Re: Nyan Cat
On Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 04:16:28PM -0700, Thomas Harte wrote: I'm unsure why they decided to go bright + flash in the Spectrum, to be honest. Was flashing a must have feature of the 1982 computer market? No but you forget one thing... the cursor. :-) imc
Re: SAM HAM viewer
The Sam does of course have line-based palette changes built into its native SCREEN$ loader (before you say: yes I know that's not quite as sophisticated as what's being discussed). In... oh, 1996, I attempted to write a program that could translate a 256x192 image into a plain Sam screen with palette line changes, though it wasn't hugely successful. It describes itself as follows: Usage: /tmp/ppmtosam [flags] [input] [output] This program converts the named input file (or standard input if none is named) from raw PPM format to a Sam mode 4 screen picture and writes the result in the named output file (or standard output). The resulting file will contain the bitmap (24576 bytes) a palette (40 bytes) and, if required, a line table (4*n bytes) and end with an end marker (character 255). This is the same format as if the picture had been saved to disk on a Sam. If line changes are not requested then the program selects the 16 best colours for the palette. Otherwise the program attempts to calculate a best palette for each line, based on the colours in the surrounding area (the program does not take account of the fact that if several palette changes are made on one line then the later ones will not be available immediately). Alternatively, a picture can be produced using the 14-colour greyscale palette. The picture is not dithered by default, but Floyd-Steinberg dithering may be selected. Valid flags: (default values in brackets) -c Allow line changes -d Produce some debugging information -f Use Floyd-Steinberg dithering -g Produce a greyscale picture instead of a colour one -q Quiet (don't print the number of palette changes) -s Attempt to smooth boundaries caused by palette changes while dithering -A n Look ahead n lines when calculating popular colours for line changes [4] -B n Look behind n lines when calculating colours for line changes [0] -D n Discourage line changes (higher n makes fewer line changes) [4] -k n Keep the first n colours constant when calculating line changes [8] (pen 0 if kept should be a popular dark colour and pen 1 should be light) -L n Use a maximum of L colour changes on a line [2] -M n Use a maximum of n colour changes for the whole picture [127] imc
Re: SAM HAM viewer
I think nvg's mail server is on crack... yesterday it responded to an unsubscribe command that I'd sent on April 4*. Thanks Frode, if it was you who kicked it. :-) On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 02:54:05PM +0100, Simon Owen wrote: Thanks for that Ian -- it does sound very similar to what I was aiming for. Though the standard screen$ capabilities seem very limited, with maybe just 1 change per line? (plus flash) Sam BASIC's handling of this is tied to line interrupts (i.e., same as when you type PALETTE LINE). The advantage of that is the machine keeps working while the screen is up; the disadvantage is that you can't do much work during the interrupt (and the code isn't written for speed). I think the limit is about 2 before the changes start showing on screen. I've tried this program on a few random images but With 2 changes per line the difference between allowing changes and having no changes is only minimally visible (unless I'm just not using colourful enough images to start with). The other problem it has is that with FS dithering sometimes the error values build up to the extent that when a palette change occurs it might select too much of the new colour just to get rid of the errors - this produces either a visible horizontal line in the output or occasionally a sudden change in shade. The program's -s flag tries to fix this by using a random number to inhibit selection of a colour on the line where it's new, but either that doesn't work very well or I didn't get the randomness quite right. imc * Needed to slightly change the format of my email address so it would let me post.
Re: Micro Men
On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 06:13:24PM +0100, Thomas Harte wrote: Oh, I don't know. Surely Sinclair's model works only if you can establish yourself as the supplier of a proprietary computer aimed at the price conscious end of the market? I don't see how that could compete once a growing body of manufacturers were transferring to a PC-style open architecture. You say open architecture, but it wasn't supposed to be open when released. Most of the components could be easily copied, however, and Compaq reverse-engineered the IBM BIOS to produce their own 100% compatible machine. How would Sir Clive have fared if the QL had been a success and other manufacturers had started putting out copies of it? imc
Re: Who`s missing?
On Wed, Aug 03, 2005 at 10:21:07AM +0100, Steve Parry-Thomas wrote: May be folks now use MSN ? Any body want to post their MSN id ? MSN, that's, um, something to do with Microsoft, is it? imc :-)
Re: Christmas Present
On Mon, Jan 24, 2005 at 01:33:25AM +, Stuart Brady wrote: BTW, does anyone know the format used for the messenger snapshots? It really ought to be in the CSS FAQ. (Unless it's the +D format, in which case it's already there.) As far as I know, a Messenger snapshot is a 64K file containing a complete memory dump (including ROM). The contents of the registers are stored in a 22-byte block which ends at 0x3d00 (um, so that'd be 0x3cea starting address) in the same format as the register block of a Sam/+D SNAP file (where the register block is stored starting at byte 220 of the directory entry). Which seems to mean that they are in the order: IY IX DE' BC' HL' AF' DE BC HL Ir SP Ir is actually a spare byte followed by the contents of the I register. The R register, interrupt flag, value of AF and the execution address (PC) are all popped off the stack once the snapshot is loaded. imc
Re: SDI a nef diskimage format ?
On Fri, Dec 10, 2004 at 04:11:58PM -, Geoff Winkless wrote: One of the ways I was going to do protection (if I'd ever got round to it) was buying a load of really crappy disks and writing code specific for each disk that attempted to format a track I knew would fail - if it formatted correctly it would know the disk had been copied... not usable on high-volume items, but for the low-volume Sam market, it would have been perfectly do-able :) It doesn't seem a good idea because if they are that crappy then who's to say they won't start losing real data? (I suppose there might be a market for time-limited software...) Better to buy good disks and scratch them with a pin, or something. imc
Re: Fwd: [FJV-59346]: Hosting question - urgent please!
