Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!microsoft!w-edwinh From: w-edwinh@microsoft.UUCP (Edwin HOOGERBEETS) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Introduction to comp.sys.amiga Message-ID: <55631@microsoft.UUCP> Date: 3 Jul 90 23:52:46 GMT Reply-To: w-edwinh@microsoft.UUCP (Edwin HOOGERBEETS) Organization: Microsoft Corp., Redmond WA Lines: 1407 This is an introductory posting to comp.sys.amiga. If you are a new reader of this group or even if you just want Amiga/Usenet information, please read the following articles. This posting last changed: July 3, 1990 Changes this month: Updated: Minix for the Amiga? (,MIN) Updated: How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites (,BIT) Added: Last word on Copyrights and Patents (,COPY) It is recommended that you save this article for future reference. Please refer to this article first before posting to the net. This will help keep the comp.sys.amiga* groups uncluttered with topics that have already been discussed. Previously deleted topics are still available from the editor via email. * * There is an analogous posting in comp.sys.amiga.tech. * To save this posting when you are using rn or vn: s newuser to save in the file News/newuser. notes: snewuser to save this article in the file ./newuser. To read any of the following topics after this page, type 'g' for 'go to' and the index identifier in capitals that is listed on the left. This article contains the following topics: ,NET The Etiquette of the net. (netiquette) Please read this article before posting anything. ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu ,MOD How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings Tad Guy ,BIT How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites Jonathan Crone ,FNF The Fish Public Domain software library. How to get Fish disks and how to submit programs. fnf@estinc.UUCP ,PIC How to get and send Amiga graphic pictures and related 'show' programs. joe@dayton.UUCP ,BUY Which machine to buy? (500 or 2000 Amiga, Atari, Mac?) uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis (Chuck McManis) geoffs@smoke.UUCP AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP ,HAR Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000) Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu ,HED The 2090(a) and SCSI drives jesup@cbmvax ,MIN Minix for the Amiga ??? ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga) ,TEX Where to get AmigaTeX rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) ,CS Commodore's customer support phone number lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS) ,RXX ARexx: Where to find it? lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) ,RF1 How to get multiple RADs adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin) ,CLO How to fix "Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found" errors jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo) ,END Which file name extensions archivers use (how to extract them) aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry) ,24 Can You Use An Amiga 24 Hours A Day? dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell) ,ARP What is ARP? moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster) ,DF1 If you need help installing a 2nd internal floppy sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) ,SCR Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) ,GATE uucp<->compuserve gateway chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham) ,500 Random Gurus on the 500 may be caused by chip seating problems rick@tmiuv0.uucp ,2 Recent AmigaOS 2.0/Amiga 3000 Questions peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) ,COPY Last word on Copyrights and Patents papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) Send questions, comments, submissions to: Edwin w-edwinh@microsoft or uunet!microsoft!w-edwinh ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu (Edwin Hoogerbeets) Subject: (,NET) Netiquette Behaviour on the net: Behaviour on the net should be based on respect for other readers. If you follow this guideline, the net can be a very powerful tool for useful information. Try to reduce the amount of material posted and keep your articles short. This helps to save on phone bills throughout the entire Usenet community and saves time when reading the voluminous Amiga news groups. Try to avoid posting your view on an issue that has no "correct" answer. An example of this is the "my machine is better than your machine" discussion that often flares up in the microcomputer newsgroups. If you must express your point of view, please indicate that you would like to continue the discussion via mail, so as not to harass other readers that are not interested in the subject. Please do not make derogatory postings (aka. flames). Do not subject other readers to these childish tit for tat postings. Do not post anything that you wouldn't say aloud in a large group of people. Have fun via mail instead. These guidelines help to keep up the useful information content of the newsgroups. Newsgroups: There are currently five official groups dedicated to the Amiga. Here is a brief description of each of them and what kind of articles they should contain: comp.sys.amiga - This newsgroup is for general discussion of Amiga related news, software reviews and opinions. Please do not post programs here. comp.sys.amiga.tech - This newsgroup is for the technical discussions about programming the hardware and software of the Amiga. comp.sys.amiga.hardware - This newsgroup is the forum to discuss Amiga related hardware and peripherals, such as hard drives, monitors, add-in boards, Genloc, and such. comp.sources.amiga - This newsgroup contains the sources to freely redistributable programs posted exclusively by the moderators. comp.binaries.amiga - This newsgroup contains the binaries related to the programs in the sources group. This group can also only be posted to by the moderators. Please adhere to these classifications and post your news to the appropriate group. See the MOD section (enter g MOD in rn) in this posting on how to post to and receive from the moderated groups. Mail: If you would like to reply to an article posted by someone else and you do not think your reply is of value to others on the net, then please send mail to the poster instead of posting a reply. This helps reduce the amount of news sent each day and improves the ratio of signal to noise in the newsgroup. When in rn type 'r' to reply via mail. Type 'R' to include a copy of the poster's article. Following up: If you do feel the reply is important enough for everyone on the net, then please keep your posting small. In rn, type 'f' to follow up, and 'F' to include a copy of the poster's original article. Please trim the included article down to only the relevant parts, so that people are reminded of the gist of the original without having to re-read the entire text. Posting original material: Original material is preferred, as it offers something new for the readers. However, if you must post a request for information or software, please include a request for mail instead of a news followup. Again, this is to help reduce the amount the reader must go through each day. Cross posting: Cross posting to many newsgroups takes no more room or time than posting to one newsgroup. However, many more people see your article, and the above rules become more critical. If you do cross post, please realize that people from any of