CompuServe Archive

This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.

Search Results (272 messages)

#10527 Benchmark Modula-2 Message #10552
You can also learn a lot about M2 programming by reading our magazine. We have a regular column by Anthony Bryant and additional occasional features on M2. Tim
BYTE is just like any other magazine (except us, of course!)… they will provide continued coverage on only those products that are advertised in their publication. Simple reality of the magazine business. I think CBM should advertise in BYTE — not because it is an authority in the field but…
I don't know if DDJ can *afford* to pay more than TransAmi but they may not do so… I was surprised to discover that Computer Languages magazine pays their authors less than we do. Tim.
#129589- Transactor Message #130404
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Talk to the Trade June 19, 1988 9:55 AM
Sure Tom… the full name of the magazine is "Transactor for the Amiga", and it's mainly oriented towards intermediate and advanced Amiga programmers. Subscriptions are $15 US/yr (6 issues); the number to call in the States is 1-800-248-2719 ext. 911.
#129589- Transactor Message #130404
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Talk to the Trade June 19, 1988 9:55 AM
Sure Tom… the full name of the magazine is "Transactor for the Amiga", and it's mainly oriented towards intermediate and advanced Amiga programmers. Subscriptions are $15 US/yr (6 issues); the number to call in the States is 1-800-248-2719 ext. 911.
#117640 #Do we char? Message #117898
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Programming April 7, 1988 11:04 PM
Thanks for the research, John. Like you, I would have preferred the signedness of char to be defined in the language specification… let the application programmer worry about fine tuning the efficiency of the code with type specifications if desired, but make the default portable. Ah, well. 64 bits? That's…
#117640 #Do we char? Message #117898
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Programming April 7, 1988 11:04 PM
Thanks for the research, John. Like you, I would have preferred the signedness of char to be defined in the language specification… let the application programmer worry about fine tuning the efficiency of the code with type specifications if desired, but make the default portable. Ah, well. 64 bits? That's…
#117278 #lattice C Message #117442
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Programming April 4, 1988 11:59 AM
Hmm. I think your assumptions need a spring-cleaning, Steve. Here's the loop from the Aztec strcpy: loop move.b (a1)+,(a0)+ bne loop The whole function consists of that loop plus three instructions to set up the two address registers and d0 for the return value (the address of the target string),…
#117278 #lattice C Message #117442
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Programming April 4, 1988 11:59 AM
Hmm. I think your assumptions need a spring-cleaning, Steve. Here's the loop from the Aztec strcpy: loop move.b (a1)+,(a0)+ bne loop The whole function consists of that loop plus three instructions to set up the two address registers and d0 for the return value (the address of the target string),…
#117008- #lattice C Message #117222
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Programming April 3, 1988 9:40 AM
movmem? That's an arcane way to do it! How about strcpy(string, "string"); , which is not only simpler but also makes sure the terminating null is present in the destination string, which it would not have been in your example unless the '6' was changed to a '7'?
#117008- #lattice C Message #117222
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Programming April 3, 1988 9:40 AM
movmem? That's an arcane way to do it! How about strcpy(string, "string"); , which is not only simpler but also makes sure the terminating null is present in the destination string, which it would not have been in your example unless the '6' was changed to a '7'?
#115910 amigados bitmap Message #116151
Ariel, I _hope_ that's not that actual code they use to compute the hash function… I hate to think of 'i' being initialized and incremented all those times to no purpose whenever a file name is referenced.henever
Will it? I was thinking of the Manx linker; don't know beans about Blink.
