Crawly Crypt Collection 2/crawlyvol2.bin/apps/desktops/hazel_4/gdos.txt

Text File | 1994-09-05 | 34KB | 718 lines

                         Atari GDOS, &c:

                  Living with it or without it?

                        Henry K. van Eyken


                                           Everybody is ignorant,
                                       only on different subjects
                                                    - Will Rogers

First off: One does NOT require GDOS to produce graphic text and
other graphics on screen and printer.  Too bad there are
experts who imply this or even state the very opposite because
the ensuing confusion and frustration is not likely to make Atari
friends.

Even the Atari Corp. provides, presumably without any intention
of doing so, misleading information.  Their "A User's Guide to
FontGDOS" begins, "GDOS allows the programs that you run to
output text and graphics to printers and other devices besides
the screen."  True, but it should add, "However, it is not
essential for Atari users to install GDOS if they wish to employ
special fonts and do graphics."

A U.K. magazine tells us that, "Without GDOS you are restricted
to the boring fonts built into your printer and the ST screendump
printout for pictures."  In fact, it effectively says this thrice
in one single, short article.(1)  They are wrong thrice.

Examples of programs that require the user to install GDOS
explicitly for producing graphic text:  Microsoft Word, Neocept's
Word-Up, and Easy Draw.  Examples of programs that do not require
GDOS to produce graphic text or other graphics:  That's Write 2,
D.E.G.A.S.  Perhaps it was once intended that all programs aiming
to do so would require GDOS, but things have turned out rather
differently.  I do not work with desktop-publishing programs and
shall refrain from commenting on them.

Problem with erroneous statements attributed to people who are
expected to know better is that they cause confusion and, hence,
frustration.  So let me be clear:  I write as an independent
amateur for amateurs.  I try, within reason, to get my story
straight.  And if I err I should like to be told about it so that
I may make a public correction.


Classical GDOS in broad outline

To understand GDOS, a user might do best to think of it as a
trinity: a GDOS program in the AUTO folder, a text file called
ASSIGN.SYS that lists the names of fonts and so-called device
drivers, and a folder with fonts and drivers.  More about drivers
later.  The GDOS program consults the ASSIGN.SYS, which it
expects to find in the root directory of the boot-up floppy ot
boot-up harddisk partition and nowhere else.  From that listing
GDOS learns where the folder with drivers and fonts is located
and just what drivers and fonts from its content should be loaded
into RAM if an when another program (an 'application') calls for
it.  The location of a file or folder is, somewhat incongruously,
called a 'path'.

Strictly speaking, the word 'font' or 'typefont' refers to a
design, an aesthetic, common to the individual characters in a
font.  A printer's font normally accomodates various sizes of
characters, referred to by the traditional term 'pointsizes'.
It also embraces several styles such as italic and bold.  With
computing I observed that a font's character sets with different
pointsizes are separately called fonts.  Thus we read about
fonts called 10-point Pica and 12-point Pica.

Drivers are what permits characters to be displayed by various
'devices' like different screen resolutions and printers.(2)
They are also called 'device drivers'.

As to fonts and drivers, here is an overview that may be helpful:

     Fonts:
          for on-screen:
               standard screen font (whence the blocky characters
               one sees on screen when the computer starts up)
          for hardcopy:
               fonts built into the printer

     Drivers:
          for on-screen:
               screen drivers built into TOS, one for each
               resolution
          for a printer:
               a printer driver specific for that printe; it is
               loaded into the computer from software

     Source of printer drivers used:
          for those that use a printer's fonts:
               with the application software
          for those that use fonts loaded in with GDOS:
               originally in the folder containing the fonts

     Printing speed:
          for characters from printer fonts:
               fast, because the printer knows how they are
               formed
          for characters from the other fonts ('graphic fonts'):
               slow, because the printer has to be briefed by the
               computer how they are to be formed

Nothing to it once you know it.  Just be aware of, but don't
worry about variations in the way application software makers
design printer drivers.  Also be aware that not all variations of
GDOS come with identical sets of drivers.  And know that this
classification does not come from an authoritative source, it
comes from my experience, i.e. from having wasted time before it
dawned on me.

