83950 11-DEC 12:44 General Information RE: MM/1 Production (Re: Msg 83925) From: COLORSYSTEMS To: AJMLFCO What you are asking for would require on the order of man YEARS to accomplish. Considering that all MM/1 developers are single person operations, I seriously doubt if anyone of them would be willing to tackle such a large project. OTOH, if some DOES, you are right, it WILL be a killer product!! One which *I* certainly would purchase! ------------------------------------ Zack C Sessions ColorSystems "I am Homer of Borg, prepare to be assimi ... OOOOHHH, DOUGHNUTS!" -*- 83954 11-DEC 15:46 General Information RE: MM/1 Production (Re: Msg 83950) From: NIMITZ To: COLORSYSTEMS Zack, that is one reason that I suggested that some MM/1 developers should sell their development packages commercially, to save those man hours and years. It is also the reason I suggest that the OS9 Standards organization sponsor development teams to bring other systems standards to OS9 in library and subroutine form. These applications are possible, in timely fashion if we work together where possible. David -*- 83958 11-DEC 16:42 General Information RE: MM/1 Production (Re: Msg 83954) From: COLORSYSTEMS To: NIMITZ > Zack, that is one reason that I suggested that some MM/1 developers > should sell their development packages commercially, to save those man > hours and years. What do you mean by "development package"? ------------------------------------ Zack C Sessions ColorSystems "I am Homer of Borg, prepare to be assimi ... OOOOHHH, DOUGHNUTS!" -*- 83961 11-DEC 18:51 General Information RE: MM/1 Production (Re: Msg 83958) From: NIMITZ To: COLORSYSTEMS libraries of commonly used subroutines, in this context. x -*- 83993 12-DEC 19:26 General Information RE: MM/1 Production (Re: Msg 83358) From: TIMKIENTZLE To: MREGC (NR) > ... then that other process would also have to be written by the > same programmer as the main program, since the couldn't include and use > someone else's text editor or x/y/z protocol ... To the contrary! I just discovered today, for example, that InfoExpress uses my own XYDown for file transfers. Since XYDown was public domain, anyone can include it with their programs. There are many useful programs that are either public domain (i.e., you can do anything you wish with it), or have modest copying restrictions (you can use/distribute as long as you obey the original author's restrictions, which typically require giving credit to the original author and/or including the source code for the program you copied). What this means is that people CAN and SHOULD use already-built programs when creating their own new systems. The problem is really one of finding what software already exists. - Tim -*- 84034 14-DEC 01:21 General Information RE: MM/1 Production (Re: Msg 83993) From: JOELHEGBERG To: TIMKIENTZLE (NR) Tim, > To the contrary! I just discovered today, for example, that InfoExpress > uses my own XYDown for file transfers. Since XYDown was public domain, There is a rare version of XYDown that IX likes to use... the one you posted here in the database doesn't seem to get along with IX. -- Joel Mathew Hegberg. Delphi : JOELHEGBERG GEnie : j.hegberg Internet : JoelHegberg@delphi.com -*- 84056 15-DEC 02:24 General Information RE: MM/1 Production (Re: Msg 83935) From: AJMLFCO To: EDELMAR ]Tell me more about Sculptor. I can only ask my questions from the framework of my own experience, so bear with me here. I have used Informix a bit. It has a couple of lines across the top of the screen with options. I can't remember for sure but it seems there was a "ace" report writer for writing simple quick reports. More involved quiries were done with SQL programs which had to be created with an editor. Other options were a screen generator, etc. All in all, pretty "stone age". I was able to impress my friends because I could create simple SQL routines using a text editor. Another package I have used is Dbase III+ ( haven't upgraded to IV yet). The user interface to this was a lot easier because it had a menuing interface so I could pick options, create databases, short reports, browse, append, edit, etc. without using a text editor. Dbase III+ is trailing edge technology, but it works and is friendlier than the version of Informix I saw. A modern database system should be graphical. One should be able to create forms, input screens, and such through the GUI. The database should be able to create and use various windows as need for these purposes. So, where does Sculptor fall into all of these ramblings? Allen -*- 84058 15-DEC 02:43 General Information RE: MM/1 Production (Re: Msg 83950) From: AJMLFCO To: COLORSYSTEMS (NR) You are right if all you consider is the MM/1 or the computer I am using, or others in the personal market. Fortunately, or unfortunately, they amount all together to 1% of OS-9 usage. On the other hand, it might be worthwhile developing for G-Windows, which is used on all kinds of systems. A database might be a real useful addition to a system running ControlCalc as a reporting and data reduction tool for a data aquisition system. If it also is useful for us personal users, so be it. If the OS-9 users group included more commercial and industrial users, they might be able to set me straight on this. Allen -*- End of Thread. -*- 83951 11-DEC 13:15 Users Group RE: Standards, UG et al (Re: Msg 83914) From: JEJONES To: EDELMAR > Totally different subject - do you know if Ultra C will compile the GNU > code or must the GNU compiler be used? They're both supposed to be > ANSII compliant. gcc supports various extensions to ANSI C that are, as the Pope might say, sui generis. If your code makes it through gcc compiled with the -pedantic option, though, I would expect it to compile with Ultra C. Opinions herein are those of their respective authors, and not necessarily those of any organization. *** posted w/InfoXpress 1.1 *** -*- 83952 11-DEC 14:04 Users Group RE: Standards, et al (Re: Msg 83945) From: MITHELEN To: BOISY Don't forget "v7make" from TOP, Tim Keintzle's make (both 6809 and 68k) and GNU Make. Oh, and there is 1 or two more (I know I ported one from Fred Fish's Amiga libraries to the CoCo) You are definately right about header files... I think the problem is even WORSE under OSK, since you have people mixing Blarslib, TOP, and EFFO headers into the standard MW headers... What a mess (And I am even guilty of this, which I am now finally correcting) -- Paul Jerkatis - SandV BBS (708)352-0948: Chicago Area OS-9 Users Group UUCP ...{balr|tellab5}!vpnet!sandv.chi.il.us!sysop Internet: MITHELEN@Delphi.com "Did you ever notice how cheep 99% of all BBS users are?" - Unknown -*- 83965 11-DEC 22:52 Users Group RE: Standards, et al (Re: Msg 83945) From: JEJONES To: BOISY > In addition, there is a problem with standard header files. This > problem exists solely on OS-9/6809 systems. When I download a > software package from a BBS and want to compile it, I find myself > constantly having to twiddle with my header files in order to > have TRUE and FALSE defined. Or, the programmer will pull in > header files that aren't even on my system. I think this has > resulted from confusion using the Kreider headers vs. the > MW headers. Still, there's confusion even on Kreider's stuff. Be careful here. The discrepancy arises from Carl's having added stuff to stdio.h that doesn't belong there, i.e. #defines for TRUE and FALSE. Those aren't part of any standard; however much one might think that C could benefit from a Boolean type, C doesn't have one. If we want to make header files closer to ANSI, then TRUE and FALSE do *not* belong in them. (It's not clear how much a typedef for void would help, because of course, an ANSI compiler will recognize void without having to #include any header file to get a typedef.) > How many different MAKE programs for OS-9 exist? I know of MW's make, > Poly MAKE (which MW sells) and no more. There are various PD or at least freely copyable make programs; they tend to emulate Unix make. Opinions herein are those of their respective authors, and not necessarily those of any organization. *** posted w/InfoXpress 1.1 *** -*- 83968 12-DEC 00:27 Users Group RE: Standards, et al (Re: Msg 83952) From: WA2EGP To: MITHELEN Do you ever get a little annoyed when you try to use the makefile and the author has put his Blarslib (for example) in a different place than you did? Maybe a list of "suggested" locations for these librarys and such would be a help for the new comers into os9/osk? Even if a textfile which told where everything should be for the makefile to work correctly without twiddling with it. Just a thought. -*- 83971 12-DEC 01:30 Users Group RE: Standards, et al (Re: Msg 83968) From: MITHELEN To: WA2EGP What I would recomend to people that jsut HAVE to use these extra libs like blars lib, or unixlib, or whatever... is to make the library a subdir of the /dd/LIB tree, and the headers a subdir of the /dd/DEFS tree. That way, the original stuff is always there, and you don't have all this other stuff (which often doesn't get along well with eachother) cluttering up the standard directories... Course, what I'm trying to do now is not use any of these other libraries, and to write my own version of "unix" functions when I need them, and then I keep them in a source library, which I can pull out to the specific directory of the program I am working on porting, and include all extra stuff for compileing under os9 in a "os9.c" source file... Gesh.. did any of that make sence? example... if I really gotta/haveta use ioctl() and stat(), I include the "ioctl.c" and "stat.c" from my //dd/SRC/C/UNIX source library into a "os9.c" file for the program I am working on.... That what... when some when someone decides that don't trust my compiler, and want to compile it on their own system, they have everything they need. -- Paul Jerkatis - SandV BBS (708)352-0948: Chicago Area OS-9 Users Group UUCP ...{balr|tellab5}!vpnet!sandv.chi.il.us!sysop Internet: MITHELEN@Delphi.com "Did you ever notice how cheep 99% of all BBS users are?" - Unknown -*- 83979 12-DEC 08:17 Users Group RE: Standards, et al (Re: Msg 83945) From: EDELMAR To: BOISY Boisy, > By coding techniques, I meant using #define's that are already agreed > upon when coding for multiple machines and platforms. MW already > has a number of these predefined in Ultra C, such as: .... OK, see what you mean. As far as OSK and OS-9000 are concerned, the only problem is that many here don't have Ultra-C and aren't aware of MW's definitions. I think most, if not all, of the industrial market is switching to Ultra-C and so are aware of the '#defines'. It would be redundant for the UG to endorse it as a standard but the UG can place information of this type in the library (or some other suitable repository) and let the membership know of its availability. There may be a need for additional #defines but wouldn't most of these come from other OSs when porting stuff over? And, these would be mostly applicable to PD stuff. > In addition, there is a problem with standard header files. This > problem exists solely on OS-9/6809 systems. .... The UG is committed to supporting the 6809 and there is a V-P with that responsibility. My initial thoughts are that these problems fall in his baliwick. I'm sure he'd appreciate input for upward compatibility. You mentioned the Kreider files. I suspect we'll have to be careful how these are re-engineered - probably be wise to bring Carl into the act. I understand he was quite upset when people altered 'ar'. > How many different MAKE programs for OS-9 exist? There are at least 2 others I'm aware of but I haven't used them - I stick to MW's make. Since everyone with OSK will at least have the standard MW make, use that for the tutorial. I think the other 'makes' are essentially extensions of MW's anyway. If