth, although it has become the standard, > it's a pain in the backside. _The_ PC bus? You mean ISA; EISA, Vesa local bus, PCI, younameit. :) OK! It _is_ a pain, but I like the idea of not haveing another incompatible bus... -Frode > > Simon > From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 08:53:42 1995 Message-Id: <199512140848.JAA13402@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 08:47:44 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512131959.AA03335@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 13, 95 07:59:05 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: 708 Lines: 18 > > How about if I make it so that you can output BMP format files as well as > > normal ones? > > Is it that hard to load a converter program? It's not as if folks are > forever putting Sam screens on their Dos box (are they?) True.. > Also, would it be able to load GIFs/BMPs, and if so the what would it do > with ones that have more than 16 colours? Yep, it'd be able to load them - more than 16 colours and it either goes to greyscale, or bayer dithers them using 1 bit per colour. (Doesn't look too bad actually). Anything more complex, such as proper colour reduction methods incorporating say, Floyd-Steinberg or Stucki dithering would be reserved for a paint package, I reckon :) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 09:14:09 1995 Message-Id: <199512140853.JAA13450@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 08:52:49 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <199512132108.VAA00239@heffer.demon.co.uk> from "R J Partington" at Dec 13, 95 09:08:22 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: 1095 Lines: 24 > Simon Cooke wrote... > > Well... I thought it would be a nice addition - handy to have. Also the > > same code could be used to (de)compress files automatically, so putting > > it in wouldn't be so much overhead for the other benefits to be gleaned. > > Maybe the compression bits should be in a seperate part, so they can > easily be replaced or upgraded. (Like the Archimedes) Possibly, though having it in separate chunks makes it a bugger to allocate memory for. You should see the problems I'm having with Termite; rather than store all the possible character print routines and font layouts (for optimal printing), I've got them stored in a series of tables - the same table decodes the character data layout, *and* tells the rest of the code how to create the character print routines. The thing is, I've got to reserve a block of memory for it all, and until I finish every single one, I don't know how big that block will be. Also, anybody ever tried writing a Malloc for a machine with a banked memory structure like the SAM? (And if so, can I have a copy? :) ) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 09:29:57 1995 Message-Id: From: ee31ag@ee.surrey.ac.uk (Andrew M Gale) Subject: Re: Sam in a PC case... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 09:28:44 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <7B03E37A2@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> from "Dave Hooper" at Dec 13, 95 07:08:10 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 390 Lines: 11 > > Ok, I don't think it would be, but *is it* possible to interface > 'yer' PC cards to a SAM? > As I say, probably not, and so if you couldn't then there'd be no > support for SCSI, SVGA etc. You see? Nothing's impossible. The 8-bit/16bit interface bodge is a bit awkward, and speed would be a problem. Far easier just to buy a PC and sit it next to your SAM. Did I just say that?! From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 09:34:05 1995 Message-Id: <199512140909.KAA13560@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Memory Management Structures in EDOS / TERMITE / SAMOS... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 09:09:18 +0100 (MET) Cc: scooke#@nessie.mcc.ac.uk 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: 2311 Lines: 56 'lo all... I worked this out over the weekend... kind of an extension to the ALLOCT table, so it'll work with basic - or without, if you prefer. Then again, I haven't been able to work out yet where to stick the damn thing (other than in the SAMOS block itself). Internal memory allocation - extended ALLOCT table, or EALLOCT ========================== 64 byte table, comprised of 32 unsigned short ints. Possible values: FFFF - no page present 0000 - free page FFxx - Page allocated using the old ALLOCT system. (eg BASIC, COMET, etc) For example, for a value 81FDh, the upper byte (81) would refer to the an application ID (provided by the memory management routines), while the lower is an application-specific byte, which the application reserves for itself. An application is passed its ID when it is first initialised & run. (by a single byte - not decided which register it's in yet). It has already had memory allocated to it at this stage by the OS (reserved in the EALLOCT table under the ID byte, with a zero as its low byte - this is the only value that an application may not use in its memory allocation). There is a 32-byte bitmap from which free ID's are allocated to applications when they are loaded. There is also a 2 byte external memory address, pointing to the first external memory page. FFFF indicates no external memory is present. External Memory Allocation Table - EXALLOCT ================================ This is much like the EALLOCT table - in fact it is identical in every way, except that if MasterDOS is installed (which should not be the case; this may be phased out), a bitmap copy is kept of which pages have been allocated in the MasterDOS map. This appears only in the first EXALLOCT table. The EXALLOCT table is a 1K area in the first 16k page of external memory. The actual allocation space is 256 short ints (512 bytes), one per external page. A new EXALLOCT table may be found every 4Mb of external memory. At the end of each table, a short int either points to the next external memory page where a table may be found, or to FFFF, ie no more external memory. Something like that anyway. Needs fleshing out - but I think it might do. I'd prefer to have a proper malloc though instead of reserving everything in 16k chunks... Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 11:14:45 1995 Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 12:00:57 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512141100.AA03337@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Memory Management Structures in EDOS / TERMITE / SAMOS... X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2015 Lines: 62 > > I worked this out over the weekend... kind of an extension to the ALLOCT Strange notion of weekend. :) [bla bla bla deleted] > Something like that anyway. Needs fleshing out - but I think it might do. > I'd prefer to have a proper malloc though instead of reserving everything > in 16k chunks... OK! mallock. It should not be too difficult. Say, the call mallock(int size, short_int id) returns the page number and the offset in which memory has been allocated. Whatever happens next is for the application to decide. Allocation can be done in two ways (as I see it). 1) Easy: Allow maximum 16K to be malloced at any time, if the application needs more, more mallocs has to be used. If a request for less than 16K arrives, this is malloced in a free slot with free size closest to the requested size. 2) Not-so-easy: Allow any size to be malloced at any time. This might in fact be easier as the malloc only 'appends' malloced space after the last malloced. More difficult for the application, but c'est la vie. Then decide what resolution you want to malloc memory. Say you can malloc size in 1K chunks. For each free block a short_int is allocated giving for a 4GB memory, 256*16*2 = 8192 bytes table. Malloc will of course have to malloc size to itself for this table :) OK! Now, If I call malloc with malloc (14000, #fffd), If this is the very first malloc, and available space starts at bank 4 with offset 0 it will put #fffd into the 14 first free (marked #0000 ?) of the above slots in the block-table. In return you get the bank number (4) and the offset (0). The next malloc will also give bank no 4 (provided second metod), but offset 14336. Free can be implemented as free (byte bank, short_int offset), which is unique enough to free. However, it's difficult to implement this nicely for the application's point of view because of the lack of memory management, not becuase of the bank switching (well, the second usually implies the first, but..) :) > > Simon > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 11:34:32 1995 Message-Id: <199512141128.MAA14814@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Memory Management Structures in EDOS / TERMITE / SAMOS... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 11:27:37 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512141100.AA03337@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 14, 95 12:00:57 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: 609 Lines: 18 > > I worked this out over the weekend... kind of an extension to the ALLOCT > > Strange notion of weekend. :) Well... I've been spending the last X days writing stuff for Internet Today. It has not been fun (toooooooo much work this time. But the money's ... well, it's reasonable, but not for the effort entailed). > [bla bla bla deleted] > > > Something like that anyway. Needs fleshing out - but I think it might do. > > I'd prefer to have a proper malloc though instead of reserving everything > > in 16k chunks... [Malloc ideas deleted] Okay... I'll digest that and get back to you :) Simon From imc Thu Dec 14 11:40:23 1995 Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 95 11:40:23 MET In-Reply-To: <199512140848.JAA13402@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 14, 95 8:47 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 362 Lines: 9 On Thu, 14 Dec 1995 08:47:44 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > Yep, it'd be able to load them - more than 16 colours and it either goes > to greyscale, or bayer dithers them using 1 bit per colour. (Doesn't look > too bad actually). I suppose 1 bit per colour means an 8-colour palette. I take it you are joking when you say it doesn't look to bad. :-) imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 12:11:20 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 12:09:34 +0000 In-Reply-To: ft -- "Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe" (Dec 13, 7:04pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 350 Lines: 12 On Dec 13, 7:04pm in "Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe", Frode warbled: ] > SAM, avec SAMBUS in a PC case. You'd need a PC Keyboard Interface ] > building though :) (guess why we're working on one?) ] ] Hey! That's my idea! I suppose it'll support SVGA, F-SCSI/EIDE, ] Gravis Ultra-whatever, Zip-disk, the whole lot? Based on an idea by.... :) -- Geoff From imc Thu Dec 14 12:21:54 1995 Subject: Elite To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 95 12:21:54 MET X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 338 Lines: 10 OK it's not a Sam question, but we were discussing it recently. I managed to get to "above average" in one night. I think I've worked out what most things are for, but could someone tell me how you (a) fire a missile (b) collect some cargo that's floating around in space? imc PS the circles really don't look that bad on the Sam. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 12:34:09 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 12:32:15 +0000 In-Reply-To: Ian.Collier -- "Elite" (Dec 14, 12:21pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Elite Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 527 Lines: 16 On Dec 14, 12:21pm in "Elite", warbled: ] OK it's not a Sam question, but we were discussing it recently. I managed ] to get to "above average" in one night. I think I've worked out what most ] things are for, but could someone tell me how you ] ] (a) fire a missile ] (b) collect some cargo that's floating around in space? You need a cargo-thingummy, can't remember what it's called. Scoop? Then you just fly really close so that the stuff goes just under the ship. Missiles? Ummm. Can't remember. Sorry. -- Geoff From imc Thu Dec 14 12:54:31 1995 Subject: Re: Elite To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 95 12:54:31 MET In-Reply-To: ; from "Geoff Winkless" at Dec 14, 95 12:32 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 238 Lines: 7 On Thu, 14 Dec 1995 12:32:15 +0000, Geoff Winkless said: > You need a cargo-thingummy, can't remember what it's called. Scoop? I haven't seen one of those mentioned, unless it comes as part of the fuel scoop or the large cargo bay. