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ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 AAAAAAAAA BBBBBBBBBB UU UU GGGGGGGGG AA AA BB BB UU UU GG GG AA AA BB BB UU UU GG AAAAAAAAAAA BBBBBBBBBB UU UU GG GGGGG AA AA BB BB UU UU GG GG AA AA BB BB UU UU GG GG AA AA BBBBBBBBBB UUUUUUUUU GGGGGGGGG N N EEEEE W W SSSSS NN N E W W S N N N EEE W W W SSSSS N N N E W W W W S N NN EEEEE W W SSSSS ----------------------------------------------------------------- ALL OPINIONS, QUOTATIONS, INFORMATION & OTHER CONTENT OF THE ABUG NEWS ARE SOLELY THOSE OF THE PUBLISHER AND MEMBERS. THE CONTENT OF THE ABUG NEWS IS SUPPLIED SOLELY FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT OF MEMBERS AND ANY LOSS OR IMPLIED LOSS TO THE READER RESULTING FROM ACTIONS TAKEN BASED ON INFORMATION IN THIS PUBLICATION IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE READER AND NOT OF ABUG OR ANY ABUG MEMBER ----------------------------------------------------------------- ABUG meets at "The 519", 519 Church Street, Toronto on the third Sunday of each month. Our next get-together will take place on January 15th, 1989 To contact ABUG call the M31 BBS (416) 439-0493 or Chris Larcombe at the newsletter (416) 831-7507 To obtain correctly-paged hard-copy of this news-letter, copy the file to PAR: ======================================================================= The first and most important item in 1989, of course, is the wish for a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all our readers (the three of you know who you are). Let us hope the year sees ABUG grow, but not at the cost of its unique character. Now is a good time, too, for us to extend our thanks to Dave Wickett who initiated and ran the club so well, and also to Sonia who has taken up the mace of office (don't get out of line or she will spray you with it); sincere thanks to you both. ======================================================================= - 1 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 TABLE OF CONTENTS ----------------- ITEM PAGE ------------------------------------------------------ ---- Pirate Attacks 2 (How can we protect our BBS's? By Frank Ch. Eigler) Silent Service 7 (A review by Sean Mayor) True Confessions 8 (From Adventure to Amiga. By Sonia Brock) MINIX, Unix, And What's In Store 12 (An overview of MINIX by Andy Tanenbaum) Word Perfect 5.0 15 (The Official Word) GVP HD Controller 16 Who's Using Amy? 16 SUPRA Modems 17 (Some Pros and Cons) Amiga Monitor With IBM? 18 (Will it Work?) RAD: And The FFS 19 The LUCAS Board 20 (Ideas, Modifications, and Updates) - 2 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 =============================================================== Why Me? or What Can You Do If Pirates Try To Board You? By Frank Ch. Eigler Frank is Sysop of The Hack BBS and also an ABUG member. His article is written with the gracious assistance of an ex-pirate, Freddie Jackson, and The BBS Terminator as well as Jonathan Forbes, Chris Kawchuk, and Babar Khan. ======================================================================= We all know how nasty pirates are in general. What not all of us may know is the fact that they are bad company on BBS's. Stereo- typically they are rude, immature, and just plain dumb. They think that all that makes a man great is his new wares. And his upload record on Thrust. This article will tell you the story of a special bunch of pirates. A more nasty one than generally tolerated. Identities of the people involved cannot yet be released, however. I will tell you how it came to be that this `special' bunch came to attack and almost successfully crash Three BBS's in town in one night. And, I will tell you the measures which I had to implement to more or less cure the problem of pirates with a heartburn. There are lots of pirate boards. Far too many of them. It is sickening to think that this kind of thing can go on in the quantity that it does. Let's not mention quality - they don't have any. Sometimes, some go down, new ones pop up, all chock full of the latest copyrighted stuff. It doesn't seem to matter what is uploaded as long as it is (c), and freely accessible. It is poetic justice that most stuff downloaded from these boards is pure junk. Games worth playing for twenty seconds at most. One day, a particular user got quite sick of the concept of letting these boards go on running in peace, and decided to shake them up a bit. He had no straight idea about what to do, but knew something had to be done. Then, he had an idea. He prepared a sample message which he would upload to all pirate BBS's he knew. In it, he identified himself as a representative of the law, and warned the sysops of immediate raids and arrests. He was "The BBS Terminator". Now, there was indeed an earlier incident where a real RCMP officer used this name, but that occurred several months before. This user decided to scare the pirates. And, it worked. The BBSs which received a copy of the standard message immediately blacklisted the user "BBS Terminator", so he would not get past the login prompts. Most sysops decided to `frame' the message sent to them - many installed it as a system bulletin and sneered at the guy. There is some confusion on the current copyright - 3 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 laws - it seems that pirate BBS's cannot be legally hurt unless they charge for membership - if there is some exchange of money. But still, it would seem that they are barking at a shadow, while running from the cat. The BBS Terminator was satisfied by this. He retired. Meanwhile, Freddie Jackson (an alias), who played a great part in the following, found out who The BBS Terminator really was. With his later regrettable big mouth, he mentioned on one board that he knew him - it was in response to all the "Who the hell is this guy?" type messages on the board from other kiddies. It was something he's come to regret. At the smell of this, the one sysop of the board started a series of threats to Freddie in public messages. He was told to either tell the identity of the BBS Terminator or be `banished'. After this kind of threatening went on for a few more weeks Freddie got really tired of this - left an insulting message to the sysop, and logged off for ever. The problem of Freddie was that the BBS Terminator told him that he stopped calling using that name a few weeks before, and it was someone else now; but the pirates still wanted the original's name. Freddie would not budge. Instead, he was blacklisted. All sounds like internal politics on the immature level, right? Well, since I have a close tie with Freddie Jackson, I decided to mention the case to the sysop who first blacklisted him, on a PD BBS he apparently called quite a few times, Xenomiga, where I am a co-sysop. It happened in the private section - I left him a message like "Well, I've heard what happened. What is your side of it?". In his reply, he spewed out all the puss he has accumulated over the last few weeks; he recalled how Freddie has failed to keep his word, how he lost his trust, etc. etc. etc. This guy was so obsessed with the fact that he did not get his way using blackmail that he started insulting me. At that time, the sysop of that