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Date: Wed, 25-Mar-87 00:35:38 EST
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From: Info-Atari16 Digest <INFO-ATARI16@SCORE.STANFORD.edu>
Subject:      Info-Atari16 Digest V87 #140
To: Alen Goldberg <ALEN@WISDOM.bitnet>

Info-Atari16 Digest   Tuesday, March 24, 1987   Volume 87 : Issue 140

This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield

Today's Topics:

             Re: Extension boards for the new Mega Ataris
                  40 Folder Limit Question for Atari
                         BMS hard-disk system
                       Re: a 68010 for your st?
                   Re: Adding another Hard Drive??
                      Re: Request for propaganda
                            520 in Canada
                    Re: Help! vro_cpyfm,vrt_cpyfm
             Re: Extension boards for the new Mega Ataris
           Scache bug(?), GNUPLOT, GDOS, my e-mail address
                      Scientific word processors
                      floating point benchmarks

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 87 13:45:17 GMT
From: ihnp4!invest!wheaton!stefan@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Stefan Brandle)
Subject: Re: Extension boards for the new Mega Ataris
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

I too would be exited to hear about any LAN, etc. boards.  Availability (or
non-availability) of such boards could decided issue in terms of whether my
school goes Amiga 2000 or Atari ST on a new lab.

Stefan Brandle                         UUCP:  ihnp4!wheaton!stefan
Wheaton College                        "But I never claimed to be sane!"
MA Bell: (312) 260-4992

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 18 Mar 87  15:49:31 EST
From:     Flash%UMASS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject:  40 Folder Limit Question for Atari
To:       Info-Atari16@SU-SCORE.ARPA

I have a rather interesting question about the 40 folder limit.

1) Atari claims to be working on a fix for it in-house right now.
2) Supra came out with a fix for their hard disks.
3) N. Harris admits publically that Atari has received a copy of
   Supra's fix and is currently reviewing it, until then, it is
   NOT sanctioned by Atari.
   (This was either here or GENIE, I am not sure...)
4) I talked to Mark White, and he told me, that the Supra got
   their fix from Atari themselves!

(Mark White is the person in charge of technical support at
 Supra...)

Huh?!? Sounds more than a little confusing to me. Mark White
was very amazed that Atari mentioned that they received Supra's
fix and are looking at it.

Rick Flashman

1040 N. Pleasant Street, #381, Amherst, MA  01002. (413) 549-0173
Flash@UMASS.BITNET   -or-    Flash%UMASS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
                   R-FLASHMAN on GEnie

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 87 15:50:46 GMT
From: ihnp4!homxb!houxm!houxj!wkk@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (W.KAPLOW)
Subject: BMS hard-disk system
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

With all the talk of hard-disks on the net, I figured it was time to
check-out putting together my own hard-disk.  I wanted to do it cheaply, and
also wanted a little adventure in doing it.

I borrowed a Tandon TM755 disk-drive from work.  It is actually a very
expensive drive, but my experience would not have changed if I used a cheaper
one.  This drive has 50 MB unformatted capacity, and 28 millisec average
seek time (one hellava-lot better than a Seagate drive).  I bought a
150 watt PC-AT power supply from a mail-order company for $79.  I later
found one for only $50.  Next, I contacted Berkley Microsystems.  They were
very helpful and within a week after they recieved my check I received their
boards.  Using some screws and other hardware I "found",  I bolted the
two board, the BMS-100, and the Adaptek-4000 together.  I placed a small
peice of plywood on the top of the bolts and rested the disk on top of it.

The menu-driven software from BMS is very easy to use, and I was formating
the disk within minutes of powering-up the drive.

The added benefit of this system is that the BMS board contains a
battery backed-up clock, which so far seem to work great with software
provided by BMS.

Needless to say, I am very pleased with this system.  I run the Beckmeyer
MT-Cshell version 1.10 and it is very happy to be running from the hard-disk.

As an aside, I originally boughtt MT-Cshell version 1.00.  This the new
version includes bug fixes for some most of the programs that had difficulty
running under 1.0.  This fix thankfully included a fix to a bug that caused
an application I wrote not to work.  Also, the update cost me $10.00 and took
only 1.5 weeks to be delivered.


I use the Megamax compiler ver 1.0.  I am going to send for an update
to version 1.1 (I think).  I'll post a message about the fixes,
improvements etc.


AS always the views and oppinions expressed by me are my own, and
only represent my neurons and not  AT&T's or anyone else's who might
yell at me.