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 12:54:32 1995 From: "Diggory Gray (Physics student.)" Organization: The University of Birmingham To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 12:29:25 GMT Subject: Re: Elite Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.01) Message-Id: <1BE027482D@novell3.bham.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 790 Lines: 22 > Subject: Elite Er have you got Elite running on the SAM under spec emulation? - If so could I have a copy? > OK it's not a Sam question, but we were discussing it recently. I managed > to get to "above average" in one night. I think I've worked out what most > things are for, but could someone tell me how you > > (a) fire a missile > (b) collect some cargo that's floating around in space? > > imc > > PS the circles really don't look that bad on the Sam. My mate used to have Elite on the BBC - So I rember that to collect cargo in space you will need to fit your ship with a cargo scope, then you should be able to 'fly over' the cargo and pick it up ( I'm not sure if you have to activate the scoop before hand ). Diggory Gray ( Physics student at Birimingham ) From imc Thu Dec 14 13:02:09 1995 Subject: Re: Elite To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 95 13:02:09 MET In-Reply-To: <1BE027482D@novell3.bham.ac.uk>; from "Diggory Gray" at Dec 14, 95 12:29 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1320 Lines: 41 On Thu, 14 Dec 1995 12:29:25 GMT, Diggory Gray said: > Er have you got Elite running on the SAM under spec emulation? Yes I have (note: it crashed under the MGT emulator but I can run it under a full-ROM emulation - in other words, with a 48K ROM loaded in at 65536 and then the snapt.bin from the MGT emulator loaded on top. I forget the exact details). I can mail you a snap if you really want, although it's the same one as I found on the net somewhere, having been resaved after I typed in the correct code using a tip which someone put on comp.sys.sinclair. > My mate used to have Elite on the BBC - So I rember that to > collect cargo in space you will need to fit your ship with a > cargo scope, then you should be able to 'fly over' the cargo > and pick it up ( I'm not sure if you have to activate the scoop > before hand ). I am sitting at a tech 11 planet called Leesti, and the items it has on offer are: 1 Fuel 2 Missile 3 Large cargo bay 4 ECM 5 Extra pulse laser 6 Extra beam laser 7 Fuel scoop 8 Escape pod 9 Energy bomb 10 Energy unit 11 Docking computer 12 Galactic hyperspace 13 Military laser (too expensive!) 14 Mining laser. Unfortunately I'm broke as I just spent my cash on the ECM, but there ain't no cargo scoop there unless it counts as part of the large cargo bay. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 13:12:37 1995 Message-Id: <199512141152.MAA15096@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 11:51:34 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512141140.AA03721@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 14, 95 11:40:23 am 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: 865 Lines: 21 > On Thu, 14 Dec 1995 08:47:44 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > Yep, it'd be able to load them - more than 16 colours and it either goes > > to greyscale, or bayer dithers them using 1 bit per colour. (Doesn't look > > too bad actually). > > I suppose 1 bit per colour means an 8-colour palette. I take it you are > joking when you say it doesn't look to bad. :-) Well... using the bayer, it's actually a reasonable representation given the limitations... I'm not convincing you at all, am I? :) Stand WAAAAAY back from the monitor, and it looks reasonable, but that's about all. Better than greyscale if you want an impression of the colours, but if you want the detail, you stick with the greyscale. Unless someone wants to divise a routine based on cutting up the colour space depending on the frequency of occurance of the colours within? Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 13:15:45 1995 Message-Id: <199512141309.OAA16107@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Elite To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 13:09:28 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <1BE027482D@novell3.bham.ac.uk> from "Diggory Gray" at Dec 14, 95 12:29:25 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: 240 Lines: 8 > > Subject: Elite > Er have you got Elite running on the SAM under spec emulation? > - If so could I have a copy? I'll give you a copy of my SAM version, where if you LOAD a saved game it gives you everything if you want :) Simon From imc Thu Dec 14 14:09:03 1995 Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 95 14:09:03 MET In-Reply-To: <199512141152.MAA15096@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 14, 95 11:51 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 512 Lines: 12 On Thu, 14 Dec 1995 11:51:34 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > Unless someone wants to divise a routine based on cutting up the colour > space depending on the frequency of occurance of the colours within? See ppmquant for various colour-reducing algorithms. Floyd-Steinberg isn't that hard really. Just mapping each colour into its nearest Sam equivalent and then choosing the 16 most popular seems to do a fair job. But then, I still think that loading and saving GIFs is best left to an application. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 15:47:15 1995 Message-Id: <21643.9512141536@rs6-233.cls-4.bcc.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Elite and Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 15:36:37 +0000 (GMT) From: Mr Keith Turner In-Reply-To: <9512141254.AA04048@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 14, 95 12:54:31 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL22] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 841 Lines: 23 > Geoff Winkless said: > > You need a cargo-thingummy, can't remember what it's called. Scoop? Ian Collier said: > I haven't seen one of those mentioned, unless it comes as part of the > fuel scoop or the large cargo bay. On the Spectrum version at least, the fuel scoop can be used for both sun-skimming and collecting debris. Oh, and BTW, I agree with Ian about leaving GIF support out of an operating system. The OS might include support for screen dumps, but the format of the screen dump files should be a well-documented low-level format. It is up to application writers to write converters from SAM screen dumps (SCREEN$ files?) to GIF or whatever. As an additional issue, if you include GIF output code in commercial software you probably need to get a license for the compression technique from Unisys or Compuserve. / Subject: Re: Elite and Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 15:46:36 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <21643.9512141536@rs6-233.cls-4.bcc.ac.uk> from "Mr Keith Turner" at Dec 14, 95 03:36:37 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: 693 Lines: 16 > Oh, and BTW, I agree with Ian about leaving GIF support out of an > operating system. The OS might include support for screen dumps, but > the format of the screen dump files should be a well-documented > low-level format. It is up to application writers to write converters > from SAM screen dumps (SCREEN$ files?) to GIF or whatever. Hmmm... okay - I'll try putting (perhaps) LZ 77 support in the DOS - AFAIK it's unpatented - and come up with my own hashing mechanism. > As an additional issue, if you include GIF output code in commercial > software you probably need to get a license for the compression > technique from Unisys or Compuserve. True: PD version anyone? :) Simon From imc Thu Dec 14 15:51:10 1995 Subject: Re: Elite and Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 95 15:51:10 MET In-Reply-To: <21643.9512141536@rs6-233.cls-4.bcc.ac.uk>; from "Mr Keith Turner" at Dec 14, 95 3:36 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 657 Lines: 16 On Thu, 14 Dec 1995 15:36:37 +0000 (GMT), Mr Keith Turner said: > On the Spectrum version at least, the fuel scoop can be used for both > sun-skimming and collecting debris. OK thanks (drat, spent my cash on the wrong thing). > As an additional issue, if you include GIF output code in commercial > software you probably need to get a license for the compression > technique from Unisys or Compuserve. Compuserve owns the format; Unisys owns the compression algorithm. Compuserve has released the format for public use provided that utilities print out some message or other (have you seen one of those messages recently?...). Unisys has not. ;-) imc From imc Thu Dec 14 15:53:41 1995 Subject: Re: Elite and Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 95 15:53:41 MET In-Reply-To: <199512141548.QAA17663@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no>; from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 14, 95 3:46 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 608 Lines: 17 On Thu, 14 Dec 1995 15:46:36 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > Hmmm... okay - I'll try putting (perhaps) LZ 77 support in the DOS - > AFAIK it's unpatented - and come up with my own hashing mechanism. I don't really see that that should be in the DOS either, although it might be difficult to emulate the convenience of saying something like 'zcat foo | bar' on Unix. > > As an additional issue, if you include GIF output code in commercial > > software you probably need to get a license for the compression > > technique from Unisys or Compuserve. > True: PD version anyone? :) See PBMplus. :-) imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 16:46:58 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 13:40:56 +0000 Subject: Re: Proposals... Priority: urgent X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <1A3C473AB3@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2116 Lines: 49 Simon Cooke said sommat like: > > On Thu, 14 Dec 1995 08:47:44 +0100 (MET), Simon Cooke said: > > > Yep, it'd be able to load them - more than 16 colours and it either goes > > > to greyscale, or bayer dithers them using 1 bit per colour. (Doesn't look > > > too bad actually). > > > > I suppose 1 bit per colour means an 8-colour palette. I take it you are > > joking when you say it doesn't look to bad. :-) > > Well... using the bayer, it's actually a reasonable representation given > the limitations... > > I'm not convincing you at all, am I? :) > > Stand WAAAAAY back from the monitor, and it looks reasonable, but that's > about all. Better than greyscale if you want an impression of the > colours, but if you want the detail, you stick with the greyscale. Does it go all 3D if you cross your eyes? ;) > Unless someone wants to divise a routine based on cutting up the colour > space depending on the frequency of occurance of the colours within? Sure I'll give it a bash. I've written a 256-colour PCX to sam converter, but it's not brilliant. I'll try and generalise it over chrimbo. (just add a spot of dithering and it should be there - the colour thingy seems spot on tho') > Simon _/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Dave Hooper - 1st Year Computer Science & Maths BSc | | At the University Of Edinburgh, Scotland | | email: d.c.hooper@sms.ed.ac.uk | | smail: why bother? | | www: http://www.geopages.com/Athens.1436 | | ####### UNDER CONSTRUCTION !! ####### | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 16:48:58 1995 From: Dave Hooper <9531427@EIGG.SMS.ED.AC.UK> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 13:48:45 +0000 Subject: Re: Elite Priority: urgent X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v2.10) Message-Id: <1A5E41058A@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2878 Lines: 67 Ian Collier said sommat like: > OK it's not a Sam question, but we were discussing it recently. I managed > to get to "above average" in one night. I think I've worked out what most > things are for, but could someone tell me how you > > (a) fire a missile Easy: Press T (for Target missile). A little light beside the panel showing you how many missiles you have should go GREEN. Then fly around to get the enemy in your sights. You'll hear a 'pip' sound. Then, to fire, simply press F! If you want to target a missile at a different ship, press U to unarm the missile, then as above. (The missiles are programmed to fly towards the enemy you targetted.) Caution: Most ships have ECMs which will destroy your missiles! (a good tactic, though, is to get real close and missile it before it has a chance to ECM the missile!) > (b) collect some cargo that's floating around in space? Nah, I think 'FUEL SCOOP' is the thing you're lookingf for. Buy from from the equipment menu, it's about 400 Cr or so. (er, i think.) To scoop cargo, fly around until there's cargo in the BOTTOM HALF of the screen, then fly towards it. The fuel scoop works automatically. However, if the cargo is below the screen, or above half way, it's gonna land outside the fuel scoop (ie, hit you & do damage) so watch it! Also, you can only collect cargo if you still have space in you cargo bay! (or, more damage!) The other thing fuel scoops are used for, is to scoop fuel (suprise!!) Fly close (ish) to the sun. Make sure you're flying ABOVE it (or, you'll die!). If the cabin temperature gets seriously hot, fly up & away from the sun, then back down when you've cooled down. If you can, try and fly around the sun. What the fuel scoop does, is drag all the solar flare-y type stuff into your ship, cause that's what it uses for fuel. Easy eh? (hope that helps) Actually, my sister's the hardened Elite -addict, in fact, so is my girlfriend. I've just kinda learned by osmosis. _/_/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/ _/ _/ _/ _/_/ _/ _/ _/_/_/_/_/_/_/ _/_/_/_/ _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Dave Hooper - 1st Year Computer Science & Maths BSc | | At the University Of Edinburgh, Scotland | | email: d.c.hooper@sms.ed.ac.uk | | smail: why bother? | | www: http://www.geopages.com/Athens.1436 | | ####### UNDER CONSTRUCTION !! ####### | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ From imc Thu Dec 14 16:50:23 1995 Subject: Re: Proposals... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 95 16:50:23 MET In-Reply-To: <1A3C473AB3@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk>; from "Dave Hooper" at Dec 14, 95 1:40 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 462 Lines: 10 On Thu, 14 Dec 1995 13:40:56 +0000, Dave Hooper said: > I've written a 256-colour PCX to sam converter, but it's not > brilliant. I'll try and generalise it over chrimbo. I have already written a PPM to sam program in C as it happens. My brother sent me a stack of photographs to scan and nothing really existed to do the job properly. In the past I've got away with a hack and several calls to ppmquant but it didn't produce particularly good results. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 17:03:48 1995 Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 17:51:07 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512141651.AA03748@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Elite X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1086 Lines: 36 > I am sitting at a tech 11 planet called Leesti, and the items it has on > offer are: > > 1 Fuel > 2 Missile > 3 Large cargo bay > 4 ECM > 5 Extra pulse laser > 6 Extra beam laser > 7 Fuel scoop > 8 Escape pod > 9 Energy bomb > 10 Energy unit > 11 Docking computer > 12 Galactic hyperspace > 13 Military laser (too expensive!) > 14 Mining laser. > > Unfortunately I'm broke as I just spent my cash on the ECM, but there ain't > no cargo scoop there unless it counts as part of the large cargo bay. Tough luck. ECM - never found any real use for that, unless in white space with lots of ...(what were they called). To scoop cargo I think you have to have the fuel scoop (but you might manage without - can't remember), but you need free cargo space, alas - the first thing you should invest in is a large cargo bay as this will also help profits. -Frode > > imc For missiles....you have to target them first, with 'T' I think, aim at something and the fire with 'F'. I don't have Elite here and can therefore not try myself. You 'untaget' with 'R' or 'Y' or something. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 14 17:36:16 1995 From: tsp93ma@soton.ac.uk Message-Id: <199512141729.RAA04576@vision.soton.ac.uk> Subject: Re: Elite To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Thu, 14 Dec 1995 17:29:43 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9512141302.AA04071@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 14, 95 01:02:09 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: 231 Lines: 11 To quote Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk: @/ 7 Fuel scoop That's the one you want.... 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 Fri Dec 15 07:38:00 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 07:18:38 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <12501@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 484 Lines: 16 In message <199512130928.KAA32193@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Simon Cooke writes: > > And the drives? Pathetic. They look awful, what with half a blanking > plate filed off around them. I wouldn't buy one. > > Simon (who may buy one of Dave Tonk's nice shiny old SAMs > > Are you talking about these quality modified plastic parts? :-) Seriously, we only do what Bob asks. They are not filed though. The plastic is softened by heat and then punched. Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 07:38:00 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 07:30:04 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <12502@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Merry Christmas X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 479 Lines: 17 Well I thought I'd be the first! Hust a comment here... We always seem to settle on Bob as a baddie here, but who, with hand on heart (or your personal pref organ) could say that if he had not stepped in, ANY of the SAM would remain? What we argue about is oppinions. You may think that better ways exist to do things. You may be right, but its always hard to balance cost and the perfect way to do things. Compromise will always be required. Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 08:52:32 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 09:52:44 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512150852.AA04403@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Compuserve addresses X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 15 Lines: 4 Que? -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 08:58:40 1995 Message-Id: <199512150857.JAA03602@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Compuserve addresses To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 08:57:19 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512150852.AA04403@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 15, 95 09:52:44 am 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: 240 Lines: 11 > Que? > > -Frode Eeek... damn these editors which ask you what filename you want to save under when you've finished editing an email. I think I've got the problem sorted now anyway; we'll have to wait and see. Keep you posted, Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 09:02:00 1995 Message-Id: <199512150901.KAA03666@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 09:00:44 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <12501@bgserv.demon.co.uk> from "Brian Gaff Sam Dept." at Dec 15, 95 07:18:38 am 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: 503 Lines: 14 > In message <199512130928.KAA32193@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Simon Cooke writes: > > And the drives? Pathetic. They look awful, what with half a blanking > > plate filed off around them. I wouldn't buy one. > > > > Simon (who may buy one of Dave Tonk's nice shiny old SAMs > > > Are you talking about these quality modified plastic parts? :-) > Seriously, we only do what Bob asks. They are not filed though. > The plastic is softened by heat and then punched. They still don't look right :( Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 09:02:57 1995 Message-Id: <199512150901.KAA03681@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Merry Christmas To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 09:01:38 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <12502@bgserv.demon.co.uk> from "Brian Gaff Sam Dept." at Dec 15, 95 07:30:04 am 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: 644 Lines: 18 > Well I thought I'd be the first! And the same to you! 3:@) > Hust a comment here... > > We always seem to settle on Bob as a baddie here, but who, with > hand on heart (or your personal pref organ) could say that if he > had not stepped in, ANY of the SAM would remain? What we argue > about is oppinions. You may think that better ways exist to do > things. You may be right, but its always hard to balance cost > and the perfect way to do things. Compromise will always be > required. Bob balances cost very well; he just doesn't pay anyone for anything. I could say more, but with legal action pending, I don't think I should. Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 09:11:44 1995 Message-Id: <199512150910.KAA03800@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Adverts for BOAI issue one? To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 09:10:11 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) 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: 213 Lines: 10 Hello... Would everyone who wants an advert in BOAI issue one please email me today if possible? We should be printing out the first issue shortly after the beginning of january... Reasonable rates ;) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 09:13:46 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 10:13:34 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512150913.AA04510@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Merry Christmas X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 743 Lines: 27 > > Well I thought I'd be the first! > > And the same to you! 3:@) And to everybody else from me here... > > > Hust a comment here... > > > > We always seem to settle on Bob as a baddie here, but who, with > > hand on heart (or your personal pref organ) could say that if he > > had not stepped in, ANY of the SAM would remain? What we argue > > about is oppinions. You may think that better ways exist to do > > things. You may be right, but its always hard to balance cost > > and the perfect way to do things. Compromise will always be > > required. > > Bob balances cost very well; he just doesn't pay anyone for anything. > I could say more, but with legal action pending, I don't think I should. Pending? > > Simon > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 09:23:22 1995 Message-Id: <199512150922.KAA03927@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Merry Christmas To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 09:22:04 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512150913.AA04510@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 15, 95 10:13:34 am 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: 231 Lines: 8 > > > > Bob balances cost very well; he just doesn't pay anyone for anything. > > I could say more, but with legal action pending, I don't think I should. > > Pending? As in "he's off to see his lawyers in the morning..." Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 09:41:47 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 10:41:46 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512150941.AA04590@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Merry Christmas X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 298 Lines: 13 > > > Bob balances cost very well; he just doesn't pay anyone for anything. > > > I could say more, but with legal action pending, I don't think I should. > > > > Pending? > > As in "he's off to see his lawyers in the morning..." Bobby? What have you done now, naughty boy? > Simon > -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 11:15:18 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 12:15:17 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512151115.AA04661@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: Sam games and stuff. . . X-Sun-Charset: ISO-8859-1 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1636 Lines: 41 > Well... my cook-book can't handle the non-ASCII characters ;) > > Send me a copy :) If it sounds nice, I'll knock it together (as long as I > can get the ingredients not too expensively from Tescos) For those of you with some culinaric sense left. Pinnekjøtt (translated stick-meat): Now, you need some kilos of dried (and somewhat salted) ribs (with meat!) from sheep or lamb. The ribs should be cut into it's individual ribs and if necessary broken in two halves. The day before you'll be cooking it you let it lay in cold water over night (length depends on how salty the ribs are). For cooking you need a rather big kettle and something in the bottom so that you can rest the rib-sticks on this. Add some water in the bottom and let it _damp_ for 2-2.5 hours until the meat loosens from the bone. In the mean time you prepare the mashed swede. Boil (or damp) some swede (piling them first) until soft. Then mash them together real good. Make a white sauce of butter and flour, add some milk and some cream (the mixture is up to you, the more cream the better, but it should not get too tick). Add salt and white pepper. Boil for app. 10 minutes stiring all the time. Add mashed swede into this white sauce some at a time and heat gradually. Should not boil again. Boil or damp or even butter-damp potatos the normal way. The only thing left is to heat some sauerkraut and rothkraut (sour and red cabbage). > > Simon > With Norwegian wishes for a Merry Christmas. See you all next year. Bon apetite. Godt måltid. -Frode Oh! I'll still be here for another week or so, but for those who will be leaving shortly.... From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 12:16:36 1995 Message-Id: <199512151214.NAA06074@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: your mail To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 12:14:17 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: from "100606.175@compuserve.com" at Dec 15, 95 11:36:00 am 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: 70 Lines: 5 > Umm... was there anything actually in that message, Chris? Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 12:31:09 1995 Message-Id: <199512151137.MAA05488@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Entropy presents... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 11:37:25 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) 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: 252 Lines: 15 A new addition to the mailing list: The one, the only, the person-who-converted-Prince-Of-Persia-&-Lemmings, CHRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSs WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITE! (Or Chris White, in short) Take a bow, Chris :) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 12:45:03 1995 Message-Id: <199512151243.NAA06695@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: MET To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 12:43:17 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512151236.AA05204@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 15, 95 01:36:06 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: 551 Lines: 18 > We still haven't quite sorted out the problem but I have tracked it down > to the system function gettimeofday returning an incorrect timezone. > > So I think that for the time being the command 'env TZ=MET elm' should > make it better (instead of removing the letters MET from the date we just > make the date appear in MET so that it is correct). You might want to try > that, Simon. :-) > > imc But I want to run on GMT or UT :) env TZ=MET elm you say... the elm bit at the end looks funny, but hey, I'm no expert :) I'll give it a try. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 13:01:26 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 13:16:05 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512151216.AA04792@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: 445 Lines: 19 > From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 13:13 MET 1995 > Return-Path: > From: 100606.175@compuserve.com > Message-Id: > Date: Fri, 15 Dec 95 11:36 GMT > Apparently-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no > Sender: owner-sam-users@nvg.unit.no > Precedence: bulk > Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no > Content-Length: 0 > X-Lines: 0 > Status: RO > > What are you up to now Simon? -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 13:07:24 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 13:37:56 +0100 (MET) From: Ben Versteeg Subject: Re: Entropy presents... In-Reply-To: <199512151137.MAA05488@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 15, 95 11:37:25 am To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Message-Id: <199512151237.NAA01740@charm.il.ft.hse.nl> X-Envelope-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.NO X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24 ME8a] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Status: RO Content-Length: 700 Lines: 17 > A new addition to the mailing list: > The one, > the only, > the person-who-converted-Prince-Of-Persia-&-Lemmings, > CHRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSs > WHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITE! > (Or Chris White, in short) > Take a bow, Chris :) One day I'll be there too... --------------------------------------------------------------------- Inner Products Holland / /| / /| / / --- / --- Ben Versteeg / / | / / | / / --- /__ | ben@charm.il.ft.hse.nl / / | / / | / / / / www.il.ft.hse.nl/~ben / / |/ / |/ / --- / | --------------------------------------------------------------------- From imc Fri Dec 15 13:36:06 1995 Subject: MET To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 95 13:36:06 MET X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 386 Lines: 9 We still haven't quite sorted out the problem but I have tracked it down to the system function gettimeofday returning an incorrect timezone. So I think that for the time being the command 'env TZ=MET elm' should make it better (instead of removing the letters MET from the date we just make the date appear in MET so that it is correct). You might want to try that, Simon. :-) imc From imc Fri Dec 15 13:38:17 1995 Subject: Re: Elite To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 95 13:38:17 MET In-Reply-To: <1A5E41058A@eigg.sms.ed.ac.uk>; from "Dave Hooper" at Dec 14, 95 1:48 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 437 Lines: 10 On Thu, 14 Dec 1995 13:48:45 +0000, Dave Hooper said: > Press T (for Target missile). A little light beside the panel showing > you how many missiles you have should go GREEN. Hmmm, I now have an explanation for why I didn't discover this earlier: on the snap of my current position it doesn't work! It does on the original snap, so something must have got corrupted. Now whenever I press T it just gives me a galactic chart... imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 13:49:04 1995 Message-Id: <199512151317.OAA07935@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: Entropy presents... To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 13:16:40 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <199512151237.NAA01740@charm.il.ft.hse.nl> from "Ben Versteeg" at Dec 15, 95 01:37:56 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: 96 Lines: 5 > One day I'll be there too... > > I thought you'd already subscribed to the list, Ben? Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 14:07:58 1995 Message-Id: <199512151347.OAA08826@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: The Accelerator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 13:47:39 +0100 (MET) 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: 258 Lines: 9 Due to the requests of certain people... we might be putting an ARM chip with MMU in the accelerator rather than a Z380. Nothing certain yet; we need prices for a start, but we've got all the technical docs.. just a matter of getting it sorted :) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 14:09:48 1995 Message-Id: From: ee31ag@ee.surrey.ac.uk (Andrew M Gale) Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 14:07:40 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199512150901.KAA03666@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 15, 95 09:00:44 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 291 Lines: 11 > > Are you talking about these quality modified plastic parts? :-) > > Seriously, we only do what Bob asks. They are not filed though. > > The plastic is softened by heat and then punched. > > They still don't look right :( > > Simon > Yes, but what would you prefer? A tape-only SAM?! From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 14:17:04 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 15:15:41 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512151415.AA05601@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: The Accelerator X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 429 Lines: 17 > Due to the requests of certain people... > > we might be putting an ARM chip with MMU in the accelerator rather than > a Z380. Hmm..that is a nice idea provided it works :) You are going to set the ARM to emulate a very fast Z80? Ir are we talking native mode here? > > Nothing certain yet; we need prices for a start, but we've got all the > technical docs.. just a matter of getting it sorted :) -Frode > > Simon > From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 14:17:33 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 14:11:07 +0000 (GMT) From: Daniel James Doore X-Sender: iq4d4385@jaffle-fddi To: Sam Users Subject: Chrimbo Message-Id: Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 479 Lines: 17 I'm off home for lots of turkey and beer, so have a good chrimbo and see you in '96. 1996 = +5 years of SAM Componant life of SAM, 5 years Hmm, we'll have to see eh? 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 Fri Dec 15 14:21:44 1995 Message-Id: <199512151417.PAA09685@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: comp.sys.sam-coupe To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 14:16:30 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: from "Andrew M Gale" at Dec 15, 95 02:07:40 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: 631 Lines: 15 > Yes, but what would you prefer? A tape-only SAM?! > No, I'd prefer a vertical mounting board to plug into the socket, connected by a ribbon cable to the back of the drive, the front plate of which is moulded to fit. Alas, it's expensive to do it that way. So we're left with the ugly solution. Much better to get an SDI (which I have now) ... btw: Anyone else had problems getting a standard PC (1.44Mb) drive working with an SDI? I know that the drive select & motor pins are in the wrong place, but I've not found a good (working) solution yet. Also, I managed to wipe my FRED 60 disk using it... oh well... :) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 14:31:40 1995 Message-Id: <199512151429.PAA10081@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 14:29:00 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512151415.AA05601@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 15, 95 03:15:41 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: 588 Lines: 15 > Hmm..that is a nice idea provided it works :) You are going to > set the ARM to emulate a very fast Z80? Ir are we talking native > mode here? Well, in SAM mode, it'd emulate a fast Z80 (dunno just /how/ fast though - I'll leave that until we build a prototype and I write an emulator). In native mode, hey presto... ARM chip at your service. Probably make sure we have a C compiler or something first :) It'll solve a few problems - and possibly reduce the component cost even more - if we emulate teh Z80 rather than use the Z380, but it'll also cause other problems... Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 15:51:54 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 16:46:26 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512151546.AA05767@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: The Accelerator X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 966 Lines: 27 > > Hmm..that is a nice idea provided it works :) You are going to > > set the ARM to emulate a very fast Z80? Ir are we talking native > > mode here? > > Well, in SAM mode, it'd emulate a fast Z80 (dunno just /how/ fast though > - I'll leave that until we build a prototype and I write an emulator). > In native mode, hey presto... ARM chip at your service. > > Probably make sure we have a C compiler or something first :) Make it all Archie compatible, et voila, you have lightning fast BASIC interpreter, C compiler, Spectrum emulator... eh :) > > It'll solve a few problems - and possibly reduce the component cost even > more - if we emulate teh Z80 rather than use the Z380, but it'll also > cause other problems... Well, first of all, you can emulate the R-register and the undocumented op-codes very nicely :) But wouldn't the use of an ARM chip delay the project drastically? What is the price of a Z380 compared to an ARM? > Simon -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 16:03:44 1995 Message-Id: <199512151557.QAA12712@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 15:56:39 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512151546.AA05767@asmal.edh-net> from "Frode Tenneboe" at Dec 15, 95 04:46:26 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: 880 Lines: 25 > > Probably make sure we have a C compiler or something first :) > > Make it all Archie compatible, et voila, you have lightning fast > BASIC interpreter, C compiler, Spectrum emulator... eh :) *grins* And no doubt Geoff will want to do it that way ;) > > > > It'll solve a few problems - and possibly reduce the component cost even > > more - if we emulate teh Z80 rather than use the Z380, but it'll also > > cause other problems... > > Well, first of all, you can emulate the R-register and the undocumented > op-codes very nicely :) But wouldn't the use of an ARM chip delay > the project drastically? Nawww... Geoff can do all the programming :) > What is the price of a Z380 compared to an ARM? >From what (you guessed it) Geoff says, they seem to be about equivalent; about 18 quid a piece, before VAT. Then you have the problem of minimum orders... Simon From imc Fri Dec 15 17:55:30 1995 Subject: Spectrum emulator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 95 17:55:30 MET X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 737 Lines: 18 Someone was asking about spectrum emulators earlier. I have here a copy of the one I use. The important lines are as follows (don't ask me about the pokes as I have forgotten what they are for)... 