the groups may followup to your article. By default, most news programs post to all the original newsgroups. If you think the replies to your article will only be relevant to one group, please use the Followup-To line to indicate that the named news group should be used for replies. Also, if you are replying to someone else's cross-posted article, please edit the Newsgroups line to indicate only the groups to which your reply is relevant. More information: The newsgroup mod.announce.newusers contains useful tips and guidelines on reading and posting news to any news groups. Please read the postings there before asking about news or mail specific questions in comp.sys.amiga. Remember to have respect for your fellow netters and you will gain the most from Usenet. Edwin ehoogerbeets@rose.waterloo.edu ************************************************************************* From uunet!cs.odu.edu!tadguy Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: Tad Guy Subject: (,MOD) How to use the comp.binaries.amiga postings 1. How a submission is packed Each comp.binaries.amiga submission is packaged using the Zoo archiver. Zoo not only compresses the submission, but also checks the files for corruption, and preserves the original directory structure and timestamps. The Zoo archiver is available from most Amiga archive sites and BBS's. Binary submissions and Zoo files contain 8-bit data, which cannot be reliably transferred over USENET or by mail. The Zoo archive is thus encoded down to 7-bits using the ``uuencode'' program. The ``uudecode'' program, required to reverse this encoding, is also available from many Amiga archives (often under the name ``uucode''). USENET has a conventional limit of 64k bytes per posting. While larger postings often occur, they are also often mysteriously corrupted at some point. Unfortunately, most of the uuencoded Zoo archives in comp.binaries.amiga are larger than 64k bytes. In order to get each posting to 64k or smaller, the single uuencoded Zoo archive is ``split'' into 64k pieces, which can later be concatenated back into the original uuencoded Zoo archive. The UNIX ``cat'' and the AmigaDOS ``join'' commands are ideal for this. Each part of the now-split uuencoded Zoo archive is then wrapped using some simple UNIX commands in a form called a ``shell archive''. This makes the postings easier to unpack on UNIX systems, and can be unpacked on Amiga's using the UNSHAR or SH utilities, available from some amiga BBS's. At this point, a single submission has been Zoo'ed, uuencoded, split, and each part shar'ed. This is what you find posted to comp.binaries.amiga. 2. Unpacking the postings Before a submission can be used, it must be unpacked in the reverse order it was packed. This is easily done on UNIX machines, and can be done on Amigas with the appropriate utilities. 1. Save each part to a different file name of your choosing. 2. Remove the USENET headers (the first line of each file should be ``#!/bin/sh''). This step can be skipped if you have the ``unshar'' utility. 3. Run each file using ``sh'', or ``unshar''. This will create a series of files ending in ``.zuuxx'' where ``xx'' is a number. Each of these files is part of the uuencoded Zoo archive. 4. Concatenate these files into one file (typically ending in ``.zuu''). This is the whole uuencoded Zoo archive. 5. Decode the uuencoded Zoo archive using ``uudecode''. This will generate the original Zoo archive. 6. Use Zoo to extract the files from the Zoo archive. Typically, it's easiest to do steps 1-5 on a UNIX machine, although utilities exist to do all those steps on an Amiga. Once you have a Zoo archive, though, you will probably find it easiest to transfer the archive to your Amiga and use Amiga Zoo to extract the archive there. 3. What do I need? All these tools mentioned in this article are free for the taking if you can find them: . The Zoo archiver is available from almost all Amiga BBS's and Amiga archives on the Internet. . The uuencoding utilities are often already installed on UNIX machines, and there is also at least one Amiga version, which typically goes under the name of ``uucode''. . Concatenating the parts of a submission is easily done under UNIX with the ``cat'' command, or under AmigaDOS with the ``join'' command. . Finally, the Bourne Shell in UNIX (/bin/sh) can be used to unshar the postings, and similar utilities exist for the Amiga, notably ``UNSHAR'' and ``SH''. 4. How do I make a submission? The role of the moderator of comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga is to receive submissions, ensure they are not copyrighted (or if they are, to ensure that permission is granted to redistribute them), and to repackage the submission in the form described above. Persons wanting to make submissions to the these groups do NOT need to worry about following the above instructions (although doing so makes my job easier and means the submission will get out faster) . It is important to note that binary submissions must be encoded into 7-bits to insure it is received intact. This can be done using the ``uuencode'' utility described above, or with any number of similar utilities (such as ``btoa''). There are two ways to get your submission to the moderator: . Post your submission to the appropriate newsgroup. If your USENET software is properly configured, this will automatically forward your submission to the moderator, without your having to know the moderator's address. This is probably the most intuitive method. . Mail your submission to the moderator's address. This requires that your know the moderator's address, but is the only choice for persons at sites with improperly configured USENET software. If your submission is received by the moderator, you will get notification back by mail (although network problems may cause your submission or the acknowledgement to be delayed). If you don't get an acknowledgement within a week, assume something has gone wrong. The best course of action is to attempt to contact the moderator by email (please don't send your submission again, instead hold onto it until you and the moderator determine a reliable way for you to send your submission). Submissions to comp.sources.amiga and comp.binaries.amiga may be mailed to: amiga@cs.odu.edu or amiga@xanth.cs.odu.edu (sites with obsolescent or plain broken mailers may need to use this address) or ...!uunet!xanth!amiga (sites with very obsolescent mailers that only understand ``bang'' addresses may need to use this address. Replace ``...'' with the bang-path necessary to reach UUNET.) Consult your system administrator if you have trouble sending mail to these addresses. Comments and suggestions are welcome. They should be addressed to ``amiga-request'' (instead of ``amiga'') at the addresses above. My thanks to Bob Page and Patrick White for the original documents I have blatantly plagiarized in preparing this article... ************************************************************************* From uunet!ugw.utcs.utoronto.ca!CRONEJP%UREGINA1.bitnet Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: Jonathan Crone Subject: (,BIT) How to get comp.sys.amiga from bitnet sites Jonathan P. Crone distributes all amiga Usenet groups for North American Bitnet sites. .sys.amiga and .sys.amiga.tech arrive as daily digests of the messages .binaries.amiga and .sources.amiga arrive more or less direct from Bob Page -------------------------------------------------------------------- Jonathan P. Crone