On Sat, Nov 27, 2004 at 10:34:54AM +, Gavin Smith quoted from Rob: Games that are at least five years old and not sold by companies anymore. They are generaly considered illegal but the copywrite has expired. Sometimes the game company re-issues the game as a classic and then it is not abandonware anymore. (a) it's copyright, and (b) it hasn't expired - otherwise it wouldn't be illegal to copy it! imc
Posting access
Dear moderator... I haven't posted to sam-users for a while. I did so earlier today, but it hasn't come through. Majordomo doesn't seem to have bounced the message either. The Powers That Be have changed my envelope-from address, but the From: remains the same. That shouldn't matter, should it? Or did I just miss it? imc
Re: Poll: What do you get if you...
On Thu, Nov 18, 2004 at 10:36:00AM -, Colin Piggot wrote: At least DIR wasn't changed to CAT, I can remember Bob's argument being You don't DIR a directory, you CAT a directory Hadn't heard about that one - was there a discussion about it or something? I think it was either a response to a letter in Format, or it may have been around 1996 when Bob was on the mailing list... I can't quite remember. Extracted from Simon Cooke on 24 Oct 1994: == I had a long chat to Bob at the show, and here's what the hard drive is going to be like: [big snip] Oh, and he wants to change how the dos works -- apparently putting the device in the filename is a no-no, so he's putting down these standards: CAT instead of DIR must be used (although you can do it the other way, in programs it will be changed back) Because you CAT a directory, you don't DIR a directory LOAD d1filename instead of LOAD D1:filename (although, again, you should be able to use the other, but it's not preferred) the device shouldn't be part of the filename as it causes all sorts of problems LOAD pnumber instead of LOAD number He wants it all to be very G+DOS compatible. I say hit him over the head with a cleaver -- the dimwit wants to keep it at Spectrum levels. == Extracted from [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 1 Dec 1996: == SAMDOS V3.0 NOTES FOR CHANGES FROM EXISTING SAMDOS 2 This document lays out the changes required to SAMDOS version 2 to create SAMDOS version 3. No priority should be implied by the order given. [big snip] 1.4 CAT to replace DIR. The token will print as CAT, therefore any program saved under SAMDOS 2 will have all its DIRs come up as CATs. If DIR is typed at the keyboard then CAT will appear in the listing. CAT [device number] gives full listing of the directory. CAT [device number]! gives a short listing. CAT #n; [device number][!] prints the catalogue to the specified stream. CAT [device number][!];FILENAME can be used for a selective CAT using * or ? if required. == When challenged on this point, he replied Because you CATalogue the directory, you do not produce a DIRectory of the directory. Almost the whole list disagreed with him, of course. imc
Re: Preferred plain text editor
On Tue, Mar 11, 2003 at 10:56:33AM +, Me wrote: I believe I made a Sam version of my speccy editor FSE (which is a Sam version in the same way that the Sam version of Elite is, I'm afraid, and so has a maximum text size of about 25K). Now I've found the disk, I remember it was on Syncytium. imc
Re: Preferred plain text editor
On Tue, Mar 11, 2003 at 10:48:11AM +, Gavin Smith wrote: Dan Dooré wrote: ZDE16 - kept up with my typing at about 90 WPM Cool - is this freely available anywhere? When David mentioned it I knew it rung a bell - it's a CPM based editor that I used a few times when playing with ProDos. Oh! :( Sheesh, I can't believe we haven't a decent little SAM text editor! There must be something... I believe I made a Sam version of my speccy editor FSE (which is a Sam version in the same way that the Sam version of Elite is, I'm afraid, and so has a maximum text size of about 25K). Andrew might remember this, as I'm bound to forget to search my house for the disk. imc
Re: Re: OT: Z-buffering was Re: So long 2002, here comes 2003....