board, and another co-sysop got into the conversation - the situation developed into a wide-ranging slanging match. As this was going on, all hell broke loose. It was known on the pirate BBS's that The Hack (my BBS) is somehow affiliated with Freddie Jackson. In fact some people mistook my identity for his. Certain parties decided to take it all out on the BBS. On November 26, a bunch of people called the BBS around 7 PM saying "there are a bunch of 20-year olds looking to beat you up". Of course, I hung up on them, fast. The thing is, would a twenty-year-old identify himself on the BBS as a "twenty-year-old" who wants to beat me up for some reason? I think not. 14 year old pirates have a habit of exaggerating ("Wow. Incredible Ware!"). In a brief flash of ESP, I decided to back up the BBS disk immediately. The Hack is run from one disk [drive], so the backup took no time at all. Since it WAS an open system, new users could log on, apply for validation if they wanted, and write all the messages they wanted. Mistake. - 4 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 At around 1 AM next morning (same night), they called. I was not around. (At least, not awake!) Then they did the damage. There is more evidence to support that there is a back door password to BBS-PC. The sysop password, which was "21498AC$%E", obviously can't be guessed, and I haven't used it before or since anywhere else. But they did log on as "Sysop", giving them all my powers. I am lucky that they did not do much more than they did - they had the power. What they did do was take the password of several users, write them down for later `reference' and look around the BBS. When they were through, they entered a private sysop menu and edited the "Sysop" account. This account is supposed to be the most powerful account. They changed it to have absolutely no access whatsoever, in fact, if someone did log on as sysop, from local or remote, they would find themselves blacklisted. A nice BBS does not blacklist its sysop. But, they had to keep me out of the BBS still. You see, on the screen of BBS-PC when idle, waiting for a call, there is a menu of several options, giving one the option of shutting the BBS down, or entering the BBS in one of its default menus. One can log on "local" which would be reflected in the caller log like anybody else, with full login/password verification. Then there are three other places where a sysop can enter the BBS - one can go directly to the sysop menu, or one of two other important ones, all bypassing the login procedures and passwords. BBS-PC assumes you are "sysop" if you log in here. Since they have deleted the actual sysop menu files, there was no easy way for the sysop to get back to the BBS and try to fix her up. At least, so they thought. Fortunately I had been particu- larly careful. Like smart sysops, I kept a backup password with full sysop powers as well. To see what has been done, noticing just that I just couldn't log on as "Sysop" any way I tried, I quickly copied the sysop menu files from the backup disk made a few hours earlier onto the attacked disk, and logged in using the backup account, and looked around. It seems that they also tried the old trick of cycling the message base - as you probably know, when you enter a new message on BBS-PC systems, old ones are automatically cycled off. The problem with that is that if anyone writes any message, perfectly good messages can be cycled off, fast. The main weapon of these pirate attackers is simply to write hundreds of empty or similar messages, and this is what happened. Probably they used a script file in Diga! or Online!. They also used another member's account, one who since has been removed for security. They wrote a few hundred (about 500) messages in about an hour's time, automatically. This got rid of 500 perfectly good messages on the BBS. This is about all they did do. What they didn't do is lucky. They could have deleted the co- sysops, the backup sysop account, etc. Fortunately, they did no major harm. Once I had looked through the damage, I unbackup'd the backup disk and just deleted the night's record of attack. I began thinking about measures to keep these guys out for good. - 5 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 I called up Xenomiga. It was busy. I called up KickStart. It was busy. Later, Jonathan Forbes, the sysop of Xenomiga, called me. He told me his BBS has been crashed over the night too. So had Chris Kawchuk's - Kickstart was attacked overnight as well. In fact, the perpetrators used one of Xenomiga's special features to hurt it - it is the first BBS-PC board that I know of to implement a full DOS shell - a way for remote sysops to access a CLI directly, execute commands, etc. There was a bug in this, and this bug saved the BBS. Meanwhile inside the shell, once they got on as Sysop there, they went around Jonathan's 2.5 megs RAM and two drives and started deleting things. Luckily, they didn't know the way to exit and get back to the BBS, and just hang up. This usually hangs the DOS shell, and the machine has to be rebooted from scratch to recover. Lucky, because otherwise if they got back to the BBS they would probably have started deleting users or whatever; instead the BBS was down for the night, until Jonathan found out what happened next morning. Chris told me of the kind of damage done by the pirates on KickStart a few days into the article. Apparently they tried to crash the system, unsuccessfully. They did manage to fill up the BBS disk, and halt operations for a while; and leave some vulgarities. A user named "John" was apparently responsible this time. Chris was not happy; but apparently he had decided to take KickStart down a few days before the incident, and it only reinforced his opinion. A late addition - it seems that Babar Khan's board, M31, was also harassed by a pirate the same night. He repeatedly dropped carrier on the guy(s), and after a while they gave up. It seems that these guys tried to hurt lots of BBS's around. I wonder how many other BBS's were called that we don't know of yet. I'd appreciate it if any other sysops harassed by pirates contacted me on a BBS somewhere, to figure out other preventive and offensive measures. That is the history of what happened. Here is how I intend to protect my BBS from further damage: 1) I blacklisted the "sysop" account. So, even if they do log on as sysop, they cannot do anything. 2) I asked all users to change their passwords as soon as possible. All co-sysops have new passwords already. 