CRONEJP@UREGINA1.BITNET Amiga-L@uregina1.bitnet List moderator. ---------------- From: C503719@UMCVMB.BITNET ("Baird McIntosh") Subject: Posting bitnet-->Amiga newsgroups on USENET Besides amiga-relay@udel.edu, the other place (preferable, I think) to post is ucbvax. They had addresses for comp.sys.amiga and comp.sys.amiga.tech last I checked... they may have hardware and games addresses, too, but don't count on it: comp-sys-amiga@ucbvax.berkeley.edu comp-sys-amiga-tech@ucbvax.berekeley.edu Baird McIntosh -- c503719@umcvmb.missouri.edu ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: fnf@estinc.UUCP Subject: (,FNF) How to get Fish disks. WHAT'S AVAILABLE ---------------- There are "do-nothing-useful" examples of various capabilities of the AMIGA, real development tools, editors, languages, games, and other odds & ends. Also included are machine readable form of many of the examples (received directly from C-A sources) out of the official AMIGA manuals, including the ROM Kernel Manual. HOW TO OBTAIN DISKS ------- First, check with your local dealers and user groups. Many already have the earlier disks. Since these disks can be copied freely, and widespread distribution is encouraged, they propagate out to central distribution points fairly quickly. If you just can't wait, or can't find copies locally, I am willing to make these disks available for the cost of media, mailing materials, postage, and miscellaneous expenses (like wear and tear on my drives). My goal is to get as much software as possible into the hands of people that can use and enhance it, and make the AMIGA the success it deserves to be. Generally, each disk contains all source necessary to recreate the executables provided. All programs are currently compiled with the latest Lattice C and/or Manx C compiler available at the time of release. In a very few cases (noted in the description) the code will not compile or run for some reason, but was considered interesting enough to include anyway. Almost all executables are known to run on the latest kickstart/workbench combination available at time of release. Disks are typically 85 to 95 percent full. HOW TO ORDER ------------ To order, send a list of the disks you want, and the appropriate fee as follows: 1-9 disks $6 ea 10-49 disks $5 ea 50-99 disks $4 ea 100+ disks $3 ea to Fred Fish 1835 East Belmont Drive Tempe, Arizona 85284 USA Price includes cost of media, mailing materials, and first class domestic postage. Overseas orders add $5 per order for Air Mail. Time and other jobs permitting, all disks will be mailed within 3 days of receipt of order. Feel free to order more the the current number of disks available. Excess funds will be placed "in escrow" (refundable at any time) and drawn against for automatic mailings of future disks as they become available. I hope to add at least two to four disks per month to the library. Given that I have a database of about 300Mb of freely distributable software to draw upon, that should be a fairly easy goal to accomplish. DISK CATALOG ------------ A disk based catalog is available directly from me at no charge (as long as you supply disks and postage). The catalog has been split into two disks (disk 0A and disk 0B). To get a copy send two disks and $0.65 postage, or $3 and no disks, to the above address. DISTRIBUTION CRITERIA --------- To the best of my knowledge, materials in this library are freely redistributable. This means that they have met one or more of the following conditions: (1) The materials contains explicit copyright notices permitting redistribution. (2) The materials were posted to a publically accessible electronic bulletin board and did not contain any copyright notice. (Such materials will be removed if it is subsequently shown that copyright notices were illegally removed.) (3) The materials were posted to a widely disseminated electronic network (such as usenet), thus implying that their author/poster intended them to be freely distributed. This applies only if they contain no notice limiting distribution. (4) The materials contain an explicit notice placing them in the public domain. This is not the same as condition (1). SUBMISSIONS ----------- For those wishing to submit material for possible inclusion in the library, here are a few simple guidelines that will make my job of organizing the material MUCH easier: 1. Don't submit bootable disks or disks with any other sort of proprietary material included, since I then have to go examine each file to decide if it is distributable or not, and if not, what effect removing it might have. 2. Organize the distribution in a manner similar to my disks. I.E, place all files related to a particular submission under a single directory on the disk. If there is more than one submission per disk, it's ok to to place each submission in it's own directory. 3. Try to write a simple entry for my "Contents" listing that summarizes your submission. It should be about 3-10 lines, and include the current version number, the version and disk number of the most recent version (if any) that was last included in the library, whether or not source is included, and an "Author" list. 4. Ensure that your submission will run correctly from it's subdirectory and if necessary, supply a script runnable from workbench (via c:IconX) that makes all necessary assigns, copies fonts and libraries, etc. One last note; I get frustrated when I get email from people and then can't get a message back to them because of some sort of braindamage in the return path. Please don't assume that just because you never saw a bounced message, that it actually got through to me, or even if it did, that I ignored it. I DO RESPOND TO ALL MY MAIL. I don't spend ANY time trying to figure out how to work around bad paths if my response gets bounced back. For best results, include your phone number in case the email route fails completely. Also note that my preferred usenet address has changed recently to this machine (estinc!fnf), rather than fishpond!fnf or mcdsun!fnf. [Note: fish disks are available via anonymous ftp at uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.5.54) for fish 1-188 mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (128.174.73.105) for fish 189-300 - ed] ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: joe@dayton.UUCP Subject: (,PIC) Picture swap So I am hereby officially becoming a picture collector. If you have pictures, drop me a disk. For every disk of pics I get, I'll send it back with what I may have found by that point. A few notes: 1. If you send ray-traced, sending the input to the ray tracer would be appreciated. That's up to you. 2. If the picture can not be displayed with DPaintII or the DISPLAY program that comes with DBW_Render, please provide a display program somewhere on the disk or at least give me some clues as to how I should display it. 3. Make *sure* you give me full mailing info and such. 4. Anything you send me should be freely redistributable. This means that I'd love to get digitized pictures out of your favorite magazine, but that's not legal..... 5. If you DO violate note 4, at least tell me you did so I don't get into trouble with someone Official. 