On Sun, Jan 12, 2003 at 01:46:52AM +0100, Thomas Harte wrote in widescreen: There is an entire web page somewhere dedicated to getting fast sqrts. I've seen one which uses only a 256 or 512 byte table but can do a 16bit sqrt in less than 100 cycles. Don't know how that works, but just out of interest, the fastest pure-code integer sqrt routine I know (producing an 8-bit number from a 16-bit input) has a loop of a bit over 100 cycles executed 8 times. It's based on this: x=arg(1)/2**16 p=0 do 8 x=4*x p=p+p if x = p+1 then do x=x-(p+1) p=p+2 end end p=p/2 return p imc (who isn't here really)
Re: SAM on eBay
On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 05:18:33PM +0100, Aley Keprt wrote: Also, your KR syntax is pretty old-fashioned. Thanks bye. I happen to like KR syntax. Anyway, I wrote it 5-6 years ago, when the Sun compiler didn't even support ANSI syntax. imc
Re: SAM on eBay
On Wed, Dec 06, 2000 at 12:05:44PM +0100, Aley Keprt wrote: Sun compilet didn't support it? That is indeed what I said... SunOS 4 has a C compiler included, but it only supports KR. You can buy another compiler from Sun which supports ANSI, but most people don't because they already have the free one. You can install gcc of course, but it's easier if you write stuff that doesn't depend on gcc. Solaris 2 (and higher) has no C compiler, but again you can buy one. imc
Re: SAM on eBay
On Wed, Dec 06, 2000 at 12:29:21PM +0100, Aley Keprt wrote: The main reason I like gcc is that sources for gcc are fully portable to any operating system. SamDOS? :o) I only wonder what is in unistd.h, that you had to include it. read(2) and write(2), I believe. imc
Re: SAM on eBay
On Tue, Dec 05, 2000 at 05:07:33PM +0100, Aley Keprt wrote: Shit! I have only Unix and Windows. It may compile for any Unix - I haven't tried. Ah And why should I use samread, when I can simply use SMD? I've no idea what SMD is, but samread extracts the individual snap file out of the DSK image. imc
Re: SAM on eBay
On Mon, Dec 04, 2000 at 09:55:22AM +0100, Frans van Egmond wrote: Can anyone say more about that Messenger Speccy Interface? Apparently it downloads snapshots from your speccy and makes them work on Sam. I only know about this 'cos someone asked me to support Messenger files in my little proggy that converts SNA to and from Sam 48K snapshots. Also to clean the yellow off, don't use 'Aceton' (Not sure if that's the English name as well. It's some solvent I've used on one of my Sams) Not only does the yellow disappear but so does the SAM-logo plus the plastic casing itself, if rubbed long enough ! Acetone is certainly not a substance I would consider using to clean anything that's made of plastic! :o) Apparently sodium bicarbonate works - never tried it myself though. imc
Re: SAM on eBay
On Mon, Dec 04, 2000 at 01:29:38PM +0100, Aley Keprt wrote: I need to convert all that old games in Sam snap shots to a regular file format, usable in emulators on PC. Where should I go for it? Can be found at ftp://ftp.nvg.ntnu.no/pub/sam-coupe/misc/sun/ but (a) it compiles on SunOS 4, possibly on Linux (I do have it compiled but forget whether I had to do anything), and almost certainly not on Windows although you *might* manage it with cygwin; and (b) it's nasty hacky code. You will need to get the snapshots off the Sam disk with samread and then convert them with samsnap. The samread program accepts DSK files or (on Linux) real disks. imc
Re: Keyboard membranes
On Tue, Nov 21, 2000 at 06:20:46AM +0300, Mac Buster wrote: May be someone will find a company and then we'll have new working membranes. I can ask that man who does Speccy keyboards for help. I am sure membrannes will be cheap (~4UKP each) I think not. SINTECH in Germany does Speccy membranes and they cost 40DM each (and they are rather more popular than Sam membranes too, I would expect). imc
Re: Big disk
(I think the problem is video in mode 512x384 -- very slow text mode). You should try the console of a Sparc 1 - even the Sam's text output would run rings around it. imc
Re: Exploding SAM
Nev - who still has a passing interest in the beast. Who? :o) imc
Re: SAM 2000?
On Tue, Oct 24, 2000 at 11:20:26PM +0100, Stuart Brady wrote: Silly question maybe, but why would we care about compatability between compilers' object files if we've got the source? Well, if you have something which takes five hours to compile on your machine or 20 minutes to download the pre-compiled version, you might be tempted to go for the latter. And then discover that it's not compatible with anything else you compile because you've got a slightly different version of the compiler... Or maybe you've upgraded your compiler since you last compiled a particular shared library, and now none of your new programs will link to it. I have Licq running on my Solaris box. It's a Qt application. Licq and Qt are both written in C++. But Qt won't compile with GNU c++ because it includes Sun's broken OpenWindows header files and GNU c++ objects to them. And Licq must be compiled with GNU c++ because the Sun Workshop c++ compiler doesn't have the required stdc++ library. Put them together and what do you get? Unresolved symbols. Fortunately I've managed to hack Qt to use X11R6 header files instead of OpenWindows ones, and thus compiled it with GNU c++. imc
Re: SAM 2000?
On Tue, Oct 24, 2000 at 10:38:56AM +0100, Ian Collier wrote (again): Not only would I not touch C++ with a bargepole [snip] Oi. Someone at mail.vi-internet.de appears to be reposting messages. Please stop it... imc
Re: FRED Web Pages
On Fri, Oct 20, 2000 at 04:00:05PM +0200, Frode Tenneboe wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: http://www.podboy.demon.co.uk/coupe/fred/ okiI'm not sure if it's supposed to be like that but it looks nasty, or rather just too big, in netscape. The bottom table is only 2 cm high - that is about 6% of the entire netscape window That is completely bizarre! Almost the entire Netscape is blank. It has a title at the top, then a vast expanse of black, then all the useful info squashed into a tiny frame at the bottom (only 1cm high on my screen, and the contents window is about 2.5cm wide and has teeny tiny writing in it). imc
Re: Console Coupe - more complete calculations