the 6809 'make' is different, you might want to point out the differences. Ed -*- 83998 12-DEC 23:42 Users Group RE: Standards, et al (Re: Msg 83971) From: WA2EGP To: MITHELEN Now that makes sense (as much as I could understand of it in a quick read). I have blarslib in root and under lib. I've run into a makefile which uses h uses either.....ooops should read makefiles that look in either place. I really think that some type of text file should accompany to-be-compiled programs alerting people to what is expected and where it is expected. That is if there is no standard "place" for these files. If there is (and I'd guess that would be considered a standard), maybe this info should be spread around, especially for the beginners and those of us (like me) who are not really programmers but who like to dabble occasionally. This would make it easier. There is probably suggestions of this throughout the literature but who reads manuals (grin). -*- 84021 13-DEC 22:09 Users Group RE: Standards, et al (Re: Msg 83968) From: WOLFDEN To: WA2EGP > 83968 12-DEC 00:27 Users Group > RE: Standards, et al (Re: Msg 83952) > From: WA2EGP To: MITHELEN > > Do you ever get a little annoyed when you try to use the makefile and the > author has put his Blarslib (for example) in a different place than you did? > Maybe a list of "suggested" locations for these librarys and such would be a > help for the new comers into os9/osk? Even if a textfile which told where > everything should be for the makefile to work correctly without twiddling > with it. Just a thought. I thought the "suggested" locations for all header files was the /dd/defs directory and library files in the /dd/lib directory, at least that's the way my C disks were set up by Tandy/Microware. Jim -*- 84025 13-DEC 23:26 Users Group RE: Standards, et al (Re: Msg 84021) From: WA2EGP To: WOLFDEN (NR) Welp, I've seen some "things" that made me "grrrrr" a little. Yes, those go where you mentioned but I've seen additional definitions "hiding" in various places. I've seen gnu stuff thought to be hiding (from the makefiles) in a directory called gnu, in defs and in a directory called gnudefs in defs. This can be almost as frustrating as downloading a file into an OSK machine only to find it is for a CoCo 3 (or the other way around) because it never said which machine in the description. Maybe this is not a "standard" as such, but maybe suggestions where new files should go so nobody has to go diddling with the makefile because the author has his system set up differently. It would certainly make it easier for someone relatively new to OS9. -*- End of Thread. -*- 83953 11-DEC 14:52 General Information Tue Conference From: MRUPGRADE To: ALL Subj: CoCo Conference I would like to ask our members (Mid Iowa & Country CoCo) to at least drop in at some point. Though I don't know the Delphi handle of each; there are appx 20 - 25 UPGRADE magazine readers on the SIG. This would be a help to "all", in getting the conference off and rolling. The subject matter being the CoCo. Which is pretty broad based in itself; should be of interest to all. Who are of course invited to sit by and pick up ideas,, throwing their two cents worth (in some cases a full nickle). The time is schedualed to be a happy medium giving concideration to coastal areas. 10:30 PM East coast 9:30 Central 7:30 West coast As they say in the southern time zone,,, see y'all there now,, he'ah Terry Simons -*- 83988 12-DEC 17:32 General Information RE: Tue Conference (Re: Msg 83953) From: DAVIDAH To: MRUPGRADE Oh, yeah? Then how I was kicked out? -*- 84023 13-DEC 22:58 General Information RE: Tue Conference (Re: Msg 83988) From: MRUPGRADE To: DAVIDAH I have no idea what oyu are talking about? Please leav e me E-MAil? Til then,,, Terry Simons -*- End of Thread. -*- 83955 11-DEC 15:47 General Information RE: Booster (Re: Msg 83944) From: PHILSCHERER To: RICKMAC Hi Rick--I have booster.tup and native.tup in my cmds along with tuneup. If I do an ident of booster.tup and native.tup it tells me that the header is wrong. I'll try the -h option and see what I can do. Thanks Rick! -*- 83970 12-DEC 01:16 General Information RE: Booster (Re: Msg 83955) From: MITHELEN To: PHILSCHERER The ".tup" files are kinda like "ipatch" files that the "tuneup" program uses to make the patches to the appropiate modules... They should reside in a working data directory for (I kept them in /dd/MODULES) I don't have my CoCo any more, but, I believe the syntax/procedure you want to use is to: tagtrack /d0 34 kernel (not quite sure if I got that syntax right, but /d0 would be the drive with the bootdisk to Boost 34 is the track you want to mark, and "kernel" is just a filename you give the marked area) tuneup native.tup /d0/os9boot /d0/kernel ( This applies the native mode patch to the boot file and kernel) tuneup booster.tup /d0/os9boot /d0/kernel ( this applies the rest of the 6309 patches) That should do the trick. (assumeing I got all that syntax correct from memory) I never had good luck with doing the patches "in memory" with the -m switch but doing them to disk always worked fine, and once you know the syntax, the procedure is painless (gee, you could even make a script file to do it) Oh, if you also want to patch "grfdrv" include "/dd/cmds/grfdrv" in the second tuneup command line, between the "os9boot" and "kernel" parameters. -- Paul Jerkatis - SandV BBS (708)352-0948: Chicago Area OS-9 Users Group UUCP ...{balr|tellab5}!vpnet!sandv.chi.il.us!sysop Internet: MITHELEN@Delphi.com "Did you ever notice how cheep 99% of all BBS users are?" - Unknown -*- 83978 12-DEC 08:14 General Information RE: Booster (Re: Msg 83970) From: PHILSCHERER To: MITHELEN Hi Paul--Thanks for the reply--nothing like this was on the disk. -*- End of Thread. -*- 83956 11-DEC 15:50 General Information ghostscript From: TEDJAEGER To: ALL I recently installed ghostscript on my 3 meg mm1 and cannot get it to work. I have the executable /h0/cmds, made a "GS_LIB" directory and put the ugly.fnt and other support modules in it and set the environment variable to tell ghostscript that this was the GS_LIB directory. When I go "gs golfer.ps" to display or print an example ps page, I see a blank screen with the piece of paper but nothing on the paper. If I try to print the file I get an error message sent to the printer indicating bad output file format. I do have /dd/TMP available to ghostscript but nothing is written to that directory. Any thoughts? --Bests, ---TedJaeger -*- 83960 11-DEC 18:50 General Information RE: ghostscript (Re: Msg 83956) From: NIMITZ To: TEDJAEGER try 'merging' the file to the printer. also, try checking /r0. If the environment variable TMPDIR is set to /r0 , your files will end up there. David -*- 83973 12-DEC 03:54 General Information RE: ghostscript (Re: Msg 83956) From: JEJONES To: TEDJAEGER Are you remembering to do -sOUTPUTFILE=/p? *** posted w/InfoXpress 1.1 *** -*- 83981 12-DEC 10:39 General Information RE: ghostscript (Re: Msg 83956) From: JOHNREED To: TEDJAEGER > I recently installed ghostscript on my 3 meg mm1 and cannot get it to > work. I have the executable /h0/cmds, made a "GS_LIB" directory and > put the ugly.fnt and other support modules in it and set the environment > variable to tell ghostscript that this was the GS_LIB directory. When I go > "gs golfer.ps" to display or print an example ps page, I see a blank > screen with the piece of paper but nothing on the paper. If I try to > print the file I get an error message sent to the printer indicating > bad output file format. I do have /dd/TMP available to ghostscript but > nothing is written to that directory. Any thoughts? > --Bests, > ---TedJaeger > Ted, I see you have a couple good suggestions in the replies already posted. Here are a couple more. I am assuming here that you have version 2.6.1 1. The really neat graphics demos, like "tiger.ps" and "golfer.ps" will cause my machine to crash if I am using anything newer than kwindows version 38 with the gs "kwindows" driver. To see these demos on the screen, you can either boot with kwindows 38, or use my old "crude but effective" "kwlo" driver. (like this) gs -sDEVICE=kwlo -sOUTPUTFILE=/nil golfer.ps Note that this problem only affects those Postscript files that use a lot of graphics and cause a lot of buffer get/putting. Text files come out fine. 2. Note that gs looks for environment "TEMP" (which is NOT the same as "TMP". Also, the TEMP entry must have the slash after it. -- setenv TEMP /dd/tmp/ not setenv TEMP /dd/tmp if you leave off the slash at the end, you will find the output files in your home/root directory with names starting with your intdended directory name (tmpgsxxxxx) in the above example. 3. With the kwindows driver, when you see that blank page display, switch back to the window you started gs from and see if it is trying to tell you something -- it may be complaining about something that it can't find. 4. Both my printers, Epson Action Printer 5000 and a DeskJet 500 go nuts if I don't zero just about everything in the printer descriptor before printing directly from the command line. (This is not necessary if you "merge" the output file to your printer later). John R. Wainwright <> <> *********** InfoXpress ************ -*- 83983 12-DEC 12:15 General Information RE: ghostscript (Re: Msg 83981) From: MITHELEN To: JOHNREED I'mm I've had no problems using the gs 2.6.1 hi res KWindows driver with windio #48. -- Paul Jerkatis - SandV BBS (708)352-0948: Chicago Area OS-9 Users Group UUCP ...{balr|tellab5}!vpnet!sandv.chi.il.us!sysop Internet: MITHELEN@Delphi.com "Did you ever notice how cheep 99% of all BBS users are?" - Unknown -*- 83989 12-DEC 17:32 General Information RE: ghostscript (Re: Msg 83981) From: TEDJAEGER To: JOHNREED Thanks John, I'll try those things you suggest. I did have my temp variable wrong so maybe that will fix it. --Bests, ----TedJaeger -*- 84012 13-DEC 20:31 General Information RE: ghostscript (Re: Msg 83983) From: JOHNREED To: MITHELEN > I'mm I've had no problems using the gs 2.6.1 hi res KWindows driver with > windio #48. > -- > Paul Jerkatis - SandV BBS (708)352-0948: Chicago Area OS-9 Users Group I get about halfway through the "tiger.ps" demo and it takes the machine down every time. (Same story with windio 50 with my 68340) - did you try the tiger and golfer demos? John R. Wainwright <> <> *********** InfoXpress ************ -*- 84017 13-DEC 20:57 General Information RE: ghostscript (Re: Msg 84012) From: MITHELEN To: JOHNREED Um... No... Only the Free6809 schematic, and the Cat's Meow 2 Cover page. -*- End of Thread. -*- 83957 11-DEC 16:27 General Information RE: Mail Messages (Re: Msg 83917) From: GREGL To: LUCKYONE (NR) You can fix the problem by going into DMAIL (note the leading letter D) from the OS9> prompt, then SetMail. When asked for the actual number of waiting messages, set it what's shown minus one. -- Greg -*- 83962 11-DEC 19:50 General Information RE: Mail Messages (Re: Msg 83917) From: RICKLT To: LUCKYONE (NR) Howard, all you have to do is enter email and use the setmail command, for example at the os9 sig prompt type email and , at the email prompt type the setmail command and reset your mail count to the correct value. Hope this helps! Rick -*- End of Thread. -*- 83959 11-DEC 17:54 General Information Parallel Port HD From: TONYREED To: ALL I've been away from the Forum for a bit, so if this has been discussed already, please direct me to the thread. I saw this morning on Computer Chronicles a "pocket sized" hard drive that supposedly connects to any computer via the parallel port. Does that mean the parallel port in my Disto 3-in-1 board? I know I'd need a driver for it, but is it a physical possibility? Thanks, Tony -*- 83977 12-DEC 07:53 General Information RE: Parallel Port HD (Re: Msg 83959) From: ALWAGNER To: TONYREED There is a recent thread