6. Keep copies and insure yourself if you send more disks than you're willing to lose in the mail. If I start to get some collections together, I'll do a followup and tell people what they can do to get some pictures from me without sending submissions. I'm also willing to accept pictures over the phones if I don't have to make long long-distance phone calls to do it. If you have DBW_Render pictures, you can just email those to me.... My mailing address is NOT my work address, however. Send disks, etc to: Joe Larson 6121 St. Croix Ave. N. Golden Valley, Minnesota 55422 Disks sent to me at work will get here, but home would be better.... -- UUCP: rutgers!dayton!joe Dayton Hudson Department Store Company ATT : (612) 375-3537 Joe Larson/MIS 1060 (standard disclaimer...) 700 on the Mall Mpls, Mn. 55402 ************************************************************************* From uunet!Sun.COM!cmcmanis Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: cmcmanis@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) Subject: (,BUY) a comparison of PC's... which one to buy This posting is an effort on my part to demonstrate why these arguments are pointless. I try to show that the Amiga 500 and the 1040 ST are essentially the same design with different compromises. When all is said and done they are the same computer. You as a reader look at the two machines, look at the way the designers compromised, and pick the one that *you* like better. Also be aware that your choice is only the better choice from your perspective, others will disagree and they are also correct from *their* perspective. Take the following comments from Peter as an example : In article <11767@cup.portal.com> (Peter Ted Szymonik) writes: > ...I'd say Atari will have no > problem reaching the million mark next year if it hasn't already > done so! ... Given the "magicalness" of a million machines (see the PS/2, Apple Mac announcements when they broke a million) it is clear that Atari (or Commodore for that matter) will be shouting to everyone that can read (especially developers) to let them in on the good news. Witness Commodore's hyper sensitivity as they get closer to that number. > Also, I'm sure that a good chunk of those Amiga sales > were the 500 which was probably bought primarily as a game machine > while the majority of STs out there are 1040's which have much > greater utility. This is an especially wonderful example of why debating machine merits is a waste of time. Here is a guy who obviously is very proud of his computer ownership attempting to slander the "competition" with absolutely no facts at all. If he understood the Amiga computer line he would realize that the Amiga 500 *is* the Atari 1040 ST competition. Line up the features side by side and even a third grader could tell you they were the same machine, to wit : 1040 ST Amiga 500 ---------- ---------- Processor 68000 68000 "Main" Memory 1 Meg 1 Meg Screen Resolution 320 X 200 350 X 200 various #'s of 640 X 200 700 X 200 colors. 640 X 480 700 X 440 Disk Drive 720K 880K Serial Port Yes Yes Parallel Port Yes Yes MIDI Port Yes No DMA Port Yes No Expansion Bus No Yes Hard Disk Available Yes Yes Memory Expansion Avail Yes Yes Max Memory 4 MB 9 Mb Blitter No* Yes Audio Yes Yes ----- * Blitter optional according to some things I have seen And the astute readers will note that a.) Prices are different, b.) Implementations are different, and c.) Neither machine is the "better" machine to everyone. In terms of hardware capabilities they offer the same functions. The question you ask are "What are the decisions the designers made?" Take MIDI for example. The Amiga does not have a MIDI port, the designers did not decide to include one. It is easy to turn the Amiga serial port into a MIDI port but it will cost you the user extra cash. *You* decide which decision is better for *you*. Same thing with a hard disk. Atari builds in a DMA port that makes connecting a SCSI device easier, Commodore provides and expansion bus that you can connect a hard disk controller to. Here the Atari designer may have said "Well, either we offer a hard disk interface or an expansion interface, which will it be? Gee most of our users will just want a hard disk so lets offer that." Whereas the Amiga designer might have said "Lets offer an expansion port so that other things beside a hard disk can be easily connected here." The Atari decision makes for cheaper hard disks, the Commodore decision makes for greater flexibility. Which do *you* prefer? *You* decide and that makes that machine best for you. When one evaluates both machines you will notice that the Commodore decisions tended to flexibility even when it raised the cost, whereas Atari's leaned toward keeping the price down at the cost of flexibility. None of these decisions make one computer "better" than the other, they just make the computers different. Of course none of this means anything to someone who's ego is tied up in the computer they own. That type of person will get just as hyper about whether or not a BMW is better than a Mercedes or a Ford is better than a Mercury. The important point to remember is that when you read an article from someone who really likes their computer and thinks anyone who doesn't like their computer obviously has a learning disability, you have to understand that they are *correct*. This is how they think from *their* perspective. There is no need to point out how their perspective disagrees strongly with *your* perspective. That is because both of your perspectives will disagree with everyone elses perspective. The end result is a couple of thousand articles describing the authors perspective and views. If you could condense them into a single survey message you might et the Signal to Noise ratio up above .5 but I doubt it. Well thats *my* perspective, -- --Chuck McManis uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you. ---------------- From: geoffs@smoke.UUCP Subject: Re: Atari vs. Amiga: what to buy? ATARI VS. AMIGA: WHAT TO BUY? * the bottom line is -- whatever you like best. * but here are some thoughts: WORK/SCHOOL OS features: ======================== What kind of environment are you using at work/school? It is Likely Multi-tasking. (VAX VMS, UNIX, ?) - (AMIGA & ST) If VMS, I don't know of any VMS look-alikes for either machine. there is a PD editor (TVX) that can be configured to look like the VMS EDT editor I think... I know it can be made to look like VI and emacs/jove/uemacs... (unix). - (AMIGA) If unix at work,... unix editor PD look-a-likes "vi" and "emacs" are available. (They are also available on the ST). - (ST) If unix at work, then note that an ST version of MINIX has gone to Prentice Hall for distribution (out in Sept? - check comp.os.minix on when). You are familiar with MINIX? It is Version 7 unix look alike muli-tasking OS, comes with compiler and unix-behaving tools. - (AMIGA) As you know the Amiga has multi-tasking built in, so it you can handle a different interface from the one at work, but are used to multi-tasking, you are already set. - (ST) UNIX? Today *now* there is a nice PD shell on the ST (gulam) that looks a lot like the unix shell with many of the commands. The editor is emacs-like, and you can pause the editor, escape to the shell, compile a program, then bring the editor back to the fore ground (via "fg" a-la unix). Not multi-tasking. Context switching, but it is the unix look and feel. - Note: Amiga and ST can run MSDOS stuff with appropriate add-on's. ST cam also run MAC stuff with appropriate add-on's. MIDI: ===== The ST came with midi's built in and this has generated a lot of ST midi software. Buy a copy of STart magazine. There are always adds in that artist-oriented magazine for music editors, and multiple other midi programs. I do not know what midi stuff is available on the AMIGA. I think there is a large library of midi software on the PC market. You may wish to look here too... Final suggestions: 1. Get several machine specific magazines on both computers. Try to stay away from those published by the machine manufacture; they tend to be censored and over-hyped: "See how great we are!!!!!!!!". 