On Mon, Oct 02, 2000 at 12:04:03AM -0700, Simon Cooke wrote: Hmmm... looks like everyone's ignoring the transfinite set of numbers, Cantor sets, and Aleph^0, Aleph^1, Aleph^2, etc. The transfinite ordinals are ordinals, not numbers; and the Alephs are cardinals, not necessarily numbers either. If by Cantor set you mean that set of trinary numbers between 0 and 1 which don't contain the digit 1 then that's a set (of cardinality 2^Aleph0 and measure 0) and not a number either. Also, the fact that you can have positive and negative zero... In what branch of mathematics? I've never heard of it. imc
Re: Console Coupe - more complete calculations
On Mon, Oct 02, 2000 at 11:12:08AM +0100, Andrew Gale wrote: I guess Simon's talking about 1's complement numbers, or sign+magnitude binary representation of -ve numbers. In that case that's two different representations of the same number, rather than two different numbers. (Despite what the Spectrum ROM thinks. (-:) imc
Re: Console Coupe
On Tue, Sep 26, 2000 at 10:42:08PM +0100, Tim P wrote: If so you just need to get it to autoboot. I remember imc posting a patch to the ROM image that would make it do just that. I appear to have lost the email now though. I did indeed. - Date: Wed, 21 Jul 1999 15:26:48 +0100 From: Ian Collier [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no Subject: Re: SimCoupe : wide spread? (was New: SimCoupe 0.783a...) On Tue, Jul 20, 1999 at 01:38:46PM +0100, Andrew Collier wrote: Now interestingly, nearly everything else you've been complaining about can already be fixed. You can avoid the Open dialogues by using the command line options or Win98 properties which people have already mentioned. And then if you can get hold of an image of the SC_AutoBOOT ROM[1], then that will save you the trauma of having to actually press the F9 key. Indeed. If you want to save a couple of seconds at startup you can hack that too. Poke 454D into the ROM at location EBC9. This skips the memory-clear operation, since you know the memory is already clear on the emulator. Warning: this means that typing CALL 0 or pressing the reset button no longer clears all the memory (actually it does clear 1/256 of it). For autoboot I've hacked up the following to be stored in the ROM at location ED1B. No guarantees but it seems to work for all four of the demo disks on the newbies page. This is for the version of the ROM which comes with SimCoupe 0.72. Note: if you use this poke then it will always boot when you start the emulator whether you like it or not, and also whenever you type NEW. 3EFF 320056 32445C 213B5C CBFE CDDFD8 3A445C 3C C2D40D CF00 [ld a,FF; ld (LINICOLS),a; ld (NSPPC),a; ld hl,FLAGS; set 7,(hl); call BOOTNR; ld a,(NSPPC); inc a; jp nz,NEXTSTAT; rst 8; defb 0] imc
Re: Console Coupe
On Thu, Sep 28, 2000 at 10:03:29AM +0100, Simon Owen wrote: Dave Whitmore wrote: would it be possible to alter a DSK image, to another filetype with a different extension that could be recognised by Windows (or another GUI O/S) to launch Sim Coupe, and in turn boot itself. You can use whatever filetypes you like - have one for autoboot and one for not-autoboot if you really want (after all, what's in a name? It's just an entry in the registry) - but I'm not sure I see the point in the not-autoboot one so one might as well just use the DSK filetype as an autoboot disk. Yes - you can set up an associated application to be run when you double-click on .DSK files. The SimCoupe command-line can include the options to insert the disk and boot from it. You can also set up additional entries on the context (right-click) menu for that type, so that make it just inserts the disk without booting, etc. The only trouble is that the current versions of SimCoupe fail because Windows makes the directory containing the .DSK file the current directory, and SimCoupe will fail to find the SAM ROMs. You could probably do it with an intermediate batch file for now, but that's messier. I'm not familiar with associating filetypes with commands, but if you had the batch file then you could have the batch file supply all the '-disk1 foo' and '-autoboot' flags which simcoupe needs. Associating *.DSK with that batch file might then be easier than associating it with simcoupe -autoboot -disk1 foo. Or I suppose it might not make any difference. If you wanted to eliminate the batch file you could add another flag argument to simcoupe which allows you to specify which directory the ROM files are in. imc
Re: Console Coupe
On Thu, Sep 28, 2000 at 10:29:11AM +0100, Howard Price wrote: This is a 'how many angels can dance on the head of a pin' innit? 'Dividing into zero, equally-sized parts'. Never gonna happen, except in my beloved school dinners. With 0/0 you are dividing zero into zero equally-sized parts, which is eminently possible. If you have zero parts then the total of all the parts is going to be zero, whatever size the parts are. So 0/0 is any number. You can define it to be whatever you like, or leave it undefined. imc
Re: Console Coupe
On Fri, Sep 29, 2000 at 01:35:51PM +0200, Aley Keprt wrote: This is not what we wanted, since 0/0 is not lim0/0. 0/0 is undefined - it can be anything. But we could define it as the limit of some operation x/y where x and y both tend to 0. This isn't *the* definition, but it is *a* definition. There are some cases in which you can't calculate p/q but in which it makes sense to define it as the limit of x/y where x tends to p and y tends to q. imc
Re: Console Coupe
On Fri, Sep 29, 2000 at 01:05:58PM +0100, Howard Price wrote: Right that's sorted. Who's up for square root of minus one? No i's in the answer please. j [engineer's answer] imc (no, not an engineer)
Re: unwanted sam software....
On Fri, Sep 08, 2000 at 08:25:46AM +0100, Nev Young wrote: Betcha surprised that I still read this ;-) Who are you again? imc
Re: SIM Coupe
On Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 09:29:33AM +, Luke Trevorrow wrote: P.S. It's nice to be back in the world of SAM. Last time I was on this list all that went on was arguing!!! That's cos Bob's not here innit? imc PS if you are a Linux user then how come your system clock's not right? (says 9.29 GMT when it means 9.29 BST) what does /etc/localtime point to?