3) I have disallowed new users. This was the painful one. Now, the BBS technically considers new users not to be allowed to log on, and the message the BBS prints to them tells that they will unfortunately have to contact me on another BBS to apply for validation. I will personally voice-validate all people who do apply. I will validate them, but this way, if new users aren't allowed to log on, they cannot write messages, or if they know it, use the BBS-PC back door (which to this day remains unfound). - 6 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 Right now, I am fairly satisfied that the BBS is safe again. I make backups, though, every 10 hours or so, so not much would be lost if they cracked the backup sysop password or the co-sysop passwords. If that happened, though, I would probably lose confidence in the system altogether. Here we are today. The Hack has gone on security mode, Jonathan is thinking of the same on Xenomiga. Kickstart was back up for a while, but is now indefinitely down; might be put back up if Chris sees enough interest (i.e. Call him anyway and talk some sense into him!). M31 is shook up. I hope this is reasonably accurate. Hopefully, the pirates involved will give up trying (I've been getting lots of calls from pirates on the BBS, all blocked by the security systems. As well, a user was just today deleted for boasting that he is a pirate.) The security measures I outlined above should work for all BBS-PC systems. Other BBS programs are obviously different, and they may or may not have to worry about undocumented back door passwords to the system. Let us all hope that this kind of thing, which has apparently happened to Jason Gould's Star Trek BBS a few months ago, will not repeat. <<<<< Was the MAC II around in Samuel Johnson's time? >>>>> "Worth seeing? yes; but not worth going to see." ===================================================================== SILENT SERVICE A review by Sean Mayor Sean is one mainstay of the ABUG membership. He is an avid player of games and always ready to share insights on how to gain the best score in his currently-favourite software adventure. It wouldn't do to cross Sean, as we have noticed much blood-thirstiness in his demonstrations. Drawing on the toughness acquired on many electronic battlefields Sean pitilessly bullies Fred, his father, into carting along and setting up the equipment for the meetings - our thanks to them both! ======================================================================= SILENT SERVICE is based on U.S. submarine action in the South Pacific during World War II. In the game, you are aboard one of the U.S. submarines. When you start, you can select from three options: target practice, convoy actions, or war patrols. Next, you select difficulty levels. If you picked convoy action or war patrols, now you can choose a patrol to go on. - 7 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 The main screen shows the inside of the conning tower. There are different positions where you click the left mouse button to check damage, read gauges, look at maps, use periscope, or go up on the bridge. The bottom of this screen has icons to let you fire torpedoes, fire the deck gun, dive, surface, or turn, and change speed. I think this simulation is excellent. WARNING (this is very ADDICTIVE). But, there are bad parts too, such as phantom ships (last known position) and torpedoes that sometimes miss (Microprose says you must aim amidships). All in all, SILENT SERVICE is pretty good. On a scale from 1-10 it's a 10. =============================================================== Computers I have Known by Sonia Brock BEFORE THE MACHINE WAS THE MACHINE (or In The Beginning Was The Sword) DUNGEONS & DRAGONS AS AN INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTERS (c) Sonia Fricker Brock 1988 A quick glance through this piece reveals from whence came the strong right arm with which Sonia wields her mace of office. In this candid article Sonia reveals all. Today ABUG News, tomorrow The Enquirer! ======================================================================= My interest in computers started, in a sense, with the game called Dungeons & Dragons. Myth has it that the game originated when its authors obtained access time on a mainframe computer running the game "ADVENTURE". Anyone familiar with the early years of computing will remember the prototype computer text adventure called, logically enough, 'Adventure'. In this game you tunneled your way through branching corridors and made many 'if this then that' decisions. I'm not a programmer but I do know enough about flow charts and programming to recognize a profound similarity between the game and the spaghetti-like goto, if-then loop-abouts of a program written in Basic. The original 'Adventure' game was written by a programmer. The game shows it. - 8 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 For myself, the transition from Dungeons & Dragons, which was a child of the earlier game grown large, to learning how to operate a home computer was made, if not painless, then a good deal easier by the fact that I had already been exposed to the ways a programmer thinks, through the game. I was the Dungeon Master of a live Dungeons and Dragons game for two years and ran a CB radio campaign with five regular players for another a year and a half. Let's try a pretend machine game. Ulric the Ubiquitous, my role-playing game character, has just entered the Dungeon. The game master establishes the parameters, tells me where I am, what my attributes are, and what I am faced with. I encounter my first 'branch', as the gamemaster, be he machine or individual, gives me the choice of two courses of action: 1) Accept the quest underground 2) Go on a wilderness adventure above ground. Underground adventures or 'trips' are preferred by gamemasters because they limit the action to a predefined series of branching tunnels and attendant rooms. Above ground I could, in theory, head in any direction, even to an area not yet mapped, causing gamemaster to quickly invent large monsters with heinous attributes to dissuade me from my 'freely' chosen path. Sensibly, I opt for the underground adventure. Things get a little more complicated as I am offered the choice of one of 3 rooms to explore. I enter a room with a medium weight monster in it, and find another place where the machine excels. My attributes and the monster's have been quantified according to precise mathematical formulae. The bout between Ulric, with his sword, shield and leather jerkin, and the beast with fang, fur and claw, is a battle of the numbers. Without the element of chance from random numbers and different probability curves, created by machine or by 4, 6, 8, 12 and 20-sided, multi-faceted dice, there would be no contest because the beast would win paws down. With those random numbers and curves, I stand a fighting a chance, or a bit better because the odds are slightly in my favour. An earlier die, cast when my character was created, gave me superior dexterity which translates into a better armour class and the ability to hit two blows in one round. My weapon, too, does substantially more damage than the monster's natural equipment. If there are other adventurers, my chances of survival will improve, but remember it's still all numbers and numbers are the business of the computer. What the computer does best is count and compare and that mythical fight between Sir Ulric and the beast is a feast of numbers. Ulric's score is carefully calculated and compared to the beast's and may the highest score win. - 9 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 "I smote him with my puissant blade" is how the dialogue may read but this translates numerically to: REM Let defence points equal 'A' REM Let attack points equal 'B' REM Let damage taken = 'C' 10 A = 20-B 20 IF B < 0 THEN B = 0 25 IF B > 20 THEN B = 20 30 IF B >OR = 12 AND B < OR = 19 THEN C = B - 11 35 IF B = 20 THE C = (B-11) X 2 40 IF A > 0 THEN Print 'Your attack has succeeded for " C " points of physical damage. Ouch!!' Man might be defined as a gambling animal, but I understand that in certain experiments with Skinner boxes show that your basic white rat will hit the old lever on a pretty continuous basis, if he is rewarded with random bits of food sliding down the chute there, in response to his hopeful activity. Given the chance to gain on a gamble, the old adrenalin starts pumping and the bet is on, even in the lower orders of the mammal tree. EARLY DAYS IN THE COMPUTER KINGDOM When I first got started in computers I got an Apple II+ clone and was introduced to the wonderfulness of AppleDos. I copied out, after I got used to my machine, what seemed like really keeno programs from Nibble magazine now some of these were written in Basic. Some were written in Assembler. I tried copying in an assembly program and noticed that the programs that were written in Assembler ran faster and took up less space, when assembled, than the Basic programs (When your disks hold about 126k space is important). Then, I found listings in Binary and they were all numbers and not terribly interesting, although soothing to type, and these were the shortest and fastest of all. Already I had gained exposure to 3 levels of programming just by following my nose through a magazine. I bought a CP/M card for my Apple, so that I could run that golden oldie of word processing, WordStar. I became proficient in WordStar because it was such a blessed improvement over almost anything under AppleDos. I learned all of WordStar's control character sequences and could run its files through a dictionary and do all the things that you do with a real word processor. One of the things I learned about was WordStar's non-document mode which combs all the funny control sequences out of program listings so that they don't foul up the program when it is compiled or assembled and run. My main interest was in telecommunications and I ran a little telecommunications group (SIG) for the LOGIC Apple User's Group with about 15 or 17 dedicated meeting attendees. Of these, several never did learn to use their modems, they just liked meetings. The CP/M terminal program, Modem7, became kind of a crusade with me because it was the only really good public domain terminal program available and I learned to edit the overlays (each modem needed a different - 10 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 overlay) which were written in, guess what, assembly language, and to overlay them on the main program. Modems were various and between myself, my friends and associates I ended up doing quite a few of these overlays. Hacking these out, and overlaying them I became somewhat more familiar with CP/M and learned respect for these CP/M folk, who believed in and acted upon the notion that users should have access to the source code. They were always tinkering with their BIOS or trying to find a niftier way to paint the old wagon red and I enjoyed reading about their exploits on CRS Systems which was, at that time, primarily for CP/M because most of the public domain programs were then CP/M. ENTER A BIG BLUE CLONE I became a maverick in the Apple world, someone used their co-processor for Modem7 overlays and WordStar and dBaseII under CP/M. I decided, fairly late, that things were slowing down a little bit for the Apple II+ and the time had come to move over to a 'real' machine. That's when I got an MS-DOS XT clone with 8 Mhz clock speed and two floppy drives. I worked this way for about a year and then added a 30 Meg harddrive, a second serial port and a V20 chip, for even zippier processing, an EGA Wondercard, which let me emulate EGA graphics very well indeed on my good quality, amber XT screen and a 2400 baud modem. Using the XT was just like putting on a pair of old slippers. Most of the commands were nearly the same as in CP/M but more powerful. (There are reasons for this. Microsoft borrowed liberally from the 'free' CP/M operating system when they created MS-DOS). I worked away on my MS DOS machine and this is what it became, a 'work' machine. Now, work can get dull, especially if you do a lot of writing or a lot of accounting, which is what I was doing on the XT. I SEE THE LIGHT When fortune favoured me with a windfall I decided I wanted a machine that I could enjoy, that was NOT just a work machine. I checked out the Atari and I didn't like the screen. I started asking a lot of questions, mostly on CRS Systems, over my modem. Later, I discovered M31 BBS and the nice folks associated with ABUG. I was sliding towards the Amiga because I could tell it would give you the most bang for the bucks. It had this terrific screen. I didn't know about the slow disk operating system and slow disk access and a few other things that I have since discovered. I noticed that there was a pretty good amount of public domain software out there for the Amiga. Being a little bored with MS DOS, I wanted the challenge of a different system and the Amiga was about as different as I was likely to get and as powerful as I could get, within my budget range. I've never regretted getting the Amiga500. - 11 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 People tell me I should have got an Amiga2000 with this, that and the other thing, but the 500 gets me there just the same and I really enjoy it. The public domain software doesn't flow as fast as it does (or did) in the MS DOS area but, hey, those MS DOS programs repeat them- selves a lot. Somebody is always re-inventing the wheel all the time. The Amiga is not really an easy machine to program for but the extra dimensions of graphics and sound make for a more interesting product and I spend more time with the these Amiga public domain programs than I have with some of the MS DOS throwaways. Something I really appreciate about the Amiga is its flexibility as an 'art' machine. By art I mean pictures, and music, and writing. I use Word Perfect on both machines and my preferred editing medium is the Amiga because it's easier to see and I get the mouse and windows, as well as direct keyboard entry. (Being able to enter commands from the keyboard, by the way, caused me to favour the Amiga over the Mac). Deluxe Music Construction Set and Photon Paint (which was the first program I bought) have both given me a good deal of pleasure and helped me to grow conceptually as well. I store my writing, etc. on both machines. Each is a logical backup of the other. I keep them pretty constantly connected with a null modem cable at 4800 or 9600 baud using xmodem (CRC) or zmodem. My present Amiga 500 system has 2 drives and a meg of ram. I like it that way. After writing 2 novels on a 64k Apple II in CP/M with 2-126k drives and a Ram drive, the 500 is spacious enough for me to feel comfortable in. I'm glad I made the right choice in the Amiga. I expect you are too. =============================================================== A Few MINIX Of Your Time (Extracted from a posting by Andy Tanenbaum) Now that the Amiga 2500 is here (well, almost) these words about MINIX might help us to catch a glimpse of one path down which we could march. MINIX isn't