on a Colorado tape backup system that uses a parallel port. You may want to follow that one as the basic connect problems should be similar if not the same. It starts with message 83797. The summary is that you would need a bi-directional parallel port, which it has been speculated that the Disto 3-in-1 board may possess. Once having establihed that you have the required port type, then you have to find or write (the more likely route) a driver for it. There also was another thread on hard drives that I think had something in it about parallel ports, but I can't seem to locate it just now. AlWagner -*- 83996 12-DEC 22:40 General Information RE: Parallel Port HD (Re: Msg 83977) From: TONYREED To: ALWAGNER (NR) Thanks, Al: I'll look into the thread you mention. I could also 'phone Tony Distefano and ask him what he thinks. Would be nice to be able to plug a hard drive into the 3-in-1 like that. -- Tony -*- 84004 13-DEC 06:28 General Information RE: Parallel Port HD (Re: Msg 83959) From: LMCCLURE To: TONYREED Yes, technically, with a driver, a parallel port hard drive intended for a PC should work on the Disto 3-in-1 parallel port. However, writing that driver might be much more difficult than you think. Given that a 'standard' CoCo hard drive system could be put together for the price of many of these PC parallel port drives, there would not seem to be much call for such a driver. A driver for a parallel port tape back-up, however, would be quite another story. This due to the fact the same drive could be shared with a PC (unlike fixed media like a hard drive), and there do not seem to be any ready tape backup solutions for the CoCo. -*- 84022 13-DEC 22:52 General Information RE: Parallel Port HD (Re: Msg 84004) From: TONYREED To: LMCCLURE >However, writing that driver might be much more difficult than >you think. Given that a 'standard' CoCo hard drive system could >be put together for the price of many of these PC parallel port >drives, there would not seem to be much call for such a driver. That's very true. I guess I was taken in by how slick the little portable hard drive looked! And the price of 20 and 40 meg hard drives seems to be about $1.00/meg (and that's in Canadian dollars -- about 75 cents in yanqui dollah... -- Tony -*- End of Thread. -*- 83963 11-DEC 21:54 General Information RE: Hi (Re: Msg 83930) From: ROYBUR To: DGANTZ using a text editor, you could include whatever message parts you'd like. VED, UMACS, (even) EDIT or EDT, or something from the database should all work ok if you're using os9; if using DECB, then something like TELEWRITER or even AUTOTERM's buffer (which has a limited but adequate-for-this-purpose editing capability) would work. if osk, then i'd best mention WRITERIGHT. aw, you get the idea; any text editor or word-processor. in the latter case, you shouldn't use any "special" features like underline, bold, italics, highlighting or whatever. sorry to get so long-winded; just wanted to add a little that i left out last night! 8*)............roy -*- 83967 11-DEC 23:07 General Information RE: Hi (Re: Msg 83929) From: WOAY To: DGANTZ I didn't mean to miss-lead there. I am aware of the 'mail' utils others are useing, and just wanted to call it to your attention I guess. I don't use any of them myself, more because it seems I manage to keep busy with ts most of the time, and entering into a real, answer every message mode just isn't in the long term pix. But I do tend to jump in even if not asked if something goes by here on the forum that I've had experience with and could possibly offer a bit of help. Thats what happened here because I wasn't as familiar with your handle as some here.. Sort of like volenteering to show someone how to get there when all I really was was eavesdropping! Cheers Dave, Gene -*- End of Thread. -*- 83964 11-DEC 22:07 General Information rs-232 cabling From: ROYBUR To: EDELMAR hi again, ed! i have yet another question for ya. i have a cable connected between my sys4 and my coco3 (disto serial port), but i can only get a good connection at 2400 baud. 4800 is iffy, and 9600 is useless. i suspect i have the thing wired incorrectly, though obviously data and ground lines are ok. could you tell me the best way to hook the two computers together, signal-to- signal rather than pin-to-pin. or both ways, using pin numbers and signal names? (yep, i did do some fiddling and i don't have my notes handy. if i can find 'em at all, though i know i made notes! 8*)...........roy -*- 84006 13-DEC 18:35 General Information RE: rs-232 cabling (Re: Msg 83964) From: EDELMAR To: ROYBUR Roy, I'm not familiar with the Disto serial port - I used Superboards. Assuming you're are trying to use the CoCo as a terminal and you're using OS9 on the CoCo, I don't think this can be done reliably at speeds over 2400. The problem is the CoCo - it can't handle the serial port and writl port is at higher baud rates. When Greg Law was doing the review of the SYSTEM IV, he found the same problem. He went to one the RSDOS terminal programs (VTerm) and was able to work at 19200 baud. He was using a standard RS rs-232 pack. Anyway, if you're able to communicate OK at 2400, I think your wiring is correct. One thing you can try to verify proper connections is to use your SYSTEM IV as a terminal and log onto your CoCo. When I got my first K2 board (predecessor to the K4 board), I wanted to transfer my SCULPTOR stuff from the CoCo. I used Kermit for this and logged into the CoCo. As I recall, I successfully transfered the stuff at either 9600 or 19200. Going the other way, (log in from the CoCo), I was limited. Ed -*- 84010 13-DEC 19:04 General Information RE: rs-232 cabling (Re: Msg 84006) From: ROYBUR To: EDELMAR thanx for the info, ed. yes, i've tried logging onto the coco, but i don't think i tried anything over 4800 baud and i didn't notice any problems in that direction. fwiw, my ol' coco3 is just that; old. it was one of the first to be sold in this area, and i'm sure it has the 1986 GIME. there are no very obvious problems with it...unless the fact that it has problems with rates over 2400 baud is a symptom. i did try a DECB term program - AUTOTERM - but it didn't work as well as SuperComm. that's why i wanted to check the connections. i suspect AUTOTERM may be inferior, here, to something like VTERM, since AUTOTERM was written to be used on all models of coco and so has to be doing some extra testing to determine what it's running on. thanx again. 8*).........................roy -*- 84011 13-DEC 19:45 General Information RE: rs-232 cabling (Re: Msg 84010) From: RANDYKWILSON To: ROYBUR Roy, I just bumped into this thread. Using the coco under OS9 as a terminal will work fine at speeds up to 9600 (with a 6551 based rs232 pack). If you're getting lost text at 4800, someting is wrong. I saw mention of Disto earlier on. This problem could well be caused by the Disto clock driver. If your still using it, get rid of it, and grab Clock Edition #9 (Eddie Kuns, System Modules here), and use the one included that's for the Disto. Gimme the low down on your coco system, and we'll get you as close to optimum as possible. Randy -*- 84018 13-DEC 21:11 General Information RE: rs-232 cabling (Re: Msg 84010) From: MITHELEN To: ROYBUR If you want to get reliable communication at over 2400 baud under OS-9, with a "standard" RS-232 pack, you will nedd to have the SAcia replacement driver installed, AND hade hardware handshakeing active on both ends. Otherwise, you WILL get buffer overflows/lockups when receiveing at greater then 2400 baud on a CoCo under OS-9. -- Paul Jerkatis - SandV BBS (708)352-0948: Chicago Area OS-9 Users Group UUCP ...{balr|tellab5}!vpnet!sandv.chi.il.us!sysop Internet: MITHELEN@Delphi.com "Did you ever notice how cheep 99% of all BBS users are?" - Unknown -*- 84019 13-DEC 21:27 General Information RE: rs-232 cabling (Re: Msg 84018) From: RANDYKWILSON To: MITHELEN Paul, I disagree fully here. Neither hardware handshake, nor SAcia, is required for high speed work. While the extra breathing room of SAcia's adjustable buffers is helpful at times, hardware handshake is totally unneeded when the CoCo is being used as a text terminal. Note that in developing SuperComm 2.2 (and 2.3), I do extensive testing with as many system formats as I can. Supercomm with Aciapak, using xon/xoff, works just fine at 9600, and is actually slightly *faster* than SAcia. Randy -*- 84024 13-DEC 23:23 General Information RE: rs-232 cabling (Re: Msg 84019) From: MITHELEN To: RANDYKWILSON Yes, I suppose you are right, that XON/XOFF handshakeing can be used, the point is, SOME kind of flow control is needed. -- Paul -*- 84027 13-DEC 23:49 General Information RE: rs-232 cabling (Re: Msg 84024) From: RANDYKWILSON To: MITHELEN Yeah, exactly. It all depends on the usage. For instance, in this case we're dealing with a text only remote terminal. With page pause set on, you could either use a buffer big enough to hold most of a page, or you can use any form of flow control. But, if you want to do file transfers, you have tolook at the options. with ymodem, the packet run length is limited to 1029 bytes. In testing at 9600, SuperComm never got more than 100 bytes behind the data stream (this is because it does header and crc checking on the fly), so you don't need big buffers, or flow control. But if you want to use zmodem, you *have* to use hardware flow. Otherwise the streaming packets andthe disk writes will collide. The intended purpose will dictate the minimum setup. Randy -*- 84063 15-DEC 03:28 General Information RE: rs-232 cabling (Re: Msg 84019) From: AJMLFCO To: RANDYKWILSON (NR) I use my CoCo as a terminal on the Kix\30 at 9600bps with few problems. I have even used both of my serial ports simultaneously from the CoCo. One downloading files off of Delphi at (sort of) 2400 and meanwhile using the other at 9600 working on the Kix before the Kix graphics board arrived. I also have a 486 Intel machine that I can hardwire-connect to at 9600 and achieve 750 characters download speed to the CoCo using Y-modem batch. The coco is a 6309 with powerboost, Sacia, Ed#9 clock drivers, Disto serial port ( no hardware handshaking with the Disto) and a Tandy RS232 port. Its all ribbon connected so there is no slot switching delays due to the MPI. So, I believe speeds greater than 2400 are possible except through the bit-banger port. Allen -*- End of Thread. -*- 83966 11-DEC 22:52 OSK Applications RE: CDI full motion demo (Re: Msg 83946) From: JEJONES To: PHXKEN > Do you think that the $200 full motion video card will work with the > cheaper Magnavox model of the Phillips CD-i machine? To the best of my knowledge, the Magnavox CD-i player is built to take the full motion video card as well as the Philips CD-i player. Opinions (and errors, if I've made any) are those of their respective authors, and not necessarily those of any organization. *** posted w/InfoXpress 1.1 *** -*- 84057 15-DEC 02:33 OSK Applications RE: CDI full motion demo (Re: Msg 83946) From: AJMLFCO To: PHXKEN (NR) I did not ask about the Magnavox unit. I later saw a Magnavox CD-I ( I think it was at Montgomery Wards) for $399. My recollection of the video pricing was that they were in the $24 to $40 range. They had about 6 titles at Incredible Universe. The salesman told me (this makes it an unsubstantiated rumour) that Blockbuster video will renting the movies (why not rent the games, too?) and that they were 40% owned by philips. The full motion card improves the actions of games as well. It seems that they will work with or without the full motion card, but of course, much smoother with it. -*- End of Thread. -*- 83969 12-DEC 01:11 Games & Graphics Computer Artists Wanted From: JOELHEGBERG To: ALL To all those with artistic talents... Sub-Etha Software is looking for a few computer artists for some upcoming projects. Those participating