As mentioned, some programs that use the GDOS trinity are Write,
Word Up, and Easy Draw.(3)  The first two work also with standard
and printer fonts and, hence, come with their own printer
drivers.  There are also programs that couldn't care less about
GDOS, because they employ nothing but standard and printer fonts.
1st Word Plus (up to v.3) and Word Writer come to mind here.
And other, more ambitious programs couldn't care less about an
explicitly installed GDOS either because they make their own
arrangements for producing graphic text, e.g. That's Write 2.(4)

Not having a firm grasp of these things can cause grief.  And
dependence on trusted literature that is defective even more so.
If you consider a product that puts out text, you must know
whether or not it needs GDOS (or any of its variants) for some or
all of its work.  In addition one must also know what variant of
GDOS is best suited to what purpose and under what conditions.
The latest arrival in the marketplace is not necessarily the best
one to use.  One significant distinction is that between two
types of graphic fonts: 'bitmapped' and 'outline' (or 'vector')
fonts.  It is GDOS that works only with bitmapped fonts I
referred to as classical GDOS.


Classical GDOS at work

GDOS may be viewed as a part of TOS that itself is ordinarily
held in ROM, a part of the computer.(5)  Alternatively, it may be
viewed as an enhancement of TOS.  Either view accomodates the
form GDOS takes: software.  GDOS must be made to run during the
booting-up process.  This is done by having it in the AUTO
folder.  The GDOS program will not do what it is supposed to if
it is started after booting up the computer.

If the GDOS program doesn't find the ASSIGN.SYS file, it will
exit without trace.  (The variant G+PLUS is an exception for a
good reason.)  If it finds the file, it will lay claim to extra
space, something like 75 to 100 K, and remain available to assist
any work with a device driver.  What that space is for I can't
specify because I don't know nor, at this time, care about this
detail.  I simply think of it as an atelier where work with fonts
is done.  No RAM space is taken by any fonts themselves until an
application calls for them.  Then all of the fonts listed by
ASSIGN.SYS and found in the addressed font folder enter RAM.  It
is from this supply that the application can select a desired
font.  Thus several hundreds of kilobytes of RAM space may be
taken up by fonts, a measure that can be gleaned from the font
files.

There is a variety of GDOS programs.  Though confusing, we must
be thankful to designers and distributors for continually trying
to improve things.  But to appreciate these improvements and
avail oneself of any, one needs to know, up to a point, how GDOS
and its teammates (ASSIGN.SYS and the folder with fonts and
drivers) function.

Being available is not sufficient.  Fonts must be made fit
for use by screen or printer.  Each screen resolution, for
example, has its own numbers of dots per inch in horizontal and
vertical directions, and so do different printers.  Individual,
specialized drivers that represent the various screen resolutions
and individual printers mediate to convert data in the font files
into printed characters.  We need to dwell on this a bit.


Characters within the computer,
on screen, and in print

Ordinarily, a high resolution screen has 640 dots, black or
white, horizontally and 400 vertically.  It allows for 80
charcters per line, i.e.  characters that each have available
640/80 = 8 dots in the horizontal direction.  It also allows for
25 lines, i.e. characters that each have available 400/25 = 16
dots in the vertical direction.  The characters are said to be
formed on a matrix of 8 by 16.  Of course, if they were to
actually use the whole matrix, characters would touch one
another.  Therefore, there are always dots left blank.

Both high-resolution and low-resolution screens employ 8-by-16
matrices for their characters.  It is just that low-resolution
features bigger dots.  Medium resolution screens work with
characters on an 8-by-8 matrix.  (Font designers better create
fonts such that its characters look good on either matrix!)

The graininess of characters may also be expressed in dots per
inch (dpi).  Not a very practical expression for screens because
their surface area may be made larger or smaller, in either
direction, without changing the number of dots.  But for printing
on paper it is a common measure.  Printer resolutions vary.  My
nine-pin Roland PR1011 prints its standard fonts at a density of
120x72 dpi in draft mode or 240x144 dpi for near-letter-quality
(NLQ).  It also prints from graphic fonts in one's font file.
It also works in 'graphic mode' at, I presume, 240x144 dpi.  (My
manual is not explicit about that.)  I understand that laser and
HP Inkjet printers produce graphic printing at 300x300 dpi.  The
number of dots per inch is obviously an important, but not only
factor in achieving satisfactory print quality.

