This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (2,128 messages)
#15173-
WShell RESIdent Problem?
Message #16093
Doing an AllocMem() with an impossibly large value causes a memory cleanup, including the flushing of libraries and fonts with open counts of zero. Note that some programs such as PrAge have bugs that cause libraries to be opened once and closed twice, leading to bugs when the flush occurs.
#15238-
We need non-interlace?
Message #16092
I think CBM is wasting its time by tinkering with zillions of things that only make any difference to programmers who work in obscure parts of the operating system… meanwhile, WB isn't so hot, and things like FONTS: are all screwed up, and Intuition needs a serious work-over… and meanwhile,…
#15869-
2090A question
Message #16091
Hee. Perry came to my birthday party, and gave me an SDP button. They were supposed to be given only to people who purchased the SDP. What a collector's item I have!
#15256-
80286 Bridge Card When
Message #16090
Did someone say "deals with the devil"? I'm an expert on the subject, I made a Foustian bargain and sold my soul for the ultimate personal computer…
#15497-
80286 Bridge Card When
Message #16089
Uhm, does this mean it is possible to infer that the greater market share of the PS/2 is due to the fact that their engineers aren't wasting time playing PR on networks, and are instead spending their time doing the job they were hired to do? Haynie, Scheppner, et al,…
#15664-
80286 Bridge Card When
Message #16088
I think CBM picked BIX only because they offered the most "free flags" for use by separate CBM people. On the order of 25, I hear. Plus, they offered support forums for anyone who wanted them. Plus, about half the people on BIX at that time were on complimentary accounts,…
Either way, I hope this message gets passed around, because I think a lot of developers will get p-o'd about it.
Yeah, I can believe that… Looks like I'll change my license. I don't like the looks of software rental places. It seems like a front for piracy to me. Software is too easy to copy. Also, how can you "rent" something like my company's Object Disks? If someone rents it…
The current precedent is that software rental is perfectly legal. Unless the company actively encourages software theft, or implies that you can copy the disk 'for your own' or some such….or if the rent software where the license specificaly prohibts the purchaser from charging a fee for use of the…
#15844-
C compilers
Message #15975
The documentation with C++ states that the product will use "the previous version of Lattice's C compiler." I asked, "does this mean I have version 3 here?" and was told "No, we gave you 4." The documentation goes on to suggest that those who want the absolutely best and tippy-topnotch…
I believe either SPA or ADAPSO has successfully prosecuted "Rental" companies in the past and I'd recommend that they be contacted. The lawyers are always hunting for a good "show case" that looks good in the news.
#Upscale Piracy
Message #15932
I'd like all developers to know about an Amiga "software rental" company… Their address is "Rent-A-Disc, Frederick Bldg. #222, Huntington, WV 25701". The phone number is (304) 529-3232. They are advertising in AmigaWorld. They've got an extensive list of all the most popular games and products on the Amiga, as…
Well, there you go, then… tho I'm not sure how (if) ready was used in this interface, likewise on the system drives.
Larry – that's not hpow autoboot works. If you have "any" floppy in the drive, the system MAY boot from it, if it's bootable. They wouyld have to mark each and every floppy, and look at it, in order to be certain where (if) the system was going to boot.…
Larry – I not only don't think that you have picked "the" issue, I don't think it is an issue at ALL. Let's see how the members of the forum respond. Do you care if there needs to be the physical presence of a floppy in a disk drive in…
Don – nor I. but I would like it to be faster – and this type of autoboot or the hardware one they implemented will be a LOT faster. It's just too bad that the way they choose will (again) require a major amount of work from the developers, revamping…
Don, That scenario presupposes that the WP line toggles (externally to the drive) when the disk is inserted or removed and the drive is not selected. -larry
Ah, but they don't. The 'ready' signal has been replaced with a 'disk changed' signal.
Ben, What they want (ask them) is to have ANY floppy in the drive, and knowing that if they want a 'nonstandard (for them)' environment, that they need a prticular floppy in the drive. -larry
#15698-
#80286 Bridge Card When
Message #15809
Ben, It isn't the time that the autoboot saves, but the very fact that you don't have to have a particular floppy in the drive. That's what the issue is with everyone I have heard wanting autoboot. Personally, while I think it's 'nice', it isn't important to me. I will…
Larry, There is only one 'CHNG' line also…the system has to figure out which disk was removed…and thus toggle the select lines to see which one has a disk, and which doesn't (without stepping). It then has to step the disk to see if a new disk has been inserted…and…
I have no inate need for the floppy slot to be empty. In fact, I have no inate need for autoboot. I'm happy with my startup-sequence that takes about 5 to 10 seconds to get off the floppy and onto the HD.
