No Fragments Archive 12: Textmags & Docs/nf_archive_12.iso/MAGS/TEXTMAGS/ATARI16/INFO91.ZIP/INFO91/168.TXT

Text File | 1997-04-16 | 23.5 KB | 575 lines

Info-Atari16 Digest         Mon, 25 Mar 91       Volume 91 : Issue 168

Today's Topics:
                      1 year warranty and stuff
              2.5 million ST's sold worldwide! (2 msgs)
                 BBS Doors wanted (Especially STadel)
               Connecting Macintosh Hard Disks to Atari
                  connecting VGA mono monitor to ST
                             FTP Tutorial
                       GCR floopy drive problem
                         GDOS printer drivers
                      Info about WHATTAHE demo?
                      Midi file format (thanks).
                   NEW ST BOOKS AVAILABLE IN FRENCH
                           NoiseTracker 1.5
                 repost of questions (no replies yet)
                            ST Book specs
                    ST Disks & Sparcstation Drives
           Two New Computer Announcements - CeBIT (2 msgs)

Welcome to the Info-Atari16 Digest.  The configuration for the automatic
cross-posting to/from Usenet is getting closer, but still getting thrashed
out.  Please send notifications about broken digests or bogus messages
to [e-mail].

Please send requests for un/subscription and other administrivia to
Info-Atari16-Request, *NOT* Info-Atari16.  Requests that go to the list
instead of the moderators are likely to be lost or ignored.

If you want to unsubscribe, and you're receiving the digest indirectly
from someplace (usually a BITNET host) that redistributes it, please
contact the redistributor, not us.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 04:26:30 GMT
From: apple!portal!cup.portal.com![e-mail]
Subject: 1 year warranty and stuff
To: [e-mail]

>As per the one year warranty, I do believe I read it on ZNET

I believe the 1-year warranty is being offered by Atari Canada...

BobR

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 10:44:49 GMT
From:
 noao!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!munnari.
 oz.au!uhccux!uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu![e-mail] (Jack W. Wine)
Subject: 2.5 million ST's sold worldwide!
To: [e-mail]

In article <[e-mail]>  writes:
>I just heard that ST Format magazine (great U.K. magazine) stated that Atari
 U.K. announced 2.5 million ST's sold worldwide!  This is great.  Last time I
 heard it was at 1.9 to 2 million.
>
>S.S.
>

I've heard how the Atari STs have sold in abundance in the European market, but
only a little about the Asian arena.  Znet had an article of how readers
of a Hong Kong English newspaper felt about the ST: over 40% chose the Atari
as the computer of the decade!  A correspondent for Znet supposedly resides in
Japan but he hasn't been forthcoming with any news.  Sharp had a machine called
the X68000 that was designed (10 Mhz 68K, 1 MB sys mem, 1 MB video ram, 768 x
512 resolution and an ability to capture and display 16 bit color at 512 x 512
resolution) to compete against the Amiga, Atari and Mac.

I hope some people in Asia could give an update of how 68000 machines are doing
there.

Thanks,
Jack

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 15:02:24 GMT
From:
 noao!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!ccut!wnoc-tyo-news!
 toumon!wucc![e-mail] (Y.Tsuji Y.Tsuji shagaku)
Subject: 2.5 million ST's sold worldwide!
To: [e-mail]

The only m68k machines ever sold in Japan are cpm68k boards to MSDOS machines
or X68000 (SHARP's hobby machine). CPM68K has been expensive because they are
for developers but SHARP's machines have been a great failure: people do not
buy machines people do not know. As to ATARI, they are the things one usually
finds in a music shop under dust. ATARI ST is very much like IBM PC here: the
owners used them before coming to Japan: no reason why they can be sold here.
Things are very different on 68020 or higher front (Sony's NEWS or SUN's of
various names). But that is not a comfort for us.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 08:41:18 GMT
From: ogicse!milton!sumax!polari![e-mail] (Peter Sarrett)
Subject: BBS Doors wanted (Especially STadel)
To: [e-mail]

I'm trying to find good on-line games and other doors for use with <fnord>adel,
a variant of the STadel BBS system.  The doors don't have to be written
especially for <fnord>adel or STadel-- FoReM doors also work, as do doors
written for many other systems.

I currently have Final Frontier V.1.48 (very good) and Space Empire Elite 9.03.
If you have any BBS doors, or know where I can find them, please let me know.

