========================================================================= INFO-ATARI16 Digest Wed, 13 Dec 89 Volume 89 : Issue 800 Today's Topics: AES bug? --> No, I just didn't know what i was doing!! ATM on the Spectre GCR continued... Directory node descriptors and AHDI FLAMES and SUPPORT IN THE MINUS REALM (2 msgs) Mahjong and Drachen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 13 Dec 89 18:14:58 GMT From: bucsb!harryk@CS.BU.EDU (_harryk) Subject: AES bug? --> No, I just didn't know what i was doing!! Message-ID: <150@bucsb.UUCP> I would like to thank Robert from Netherlands and Darek from ATARI Corp. for answering my question! They both suggested to use wind_update() instead of menu_bar(), inside the for-loop! So YES, that was the answer: once i did it, everything was working fine! As far as MN_SELECTED is concerned, i have to apologise, but i was using MU_MESAG from the very first time; i just mistyped the code when i sent it to the net! The sad thing is, that I've never seen wind_update() documented along with any menu_xxxx() function! I'm using MWC's manual and "GEM Programer's Reference" by Abacus, as GEM reference guides! In both of them, wind_update() is NOT even MENTIONED on the pages talking about menus! But that's why Use- Net does exist, i guess! So, for any future GEM programer who wants to use keyboard equivalents, be carefull when using menu_bar(menutree, 0/1). If you want to disable the menu bar while you are in the main loop, use wind_update(BEG/END_UPDATE); among other things it disables the menu bar too! I figured it out, in the hard way, but I'm glad that people like Robert and Darek do exist and are ready to help! Thanks again!! Harry Karayiannis 3rd Year Computer Science Boston University PS1: Ken, Alan and Darek prove every day, through this net, that ATARI Corp. Programming Department consists of outstanding individuals! Imagine ST Community's future (in the US) without those three men advising other ST users and programmers! (I only wish ATARI could publish a complete documentation on Technical Information about its machines, and make it available to the public! All the books i've seen assume that the reader is already familiar with GEM, and are used as refernce books! Only Pro- spero Software provides exceptional documentation with its products - I happen to own Prospero Pascal (but still,nothing about wind_update() on menu pages) - )! PS2: Ok Robert, I haven't forgotten you! In the past, i said that Germans are ST wizards! I did forget to add Netherland guys too! Actually, in the middle Europe one can get the most out of his ST, and Netherlans is in the middle Europe, right? BTH, I love the Netherland version of the game RISK! Take care guys!!!! ------------------------------ Date: 13 DEC 89 12:25:50 CST From: Z4648252 Subject: ATM on the Spectre GCR continued... Message-ID: <891213.12254953.033065@SFA.CP6> Sorry folks, ...but I'm getting a lot of bounced mail. The following letter and my reply to him may be of benefit to others, though... ---- Thanks for the info on Adobe Type Manager and Spectre. I was wondering what printer driver you use and how that ties in to ATM? I use the Grappler LS driver under Spectre to drive my deskjet, and it comes with a set of fonts called G-Dutch and G-Swiss. I get 300-dpi fonts (no jaggies), because the Grappler Driver uses the 4x version of the screen font to print to the Deskjet (e.g., the 12-point screen font is printed using the corresponding 48-point font). Would ATM make my printer driver unnecessary? Thanks for any info, Rana Dutt rcd@mtqua.att.com ---- Rana, I've a feeling that Grappler LS drivers may have a fit with ATM, but I have not tested the Grappler program yet. The reason that I say that is because Grappler LS does not support PostScript, so they say. ATM still requires a printer driver. The one that I really like is from DataPak. I don't know its price, though. I understand that there are several PD/shareware drivers out there. I believe that they are listed in Dave Small's newsletter. At LISTSERV@RICE, there are two files which are in the domain: DESKJET-DRIVER and DESKJET-DRIVER-MANUAL. To get these type: $MACARCH GET UTIL/DESKJET-DRIVER.HQX $MACARCH GET UTIL/DESKJET-DRIVER-MANUAL.HQX I have found that the smaller fonts are cleaner than Grappler's. Also, you can save a lot of disk space with ATM. All you need are the 10 and 12 points of the font family to get sizes up to whatever. I'm able to use 100 point with no problem at all. Installation is not particularly clear via the manual (sound familiar?). Basically, you merely install the outline fonts in your System Folder (generous samples