2. Please try before you buy. - you may hate the feel of the keyboard. *BOTH* good computers, you probably can't go wrong what ever you choose. To be fair, I do not own an Amiga. I own 2 Commodors (the VIC-20 & C64) am the happy owner of 1 Atari (the ST). I will not suggest either computer over the other. That is a personal preference. A choice only you can make. My experience with both companys is about the same. They are probably on a par with the rest of the retail computer industry. -- ---> geoffs@brl.arpa -- ---------------- From: AmigaIan@cup.portal.com.UUCP Subject: Re: 500 or 2000 ? >My next question is this: >should I buy an amiga 500 or an amiga 2000? >Can someone give me the pro's and con's of the two machines? Ok, let me give it a try, The 2000 comes with 512K more than the 500 but I have seen 512K expansion for the 500 priced under $150. You can have IBM compatibility with the 2000 but not with the 500. The 2000 costs more $$$ but it is a little less expensive to expand. The 2000 is bigger than the 500. If you expand with the 500 you need alot of space. The 500 is about $700 cheaper if you get a 1 meg 500. The 2000 is now selling for $1499. The 500 is now selling for $649. Did I miss anything? I believe those are all the diffrences. Hope I made things easier rather than harder. Ian_Matthew_Smith@cup.portal.com ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu Subject: (,HAR) Hard drives for Amiga (especially the 2000) NOTE: The following is a summary of replies concerning my future purchase of an Amiga 2000. I want a Hard Disk, and was inquireing into advantages/disadvantages of the different cards, esp in ref to the new Amiga 2000HD, which came with a CBM 2090A cantroller and HD The 2000HD will sell about $100 less than a system built with third party components. Of course, shop around to find the price diff you will actually be working with. BTW, tech note. SCSI interface transmits 1 byte at a time, ST506 1 bit at a time. ST506 is the IBM standard, SCSI looks to be the new standard. 2000HD- Basic a 2000 with a CBM 2090A Hard Disk Controller and a 40meg HD connected through a ST506 interface, leaving one more ST506 and 6 SCSI connectors open. The 2090A uses a DMA to controll the hard disk, leaving the processor free to do other things. The GVP HardCard is heavily recommended, clearly the best of the established third Party cards. It has been around a while, so all the bugs are gone, but it supposedly relies upon the processor to do a lot of the work. The Quantum Drives are supposedly the Best on the market, and is available in 28ms and 11ms types. Expect it to last twice as long as typical drives. May require EEPROMS to Autoboot. The Microbotics card is impressive, claiming to transfer data at bus speeds (as fast as the Amiga can handle it, not 65mph hiway, 15 mph city ;) It uses a DMA to controll the drives, leaving the processor free like the 2090A. It is a half sized card, so it can used in expansion boxes, has power hookups for a card mounted drive, and several extra SCSI interfaces. There are a few other points to consider: 1. The CBM card has its own processor, the GVP can bog the processor down if you are working processor intensive tasks, otherwise the GVP is faster. The microbotic is like the CBM card in that it doesnt harass the processor, and is the fastest and newest design of the three. 2. The CBM comes pre-installed. The cards should not be hard install, but I understand dammage done by improperly installed cards is not covered by warrantee. But the 3rd party warrantees are tiypically longer, CBM offers only a 90 dayer. This does not apply if you already own an Amiga, but having an authorize service rep install it should keep warranty problems away. It can also put you out another 60 or 70 bucks. 3. The CBM must boot to the old file system, not the newer fast filing system. While this only affects a small section of the Disk (The rest can be configured fast filing) The others don't have this weakness. K1.3 was designed for autobooting to HD's but some GVP cards may still require additional PROMS. Personally, I'd like the microbotics with the Quantum 11ms, but 1st I gotta check prices. I also want to investigate the possible bug. *I have heard from a few people who own the microbotics, and so far they are extremely happy with them* paul -- "Run, Run, as fast as you can, you cant catch me, Im the gingerbread man" "Lets do some crimes. Yeah, lets get sushi and not pay" 6 6 Witting@topaz.rutgers.edu `--' ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: jesup@cbmvax Subject: (,HED) 15 Head Hard drive and the A2090(a) >I recently acquired a 15 head Hard Drive for my Amiga 2000 only to discover >that the A2090(a) does not support >8 heads. Has anyone figured out either The A2090 supports 8 heads for ST506 drives. For SCSI, the number of heads is not important, so it WILL support all of your drives. -- Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup ************************************************************************* >From microsoft!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!star.cs.vu.nl!ast Sun 24 Jun 90 20:52:18 GMT 1990 From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Subject: Amiga Minix > Is there a public domain or shareware MINIX for the Amiga computer? No. By the end of August there will be a copyrighted version from Prentice Hall, containing all the sources of everything, plus a 700 page manual (which includes a listing of the code and a lot more). Andy Tanenbaum (ast@cs.vu.nl) From: ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) Subject: (,MIN) Minix for the Amiga ??? Two of my students did the port to the Amiga. They seem to have done an excellent job, and it is now being tested. If and when there will be an official release is another story. Neither P-H nor Commodore is interested. I am working on that one, however. Andy Tanenbaum From: amiga@cs.vu.nl (Commodore Amiga) Subject: AmigaMINIX, some answers Finally some answers about AmigaMINIX from the guys who ported it. We hope that the following will clarify most of the darker areas around AmigaMINIX. For those of you who don't know what AmigaMINIX is about: it's a UNIX like operating system for you Amiga. MINIX was originally written by Andy Tanenbaum for the PC-family and later on ported to the Atari-ST by Johan Stevenson and Jost Muller. Because the ST version is based on the Motorola 68000 we decided to port this version to the Amiga. While porting MINIX to the Amiga we've tried to keep the main goal of MINIX (education) in mind. This means we did not try to squeeze out every bit of performance, especially not where this would harm the clarity of the MINIX source code and/or structure. Another result of this goal is that we decided not to use the usual Amiga disk format, but the PC (ST) format instead. This way the AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST file systems are 100% compatible. Because MINIX doesn't use any dirty tricks, AmigaMINIX and MINIX-ST binaries are also compatible; you can mount a MINIX-ST floppy on AmigaMINIX and run all binaries. (Almost all, actually. Programs