Re: SIM Coupe
On Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 10:58:39AM +, Luke Trevorrow wrote: ^ P.S.According to my Linux box I am running in BST mate. In that case StarOffice is crap and you should get a real mailer... imc (USE MUTT IT'S NICE)
Re: SIM Coupe
On Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 11:15:11AM +, Luke Trevorrow wrote: Maybe I should get VM ware working? I've never used it but I'm told it's very good. (Does this mean your work compels you to use inappropriate office software for sending email?) imc
Re: SIM Coupe
On Tue, Jul 11, 2000 at 11:31:10AM +, Luke Trevorrow wrote: When it comes down to it mate - Star Office is all integrated. It does all my time management, tasks, etc and all that ties in with the Star Office e-mail client. Star Office is open all day - so why bother running anything else. What's a windowing system for if you can't open other windows? Have a virtual desktop. Mutt is only a click away. Right tool for the right job, and all that. Apart from the time stamp - which I'm not really bothered about. It does a good job. I just wish it wasn't so resource hungry. *You* might not be bothered about the time stamp, but for other people it makes your mail come out in the wrong order with respect to anyone else's. Also, some of your messages are coming through in html. Perhaps there is a timezone gadget in StarOffice which would fix it. At least it puts References: lines in, though, which various mailers used by other people on this list don't... imc
Re: Sam Dos
On Sun, Jul 09, 2000 at 07:02:57PM +0100, David Brant wrote: Does anybody know why a M/C program that uses Dos to load files will work in Master Dos but not in sam dos 2.0 when using hook codes that should work in SAM Dos ie 129 and 130 I've never known anything which uses hook codes to work properly in Samdos... imc
Re: scads
On Mon, Jul 03, 2000 at 10:28:45AM +0100, Andrew Gale wrote: Wow... looking back, it's hard to believe how much optimism people had in the Sam market, isn't it?! I remember that Graham Burtenshaw used to sell something like 200 of each issue of Enceladus and made a tidy packet (well, enough to make an A' level student feel rich). Am I the only Sam user that didn't make any cash?! I've made a grand total of about 10 quid... (Mind you, I probably made about 300 out of my Spectrum) imc
Re: free: the complete spectrum rom disassembly
On Fri, Jun 30, 2000 at 10:58:40AM +0100, Andrew Gale wrote: Does anyone want my copy of Ian Logan Frank O'Hara's The Complete Spectrum ROM Disassembly ? The first persom to email me can have it for nothing. Good heavens, that's a bit generous. :-) If you posted this on CSS you'd probably get a million replies and there would probably be quite a bit of cash in it... imc (who already has one, but all the pages are falling out)
Re: free: the complete spectrum rom disassembly
On Fri, Jun 30, 2000 at 11:15:56AM +0100, Si Owen wrote: Heh, mine too :-) I still vividly remember how hard it was to get hold of that book in the first place too! Mine wasn't. But then, I got it while it was still in print. :-) imc
Re: sorry, gone - the spec. rom disassembly
On Fri, Jun 30, 2000 at 12:09:28PM +0100, Andrew Gale wrote: I'm sorry to say that the spec. rom disassembly has already gone - apologies to all those that were disappointed. Funnily enough, no-one at all was interested when I tried to flog it on CSS last year! I can't believe that... maybe your posting didn't make it out on to the newsgroup. :-) imc
Re: EDDAC
On Thu, Jun 29, 2000 at 03:11:21PM +0100, Andrew Gale wrote: How wide are the samples? 8 bits? If so, how do you select which channel to write to with just one strobe line are alternate writes to alternate latches? The strobe line can be either 1 or 0, yes? So what's the problem? :-) (It's not used in the same way as it would be with an actual printer.) imc
Re: Web Sites
On Thu, Jun 22, 2000 at 01:21:46PM +0100, Martin Fitzpatrick wrote: Gordon Wallis wrote: Notepad. Ya can't beat it. Except for NoteTab Light Actually, quite a few things beat Notepad for text editing. Hey, I'd even take GNU emacs (supposing there's a windows version) over Notepad. However, I happen to like THE on Linux, and happily it's also available for Windows. http://www.lightlink.com/hessling/THE/ imc
Re: SAM Community on line
On Tue, Jun 13, 2000 at 12:07:57AM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote: I know this is a common problem with viewing websites on a Mac, and then a PC, so what am I doing wrong? Any ideas? Yes, it sounds like what you are doing wrong is expecting it to appear identically on different browsers. This isn't the nature of the web... imc
Re: SAM Community on line
On Tue, Jun 13, 2000 at 12:23:42AM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote: Thanks for your helpful/patronizing words :) As I said, this is a *platform* issue, not a browser issue You don't seem to understand. A platform issue *is* a browser issue. it looks the same on all browsers on the Mac or PC *All* browsers? Did you try Opera? Mosaic? Hotjava? And once you've got it fixed on Windows and Mac OS then are you sure you know how it will look on Linux or Solaris? imc
Re: SAM Community on line
On Tue, Jun 13, 2000 at 01:15:18AM +0100, David L wrote: Hmm the java for sensing browser is pretty straight forward - any way of checking browsing machine? No, no, no! JavaScript is evil, and making different pages for different browsers is also evil. Why not just turn the whole thing into a PDF and be done with it... imc
Re: SAM Community on line
On Tue, Jun 13, 2000 at 01:14:16AM +0100, Martin Fitzpatrick wrote: Mac's show the text at about 1 size smaller than on other machines, for whatever reason. SO for example, looking at Size 2 on a Mac looks the same size as looking at Size 1 on a PC. Size 1 is almost unreadable on a Mac (which is a bugger, cos its the nicest looking size on a PC). Size 1 is unreadable on Netscape on almost all non-Windows platforms (and why not, since it's the smallest there is) - especially when someone goes and says font size=1 face=Arial which results in microscopic typewriter-style font on Unix platforms. The fact that Windows platforms tend to display the fonts too large is a big pain because it makes people feel they have to mess with the font size. However, - The web author should *not* be messing with font sizes except when a small section of text actually needs to be relatively smaller or larger than the main text body (in which case small or big is appropriate but font size=-n or font size=+n is acceptable). - Font sizes are the viewer's problem, not the web author's problem. I can change and indeed have changed the default font size in Netscape to one that I consider the most readable, so if you change it then you are making your page less readable to me. Is that what you want? - Since I can change the font sizes at will, if you write stuff that depends on what size the font is then it will royally screw up when I change it. Don't do it. imc
Re: SORRY!