Here is an example of translating dpi to character matrix.  Using
Pica, my Roland prints 10 characters per inch, which in
draft-mode comes to 12 dots per character horizontally.  Some
dots must be left blank to leave white space between characters.
To find the vertical value of the matrix I must count the number
of lines per inch because my manual hasn't done that for me.  The
reader may try his own hand at this.  More important it is to
realize that NLQ with double the dots per inch is attained by
slightly offset double strikes of the printing head's pins.  In
other words, the same character matrix is employed for both,
draft-mode and NLQ.

As for graphic printing where the printer's own fonts are not
used, the printer needs a representative inside the computer to
tell the computer about its, the printer's, very own way of doing
things, specifically what matrices it needs.  If you look at the
text in an ASSIGN.SYS file (an ordinary text file that may be
written or edited by the user) you will find designations like

                         ATSS12CG.FNT

AT tells that Atari supplied the font,
SS tells us that the font is Swiss,
12 is the 'pointsize' of the font,
CG (color graphics, for medium resolution) is one of a set of
   codes that represents the matrix for the characters one sees,
   or, more precisely, the ratio between the number of points in
   horizontal and vertical directions.

This sequence of two-character identifications is said to be an
Atari way of doing things, but not everybody follows it.  For
example, D.E.G.A.S. comes with fonts named like

                         COMPHS08.FNT

You may peruse the D.E.G.A.S. manual for further detail.

One doesn't need to remember all the codes, but I list some
here to help reinforce what you now know:

   None or HI  ~91x91   for high as well as for low resolution
                        screens.  Remember, they have the same
                        ratio!
        CG     ~91x41   for medium resolution screen.
        EP     120x144  for certain low-resolution printers,
                        like my 9-pin Roland PR-1011.
        LS     300x300  for laser printers and HP Inkjets.
        MF              for meta font.  Ah, something else to
                        worry about.  Perhaps.

The ASSIGN.SYS file is headed with the path of the font folder,
e.g.

                         C:\GDOS.SYS\

Also in the ASSIGN.SYS file are lines like

                         04p SCREEN.SYS

and
                         21  FX80.SYS

that show what driver will act as broker for a set of fonts
listed following each driver's name.  The notation '04p' refers
to a high-resolution screen.  The notation '00p', if present,
identifies a default screen for application software that does
not specify what resolution is to be used.  The letter 'p' is a
so-called load flag.  This particular load flag says that the
device drives is installed permanently, i.e. in TOS, as
mentioned.  The folder with fonts and drivers does not contain
screen drivers, therefore.  Clearly, a Falcon or a TT needs more
screen drivers in their TOS than does TOS for an ST.

An 'r' means 'resident', i.e. the driver will be loaded at
boot-up and kept in RAM.  If there is no load flag, as for the
printer driver here, the driver will be loaded only when the
application needs its services.

Following the driver is the list of fonts, if any.  Drivers exist
that expect fonts to be listed in alphabetical order.

If you like to make a little notation in the ASSIGN.SYS file just
to jog your memory, you may do so as long as it is preceded by a
semicolon.  Look at some ASSIGN.SYS files for an example of how
it is done.

With classical, bitmapped, fonts, every bit in a character's
final appearance on screen or on a page is described in that
file.  Thus large characters require instructions for lots
of points.  Their font files require more bytes.  Example:

               ATSS10.FNT          3584 bytes
               ATSS12.FNT          4608 bytes
               ATSS18.FNT          9216 bytes
               ATSS24.FNT         14848 bytes

Because character matrices have length and width, the numbers
go up, very roughly, by about the square of the pointsizes.
Clearly, fonts for laser printing, with so many dots per inch,
take up oodles of space.  A couple of fonts for laser printing
can clog up a computer's RAM very readily.  That's were outline
font technology like SpeedoGDOS comes in.

Recapitulating, if you want to make use of GDOS for creating text
from bitmapped fonts for the screen or for printing, you need
anyone of a number of GDOS programs in the AUTO folder, an
ASSIGN.SYS file in the root directory of the boot-up disk or
harddrive boot-up partition, and, natch, files with the stuff
these fonts are made of and which are kept together in a special
folder.  To be sure, ASSIGN.SYS should know the name of that
folder and where it is.  Also with the fonts are drivers for
printers.  The names of these drivers as well as of the screen
drivers should be listed in the ASSIGN.SYS text file.


