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Ictari Issue 47
ICTARI USER GROUP ISSUE 47 June 1997
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* m a g a z i n e *
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I C T A R I U S E R G R O U P
G Greenway, 8 Denmark Road, Reading, Berks, RG1 5PA. 0118 756668
http://www.elis.demon.co.uk/ictari/ictari.htm
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INDEX FOR ISSUE 47
==================
C Newton's method fractal program
GFA GFA-Link -Link external files in GFA BASIC programs
NiceLine -Object Tree functions
XRSC+ -Updated resource file functions
MISC VT52 Fuji demo
Colour VT52 editor
GEM message documentation in ST-Guide format
Alternative ICTARI logo
Screen-Dump utility
Current membership list
STOS GEMMA -Access GEM from STOS !
SINBAD -Freeware STOS extension
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EDITORIAL
=========
Hello again. Sorry this issue is late again, but I'm still being
kept rather busy. Anyway, something of an innovation: Early issues of
ICTARI are now available from a couple of FTP sites on the 'Net. The
first twenty issues can be found at:
atari.archive.umich.edu
in
atari/Magazines/Diskmags/Ictari
but the site can get very busy. Eventually the files get mirrored at:
swallow.doc.ic.ac.uk
in
packages/atari/umich/Magazines/Diskmags/Ictari
I'll try and get around to uploading the rest of the issues as soon as
I can. Keep the contributions coming,
Have Fun,
Giles
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CORRESPONDENCE
==============
From: Jason J Railton
To: Giles Greenway
Re: ICTARI Web pages
I only saw the ICTARI web pages briefly, but I have a few suggestions
for when you have time. Firstly, go to Yahoo and get yourself on its
list of 'Computing'/'Atari' related sites. Then, go to each site already
on the list (there's only a handful), and get them to put on links to
you. I had to use the search engine with the keyword 'ICTARI' to find
you. I don't think anyone could just stumble across ICTARI on the web.
Also, the form you've provided for people to leave a comment asks for
name and address and so forth. Asking all this can put people off
leaving a comment. Why not have a form for just entering name, e-mail
address, and a larger memo pad for people to actually write a
contribution? Then, you could add these to the correspondence part of
the disk. Is their address of use to you anyway? I mean, you won't be
sending them disks until they send you one.
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From: Giles Greenway
To: Jason J Railton
Re: ICTARI WEB pages
You're right, I do need to push ICTARI a bit harder. Well, I've now
registered the site with Yahoo and WEB-Crawler. Lycos (www.lycos.com)
already had the ICTARI URL listed, ICTARI does seem to have some ability
to get around on its own. Every month I announce the latest issue on
three USENET newsgroups, comp.sys.atari.st, comp.sys.atari.st.tech and
comp.sys.atari.programmer. Buzzsaw meant that I was able to put the
words "free game" in the title of the message, with the result that 20Mb
of data was downloaded from the site last month ! There weren't too many
Atari sites on Yahoo, -I can tell you there are hundreds of them out
there ! I try to run a "you link my site, I'll link yours" policy. I
like to confine the links section to programming or technical sites, and
to pages with more comprehensive sets of links. -They do their job very
well, and I think too many links from the ICTARI pages would be
confusing. You're right about the form. -I just made an HTML version of
the form that was distributed by Peter Hibbs when he was editor. In
fact, the version I circulate now looks very similar, only it's done
using LaTeX.
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From: Jason J Railton
To: Everyone
Re: Buzzsaw
I hope you're all enjoying playing Buzzsaw. I can only get to level
8, and then only rarely. The speed increase from 7 to 8 is more than I
expected, and catches me out every time. I'm not sure whether to change
it or not, because I know there will be some people who can play it at
that speed. Best tactic I think is to try and get the hopper as clear as
possible before each level change.
By the way, for regular ICTARI readers, here are a few extra tips:
You can make more than two lines of crates in one go by building up a
solid block of crates with a vertical line of blob monsters running up
through it. Then lay a 'fuse', a line of blobs out to one side, and
stack more crates directly above the column of blobs. A buzzsaw will
take out the line of blobs and drop down the column, clearing it. The
crates then fall into place to fill three, four or even five rows at
once. This scores much higher than separate rows.
You can also get the same effect by stacking up crates with a
staircase of blobs through the middle of it. You can do more rows like
this, but it's much harder to set up.
It's also useful to keep a route for the saw to get to the bottom of
the hopper, for when the goits start to appear on level 6 and onward. Or
haven't you seen one yet? Well, wait and see.
Make three rows or more, and you get a twinkly star in the next
piece. You also occaisionally get these during the course of the game.
When placed, they take out any blobs in a two-block radius (for any
Americans reading, by 'two blocks' I mean 32 pixels, not a quarter of a
mile, OK?)
The score you get for each blob actually increases the more you slice
through with the one saw.
The ton weights only take out columns of blobs, but try landing one
on a crate that is directly above another blob. You might be surprised.
