========================================================================= INFO-ATARI16 Digest Thu, 7 Dec 89 Volume 89 : Issue 770 Today's Topics: ATARI sales .. going up? Dear Rich Covert Form Doc's: Good job, Jos! Problem with Mega 2 Screen Dumps Shareware MAC Still searching... Gotta Flame a Little Who owns the ROM code? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 7 Dec 89 18:51:20 GMT From: brunix!iris.brown.edu!mjv@uunet.uu.net (Marshall Vale) Subject: ATARI sales .. going up? Message-ID: <22391@brunix.UUCP> In article <4748f7bc.14a1f@force.UUCP> covertr@force.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) writes: > Has *ANYONE* out there in NEtland SEEN a Real Live AD for the ST, either > on TV or in print? > > Just curious. I did, ONCE. I was in the east San Francisco bay area about 3 years ago at my grandfathers house. We were watching TV and an ad came on showing the IBM PC. I talked about its bad user interface. Then a Mac Plus was shown and they made a point about its high price and no color. They then showed an ST using Supra's picture blaster program, pointing out its use of color and low price. Very nice actually, but alas, the only way to see it now is to get to Alpha Centuri before it does. -- mjv@iris.brown.edu "And, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all, Bring me a big, red india-rubber ball." A.A. Milne "Now We are Six" ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 89 16:45:05 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!hrc!force!covertr@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Richard E. Covert) Subject: Dear Rich Covert Message-ID: <47493bb1.14a1f@force.UUCP> In article <8912061919.AA14595@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, 01659@AECLCR.BITNET (Greg Csullog) writes: > I agree with the netter who wondered whether or not dear old Rich actually > understands Laser printing speed. Hey Rich, for your benefit I'll rephrase > an earlier posting. > > 1. I digitized a photo of my daughter with the Migraph Hand Scanner. > > 2. I printed the .IMG file from a Mega 2 to an SLM804 and it took less > than 1.5 minutes. Greg, which program did you use? What it EasyDraw's OUTPRINT (a GDOS program), and if so did you use GPLUS, and if so which version of GPLUS (the latest is version 1.3 I believe). > > 3. I printed the same file from an AT at 10 MHz with an 80287 also at > 10 MHz (overall NORTON SI = 12.4). and the pic took just over 44 minutes > printing from GEM Paint. <<< Yeah, 44 MINUTES >>> > > The difference is due to transmission speed. Greg, which printer did you use? Did you use a serial or a parallel printer port?? If serial than at what speed? And comparing a printout on different machines says NOTHING about the speed of the printer UNLESS you use the SAME printer on both machines. Are you saying that you managed to get 300 dpi printouts with the SLM804 on a MSDOS machine? WOW! I am impressed! > > Hey, if you really believe in this 11 ppm, 8 ppm, 6 ppm stuff, that lakefront > property in Canada's Arctic is still for sale and has your name written all > over it! Greg, I said in my last post that the MAJOR reason that I sold my SLM804 was that I wanted a laser printer that works under Mac, MSDOS, and ST systems. The KXP4450 does so. As far as speed, if you would be so kind as to email me a uuencode ZOOed (or ARCed) copy of your picture I would be HAPPY to benchmark it against my KXP4450. In fact, if folks out there want me to benchmark the KXP4450 against the SLM804, I can do so. My friend still has the SLM804. I can test it on both my 3 year old 520ST (with a meg of RAM), and my 2 year old Mega ST2 (upped to 4 megs). On the Mega, I could test it with the Turbo16 in the Fast and Slow modes. So, please folks, I am NOT saying that one printer is faster than another. I am simply saying that I will benchmark my new printer against the SLM804 in as identical a system as I can. And when you are printing on systems, like the Mac and the PC, which DON'T have a FAST DMA port to the printer, the page per minute print speed of the printer is important. So, for my Mac and PC programs, the KXP4450 is faster than the HP LJII or the Brother or the Canon or the whatever. So, please inorder for me to do a benchmark I nned to know that following: 1) What ST are you using? 2) What TOS are you using? 3) Are you printing using GDOS, GPLUS, or a non-GDOS program? 4) Which FILE are you priinting? 5) How do you time the print job? If there is interest I will do a benchmark. But as I said, I won't argue which printer is faster. I simply want a laser printer that I can use under Spectre and MSDOS. -- Richard E. Covert (covertr@gtephx) (602) - 581-4652 | AG Communications Systems, Phoenix AZ | UUCP: ?ncar!noao!asuvax | uunet!zardoz!hrc | att?!gtephx!covertr ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 89 17:33:44 GMT From: mcsun!inria!mirsa!falbala.inria.fr!colas@uunet.uu.net (Colas Nahaboo) Subject: Form Doc's: Good job, Jos! Message-ID: <426@mirsa.inria.fr> First, let's all support Jos Vermaseren, having a hard time with all the brain-dead Brett "he or she" Maraldos around... In article <575@nikhefh.nikhef.nl>, t68@nikhefh.nikhef.nl (Jos Vermaseren) writes: > It uses a customized macro package that was