Graphics other than text

I have not investigated the role of GDOS in producing graphics
other than text.  For me there was no need to, yet.  Its absence
has given me no problems with D.E.G.A.S. and Touch-up, nor with
importing .IMG files into 1st Word Plus or That's Write 2.  I use
either Degasnap or Touch-up to convert .PI3 files created with
D.E.G.A.S. to .IMG format.

It is understood that EasyDraw makes a consitent use of a
metafile system under GDOS control.  An article by Douglas
Wheeler, included with my G+PLUS software, provides details about
metafiles.(6)


The GDOS succession

There are replacements for the original GDOS.  The principal
actors are G+PLUS from the Codeheads, FontGDOS from Atari, NVDI
from Behle & Behle in Germany, and SpeedoGDOS from Atari.
Atari's FSM GDOS is a minor player, but it came with some
accessories that were later supplied with FastGDOS.

NVDI, incidentally, stands for New VDI.  It is not merely another
version of GDOS, but a replacement in software for the entire VDI
part of Atari's operating system, TOS.


G+PLUS

Something went amiss with GDOS right in the beginning.  I found
in my files two different versions of the GDOS.PRG.  Both carry
the identidication 'version 1.1'.  One takes up 8064 bytes, the
other 9521 bytes.  I am assuming that of those two versions
1.1, the one that takes up 9521 bytes is the better one to have.
Also way-back-then, people had different experiences with their
GDOS, which made for pretty confusing conversation.(7)  There
were complaints about computers slowing down with GDOS in
residence as well as about the inconvenience of having to reboot
the computer after changing the ASSIGN.SYS file to install
another one.  One might conceivably list all the fonts one ever
may call on in the ASSIGN.SYS file, but the problem comes when an
application calls for graphic font; then every font listed and
available from the font folder is placed in RAM (in sofar there
is space).  This readily clogs up the works.  To avoid this,
users of many fonts will use distinct ASSIGN.SYS files.

G+PLUS is a system that permits booting up without an ASSIGN.SYS
file in the boot-up disk's root directory.  A substitute one can
be brought to the attention of the G+PLUS.PRG by an application
that likes it to consult its own .SYS file.  This leaves
untouched the ASSIGN.SYS file in the root directory.(8)  And
G+PLUS can consult another such substitute when prodded by
another application; all without shutting down the machine.
Short and sweet.  None of the more recent GDOS versions I know of
do that.

This comfortable way of doing things, of having different sets
of fonts instantly accessible by different applications that use
GDOS, is prearranged with an accessory, G+PLUS.ACC, that does not
need to be kept on the desktop.  It is just used to create in
the root directory a file named ASSIGN.INS that contains lines
like these:

          WORDUP.PRG   ⇨ D:\WORDPROC\WORDUP\WORDUP.SYS
          EASYDRAW.PRG ⇨ D:\DRAWING\EASYDRAW\EASYDRAW.SYS

Each such file may specify the location of a font-cum-drivers
folder which, presumably, are similarly named, e.g. GDOS_WU, and
most conveniently kept with the particular application.  All in
all, G+PLUS makes for excellent, clean organization of one's
GDOS-related affairs.

G+PLUS also speeds up certain work done by the operating system.
Hence, it is an accellerator as well.(9)  This is ascribed as
being due to it being written in an operationally more efficient
code (Assembler) than was used for that GDOS.PRG (C-language).

In considering different features of available GDOS systems it
is well, it seems to me, to especially bear in mind two
categories of users:

     1.  People who frequently switch between different types of
         applications some of which desiring only certain fonts.
         These people, many of whom may not ever need GDOS at
         all, are probably mostly engaged in truly personal or
         private computing.

     2.  People who run applications that employ a variety of
         fonts and pointsizes.  Typically those applications are
         for desktop publishing or high-end wordprocessors and
         document processors, i.e. certain business/office
         uses.(10)

The first group may well be best served by G+PLUS with its
specialized .SYS files automatically used by an item of
GDOS-dependent software.