Wesley Kaplow
AT&T
Holmdel, NJ 07733
(201)949-0065

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 87 15:35:54 GMT
From: amdahl!meccts!viper!john@ames.arpa  (John Stanley)
Subject: Re: a 68010 for your st?
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

In article <1563@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP> grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins)
 writes:
 >
 >Some third party software writers were less cautious of this and other
 >expansion issues and as a result their *application* software fails to work
 >on enhanced systems.  There are a number of little band-aids available that
 >are intended to make this crippled software work in the 68010/020 environment.

It turns out that *application* problems are, in fact, what was causing
the incompatability.  The people I was speaking to on this subject are
more "users" than "systems-people".  All they knew was they tried to run
some programs on an upgraded machine and it would bomb.  They went to the
shop where the upgrade was done.  The people there gave them new boot
disks and that solved their problems.  (It would appear that a patch
was added to those disks for the specific programs causing problems...)
They assumed it was a different OS and I, foolishly it appears, assumed
that they knew what they were talking about.  Sorry for any confusion...

---
John Stanley (john@viper.UUCP)
Software Consultant - DynaSoft Systems
UUCP: ...{amdahl,ihnp4,rutgers}!{meccts,dayton}!viper!john

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 87 16:25:14 GMT
From: amdahl!meccts!viper!john@ames.arpa  (John Stanley)
Subject: Re: Adding another Hard Drive??
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

In article <1000@imagen.UUCP> turner@imagen.UUCP (D'arc Angel) writes:
 >in article <685@viper.UUCP>, john@viper.UUCP (John Stanley) says:
 >+ In article <659@atari.UUCP> dyer@atari.UUCP (Landon Dyer) writes:
 >+  >one drive per controller.  And naturally, Atari does not
 >+  >encourage or condone such modifications to the hardware....
 >+
 >+ Well, I suppose that's suppost to be helpful??
 >+
 >+ People are asking serious questions about how to expand their storage
 >+ and all you can say is "Atari doesn't encourage it...."?
 >
 >............    I have never
 >seen, nor do i think that i will ever see, a company that encourages
 >users to open up their hardware and hack away at it. The legal
 >ramifications are that if the company in any way, shape, or form
 >condones such behavior then they are liable for any damage done by
 >the user.

The user who asked the original question was trying to get some advice
on how to get two or more H-disks up and running on a single ST.  He did
ask about the possibility of hacking-onto an existing Atari or Supra
(don't remember which) drive, but that wasn't the main point...  He
needs more disk space.  All Landon's response said was (essentialy)
"Atari isn't about to encourage that kind of thing...".  I think my
response to Landon chiding him for not making any -constructive-
suggestions was proper under the circumstances...

I think you're over reacting to my message which essentialy says:
"Come on, you can do better than that."  I'm sure ways exist to get
multiple hard drives up on an ST.  I'm equaly sure that such setups
are not foreign to Landon/Neil or any of the other kind Atari people
who frequent this group.  I have no problems with the "standard
company disclaimer against unsupported HW mods".  I think he could
have gone on after giving it to tell the poor guy something that
would help instead of just leaving him high and dry...

---
John Stanley (john@viper.UUCP)
Software Consultant - DynaSoft Systems
UUCP: ...{amdahl,ihnp4,rutgers}!{meccts,dayton}!viper!john

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 87 21:14:36 GMT
From: elroy!jplpub1!jeff@csvax.caltech.edu  (Jeff Skaletsky)
Subject: Re: Request for propaganda
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

In article <395@laurel.wiley.UUCP> bob@wiley.UUCP (Bob Amstadt) writes:
>
>    2. Who retails the ST line in the Redondo Beach (LA) area?
>

Compumart in Santa Monica is an ST dealer and service center.  The
proprietor, Andrew Takahashi, is very knowledgable and low-key.

The store is located around 23rd and Wilshire (don't remember the exact
address, but it's two doors down from a Fatburger).  1-213-829-3623.



Do I have a lifestyle yet?