Respond via e-mail (zair@polari), or call my BBS, Snickersnack: [phone]

===============================================================================
Peter Sarrett          | 18603 NE 59th Court    |  "I don't know what God is,
Internet: zair@polari  | Apt. E207              |   but I know he's more
GEnie: DELTASOEGTSI    | Redmond, WA  98052     |   powerful than Mom & Dad
BBS: [phone]     | Phone: [phone]   |   combined."  - L. Simpson
===============================================================================

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 13:00:49 GMT
From:
 noao!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!hagbard
 !sunic!news.funet.fi!funic!santra!saha.hut.fi![e-mail] (Jari Lehto)
Subject: Connecting Macintosh Hard Disks to Atari
To: [e-mail]

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>[e-mail] (Dylan Yolles) writes:
>>my ST hard drive? How do I go about doing 2)? What is the chance
>>that this won't work at all? (The hard drive I'm planning to connect
>>is one of the Syquest 44 meg removable's; probably the one made
>>by Jasmine.)
>
>    ~~~~~~~
>
>Huh?  I thought they were all made by Syquest!  I am soon to purchase one of

There are many removables with different names, but the mechanism is always
by SyQuest. How about Atari Megafile 44? It is an example of this...
Under the name of SyQuest there are only the base SCSI-units... The drives
(if external) are always named after the maker of the housing...

                        Jartsu



        *** Jari Lehto, [e-mail], [e-mail] ***

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 19:09:43 GMT
From: o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu![e-mail] (Mark Choi)
Subject: connecting VGA mono monitor to ST
To: [e-mail]

> Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.atari.st: 24-Mar-91 Re: connecting VGA
> mono mon.. Hartmut [e-mail] (1107)

> Multi scan monitors have a scan *range* rather than a scan *frequency*
> (horizontal again). If You pick a monitor with a scan range from
> 14.point.something to 38.point.something, all Youll need is a cable and
> a switch (to switch monochrome detect between ground and open)

And a few 38 ohm resistors on the colour lines would help a bit too.


                                -GEISHA-

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1991 13:53:39 PST
From: [e-mail]
Subject: FTP Tutorial
To: [e-mail]

I deleted the FTP tutorial by mistake.  Could someone pls send it to me.

Thanks,

      Denny

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 20:21:01 GMT
From: noao!ncar!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!usc!apple!netcom![e-mail] (Kenneth
 Kron)
Subject: GCR floopy drive problem
To: [e-mail]

From article <[e-mail]>, by
 [e-mail] (Dice Blackboard):
> I've got a question for all of you GCR experts out there.  I've been having a
> major problem with formatting, reading, and writing of mac disks.  Whether I'm
> in mac mode or using the format option in the spectre main menu, it always
> fails.

Well I had a simular but different problem (which got no response when
I posted so although it may not help I'll post it anyway.

The difference between our problems is that the GCR tests passed when
I ran them but I also could not format floppies and could not read
floppies written on other systems but I also had problems reading some
atari floppies that I had been able to read in the past.   This lead me
to believe that my drive was out of alignment/failing.  When I talked
to my local dealer they told me the don't do drive aligments 'cause
it's not worth it so I got a new drive which solved my problems.

Hope this helps.
--
Kenneth Kron [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Mar 91 16:05:07 CET
From: Florian Nold <[e-mail]>
Subject: GDOS printer drivers
To: Atari-ST-User-Forum <[e-mail]>

In INFO-ATARI16-Digest, Issue 161,
 arizona.edu!cerritos.edu!nic.csu.net!usc!wuarchive!m.cs.uiuc.edu!vela!wsu-cs!ja
 ke![e-mail] (Patrick Haggood) writes:
> Subject: Does anyone sell GDOS drivers and fonts?
>
>I've got a few shareware programs (did you register your shareware? Last
> week was Shareware Registration Week) that use GDOS, but I don't have
> a driver for the Epson LQ-500.  I'd also like a san-serif font.  I
>bought G+Plus, but this included no drivers.  I don't want to spend $10
>on a program just to get an Epson LQ500 driver; so; does anybody know of
>a company that sells GDOS drivers and fonts?