which do use 'dirty tricks' as directly reading from /dev/ram to set the time-of- day clock won't run properly of course!) Although we wanted to use the PC format for the AmigaMINIX floppies we didn't want to fall asleep when loading mined for example. We tried to optimize the floppy driver as much as we could be using a track cache for each drive and only compute the CRCs (checksums) when necessary. (Computing a CRC costs about 50 ms. This limits the transfer rate to 6.9 kb/sec. The normal transfer rate under AmigaMINIX is 4 to 5 kb/sec) Since each track- cache occupies about 14 kb of CHIPMEM, these buffers are dynamically allocated for only those floppy drives that are actually connected. Apart from the PC format disks there's another remarkable 'thing' about AmigaMINIX: it doesn't support hard disks. (sorry) There are two main reasons for this. In the first place there are several different hard disks in use on Amiga's and we didn't want to write a driver for all of them. Further, we didn't (and nobody in our neighborhood does) have a hard disk to test our driver(s) on. If, however, hard disks are as common in other places of the world as we're told, it shouldn't be long before one of you will post a driver for your favorite hard disk. To sum up the most important specifications of AmigaMINIX: - AmigaMINIX boots from a normal AmigaDOS floppy (bootstrap) so it can easily steal (use) everything AmigaDOS knows about your Amiga. (Whether is's NTSC or PAL, how much memory do you have, what color the screen is, what keymap you use, etc.) After that it completely takes over your Amiga, and disables EXEC. - You can use ALL of the available RAM which is normally available under AmigaDOS, even if it's fragmented. - The floppy driver can read and write single and double sided 80- track floppies. (Also single sided for MINIX-ST compatibility.) Up to four drives can be connected. - The AmigaMINIX printer driver only supports the parallel (centro- nics) port. - The display driver use ANSI escape sequences and also provides limited access to the color registers. Some of you may wonder why we decided not to run AmigaMINIX under EXEC. The main reason for this is that (at first) we thought that it wouldn't run properly with the MINIX-ACK compiler. When we realized that this wasn't such a big problem after all, the port was already half on its way. Another reason is that we think that you should not run operating systems on top of each other, if you want people to know what operating systems really is all about. (Andy Tanenbaum once put it something like: "It's not writing a 15 page scheduler, but getting all the details right.") AmigaMINIX is currently being tested here on the VU and because we haven't found a distributor yet and don't feel like posting 3 Mb (yet :-) it'll probably be a while before you can use AmigaMINIX. -Steven Reiz & Raymond Michiels. (amiga@cs.vu.nl) ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: rokicki@Neon.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) Subject: (,TEX) AmigaTeX For a free demo disk and further information on AmigaTeX, please drop a postcard with your name and address to Radical Eye Software, Box 2081, Stanford, CA~~94309. This is *free* and will answer most questions. -tom ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: lauren@cbmvax.UUCP (Lauren Brown - CATS) Subject: (,CS) commodore's customer support phone number The correct phone number for Customer Support is (215) 436-4200. Use this number to inquire about getting 1.3.2, or any other end user question. ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) Subject: (,RXX) ARexx: Where to find it? >Okay, I've been seeing here lots and lots of stuff about ARexx. ARexx is commercial, and list price is about $50. Do yourself a favour if you buy it, and add another $50 (list) for WShell, which knows all about ARexx, and makes ARexx scripts transparently callable as if they were binary executables. I have seen both of these packages advertised in the $35 range from mail order places. Both packages are written by, and available from: [ed - Bill is also the author of conman, a nice console device replacement] William S. Hawes P.O. Box 308 Maynard, MA 01754 Phone: (617) 568-8695 ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: adam@cbmcats.UUCP (Adam Keith Levin) Subject: (,RF1) Multiple RAD:'s Here are directions that I wrote about a year ago for creating multiple RAD drives. Be warned that all of these kludges probably won't work (and probably won't be needed) under version 1.4. Unfortunately, RAD's ramdrive.device is hard-coded as having the volume name "RAMB0". One cannot create multiple RADs by simply changing the MountList. To create multiple RAD devices: READ ME FIRST: Byte-offsets are counted starting from 0, the first byte of the file. Both byte-offsets are for v1.0 of the ramdrive.device, created 6-Apr-88. The letter 'X' is used below as a place-holder for a unique character to differentiate the multiple RAD devices. If you are creating a first duplicate RAD, I suggest you substitute '1'; if creating a second duplicate RAD, substitute '2', etc. 1. Edit devs:MountList and duplicate the original RAD: parameters. Change the name of the duplicate; for example, from "RAD:" to "RADX:". Change the "Device = ramdrive.device" line to "Device = ramdrivX.device" Only the original RAD should be allowed to autoboot. Add the following line to the new entry to keep it from autobooting: BootPri = -129 2. Copy devs:ramdrive.device to devs:ramdrivX.device File-zap devs:ramdrivX.device and change "ramdrive.device" to "ramdrivX.device" by changing byte 171 (hex) from 'e' to 'X'. Also change "RAMB0" to "RAMBX" by changing byte 5A1 (hex) from '0' to 'X'. 3. Mount RADX:. You can do anything to this new RAD that you could to the original one. Things like changing the HighCyl to get a different size, etc. Adam Keith Levin -- CATS Commodore Applications and Technical Support 1200 Wilson Drive / West Chester, PA 19380 (215) 431-9180 BIX: aklevin UUCP: ...{amiga|rutgers|uunet}!cbmvax!cbmcats!adam ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu (Jim Wright) Subject: (,CLO) Battery Backed Up Clock Not Found | I ctrl-A-A'ed the beast and it came up complaining about its clock. I | tried "setclock reset" but it, too, just complained about "clock not | found". And there I sit. This happened to me earlier. I "fixed" it by doing nothing. About the second or third day I booted, the problem simply disappeared. As I understand it, a register in the clock is getting trashed. The normal startup then can't find a (proper) clock. The solution is to get the registers in the clock back the way they should be. Between version 1.2 and 1.3 of the "setclock reset" commands, one works and one doesn't. (I believe 1.2 works.(?)) Another possible fix is the program which claims to "cure" the fabled "clock virus". Apparently it just resets the registers in the clock. (Available at an anti-viral archive site near you.) Jim Wright jwright@atanasoff.cs.iastate.edu ---------- From: dkuo@atrp.mit.edu (David D. Kuo) Subject: lost clock advice... I'm not sure that the advice given about the lost clock problem will work for everyone. For what it's worth, I've got an Amiga 500 with the Commodore 512k RAM expansion board that fits in the bottom of the case. In the past, I've managed to clear up the problem by physically removing the board from the case, then reconnecting. I have no idea why this works, but it has worked everytime. I did try the wait and see attitude once, but apparently, the register never reset itself. David Kuo dkuo@atrp.mit.edu ---------- From: rich@inmet.inmet.com Subject: internal clock problem fixed! The internal clock on my A1000 was behaving funny for a while: the minutes didn't increase, the seconds increase once in a while. Anyway, I fixed the problem by replacing one of the 8520 chip. On the A1000, I replaced the one (there are two) closer to the 68000. Hope this information is useful for someone else. ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: aliu@girtab.usc.edu (Terminal Entry) Subject: (,END) List of archiver file name extensions Ending Use --------------------------------------------------------- .zoo Zoo .arc Arc .zip Zip .lzh LHarc .sit Only available in "unsit" for amiga. .Z Compress (Lempel-Ziv) .C Compact (Huffman). Rather outdated. .sh/.shr/.shar SHell ARchiver (SHAR) (or sksh) .wrp Warp - Amiga Disk-archiver .tar tar - stands for Tape archiver. .sq Sq/Unsq. (forgot the proper name) .bak Matt Dillon's HD->Flippy backup util. .uue uudecode .zuu uudecode and then zoo on the result .z (small) pack/unpack --------- From: tadguy@cs.odu.edu (Tad Guy) Subject: Re: Zoo for unix UNIX Zoo was posted to comp.sources.unix, and is available from any comp.sources.unix archive site, such as XANTH.CS.ODU.EDU or UUNET.UU.NET. On xanth, it's also available as /pub/zoo-2.01/zoo-2.01.tar.Z ...tad ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Dale Snell) Subject: (,24) Can You Use A 2000 24 Hours A Day? |>>Are there any problems with leaving an Amiga 2000 on 24 hours a day? | |>I've run my 2000 on a 24x7 basis for the last 3 or 4 months; during that time |>I've powered the machine down maybe 3 times total. Of course, I do live in an |>area where the power is exceptionally stable. | |For that matter, anyone know about the A1000 being left on 24hr/day??? The NAG (Northwest Amiga Group) BBS is run on an A1000. The board runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. So far as I know, the only times the board goes down is when it gets a power glitch, then it has to be restarted. Other than that, it works just fine. I don't think that there's a UPS or power conditioner for the BBS. However, such a thing would be a wise investment for anyone thinking about running any computer continuously. Especially if the power is noisy or unstable. (Like in the town I live in. The lights flicker daily. Does terrible things to computers, vcrs, etc.) --dds Big Whorls Have Little Whorls | Dale D. Snell BIX: ddsnell Which Feed On Their Velocity | UseNet: dales@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM And Little Whorls have Littler Whorls | CompuServe: 74756.666@compuserv.COM And So On To Viscosity. | Disclaimer: My opinions, not Tek's. ************************************************************************* From uunet!watmath!rose!ehoogerbeets Fri Mar 2 15:59:47 EST 1990 From: moster@iris.ucdavis.edu (Richard Moster) Subject: (,ARP) arp.library ARP is the AmigaDos Replacement Project. It consists of replacement files for most of the common AmigaDos commands (copy, list, delete, etc.) along with a library file, namely arp.library. I got my copy off of a local Amiga bulletin board. The advantage of ARP is, as far as I can tell, three-fold: (1) The replacement commands are smaller and therefore leave more free room on your disk (I assume this was accomplished in part by utilizing a library of common routines, viz. arp.library); (2) the commands are slightly easier to use, such as being able to use "*" as a wildcard (plus a few other goodies--there should be docs accompanying the other files); and (3) a number of other programs (like VLT 4.226, apparently) require that you have the arp.library present. There may be other advantages to ARP, but these are the three that I am aware of. Richard Moster ************************************************************************* From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990 From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) Subject: (,DF1) installing 2nd internal floppy In article <495@auto-trol.UUCP> todhor@auto-trol.COM () writes: >Well I'm just about through installing the Chinon 3.5 internal >drive in my 2000 >... >everything appears fine except for this: When I access either drive >say to do a read or dir BOTH lights on both drives come on. Two things need to be done: 1> set the drive select jumpers on the drives so that one is drive 0 and the other is drive 1. 2> There is a jumper on the motherboard (I don't have the 2000 handbook with me so I can't tell you the jumper number) Look in you handbook that came with the 2000 in the section that talks about jumpers. There is one that affects the drive ID's. Something about it being closed so you can plug in an EXTERNAL drive, and you have to open it if you are installing an INTERNAL drive. A friend and I just installed an internal drive in his 2000 and that is what we had to do. Until we set the jumper on the mother board both drives acted like yours does. Now it works fine. -- John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps ||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406 ************************************************************************* From uunet!ukma!corpane!sparks Sat Feb 3 01:05:17 EST 1990 From: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) Subject: (,SCR) Unix script to extract files from c.s.a or c.b.a If you have access to comp.binaries.amiga on a Unix box, this little script might help you. I whipped it up in a few minutes and it seems to work on everything Tad has sent thru so far. I call it Amyshar: #!/bin/sh cat $* | sed '1,/^sed/d'|sed '/^SHAR_EOF/,/^sed/d'|sed s/^X//| uudecode -- Prerequisites: You must have the programs "sed" and "uudecode" (and unix so you can execute the above unix script) 1. Put the script above in a file, name it Amyshar, make it executable. 2. Then go into your news reader and enter comp.binaries.amiga 3. Save all the parts to a program into one large file (in order of course) 4. At the shell prompt, type: Amyshar sharfile (where sharfile is the name of the large file you saved to from the newsreader) 5. Ta Da! you now have a zoo file. You don't have to worry about chopping the files at the 'cut here' lines, or stripping off the headers. Amyshar ignores all that. For use with comp.sources.amiga files: Amyshar will not separate the source files out of the shar file, but it will look through the shar file and extract any uuencoded files that are sometimes packages with c.s.a. source postings. What you need to do is save the c.s.a postings into files on your system then run them through amyshar like above, and if there are any uuencoded files contained withing the shar file Amyshar will extract them and convert them to binary. Once this is done, you need to archive the binary files with zoo (or a similar archiver) before downloading them to your Amiga. This prevents problems with some transfer protocols (such as Xmodem) padding the files with nulls, and therefore 'corrupting' the file after its downloaded. Unzoo on your Amiga and enjoy. I hope this helps some people out there. -- John Sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps. Accessable via Starlink (Louisville KY) sparks@corpane.UUCP <><><><><><><><><><><> D.I.S.K. ph:502/968-5401 thru -5406 Help fight continental drift. ************************************************************************* From uunet!