made > by someone else that makes for a very booklet format when > printed with two A5 pages on one A4 sheet in landscape > format. My question: do you have a program to do this from your dvi, or must I do some fancy photocopy work? Personally, I do not object to your posting of the .dvi, just to your choice of a paper format not easily found in a common laser printer. Another point: Richard E. Covert writes: > Must be some form of Elitest mentatlity to post docs to a program > in a format that 99% of the people don't use. Well, forms is intended for maths, and math people use TeX anyways. :-) PS: and, not all people have troff too now. Try to find a site with "pic" or -me macros... I am sure they are less numerous than TeX sites... PPS: I distribute GWM with a LaTeX documentation, TeX seems to be really present everywhere... Colas NAHABOO BULL Research FRANCE -- Koala Project (GWM X11 Window Manager) Internet: colas@mirsa.inria.fr ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 89 17:00:37 GMT From: att!cbnewsm!cbz@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (craig.b.ziemer) Subject: Problem with Mega 2 Screen Dumps Message-ID: <7384@cbnewsm.ATT.COM> A friend of mine is having trouble doing screen dumps. He has a Mega 2 and an Epson LQ510 24 pin printer. When he tries to dump a drawing from within NeoChrome, using the ALT-HELP command, the result is compressed in the vertical direction. It appears to print each line OK, but the paper does not advance enough after each scan such that the vertical height of the finished printout is only about 1 inch! When printing a text file, everything works just fine. Can anyone offer any suggestions? Thanks. * Craig B. Ziemer %% DISCLAIMER: AT&T does not * * AT&T Bell Laboratories %%%%%% officially support what I * * Reading, PA %% just said, in fact, they * * UUCP ADDRESS: alux6!cbz %% rarely do :~) * ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 89 18:00:50 GMT From: lsr@apple.com (Larry Rosenstein) Subject: Shareware MAC Message-ID: <5663@internal.Apple.COM> In article <1989Dec6.222827.16338@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> nemeth@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Gabe Nemeth) writes: > >One thing a lot of people don't realize is that the amount of necessary code >in the roms is quite small. Thats because the system file contains patches >to the different revisions of mac roms that overlay buggy or outdated code. >So - all the roms have to contain is stuff found in the basic 64k roms. Not true. There are many routines that were added to the 128K ROMs that were never made available as disk patches. (For example, there are a lot of Resource Manager extensions and QuickDraw calls.) So a 64K ROM + System Disk does not equal a 128K ROM. -- Larry Rosenstein, Object Specialist Apple Computer, Inc. 20525 Mariani Ave, MS 46-B Cupertino, CA 95014 AppleLink:Rosenstein1 domain:lsr@Apple.COM UUCP:?sun,voder,nsc,decwrl?!apple!lsr ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 89 18:07:03 GMT From: mfci!wilson@uunet.uu.net (Jeff Wilson) Subject: Still searching... Gotta Flame a Little Message-ID: <1155@m3.mfci.UUCP> In article <1854@atari.UUCP> you write: > >daniel@pkmab.se (Daniel Deimert) writes: >| I can assure you -- you won't be able >| to sell a lot of computers if you don't tell them how to program it! > >I seriously doubt that the _majority_ of people who buy Atari >computers, or any other computers for that matter, have the slightest >desire to program their machines. The simple fact is, most people who >buy computers want to _use_ their computers. They don't want to be >bothered with "programming" the things. Where a computer company >will lose is if there is no software available for the computers. It >is important to make sure that professional programmers know how to >program the computers, not end users. > Boy, do I hesitate to flame, but..... FLAME ON! I am one of the minority of end-users who DO buy in order to pro- gram. Of course I use computers as tools, too. Several years ago, I bought a Commodore 64 with hopes of enjoy- ing a cheap hack. After living with it for six months, I gave it to a university for a tax break (BTW, don't do that unless you are prepared to receive donation-wheedling letters from the Dean of Development for years thereafter). Why? Because it a) wasn't well documented for development and b) didn't work as claimed in the documentation I could get (serial port inter- rupts weren't handled properly, among other things). What a pleasure to have found sources like "De Re Atari" and the Atari 800 internals manuals (including source code for the O.S. and BASIC ROMs)! I bought an 800XL, followed by two 130XEs that I own today. These products have more than met my expecta- tions, granted that they share a puny processing architecture. Within my library, I am ALWAYS sure to find definitive guidance to the way Atari did things. This has saved me lots of trial- and-error experimentation. It's also allowed me to write smal- ler, faster programs, since I can, for example, see what sorts of argument checks I do/don't have to provide before making O.S. calls. I've read this Newsgroup keenly for a few weeks now. I had hoped to find some encouragement for buying