Since I've been looking for GDOS printer drivers for a long time,
I went to ATARI Corp. Germany at the CEBIT. I took me about half an hourto get
somebody of the ATARI guys who was able to answer my questions concerning
GDOS and GDOS printer drivers. Here's a summary of what he said:
(I think his name is Mr. Lehmann)

  GDOS is *NOT* public domain: ATARI still holds the copyright.
  You can get a copy of GDOS and GDOS printer drivers by sending
  3 formatted disks to ATARI (including stamps for sending the disks back)
  If want to sell GDOS and/or GDOS drivers in addition with any program,
  you have to pay DM 500 (about $330) for a general licence.
  For any noncommercial applications it's free.

I hope this info is interesting  for a lot of people out there in networld
Greetings, Flo

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 15:33:17 GMT
From:
 deccrl!news.crl.dec.com!shlump.nac.dec.com!shodha.enet.dec.com!defoe.enet.dec.c
 om![e-mail]
Subject: Info about WHATTAHE demo?
To: [e-mail]

I'd MSA some demos myself (I've got maybe 30 disks worth of demos) but
the MSA program
seems to require TWO disk drives. Me with just one drive is left cold!

If anyone has a version of Magic Shadow that works with a single drive
then please let me have a copy and I'll start uploading these demos
myself.

Some of the best are : European Demo, Mindbomb, Skidz Row, Decade, Dark
Side Of the Spoon (by far the best ST demo EVER written and ever likely
to be written!).

I'm in Reading, England so I tend to get the demos pretty regularly
(almost weekly).


                                Jamie.

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 09:20:49 GMT
From: mcsun!hp4nl!ahds![e-mail] (Geert W.T. Jonkheer CCS/TS)
Subject: Midi file format (thanks).
To: [e-mail]

I would like to thanks everyone, who responds on my questiuons.
There certainly is a midi file standard, the reactions where
overwhelmed. Great!

Now, I can continue writing that midi program.

Geert.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Albert Heyn B.V. Zaandam.                     UUCP: ..!hp4nl!ahds!geert
------------------------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Mar 91 09:18:55 AST
From: Alyre CHIASSON <[e-mail]>
Subject: NEW ST BOOKS AVAILABLE IN FRENCH
To: N <[e-mail]>

While I was in Quebec city, Canada, during the March break I
picked up the two most recent isssues of "ST Magazine", a
french review from France. If you have a working knowledge
of french it is an excellent review, very much user
orientated with very little on games. Anyway, here are a
few ST books and manuals that look interesting if you can
read french.
COMMENT EXPLOITER TOUTES LES RESSOURCES ET AUGUMENTER
LES PERFORMANCES DE VOTRE ATARI
VOLUME 1  L'ESSENTIEL- 670 PAGES, 365 F TTC
VOLUME 2  L'ENCYCLOPEDIE-1,626 PAGES 885 F TTC (not cheap)
Together the guides containing everything from architecture
to programming.
Available from
Editions WEKA
82, rue Curial
75935 Paris cedex 19
France
A few others
ATARI ST and STE
AUTOFORMATION AUX LANGUAGES BASIC
(COMES WITH DISK)
COVERS GFA BASIC, OMIKRON ET STOS
199F
LE LIVRE DU GFA BASIC 3.0
COVERS BOTH THE INTERPRETER AND COMPILER
265 F
BIEN DEBUTER TEXOMAT DATAMAT CALCOMAT
129 F
LE LIVRE OMIKRON BASIC
324 F
LE LIVRE DU REDACTEUR
JUSQU'A LA VERSION 3.10
149 F
LE LIVRE DE 1ST WORD PLUS
165 F
PROGRAMMER AVEC GFA BASIC ET ASSEMBLEUR
195F
LE LIVRE DELUXE PAINT
129 F
All available from
Micro Applications
58 rue du FG Poissonniere
75010 Paris
It would be great if some of these were translated. I picked
up "AUTOFORMATION AUX LANGUAGES BASIC" in Quebec city. If
I can take it as an example these series are well organized
and easy to understand with lots of examples. Unfortunately,
it was the only one in the series available at the moment.
I also had my first look at the TT mn Quebec as well. It
was a demo model and not available for sale yet. Overall,
it was a great March break.



------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 17:08:02 GMT
From: tardis.computer-science.edinburgh.ac.uk![e-mail]
 (Stephen K Mulrine)
Subject: NoiseTracker 1.5
To: [e-mail]

In comp.sys.atari.st, [e-mail] (Brett Bourbin) writes:
>I know the Amiga version was NOT in the public domain.  I would think the
>same would be true for the ST.

