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Info-Atari16 Digest Vol. 90 Issue 227
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INFO-ATARI16 Digest Mon, 19 Feb 90 Volume 90 : Issue 227
Today's Topics:
[comp.sys.amiga...] Conner CP340 specs
Anyone know about MT C-shell?
GCR, Uniterm questions (2 msgs)
Hard Drive Information
MINIX and NETWORK connections
Moniterm & STe, STe & SIMMs, ATW news
Monitor advice sought
Please help because I get bombs.
Single-sided drive problems
ST sales #s was (Re: WHERE IS THE ABAQ?)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 90 05:50:36 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!hyc@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
(Howard Chu)
Subject: [comp.sys.amiga...] Conner CP340 specs
Message-ID: <11027@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu>
In article <11021@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu> dc@dcpc.UUCP (Don Curtis) writes:
%Original-posting-by: dc@dcpc.UUCP (Don Curtis)
%Original-subject: Conner CP340 specs
%Reposted-by: emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti)
% I got the Conner Technical Manual today...here's the official
% word on both drive parameters and jumper settings:
[deleted]
% While the drive DID show up as SCSI 0 with E2-4 OUT, it was VERY
% flakey. It would only boot when it felt like it, and would go
% off-line at odd times for no apparent reason. Also, doing an
% ASSIGN command (NOT info command) showed DH2: thru DH8: as
% existing (with only 1 drive attached to the SCSI bus). Two drives
% on the cable would not work at all...either neither of them showed
% up...or both showed up as the same drive. Yes, they were jumpered
% for different ID numbers.
%
This sounds familiar, but I'm surprised that a mere jumper change fixed the
problem. I'd heard that when the controller on the Conner drive picked up
a query for any device other than its own number, it would park itself. I'd
also heard that the fix required replacing the conner scsi controller.
% Based on the message by Darrin (???) earlier...I reversed the sense
% of the above SELECT settings (that is...changed the "out" to "in"
% and vice versa) and put all jumpers IN. Drive again showed up as
% SCSI ID 0 and this time, ASSIGN only showed DH2: as existing. The
% flakieness was GONE...the drive works perfectly. Adding a 2nd drive
% works fine also.
Thanks for the info. These are really great articles, guys.
--
-- Howard Chu @ University of Michigan
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 90 06:11:48 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!hyc@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
(Howard Chu)
Subject: Anyone know about MT C-shell?
Message-ID: <11028@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu>
In article <20967@ditka.UUCP> rcb@ditka.UUCP (Roy Bixler) writes:
>So, I only know what the advertisement said about MT C-shell, which was
>that it is multi-user, multi-tasking, runs GEM programs and as an
>option, UUCP is available. Sounds good (maybe too good). Is it really
>multi-user, multi-tasking? I doubt this because someone told me that he
>didn't think the Motorola 68000 chip had memory protection mode and, in
>light of that, it would be impossible for a 68000 to run multi-user.
>Also, does the MT C-shell come with any Unix utilities and, if so, which
>ones? What do people think of it? Is it just as good to get a public
>domain, multi-tasking kernal such as MX2?
My big gripe with MX2, besides the fact that it stopped working when I got
TOS 1.4 installed in my machine, was that it didn't propagate your environment
to the spawned processes. (My next gripe was that it's written in Modula-2
and it's far from apparent how to modify it to this poor C programmer/Unix
hacker... ?-)
Hm. Granted, a 68000 running at 8MHz pushes as many MIPS as a Vax 750,
do you *really* want to turn your machine into a multi-user host? (I've
never understood the BBS oprerator mentality, sorry. Why the *hell*
would I want to turn loose a bunch of unfamiliar hackers on the machine
I've slaved over for so long? Why would I want to donate a phone line or
two for other people to use, dedicate an expensive modem to their use, etc.?
I shelled out a lot of hard-earned cash for a machine for *me* to use, let
those hackers hack on their own machines...)
But, to try to answer the question, no, the 68000 doesn't support
memory protection. It's not *impossible* to run multi-user, just unwise,
unless you're very certain about the folks you allow to be users. And
that just covers the "malicious intent" side of things, you still have
to worry about runaway programs that accidentally romp thru memory and
trash everything that everyone else was doing.
Rethink what you're trying to do. The ST is a *personal* computer. You
don't want to have other people using it, you're supposed to have it
all to yourself...