Jeff Skaletsky
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
System Engineering Group
Computing and Communication Network Support Services

Try these:    jeff@jplpub1.JPL.NASA.GOV
        seismo!cit-vax!elroy!jplpub1!jeff
        elroy!jplpub1!jeff@csvax.caltech.edu
        jeff@jpl-milvax.ARPA

Mail: 464 W. Woodbury Rd.  Altadena, CA 91001
Phone: (818)354-7677

------------------------------

Date:     Wed, 18 Mar 87  19:58:30 EST
From:     MCOHAN%UMASS.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Subject:  520 in Canada
To:       info-Atari16@su-score.arpa

fluke!ssc-vax!benoni@BEAVER.CS.WASHINGTON.EDU  (Charles L Ditzel) writes:
>     On a recent trip to Vancouver, BC I dropped by a store
> that was selling Atari ST (i think it was A&B Sound in the downtown
> area).  They were selling a very odd creature :
>
>     A 1040 ST Package *marked* 520 ST on the exterior.
>     It came with a single sided internal drive and monitor.
''>    I was fascinated.  Is this some future migration...?
>    it makes sense to me.

According to our Atari representative (Al Rizzo), the version of
the 520ST you saw is the way the future 520's will be packaged.
They will be packaged like 1040's, but be 512K and single sided
drive.  He said that Atari would sell out their current stock
of 520ST's (original packaging), and then sell the new 520's from
now on.

Michael P. Cohan    MCOHAN@UMass.BITNET   MIKECOHAN on Delphi
Organization:  The Computer Bug, Inc., 50 Main St. (Rear)
               Amherst, MA  01002  (413) 253-7782
               "Authorized Atari Sales and Service"

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 87 19:05:15 GMT
From: imagen!atari!leavens@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Alex Leavens)
Subject: Re: Help! vro_cpyfm,vrt_cpyfm
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

in article <8703170112.AA00614@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU>, JANKOWSJ@UNION.BITNET says:
>              Is there any-hacker in this universe that can assist me in
>          finding information about working with the G.E.M. functions
>
>          vro_cpyfm(handle,copy_logic,xy_array,psource_mfdb,pdest_mfdb);
>          vrt_cpyfm(handle,writing_mode,xy_array,psource_mfdb,pdest,col);
>
>              These two functions are used primarily to copy memory from
>          screen device to ram-memory of visa-versa.  However, I would
>          like to be able to copy from memory to memory or visa-versa.
>          Can this be accomplished with these functions or am I living in
>          a fantasy.

  Although I've never actually tried using these functions for memory to
memory move, I don't see any reason why they shouldn't work.  Several caveats
are probably in order, however:

    1)  You'll probably want to use the monochrome raster copy.

        2)  Make _sure_ that your source and destination blocks the
            same size.

        3)  Make sure the pixel width of your raster is an even multiple
            of a word size (ie, 16).

        4)  You probably want to make sure that your source and destination
            rectangles don't overlap.

Good luck!

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 87 16:38:18 GMT
From: braner@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu  (braner)
Subject: Re: Extension boards for the new Mega Ataris
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

The only way the 68881 performance can be fully utilized is to couple
it to a 68020 CPU.  (A number I've heard for the Mac II (16 MHz):
150,000 FLOPS.)  With a 68000 the 68881 can only be used as a peripheral,
reducing the speed by a factor of 3 or so.

I sure hope there will be a 68020/68881 card for the MegaST, since the TT
seems a long way off.  If Atari will not make one, a third party should!

- Moshe Braner

------------------------------

Date: 18 Mar 87 16:04:22 GMT
From: braner@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu  (braner)
Subject: Scache bug(?), GNUPLOT, GDOS, my e-mail address
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

Two people reported that when SCACHE is active and the ST is left to
itself for a long time, it crashes next time the floppy is accessed.
Both people had NITE installed too, but claimed SCACHE was to blame.
I would appreciate any suggestions as to why this might happen, and/or
any more observations.

Three queries:

Is there an ST port of GNUPLOT out there?

Is there PD or commercial software out there to plot scientific data
in a nice way (like "Cricket Graph" on the Macintosh)?  Is there any
program that can save the graph as a GEM metafile?

Is there a GEM metafile to Postscript translator?

About ten persons had mail sent to me and rejected since the
label "bullwinkle" has been discontinued.  I know little about
these things, so I can only suggest you try again with the following
addresses:

    braner@amvax.tn.cornell.EDU            (ARPA)
    braner%amvax.tn.cornell.edu@CRNLCS.BITNET    (BITNET)
    {ihnp4,decvax,cmcl2}!cornell!batcomputer!braner    (USENET)


- Moshe Braner

------------------------------

Date: 19 Mar 87 01:30:37 GMT
From: imagen!atari!neil@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Neil Harris)
Subject: Re: Adding another Hard Drive??
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

In article <975@imagen.UUCP>, turner@imagen.UUCP (D'arc Angel) writes:

> it bloody well won't work. listen if you are going to speak as an
> atari representive you have a responsiblity to know what you're
> talking about....