#115674- #HAYES,SERIALPORTS,DATA Message #115863
Greg, yes that should work. About the only other way to do it is to dynamically allocate the chip ram from within your program and copy the image data into the allocated area. That wastes memory, since you're duplicating the data, but might be acceptable if the amount duplicated is…
#115032 Amiga Transactor Message #115156
Actually, at least some of the TransAmi source code _will_ eventually find its way into the DLs… if we weren't so caught up right now in the Joy of Typesetting, it would have been done already. Right now we're kind of frantic here, and the uploads have to wait just…
#114008 #Trashing low mem Message #114109
Interesting, that's also the spot the Manx assembler dumps on (with a $62), and it of course doesn't use menus. Does it always put the same value there? Nick
#111657 RGB Encoder Message #111664
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor The Amiga Forum · Hardware March 1, 1988 12:16 AM
Right. One of the more annoying things about developing with Aztec and db is that the assembler itself can set off db's low memory checksum alarm. Unlike memwatch, unfortunately, db doesn't provide a way to undo the damage automatically. Nick
#111560 #RGB Encoder Message #111636
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor The Amiga Forum · Hardware February 29, 1988 10:09 PM
Actually, a lot of that low memory is "reserved" by the 68000 itself rather than the Amiga. The vectors for traps and interrupts are stored in the low 1K of memory because that's where the 68000 wants to see them. I believe the 010 and 020 are more flexible about…
#109968 Hunk types Message #109982
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor The Amiga Forum · Programming February 20, 1988 12:12 AM
David, that indicates that the hunk has to be loaded into CHIP memory. For a reference on how and why that bit is used, look right near the end of the AmigaDOS Technical Reference Manual, in the section on the ATOM utility. Nick
#109949 Benchmark Tasks Message #109978
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor The Amiga Forum · Modula-2 February 20, 1988 12:03 AM
Umm, open up ExtIO? I'm not quite sure what you mean by that, but it doesn't sound right. The task whose variables you want to change has to create a public message port that your other task can search for (with FindPort()), and then wait at that port (as well…
#109934 #Benchmark Tasks Message #109945
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor The Amiga Forum · Modula-2 February 19, 1988 8:48 PM
Jim, the normal way to do something like that is through the message passing mechanism. Set up a message port for your sleeping task and invent some kind code to be carried in the message that will tell the task what you want modified. After it's carried out the modification,…
#109755 What goes where? Message #109777
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 18, 1988 1:15 PM
Larry, the difference is that an unconverted BPTR is a meaningless number; whereas a pointer to long in C actually does give you the address of the long word you want. Moreover, a BPTR can only "point" to a longword that is long word aligned, which is to say that…
#109755 What goes where? Message #109777
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 18, 1988 1:15 PM
Larry, the difference is that an unconverted BPTR is a meaningless number; whereas a pointer to long in C actually does give you the address of the long word you want. Moreover, a BPTR can only "point" to a longword that is long word aligned, which is to say that…
#109763 What goes where? Message #109776
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 18, 1988 1:06 PM
Rick, right you are… 127 + 1 = -128 for signed char.
#109763 What goes where? Message #109776
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 18, 1988 1:06 PM
Rick, right you are… 127 + 1 = -128 for signed char.
#109717 #What goes where? Message #109734
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 18, 1988 12:31 AM
Larry, the unnatural thing about BPTRs is that they're not pointers at all in the normal sense, they're the ordinal number of a long-word in memory; i.e. the BPTR to address 4 is 1, to address 8 is 2… etc. I'm not sure (haven't tried), but since C lets you…
#109717 #What goes where? Message #109734
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 18, 1988 12:31 AM
Larry, the unnatural thing about BPTRs is that they're not pointers at all in the normal sense, they're the ordinal number of a long-word in memory; i.e. the BPTR to address 4 is 1, to address 8 is 2… etc. I'm not sure (haven't tried), but since C lets you…
#109707 What goes where? Message #109733
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 18, 1988 12:25 AM
Ben, (*strcmp)() ought to do it. If you have an array of function names, thus: static int (*funcs[])() = { func1, func2, func3 }; you can call the nth one with: returnval = (*(funcs[n]))(args); Nick
#109707 What goes where? Message #109733
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 18, 1988 12:25 AM
Ben, (*strcmp)() ought to do it. If you have an array of function names, thus: static int (*funcs[])() = { func1, func2, func3 }; you can call the nth one with: returnval = (*(funcs[n]))(args); Nick
#109568 What goes where? Message #109581
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 17, 1988 3:13 AM
Larry, I'd assume the reason for keeping both keywords around is so that you can write code that will work with older compilers that accept both keywords but don't necessarily default to the one you want. It seems that making an overt specification for the signedness of char is going…
#109568 What goes where? Message #109581
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 17, 1988 3:13 AM
Larry, I'd assume the reason for keeping both keywords around is so that you can write code that will work with older compilers that accept both keywords but don't necessarily default to the one you want. It seems that making an overt specification for the signedness of char is going…
#109562 What goes where? Message #109580
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 17, 1988 3:07 AM
Larry, the M2 array-bounds checking is only for arrays that you declare as such to the compiler. John is correct that with run-time-allocated arrays the compiler has no way of knowing what the bounds are going to be, hence can't check to see that you remain within them.
#109562 What goes where? Message #109580
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 17, 1988 3:07 AM
Larry, the M2 array-bounds checking is only for arrays that you declare as such to the compiler. John is correct that with run-time-allocated arrays the compiler has no way of knowing what the bounds are going to be, hence can't check to see that you remain within them.