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From: Jason J Railton
To: Everyone
Re: My coding
I've added swirling sprites to my Swingshot game (the parallax
scrolling demo from a few months ago). I've still got some improvements
to make before I send in another demo though.
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From: Mark Foot
To: Giles Greenway
Re: Multi-Tasking
Dear Giles,
I just wanted to drop a line to firstly say thanks for taking over
ICTARI. Secondly, I have a question to pose to the other members. I
would like to delve into the world of multi-tasking as part of my
robotics hobby. Can anyone offer advice on the best system to go for
i.e. Magic, MiNT, etc. Perhaps members can comment on their experiences,
problems and so-on. Has anyone had any experience with the Omen system
from Floppyshop ? At present I am leaning towards MiNT. Help !
Thanks.
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From: Giles Greenway
To: Mark Foot
Re: Multi-Tasking
I don't think you can go wrong with MiNT -it's free. The only
question is how sophisticated you want your set-up to be. There are a
number of different MiNT versions, I don't know which is the most
stable. They are available either on their own or as part of complete
distributions. There is the so-called "official" distribution, which I
have had trouble getting to work properly. I've had a lot more luck with
the Toronto Atari Federation distribution. This was primarily intended
to allow the use of the Chimera WEB-browser under X-Windows via
MiNT-Net. (MiNT-Net can now work with CAB and other STiK clients using
special overlays or Glue-STiK...) Still, I can't get the Gnu C compiler
to work. The most complete distribution is supposed to be KGMD, (Knarf's
German MiNT distribution) it can be set up in a modular fashion, and
includes MiNT-Net, X-Window, GCC and other utilities. An English
translation is available, but at the moment I don't have the disk space
to try it out. If you use Minix partitions that allow long filenames you
will have to dedicate an entire partition. If you want to run multiple
GEM programs you will need a multi-tasking AES replacement. There are
two PD packages, Xaaes and Oaesis. Oaesis is reasonably stable, Xaaes
looks much slicker, but I've had trouble getting the latest version to
work. There is also a commercial implementation, but I don't know much
about it. You'll have trouble finding this stuff if you're not on the
'Net. I can fit the AES replacements on the ICTARI disks, but the
distributions can run to ten disks or more. It might be worth trying a
couple of CD ROMs.
Mark (Wherry) probably knows the most about Magic in the ICTARI
group. It's meant to be more stable on STs than Falcons, but then I've
ordered it to go with my Mark X ! It has the advantage of interfacing
well with the Kobold file utility, Geneva works well with the NeoDesk
replacement desktop. Perhaps you should read the article in the current
issue of Atari Computing. The Omen system has been re-named Oases,
(confused ? I am) and is now public domain. I've yet to really try it
out. If you have an 030 processor and an FPU, you might like to consider
Linux.
I hope that little outburst helped. I wonder if Louis Maule-Cole has
recovered from my spiel about the 'Net yet. I'm sure that everyone will
feel free to chip in. It all depends on what you want your system to do.
Tell us about your adventures in robotics...
To those who don't know, you can contact Atari Computing about
subscriptions by contacting:
Brian Stanton,
73 Bentinck Drive,
Troon,
Ayrshire,
KA10 6HZ,
Scotland.
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From: Kris Reynolds
To: ICTARI
ICTARI is a beut little publication, nothing flash, just usefull
info and interesting ideas -even if I can't really get the most from the
programming tips yet !!
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From: Giles Greenway
To: Kris Reynolds
Thank's for the vote of confidence ! I think there was an attempt to
produce an ICTARI 'zine shell a while back, but if it ain't broke, don't
fix it. This way, members can read ICTARI using whatever software they
see fit. I'm always open to suggestions about the content and
presentation of the magazine, though, especially the WEB pages. I think
their rather minimalist look goes well with the style of the magazine.
The site got something of a pasting in the last issue of Atari
Computing, and I think much of the crticism was fair. There is now a lot
more to read on-line, all new issues of ICTARI will be made available in
HTML format. I think the image of the "sad old Atari logo" is here to
stay though ! Let me know if you think different. I've included a rather
more jazzy logo from an early issue on this month's disk. I think the
site could do with some more artwork, but I'd still like to retain the
black and white pallete. -A lot of people, me included, do their WEB
browsing on a SM124 monochrome monitor, and besides, even large
monochrome images download quickly. CAB now supports moving GIFS, if
anyone comes up with something I can use I'd be happy to put it on the
WEB site.
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From: Stephen Bruce c/o ICTARI
To: Everyone
Re: Monitor Cables
Stephen Bruce 'phoned up with a colour monitor problem. -He's bought
one second hand, but the cable is damaged. Does anyone know how to fit a
new plug ? I've put a diagram on the pin-outs in the MISC folder, but
that's not the whole story. Someone should be able to help. The diagram
was culled from the ST internals WEB-page. It has all sorts of hardware
details. It can be found at:
http://www.teleport.com/~atari/STinternals.htm
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