On Mon, Apr 17, 2000 at 08:48:27PM +0100, Leonard Bennett wrote: I am very sorry for sending you my advert as the wrong sort of file. Apology accepted. If you would now like to send the list in ASCII text then people might be interested. However, you are still sending in HTML and it's best if you turn this off. And your line wrap is up the spout. Personally I blame Microsoft. imc
Re: Sam hardware
On Sat, Apr 15, 2000 at 02:56:51PM +0100, Leonard Bennett wrote: From: Leonard Bennett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED], sam-users@nvg.ntnu.no, [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Followed by: attachment of type multipart/alternative +- attachment of type text/plain - blank +- attachment of type text/html - also blank attachment of type application/octet-stream - name SAM PRICELIST.JPG, size 259K That was *incredibly* stupid%. Please don't do it again. I imagine the sam-users size-filter stopped it from going to the list, which is a small mercy. imc % (especially the fact that the jpeg file had the wrong type and so couldn't be automatically viewed.)
Re: Sam hardware
On Mon, Apr 17, 2000 at 07:10:24PM +0100, Dave Hooper wrote: so I just deleted it. I assume it was some kind of an advert, yes?) It was, indeed, a Sam hardware price list. In the form of some text printed on a sheet of paper and scanned in at about 150dpi. imc
Re: Following on from Sam forsale
On Wed, Mar 29, 2000 at 01:11:44PM +0100, Stephen Longhurst wrote with no line-wrap: the introduction to the article explains that the price reflects a machine in absolute mint condition with all mint packaging. Hmm, I may be able to find some After Eight boxes to package mine in... imc
Re: SAM pic converter ?
Perhaps I should make my customary mention of ppmtosam.c and samtoppm.c in http://users.comlab.ox.ac.uk/ian.collier/Misc/ . Works on Unix - other systems may vary (and you need something to convert your image into PPM format). imc
Re: Spotted on c.s.s - Sam for sale
On Mon, Mar 27, 2000 at 06:12:12PM +0100, Andrew Collier wrote: Well Sams are 10 years old! And Z80s also seem to be in considerably better supply, at the moment. I think we are talking about ZX80s, not Z80 cpus. They are rare. imc
Re: SAM Community iss 2
On Thu, Mar 09, 2000 at 08:38:44AM -, Doore, Dan wrote: Apparently Mr Len Bennet can blow EPROM's so I presume he has the image for the Boot ROM. Didn't he use to be on Celebrity Squares, or something? imc
Re: Anyone there
On Thu, Jan 13, 2000 at 06:16:25PM -, Robert Wilkinson wrote: Has this list gone quiet or am I not getting the mail. Oh we're having a right old party - you don't know what you are missing! imc
Re: your mail
On Thu, Jan 06, 2000 at 07:33:14PM -, David L wrote: A Z380 or Z280 machine would, I would imagine, be remotely of interest to some people on the list. Quite possibly. However, you neglected to mention that this was what your post was about, and didn't give proper directions to it. imc
Archive
I have just re-opened the sam-users archive, complete up to the end of 1999... http://users.comlab.ox.ac.uk/ian.collier/sam-users/ imc
Re: your mail
On Mon, Jan 03, 2000 at 09:05:09PM -, David L wrote: Anyone still actually interested in their Sam - try this site... click on the Union Flag tho ;) http://virtuals.atlant.ru/peters/e-index.htm Normally I ignore people who just post URLs without saying why I should go to them. You could have put a bit of info there, in particular mentioning what I have to click on to get the info. The URL above just says under construction, and news says No news today. Most of the other buttons are in Russian, including the page I get when I click on the Union Flag. (Well, not quite Russian - the images are in Russian but the text claims to be in the charset 'windows-1251' which doesn't contain Cyrillic characters so it looks like this: ÁßàØÝà - ÕÞ ÔÞÜÐèÝØÙ ÚÞÜßîÕà). I was about to give up when I happened to click on Sprinter and found the thing you were presumably trying to direct us to. Bit difficult to read but it appears to be a Z84C15-(what?)-based computer with 4096K RAM, 128K ROM, a hard disk and so on, which is Speccy-compatible. imc
Re: Happy New Year!