10 MODE 1: CLS # 30 LOAD "48k rom" CODE 40 PRINT : LOAD "snapt.bin" CODE 32768: CALL 32768 60 POKE (65536+&386e),255 70 IF PEEK &5cb4=15 THEN POKE 80120,12: ELSE POKE 80120,28 110 DIR 1: INPUT "Game Number: ";a: LOAD a There should probably be a CLEAR 32767 and an OPEN TO 7 in there somewhere, but hey it works - just. The "48k rom" is a copy of guess what, with a starting address of 65536. The "snapt.bin" is taken from the MGT system disk. This program runs under Samdos. Use at your own risk under another DOS. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 20:02:52 1995 From: R J Partington Message-Id: <199512151945.TAA07121@heffer.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 19:45:17 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199512151347.OAA08826@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 15, 95 01:47:39 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: heffer.demon.co.uk [Fri, 15 Dec 95 19:45:23 GMT] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: post.demon.co.uk [Fri, 15 Dec 95 19:46:09 GMT] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 722 Lines: 22 Simon Cooke wrote... > > Due to the requests of certain people... > > we might be putting an ARM chip with MMU in the accelerator rather than > a Z380. Now that _is_ good news... I might be able to program that one then... > Nothing certain yet; we need prices for a start, but we've got all the > technical docs.. just a matter of getting it sorted :) Well, last I heard, 33MHz Arm6's were $20/1000. And they'll probably emulate a Sam at ~150%. I had a Spectrum emulator for the Arc which ran at something like 300% the speed of a Spectrum (just a guess, not actually tested...) when you turned the Arm3 (25MHz) cache on. You could try talking to ART about it, they may be able to help. http://www.acorn.co.uk/ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 20:07:21 1995 From: R J Partington Message-Id: <199512151947.TAA07129@heffer.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 19:47:31 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <199512151429.PAA10081@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> from "Simon Cooke" at Dec 15, 95 02:29:00 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: heffer.demon.co.uk [Fri, 15 Dec 95 19:47:48 GMT] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: post.demon.co.uk [Fri, 15 Dec 95 19:48:39 GMT] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 1114 Lines: 31 Simon Cooke wrote... > > > Hmm..that is a nice idea provided it works :) You are going to > > set the ARM to emulate a very fast Z80? Ir are we talking native > > mode here? > > Well, in SAM mode, it'd emulate a fast Z80 (dunno just /how/ fast though > - I'll leave that until we build a prototype and I write an emulator). > In native mode, hey presto... ARM chip at your service. Don't forget the Vidc20 for graphics... > > Probably make sure we have a C compiler or something first :) Russell King (who's ported Linux to the Arm) has an Arm Linux GCC cross compiler that runs on ix86's. Shouldn't be too difficult to modify that (if he'll let you). > It'll solve a few problems - and possibly reduce the component cost even > more - if we emulate teh Z80 rather than use the Z380, but it'll also > cause other problems... If this works, it'll save me having to buy a RiscPC... :) -- Private Rob, HTML Police - http://www.adxis.com/ mailto:rjp@heffer.demon.co.uk - http://www.adxis.com/staff/rjp/ "And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good --- Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?" From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 21:44:34 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 18:16:26 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: Sam List In-Reply-To: <199512151557.QAA12712@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Message-Id: X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.99] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; CHARSET="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 1104 Lines: 34 On Fri 15 Dec, Simon Cooke wrote: > > > Probably make sure we have a C compiler or something first :) > > > > Make it all Archie compatible, et voila, you have lightning fast > > BASIC interpreter, C compiler, Spectrum emulator... eh :) > > *grins* And no doubt Geoff will want to do it that way ;) > > > > > > > It'll solve a few problems - and possibly reduce the component cost even > > > more - if we emulate teh Z80 rather than use the Z380, but it'll also > > > cause other problems... > > > > Well, first of all, you can emulate the R-register and the undocumented > > op-codes very nicely :) But wouldn't the use of an ARM chip delay > > the project drastically? > > Nawww... Geoff can do all the programming :) > > > What is the price of a Z380 compared to an ARM? > > >From what (you guessed it) Geoff says, they seem to be about equivalent; > about 18 quid a piece, before VAT. Then you have the problem of minimum > orders... > > Simon > Hey! I can program ARM too, you know. And I do have a (simple) C compiler. But then, who needs C? David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 15 21:44:47 1995 Date: Fri, 15 Dec 1995 18:13:24 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: Sam List In-Reply-To: <199512151347.OAA08826@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Message-Id: X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.99] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/PLAIN; CHARSET="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 1140 Lines: 30 On Fri 15 Dec, Simon Cooke wrote: > Due to the requests of certain people... > > we might be putting an ARM chip with MMU in the accelerator rather than > a Z380. > > Nothing certain yet; we need prices for a start, but we've got all the > technical docs.. just a matter of getting it sorted :) > > Simon > You mean 'ARM' as in 'Acorn'? I like that, 32-bits FAST, upgradebly, and I don't have to buy anything - apart from some video and memory hardware - since I have an Acorn Risc PC! Now I am on the subject, why not create the computer on an Acorn podule, so those lucky ones who do own an Acorn machine don't need to put a PC on their desk (why do you think I bought an PC-card?). It uses standard-size prints and Euro-connector's (or whatever they are called). Also, I guess everyone knows about those re-programmable ASICs (I'm sure that's not what they are called, but I can't remember what their is). These allow you to program AND reprogram (like Flash-Eprom) various types of gates etc. This would be very handy for emulating the different kinds of hardware (like memory-modes etc.) David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Dec 17 16:27:29 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 16:12:57 +0000 In-Reply-To: ommeren -- "Re: The Accelerator" (Dec 15, 6:16pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: The Accelerator Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 615 Lines: 21 If you do end up using a 7500 with its accompanying vidc etc, I suggest that you don't. :) Problem with it is that you can't use vram with it, and that's a pain in the arse if you want to take full advantage of the speed of the machine. BTW: if and when you get it running, I'll convert Xenakis Pro (Dexedream's 16-bit tracker) to run under Driver and the Quazar... :) Latest we have on Xenakis, btw, is real-time reverb. It's sounding -seriously- nice. That's for those (it appears there are more than I thought!) acorn users amongst you... Well if stefan can advertise, why shouldn't I? :) :) G. -- Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 18 16:11:24 1995 Date: Mon, 18 Dec 95 17:09:54 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: The Accelerator 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: 621 Lines: 26 On Sun, 17 Dec 1995 16:12:57 +0000 Geoff Winkless wrote: >Latest we have on Xenakis, btw, is real-time reverb. It's sounding >-seriously- nice. > >That's for those (it appears there are more than I thought!) acorn >users amongst you... > >Well if stefan can advertise, why shouldn't I? :) :) Because my advertising is list-related. Yours on the other hand is not yet list-related (although it may be). :) >G. > >-- >Geoff > Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: drissen@pi.net, http://www.pi.net/~drissen S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands T-mail: +31-73-6414969 From imc Mon Dec 18 16:42:54 1995 Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 18 Dec 95 16:42:54 MET In-Reply-To: <199512151945.TAA07121@heffer.demon.co.uk>; from "R J Partington" at Dec 15, 95 7:45 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 330 Lines: 11 On Fri, 15 Dec 1995 19:45:17 +0000 (GMT), R J Partington said: > Simon Cooke wrote... > > we might be putting an ARM chip with MMU in the accelerator rather than > > a Z380. > Well, last I heard, 33MHz Arm6's were $20/1000. And they'll probably > emulate a Sam at ~150%. It won't be much of an accelerator then, will it?! imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 18 16:55:25 1995 From: Michal Kurka Organization: Stavebni fakulta CVUT, Praha To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 17:54:48 MET DST Subject: From Kapsa club Priority: normal X-Mailer: Pegasus Mail v3.1 (R1a) Message-Id: <2D761951EDD@kii.fsv.cvut.cz> Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1130 Lines: 19 Hi there! I'm very embarrassed by finding out your list address. My name is Michal Kurka and I'm coming from Prague, the capital of Czech republic (please look at the map) and I have the full attachment ability. I'm the member of Prague Kapsa club, determinated on Sam and PC. This club is something about five years old and you can contact it thru me. We have some cool software which you could maybe hear about (Edi-pro, Zeus assembler and disassembler, Packer utilities). It's distributed by Derek Morgan in England. Kapsa also organizes SAMCON in the year period. It's great meeting of all the Zailog fans. It lasts a whole weekend (the last one was even one day longer), which is the longest in Europe I know about. I'll try to inform you more about this as soon as I get more informations. See you ;-) Michal Kurka CVUT, fakulta stavebni Praha 6, Thakurova 7 4.roc. obor Systemove inzenyrstvi From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 19 03:13:24 1995 From: R J Partington Message-Id: <199512182011.UAA00311@heffer.