--
-- Howard Chu @ University of Michigan
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 90 06:13:48 GMT
From: prism!warningm@cs.orst.edu (MICHAEL WARNING)
Subject: GCR, Uniterm questions
Message-ID: <15981@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Got a couple of questions that maybe somebody can help me with...
The first is on GCR. It won't let me do a reset. Is this normal? A couple
of things is the manual implied that you should be able to do a reset, but it
always gives me 2 bombs, and I have to power down to get back.
I just got Uniterm via ftp from someplace, and there's a couple of things I
haven't been able to figure out. First, what is the name of the default
setup file? It's annoying having to specifically load the setup file each
time. How do you stop an autodail? Finally, when I try to do a view history
buffer, it says that I don't have enough memory (I've got 2 megs...)
Thanks for any help...
Mike Warning
warningm@prism.cs.orst.edu
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 90 06:38:48 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!hyc@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
(Howard Chu)
Subject: GCR, Uniterm questions
Message-ID: <11031@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu>
In article <15981@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU> warningm@prism.CS.ORST.EDU (MICHAEL
WARNING) writes:
>I just got Uniterm via ftp from someplace, and there's a couple of things I
>haven't been able to figure out. First, what is the name of the default
>setup file? It's annoying having to specifically load the setup file each
>time. How do you stop an autodail? Finally, when I try to do a view history
>buffer, it says that I don't have enough memory (I've got 2 megs...)
The default setup file is called uniterm.set. You can usually use Ctrl-C
to stop an auto-dial. We have version 2.0e002 on terminator, I'd heard that
2.0e011 was available but no one has mentioned where to get it. Anything
prior to edit 005 has a bug in the redial code such that setting the retry
attempts to 0 really means 255. If you set it to 1, no problem.
You need to select the Buffer option in the help menu, and set the System
memory to at least (5? 10? I forgot) Kbytes before you're allowed to use
the history buffer.
--
-- Howard Chu @ University of Michigan
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 90 02:29:05 GMT
From: att!dptg!lzsc!hcj@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (HC Johnson)
Subject: Hard Drive Information
Message-ID: <1314@lzsc.ATT.COM>
In article <77220@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>, bks@timewarp.eng.ohio-state.edu
(Brian K Smith) writes:
>
> I am looking to hook up am IBM type hard drive to my ST. Does anyone
> know which type of drive (MFM, RLL, SCSI) is best for this application, and
> have information or schematics on how to build an interface?
>
You have to have an Atari to SCSI adapter, and a cabinet with power supply for
for your drive.
A SCSI drive will not require any additional hardware. Some SCSI drives have
given the SCSI adapter folks some problems in programming.
The MFM drives are cheapest, and usually have the least capacity. They require
and Adaptec 4000A (or equivalent ) interface board. (the board speaks SCSI,
and ST506, the interface to MFM and RLL drives. It can control 2 drives.
You usually see MFM capacities in multiples of 20 mb. This can add $100-$150
to the cost.
the RLL drives are stressed MFM's that yield 1.5 times the capacity.
You usually see RLL capacities in multiples of 30 mb.
You need an Adaptec 4070 (or equivalent) interface board. (about $150 ).
Also, out there are faster ESDI drives. There is an Adaptec controller for
these also, but for the price you are usually ahead to get an SCSI interface.
The biggest, fastest drives are SCSI.
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 90 06:25:19 GMT
From: zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!math.lsa.umich.edu!hyc@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
(Howard Chu)
Subject: MINIX and NETWORK connections
Message-ID: <11030@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu>
In article <22274.25dc6917@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> whitten@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu
writes:
>After reading thru the MINIX newsgroup, my intrest about ST MINIX has
>really grown... I would love to hear from anyone out there that has
>purchased the package, as well as anyone else who has two cents to
>put in. Specifically, does it support multitasking, multiple users,
>that kind of thing? Can you still run TOS programs from inside it?
>Would you consider it useful to people who aren't real unix gurus?
I haven't seen it done, but someone posted here a while back about
getting TOS executable files to execute under Minix. It's probably
a doable thing, but not advertised as a standard feature of Minix.
Heck, you could kludge up a library that converted Beckemeyer's
RTX system calls to Minix calls, then you'd *really* have some fun.
Oh, other question - yeah, Minix is multi-user and multi-tasking.
Version 7 Unix.
>
>Also, along that same lines, what about Dave's Multitasking C-Shell?
>Can it do any of the aforementioned neato-keen stuff?