for the Amiga (yet) but the piece does give an idea of what Unix holds in store. ======================================================================= Subject: MINIX (UNIX clone) now available for 68000 (Atari-ST) MINIX is a new operating system that is system-call compatible with V7 UNIX. Unlike real UNIX, it is available with all the source code, both the kernel and all the utilities. The purpose of this message is to announce its availability on the 68000 CPU, speci- fically the Atari-ST. However, since it should not be too hard to - 12 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 port it to other 68000-based computers (e.g., Amiga, Macintosh), this message is being crossposted to a number of newsgroups. This will be the only announcement outside comp.os.minix. When MINIX is run on the Atari ST (or MegaST) it replaces the native operating system (TOS) and turns the computer into a normal UNIX machine. MINIX has been running on the IBM PC, XT, AT, and many clones, including 386s for almost two years. The IBM version is in widespread use all over the world. The original (IBM) version was written by Andrew S. Tanenbaum. The Atari port was done by Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. MINIX does not contain even a single line of AT&T code. Thus both the operating system and the utilities are all brand new code. MINIX FEATURES - System call compatible with V7 UNIX (except for a few very minor calls) - Kernighan and Ritchie compatible C compiler is included - Shell that is functionally identical to the Bourne shell is included - Full multi-programming (fork+exec; background jobs in shell: cc file.c & ) - Full screen editor inspired by emacs (modeless, autoinsert, etc.) included - Ability to read and write TOS disks - Over 90 popular utilities provided (cat, grep, ls, make, mount, sort, etc.) - Over 100 library procedures provided (atoi, fork, malloc, stdio, etc.) - Works with floppy-only systems or with hard disk systems - Full operating system source code (in C) is included - Source code for all the utilities (except C compiler) is included PARTIAL LIST OF THE MINIX COMMANDS ar as badblocks basename cal cat cc cem cg chmem chmod chown clr cmp comm compress cp cpdir cpp cv date dd df diff diskcheck du echo expr factor false find fix fsck getlf grep gres head kill ld ln login lpr ls make megartc mined mkdir mkfs mknod more mount mv od opt passwd pr printenv pwd readall readfs rev rm rmdir roff sh shar size sleep sort split stty su sum sync tail tar tee test time tos touch tr treecmp true umount uniq update uudecode uuencode wc PARTIAL LIST OF THE MINIX LIBRARY abort abs access alarm atoi atol bcopy brk call chdir chmod chown chroot cleanup close creat crypt ctime ctype doprintf dup dup2 exec exit fclose fflush fgets fopen fork fprintf fputs fread freopen fseek fstat ftell fwrite getc getegid getenv geteuid getgid getgrent getpass getpid getpwent gets getuid gtty index ioctl isatty itoa kill - 13 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 link lseek malloc mknod mktemp mount open pause perror pipe popen putc puts qsort rand read regexp regsub rindex scanf setbuf setgid setuid signal sleep sprintf stat stime strcat strcmp strcpy strlen strncat strncmp strncpy stty sync system termcap time times umask umount ungetc unlink utime wait write NEWSGROUP There is a USENET newsgroup, comp.os.minix, concerned with MINIX. This group is gatewayed to the ARPANET, BITNET, etc. If you cannot read USENET newsgroups directly, you can get on the mailing list by sending a request to info-minix-request@udel.edu. The group is very active, and well worth reading if you are interested in MINIX. It is used for reporting bugs, fixing bugs, posting new software, asking and answering questions, and so on. At some point it may be necess- ary to split the group (IBM vs. Atari; source code vs discussion; ...) but for the time being, there are no plans to split it. Time will tell. There are archives of the messages that have been posted to comp.os.minix. For an information sheet telling about MINIX and the archives, send email to ast@cs.vu.nl or watch the newsgroup. Although this message is being crossposted to several groups, this will be the only announcement. Please post all subsequent discussion to comp.os.minix ONLY. The group is unmoderated. Please do not discuss the PDP-11 memory management unit or other irrelevant topics. DOCUMENTATION There is a book describing MINIX is great detail, both how to use it and how it works inside. The book contains a highly annotated copy of the O/S code as an appendix (250 pages). This version is slightly out-of-date, but it is still quite usable. The biblio- graphic data on the book are as follows: Title: Operating Systems: Design and Implementation Author: Andrew S. Tanenbaum Publisher: Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ 07632 Date: 1987 ISBN: 0-13-637406-9 (hardback version, U.S and Canada only) 0-13-637331-3 (paperback version, outside of U.S. and Canada) Price: about $40 The book is currently in the process of being translated into German. There is also a paperback MINIX Reference Manual that is a subset of the book. It contains only the MINIX specific information, not the general background stuff on operating systems that the book contains. The reference manual is about $35. There is also a package containing the disks and the reference manual combined going for about $110. I think there may soon be a package containing the reference manual and the Atari disks. - 14 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 The Atari disks come with a little booklet telling how to boot the system and how it differs from MINIX-PC (IBM version). Effec- tively it is a diff listing between MINIX-ST and MINIX-PC. It makes no attempt to repeat the 500 or so pages on MINIX from the book or manual. AVAILABILITY MINIX is something of an intermediate form between AT&T UNIX and GNU. Unlike GNU, MINIX is not public domain. It is copyrighted by Prentice-Hall and is being sold by them. The price for the Atari disks in the U.S. is $80 + shipping (somewhat higher abroad) and includes all the source code. On the other hand, unlike AT&T UNIX, the source code is readily available, and may be copied for bona fide educational and research use. For example, a professor teaching a course on operating systems could legally buy the disks and then make copies for all his students. A very limited amount of private copying (say, no more than 3 copies per original) for personal friends is ok. If this gets out of hand, and Prentice-Hall decides that not enough have been sold, they will just drop the Atari and have future versions be for the IBM only. It is the intention that future versions be compatible with POSIX. In the U.S. you can order the software and books from most bookstores or directly from Prentice-Hall in NJ. The ISBN number for the Atari software is 0-13-584392-8. Prentice-Hall's phone number is (201) 767-5937. =============================================================== FIVE ALIVE? WORDPERFECT CHAT FROM CRS Word Perfect was represented by J.B. Marketing the Canadian distributor of the product ======================================================================= Question: Do you know when WP5.0 will be released for the MAC or the Amiga? WordPerfect: Wordperfect for the Mac is the same or in some aspects better that WP 5.0 already (Mac 1.0). The Amiga is another question.. We are working on the next release of the Amiga but have no details yet only that it is in the makings. - 15 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 =============================================================== TECH-MAIL ======================================================================= Msg#:32417 *AMIGANET* general 11/10/88 00:52:00 From: PAUL OKEEFE To: ALL Subj: GVP HARD DISK CONTROLLER I called GVP about the autoboot rom Friday and finally they called me back today. Here's the stats: 1. The Rom is available now. 2. Unlike Commodore's 2090A HD Controller, the GVP -will- autoboot with SEAGATE drives including the ST277N. 3. The Cost is $22.00. UPS Blue is $25.00. Red $35. 