#15744-
#Hard drive boots
Message #15788
Rick, My response was based on the fact that the manufacturer says that to detect a diskchange, you must step the drive. This tells me that there may be a reson why you cannot use a simpler method, such as detecting a change on the write protect status line. In…
2090-2090a swap
Message #15685
Hmmm. Seems to me that you're beating the same mule. Forcing each manufacturer to come up with a boot floppy – well, heck, right NOW you're forcing them to come up with a boot ROM, which (A) adds cost to the PCB, (B) is hard to deal with for updates.…
#80286 Bridge Card When
Message #15684
Also – I don't think that the "have to have NO floppy" is any different from having to have a "PARTICULAR" floppy in there to make it boot. Actually, if you have to have NO floppy or a non-bootable floppy, I think that there is no difference at all in…
Timers
Message #15681
Those of you who are _really_ familiar with the Amiga's timer's… I have a question that is fairly important to me – and of course, the docs say nothing in particular about it. I need to have control over one (any one) of the four timers in the Amiga; Total…
YOu get 0 noise – and (at about 1/hz rate of "click" – you get the equivalent wear as if your Amiga stepped your floppy ALL the way out and ALL the way back every 3 or four minutes. Nice. The users here ask for lot's of things, Don -…
It works without patches, and as far as _I_ know, works fine on 3.5's which use the same interface as the 5 and 1/4's, don';t they? The board does indeed convert the signals as required – you slap the board on, and the drive works – period. If the 3.5…
Agreed. I've always thought MFF was one of the stablest Amiga applications available, and up till now I haven't missed the lack of relational abilities. I'm waiting for my copy of ARexx to arrive, so I can begin working with MFF+ in earnest. I may still need Superbase Pro (when…
#One That Came On Time
Message #15586
Got my upgrade last week (in September!). MFF is a fairly humble flat file but I have to say it is one of the finest Amiga applications going. The interface is beautifully consistant and intuitive. It never crashes. The author's attention to detail is amazing. The manual leaves nothing to…
#15431-
#Atari ST monitor
Message #15576
I just hooked up the appropriate R,G,B, and SUNC lines, and it worked fine. I did go inside and fiddle with the size controls, and may have tweaked the an internal brightness pot as well, but if I remember right I did not have a problem with brightness at all.…
#15427-
80286 Bridge Card When
Message #15557
It is indeed pulling yourself up by the shoelaces, which is what boot code is all about. They have implemented it in a manner that fits in very well with the autoconfig process, does not impact those without hard drives or those without autoboot capability on their hard drive controllers,…
Fascinating argument Ben. While Ron (and many others) are wanting to boot from HD without going to floppy, you want to go back to floppy, requiring the floppy to be in the drive. Tell you what… why don't we suggest having something that would allow you to define what drive…
Ben, They _have_ fixed bugs in the system. In 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 The accelerator showed up in a different form (Sidecar). The OS is backward compatible with the 1000… what support are you speaking of? They _do_ advertise. Not as much as you or I might like, but advertise…
Mike, You bet that will make a difference! The jumpers on the default video mode select (j1) should be as illustrated in the book!!!! Also, there should be NO jumper on J7. J7 is a production test jumper and having a jumper across it could very easily cause you problems.…
Important, I won't argue about. Flexible I will! The problem I see with loading the boot code from floppy is that each manufacturer would have to produce their own 'boot floppy', and in doing so would keep any other device from 'autobooting'. As I said earlier, autoboot is much much…
#15458-
#Bridgeboard install help
Message #15476
Don, I'll check that. One thing that I did notice was that jumper J1 was not jumpered as illustrated in appendix H of the Bridgeboard user's guide. The jumpers are as follows: 1 2 3——4 5——6 as opposed to: 1 2 3 4 | | 5 6 as described. Any…
That's NOT what the user's here have been asking for, they have been asking for an autoboot with NO floppy. Not only that, it would require that you use the first track of each and every possible disk you could ever have in the drive on boot up to have…
#15330-
#Hard drive boots
Message #15434
Um, well realize I know zip about the way the drives and KS interact. But going on my assumptions, which is all I have… er… "upon which to go"?: Since the Amiga STEPS the 3 1/2" drives every second to see if there is a disk in place, it would…
#15369-
#2090-2090a swap
Message #15424
Dean – if there is a disk in the system, how does the Amiga know it isn't bootable? It READS it, of course. The whole track. 11k of "stuff". That's enough code (especially since it can be ANY code, including updates, bug fixes, etc) to boot anything, which is MY…
or even (I doubt it, it's almost a tradition now, but…) they might direct their attention to PREFERENCES which is as buggy as any program can be and still do any work. Perhaps they might direct their attention to the 80286 board – or perhaps they ought to throw it…
No – I'm not talking about an HD driver in the _DOS_ sense. Let's examine things here for a sec, shall we? First of all, what is the "autoboot" in terms of resources? Well, AmigaDOS isn't up yet – KS is in (ROMs, of course) and the KS has just…
#Program idea
Message #15405
Here's a challenge to the great Amiga programmers out there. Many of us know of the infamous AREAD and AWRITE commands and what a pain they are. (For those who don't, they are clumsy MSDOS commands made to transfer data files between the Amiga side and the IBM side via…
Ben, Yup, I was right…we were talking autoboot…or at least you were in your message to Ron Troy (15162) to which I replied. You suggested putting the autoboot code in boot sectors on the disk, I presumed you meant the HD since autoboot implies NO floppy at all. My reply…
Ben, Aren't we taking autoboot? If so, then we don't want to read a HD driver off the boot sectors of a floppy, sice that's the whole idea behind autoboot (no floppies). And since we don't have the HD driver installed yet, then we certainly can't read it off the…
Well, you can always try it first, neh?
Mmm. I have an old Heath Mohican that my dad built. It was a fine receiver in its day — for what it was — but it was never very stable, and it's gotten worse with age, so I don't expect that would work. Maybe I can find a friend…
Yes – depending on the local oscillator configuration, you may be experiencing several things. warmup, of course, does not count; tubes change physical size during that time, and all bets are off. If your oscillator is unbuffered, then the coupling capacitor to the mixer stage(s) could be varying in value,…
Ben, Thanks again. I will wait. Commercial sounds good to me. Its hard to beat economies of scale. Only advantage to brewing your own is to build the unavailable or self satisfaction. The HQ-160 is only spec'd for less than 100Hz drift. Lately, even when it is warm, I have…
Who said anything about the OS? I'm talking about a disk that simply boots the HD; In a 500 or a 2000, the exec is already in rom – so you don't need that on the disk (tho part of it could be there, if needed) you just need the…
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