into the ST world. In- stead I've been scared off for the time being. There is too much talk of under-powered bus fan-outs, inconsistent results with this ROM Rev. or that one, worries about loss of dealer support (BTW, it's GONE in 8-bit Land :-( ), flakey laser printers, and concern for obsolescence of currently owned STs as TTs start shipping. (Could be worse, I guess. My brother owns one of those Amiga things, and it's always crashing. I can't imagine why one would attempt to build a multiprogramming environment around insufficient hardware protection!) I'm encouraged that Atari Engineering employees are entering this discussion. As a computer company employee myself, I know that Engineering is the soul of the organization: the Marketing guys think that they are in control, but this is a short-term delusion in a world of technology that changes so quickly (I know: I are a Marketing guy). It is worrisome that Ken B. has taken one of the traditional Marketing positions ("users want solutions, not tools or insight"), for he is an Engineering guy. The problem with this position is that it rationalizes (in my view) short- sighted customer support policies. One wonders how expedient (and ruthless?) the Atari Marketing guys must be! I will watch the unfolding of the TT product line closely. I wonder if Atari Marketing understands in its gut how different the UNIX world's expectations may be from those in place for the ST? MOST UNIX programmers grew up on SOURCE CODE for the O.S. and utilities; they don't bother reading the `man' pages. They learned in University to be very independent and outspoken. They follow a raft of independent UNIX publications (e.g., "UNIX World"), trade shows (Uniforum, UNIX Expo, etc.), and THIS NET. They know how UNIX is "supposed to work" based on their direct prior experience. They view UNIX as an open system, not a propri- etary, hardware-dependent system. This mass market will not view the TT as "power without the price." They will look at it as just another UNIX box, but with some in- teresting sound and graphics capabilities. They will be very at- tentive to what the media channels mentioned above say about it. If it's known as an unsupported turkey early on, it won't get an- other chance in this very competitive marketplace. Never mind how many VARs (value-added resellers of software solutions) may be po- tentially available to Atari. I ramble. The point of this is that a quality company cannot rationalize-away product support. And in the brave new world of computer glut (check the WSJ for DEC and IBM layoff news), no one need buy from a low-quality company. Everyone on this Newsgroup has a vested interest in Atari's suc- cess. Atari, please take care of those who love you (yes, even Richard Covert :-) ), and we'll take care of you at the sharehold- ers' meetings. We'll make the individual buying decisions that add up to considerable revenue and profit. I'll meet Ken B. halfway and agree that for products such as the Portfolio and STacey, the simplifying no-support assumption is appropriate and consistent with the long-term health of Atari's business. So, could there ever be such a thing as a registered ST/TT USER? FLAME OFF! Replies by email encouraged to conserve bandwidth. BTW, I agree heartily with Ken B.'s suggestion to write paper letters. Email is ephemeral, but an in-basket of letters is hard to duck and must be explained to The Boss sooner or later. Jeff ------------------------------ Date: 7 Dec 89 16:54:15 GMT From: cs.utexas.edu!asuvax!hrc!force!covertr@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Richard E. Covert) Subject: Who owns the ROM code? Message-ID: <474943e8.14a1f@force.UUCP> In article <8912061211.aa03001@benjamin.Cs.Bham.AC.UK>, RiddCJ@computer-science.birmingham.ac.UK (Chris Ridd) writes: > A slightly off-beat question, but I've been wondering for a while. > > > For a fairly simple enhancement to GEM, how about allowing more windows, like > 16, instead of the current meagre 8? This would allow all the DAs a window, > and lots for the App (encouraging the use of modeless dialogues). If I ever > designed something like the AES, I would have written #define NWINDOWS 8 or > some such-like, so would be able to change it later. Chris, I can't speak for Atari or the programmers there BUT the original TOS was written on a shoestring budget in a BIG hurray. So, some things wer left out. The new TOSes are just extensions of the original TOS. Added such features would increase the size of the ROM code. I can see why, with all the work being done on the TT's TOS, the ST TOS hasn't been changed dramatically. In fact, I would rather that Atari incorporate your suggestions into the TT. Make the TT a super multi-window multi-tasking machine. Make the TT much more wonderful than the ST. > > Shades of the MS Write discussion earlier this year! Hey, I like MS WRITE!!! I bought it a year ago and for the few letters that I write MS WRITE is fine. -- Richard E. Covert (covertr@gtephx) (602) - 581-4652 | AG Communications Systems, Phoenix AZ | UUCP: ?ncar!noao!asuvax | uunet!zardoz!hrc | att?!gtephx!covertr ------------------------------ End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #770 *****************************************