would receive free software products from Sub-Etha Software (either for OS-9 or OSk), plus get to see their name in lights! Anyone interested may send mail plus a sample CM3, VEF, or GIF picture file you created to JOELHEGBERG for more information. You can either be working under RS-DOS, OS-9, or OSk to participate. -- Joel Mathew Hegberg. Delphi : JOELHEGBERG GEnie : j.hegberg Internet : JoelHegberg@delphi.com -*- 83972 12-DEC 02:15 Programmers Den OSK Data Modules From: JOELHEGBERG To: ALL I'm trying to use a memory data module in an OSK program I'm writing, and I really don't know how to get the memory address of the data area of the data module. I see that upon linking to (or creating) a memory data module, OS-9 C passes back a "mod_exec" pointer back, and within the mod_exec structure is an offset to the data area of the module, but how do I know what location the actual data module is at to apply to data area offset to? A code snippet could help tremendously here... :) Thanks for any help! -- Joel Mathew Hegberg. Delphi : JOELHEGBERG GEnie : j.hegberg Internet : JoelHegberg@delphi.com -*- 83976 12-DEC 05:58 Programmers Den RE: OSK Data Modules (Re: Msg 83972) From: PAGAN To: JOELHEGBERG Joel, It looks a little bit tricky but it actually makes perfect sense once you've done it a few times: int *dataptr; /* pointer to whatever type of data to be stored */ mod_exec *mp; mp=_mkdata_module(modname,4,attrevs,perms); dataptr=(int *)mp+mp->_mexec; /* data pointer / Notice that the _execution_ offset _not_ the data offset is where you store the data. Whatever you do, don't mess with the value returned by _mkdata_module(); You'll need it to unlink the module when you're thru. OS9 will not automatically deallocate a data module when the creating process terminates. Stephen (PAGAN) -*- 83984 12-DEC 14:58 Programmers Den RE: OSK Data Modules (Re: Msg 83976) From: JOELHEGBERG To: PAGAN Stephen, > Notice that the _execution_ offset _not_ the data offset is where you > store the data. Whatever you do, don't mess with the value returned by > _mkdata_module(); You'll need it to unlink the module when you're thru. > OS9 will not automatically deallocate a data module when the creating > process terminates. Thanks a lot for the help/code... it was just what I needed! :) -- Joel Mathew Hegberg. Delphi : JOELHEGBERG GEnie : j.hegberg Internet : JoelHegberg@delphi.com -*- 84045 14-DEC 22:08 Programmers Den RE: OSK Data Modules (Re: Msg 83984) From: PAGAN To: JOELHEGBERG Joel, I goofed! When I sent you the code to create a data module I made an error that could have you writing outside the memory reserved for the module. The code should have been something like: int *dataptr; /* pointer to whatever type of data to be stored */ mod_exec *mp; char *mod; mp=_mkdata_module(modname,datasize,attrevs,perms); mod=(char *)mp; dataptr=(int *)(mod+mp->_mexec); /* data pointer / I think you can see what would have happened without the conversion to a char *. Since C increments pointers by the size of whatever they point to, dataptr would be pointing to some place surprising. Hope this hasn't caused any problems. You know, this kind of thing never happened in assembly language! Stephen (PAGAN) -*- 84061 15-DEC 02:47 Programmers Den RE: OSK Data Modules (Re: Msg 84045) From: JOELHEGBERG To: PAGAN Stephen, > I think you can see what would have happened without the conversion to a > char *. Since C increments pointers by the size of whatever they point > to, dataptr would be pointing to some place surprising. Hope this hasn't > caused any problems. Thanks for posting the update! I did have this in mind, but had yet to get into implementing it. > You know, this kind of thing never happened in assembly language! -- Joel Mathew Hegberg. Delphi : JOELHEGBERG GEnie : j.hegberg Internet : JoelHegberg@delphi.com -*- End of Thread. -*- 83980 12-DEC 08:29 Telecom (6809) RE: RiBBS/RS232 Pak (Re: Msg 83949) From: DENNYWRIGHT To: WESGALE (NR) I am using aciadrv and swapped cable at one end. I will tryt the sacia drivestead and see what happens. For some reason ribbs keeps detecting carrier and trying to log someone in. I tried the ICL232 mod but it didn't work. Got a correct version of the docs ? -*- 83982 12-DEC 11:50 Standards OS9 UG and Standards group From: NIMITZ To: ALL The OS9 users group BOD - or at least members of it, have told me that they see no reason for such a group to be formed at this time. However - IF I FOUND ONE AND IT TURNS OUT OK, the UG would consider accepting it as an organ of the Users group later. When I was less than accepting of this proposal, well, it seems to have upset yet another member of the BOD. So, I'm asking the members of the OS9 community to look at this situation, and tell me if they would accept such a proposal - that one person or group should do the work of setting up a organization to benefit al l, then turn it over to the group that SHOULD be helping to get the job done in the first place after they put no effort into it. Frankly, I see no improvement in this group. They tell me - 'give us time, give us a chance ' but I've offered this group a chance to start an activity that many of the small developers tell me they see as a boon to all and offer to donate my time in a cooperative venture, and get told to do it myself and give it to them later? Am I missing so mething here?? What do you think?? -*- 83985 12-DEC 14:58 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 83982) From: JOELHEGBERG To: NIMITZ David, > The OS9 users group BOD - or at least members of it, have told me that > they see no reason for such a group to be formed at this time. However - This is a very critical time for the OS9 User's Group, and I can tell you there are many many things on the BOD's minds. We had an on-line meeting here last night and many many topics were discussed, and the meeting lasted for quite a while. (I'm not speaking from a BOD perspective, as I'm not part of the BOD, but rather the MOTD editor.) Frankly, a standard's group is something that the OS-9 User's Group is not ready to get involved with because of the many other critical areas it has to concentrate on in restarting the OS-9 User's Group. Personally, I would love to see a standards group formed someday... it would be a boon to all. -- Joel Mathew Hegberg. Delphi : JOELHEGBERG GEnie : j.hegberg Internet : JoelHegberg@delphi.com -*- 83994 12-DEC 19:33 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 83982) From: DSRTFOX To: NIMITZ I'll be printing your article in the next issue. Why don't you ask the UG to appoint YOU as head of the "standards committee" and then you can go on your merry way... at least with the groups blessing, and you can probably get a little more interest since you will at least have the endorsement of the UG. The few workers in the group do have their hands full, but I can't see why they wouldn't at least give you an endorsement! -*- 83999 12-DEC 23:55 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 83982) From: WA2EGP To: NIMITZ Well, I wouldn't mind helping if I able to offer anything useful. Whether I can or not, I don't know. -*- 84008 13-DEC 18:37 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 83994) From: EDELMAR To: DSRTFOX Frank, > ... Why don't you ask the UG to appoint YOU as head of the "standards > committee" and then you can go on your merry way... at least with the > groups blessing, and you can probably get a little more interest since > you will at least have the endorsement of the UG. The few workers in the > group do have their hands full, but I can't see why they wouldn't at least > give you an endorsement! First, I'd like to suggest you look up the definition of the word 'standard' in the dictionary and then find out what it means and how it is used in industry. As to your statement 'and then you can go on your merry way...', absolutely not. Not even the President of the UG can go his 'merry way' and most fortunately, (as he demonstrated at our first BOD meeting) Carl does not wish to do so. Rather, he has demonostrated a very stong dedication to guide the UG to a position where membership in the UG will be attractive to all members of the OS-9 community and where the UG will serve the community as a whole. I should add that the other members of the BOD demonstrated a similar dedication. I'm not singleing out David Graham - I have nothing against him. (But, he is the one raising the issue.) However, I think to give him or anyone carte blanche to act in the name of and/or under the mantle of the OS-9 User Group is inappropriate. Further, he has not made such a request to the UG or the BOD. Nor, does he know how the BOD will respond to such a request. (However, he does know my position but I'm only 1 of 5 directors.) David is demonstra- ting a great deal of enthusiasm. But rather than use a shot-gun approach, I'd like to see him zero in on a specific issue and follow through on that. If he can demonstrate that the issue is indeed a problem, can convince other interested parties to appoint competent persons to serve on such a committee, I don't think he'll have any problem getting the endorsement and full support from the BOD - he will get support from me. Ed Gresick Director - OS-9 Users Group -*- 84009 13-DEC 18:52 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 83982) From: EDELMAR To: NIMITZ David, I'm not speaking for the UG or the BOD but I will speak as 1 of 5 Director's and try to state clearly my position regarding your desire for a broad-based standards committee. I have a rather strict definition of 'standard'. Most of the things you appear to be alluding to fall, at best, in the category of practices - not standards. You've mentioned only one subject which might qualify as a standard; i.e., defining certain signals. But you haven't provided any examples of where or why this is needed. Also, who else in the industry agrees that this is a problem which needs to be addressed or are you addressing a problem peculiar to your Company's hardware/software. I don't know. I suggest you define the problem you perceive clearly in your mind first. Then discuss the specifics with representatives of other Companies in the OS-9 community; i.e., OEMs, VARs, programmers and other interested parties. You will also have to consider possible backward compatibility problems. If you can get a concensus from them that this is indeed a problem, prepare and submit a proposal to the UG outlining the problem, what the objec- tive is and a list of experts in the specific area willing to serve on that committee. I will certainly look favorably on such a proposal. The rest of the subjects you mentioned appear to fall in the category of practices or information but not as a standard. For example, you mentioned preparing a 'library' that would include many functions (beyond MW's I assume) to make it easier for programmers. I don't have a problem with you or anyone else doing this. But I don't see where UG endorsement or sponsorship is necessary for this. This 'library' could be submitted to the existing UG library or otherwise made available to programmers. However, I'd think that if the 'library' is truly worthwhile and will be supported, you'd want to sell it to programmers. Anyway, I don't see that making such a 'library' a 'standard' will necessarily benefit the community. Most experienced C programmers already have their own libraries which they would probably prefer to use. But again, you may always discuss this with others as I described above and if there is a consesus that a standard library of the type you propose is necessary, submit a proposal to the UG. I will listen. David, I'd suggest you read the Constitution of the UG. Among the primary objectives are the expansion of the UG by bringing in industrial members and new users as well as expanding support for