The other group of people, it seems to me, may be better off with
an approach called 'caching'.  And by the use of outline fonts,
which G+PLUS (today) does not accomodate.  A judgement here
requires knowing what caching is and what outline fonts are.  We
shall turn to these concepts shortly.  But first one should take
a hard look at That's Write for here is a wordprocessor that
produces graphic text with GDOS.  And lets one imbed images as
well.  (It sticks somewhere in my mind that there are
high-quality desktop publishing programs that do not require GDOS
either, but I haven't yet worked with DTP.  The reader will have
to make his/her own enquiries.)


What's right about
That's Write

As said, That's Write 2 does not require GDOS.  Nor, I learned
from the U.S. office of COMPO, does That's Write 3.  A vague
statement in ST Format caused some confusion about the latter
point.  "That's Write 3 is also SpeedoGDOS compatible," read a
caption.  But what it should have stated is that it can employ
Speedo fonts.  That is not the same thing.

Upon enquiry, COMPO tells me that v.3 works internally, without
SpeedoGDOS, just like version 2, and believes that this handling
of fonts is superior to using SpeedoGDOS.  "That's Write 2 uses
GEM fonts, similar to the old GDOS fonts.  That's Write 3
supports them, too.  That's Write 3 also uses Speedo fonts, a
much better format [than, I presume, the fonts used by v.2].
Speedo is a completely different format, where you can scale
fonts to any size and the quality (on screen and printer) is
always excellent.  Speedo also allows us to make a great font
selection scheme - rather than selecting fonts from the file
selector with their eight character names, you load and select
fonts from a menu which sorts fonts by family, style, and size.
Long names are used for all fonts (ie - New Century Schoolbook
roman 12 point instead of something like NCSB12RM.FNT)."

No, I am not a spokesman for COMPO.  It's just that this looka
like a good thing to me and that updating is in order.(11)


FontGDOS

FontDOS is for bitmapped fonts and employs caching.  It has been
made available by Atari free of charge.(12)  It has that user's
manual with the unfortunate sentence I quoted at the beginning of
this article.  These are the points the points the manual lists
in recommending FontGDOS:

1. A method called 'bitmap caching' to prevent excessive RAM
   capacity to be usurped by fonts.  It lets fonts be loaded into
   RAM as needed instead of being there all the time.
2. Accessories or CPX modules to let the user select and install
   fonts from software while the computer is on.  The same for
   GDOS drivers.
3. It weighs in with more drivers than were ever available
   before.  These include Deskjet, Paintjet, Okidata Color, Epson
   Compatible 24-pin BW and Color.
4. Bezier Curve VDI routines become instantly available to GEM
   applications, provided they have been correctly written.

I will not enter into Bezier curves because I am not conversant
with what makes them especially beneficial.  As to caching, I
haven't tried it myself (for lack of sufficient interest at this
time), but here is how it is said to work.

FontGDOS asks the user how much RAM should be set aside for font
storage.  That RAM is called the cache.  It saveguards the
rest of the RAM for other uses.  When an application asks for
fonts, FontGDOS will not, like the GDOS programs previously
discussed, place a whole load of fonts listed by ASSIGN.SYS into
RAM.  Instead it will hold its horses until a particular font is
needed.  The application program is served from the cache.  When
a font other than what is available in the cache is needed, it
will be loaded into the cache as well.  This continues until the
cache is full.  Then, when yet another font is needed, the
earliest font cached vaporizes to free space for the latest
arrival.

Three accessories each help FontGDOS to manage certain of its
affairs.  These were originally written for another GDOS called
FSM GDOS, in which FSM stands for 'font-scaling module'.  It was
Atari's first GDOS for outline fonts, but it was soon replaced by
SpeedoGDOS.  Unfortunately, one of its accessories, the principal
one called 'FSM Font Manager' concerns itself with outline fonts
that, in fact, are not mediated by FontGDOS.  That should be no
pain because one's choice lies probably be more between (a) no
GDOS at all, (b) G+PLUS, and (c) SpeedoGDOS.  Oh, yes, of course,
I shouldn't forget about NVDI.


