This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (244 messages)
> Then again, I'm told that on one occasion in the 19th century, a state > legislature passed a law that in that state, the value of pi would be > taken as 3. Seems they wanted to simplify things .. 🙂 I read about this years ago in one…
> After all, Wing Commander was really only the same thing, spruced up a > bit. Wing Commander has the flashy graphics and the stirring music, but Star Raiders has playability. Maybe I'm just slowing down with age but I find the asteroid fields in Wing Commander unplayable. I can…
I don't know how strong a connection there is between the UK and USA Tandy shops. When they first opened over here they only sold their own brand names. Over the last few years they have relaxed that but I only asked them out of sheer desperation, they didn't sell…
> I've had an account with them since the days of my Atari 800 – i.e the > one before the 800XL! I remember going to Silica to buy an Atari 400. They were showing Star Raiders on a big screen TV. I left the shop with the 400, Star…
#European retail
Message #215950
Last time I asked our local Escom branch they said they didn't know if they would be selling Amigas, but at least they had heard of them. Our local Tandy shop say they will be selling the A1200 sometime in November. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
Well I don't know Gamesmith or DICE but here are a few ideas to be going on with. If the compiler is reporting errors in Gamesmith structures, are you including all the #includes that Gamesmith needs? If the Gamesmith .h files are in their own directory you may need to…
I have never actually tried to write a compiler but I read about the tiny BASIC interpreters that used to be popular on old 8 bit machines. They sound quite simple but IMHO C sounds like a more difficuly language to compile. You have to keep track of nested structures…
> BTW, on the other part of my message – does the Amiga have training tapes > like the PC? I seem to remember _Something_ when the Amiga first came > out, but I personally don't see that much of a need for it. When I got my first A500…
> Since a Pentium is running Windoze, very possibly far greater. Depends > on the efficacy of the task distribution, really. If I owned a Pentium it would spend some of its time running a sane operating system, probably one of the freeware unix lookalikes like Linux or NetBSD. As…
> >>Getting more out of fewer staff seems to be the main aim where I am > working now, and I think it is true in most places. Same here, but I remain convinced that it *should* not be this way. I agree but it seems to be the way…
#New computer
Message #214885
> >>Also sounds very expensive. $1600 for a basic machine is not expensive at all. I think I was replying to Steve's "what does this sound like…" message that had the spec but not the price. That price sounds good for a machine with that spec although I would like…
New Virus
Message #214884
> When you download a text/script file, do you not view it first? You would > see the commands that would be harmful. If you can see these commands, > then they are not really virus'. virus' are hidden commands given to your > system to do dammage or print…
If you have SAS 6.50 this can compile C++. It is not as up to date as some other compilers, it does not include templates or exceptions. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
> >>The idea of building all my own tools has a certain apeal to me but in > reality I don't have the expertise or the time to write a compiler, and I > expect that goes for most amateur and professional developers. For the amateurs, I agree. An amateur…
One approach would be to store your strings in encrypted form and decrypt them just before they are displayed. A simple method which would deter the casual hacker (but not a determined code breaker) would be to exclusive or each character in the string with a fixed bit pattern. This…
I have heard there were internal expansions for the 500 greater than 1meg but they were not simple plug in jobs like the 1meg board. You had to attach extra wires from the board to the Amiga motherboard. You might find it hard to get expansion boards for the 500…
> I think this is related to an issue Peter was trying to understand > better. Being told not to fiddle is different that being not allowed to > accidently fiddle [directly]. Peter, do you see this? Yes, I saw Jim's message. I have heard people say that the Amiga's…
> … I am against the use of HLL's by programmers making commercial > programs if they didn't program the HLL themselves because of the errors. The idea of building all my own tools has a certain apeal to me but in reality I don't have the expertise or the…
> Why? Do you mean to tell me that you never use local variable in your > functions? Have you ever used C's static? Don't you use multi-.c files > each including respective .h files? It's simply just another dimension > of encapulation, except it is no longer in the…
> >they get worried if I use C. > I'm much more worried about programmers than the languages they use 🙁 That sounds like a good attitude. The worst thing is non-programming managers who take the old cliches at face value. Like "Fourth Generation Languages improve programmer productivity", so we…
When I am designing a program I usually start by looking at what information I will be using and I design data structures to represent that. Then as the design progresses I will write functions to manipulate these structures. From what I have read so far about C++, you put…
> There is one, extremely important advantage to programming in assembler > instead of other languages: all the bugs are YOURS! This is very true! High level languages can be very useful but when a compiler goes wrong it can be very tricky to get round. This afternoon at work…
Unfortunatly SAS C++ 6.55 does not support templates. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
> As far as I am concerned, OO makes programs slower, bigger, more buggy, > … than plain good (not too structured) programming. I suppose it is the same trade off between low level efficiency and fast development that has been going on since programming began. I miss programming in…
I see what you mean. My usual approach to designing a program is to design data structures that match the way I am trying to solve the problem and write functions to manipulate them. The advantage of OO is that it encourages you to hide the data structures behind access…
> If the line were too busy, the CI$ modem should refuse the call (i.e. you > should get a "BUSY" answer). Otherwise, you are charged for a useless > call!!! It often happens. I get a mixture of engaged signals, calls where CIS answers but I don't get a…
There is a chapter on BOOPSI in the ROM Kernal Libraries book third edition but I haven't come across anything else about it. Do you find OO to be a good method for desingning programs? I am supposed to be getting some OO trainning in a few months. From what…
Which Oberon compiler do you use? I have Oberon-A (the free one) installed on my Amiga but I haven't got around to doing anything with it yet. It looks good from what I have seen so far. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
I thought Parnet was an Amiga only network. Where did you get the PC version? Do you know if it would let a PC use a CD32/SX1 setup as a CD drive? Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
The virus checker we use has no graphics at all, apart from the sort of "propellor effect" done by cycling through the characters / – \ | on the command line. I've swapped the SCSI for an IDE CD now, but while I had the problem with the virus checker…
I think that SAS has its own printf in sc.lib. amiga.lib has a few extra functions for creating tasks and other structures but you can get by without them. I think the newer versions of amiga.lib contain some stuff that is needed for BOOPSI, but I haven't tried to figure…
ESCOM – UUGH!!!