>
Dave's stuff can do multi-tasking for sure; I've played with Micro-RTX
a little bit now. I'm not really interested in trying to make my ST
into a multi-user box, and I don't have the MT C-Shell, so can't
answer whether it's multi-user or not. Don't see why not, tho.
--
-- Howard Chu @ University of Michigan
------------------------------
Date: 16 Feb 90 17:12:19 GMT
From: mcsun!ukc!icdoc!syma!grahamt@uunet.uu.net (Graham Thomas)
Subject: Moniterm & STe, STe & SIMMs, ATW news
Message-ID: <2209@syma.sussex.ac.uk>
From article <2042@atari.UUCP>, by apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt):
> No, the STe can not drive a Moniterm or similar monitor directly. The
> video signal for that kind of monitor is totally different from the
> normal ST/STe video, and requires extra hardware. There is an add-in
> board available for the Mega which has this hardware. Since the STe is
> in a 1040 case, without the room or stakes for this kind of board,
> it's not available for STe. We do have plans for a future STe with
> enough expansion capability to make this possible, but the details
> are not public yet (and I don't know them).
>
..but you may just have exposed yourself to a whole lot of 'if you're
going to do it, I want it NOW!!' messages. Sounds like a sensible thing
to do, though. It'll require a new case for the STe, won't it? I
wonder what implies for the Mega range?
>
>>Can someone from Atari also post the specs on the SIMMs the STE and STACY
>>are supposed to use?
>
> I don't know them. The SIMMs are there mainly for the cost and space
> savings on the PC board, not so you can add memory to your machine.
>
> In some machines the memory is not even socketed: it's SIPs, not SIMMs.
> If the cost of SIPs is lower than SIMMs plus sockets at the time we
> buy, we use SIPs.
>
Oh dear. Anything to save a buck. Just when we were thinking how nice
it is, having a machine which is certain to be easily upgradeable. I
thought Atari might have learned its lesson from the time when it made
Mega 2's which couldn't be upgraded to 4 meg. It really is a
short-sighted attitude.
(None of this implies any personal criticism, Allan. I doubt whether
you're responsible for this.)
[Apropos of nothing, as I have a few more lines to insert to defeat the
'50% new stuff' rule, I see that the Atari Transputer Workstation is now
being openly advertised as 'available now' in the magazine
Parallelogram. For 4995 pounds, you get a T800 processor, 4mb RAM,
graphics processor, 1mb video RAM, 1280x960 colour graphics, X-Windows,
Helios O/S, and either a C or a Fortran compiler. Contact Perihelion on
+44 223 356555 for more details. Oh, and 'Available soon: Ethernet Link
Adaptor'.
The same issue (Feb 90) has an article which hints at a financial
cock-up at Perihelion. It looks like Atari UK are now going to make the
ATW themselves, with the assistance of 5 ex-Perihelion employees, while
Perihelion Hardware Ltd. (new name, formerly just Perihelion Ltd.) will
distribute it, and make & distribute peripherals for it. Atari expects
to expand its ATW staff to 14 by mid-year (whenever that is - calendar,
financial?)
I was interested to see the report on how the Kodak ATW-based image
manipulator is now on public view in Toronto. I saw it at the UK
Personal Computer Show last September, and was very impressed. What a
great tool for blackmailers it would make! Get a photo of someone in a
compromising position, then stick on someone else's head!
There, that should be enough. Sorry to ramble on.]
Graham
--
Graham Thomas, SPRU, Mantell Building, U of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9RF, UK
JANET: grahamt@uk.ac.sussex.syma EARN/BITNET: grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk
ARPA: grahamt%syma.sussex.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
UUCP: grahamt@syma.uucp Phone: +44 273 686758
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 90 02:38:54 GMT
From: att!dptg!lzsc!hcj@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (HC Johnson)
Subject: Monitor advice sought
Message-ID: <1316@lzsc.ATT.COM>
In article <9002160814.AA13241@watsun.cc.columbia.edu>,
sajima@WATSUN.CC.COLUMBIA.EDU (Takahiro Sajima) writes:
>
> I understand that ST monitors come in two flavors - color and
> monochrome. Monochrome has high resolution (good text, but can't run
> anything written for the color monitor), and that color has medium (?)
> resolution (garbage text - no offense intended. Has impressive color
> graphics). I'd REALLY hate to have two monitors sitting on my desk. In
The Multisync monitors need an adapter cable, but do COLOR very well, and
MONO quite well. (I biased and prefer Monochrome for MONO; but my friends
ar happy with Multisync).
THen all you need is to switch the switch.