existing members. You may have some excellent ideas consistant with these objectives but you will have to define and present these ideas more clearly than you have. You will have to do your homework first. And I will not vote for a committee with nebulous objectives and broad powers regardless of who heads it. I will favor a separate committee to address each problem/objective. BTW, if you look into how ANSII or the IEEE does this, I think you'll find the procedure they follow is similar to what I'm asking for; i.e., they do not initiate such committees. Proposals are presented to them by an informal group. Then, after credentials and many other factors are examined, they may endorse the establishment of a committee to prepare 'draft specifications' under their 'umbrella'. Please remember that for a standard to be credible, it must be accepted by the entire community - Industrial, VARs, programmers, users, etc. Calling something a standard does not make it so. UG endorsement of a standard without the participation and agreement of all interested parties, would only serve to discredit the UG. Ed Gresick Director, OS-9 Users Group -*- 84015 13-DEC 20:36 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 83994) From: NIMITZ To: DSRTFOX Actually Frank, that is exactly what I asked for. I simply beleive that the 'standards organization' belongs under the Users Group. However, the members of the BOD who are aware and have contacted me, seem to think otherwise. I figure, if I gotta do the work before I can have an endorsement, why bother with the endorsement. See, the OS9 UG endorsement SHOULD make the job a liettle easier. So, if I gotta do it the hard way, why involve the UG after the hard part is done? -*- 84016 13-DEC 20:48 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84008) From: NIMITZ To: EDELMAR Ed, I like the shotgun analogy you used. Perhaps this can allow me to get my point accross to you. If you want to go hunting , in a group (in this case a necessity), you do not just say, let's hunt quail. You set out a plan that avoids wasted effort, and injuries to the hunters. And it you are hunting for survival purpos es, you don't restrict yourself to quail. (Ignoring the problem of game regulations, though I don't intend to ignore the law in real world applications). So, committing myself to fixing one problem now is not necessarily soemthing I want to do. Beside s, I want this group to be free to take on additional problems as they arise. However, if I had to attack one problem first, it would be the lack of standards for graphics format handling libraries for all OSK machines. I would assemble a group of GWi ndows, KWindows, MM/1 , System IV and V programmers (and other machines - if possible), and work on assembling standards for and working examples of a libarary that would allow use of PCX, VEF, GIF, TIFF, PBM and other popular graphics file formats accross (across) all as many platforms as possible using the same syntax. But, I would not wait until this project was done to start on a committee for DBM tool development. Now, I realize that using this group for library development might offend some, but I see this as an essential part of a shared plan to revitalize our market place. And this group (or these groups) would and rightfully should be restricted from developing entire applications, that should be undertaken only by commercial organizations, tho ugh licensing of the commonly developed library for a minimal fee would be used to finance further shared development projects, such as QIC readers if possible. David M. Graham BlackHawk Enterprises, Inc. -*- 84026 13-DEC 23:29 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84015) From: WA2EGP To: NIMITZ (NR) How about making it an "informal suggestion" group, submit it the the UG and see how they react to "it" (it referring to the suggestions). -*- 84030 14-DEC 00:37 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 83982) From: ILLUSIONIST To: NIMITZ (NR) I think you are on the right track..the UG should help in developing standards...I am sure many of us in the OS-9 community (myself included) we donate time and help in developing standard for a variety of problems .all that is needed is an idea, and for someone to simply ask for help. The UG should be a part of it. After all, they are the Users Group.. What will industrial users and "outsiders" think if our official users group just sits around and adopts the standards the users make, esp when there is little or no input by the UG (until the very end), or from the industrial users (at all).. The UG should at the very least "poll" its members somehow, find out as much as they can about what the users need, and what they would like to do, then relay that info to those working on the standard.. -* Mike -*- 84033 14-DEC 00:50 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84008) From: ILLUSIONIST To: EDELMAR I think there should be 2 standards commitees, 1 for OSk, and 1 for OS-9 or at least 2 divisions under the standards commitee, I would like to get the OS-9/6809 patch problem fixed up, then maybe "printercap" file, and a file to control basic graphics functions, if possible, or some type system to have 1 binary (for OSk, though it would work with OS-9 too) work with the various windowing systems... -* Mike -*- 84041 14-DEC 18:41 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84016) From: EDELMAR To: NIMITZ (NR) David, I hear (and have heard) everything you're saying. But, I don't think you're hearing me. I will try to be as clear as possible. There is no intent in what I'm about to say to insult or otherwise discredit you or anyone else. Again, I'm not speaking for the UG or the BOD - only myself. One of the primary objectives of the UG is to bring in industrial, educational and other professional users; without their participation and support, I don't believe the UG can have much of a future. This objective transcends national boundaries - we want participation and support from all users throughout the world. Additionally, we want to spread the word about OS-9. I'd like to see the latter effort coordinated with MW. I don't believe an effective PR campaign can be implemented without the financial support the industrial market can provide. Another objective is to provide support for OS-9 Users. This will include all OS-9 users - not just those who are members, or are on this forum, or on FIDO or own MM/1s. This should include the user with the expensive, super 68040 VME system as well as the CoCo and everything in between. And, it includes OS-9000. (Still another objective is the support of OS-9/6809, the CoCo Users but I don't think that is part of this discussion.) One of the biggest problems the UG has is to restore credibility with MW (does effect UG efforts re OS-9/6809) and the industrial, educational, professional and other members of the _entire_ OS-9 community and bring them in as active and supporting members. I'll repeat what I said before. IMO, without their participation and support, I don't believe the UG has much of a future. The above represents the factors I'll consider when discussing UG policies including the establishment of committees. I believe I'm being consistent when I object to any one person or any one committee having broad powers under the mantle of the OS-9 Users Group. I want to be certain that whatever work is done, is done by a broad representa- tion of the OS-9 Community by qualified and experienced people, that the problem being addressed is a real problem common to the entire community and that the final results will be meaningful, accepted by and available to the _entire_ community thereby reflecting positively on the UG. Depending on the problem, it may that MW will resolve the issue. Above all, any work done under the mantle of the OS-9 Users Group should not be for the benefit of an individual, Company or 'class' of user. Benefits must accrue to and be available to all. Let's examine a few of your comments - > However, if I had to attack one problem first, it would be the lack of > standards for graphics format handling libraries for all OSK machines. I > would assemble a group of GWindows, KWindows, MM/1 , System IV and V > programmers (and other machines - if possible), and work on assembling > standards for and working examples of a libarary that would allow use of > PCX, VEF, GIF, TIFF, PBM and other popular graphics file formats accross > (across) all as many platforms as possible using the same syntax. First, let me comment that when this was proposed 3 or 4 years ago, I received a message, that I (DELMAR) should conform to MM/1 standards; that in 1 or 2 years there would be between 5000 and 10000 MM/1s out there and the SYSTEM IV and other hardware would _have_ to conform to K-Windows and other MM/1 standards. Wonder what happened? (OK, I got my lick in.) For native mode use, both the SYSTEM IV and SYSTEM V computers already have a gfx library based on Microsoft Quick C. Many of my customers have written software using these libraries. What benefit would it be to me or my custo- mers to change. Isn't it a little late? As to G-WINDOWS, any changes would have to be made and approved by GESPAC. They own and control G-WINDOWS. Have you talked to them? Considering the number of copies of G-WINDOWS sold and the number of platforms it has been ported to, I, personally, see no valid reason to change G-WINDOWS to conform with some standard you might prefer (K-Windows?) unless you can present a very compelling case. I see 2 alternatives for you. The first is for you to arrange to port K- Windows to all the other platforms, convince the other programmers, users and OEM's to use it and prove that it is better than what they have; the second is for you to port G-WINDOWS to the MM/1. (Unless I get another 10 orders in the next 2 weeks, I will not be doing a port of G-WINDOWS to the MM/1.) The latter option may not be such a bad idea - it would bring the MM/1 into the mainstream. As to the gfx file formats, several already exist for the SYSTEM IV/V, as well as for G-WINDOWS. I am working on bringing some of the other gfx formats to G-WINDOWS. Much of this has been done with my time, effort and expense. Several SYSTEM VI/V owners have contributed such programs. Or, I paid for them when I purchased the G-WINDOWS Port Pack and license. It appears to me that you want these for the MM/1 but are unwilling to expend the effort/funds to get them. Certainly, you may assemble a team to write these for the MM/1 but since I fail to see what benefits I or OEMs, VARs and other non-MM/1 users will receive, why should the UG sponsor such an effort? > But, I would not wait until this project was done to start on a committee > for DBM tool development. Don't we already have several DBMS? Starting at $75, an older version of the SCULPTOR development pacakge is available. Next we have DATADEX written by Steve Carville. For a simple database, it is surprisingly powerful and versatile. Then, I believe IMS is available for a few hundred dollars. I think this is similar to DBase 3. At the upper end we have SCULPTOR again. Also, I think there are a couple of PD DBMS in the Database here and/or on CIS. Why should the UG sponsor an effort that would compete with already available commercial software? I hope we can get MPD (SCULPTOR) and whoever is putting out IMS to join the UG. Do you think they will join if the UG sponsors and supports others to compete with them? This is just this type of action that I believe must be avoided by the UG. > ... but I see this as an essential part of a shared plan to revitalize our > market place. Perhaps you can share your ideas with the UG. At the BOD meeting we grappled with this problem. It is going to take a great deal of time and effort to effectively address it. If you have a workable plan, I can