#109532- What goes where? Message #109578
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 17, 1988 3:03 AM
John, yes, I agree that one should always specify signed or unsigned when using char. But then, one has to! Do you always say "signed int", even though signed is the default? I sure don't. The optional signedness of char as a backwards-compatible measure doesn't wash… _any_ code is backwards-compatible…
#109532- What goes where? Message #109578
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 17, 1988 3:03 AM
John, yes, I agree that one should always specify signed or unsigned when using char. But then, one has to! Do you always say "signed int", even though signed is the default? I sure don't. The optional signedness of char as a backwards-compatible measure doesn't wash… _any_ code is backwards-compatible…
#109464- Proper English Message #109499
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor The Amiga Forum · Off the Cuff February 16, 1988 8:30 PM
/* Explain to Rick that, although I'm wrong, I'm right */ Well, now that I think about it, you may well be right – but that only reinforces my point… "out" should have been cast to verb from its default type, which is preposition. Which only goes to show that…
#109449- What goes where? Message #109497
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor The Amiga Forum · Off the Cuff February 16, 1988 8:24 PM
Don, I wish they'd gone one way or the other… logically char should be signed by default, same as int and long; but even if they'd decided to make it unsigned it would have been better than leaving it ambiguous. Having what amounts to a separate type for the ASCII…
#109403 #What goes where? Message #109440
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 16, 1988 12:10 PM
Don, I'm talking about the default char, where signed or unsigned are not specified, as in: char foo; … in Manx, char is signed by default; in some other compilers (perhaps including Lattice – not sure), it is unsigned. I don't understand why that would not be something ANSI would…
#109403 #What goes where? Message #109440
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 16, 1988 12:10 PM
Don, I'm talking about the default char, where signed or unsigned are not specified, as in: char foo; … in Manx, char is signed by default; in some other compilers (perhaps including Lattice – not sure), it is unsigned. I don't understand why that would not be something ANSI would…
#109336- Proper English Message #109395
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 16, 1988 1:30 AM
In addition, you should also have verbally spoken about the problem/difficulty of superfluous redundancy in messages, which is grave, serious and severe in every way, shape and form. In addition, you should also have verbally spoken about the problem/difficulty of superfluous redundancy in messages, which is grave, serious and severe…
#109336- Proper English Message #109395
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 16, 1988 1:30 AM
In addition, you should also have verbally spoken about the problem/difficulty of superfluous redundancy in messages, which is grave, serious and severe in every way, shape and form. In addition, you should also have verbally spoken about the problem/difficulty of superfluous redundancy in messages, which is grave, serious and severe…
#109388- Communal Amiga Library? Message #109393
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Programming February 16, 1988 1:23 AM
Yeah, not only which, but the intended meaning was probably wrong too – it's a highly misused word. Most people use "idiosyncratic" to mean "eccentrically individual", but the suggestion of eccentricity doesn't belong to it at all. It just means something like "pertaining to one's individuality", whether or not that…
#109388- Communal Amiga Library? Message #109393
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Programming February 16, 1988 1:23 AM
Yeah, not only which, but the intended meaning was probably wrong too – it's a highly misused word. Most people use "idiosyncratic" to mean "eccentrically individual", but the suggestion of eccentricity doesn't belong to it at all. It just means something like "pertaining to one's individuality", whether or not that…
#109385- What goes where? Message #109391
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 16, 1988 1:12 AM
A "journal"! Hmmm, I like that! For a while I thought we were just another magazine! Nick
#109385- What goes where? Message #109391
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 16, 1988 1:12 AM
A "journal"! Hmmm, I like that! For a while I thought we were just another magazine! Nick
#109379- #What goes where? Message #109390
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 16, 1988 1:10 AM
John, you seem to have been watching the ANSI stuff. Do you know if char is going to be legislated as "signed", "unsigned" or "your choice, the way it now"? If the last (which I understand is the case), do you know why? Nick
#109379- #What goes where? Message #109390
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor Forum unknown · Off the Cuff February 16, 1988 1:10 AM
John, you seem to have been watching the ANSI stuff. Do you know if char is going to be legislated as "signed", "unsigned" or "your choice, the way it now"? If the last (which I understand is the case), do you know why? Nick
#109340 Proper English Message #109352
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor The Amiga Forum · Off the Cuff February 15, 1988 10:14 PM
Peter, I was confused by the last line of your message to Larry ("Watch out, or I'll tell…"). Now, we all know that the word "watch" is a noun meaning "a portable timepiece", yet this didn't seem to fit the sense of the sentence. I finally figured it out, though,…
#109329 Proper English Message #109336
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor The Amiga Forum · Off the Cuff February 15, 1988 9:49 PM
Gee, Larry, I think you're exaggerating the literacy problem on this forum, and that in itself is an error you should have warned against… careless exaggeration is the worst crime one can possibly commit. Nick
#109297- compiliers Message #109330
From: Nick Sullivan/Transactor The Amiga Forum · Programming February 15, 1988 9:41 PM
Bill, Manx comes with a true 'make', with dependency rules, macros and all. (Actually, that might not be part of the bottom-of-the-line Manx package, but certainly comes with the 2nd and top versions). Nick
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