Well, I know of one PD Library in the UK which distributes it (they had an
advertisement in ST Format).  Also, the documentation is on the disk (which
doesn't exactly suggest this is a commercial piece of software), the
introduction program does some namedropping, and the author even asks you to
send him your modules.  Seems safe enough to me.
--
UUCP: ..!uunet!nsf.ac.uk!tardis.cs.ed.ac.uk!robotron
BITNET: robotron%tardis.cs.ed.ac.uk@UKACRL
INTERNET: [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 25 Mar 1991 12:29:00 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Subject: repost of questions (no replies yet)
To: [e-mail]

As a TT user, life is pretty lonely right now. I keep posting questions
on the net about TT compatible software but I do not get any responses.

If anyone has an answer to any of the following, please post a reply:

1. Is there a terminal emulation package (VT100/240,etc) that works on
   the TT in TT screen modes (Flash and Uniterm have to be in ST
   screen mode).

2. Do any of the PC emulators work on the TT (ATOnce, ATSpeed, Delta-
   Modul, SuperCharger). I want minimum AT emulation but would prefer
   386 performance.

3. When will Pagestream be fixed to work on a TT (Calamus works in
   ST screen modes and sort of works in TT screen mode).

4. Has Signum been updated for the TT? (Tex works well but I hate
   the command interface).

5. NeoDesk 3 requires a warm reboot to change rez on the TT, thus
   making it unusable because I have to change rez often. Will this
   be worked around in the future.

6. I spoke with the developer of Revolver and there is no plan for an
   upgrade to the TT (ST versions did not sell very well). Pity,
   the ST/TT without Revolver is a drag. Anyone else working on a TT
   task switcher (I could retire before UNIX is ready).

7. MVG works only in ST high rez; any plans for a TT screen mode fix?

8. Turtle and Megamin will not work on the TT; any plans for an upgrade?

9. Will EasyDraw be recompiled for the 68030/68882; it would scream!

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 09:37:22 GMT
From: munnari.oz.au!uhccux!uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu![e-mail] (Jack W.
 Wine)
Subject: ST Book specs
To: [e-mail]

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
 (Conan the Barbarian) writes:
>
>ST BOOK
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>CPU:    68000 at 8MHz
>RAM:    1MB and 4MB versions
>ROM:    512KB

<other specs; ..., 20/40/60MB harddrive,...,optional ext. floppy>

Insite Peripherals (San Jose, CA  [phone]) is supposed to have
their floptical drive available in volume in April.  The drive formats
3.5" barium floppies, with embedded servo info, to 20.8 MB and is also
capable of reading and writing 720 KB/1.44 MB floppies. Some of the specs
for the drive are: 65 ms average seek, 1.6 Mbps transfer, 1 ms track-to-
track seek, 15 ms head settle, and 41 ms latency.  It uses a SCSI interface.
The OEM price is

It's speculated that this will become the standard "A" drive for PCs and
hopefully, Atari will offer it as a standard configuration for the notebook.
It will add several hundred dollars to the list price, though.

Regarding other aspects of the notebook: 512 KB ROM (Gigantic Tos?), two
ram card sockets (hope this becomes standard on future desktop machines
too), 1-4 MB ram capability (should have MMU with 16 MB addressability),
ACSI port (what differentiates this from SCSI, besides connector pinout?),
128 pin connector WREN compatible (what is WREN? 128 pins give out all the
processor signals and the kitchen sink. Does this imply a 68030 model?)

Overall, it sounds pretty good.  If Atari has integrated the ST chipset,
then future models in the 1040ST form factor would have room for more
memory and a VGA-type chipset.  Since benchmarks posted here show the
blitter chip to give only marginal speed improvements to graphics operations,
it should be...obliterated and make room for an upgraded MMU with 24 bit
addressability.  Did anyone check their 1040 STe to see if the SIMM sockets
have an extra r/c address line connected for 4 MB SIMMs?


Jack

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 15:10:32 GMT
From: mcsun!unido!laura!tommy![e-mail] (Rainer Klute)
Subject: ST Disks & Sparcstation Drives
To: [e-mail]

|> Also, if you (the original poster) have problems with it try recompiling
|> mtools with DUP_FAT #define'd. This causes both FAT copies on an ST Disk
|> to be updated.  Since you're reading I don't think it should make any
|> difference... but if you want to write to it, mtools won't write an ST
|> compatible disk with DUP_FAT.