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 20:11:34 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9512181642.AA00969@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 18, 95 04:42:54 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL24] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: heffer.demon.co.uk [Tue, 19 Dec 95 3:05:41 GMT] X-Smtp-Posting-Host: post.demon.co.uk [Tue, 19 Dec 95 3:08:43 GMT] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Status: RO Content-Length: 2296 Lines: 53 Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk wrote... > > On Fri, 15 Dec 1995 19:45:17 +0000 (GMT), R J Partington said: > > Simon Cooke wrote... > > > we might be putting an ARM chip with MMU in the accelerator rather than > > > a Z380. > > > Well, last I heard, 33MHz Arm6's were $20/1000. And they'll probably > > emulate a Sam at ~150%. > > It won't be much of an accelerator then, will it?! Not if you just emulate a SAM directly...but you could always take some techniques from things like SoftWindows and the PowerMacs. If you just emulate Z80, then you can get 3-400% (possibly more?) Ideas on making the emulator faster =================================== Best bet would be to recode the ROM in native ARM code, then to intercept ROM calls and run them native. You get much better performance if the program makes a lot of ROM calls (which I assume SAM BASIC does...). And you could implement a partial BASIC compiler which compiles the BASIC to byte-code when you run the program (like perl). It's slower to start, but if it runs for a while, then you save time. Could always try IBM's on-the-fly compilation technique, where the emulated machine code is translated into native code as you go, and then the native code is executed the second time around -> big speedup. But then you have to implement a very smart cache for the translated code. And don't forget that the SAMs screen is quite complicated with the line interrupt palette changes et al. If you could emulate this in hardware (get an Amiga and steal the COPPER chip), then you get another huge speedup. The ARM-VIDC chip is programmable, so you may be able to setup a screen mode the same as the SAM -> no need to emulate the writing to screen memory -> another big speedup. I'm sure the combined talents of the people on this list could write a SAM emulator that works at a reasonable speed, especially if it's going to be running on dedicated (and specially created) hardware. There's also the subsystems (graphics, I/O, memory) that will (probably) be faster, which takes a bit of load off the processor. -- Private Rob, HTML Police - http://www.adxis.com/ mailto:rjp@heffer.demon.co.uk - http://www.adxis.com/staff/rjp/ "And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good --- Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?" From imc Tue Dec 19 11:35:42 1995 Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 19 Dec 95 11:35:42 MET In-Reply-To: <199512182011.UAA00311@heffer.demon.co.uk>; from "R J Partington" at Dec 18, 95 8:11 pm X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Content-Length: 1910 Lines: 40 On Mon, 18 Dec 1995 20:11:34 +0000 (GMT), R J Partington said: > > It won't be much of an accelerator then, will it?! > Not if you just emulate a SAM directly...but you could always take some > techniques from things like SoftWindows and the PowerMacs. > Best bet would be to recode the ROM in native ARM code, then to intercept > ROM calls and run them native. You get much better performance if the > program makes a lot of ROM calls (which I assume SAM BASIC does...). I thought the idea was that you plug it in and Lemmings magically goes faster. I doubt that Lemmings uses the ROM so this wouldn't help, and neither would a byte-coded BASIC interpreter (note that the BASIC is already in a sort of byte code in that tokens are ready-assembled and numbers have FP forms after them - it's not like a perl program in which everything starts off as pure text). > Could always try IBM's on-the-fly compilation technique, where the > emulated machine code is translated into native code as you go, and > then the native code is executed the second time around -> big speedup. Arnt is (was?) planning to write a spectrum emulator for Linux using optimised incremental compilation, but it is a huge task. Interrupts are very difficult to get right when the code is optimised, and care needs to be taken with self-modifying code. This might be an interesting project but not one that should be attempted before the initial accelerator is released. > And don't forget that the SAMs screen is quite complicated with the > line interrupt palette changes et al. If you could emulate this in > hardware Um, the Sam already has hardware to do this so what's the problem? It sounds like you are now trying to write a Sam emulator for the Arc, which is all very well but we were discussing an add-on for the Sam. I think all this sounds too much like hard work and it would be better to stick with Zilog. imc From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 19 15:46:45 1995 From: Mr Andrew M Gale Message-Id: <9512191545.AA05665@central.surrey.ac.uk> Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 19 Dec 95 15:45:01 GMT In-Reply-To: <9512191135.AA01456@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk>; from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 19, 95 11:35 am X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL11] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 628 Lines: 14 > I think all this sounds too much like hard work and it would be better to > stick with Zilog. > > imc Me too... since a z380 accel. is goig to be difficult and expensive enough as it is - $20 in 1000 quantities may sound cheap, but when you consider how much extra it's likely to cost in the UK, and the fact that we won't need more than about... ooh, 3 (am I being pessimistic?), along with the hassle of the PCB for the whole thing (will it be double sided, 3 layer, 4 layer?), all the fast RAM and the development costs, well it'll cost a bomb. Ad take ages to appear. Sorry to be such a misery about it all... -Andrew From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 19 17:04:29 1995 Message-Id: <199512191643.RAA28930@sabre-wulf.nvg.unit.no> Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 16:43:00 +0100 (MET) Cc: Simon.Cooke@nessie.mcc.ac.uk (Simon Cooke) In-Reply-To: <9512191545.AA05665@central.surrey.ac.uk> from "Mr Andrew M Gale" at Dec 19, 95 03:45:01 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: 2193 Lines: 43 > Me too... since a z380 accel. is goig to be difficult and expensive enough > as it is - $20 in 1000 quantities may sound cheap, but when you consider > how much extra it's likely to cost in the UK, and the fact that we won't need > more than about... ooh, 3 (am I being pessimistic?), along with the hassle > of the PCB for the whole thing (will it be double sided, 3 layer, 4 layer?), > all the fast RAM and the development costs, well it'll cost a bomb. Ad take > ages to appear. Sorry to be such a misery about it all... > -Andrew The board will be double sided, will use standard SIMMs, and we could churn one out tomorrow if we wanted people to just have a fast SAM with a foot-long board... There are reasons for and against using the ARM chips - the main one /for/ being that in the long run, it gives you more for your money - ie better graphics & sound, MMU so we could have UNIX et al up and running, and when coded in its own native code it's damn fast. Also if we used the 7500, it has built in PC keyboard interface, PC mouse interface, UART, graphics, sound, PC ISA BUS handling (I think)... you name it :) We could do a PC emulator quite easily. It'd also plug into the back, so you wouldn't need to emulate the SAM's hardware - just the Z80 processor. Reasons for using the Z380 include compactness of code, speed of development (unless others want to program the emulation of the Z80), and ease of interfacing - though to tell the truth, the ARM chips can emulate the paging hardware of the accelerator, whereas with the Z380, we'd still need to come up with something pretty clunky - unless we can find someone to program PALs and GALs (or even MAPLs) for us... Oh yeah, and we can give you all 16 bits out on the back of the euroconnecotr, using a 96 pin one - 32 bits on the ARM bus would be a headache... not to mention the problems possibly involved in routing - the ARM 7500 is a 240 pin multilegged muther from hell. (While we're developing, that is - no use saying "Farnells do it" or "RS do it" cos it'd cost too mcuh, and we'd be changing them every few days, probably, when we first got going). Ummm... hope that's covered it :) Simon From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 19 18:51:12 1995 From: R J Partington Message-Id: <199512191242.MAA00221@heffer.demon.co.uk> Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Date: Tue, 19 Dec 1995 12:42:28 +0000 (GMT) In-Reply-To: <9512191135.AA01456@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> from "Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk" at Dec 19, 95 11:35:42 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: 791 Lines: 19 Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk wrote... > Um, the Sam already has hardware to do this so what's the problem? It > sounds like you are now trying to write a Sam emulator for the Arc, which > is all very well but we were discussing an add-on for the Sam. I thought we were discussing an accelerator which would speed up the Sam by using a Z380? Unless the Z380 was going to run in parallel with the Z80, that doesn't sound very much like an add-on, more a replacement. And if you're going to replace the Z80, why not replace it with something that's got a bit more "umph"? -- Private Rob, HTML Police - http://www.adxis.com/ mailto:rjp@heffer.demon.co.uk - http://www.adxis.com/staff/rjp/ "And what is good, Phaedrus, And what is not good --- Need we ask anyone to tell us these things?" From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 19 18:58:41 1995 Date: Tue, 19 Dec 95 16:05:32 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: The Accelerator 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: 1120 Lines: 30 On Tue, 19 Dec 95 11:35:42 MET Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk wrote: >On Mon, 18 Dec 1995 20:11:34 +0000 (GMT), R J Partington said: [stuff deleted] >> And don't forget that the SAMs screen is quite complicated with the >> line interrupt palette changes et al. If you could emulate this in >> hardware > >Um, the Sam already has hardware to do this so what's the problem? It >sounds like you are now trying to write a Sam emulator for the Arc, which >is all very well but we were discussing an add-on for the Sam. > >I think all this sounds too much like hard work and it would be better to >stick with Zilog. > >imc I agree totally. I don't want an Acorn type computer emulating a SAM. If we're talking emulation then I say give me an emulator which works on my PC. The whole cool thing about the accelerator is that the Z80 is emulated in native mode. My vote therefore goes to dis-ARM (sounding like a hippy here ;) ). Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: drissen@pi.net, http://www.pi.net/~drissen S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands T-mail: +31-73-6414969 From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 19 20:31:14 1995 Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 22:38:31 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: Sam List In-Reply-To: <9512181642.AA00969@boothp2.ecs.ox.ac.uk> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.99] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 575 Lines: 20 On Mon 18 Dec, Ian.Collier@comlab.ox.ac.uk wrote: > On Fri, 15 Dec 1995 19:45:17 +0000 (GMT), R J Partington said: > > Simon Cooke wrote... > > > we might be putting an ARM chip with MMU in the accelerator rather than > > > a Z380. > > > Well, last I heard, 33MHz Arm6's were $20/1000. And they'll probably > > emulate a Sam at ~150%. > > It won't be much of an accelerator then, will it?! > > imc > Of course it is, you only won't code in Z80 anymore :) Someone can write Sam Basic in ARM, now if that wouldn't accelerate things. David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 20 10:26:03 1995 From: tsp93ma@soton.ac.uk Message-Id: <199512201025.KAA13891@vision.soton.ac.uk> Subject: Merry Chrimbo Folks To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no (Sam Coupe Mailing List) Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 10:25:00 +0000 (GMT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Content-Type: text Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 558 Lines: 19 In this festive time of year, I'd like to wish you all good cheer, For xmas day I have this plan, I'm gonna spend it with my sam, I'll poke and peek and plot and draw, Rest a bit then work some more, I'll tell my sam of all the hardware, With a lone half meg, he'll feel quite bare, But at least I'll know one thing is true, I'l have done some work on EGGBuM 2! Have a good Xmas folks! See ya in the new year! 