4. The rom started shipping to dealers Saturday. 5. You can order your rom from the dealer your bought the GVP HD controller from, or direct from GVP. I talked to Shawn Marzola at GVP, (215) 889-9411. *deluge him with calls* [big grin]. In other news, has anybody else installed their Autoboot 1.3 Kickstart rom? Couldn't Commodore have put the thing in between some slots instead of under the drive bay? I don't imagine that the one for the 500 is much more fun. --- ConfMail V4.00 * Origin: MGS-AMIGA FREQHQ TBBS 2.1S/BINK 2.00 HST RTP, NC (1:151/103) Msg#:29056 *AMIGANET* general 10/27/88 03:07:00 From: DANA MCPHEE To: JASON KOZDRA Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 28972 (RE: JERRY POURNELLE) Hmmm ... Amiga a toy ....let's see, who uses Amigas ... NASA, Star Wars Defense Organization Headquarters, Lawrence Livermore Labs (Atomic Energy Commission Labs), UCLA School of Medicine Brain Imaging Research Department, the Pentagon, National Vision Research Laboratory, Apple Computer- they demoed the not-yet MacII to their executives with an Amiga 2000- ... Harvard University Capenter Center for Film and Animation, 3 of 300 top winners in SIGGRAPH/1988,500 cable TV companies, NBC, ABC (for set design, composition, etc.) ... Frank Zappa, BB.King (has 3), Professional Video houses ... ETC... --- QuickBBS v2.03 Origin: M E T R O P O L I S (617) 721-7360 [MABOS] (1:101/149) - 16 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 Msg#:29032 *AMIGANET* general 10/28/88 21:23:00 From: JOHN BOYLE To: ALL Subj: SUPRA 2400 Hi Everyone, About a year ago I purchased a supra 2400 and began using it to run my BBS. It performed flawlessly for about 6 months, and then for no apparent reason, fried its on/off hook relay...permanently in the off hook position. I thought this to be a fluke and received a replacement from my dealer. About a month went by, and the exact same problem occurred with the brand new SUPRA. Upon return of this second unit, the Supra distributor claimed there must be something wrong with my system here and that they would not replace a third unit. Well, the third one is still going strong, more that a month into it's service life. Possibly whatever was wrong is now right or something, but my question to fellow Supra owners is, have any of you experienced a similar problem? I don't for a minute believe there is anything wrong at my end. I've run this system for over four years now, mainly on a Hayes 1200 without problem. Anyway, other than that, I feel the Supra is a superb modem for the money and will have many BBSERS going 2400 baud. John Boyle / SYSOP......."Direct Connect" BBS, Belleville, Canada. --- * Origin: "DIRECT CONNECT" Belleville,ONT.CAN.(613-969-0111) (Opus 1:148/306) Msg#:29472 *AMIGANET* general 10/30/88 16:37:00 From: A. FRYER To: JOHN BOYLE Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 29469 (RE: SUPRA 2400) Hi John, Here are a few theories about your problems with your SUPRA. 1) Maybe it got fried in an electrical storm. You should ALWAYS!! disconnect your modem from the phone line during an electrical storm 2) Perhaps the SUPRA wasn't designed to be used 24hrs, 7 days a week (read "heavy duty use") in running a BBS. 3) It might be that your power source is noisy. You should get a surge suppressor or something. If all else fails... Don't Force it, get a bigger hammer! --- * Origin: "DIRECT CONNECT" Belleville,ONT.CAN.(613-969-0111) (Opus 1:148/306) - 17 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 Msg#:29469 *AMIGANET* general 10/31/88 18:20:00 From: OMAR SIDDIQUE To: JOHN BOYLE Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 29069 (RE: SUPRA 2400) Not had any problems with my Supra.. (knock on wood.. A lot of my things have been breaking recently) Had it since.. June, I think. --- QuickBBS v2.03 * Origin: Sentrax --- "Home of the 'Save Omar Fund' - Pledge today" Msg#:30146 *AMIGANET* general 11/02/88 23:39:00 From: MICHAEL TRATT To: LEE WIER Subj: REPLY TO MSG# 29037 (RE: AMIGA 1080 MONITOR!.. :)) Lee, The 1080 monitor is compatible with IBM compats that use a CGA type display adaptor card. All you need is a RGBI 9pin to 9pin cable. You should be able to get one of these through Commodore. The 1080 works very well on a IBM compat, I use mine on my Amiga and a Tandy 1000TX with no problems at all. Michael.... --- * Origin: "Amiga Revolution", Powered by HST! 817-690-5077 (Opus 1:382/17) Msg#:29009 *AMIGANET* general 10/30/88 16:33:00 From: GRANT DELOREAN To: LEE WIER Subj: RE: AMIGA 1080 MONITOR!.. :) -> Does anyone know if the Amiga 1080 Monitor is IBM -> Compatible?? If so, what graphic card can you use with it?? -> Monochrome/CGA/EGA?? I know VGA is definitely out. I am in Well, it will work fine in CGA (digital RGBI) and VGA (analog RGB), but it won't work for EGA (EGA is a little weird). Remember to set both switches correctly when you hook it up or switch between your Amiga and the IBM. Oh yeah, almost forgot. I don't know if it will work with the little known Professional Graphics Adaptor that IBM had for a while, I've never seen it tried. Probably wouldn't, though. Grant --- QuickBBS v2.03 * Origin: Blue Moon BBS (614)262-4428, Columbus OH (1:226/240) - 18 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 Msg#:29036 *AMIGANET* general 10/29/88 12:01:00 From: ANN BLACK To: LEE WEIR Subj: 1080 MONITOR WITH PC Lee, I had the same question & wrote to Redmond Cable about it. They said a DB9M/F with part number RS 300 in their stock would handle it for a total cost of $35. I didn't ask about which video card would work, unfortunately. But the Redmond people have always been quickly responsive to all of my queries. 