are on the ATM disk) and install ATM's bitmap fonts into the System program. ATM claims that if you already have bitmapped fonts of the same name as that supplied by ATM, that you don't need to replace those. However, my bitmapped fonts were really huge in space since they went above 12 point in size. ATM only needs a maximum of 12 point to give you beautiful type so I swapped fonts. Obviously, if you are using a large font for a utility, such as SuperClock, then you'd want to keep that point size. I've found that utilities will not access ATM. ATM is only used via document processors. Also, no skewing of characters, or character rotation is supported by ATM. Be sure to read on the net all the corrections that other users will be making of my letter! I'm sure that I've goofed up somewhere in trying to explain all of this. At any rate, ATM is a great addition to the Spectre GCR. I love it. Even at a list price of $99.00, it is a great program. Larry Rymal: |East Texas Atari 68NNNers| ------------------------------ Date: 13 Dec 89 14:02:54 GMT From: att!dptg!lzaz!hcj@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (HC Johnson) Subject: Directory node descriptors and AHDI Message-ID: <884@lzaz.ATT.COM> In article <8912130812.AA24281@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, MALCOLM@tower-vax.city-poly.ac.UK writes: > Which brings me to my > question. When I disassembled AHDI (version 1.7 I think) I noticed that it > contained identical pool-extension code to FOLDRXXX. So am I right in thinking > that if AHDI extends the pool by a large enough number of directory node > descriptors I can throw away FOLDRXXX? I could add code to AHDI to make the > extnension variable (duplicating the functionality of the 'XXX' in 'FOLDRXXX'). NO! ahdi adds folders so that you can even load foldrxxx.prg (tos 1.0). I learned this the hard way when trying to find why I had a tos1.4 problem not on 1.0. I recompiled my ahdi clone without the folder fix and found I could not open any files in the desktop. They had all been used in getting there. (Yes I'm sure the number of sub directories in c: affected my case.) However, ahdi does not add enough for many applications. FOLDRXXX.PRG allows you to take enough memory for your environment without wasting too much memory. Howard C. Johnson ATT Bell Labs att!lzaz!hcj hcj@lzaz.att.com ------------------------------ Date: 13 Dec 89 16:44:12 GMT From: haven!uvaarpa!murdoch.acc.virginia.edu!bessel.acc.Virginia.EDU!gl8f@purdue.edu (Greg Lindahl) Subject: FLAMES and SUPPORT IN THE MINUS REALM Message-ID: <1989Dec13.164412.11919@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> Although people seem to have loud ideas about what Atari should do, I don't see many concrete suggestions in many of these postings... In article <4905@blake.acs.washington.edu> ramsiri@blake.acs.washington.edu (Enartloc Nhoj) writes: ! I was very fascinated with the computer's potential and I wanted to ! learn how to program the thing. Needless to say, I was shocked at how ! little information was provided when I opened my box. How many PC Clones or Amigas come with lots of programming info out of the box? Macs? Every wonder why? Market surveys. ! I think it would !be a great benefit to the ATARI community if ATARI would !provide a much improved manual with their systems as well !as a package priced reasonably that could be purchased by !an "end-user" that would give a clear and accurate image !of what's inside the plastic casing. What don't you like about the current 3rd party books about programming the ST? I don't think they're perfect, but they were certainly good enough to let me write GEM applications. ------ Greg Lindahl ------------------------------ Date: 13 Dec 89 18:25:41 GMT From: pasteur!cory.Berkeley.EDU!soohoo@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Ken "nmi" Soohoo) Subject: FLAMES and SUPPORT IN THE MINUS REALM Message-ID: <20633@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> In article <24958@cup.portal.com> Bob_BobR_Retelle@cup.portal.com writes: >Just one question in this discussion... > >If Atari has such a low opinion of the "end users" who buy their machines, >and can assume that 90% of them only want to run programs, not write them, >why has Atari traditionally supplied a *programming language* with the >computers..? > >In fact, my ST came with *two* programming languages... > >BobR Bob, It seems to me that supplying a language like Basic fits exactly into the type of support that Atari is capable of providing at the moment -- they'll supply a language to everyone if they don't need to tell them what they're doing wrong when they