assure you the UG BOD will welcome it. David, it appears to me (from the ideas you've presented) that you are asking for sponsorship for a committee that will benefit you, your Company and the MM/1. I don't see where you've identified and addressed problems the main- stream OS-9 community may have. Nor do you appear to want to make a concerted effort to involve them to determine if your perception of problems are in fact problems and involve them in solving them - particularly if a standard is required. In several previous messages, you intimated you would solve industry's problems for them by means of your committee but do you know what their problems are? How can you do this without involving them? You complain certain members of the BOD (including me) don't want to help but want the credit. Perhaps the best way of stating it is if work done under the UG mantle benefits the entire OS-9 community, then the UG and its membership will benefit. If the entire OS-9 community doesn't benefit, we can expect criticism which will be detrimental to the UG. As I see it, the only help the UG, as an organization, can give you is a mantle of legitimacy by sponsoring your committee. If this mantle is provided, how do I, as a Director, know your efforts will reflect positively on the UG? So long as I'm a Director of the UG, I will not vote to give you, or anyone, the kind of broad authority you want to establish standards you decide are necesary under the auspices of the UG. I will judge each request on its merits; i.e., is the problem one that can only be resolved by a standard, do experts in the field (including MW) concur, what are the credentials of those serving on the committee, who will comprise the working committee, what assurance is there that the OEMs, VARs, programmers, etc. comply with such a standard and how will it benefit the OS-9 community as a whole. I don't believe it is up to the UG to do the preliminary work. Rather, I believe we should follow the practices of other organizations regarding standards; i.e., the interested party(s) do their homework and present a package to the UG for consideration. If the information provided substantiates the need, approval will most certainly be given and the committee can proceed with the work under the auspices of the UG. Ed Gresick Director, OS-9 UG -*- 84042 14-DEC 18:42 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84030) From: EDELMAR To: ILLUSIONIST Mike, > I think you are on the right track..the UG should help in developing > standards...I am sure many of us in the OS-9 community (myself included) > we donate time and help in developing standard for a variety of problems > .all that is needed is an idea, and for someone to simply ask for help. The UG is comprised only of volunteers; that includes the officers, directors, and people like the MOTD Editor and the Librarian. No one is paid or compen- sated for their time or expenses nor are there any paid employees. The only resources (assets if you will) the UG has are its name and membership. The simple fact we might have a problem, doesn't mean we need a standard. Standards are useful only if all parties concerned agree that there is a problem, participate in their preparation, agree to them and follow them. > The UG should be a part of it. After all, they are the Users Group.. > What will industrial users and "outsiders" think if our official users > group just sits around and adopts the standards the users make, esp when > there is little or no input by the UG (until the very end), or from > the industrial users (at all).. What will industrial users and "outsiders" think if the UG adopts standards without all interested parties being involved. Worse, what if it is a standard contrary to what they have been doing. In all cases, it will have to be the interested parties that will do the work. The question is whether the UG will endorse the work. There are several steps involved whether the UG is involved or not. Let's look at how most standards committees have been formed in the past. Typically, someone will encounter a problem. Most people will contact their local expert to get a solution. If no solution can be found, several other people are contacted. (Along the way, the problem is further defined.) Finally, leading experts will be contacted. Most often, the 'problem' will have been resolved along the way. Occassionally, there is no satisfactory resolution and the people involved will form an informal committee with the intent of preparing a standard. They will contact an organization like the IEEE, ANSII, ISO, etc. (but it could be the OS-9 Users Group as well if the subject is applicable). These organizations have certain requirements before they will formally 'adopt' a committee; i.e., statement of the problem(s), why they are problem(s), what experts (including their credentials) concur that this is a problem and the names of the Companies and/or individuals who will serve on the committee. If all of the requirements of the standards organization are met, they will issue the committee a 'charter' which will among other things, define the scope of their work and the expected end result (there are many other provisions but they're not important for this example). At this point, a working committee will be formed which will do the actual work of preparing the specifications which can later be formalized as a standard. During the preparation of the specification, 'draft specifi- cations' are often circulated for review. Interested parties send in their comments and the specification is revised. This continues until the differences are resolved. At this point the specification becomes a standard and the committee is dissolved having completed its work. Even when one of the large standards organizations sponsors the effort, it is the people who called for forming the committee who usually do most of the work. The sponsoring organization provides no help - indeed, in most cases, they may not even understand the work being done by its various committees Should the UG do things differently? Granted, being small, we do not need all the paper work the larger organizations require but I think the same requirements should hold. If the UG is be responsible, professional and gain the respect of the entire OS-9 community, can it do any different? > The UG should at the very least "poll" its members somehow, find out > as much as they can about what the users need, and what they would like > to do, then relay that info to those working on the standard.. I agree with you that we must find out what the membership needs and wants. My preference is for a questionaire sent to members (maybe part of the MOTD?) every year. I can bring this up at the next BOD meeting but I'd suggest you contact Carl Boll, UG President (CBJ on Delphi), directly and inform him of your needs. As to getting information to those working on standards, if the UG follows a procedure similar to what I outlined above, every interested party will have the opportunity to review the specification being prepared and present their views. Ed Gresick Director - OS-9 UG -*- 84043 14-DEC 18:42 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84033) From: EDELMAR To: ILLUSIONIST Mike, The UG is committed to supporting OS-9/6809. We have a VP designated with that responsibility but he hasn't been on the job very long - he's just getting his feet wet. He will probably need the help of others to resolve the patch and other problems. The UG is taking the first step to re-establish our credibility with MW. This will be followed, I hope, with the necessary steps to acquire the rights to the 6809 code from MW and, with their help, the gfx code from Tandy. If the UG is successful in its effort to obtain OS-9/6809 rights, the UG will be able to support the code since MW has stopped supporting it and there should be no conflicts. Ed Gresick Director - OS-9 UG -*- 84046 14-DEC 22:21 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84008) From: DSRTFOX To: EDELMAR Actually, Ed, I sort of meant that David should more or less do as you suggested, though I was more than a little "loose" in terminology! -*- 84047 14-DEC 22:24 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84042) From: ILLUSIONIST To: EDELMAR I agree Ed, and that is what I am saying, the UG shouldnt make the standards, we should, but those standards should be accepted by all (most?) of the OS-9 world. Not just the CoCoers, not just those with the MM/1, Kix's or System IV's, and not just the industrial users. It should be all of us. And only the UG can really be called "all" of us, thus far anyway. If the UG put out a poll, asked its users what they want, and then we all get on the horn to the companies, and get in contact with the industrial users, and the standard we make has to be more than "ok, I can live with that" it has to be "OK! Thats and idea! THAT would make life easier for aof us"... that is the kind of standards we need to make, and the only way a group of us will be able to find out with the industrial users are doing, and what the rest of the OS-9 world is doing is with help from the UG..and that help has to come before work is even started...with a poll. find out what the users want, and what the programmers want..and lets do it.. I see alot of talk. Zero action. At least Dave is trying to get something done here..I am not trying to knock you or the UG, I just think the OS-9 community for a long time has talked about how our OS is better than everyone elses, and how we talked about doing this, and that, and what we need..but very few times has anyone DONE anything..cant we change that? At least 1 time out of 100. Give me a list of what patches people use most. and Say, 10 people to help me, and will put helluva effort into getting the patch problem fixed up the best we can.. (until we get source for os-9/6809).. who can give me a list of what patches are used most? the UG. Poll the users. Now, I just need some help. -* Mike -*- 84048 14-DEC 22:29 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84043) From: DSRTFOX To: EDELMAR Ed, I guess what I should do is submit the list of patches I currently sell to the UG as a "recommendation" of patches for a "standard" OS-9/CoCo system. They ARE the most useful and used patches. It wouldn't deteriorate the value of my product, as I have them all combined and won't be contributing the auto-install program.. which is the major attraction in the case of the commercial compilation. Who would I submit this to? I must also point out that Rick Ulland did most of the patch compilations also... -*- 84054 15-DEC 00:01 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84041) From: WA2EGP To: EDELMAR I tend to agree with what you said but I don;t think we need to get our "lick" in. That tends to turn people off. I don't think the UG needs that right now. I'm also getting the impression from some individuals' comments that K-Windows users will be left out in the cold. I hope that it will be supported in some manner until us K-Window users finally get G-Windows or whatever is there at the time. (Personlly, I can't afford it right now.....no offense or anything, but my budget is very tight at this time. That is why I haven't ordered it.) Maybe the UG could poll users, both industrial and personal, and see what turns up. I know there are ideas and practices out there that I don't know about (grin). -*- 84055 15-DEC 00:39 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84041) From: KSCALES To: EDELMAR > I see 2 alternatives for you. The first is for you to arrange to port > K- Windows to all the other platforms, convince the other programmers, > users and OEM's to use it and prove that it is better than what they have; > the second is for you to port G-WINDOWS to the MM/1. (Unless I get > another 10 orders in the next 2 weeks, I will not be doing a port of > G-WINDOWS to the MM/1.) The latter option may not be such a bad idea - it > would bring the MM/1 into the mainstream. Sigh. I do hope that more orders are forthcoming. But if the MM/1 port doesn't happen, I will probably use the money I had committed for G-Windows and the Developer's Pak to buy a bigger hard drive so that I can install Linux on my OS-9000 box. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ken Scales Delphi:KSCALES Internet:kscales@delphi.com CIS:74646,2237 I've ordered G-Windows for my MM/1: Have you? Deadline Dec 31/93. -*- 84062 15-DEC 02:47 Standards RE: OS9 UG and Standards group (Re: Msg 84054) From: JOELHEGBERG To: WA2EGP (NR) > I'm also getting the impression from some individuals' comments that > K-Windows users will be left out in the cold. I hope that it will be > supported in some manner until us K-Window users finally get K-Windows is receiving more support now than G-Windows (simply based on programs that are readily available in databases, BBS's, and by vendors), so I don't think we'll be left out in the cold... we just have to realize we're not the only one's running OS-9, which I think is sometimes forgotten. -- Joel Mathew Hegberg. Delphi : JOELHEGBERG GEnie : j.hegberg Internet : JoelHegberg@delphi.com -*- End of Thread. -*- 83986 12-DEC 16:42 General Information RE: GENIE (Re: Msg 83893) From: DSRTFOX To: CLTUCKER You would send that message in Delphi MAIL, not forum, but yes, as the "TO:" member name. -*- 83987 12-DEC 16:51 System Modules (6809) RE: Tape Backup Status (Re: Msg 83921) From: DSRTFOX To: RICHKOTTKE Go ahead and go with the floppy drive interface for now. Another idea would be to go through a Computer Shopper and see if there isn't anher company that might be more willing to deal with you!! All Colorado has done is send the QIC codes through the parallel port rather than floppy controller, and the Motorola microcontroller do all the work of caching data and passing the codes along to the floppy controller. As far as the floppy controller is concerned (and the tape drive) it is connected to a computer... in this case the MCU! I know that doesn't help much but is in a nut-shell what Colorado is doing. You need to know what commands the MCU wants, then write a driver for the bi-directional parallel port. -*- 83990 12-DEC 19:02 Programmers Den RE: VEF (Re: Msg 83270) From: TIMKIENTZLE To: EARTHER I don't happen to have the exact issue handy, but in late 1990, I published a series of three articles on graphics compression in the Rainbow. The sample programs were Basic09 programs to read and display VEF files. The first article discussed "plain" VEF format, the second gave the remaining pieces of the program to handle "Squashed" VEF as well. The third article (and part of the second) discussed several other graphics formats. If you're generally interested in graphics formats, I uploaded a "help" system for OS9/6809 some years back. Among the help topics I included was a collection of files describing most of the CoCo/OS9 graphics formats in common use. The "view" program I wrote uses this. Probably the simplest way to display a VEF picture from Basic09 is to include the (Public-domain) View program and simply: SHELL ("view -vef picture"); - Tim Kientzle -*- 84000 13-DEC 02:02 Programmers Den RE: VEF (Re: Msg 83990) From: EARTHER To: TIMKIENTZLE (NR) Thanks for the info. I will check out those issues of The RAINBOW. I did manage to write a plain-jane VEF reader/displayer for use with the Shanghai game I'm designing for OS-9. The artwork looks good. But the program still has trouble creating solvable dragons (once in a while). I'm hoping to have the project finished and on DELPHI next week. And I'm assuming that everyone has played the game before so that I won't have to draw up any rules (just installation procedures). Shawn Driscoll --------- Is there an X-Wing Game for OS-9? ----------- -*- End of Thread. -*- 83991 12-DEC 19:07 General Information MM/1 Memory Upgrades? From: TIMKIENTZLE To: ALL I've heard of two routes for upgrading MM/1 memory from 3meg to 9meg. Unfortunately, I don't know the current availability. Does anyone know of any of the following? - An MM/1 vendor with revised backplanes _in_stock_? - Whether Mark Griffith is currently marketing his "cheap" IO board revision? How much? - Whether the information for the IO board revision is available for those fearless souls willing and able to "roll their own"? Information appreciated... -*- 83995 12-DEC 21:00 General Information RE: MM/1 Memory Upgrades? (Re: Msg 83991) From: COLORSYSTEMS To: TIMKIENTZLE (NR) > - An MM/1 vendor with revised backplanes _in_stock_? Not right now, but David Graham (Blackhawk Ent) is taking deposits of $40 to a $95 backplate. When (if) he gets enough, he will be able to get them made. > - Whether Mark Griffith is currently marketing his "cheap" IO board > revision? How much? Mark has psoted recently that he will perform the "IO Board Hack" which allows you to stick 4M simms in the IO board sockets. Cost is $50. Mark has a LIMITED number of IO boards on hand he can loan out for the required two weeks of turnaround time. > - Whether the information for the IO board revision is available for > those fearless souls willing and able to "roll their own"? Yes, Mark will provide you with that information as well. ------------------------------------ Zack C Sessions ColorSystems "I am Homer of Borg, prepare to be assimi ... OOOOHHH, DOUGHNUTS!" -*- 84013 13-DEC 20:31 General Information RE: MM/1 Memory Upgrades? (Re: Msg 83991) From: NIMITZ To: TIMKIENTZLE (NR) Tim, Mark Griffith has recently announced that he will do the I/O board hack for $50, or make info available for the roll our own guys. The backplanes are pending financing, hope to have definitive word by the end fo this week. -*- End of Thread. -*- 83992 12-DEC 19:18 General Information RE: upgrade cpu for mm1 (Re: Msg 83327) From: TIMKIENTZLE To: TEDJAEGER (NR) _IF_ you have a little breadboarding experience, it's not too hard to build your own paddle boards. A /t3 paddle board requires two MAX232 chips, a handful of capacitors, and the pinouts of the relevant connectors. My homebrew /t3 board has worked admirably for some time. As with many such projects, don't try it unless you know what you're doing, since you can easily burn up your computer. If you do know what you're doing, however, it can give you a full-function serial port fairly cheaply. (Mine cost about $25 in parts, which would be much less if you already have some of the pieces in your workbox.) -*- 84014 13-DEC 20:33 General Information RE: upgrade cpu for mm1 (Re: Msg 83992) From: NIMITZ To: TIMKIENTZLE (NR) Of course, at $35 each with cable, a regular MM/1 paddle board is still a good buy...... David M. Graham BlackHawk Enterprises, Inc. -*- End of Thread. -*- 83997 12-DEC 22:44 Telecom (6809) RE: hi speed modem CHEAP (Re: Msg 83883) From: THUNDERFNGRS To: WOLFDEN Yes I was the one who called (and asked about 2nd day air). I would think you would have lots of inquiries at that price! -*- 84020 13-DEC 21:33 Telecom (6809) RE: hi speed modem CHEAP (Re: Msg 83997) From: WOLFDEN To: THUNDERFNGRS (NR) Your modem will be sent tommarrow, Tuesday morning... you should get it by Friday, via Priority mail. Jim -*- End of Thread. -*- 84001 13-DEC 04:16 OSK Applications RE: SCULPTOR (Re: Msg 83940) From: EDELMAR To: SCWEGERT Steve, Interesting story behind those copies of SCULPTOR. A large number of copies were sent to a Company on consignment. If I remember right, MPD's price for that version was about $2000. This Company dealt with Motorola based micro- processor software including OS-9 software and they published a magazine covering the Motorola microprocessor and related software. When they went out of business, they had some pretty heavy debts. Apparantly, they had not paid for the copies of SCULPTOR they sold or had on hand. (I don't have both sides of the story - only what MPD told me.) One of their creditors accepted a number of copies of SCULPTOR as payment of debt due him but he had no way of selling them. He contacted Fred Brown. He was willing to sell them at any price - he just wanted to recover something. Fred, in turn, contacted me but I informed him that since I was a dealer for MPD, it could strain or even sever my relations with MPD if I tried to sell them at a reduced price; that I didn't think the market would pay the normal price considering they were obselete versions. Fred and the above creditor set the price at $75.00. Of course, MPD's position is that anyone wanting the Run-Times will pay MPD's price regardless of what they paid for the Development packages. So you can see, MPD's position is that they took a bath on these copies. They also feel that had 'unsatisfactory' relations with several other distributors in this country including the subsidiary they set up. In any event, the $250 price was the best I could negotiate with them. Ed -*- 84002 13-DEC 04:58 General Information Bad file won't delete From: JWILKERSON To: ALL I was in edit, and entered some data. I forgot to leave the space after the E: prompt, and got an error. I correctly entered the data then exited. Later, I discovered the SCRATCH file there, and the file not updated. Looking on my HD, I saw the _data_ as a file on my drive. The data is 03: Sears This file causes an error 211. Also, my computer is _not_ patched to allow filenames with a leading digit. All efforts to delete this file, or even look at it fail with a 211. I cannot get it deleted or even look it up to see whaeit is on my drive in order to whack the sectors. Can anyone give me any clues on how to fix this? Thanks -- John -*- 84005 13-DEC 18:20 General Information RE: Bad file won't delete (Re: Msg 84002) From: RANDYKWILSON To: JWILKERSON Assuming that this thing really is a file, which I doubt, you can make it accessable fairly easily. CHD to the directory containing this file, and do a "ded ." (ded ). You are now looking at the directory file itself. page through until you find the target, and use ascii edit mode to change the name to something legal. Note that you must set the high bit on the last char of the new name. This can be done using the alt key. Say you want to change the name to "junk". You would hit "e", , [move the cursor], "j", "u", "n", K, , "w", "y", "q". Also note.... do NOT verify the file. :> Be very careful before deleting this file. If it is indeed just bogus text in the directory file, then it will not point to a real file, it will point to who-knows-what. In this case, REAL damage could be done to the file structure and integrity of the drive. Randy -*- 84038 14-DEC 05:28 General Information RE: Bad file won't delete (Re: Msg 84005) From: JWILKERSON To: RANDYKWILSON Well, now it gave me an error 241. Looking at what ded shows, I see a mess of data _after_ the filename. Looks like the entire file that I had edited up to the point the next filename appears. ALSO, after I logged off Delphi after posting my origional message, _another_ bad file showed up "Read 1" is what it is called. I did have email to read. I'm still getting error 211s when doing a dir e. I can try to zero all the sectors in that file. A no win situation. If I do end up messing up my directory structure, I7ll have go go from a 2 month old backup, and if I don'T solve this, I'll still have to reformat. My problem now is.... What _caused_ this. The first was a malfunction in edit, But the second.... I did nothing other than call Delphi and shut down the system. Thanks -- John -*- 84049 14-DEC 22:37 General Information RE: Bad file won't delete (Re: Msg 84038) From: WOAY To: JWILKERSON (NR) Hi John, Gene Heskett here. I came in a bit late here and missed the hardware description of your system. Are you osk or os9? I'm os9, and have just