17371 - A1 NE 67th Ct., Redmond, WA 98052 (206) 882-2009. --- ConfMail V4.00 * Origin: Doctors Inn *HST* (Pittsburgh, PA 412-881-7757) (1:129/53) From: chas@gtss.UUCP (Charles Cleveland) Subject: Re: Partitioning RAD: Date: 4 Dec 88 21:57:28 GMT Organization: Georgia Tech School of Physics In <3702@druwy.ATT.COM> mab@druwy.ATT.COM (Alan Bland) writes: > In <282@gtss.UUCP> chas@gtss.UUCP (Charles Cleveland) writes: > When I set up RAD: under FFS (but not under SFS), I seemed to have > to format it before using it even though it was a single > filesystem, contrary to your remark above. My RAD: is setup under FFS as a single filesystem, and it does not need to be formatted. After mounting, RAD: is automagically format- ted on cold boot (my MountList specifies Mount = 1, or whatever the parameter is, that tells it to load the handler immediately when mounted rather than waiting until the first access). Make sure your MountList includes both the FFS handler and the dos type (I forget the exact names of the parameters). Mount = 1. That's the ticket. Now not only does my FFS RAD: not need to be formatted, but it has regained the quasi-recoverability (it goes in C00000 memory in my machine), like vd0:'s, that I had hoped for. Examination of my startup-sequence reminds me that I had RAD: recovering before while a slow-file system, but conversion to FFS without Mount = 1 if RAD: lives in C00000 apparently prevents any recoverability at all. I was surprised, after adding 'Mount = 1' to my mountlist and removing the format from my startup-sequence, when I rebooted with that disk and none of the expected copies to RAD: occurred. When I - 19 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 looked, RAD:'s contents were still intact from yesterday, when it had been mounted without 'Mount = 1' in my mountlist. In fact, in the meantime, I had even rebooted twice from other disks that don't even know about RAD:, but use vd0: instead. Subject: LUCAS + 68000 MODIFICATION Summary: Hardware mod. to let the LUCAS board work with a 68000 Keywords: LUCAS, 68000, 68020 Date: 6 Dec 88 00:34:44 GMT Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.tech Organization: University of Toronto, CSRI LUCAS BOARD MODIFICATION TO ALLOW THE 68000 TO REMAIN IN THE AMIGA DESCRIPTION: This article describes a modification to the LUCAS 68020 accel- erator board that aws the 68000 processor to physically remain on the Amiga bus along with the 68020. By keeping the 68000 in the system, the Amiga can still be used with software (usually copyprotected games) that will not run on a 68020. Only one processor can be used at a time and that processor is selected with a toggle switch before the system is powered up. The unused processor is tristated from the bus. That's the main idea behind this circuit: tristate all outputs from the unused processor. For most of the output signals from both the 68020/- LUCAS_GLUE_LOGIC and the 68000, tristating can be achieved by asserting Bus Request (*BR). *BR tristates the address and data buses, as well as most of the control outputs. On the 68000, the only signals that are NOT tristated are Bus Grant *BG (pin 11), and E clock (pin 20). On the 68020/LUCAS board, the outputs which are NOT tristated include R/*W (U11, pin 9), *VMA (U5, pin 17), E clock (U4, pin 19), and *BG (U1, pin 11). These few signals must be tristated "manually" from their respective processor to the Amiga 64 pin socket using tristate buffers to prevent bus contention. The other pins from both processors can be safely connected together because they are either inputs, or they are tristated when *BR is asserted. The Bus Request (*BR) input to each processor is driven by a separate tristate buffer whose input is tied to ground. The toggle switch is used to enable the buffer to the *BR of the processor that is NOT being used. I arbitrarily decided for the sake of simplicity (keeping the extra chip count down to one), and to avoid having to cut traces on the LUCAS board, that only the 68020 will be able to receive a real *BR from the Amiga bus. This is a reasonable decision if the 68000 will only be used to run copy-protected games and hardware that does not require DMA. This decision allows the existing *BR and *BG from the 68020 to remain connected to the 64 pin socket leading to the Amiga. The *BR (pin 13) and *BG (pin 11) pins on the 68000 must be physically separated from the 64 pin socket leading to the Amiga by bending them outward. - 20 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 BUILDING IT: The modification requires no cut traces, no soldering to chips, and could ideally be done without any soldering to the LUCAS board (except for power), however I did solder to 4 signals on the LUCAS board for convenience. The actual finished modification doesn't look too pretty because of all the aerial wiring between the small perfboard that holds the tristate buffer and the LUCAS board, but who looks inside the case anyway. :-) The schematic for the circuit is given below. IC pins U4-19, U5-17, U10-8, U10-9, and U11-9 are carefully bent outward from their sockets on the LUCAS board, both to isolate them from their sockets and to provide connection points. Single pin sockets taken from a machine socket terminal strip are attached to these pins and wired to a small perfboard holding the 74ACT244. Using single pin machine sockets eliminates having to solder directly to the bent pins of the chips. The machine sockets I actually used were taken from an Augat 510-AG90F-32 32 pin wirewrap socket terminal strip which I broke into individual sockets. The same technique is used to attach the bent 68000 pins 13 and 20 to the perfboard. Pin 11 on the 68000 (*BG) is bent and left unconnected. There are four signals from the 74ACT244 that must connect directly to the 64 pin socket leading to the Amiga. These I soldered to four points on the LUCAS board. The signals are *BR20 (pin 13), E (pin 20), *VMA (pin 19) and R/*W (pin 9) on the socket leading to the Amiga. R/*W is actually soldered to the side of the 30 ohm resistor on the LUCAS board not leading to pin 9 of the 64 pin socket. In the circuit I make use of an inverter from the 74F04 on the LUCAS board (U10 pins 8 and 9) to control which tristate buffers are enabled. For the tristate buffer chip I used a 74ACT244 since it is as fast as an 'F244, requires less power, and I had one on hand. I would think a 74F244 would work just as well. Extra decoupling capacitors should be used both on the perfboard holding the buffer chip and on the LUCAS board since there is a 68000 as well as a 74ACT244 drawing power and making noise on the power bus. Power for the tristate buffer can be obtained by soldering to the leads of a capacitor on the LUCAS board. The square solderpad is positive. I used two 4.7K pullup resistors on the perfboard, although there are spare pullup resistors on one of the SIPs on the LUCAS board that could also be used. The toggle switch can be mounted on the rear of the Amiga's case above the keyboard connector. When the switch is open, the 68020 is selected. When the switch is closed, the 68000 is selected. The switch should be toggled only when the power is off, since you get a nice guru otherwise. - 21 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 In making the 64 pin connection from LUCAS to the Amiga's 68000 socket I used two 32 pin gold wirewrap machine socket terminal strips. These strips act as both a socket for the 68000 and as extender pins to the 64 pin socket in the Amiga. It was a tight fit since the holes on LUCAS are less than 0.025". But gentle rocking back and forth while pressing down allowed the posts to go through the board without damage. To avoid having those "tree trunks" damage the Amiga's 64 pin socket, I soldered a soldertail machine socket to the bottom of the wirewrap posts. Since this wasn't quite high enough to make LUCAS sit above the Kickstart daughter board in the Amiga, I plugged