No, you should not try to fiddle around with an old and obsolete mtools
version. The latest version - which you should get - does not have the
DUP_FAT define anymore but finds out itself whether the disk has a single
or double FAT.

--
  Dipl.-Inform. Rainer Klute      [e-mail]
  Univ. Dortmund, IRB             [e-mail], [e-mail]
  Postfach 500500         |)|/    Tel.: [phone]
D-4600 Dortmund 50        |\|\    Fax : [phone]

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 19:28:18 GMT
From: o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu![e-mail] (Mark Choi)
Subject: Two New Computer Announcements - CeBIT
To: [e-mail]

> Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.atari.st: 24-Mar-91 Re: Two New Computer
> Announ.. Tony [e-mail] (1269)

> Add all of these things and you'd just about require a box the size of
> stacy. I don't think you could use these (or any) notebook systems
> as a full system - you'd need some "base station" or at least another
> ST to exchange data with, otherwise you just have to squeeze too much
> hardware into too little a space.

        Not true. Again, pick up a copy of computer shopper and lookit the
specs for any PCnotebook out there. Almost all have external VGA, an
internal 1.44 meg dirve, 20-40 meg HD, some have an ISA bus, And a
cartidge would not add all that much real estate. If GBS made a ROM
piggyback board, I wouldn't care about the acartridge, though! And yet
they still wiegh less than 5 pounds, and are VERY small. If it (ST
notebook) does not have these features, who is Atari planning to sell
these things to. The Germans, that's who. How much do you wanna bet the
US won't even see them before Apple and IBM have 68060/80686 machines
the size of a broach, with 3D virtual holoscreens, 26 Meg of ram, a
300Meg static ram disk, and molecular memory cards. Atari: less power
for less money. This thing would sell like mad if they could get it out
in time (ie. before apple comes out with its soon to be released mac
notebook) but I doubt atari learns anything from the past, and so I do
not think this will happen. After all, how many gameboy adds did I see
on TV last night? 6. How many Atari lynx adds have I seen on TV, ever?
0. So why is the lynx selling so badly? Hmmmm....
        Really the only problem see with the above is that it will decrease the
battery life somewhat. But with a slated battery life of over ten hours
at constant operation, and the PC notebooks havng less than three, I
doubt this is the main problem. PLEASE Atari corp, do it right this
time. Please?


                                -geisha-

------------------------------

Date: 25 Mar 91 20:27:59 GMT
From: o.gp.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu![e-mail] (Mark Choi)
Subject: Two New Computer Announcements - CeBIT
To: [e-mail]

Just thought of something. Could it be that perhaps Atari is doing the
IBM/PCjr. mistake, and trying to protect sales of the STacy by leaving
the notebook lacking in certain departments, thus making it not capable
of use in some fields where the STacy will be the only Atrai choice.
Stupid, if so. With MIDI, you would think that Atari means this baby to
be used with sound, but without a cartridge port, you eliminate all the
main commercial sound digitizers. Also this suggestes that the
speculation that this thing is based on the STe mother board is just
plain false. With no external monitor, what good is an extended colour
palette. If it can only use monaural sound, assuimg it even has one
speaker, then what good is stereo DMA PCM. What gives? Who is supposed
to use this thing, anyway. I am sick and tired of Atari making MIDI
controllers, and not better computers. The MIDI market is small and
starting to bail to other platforms, so Atrai had better try to find
some other niche.
Video->Amiga
DTP/Word processing->Mac
Business/numbers/accounting->PC's
Education->Apple II/Mac classic/Mac IILC
MIDI->Atari/Mac
They don't even have the largest share of the MIDI market anymore. I
know th ST can be *used* in these other fields, but it is not versitile
enough, and nopt good enough in any of these fields, except DTP/MIDI to
really catch on. The hardware is O.K. for a lot of it, but the
software/OS stinks. And since when is 320X400 graphics considered
acceptable. Not even for NTSC, especially with only 16 colours. To whom
is Atari trying to sell these? All this comes down to is that the note
book had better have a minimum of STE compatibility, or it will be a dog
form the word go, everywhere else but Deutschland. Zu Schlecht!

------------------------------

End of Info-Atari16 Digest
******************************