If that is a qualification for the position, I guess I'd better resign.  :-)

In all seriousness, it looks to me like Alex read the question too fast,
thinking that the question had to do with the internal dip switches on an
Atari hard disk.  Landon not only answered the question properly, but
administered the prescribed kick in the shins.

--
--->Neil Harris, Director of Marketing Communications, Atari Corporation
UUCP: ...{hoptoad, lll-lcc, pyramid, imagen, sun}!atari!neil
BIX: neilharris / CIS: 70007,1135 / Delphi: NEILHARRIS / GENIE: NHARRIS
WELL: neil / Atari Corp. BBS 408-745-5308 / Usually the OFFICIAL Atari opinion

------------------------------

Date: 19 Mar 87 02:38:34 GMT
From: sandra@utah-cs.arpa  (Sandra J Loosemore)
Subject: floating point benchmarks
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

I think I must have been asleep when I ran my earlier floating point
benchmarks, because I took a more careful look at it and it turns out I
wrote my numbers down backwards.  Here are the correct numbers for
primitive arithmetic operations.  These are in 200-hz clock tick units
for 1000 repetitions of the operation, with no attempt made to account
the overhead of the loop.  There was no significant difference between
IEEE single and double precision here.

           IEEE        FFP
    +       15          13
    -       15          23
    *       22          20
    /       58          19


Ali Ozer <ali@rocky.stanford.edu> recently sent me a floating point
benchmark program called the "Savage" benchmark, which primarily tests
the double-precision floating point math library.  I've tacked on his
original message to the end.  Here's my C version:

main ()
{   int i, iloop;
    double a;
    long start, end;

    start = gettime ();
    a = 1.0;
    iloop = 2499;
    for (i=0; i<iloop; i++)
        a = tan(atan(exp(log(sqrt(a*a))))) + 1.0;
    end = gettime ();
    printf ("%e\n", (float)(a-2500.0));        /* error term */
    printf ("%ld\n", (long)(end - start));      /* elapsed time */
    }

And the results for Alcyon C V4.14:

IEEE (libm):  1.763e-7, 72.6 seconds
FFP  (libf):  2.269e+2, 7.4 seconds

So the FFP library is much faster, but loses on accuracy as it is only
single precision.

-Sandra (sandra@cs.utah.edu)