SpeedoGDOS

SpeedoGDOS uses font-scaling for its outline or vector fonts,
but it lets one work with bitmapped fonts as well.  Those who are
fond of lots of fonts may well love SpeedoGDOS.  Atari Works
afficionado Michael 'Papa' Hebert certainly does.  He is
currently doing a series of articles on the subject in 'Current
Notes'.(13)

With font-scaling the placing of the dots in the character
matrices is not predefined dot-by-dot as with bitmapped fonts.
Instead, the code contains a basic design for each character
together with rules for scaling it to various point sizes
requested by the user.  Thus sets of descriptions for individual
pointsizes are replaced by a calculation.  The algorithm
(formula) used for those calculations is stored in the font file.

Font scaling saves RAM space, and very much so with large
pointsizes.  To be sure, not only scaling is calculated, but also
changing the ratio between character width and heighth ('aspect
ratio') as well as for accomodating different numbers of dots per
inch ('pitches').  Thus one font serves all sizes, all aspect
ratios, all devices.  The word 'font' recaptures its classical
meaning by not regarding pointsize as an aspect of its aesthetic.

SpeedoGDOS employs two .SYS files: an ASSIGN.SYS file and an
EXTEND.SYS file.

Suffice it to say that whereas a file named ASSIGN.SYS is used
for bitmapped fonts and associated driver listings, a file called
EXTEND.SYS plays a corresponding role for vector fonts.  With
SpeedoGDOS both filenames may appear in the boot-up disk's or
partition's root directory.  Thus SpeedoGDOS takes care of
font-devouring desktop publishing with laser printers as well as
of marginal users such as I.  In fact, for my ordinary work I may
not ever have use for SpeedoGDOS.  But it is nice to have it on
tap, just in case.  Besides, it is also nice, in some spare
moment, to let it appeal to one's imagination.  To give it a
whirl; to give it a try.  No point in being too set in one's ways
this day and age.

Thus Atari Corp.'s latest, SpeedoGDOS, caters to convenience
and has its way of conserving RAM space.  Still, as mentioned
earlier, one is not hard put finding ways of working without
GDOS or in which G+PLUS is more convenient.  Smaller can indeed
be better.(14)


The strange case of NVDI
or: Potholes in a fast track

Now here is an intriguing case.  NVDI (New VDI) is a piece of
software, a TSR program, that puts the VDI component of ROM out
to pasture and does the job instead.  It does it faster, and
maybe better in other ways as well.  NVDI, weighing in at about
80000 bytes, includes GDOS, though, interestingly, it may be
turned off from an accessory's window.  The manual states that
"Switching off is necessary when a program does not run with
GDOS."  I presume that 'does not run' means 'interferes', but I
wish the author had been more explicit here and actually name
the programs he has in mind.

NVDI (or rather, my version 2.5 of NVDI) comes with a special
contribution: a replacement for the Atari standard screen font,
Monaco.  Its pretty typeface is like a melody.  NVDI lists
various pointsizes of Monaco and doing so with an 's' up front,
e.g.

                        s MONACO10.FNT

It also came with a printer font, Big Blue 8x16:

                          BLUE10.FNT

Interesting in the specific assertion that NVDI works together
with SpeedoGDOS.  In other words, one can let SpeedoGDOS do any
font scaling.

A number of features are couched in language suited only for
users technically highly conversant with computers.  So I pass on
without the ramifications being clear to me that NVDI supports
the IBM standard GEM/3 Bezier curves (as does FastGDOS) and that
the program is optomized to work with the German multitasking
system Mag!X 2.0.  Furthermore, the NVDI disks comes with
programs and listings whose purposes can only be obscure to most
amateurs.

At this point the question before us is, what's the worth of
NVDI?  We know the price: $79 US, but is the value?  Primarily it
is an accellerator, but what of it?  Let's for now allocate $39
to that function, the price of Warp 9.  Monaco presents a
beautiful sight.  Let's give that 29 bucks.  But when it comes to
its role as GDOS it offers us little more than our original GDOS
as far as I can see.  So?  I, therefore, have some doubts about
the wisdom behind my purchase.  Sad, yes.  But that's how the
cookie crumbles.