retired a drive that did that to me siince it was new in '88! A Seagate 238r, with both a WD controller and a Seagate St-11r. Both of them and the drive seemed to insist that the FAT was full of zero's from time to time, and would then proceed to write the incomeing data any place it darn well pleased. I was using the B&B Xt-RTC kit. I've been using a SCII with 4in1 plus a Maxtor 7120s now since May of this year, only one similar problem easily fixed since I was used to doing the fixing, it was created by a neighborhood power failure in the middle of a download. In reading over the details, if you are os9, and you zeroed out everything past the filename in that 32 byte slot of the dir, then you yourself gave the file that sector zero address. In such cases, I just finish zeroing out that slot, run dcheck to see what it spits out, and then run "bd" (or ded) to de-allocate the dcheck reported errors. The file is gone in any event. The question then is how many other files were munged by the runaway write. If the write actually covered up part of the directory, the building of a replacement directory can take all nite, I know, I've done it *many* times. If you intend to recover the files whose directory entry is now munged (if thats the case) then don't de-allocate anything yet, but use the list from dcheck to point ded at those sectors and see what they are. If you can correlate the file sectors with an fd sector, then the directory entry can be rebuilt by pointing the last three bytes of that directory slot at the address (in sectors) of the fd sector which in turn points at the file. All in hexidecimal of course. Once you get the file structure os9 levels 1 and 2 use committed to memory, the rerst of itso much sweat and tears, followed by a good feeling when you can run dcheck again with no reported errors. dcheck has one gotcha tho, if the root directory has been extended by the number of entries going beyond the 54th entry, then dcheck will NOT check those files in the extended portion of the root directory only. The cure is easy, but must be done immediatly after formatting the drive. Use ded to make the directory MUCH longer than its default 7 sectors as formatted. I here somebody saying 8, sorry, the 8th sector is used as the descriptor sector. I made mine $27 sectors long a long time ago, have never filled it up and never had any further problems with dcheck either. Note that when extending a directory with ded, its the fd sector you edit, and then allocate the extension sectors added by hand to the size value in bytes $13-14 of the fd sector for the root directory. The FAT occupies that space from sector zero to the size of the drive in sectors/8 in bytes. The fd sector for the root dir is the next sector after the FAT. One of these days I'll dismantle dcheck and see if I can figure out why, but this is that fix in the meantime. Cheers, Gene -*- End of Thread. -*- 84028 14-DEC 00:03 General Information NewsLetters From: THESCHU To: ALL Greetings from the President of Glenside CoCo Club. My Name is ( and always shall be ), Brian Schubring. I wish to invite all who would like to submit an article to this clubs newsletter please feel free to do so. When you do, please forward to me > THESCHU <, your article so I my get it to the editor. Also since I'm here let me mention that all those who are Glenside members, PLEASE check your subscription to be sure that you are up to date. That will be found on your latest newsletter address label, top row last number on the right. if it says '93, you need to renew. See info in your newsletter to do so. If it says '94 your alright. Fare-U-well till next time, Brian Schubring GCCC -*- 84035 14-DEC 02:35 General Information RE: NewsLetters (Re: Msg 84028) From: JOELHEGBERG To: THESCHU Hi, Brian! > My Name is ( and always shall be ), Brian Schubring. I'm glad! :) > I wish to invite all > who would like to submit an article to this clubs newsletter please > feel free to do so. When you do, please forward to me > THESCHU <, your > article so I my get it to the editor. Writing an article for the Glenside newsletter is actually a pretty prestigeous thing. The mailing list of Glenside members is huge.. hundreds of members! This means getting an article in the Glenside newsletter gives you a pretty big reading audience. Even bigger than some of the magazines that are currently supporting our computers! -- Joel Mathew Hegberg. Delphi : JOELHEGBERG GEnie : j.hegberg Internet : JoelHegberg@delphi.com -*- 84053 14-DEC 23:44 General Information RE: NewsLetters (Re: Msg 84035) From: THESCHU To: JOELHEGBERG Hello Joel, You're right on that point, BiIG membership. It does have it's advantages if you or somone has something to say. Hey thanks for your support !!! Brian > THESCHU < -*- End of Thread. -*- 84029 14-DEC 00:04 General Information OS-9 and the Information Superhighway From: BOISY To: ALL For those of you who watch CNN on cable (NOT headline news), the program MoneyLine just reported (about 10:50p) on the announcement today by Bellcore on the cooperation of some dozen companies on the national information infrastructure. If you happen to see the report, look closely at the head table. You will see a man sitting there with a moustache while another man is standing up, talking about the announcement. The man sitting at the table is Ken Kaplan. Microware was one of the companies selected for Bellcore's Collaboratory on the Information Highway, although we didn't get mentioned by name. -*- 84036 14-DEC 02:35 General Information RE: OS-9 and the Information Superhighwa (Re: Msg 84029) From: JOELHEGBERG To: BOISY Boisy, > a moustache while another man is standing up, talking about the > announcement. The man sitting at the table is Ken Kaplan. > > Microware was one of the companies selected for Bellcore's Collaboratory > on the Information Highway, although we didn't get mentioned by name. Wow, fantastic! That puts Microware in a very strategic position for the future! That is very exciting news, indeed! -- Joel Mathew Hegberg. Delphi : JOELHEGBERG GEnie : j.hegberg Internet : JoelHegberg@delphi.com -*- End of Thread. -*- 84032 14-DEC 00:43 General Information Bellcore announcement From: BOISY To: ALL This is a UPI report on the Bellcore announcement. -- MORRISTOWN, N.J. (UPI) -- Bellcore announced Monday it will seek a central role in the development of the "information superhighway" through collaborative research projects with corporations and research laboratories. The consortium, owned by the seven Baby Bells, said it has created a "Collaboratory on Information Infrastructure" to research and build prototype projects to make it practical for consumers to use the upgraded networks. The companies involved in research projects with include: Capital Cities/ABC, Inc. and ABC News; Digital Equipment Corp.; Hewlett-Packard Co.; JCPenney; Los Alamos National Laboratory; The Media Lab at MIT; Microware Systems Corp.; Northern Telecom and WilTel. The Baby Bells -- Ameritech, Bell Atlantic, BellSouth, Nynex, Pacific Telesis, Southwestern Bell and U S West -- will also provide support to the Bellcore project. The move is designed to make Bellcore the architect for the technical standards to be used in telecommunications and cable networks as the once-rival industries begin to use digital technology to merge their capabilities. "We hope to make a contribution to the on-going nationwide effort to develop technologies that will make the emerging national information infrastructure practical," said Lanny Smoot, executive director of the Collaboratory. Smoot said some to the services expected to come on line include electronic shopping malls, collaborative electronic education and distance learning, access to multimedia information, electronic libraries, multimedia messaging, multimedia games and interactive multimedia entertainment. -*- 84037 14-DEC 04:47 General Information RE: Bellcore announcement (Re: Msg 84032) From: BROWN80 To: BOISY Grrrreeeaaaaatt! This is where the future of computing is really at. Make me think that I'm still using the right system. John Brown -*- End of Thread. -*- 84039 14-DEC 05:47 General Information Satanic HD files from hell From: JWILKERSON To: RANDYKWILSON Well, I zeroed out one odd file. The other one, I zeroed all data after the filename. Then I was able to do a dir e. The file was located at sector 0. Then I tried to delete it with again no success, so I zeroed it out all the way, then made some dummy files to fill places _hopefully_ in the directory. Then I'll resort the directory and kill the test files. Dcheck came out clean. I'll run ccheck on it and see if that comes up with anything bad. Hopefully, I'm okay now, other than the cause for all this. -- john -*- 84040 14-DEC 14:40 Programmers Den Database in C From: FRANCALCRAFT To: ALL I finally got around to typing in the database program from the last RAINBOW, and ran into a problem. The program was in 5 pieces. I took the 4 pieces after the main segment, and compiled them down to the .r stage, then tried to compile the first piece and link the other 4, plus cgfx.l. At the link stage, I got the message: "Too Many Libraries". How did the author intend people to link the whole collection together? I did solve the problem, by merging the 4 subordinate parts together in pairs. I also found an error in the listings, where an integer variable was followed by a single minus sign. This caused an error message. The fix was to add a second minus sign. Surely the program would not have 5 pieces if there was no way to get that many to link together?? -*- 84050 14-DEC 22:58 General Information WAV file format From: COLORSYSTEMS To: ALL I would like to know the format of a WAV file, ie, MS-Windows Sound clip file. Any help appreciated. ------------------------------------ Zack C Sessions ColorSystems "I am Homer of Borg, prepare to be assimi ... OOOOHHH, DOUGHNUTS!" -*- 84059 15-DEC 02:47 General Information RE: WAV file format (Re: Msg 84050) From: JOELHEGBERG To: COLORSYSTEMS (NR) Zack, > I would like to know the format of a WAV file, ie, MS-Windows Sound clip > file. Any help appreciated. Greg Law posted a msg on the internet a while back on the WAV format. I'll email you a copy, as I saved it for just such an occasion! :) -- Joel Mathew Hegberg. Delphi : JOELHEGBERG GEnie : j.hegberg Internet : JoelHegberg@delphi.com -*- End of Thread. -*- 84051 14-DEC 23:14 General Information WAV to IFF converter? From: COLORSYSTEMS To: ALL Anyone know how of a WAV to IFF converter program for OS9? ------------------------------------ Zack C Sessions ColorSystems "I am Homer of Borg, prepare to be assimi ... OOOOHHH, DOUGHNUTS!" -*- 84060 15-DEC 02:47 General Information RE: WAV to IFF converter? (Re: Msg 84051) From: JOELHEGBERG To: COLORSYSTEMS (NR) Zack, > Anyone know how of a WAV to IFF converter program for OS9? I believe MPLAY will load in WAV format files and you can then save the sample in IFF format. -- Joel Mathew Hegberg. Delphi : JOELHEGBERG GEnie : j.hegberg Internet : JoelHegberg@delphi.com -*- End of Thread. -*- 84052 14-DEC 23:36 General Information CoCo Museum From: BOISY To: ALL Today, Microware had an employee rummage sale, clearing out old equipment (old terminals, OS-9 boxes, drives, etc.) Among the equipment were several prototype CoCo 3's which were used to develop the CoCo 3 ROM and OS-9 Level Two. It occurred to me that most of us would consider this "sacred." I think a neat idea would be to set these old CoCo's up in some type of "museum." Anybody have any good ideas on this? Perhaps Chicago would be a good place to have this "shrine to the might CoCo's" since the Fest is there on a consistent basis every year. There was some other paraphanalia related to CoCo as well, and that could be added to the "collection." Thoughts? -*- FORUM>Reply, Add, Read, "?" or Exit>