On Sat, Jan 01, 2000 at 09:58:37AM -, Dave Laundon wrote: BTW. Y2K bugs ahoy!!! Looks like I need a new video recorder (unless I pretend it's 1996 or something)!!! 1972 is the year you want: the calendar repeats itself exactly every 28 years except when non-leap-year centuries intervene. imc
Re: Wincoupe
On Mon, Dec 06, 1999 at 05:40:14PM +0100, Aley Keprt wrote: 1. turn mouse off during reset 2. turn mouse on when mouse port is to be read Doesn't the Sam interrupt routine read the mouse port? imc
Re: Wincoupe
On Sun, Dec 05, 1999 at 12:03:22AM +, Andrew Collier wrote: One idea you could consider, which Ian described to me (I think he'd used it in his X spectrum emulator) would be that Left-Shift produces the keystroke you'd expect from looking at your PC's keyboard (eg, left-shift and '0' gives ')') wheras Right-Shift directly corresponds to the Shift key on the Sam (eg, right-shift and '0' gives '~'). It's 'tother way around, and it's needed on the Speccy because left-shift equals Caps Shift and gives cursor controls when used with the number keys. imc
Re: Seattle's Burning
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 03:20:57PM -, Justin Skists wrote: *chuckles* It must be spoof. I haven't heard of this union. Then again, things seem to grow out of the ground very quickly around here. I had it wrong. It should have been: Remarkably there's no record of New York ever having been mistaken for Milton Keynes. However, the local townsfolk were nontheless delighted when the French government presented them with a huge statue of a woman holding a torch in celebration of Milton Keynes's victory in the War of Independence, and sent a bemused New York city corporation a small herd of concrete cows to mark their application for unitary authority status. imc
Re: MS-BDOS
On Fri, Dec 03, 1999 at 03:15:31PM +0100, Martijn Groen wrote: Gavin Smith wrote: I don't like option 1 at all, BDOS is excellent but if you start to make [snip] There is something very wrong with your mailer (well, it is Outlook Express so what's new?). It's making it impossible to see who wrote what (and it isn't even putting a references line in so that the mail threads properly). See if you can find a quote in Internet format option and turn it on. imc
Re: MS-BDOS?
On Fri, Dec 03, 1999 at 04:43:13PM +, Andrew Collier wrote: The technical manual describes a mechanism for allocating space in small chunks, but I don't think the ROM provides any direct support for it, Correct. and I don't know of many programs which use it properly. Most of them were probably written by me (and haven't been published - except Sam Play, which was on Syncytium). The major problem with it is that you have to write your code to be entirely relocatable - not impossible, but quite a major pain (and likely to produce slower code). Nonsense. All you have to do is add some code to the installation routine which fixes up all the absolute addresses to run at the new location and it will run at exactly the same speed as before. I think the solution with BDOS really is to make it a 32K DOS with the second 16K being optional. That is, 16K of it is loaded when you boot, and if you require the extra features then you do a command which loads the second 16K. (Or make it 8K or 4K if the full 16 isn't needed.) imc
Re: Seattle's Burning
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 11:57:08AM -, Nick Humphries wrote: American cities are rather well designed. The roads are configured in a grid formation, and one block would be one square on that grid. Try an old city, such as Boston. Your typical American city is only well designed because it is relatively new (compared to a typical British city, anyway). imc
Re: Seattle's Burning
Oh... didn't see this On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 11:57:08AM -, Nick Humphries wrote: (who works in the City and saw the j18 stuff first-hand. J18? I don't remember you at the committee meetings. Oh. You probably didn't mean the ITIC J18 standard, did you... imc
Re: Seattle's Burning
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 01:07:11PM -, Justin Skists wrote: Funnily enough, I read somewhere that MK has been used in films to portray US city sets. Put a few american cars on the roads, add a few american mailboxes... and CMK is America... You presumably didn't hear ISIHAC last week. ... In fact it has been said that Milton Keynes is often mistaken for New York. Surprisingly, though, New York has never been mistaken for Milton Keynes... imc
Re: Seattle's Burning
On Wed, Dec 01, 1999 at 01:33:53PM -, Justin Skists wrote: But at least New York doesn't have concrete cows and topless female barbers!! (Actually, the probably do have the latter) ... the citizens of Milton Keynes were delighted to receive a gift of a large statue representing justice and liberty, while the citizens of New York were slightly puzzled by the gift of a herd of concrete cows to celebrate the act of union [Is that it? I'm probably miles off]... What is this ISIHAC you speak of? I'm sorry. I haven't a clue. imc
Re:
On Fri, Nov 26, 1999 at 12:32:48AM +, Andrew Collier wrote: Indeed. You seem to have forgotten to put a quotation of the entire previous message including sig at the end of your mail. imc
Re: OT: Java WFC Help!!
On Wed, Nov 24, 1999 at 12:25:22PM -, Nick Humphries wrote: I'm trying to write a Java applet for a web page and use Microsoft's WFC Graphics class Which presumably means that it won't work for anyone who doesn't bow to the almighty Gates... imc
Re: Question: MIDI sequencing
On Mon, Nov 22, 1999 at 12:00:59PM -, Justin Skists wrote: There was this guy who wrote to NASA and the Russian space agencies saying that if they had no objections, he would sell real-estate plots of land on the Moon and Mars. That sounds like asking the UK government whether they mind if I sell off bits of France. imc
Re:
On Mon, Nov 15, 1999 at 12:03:28AM +, Gavin Smith wrote: differences shall we say, between Bob and I :) No we shall not say that, we shall say differences between Bob and me. (-: imc
Re: Testing
On Wed, Oct 13, 1999 at 11:17:28AM -0700, Robert Wilkinson wrote: testing Your test failed because your clock is out by 8 hours. imc
Re: Fw: Guestbook warning
On Mon, Oct 11, 1999 at 01:01:47PM +0100, Nick Humphries wrote: Just discovered that someone's tried to sabotage my guestbook by using a bit of rogue Javascript. One of many reasons why I refuse to have Javascript turned on in my web browser... imc