Cost in RAM

Also sad a bit is that G+PLUS is not compatible with NVDI.  It's
either one or the other.  Here SpeedoGDOS is the winner.  NVDI
and SpeedoGDOS can live together, because NVDI's own GDOS bows
out automatically when SpeedoGDOS is active.  Nevertheless, all
in all it is best to turn off at boot-up any GDOS or ASSIGN.SYS
you don't need.  That will save much RAM space.  Here are some
data:

     Space taken up by GDOS system after it reads ASSIGN.SYS
     --------------------------------------------------------
                      Is ASSIGN.SYS (& EXTEND.SYS) read?
                             No             Yes
     --------------------------------------------------------
     GDOS, v.1.1            0 K            ~84 K
     G+PLUS, v.1.5         22 K*           ~91 K
     FontGDOS               0 K      depends on cache size
     SpeedoGDOS, v.4.1      0 K      depends on cache sizes
     NVDI, v.2.5           78 K**           98 K
                              (129 K with also Monaco in RAM)
     --------------------------------------------------------
          * installs default screen drivers
          ** NVDI is more than GDOS, it replaces VDI.

A boot manager such as Xboot or Superboot or H.A.Z.E.L. should
be helpful to avoid unnecessary loss of RAM capacity.


REFERENCES & NOTES

1.  "Fun with GDOS." 'ST Format', May 1994, p.26.
2.  I will simply overlook here metafiles, plotters, and other
    output devices.
3.  Microsoft's Write was an early wordprocessor, one whose
    creation was mediated by Atari Corp.  Purchasers of Write
    received also three disks with GDOS, fonts, and drivers.
    Maybe part of the confusion about GDOS arises from writers'
    assumption that their readers have this set even though
    way-back-when (many?) ST purchasers got a wordprocessor
    thrown in that does not need GDOS.  That was 1st Word.  The
    term GDOS hardly could mean much, if anything, to them.
4.  v.E., "That's Write 2 in Concert." 'Current Notes', June
    1993, p.18.  (That article had been shown to COMPO, the
    publishers of 'That's Write', to help ensure accuracy.
    Verification, but not cowtowing, is an important part of
    writing.  'ST Applications', Oct. 1993, p.8, comments that
    That's Write v.2 uses a combination of bitmap and resident
    printer fonts, but not the copy of TW2 I have.)
5.  My first 512ST came with TOS on disk.
6.  D.H. Wheeler, "Everything You Ever Wanter To Know About GDOS
    (And More)."  On Codehead's G+PLUS disk.  The author's
    addreass is listed as PSC 3 Box 6096, Travis AFB, CA 94535.
    On GEnie: D.H.WHEELER.
7.  GEnie ST Lib.7846:GDOS2.ARC.
8.  v.E., "Editing the Jellyfish Script." 'Current Notes',
    Aug./Sept. 1994 (in print).  In this article a booting-up
    program, Greg Knauss's H.A.Z.E.L., is discussed.  It likes to
    have other programs keep their hands off the ASSIGN.SYS file
    in the root directory.  I haven't checked into this point
    with respect to other booting-up programs.
9.  J. Eidsvoog and C.F. Johnson, G+plus Users' Manual, v. 1.2.
10. A tentative stab at distinguishing between business/office
    computing and truly personal computing in v.E., "Terradesk at
    Tuxedo Junction."  'Current Notes', Nov. 1993, p.20.
11. As always in such matters, enquire about the update price
    before just buying a new version.  The difference is about
    $100 in this case.
12. FontGDOS, GEnie ST Lib.24310:FONTGDOS.LZH.
13. M. Hebert, "Atari Works' series, starting in 'Current Notes',
    Febr. 1994.
14. Atari and COMPO have since published a version of SpeedoGDOS,
    its version 5, with expanded capabilities.  It not only
    handles Bitstream Speedo fonts, but also PostScript Type 1,
    and TrueType scalable fonts.


     * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Lakefield, Que.
July 15, 1994

This item was written after doing a story for my column 'Atari in
the STicks' in 'Current Notes' for Aug./Sept.  The article is
about altering code in GFA BASIC.  The example chosen was a
boot-up program by Greg Knauss called H.A.Z.E.L.  The work
suddenly confronted me with my inadequate knowledge of GDOS and
what goes with it.  And when I consulted the experts I made some
horrible discoveries of the kind that affect Atari amateurs
everywhere.

I would appreciate reactions, especially from users' groups.


For contact:

Henry K van Eyken,
11 Falcon,
Lakefield, Que., J0V 1K0,
Canada

On GEnie:  H.VANEYKEN