Message #209009
I'm not surprised about the problem running a virus checker in a 512K machine. We have a virus checker on the network at work that automatically runs when you log on, one day each week. When I had a SCSI CD drive installed in my PC the virus checker refused…
I haven't tried this myself, but according to the autodocs the functions you need for the ASL file requester are : AllocAslRequest () – This puts up the requester AslRequest () – This requests the file FreeAslReuest () – This gets rid of the requester Peter Wade Autopiloting from London,…
amiga.lib is on the Fresh Fish 7 disc so I assume it can be put online as well. Generally you need the include files and amiga.lib to handle the interface between the compiler and the Amiga shared libraries. The shared libraries themselves come with the operating system, they are contained…
The SAS compiler has all the include files you need to do graphics, buttons, menus etc but you need documentation on the Amiga to find out how to use them. The Rom Kernal refence manuals published by Addison Wesley are the offical documentation up to OS 2.04 and there are…
The autodocs are very useful but you can program without them. They are files which you can read to give you information on how to use system calls. The compiler only needs the include files. The main problem is that the printed Rom Kernal Manuals only go up to 2.04.…
AFAIK it is OK for the includes to be online on a BBS that has the correct licence. Fresh Fish 7 has 3 versions of includes including 3.1. The Autodocs cannot be legally put online though. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
The Amiga Includes are available on a number of CDs. I know they are on Fresh Fish 7. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
The 1 goes after the 0 at the start of the number. There are a few exceptions to this but it does apply to old 0392 numbers. I think if you are calling from outside the UK you do not include the 0. The number you gave for Brian Fowler…
Hisoft used to be the UK importers of SAS/C but I don't know if they still stock it. You can ring them on 01525 718181. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
When my 1084 went wrong I had it repaired by a local TV repair shop. Although it is called a "Computer Monitor", the 1084 is AFAIK very similar to a domestic television with no tuner. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
Do you sell SCSI cables for the external SCSI connector on an A590? This has a connector that looks like a longer verision of the serial and parallel connectors on the computer. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
I upgraded from 2.04 to 3.1 and I think it is well worth it. Some utilities which work on 2.04 work better on 3.1 and you get Multiview which can use datatypes to view different file formats, CrossDos that can read and write PC discs and other goodies. I have…
The Superview viewer is in the library as SV.LHA, the library is SV-LIB.LHA in AmigaTech. The lirary is free but you have to pay for the viewer. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
I think that IMAGENG.LHA in library 14 is the Image Engineer program. I had a look through the library with keyword "superview" and found a fractal program called KFP that uses the Superview library but I don't know what that is like. There is also the "Superview" viewer which uses…
Escom buys Rumbelows
Message #196890
I was thinking that by the time you add the multimedia extras to the cheap Escom machine you get a similar price to the fully equiped US machine. Also, Escom have signs up saying "Introductory Offers" but the staff I asked didn't seem to know if this meant all the…
This thing of saving the workbench from Superview nearly allways happened to me. I never figured out what caused it, I just switched to using Image Engineer. Peter Wade Autopiloting from London, England
Our local Rumbelows has re-opened as an Escom. They didn't know anything about plans for the Amiga but they did at least know that Escom had bought Amiga. They were selling Pentiums starting around 1000 pounds including VAT, is that still cheap for a Pentium? Peter Wade Autopiloting from London,…
I think we are talking at cross purposes here, I actually meant the original idea in this thread. I agree that the designers of the C64 probably had games in mind when they added the sprites but someone was suggesting in this thread that sprites could be used to implement…
Raster interrupts let you re-use sprites in different vertical positions but AFAIK you are still limited to eight on any horizontal line. I think the original idea was to use them to extend the character set. I don't think they are really relevent for that, surely the best idea is…
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