PS. COLOR does very well on text. Sure better than CGA on IBM.
Howard C. Johnson
ATT Bell Labs
=====NEW address====
att!lzsc!hcj
hcj@lzsc.att.com
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 90 04:04:04 GMT
From: mentor.cc.purdue.edu!gwa@ee.ecn.purdue.edu (James D. Yegerlehner)
Subject: Please help because I get bombs.
Message-ID: <7616@mentor.cc.purdue.edu>
A friend and I are developing a neural network simulation program
for the ST, but we've come to a grinding halt because our code
crashes from a bus error (2 bombs) and we can't figure out why.
We've observed several things about the crashes:
1. It occurs only when fprintf is called. By using the source
and assembly level debuggers (Mark Williams C), we've found that
it is happening within "lmalloc", which is called by malloc(), which is
called ultimately by fprintf. Specifically, there is a some symbol
in lmalloc called "_a_scanp_" which is used as a pointer, and which
apparrently gets clobbered or gets a bad value for some reason, which
results in the bus error.
2. It occurs consistently for any particular compilation of the
code, but is sensitive to things like changing the stack size or
otherwise rearranging memory; when this is done, it sometimes goes
away, only to come back later when still more changes are made.
Since I'm not an experienced GEM programmer, I thought that the above
symptoms might have implications of which I am oblivious. If any of you
GEM/TOS/C gurus have any suggestions for me, I would much appreciate it.
Thanks,
Jim
yegerleh@en.ecn.purdue.edu
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 90 02:34:07 GMT
From: att!dptg!lzsc!hcj@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (HC Johnson)
Subject: Single-sided drive problems
Message-ID: <1315@lzsc.ATT.COM>
In article <2412@uwm.edu>, markez@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Mark R Zbikowski) writes:
> My drive is having difficulty reading bought (or rented) programs. I
> also have problems when I swap disks with other people. They don't
> always like to work. Sometimes I get a directory, but it looks
> completely mangled. I have a drive speed tester, and the speed is
> right on 300. I opened up my drive to see if there was anything else
> wrong with it (well, curiosity mostly drove me to that). Does anyone
> know what could be wrong? Also, there are two pots (or variable caps)
> on the top of metal case housing the drive. Which is drive speed and
> what does the other one do?
Have you used a FRESH disk cleaner for your disk head?
This helps me. Try talking to some IBM PC repair people (after all where
would you fine an ST repair person) about changing the pots on the drives.
This might not be a good idea.
Howard C. Johnson
ATT Bell Labs
=====NEW address====
att!lzsc!hcj
hcj@lzsc.att.com
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 90 04:23:02 GMT
From:
cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!kuhub.cc.ukans.edu!2f
jmvery@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu
Subject: ST sales #s was (Re: WHERE IS THE ABAQ?)
Message-ID: <22296.25df2046@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
In article <800.25d8fea4@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu>, rlcollins@miavx1.acs.muohio.edu
writes:
> In article <915@uvicctr.UVic.CA.UUCP>, rwilson@uvicctr.UVic.CA.UUCP (Richard
Wilson) writes:
>> In article <90Feb8.215641est.58581@ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca> 01659@AECLCR.BITNET
(Greg Csullog) writes:
>> [ATW sales numbers info deleted]
>>
>>>Has anyone seen Atari's latest figures on the number of STs and Megas
installed
>>>worldwide?
>>>
>> ST Format #6 (Jan '90) p.19 - "We're now on the brink of the 90s and there's
a
>> a million STs in the world - Sam Tramiel reckons on 1.5 million - half of
them
>> in Germany alone."
>>
>> "There are around 160,000 STs in the UK and about the same in France."
>>
>> Rich (rwilson@uvicctr.UVic.CA.UUCP)
>
> Does anyone know how these figures compare with the Amigas, Macs and IBMs out
> there?
>
> Ryan
>
> rlcollins@miavx1.bitnet
According to MacWeek, Apple sold 1.5 million Macintoshes last year alone.
IBM shipped 1.25 million PS/2s, not to mention all the clones.
According to AmigaMail, the millionth Amiga shipped about a year and a half
ago.
Yes, there are a lot of STs out there (enough to keep us all afloat), but
they ain't exactly taking over the world. Oh, well. The geniuses are often in
the minority until the slower masses catch up.
--Jim Sisul
The University of Kansas
(#1 at least until tommorrow morning. #$%##@#!!!@!*&!@ Mizzou!!)
------------------------------
End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V90 Issue #227
*****************************************