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!torsqnt!lethe!becker!graham!chris Sat Feb 3 01:22:16 EST 1990 From: chris@graham.UUCP (Chris Graham) Subject: (,GATE) uucp<->compuserve gateway > Plink, Bix and Genie are not reachable through Usenet. These are "free- > standing" commercial computer services to which you have to subscribe > and pay a connect-time charge in order to use. Plink and Bix can be > dialed direct (Chicago and Boston respectively) or through different > "packet switched national data networks", which is how most people > reach them. Genie has its own national data network. I don't know about BIX and pLink, but an Internet gateway to and from Compuserve was documented in the July and September (1989) issues of _Netmonth Magazine_, a popular magazine of BITnet. According to the _Netmonth_ recipe, users of Compuserve can send Internet bound mail by using the "EasyPlex" mail system and addressing the mail to: >INTERNET:internetaddress For example, I could probably by reached by the address: >INTERNET:graham!chris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu using gpu.utcs.toronto.edu as the Internet->uucp gateway. Conversely, (and this is the part I've used with success) one may send mail to Compuserve. Suppose you wanted to send mail to a person whose Compuserve # is 123,456 . Then you would address your mail to: 123.456@compuserve.com Failing this, the following will probably work: 123.456%compuserve.com@saqqara.cis.ohio-state.edu gatewaying it through the nearest Internet site. BITnet : lsuc!graham!chris@utorgpu uucp : ...!uunet!lsuc!graham!chris FidoNet: Chris ON 1:250/716 [I've tried both directions, and it works great. -ed] ************************************************************************* From uunet!zardoz.cpd.com!tmiuv0!rick Thu Apr 26 17:04:01 PDT 1990 From: rick@tmiuv0.uucp Subject: (,500) Random Gurus on the 500 may be caused by chip seating problems >>Some of the programs that give me the Guru are: JRbeep (NOT JRcomm), >>DJclock, and MultiPlot. I don't get locked up if I run noclick v3.6 and >>sometimes if I start a term program (Handshake etc) or even try to save >>or retrieve a file with CED Pro! >I'm having very similar problems with my 500 and a Supra SCSI interface >with 2 megs of RAM installed. This sounds like the infamous A500 "Loose Chip Phenomenom". Try opening up the 500 and reseating all of the chips that are socketed. The A500 is well known to have loose chips. BE CAREFUL! Watch out for static electricity, and this may void your warranty. THOU HAST BEEN WARNEDST! .-------------------------------------------------------------------------. / [- O] Rick Stevens (All opinions are mine. Everyone ignores them anyway.) \ | ? +--------------------------------------------------------------------| | V | uunet!zardoz!tmiuv0!rick (<-- Work (ugh!)) | |--------+ uunet!zardoz!xyclone!sysop (<-- Home Unix (better!)) | | uunet!perigrine!ccicpg!conexch!amoeba2!rps2 (<-- Home Amiga (Best!!) | \ 75006.1355@compuserve.com (CIS: 75006,1355) (<-- CI$) / `-------------------------------------------------------------------------' ************************************************************************* From uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!rutgers!cbmvax!peter Thu May 10 10:38:35 PDT 1990 From: peter@cbmvax.commodore.com (Peter Cherna) Subject: (,2) Recent AmigaOS 2.0/Amiga 3000 Questions Workbench 2.0 does not have any specific requirements other than the future 2.0 Enhancer ROMs and disks (and manuals, I guess). Ken Farinsky over in CATS stated so quite emphatically, but allow me to reiterate: 2.0 does not require a hard drive, 1 MB of chip, Super Agnus, Super Denise, etc. Of course, your system will benefit from any of these, just as it does under 1.3. 2.0 is fairly smart about figuring out what you have installed, and for example won't allow you to open screen modes you can't support for lack of hardware. Super Denise provides a single non-interlaced 640 x 480 mode called Productivity. This requires Super Denise (hence also Super Agnus), and a VGA or multiscanning monitor. The Workbench screen can easily be put into this mode, and windows opening on the Workbench screen will benefit immediately. Programs opening custom screens need to be updated (though it is simple for the programmer) in order to open their own productivity screens. This mode is of special interest to those who do not have a de-interlacer in their computer which removes flicker from all the familiar interlaced modes. Productivity mode can have 2 or 4 colors from a palette of 64. Super Denise also provides Super-Hires modes that give 1280 by 200/400 (NTSC) or 256/512 (PAL). The higher number in each case is an interlaced mode (that is not de-interlaced by the A3000, BTW). These modes are compatible with standard NTSC and PAL output, including 1084's. They also have the 4/64 color arrangement. The A3000 de-interlacer is on the motherboard. It is not in the 1950 monitor, which is just a (very nice) multiscanning monitor. One extra feature of the 1950 is that you can set it so that overscanned pictures do indeed cover the full face of the monitor, which is not true of many other multisyncs, and is very useful for Amiga graphics work. The A3000 has an internal bay that can take another floppy or a SCSI 3.5" drive. There is cabling inside to connect that drive. There is both an external floppy and SCSI connector on the back of the A3000, and when you look over the top of your 3000 you can read the labelling since the labels are above the connector, not below. Commodities Exchange is a standardized way of handling any special input-related magic. This includes the various keyboard and mouse enhancements that people have come to know and love, as well as hot-keys. The system ships with several standard commodities, and surely many more will appear in the public domain. We supply: Screen Blanker Function Key expander AutoPoint (activates the window under the pointer) NoCapsLock (for those who hate it when they brush that key) IHelp (keyboard sizing and such for windows) -- Peter Cherna, Software Engineer, Commodore-Amiga, Inc. {uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!peter peter@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com My opinions do not necessarily represent the opinions of my employer. "If you insist on spending $10000 on a 68030 technology, may we humbly suggest you buy three Amiga 3000's." ************************************************************************* From uunet!cs.utexas.edu!usc!pollux.usc.edu!papa Thu Jun 14 16:58:52 PDT 1990 From: papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) Subject: (,COPY) Last word on Copyrights and Patents >The legally defendable item is not the game code; the valuable intellectual >property is the game design. Sorry. BOTH the game code and the game design can be protected: the first by copyright, the second one by patent. So far, ELROG, the Russian author and Nintendo have used only copyrights for protection [of the game tetris] (though I would assume a patent is being sought). >The game idea, not the picture on the screen, is what is a >protectable object. Wrong again. Both are protectable (one with patent, the other one with copyright). Note also another mistake you make later in your message, when you imply that ideas can be copyrighted. Not so: IDEAS CANNOT BE COPYRIGHTED, THEY CAN ONLY BE PATENTED! -- Marco *************************************************************************