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 Wed Dec 20 13:25:32 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 13:24:23 +0000 In-Reply-To: ee31ag -- "Re: The Accelerator" (Dec 19, 3:45pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: The Accelerator Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1121 Lines: 25 On Dec 19, 3:45pm in "Re: The Accelerator", Andrew warbled: ] Me too... since a z380 accel. is going to be difficult and expensive enough ] as it is - $20 in 1000 quantities may sound cheap, but when you consider ] how much extra it's likely to cost in the UK, and the fact that we won't need ] more than about... ooh, 3 (am I being pessimistic?), along with the hassle ] of the PCB for the whole thing (will it be double sided, 3 layer, 4 layer?), ] all the fast RAM and the development costs, well it'll cost a bomb. And take ] ages to appear. Sorry to be such a misery about it all... It might be possible to buy chips in small quantities from fourth parties (eg Acorn) - I say fourth because Arm already contract out third-parties to build the damn things. Acorn buy lots of chips (probably quite cheaply) to build their RPCs etc and may thus be nice enough to sell us some in lower quantities for a slightly inflated price. Fast RAM? How terrible, having to use fast ram to make a machine go faster. Why don't we just stick to really slow ram so that all the instructions halve in speed... -sigh- G. -- Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 20 13:37:39 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 13:35:52 +0000 In-Reply-To: Simon.Cooke -- "Re: The Accelerator" (Dec 19, 4:43pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: The Accelerator Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2761 Lines: 67 On Dec 19, 4:43pm in "Re: The Accelerator", warbled: ] There are reasons for and against using the ARM chips - the main one ] /for/ being that in the long run, it gives you more for your money - ie ] better graphics & sound, MMU so we could have UNIX et al up and running, ] and when coded in its own native code it's damn fast. I think "damn fast" is an understatement. While we're sitting here gooing over the fact that the z380 takes only 2 t-states for "most" of its instructions, the ARM700 manages around 0.9, IIRC. Add on things like conditional execution of every single instruction (which makes coding so much easier, and compilers too!) and the built-in MMU and graphics chips... Is it still too expensive? ] Also if we used the 7500, it has built in PC keyboard interface, PC mouse ] interface, UART, graphics, sound, PC ISA BUS handling (I think)... you ] name it :) We could do a PC emulator quite easily. I'm not too sure about ISA handling. Haven't seen the specs for the 7500 though. ] It'd also plug into the back, so you wouldn't need to emulate the SAM's ] hardware - just the Z80 processor. Yeah. A simple mapping of instructions to their equivalents on the ARM would do fine. Registers: BC DE AF HL IX IY - 6 16-bit registers - leaving you 7 to do the actual coding. It might be a good idea to have AF' stored in another register, so you could speed up ex af af' Note that you could use the alternate register set for exx', although note that you would have to store af and af' to keep those the same. I would say that on average you could get the instruction mapping down to around 2 t-states average, then one or two instructions for the actual execution. Obviously there would be other overheads but I'd say that a really fast well-written piece of code, running on a 35MHz 7500 would beat or certainly match the speed of an 18MHz z380. You must remember that speccy emulators running on a riscpc have to emulate stuff like the speccy screenmapping, and they also run in the desktop (just to slow things down even more). I'd say you'd have a 4-5 speedup in emulated code at least. Note that none of these values are calculated, simply estimates from my use of both chips. I haven't the time to do a dedicated evaluation, unless someone wants to pay me ;-) ;-) ] Reasons for using the Z380 include compactness of code, I think you'll find that in fact RISC produces more compact code. This may be in violation of the principles of CISC, but recent tests of popular processors (i think it was in Byte) made ARM about 80% the size of (eg) the Intel 32-bit range. ] speed of development ] (unless others want to program the emulation of the Z80), Yeah, I'll have a go. :) Anyone any more objections? -- Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 20 13:42:13 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 13:40:17 +0000 In-Reply-To: drissen -- "Re: The Accelerator" (Dec 19, 4:05pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: The Accelerator Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1406 Lines: 37 On Dec 19, 4:05pm in "Re: The Accelerator", Stefan warbled: [ian said] ] >I think all this sounds too much like hard work and it would be better to ] >stick with Zilog. Except that you can get 35MHz (and 50MHz!) ARM chips now. You can't yet get the 35MHz z380. A shame, that. ] I agree totally. I don't want an Acorn type computer emulating a SAM. If ] we're talking emulation then I say give me an emulator which works on my PC. ] The whole cool thing about the accelerator is that the Z80 is emulated in ] native mode. My vote therefore goes to dis-ARM (sounding like a hippy here ] ;) ). We're not having an emulator. We're not having Risc OS (although something like it would be lovely!). We're having a Sam emulating a z80 in native mode. All the rest of the sam stays the same (recoding the basic in arm would be nice but a tad complex, and not really worth it). It's interesting to note that all the people advocating using the Arm are the ones who have actually used it, and all the ones who aren't haven't. If you see what I mean... Programming the ARM is just sooooooo nice, coming back to the z80 (as I have just for the fun of it) is pure hell. Sorry and all that :) The only nice thing about the z380 is the divide instruction. I miss that on the ARM (having used 68000 before!) but really it's rarely necessary. And no MMU for the 380. And ARM Linux is free :) -- Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 20 13:44:25 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 13:42:48 +0000 In-Reply-To: ommeren -- "Re: The Accelerator" (Dec 18, 10:38pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: The Accelerator Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 791 Lines: 21 On Dec 18, 10:38pm in "Re: The Accelerator", David warbled: ] Of course it is, you only won't code in Z80 anymore :) Hmm. But that's no longer an accelerator, it's a new computer. We need to provide a -fast- software emulation. Otherwise people won't buy it. The idea being much the same as that of the PowerPC -- IBM build a machine that will emulate intel very quickly but which will run its own apps like shit off a shovel. Unfortunately the average buying public say "oh, the Pentium runs WordPerfect faster, so I'll buy a P90" even though WordPerfect in native mode will beat the crap out of .... but I'm getting off topic... ] Someone can write Sam Basic in ARM, now if that wouldn't accelerate things. Yeah, think of all those killer apps written in BASIC, huh? :) -- Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 20 13:48:58 1995 Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 14:43:44 +0100 (MET) From: Ben Versteeg Subject: Re: The Accelerator In-Reply-To: from "Geoff Winkless" at Dec 20, 95 01:35:52 pm To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Message-Id: <199512201343.OAA04611@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: 1611 Lines: 32 > ] There are reasons for and against using the ARM chips - the main one > ] /for/ being that in the long run, it gives you more for your money - ie > ] better graphics & sound, MMU so we could have UNIX et al up and running, > ] and when coded in its own native code it's damn fast. > > ] Also if we used the 7500, it has built in PC keyboard interface, PC mouse > ] interface, UART, graphics, sound, PC ISA BUS handling (I think)... you > ] name it :) We could do a PC emulator quite easily. > > ] It'd also plug into the back, so you wouldn't need to emulate the SAM's > ] hardware - just the Z80 processor. > > ] Reasons for using the Z380 include compactness of code, > > I think you'll find that in fact RISC produces more compact code. This may be > in violation of the principles of CISC, but recent tests of popular > processors (i think it was in Byte) made ARM about 80% the size of (eg) the > Intel 32-bit range. > > ] speed of development > ] (unless others want to program the emulation of the Z80), Wooow ! I wish I was already able to build something with this myself ! It sounds pretty cool. Maybe there'll be some day that Sam (and Speccy) are back in business again ! --------------------------------------------------------------------- Inner Products Holland / /| / /| / / --- / --- Ben Versteeg / / | / / | / / --- /__ | ben@charm.il.ft.hse.nl / / | / / | / / / / www.il.ft.hse.nl/~ben / / |/ / |/ / --- / | --------------------------------------------------------------------- From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Wed Dec 20 14:23:56 1995 Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 15:23:11 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512201423.AA02081@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: The Accelerator X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1744 Lines: 46 > We're not having an emulator. We're not having Risc OS (although something > like it would be lovely!). We're having a Sam emulating a z80 in native mode. > > All the rest of the sam stays the same (recoding the basic in arm would be > nice but a tad complex, and not really worth it). > > It's interesting to note that all the people advocating using the Arm are the > ones who have actually used it, and all the ones who aren't haven't. If you > see what I mean... > > Programming the ARM is just sooooooo nice, coming back to the z80 (as I have > just for the fun of it) is pure hell. Sorry and all that :) I've only seen ARM code, and it looks rather nice, yes. :) > > The only nice thing about the z380 is the divide instruction. I miss that on > the ARM (having used 68000 before!) but really it's rarely necessary. > > And no MMU for the 380. How I see it: 1) A z380 with (almost) complete binary compability with z80. Though, it will still need additional SRAM (?) meaning that you won't be operating in the same space as the SAM itself. It also requires additional logic to handle I/O etc. 2) An ARM without biary compability with z80. However, through software emulation 99.9% compability can be achived (including stuff that can't be done with 1) at probably the same speed. In addition MMU and graphics hardware is included. It is a shame to say it, but it looks like 2) is winning. The big question is however, how fast z80 emulation can be done. Would you like to investigate into that Geoff? There are already Spectrum emulators for Archie and it should not be too difficult to nick the CPU-emulation code only and make some measurements. > > And ARM Linux is free :) That is definitely a plus point. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 21 10:03:53 1995 Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 20:33:48 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: Sam List In-Reply-To: <9512201423.AA02081@asmal.edh-net> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.99] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 960 Lines: 22 On Wed 20 Dec, Frode Tenneboe wrote: > It is a shame to say it, but it looks like 2) is winning. The big > question is however, how fast z80 emulation can be done. Would you > like to investigate into that Geoff? There are already Spectrum > emulators for Archie and it should not be too difficult to nick > the CPU-emulation code only and make some measurements. > > -Frode At this very moment I have started to code my Z80 emulator in ARM (the last time I worked on it was about 3 years ago). Speed is not incredible (especially emulating the flags is quite difficult because of the complete different structure for registers and commands), but at this moment (not everything is finished) it runs at about 350% (me thinks). If anyone has some tips and info (illegal opcodes, bugs in the Z80 and especially how the flags are changed when doing IM x or EI or DI and how to emulate the I register), please let me know! David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Thu Dec 21 10:23:48 1995 Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 20:45:02 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: The Accelerator To: Sam List In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.99] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1377 Lines: 32 On Wed 20 Dec, Geoff Winkless wrote: > On Dec 18, 10:38pm in "Re: The Accelerator", David warbled: > ] Of course it is, you only won't code in Z80 anymore :) > > Hmm. But that's no longer an accelerator, it's a new computer. We need to > provide a -fast- software emulation. Otherwise people won't buy it. > > The idea being much the same as that of the PowerPC -- IBM build a machine > that will emulate intel very quickly but which will run its own apps > like shit off a shovel. Unfortunately the average buying public say "oh, > the Pentium runs WordPerfect faster, so I'll buy a P90" even though > WordPerfect in native mode will beat the crap out of .... > > but I'm getting off topic... > > ] Someone can write Sam Basic in ARM, now if that wouldn't accelerate things. > > Yeah, think of all those killer apps written in BASIC, huh? :) Ja, ja, I know, but think of all the program's that can be written in Basic if it is a lot faster! Anyway, I didn't follow this story right from the beginning. I thought you were looking for a way to upgrade the Sam so it would have a chance of surviving between Sega and IBM. IMHO, just speeding up the processor is not enough (most programs should already be written to take the slow Z80 in mind). It would be nice to have future programs use the faster speed allowed to full success. David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 22 08:25:48 1995 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 09:26:12 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512220826.AA04136@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: sam-support X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 535 Lines: 18 Hi! Am I the last still on? Well, I would in the new year like to continue my support of the SAM and it's supporters. Can anybody recomend particular software/hardware which I can order along with my subscription of next years Format? Si: Should I buy Nev's HD-interface, or wait for yours? :) THe big question is however, where do I stack all the stuff. Argh! I have no more room for these things....