-----------------------------------

***************************************************************
*                     Savage Benchmark Results                *
*                           16 DEC 1986                       *
* Al Aburto/Lew Wolfgang/Larry Phillips/John Gilmore/Ali Ozer *
* Glenn Miller/Mike Howard/And Others........................ *
***************************************************************
123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890123456789012345
System         CPU / FPP    CLOCK        LANGUAGE          TIME     ERROR
                   (MHz)                           (Sec)  Abs(a-2500)
Turbo-Amiga  (68020/68881)  14.32   Absoft F77 V2.2B         0.39   2.7 E-12
Sun-3/160    (68020/68881)  16.67   Sun 3.0 F77              0.4    2.0 E-12
Turbo-Amiga  (68020/68881)  14.32   Lattice C/68881 Assem    0.46   9.2 E-13
HP 9000/320  (68020/68881)          Fortran 77               0.7    3.2 E-09
HP 9000/320  (68020/68881)          Pascal                   0.7    2.8 E-07
Amiga        (68020/68881)   7.16   Absoft F77 V2.2B         0.78   2.0 E-12
VAX-8600                            Fortran 77               0.9    1.8 E-08
Amiga        (68020/68881)   7.16   Lattice C/68881 Assem    0.92   5.9 E-12
HP 9000/320  (68020/68881)          C                        1.0    2.5 E-08
DEC 2060                                                     1.6    2.0 E-12
VAX-11/750                          Fortran 77               1.9    6.6 E-10
Masscomp     (68010/  FPP)                                   2.1    3.2 E-07
VAX-11/780                          UNIX 4.3BSD F77-O        2.7    1.8 E-12
Turbo-Amiga  (68020/68881)  14.32   MetaComCo ABasiC V1.0    3.2    2.3 E+01
DMS          ( 8086/ 8087)          Turbo Pascal             3.8    1.1 E-09
Zenith Z-248 (80286/80287)   8.00   MS Fortran77 V3.20       4.5    1.2 E-09
IBM PC-AT    (80286/80287)   6.00   ProFor F77               4.9    8.7 E-11
IBM PC-AT    (80286/80287)   6.00   MS Fortran77             7.2    1.2 E-09
IBM PC-AT    (80286/80287)   6.00   Turbo Pascal             7.4    1.2 E-09
IBM PC       ( 8088/ 8087)   4.77   Microsoft C              8.0    1.2 E-09
Amiga        (68020/68881)   7.16   Metacomco ABasiC V1.0    8.6    2.3 E+01
Turbo-Amiga  (68020/-----)  14.32   Metacomco ABasiC V1.0   13.3    2.7 E+02
Turbo-Amiga  (68020/-----)  14.32   ABasiC V1.0(Cache Off)  14.7    2.7 E+02
Sun-3/160    (68020/-----)  16.67   Sun 3.0 F77             21.5    3.1 E-07
Turbo-Amiga  (68020/-----)  14.32   Absoft F77 V2.2B        21.9    1.8 E-07
Amiga        (68020/-----)   7.16   Metacomco ABasiC V1.0   37.0    2.7 E+02
Amiga        (68000/-----)   7.16   Metacomco ABasiC V1.0   39.7    2.7 E+02
Amiga        (68020/-----)   7.16   ABasiC V1.0(Cache Off)  42.2    2.7 E+02
HP 9826      (68000/-----)   8.00   HP Basic V2.0           44.5    3.2 E-07
Turbo-Amiga  (68020/-----)  14.32   Lattice C V3.03         55.4    3.2 E-07
IBM PC-XT    ( 8088/ 8087)   4.77   Gauss                   58.0    1.2 E-09
Amiga        (68020/-----)   7.16   Absoft F77 V2.2B        59.7    1.8 E-07
HP Integral  (68000/-----)          Basic Interpreter       60.9    3.2 E-07
HP Integral  (68000/-----)          C                       63.0    3.2 E-07
Amiga        (68000/-----)   7.16   True Basic (Compiler)   65.2    3.0 E-03
Amiga        (68020/-----)   7.16   MS AmigaBASIC V1.0      67.0    3.2 E-07
Amiga        (68000/-----)   7.16   MS AmigaBASIC V1.0      73.0    3.2 E-07
Amiga        (68000/-----)   7.16   Absoft F77 V2.2B        77.2    1.8 E-07
HP Integral  (68000/-----)          Absoft F77             100.0    1.8 E-07
Amiga        (68020/-----)   7.16   Lattice C V3.03        139.0    3.2 E-07
Macintosh    (68000/-----)   7.83   MAC C                  221.0    (?)
Amiga        (68000/-----)   7.16   Lattice C V3.03        234.0    3.2 E-07
Macintosh    (68000/-----)   7.83   DeSmet C               244.0    (?)
Commodore 128( 8502/-----)   2.00   Basic Interpreter      256.0    9.0 E-04
Macintosh    (68000/-----)   7.83   Manx Aztec C           353.0    (?)
IBM PC-XT    ( 8088/-----)   4.77   BASICA                 895.0    3.0 E-08
Tandy PC-5                          Basic Interpreter      961.0    2.7 E-03
****************************************************************************
Notes:
    (1) The Savage Benchmark, by Bill Savage, first appeared in Dr. Dobb's
        Journal, Sept 1983, page 120.
        (2) The Macintosh results are from Byte, The Small Systems Journal,
        Aug 1986, page 254.  There appears to be a 'typo' in the
        published accuracy results.  Exact result should be 2500.0  .
        (3) The Savage Benchmark requires use of IEEE double precision
        to obtain a reasonably small error. The error is unacceptably
        large for IEEE single precision.  All the above results were
        obtained with double precision except for the MetaComCo ABasiC
        where double precision variables were used but the math functions
        were calculated only to single precision.  As can be seen ABasiC
        is fast but the error is too large for a meaningful result.



-----------------------------------

c Here is the Savage Benchmark Program:
c **************************************
c *           Fortran 77               *
c **************************************
    Program Savage
    implicit double precision (a-h,o-z)

    write(*,1000)

    a = 1.0
    iloop = 2499

    do 100 i=1,iloop
     a = dtan(datan(dexp(dlog(dsqrt(a*a))))) + 1.0
 100     continue

       write(*,1010)
       write(*,1020) a
 1000  format(5x,'Start')
 1010  format(5x,'Stop ')
 1020  format(5x,'a = ',f22.15)
       stop
       end

------------------------------

End of Info-Atari16 Digest
**************************
-------