get bugs using it. Anyone can go out and buy a Basic book and figure it out themselves. Keep in mind that Atari is a _small_ company, the programmers that you see on the net are a _sizable_ portion of their entire programming staff. We all work really hard to give people support, but we've got jobs to do also, and don't read news all day. Atari _has_ a technical support person, for developers, but then again, resources are limited. Now, you're gonna say "why doesn't Atari release all their documentation instead of hiding it, then people would stop clamouring about support." Unfortunately, this ain't true. The more people have documentation from Atari, the more they feel that they can ask Atari about problems with their programs. The staff required to support a book like DE RE ATARI is HUGE, GIGANTIC, and was nice at the time, but the Tramiel's Atari doesn't run on that kinda $$. You _can_ get all the documentation you need to write fine Atari GEM based programs out of MWC's manual, or books like "Programming the Atari ST", which is a fine book... And I like to use the "Programmer's Guide to GEM", although it's also fraught with frustrating translations between IBM and Atari world GEMs, and some things that are just plain wrong. If you want, you can grab the Atari developer's docs for about $100 (last I checked, don't quote me on it ;-)). That's a fine reference manual, as long as you're used to 'man' pages... ;-). Woah, been on a soapbox for a little there... Um, ok, seriously, I know the end user's gonna buy the ST for a little programming work, but the moment they start thinking about _real_ programming, they should go out and buy a good C compiler (or pick your favorite language). Is it _really_ the job of Atari to supply the end user with the language(s) and documentation for the price they charge you for the computer? Ok, I don't think so. I think it's _perfectly reasonable_ to charge for that kind of software and docs, which you'll note, Apple does too ;-). It's a service, just like anything else in the computer world, and you're gonna have to pay. Developers _do_ get discounts on hardware... They _do_ have someone to call when they've got problems... You gotta pay. Atari doesn't have a low opinion of the end user, it has simply reduced what it ships with the machine to what it deems is the lowest common denominator among the buyers of the machine -- what _everyone_ is gonna find useful. Thus the prices remain low, and you get something neato. If you want more, ok, you'll have to buy it, but _what_ you buy is now up to _you_, and not Atari. They don't spend your money _for_ you. --Kenneth "kens" Soohoo (soohoo@cory.Berkeley.Edu) Atari Hacker (Atari's Hacker...) "It could be worse, you could get hit by a bus..." My opinions are my OWN, _not_ necessarily Atari's. But "hey", who knows? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 13 Dec 89 16:04:19 MEZ From: Theo Schmid Subject: Mahjong and Drachen I'm playing Mah-jong and I knew Drachen. 1.: The pieces are the same in both games. Exactly as Dale Schumacher discribe them. 2.: Mah-Jong is a game like rummy, but Drachen is more like patience. If someone wants to know the Rules: I'm able to post them. Theo Acknowledge-To: ------------------------------ Date: (null) From: (null) To: info-atari16 Subject: uniterm Greetings Is there a way of redefining the keyboard in uniterm such as in MS-KERMIT? In particular I would like the delete key to send a ~[[3? and shifted arrow keys to send ~[[5? and the like. I use an AT and MS-KERMIT with a home brew keyboard map to emulate a vt200/svt1220 keyboard with our Sperry. I would like to do the same type of thing with uniterm but as far as I can tell I can only redefine the function keys. Any help would be appreciated. Norm Frech ( frech@MWRAAA.ARMY.MIL ) ============================================================================= "Verbatum regurgitation is against my principles". Neal - The Young Ones ============================================================================= ------------------------------ Date: (null) From: (null) To: info-atari16 Subject: Dealers Greetings. After reading the glowing reviews of tos 1.4 on this digest I decided to call my local dealer here in St. Louis, Missouri (The only Atari dealer in this area that I know of) and get a price. Guess what, they do not have tos 1.4 and do not know when they will get it!!! My dealer is Randall's Home Computers 6166 Howdershell St. Louis, Missouri Anybody at Atari out there? Norm Frech frech@mwraaa.army.mil ------------------------------ End of INFO-ATARI16 Digest V89 Issue #800 *****************************************