*sigh* And how about the C-compiler? Are there games I should buy? With the best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. -Frode From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 22 14:10:37 1995 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 13:35:44 +0000 (GMT) From: Si Owen To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: sam-support In-Reply-To: <9512220826.AA04136@asmal.edh-net> Message-Id: Organisation: Wordcraft International Ltd. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 653 Lines: 19 On Fri, 22 Dec 1995, Frode Tenneboe wrote: > Am I the last still on? Not quite! I'll be here all over Christmas... My New Years resolution is to get more involved with Sam things instead of getting bogged down by work work! We'll see... > With the best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. Merry Xmas everybody-peeps! Si +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ | Si Owen | Email: si@obobo.demon.co.uk | | Wordcraft International Ltd, UK | Fax: +44-1332-295525 | +------------------------------------+----------------------------------------+ From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 22 14:58:10 1995 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 15:58:54 +0100 From: ft@edh.ericsson.se (Frode Tenneboe) Message-Id: <9512221458.AA04622@asmal.edh-net> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: sam-support X-Sun-Charset: US-ASCII Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 484 Lines: 22 > > Am I the last still on? > > Not quite! I'll be here all over Christmas... My New Years resolution is > to get more involved with Sam things instead of getting bogged down by > work work! We'll see... I wish I could say the same. Well, if Allan does thing right there is a chance for both. :) > > > With the best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. > > Merry Xmas everybody-peeps! ^G. ;) > > Si -Frode PS: No recomodations what I can spend my hard earned cash on? From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 22 16:20:17 1995 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 95 17:17:36 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Re: sam-support 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: 1278 Lines: 46 On Fri, 22 Dec 1995 15:58:54 +0100 Frode Tenneboe wrote: >> > Am I the last still on? >> >> Not quite! I'll be here all over Christmas... My New Years resolution is >> to get more involved with Sam things instead of getting bogged down by >> work work! We'll see... Being on a commercial line, I should be here too. The fact that I should be revising for exams at the start of the New Year is another matter. >I wish I could say the same. Well, if Allan does thing right there >is a chance for both. :) Why is it that the X-Coupe thing will only work on X-Windows. Wouldn't this actually be a very nice frame work to do a DOS version (after all, how reliant on the operating system is the emulator?) >> > With the best wishes for Christmas and the New Year. >> >> Merry Xmas everybody-peeps! Prettige Kerstdagen en een Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar! Don't worry, I wasn't saying anything rude... :) >^G. ;) > >> >> Si > > -Frode > >PS: No recomodations what I can spend my hard earned cash on? A SAMdac perhaps? (25 pounds or 65 guilders) Beautiful sound from your SAM! Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: drissen@pi.net, http://www.pi.net/~drissen S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands T-mail: +31-73-6414969 From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Fri Dec 22 20:56:48 1995 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 21:12:44 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: sam-support To: Sam List In-Reply-To: Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.99] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 493 Lines: 17 On Fri 22 Dec, Stefan Drissen wrote: > Prettige Kerstdagen en een Gelukkig Nieuw Jaar! > > Don't worry, I wasn't saying anything rude... :) Yes you were! Merry Christmas and a good 1996. David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl) PS: Stefan, I forget to ask you in my last mail (so I do it just here en plein public): The Emulator will just be for the Archie (you IBM-compatibles already have enough emulators, see the Spanish one which was mailed on the Sinclair newsgroup, look VERY good) From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sat Dec 23 15:14:18 1995 Message-Id: From: geoffw@jumper.mcc.ac.uk (Geoff Winkless) Date: Sat, 23 Dec 1995 15:13:21 +0000 In-Reply-To: ommeren -- "Re: The Accelerator" (Dec 20, 8:33pm) X-Mailer: Mail User's Shell (7.2.5 10/14/92) To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: The Accelerator Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 2170 Lines: 46 On Dec 20, 8:33pm in "Re: The Accelerator", warbled: ] At this very moment I have started to code my Z80 emulator in ARM (the last ] time I worked on it was about 3 years ago). Speed is not incredible ] (especially emulating the flags is quite difficult because of the complete ] different structure for registers and commands), but at this moment (not ] everything is finished) it runs at about 350% (me thinks). Mmm. I've been having a look at this over the last few days (I wish someone had told me you already had one going... :) and as you say, flags is the most complex part. However, very few instructions actually affect many of the flags (cp, add 8-bit, sub 8-bit etc) so as long as people didn't want the instructions to take relatively the same time to each other things should be quite fast. I've got most of the simpler instructions down to 4 ARM equivalent instructions, plus whatever you end up using for the decode. I figured the best way to store the registers would be to have a and f (the ones that are used as 8-bit most often) as single registers (say r0 and r1) and the others as pairs, ie r2-r6 being bc,de,hl,ix,iy. You can then use the other registers for decoding and other stuff (temp registers). Alternatively, you can have the alternate register set in r7-r9, leaving you r10,11 and 12 to play with. You could also store the alternates like r7=bc ORR de<<16 but that would be quite complex to implement nicely. Note that on the later ARMs you have a SWP instruction so you can implement register-register swapping very easily (something you can't do on the arch). Might be worth doing that for the AF' pair. AFAICT, the hardest part is going to be decoding the instructions. I had a neat way of doing it worked out for my 3rd-year project, but that, while it took up very little memory, was slow. I figured out last night that you'd probably need a 16k table for the speediest decode -- that way you could just branch to the instruction * 16... The 16 there would be 4 instructions, with 4 bytes-per instruction. I'll write more when I get back from christmas :) Happy XMAS, and a passably good new year to you all... -- Geoff From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Dec 24 08:23:31 1995 Date: Fri, 22 Dec 1995 17:02:04 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <12621@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: The Accelerator X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 594 Lines: 15 Its funny, but reading this discussion about speeding up SAM I got a feeling I had heard it all before. There was a plan to do a new add on for the Speccy that went faster and had new graphics modes. In the end, the Speccy was not required and the evice became the SAM. Its looking like the same thing is happening. Heed the lessons of the past. Don't do it it costs too much. I think we should get a PC emul written now, before the SAM goes ping. (Not that I think it will, but you will maybe create a market with an emulator that does not exist in hardware) Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Sun Dec 24 09:19:25 1995 Date: Sun, 24 Dec 1995 08:38:41 GMT From: Briansam@bgserv.demon.co.uk (Brian Gaff Sam Dept.) Message-Id: <12633@bgserv.demon.co.uk> To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: sam-support X-Mailer: PCElm 1.10 Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 552 Lines: 17 > > PS: Stefan, I forget to ask you in my last mail (so I do it just here en > plein public): The Emulator will just be for the Archie (you IBM-compatibles > already have enough emulators, see the Spanish one which was mailed on the > Sinclair newsgroup, look VERY good) > And if the hundreds of dial up users all sent their extra bills to the poster, he would be broke! What we need os a SAM one for the PC. There are so many Speccy ones now its getting silly! Gerton is doing a Windows Speccy one at the moment... Brian -- Brian Gaff Sam Dept. From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Mon Dec 25 13:39:10 1995 Date: Mon, 25 Dec 95 14:27:28 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Merry Christmas 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: 391 Lines: 11 On this beautiful snowy Christmas afternoon I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a great 1996. May this be the year that all these wonderful SAM projects we're all working on finally appear.... Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: drissen@pi.net, http://www.pi.net/~drissen S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands T-mail: +31-73-6414969 From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 26 11:37:21 1995 Date: Tue, 26 Dec 95 12:29:57 PST From: Stefan Drissen Subject: Component help 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: 1197 Lines: 49 Hi, I received a letter from Edwin Blink a week ago (yes from Thailand) in which among other things he wrote that he was only able to get a black&white picture due to him having blown up some of the colour circuitry in his SAM (along with his ASIC a few years back). He asked me for the specs on a number of components. The problem is that my copy of the technical manual is not that readable and I can't find all the components he is referring to. Could somebody please check to see if what I have written down is correct (I don't want to blow Edwin's SAM up even more)? L2: DL390nS (DL398nS??) L3: 10uH (what is u? another why of writing mu?) L4: 10uH R42: 10K (18K?) R78: 1K5 R79: 1K5 R82: 2K7 R83: 47K R84: 56K R91: can't find this one C32: can't find this one either C36: 22mF ) C37: 22mF ) (these m's could be u's) C38: 22mF ) C43: 1nF C47: 22mF ) D17: where is this one? (I found D1-D16) N6: BC547 N7: BC547 N9: another lost one (N1-N8 were easy). I hope one of you can help me. bye, Stefan Drissen aka Solar Flare of Entropy E-mail: drissen@pi.net, http://www.pi.net/~drissen S-mail: Zevende Herven 6, 5232 JZ 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands T-mail: +31-73-6414969 From sam-users-owner@nvg.unit.no Tue Dec 26 19:04:12 1995 Date: Tue, 26 Dec 1995 14:20:43 +0100 (GMT) From: David Gommeren Subject: Re: sam-support To: Sam List In-Reply-To: <12633@bgserv.demon.co.uk> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII X-Mailer: ANT RISCOS Marcel [ver 0.99] Reply-To: sam-users@nvg.unit.no Status: RO Content-Length: 1105 Lines: 31 On Tue 26 Dec, Brian Gaff Sam Dept. wrote: > > > > PS: Stefan, I forget to ask you in my last mail (so I do it just here en > > plein public): The Emulator will just be for the Archie (you IBM-compatibles > > already have enough emulators, see the Spanish one which was mailed on the > > Sinclair newsgroup, look VERY good) > > > And if the hundreds of dial up users all sent their extra bills > to the poster, he would be broke! Of course, my copy costed me approx. 10 pounds! > What we need os a SAM one for the PC. There are so many Speccy > ones now its getting silly! Mine will be very simple to adapt to emulate the Sam because I use a software memory paging system and the screen isn't update with every LD to screen memory but 50 times converted from ZX (or SAM) memory to the real screen (using a very fast routine with some tables which can also handle convertion of one line at a time - enabling showing screen changes halfway the screen etc.) > Gerton is doing a Windows Speccy one at the moment... > > Brian So ask him to also do a Sam emulator! David Gommeren (ommeren@knoware.nl)