another 64 pin soldertail socket onto the bottom as an extension. The following sketch shows an end view of the LUCAS board with the above assembly. If the LUCAS board has already been built, it should still be possible to somehow solder a 64 pin soldertail socket to the top of the LUCAS Board, where the 64 pins extend down to the Amiga's 68000 socket. Remember to remove any IC's from the LUCAS board before doing any soldering. xxxxx <--- 68000 microprocessor / \ V V <--- 32 pin gold wirewrap machine socket terminal strips ---|-----|---- <--- LUCAS PC board | | | | | | V V <--- 64 pin soldertail machine socket | | V V <--- 64 pin soldertail machine socket - used as extension | | ___V_____V____ <--- 64 pin socket on the Amiga motherboard PARTSLIST: 68000 (U1) - removed from the Amiga 74ACT244 (U12) - tristate buffer 20 pin dip socket - to hold buffer chip small perfboard 4.7K resistors (2) SPST toggle switch single pin machine sockets (7) - can be taken from a 510-AG90F-32 terminal strip or a socket terminal carrier decoupling capacitors Socket assembly: 64 pin gold soldertail machine socket (2) 32 pin gold wirewrap machine socket terminal strip (2) (e.g. Augat 510-AG90F-32) - 22 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 SCHEMATIC: Evan Sidoriak November 20, 1988. U12 74ACT244 17 |\ 3 30ohms R/*W20 -------| >-----/\/\/----- R/*W socket pin 9 (solder pin 3 to U11 pin 9 |/ existing resistor) | 13 |\ 7 E20 -------| >--------------- E socket pin 20 (solder to board) U4 pin 19 |/ | 15 |\ 5 *VMA20 -------| >--------------- *VMA socket pin 19 (solder to board) U5 pin 17 |/ | 11 |\ 9 |----------| >------o-------- *BR00 68000 pin 13 | |/ | ----- | 19 > --- | > 4.7K Vcc - | > | Vcc | |_________| | |_____ Switch < | 1=68020 < 4.7K | 0=68000 < | / | 9 |\ 8 | |-o/ o--o----| >O---- | | |/ | | U10 1/4 74F04 _____ | --- |------| - | 1 | 6 |\ 14 E00 -------| >--------------- E socket pin 20 (solder to board) 68000 pin 20 |/ | 8 |\ 12 |-----o----| >--------------- *BR20 socket pin 13 (solder to board) | | |/ ----- | | --- | 2 |\ 18 - o----| >---- NC | |/ | | | 4 |\ 16 |----| >---- NC |/ - 23 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 NOTES: Pins U4-19, U5-17, U10-8, U10-9, U11-9 are bent outward from their sockets on the LUCAS board and attached to the 74ACT244 using single pin machine sockets. "Socket" in the schematic refers to the 64 pin socket that leads to the Amiga. Only pins 11, 13 and 20 are bent on the 68000 (U1). All other 68000 pins plug into the 64 pin socket. Pin 11 (*BG00) on the 68000 is left unconnected. Pins 13 and 20 of the 68000 are attached to the 74ACT244 using single pin machine sockets. *BR20 and *BG20 are already connected to the 64 pin socket (pins 13 and 11). Pins 2 and 4 on the 74ACT244 are unused inputs and should be grounded. Pins 16 and 18 are unused outputs and are left uncon- nected. Vcc=pin 20, Gnd=pin 10. The 30 ohm resistor is already on the LUCAS board, so you really only need to solder a line from the 74ACT244 pin 3 to the side of the 30ohm resistor not leading to pin 9 of the 64 pin socket. If only the 68020 will be used with devices that assert *BR (a reasonable assumption if the 68000 is only used for copy protected games) then *BG on the 68000 can be ignored (left unconnected) and the *BR and *BG signals to and from LUCAS can be left connected to the 64 pin socket. FINAL NOTES: If you do want to use DMA devices with the 68020, R/*W20 will have to be tristated when *BG20 is asserted. This will mean a nand gate and another buffer chip. I don't have any DMA devices, so I haven't worried about it yet. There are obviously other changes you can make to simplify the circuit or add functionality. (e.g. Use a SPDT switch and omit the inverter, or buffer *BR and *BG from both 68020 and 68000 to allow both to do DMA.) The above circuit can be drastically trivialized by using a 5- or 6-pole double-throw switch. But that would be far too easy! :-) :-) You will still need some kind of circuit to tristate R/*W20 if you want to do DMA. I designed and built this modification to the LUCAS board to provide compatibility with specific hardware and software I had that depended on having a 68000 in the Amiga. I am making the results of my hack available in the event there are others with similar needs. I make NO guarantees as to whether this modification will work with any specific LUCAS board/Amiga configuration and I disclaim any responsibility for what anyone does to their Amiga or their LUCAS board using the above information. This modification does require some hardware experience and should not be attempted by anyone not reasonably experienced with a soldering iron. Almost anyone who can put together LUCAS in the first place should be able to do this modification. Now that I've scared you off, I can assure you that I have made the circuit work in my own Amiga. Several other people in the Toronto area either have made or are going to make this modifi- cation to their LUCAS boards, so compatibility problems, if any, - 24 - ABUG NEWS JANUARY 1989 should show up shortly. As long as you don't solder to any chips or cut any traces, you can always rip out the modifications to restore LUCAS back to its original form.:-) Anyone is free to use the above information as he or she sees fit. Any comments, bugs and suggestions will reach me at the addresses below. Happy hardware hacking ...November 28, 1988. Evan Sidoriak evan@power.ele.toronto.edu UofT Dept of Elec Eng 10 King's College Rd OR Toronto, Ontario {uunet,pyramid}!utai!utcsri!utpower!evan M5S 1A4 Phone: (416) 978-6392 Article 2054 (27 more) in comp.sys.amiga.tech: From: gmg@hcx.uucp (Greg M. Garner) Subject: Re: 32-bit LUCAS memory board Summary: Autoconfig disable Organization: College of Engineering, University of Arkansas Brad: If you do decide to make the lucas memory autoconfig, how about putting a register bit in there somewhere that will disable the autoconfig sequence the next time the computer is rebooted. This would seem to me to solve all the problems associated with the choices between autoconfig and addmem approaches (besides the obvious one of having to put auotconfig logic on the board). I wish I had a way to turn off my Starboard memory with a simple register write like that. On another note, can you tell me why you want to use 1meg Dram chips as opposed to 256K chips? I haven't looked at the design VS. cost tradeoffs so maybe I am missing something obvious. The Lucas board is exciting, keep em coming! Greg Garner 501-442-4847 USENET: ...!uunet!harris.cis.ksu.edu!hcx!gmg From: eachus@mitre-bedford.ARPA (Robert Eachus) (SAME) Subject: Re: 32-bit LUCAS memory board Summary: Why not both types of chip? Keywords: 32-bit memory Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford, Mass. I may be missing something here, but given the nature of this project/board I would design it to take both some 256Kx4 bit chips and a set of 1Mx1 bit chips, say 4 MEG of by ones and 2 MEG of by fours. It shouldn't add much to the cost of the the board (since you don't have to do any switching, just detect which sockets are filled), and will allow most users to buy 1 MEG of memory now, and fill the board when the 1 MEG chips come down to $5 a pop. Robert I. Eachus - 25 -