Re: SAM Community
On Sun, Oct 03, 1999 at 01:04:53AM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote: And please, no cheques! :) 2 quid in coins, or stamps or something, but no cheques. Looking forward to hearing from you soon :) What the devil is wrong with a cheque? The editor of Crashed is anti-cheque as well, I seem to remember. imc
Re: SAM Community
On Mon, Oct 04, 1999 at 04:06:01PM +0100, Gavin Smith wrote: isn't there charges for cheques under a fiver or something? None that I know of. imc
Re: SAAemu GPL (was Re: SOLUTION: SAASound.dll ; SAA32.exe ; Saaemu0.60)
On Thu, Sep 30, 1999 at 04:05:37PM -0700, Simon Cooke wrote: Ummm... actually, no; a GPL'd program can call whatever it likes, without the libs it uses having to be GPL'd too. It's a purist thing to have them all as GPL'd libraries, and not explicitly necessary. Incorrect. If the GPL program calls a library that's not GPL then that library has to be something fairly standard that is usually supplied with the operating system. (Hence all the hoohar over KDE folks recompiling a load of GPL apps to use QT which is non-GPL and only comes with _some_ versions of Linux.) imc
Re: SAAemu GPL (was Re: SOLUTION: SAASound.dll ; SAA32.exe ; Saaemu0.60)
On Thu, Sep 30, 1999 at 05:59:33PM -0700, Simon Cooke wrote: However, there's no restriction on GPL'd programs relying on other libraries which are not GPL'd - it's just a matter of taste. Permission to copy and distribute a GPLd program is conditional upon distributing the entire source code of the program. Including any libraries and anything else which forms part of the program. (However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.) If I write a program and slap the GPL on it then I am of course free to amend the licencing terms to allow it to be linked with this or that other non-GPL library. (The program Licq has such a term in its licence to allow linking with QT.) However, if I don't then you are not allowed to take my program, link it with a non-GPL library and distribute the result. In doing so you have created a derivative work, and the GPL applies to the work as a whole, including the library you have linked it with. imc
Re: Sams worst game ever
On Mon, Sep 27, 1999 at 01:52:33PM +0100, Nick Humphries wrote: The one with the alien-like girl? VERY good make-up job that - doesn't look fake, really strikes home. No it doesn't. It is just disturbing. And meaningless. And it isn't a make-up job, it's computerised. imc
Re: Sam IN / OUT timings
On Fri, Sep 24, 1999 at 07:49:51PM +0100, David Laundon wrote: PUSH HL takes 16 tstates (but only 24 during screen contention) True. and CALL nn takes 24 tstates (but only 40 during screen contention). I'm not sure if RSTs and interrupt calls are affected the same, but I expect so. I would assume so. I think the end condition of DJNZ takes 12 tstates, not 8 as expected - could this be it? Also, DJNZ is another instruction which performs particularly well during screen contention; IIRC it takes just 16 tstates for both looping *and* for the end condition. Also correct. :o) maybe having a common routine for 'memory accesses' which adjusts to the next 4-tstate or 8-tstate boundary *at that point* rather than trying to work it all out when the instruction starts. Mmm. You're right; a bit tricky! ;-) Actually this could be done and might be moderately straightforward... but it would be dog slow. imc
Re: Mode 1 contention
On Thu, Sep 23, 1999 at 10:46:55PM +0100, Andrew Collier wrote: Actually you mean pop hl; ei; nop; ret We know that the interrupt line stays active for a lot longer than this code will take to execute. Fooey. Well, you knew how to fix it anyway. :o) Unfortunately it now means we spin round the interrupt handler for a hundred t-states or so But we know pretty much exactly how many, since I measured it that time. If the screen is off we expect an answer in the region of 5989. Frame interrupt - Frame Interrupt Mode 2 - 4, Screen on : 5049 Mode 1, Screen on : 4291 Mode 3 - 4, Screen off : 5983 Well that wasn't a bad estimate, the difference being 6*20 = 120 cycles. Frame interrupt - Line Interrupt @ 0 (I'm assuming gives 60 lines of border) Modes 2 - 4 : 1298 (screen off or on gives same result) Mode 1 : 1015 That instantly tells us that there is contention in the top border. It looks like there may be more contention on the main screen, but calculations will have to be done. One possibility which must now be false is that mode 1 always restricts access to once every 8 cycles. imc
Re: Teledisk shmeleshmisk
On Thu, Sep 23, 1999 at 11:15:53PM +0100, Thomas Harte wrote: My PC supported teledisk fine until I flash upgraded the BIOS. I really wish someone had told me about that! Still, if anyone else has access to a Dell Dimension XPS P150/166/200s with BIOS revision 4, they could do the translation. Probably amongst the newest computers that will. I think my computer works with teledisk, although it is very very slow (but maybe that is what teledisk is always like). It is two years old. imc
Re: Sam IN / OUT timings
On Fri, Sep 24, 1999 at 06:36:41PM +0100, Si Owen wrote: I've noticed that some places where the video timing isn't quite right seems to involve DJNZ for tight delay loops. The width of the scroller section used by the E-Tunes demo is mainly just one such loop. Is there anything special about DJNZ in terms of timing that could cause it to be too fast? I don't know what you have but I believe DJNZ takes 16 off-screen and 24 on-screen. I'm also starting to wonder about instructions lying across the boundaries where memory contention is introduced, as the subtle timings might make a difference, and that'd be difficult to implement. Yes you are correct, it would be difficult... imc
Mode 1 contention
Here is an experiment. I'd do it myself if I thought there were any chance I would get round to it before the Millennium... Have a counting loop, say lp: inc bc; jp lp (note that this takes 20 cycles off-screen and 32 on-screen). Have an interrupt routine which says pop hl; ei; ret. Now push a return address, push the address of the loop, set bc to 0, enable interrupts and halt. The first interrupt will cause a jump to the counting loop, and the next one will cause an exit to the return address. There you return the interrupts to normal and print out the value of bc. If the screen is off we expect an answer in the region of 5989. Someone else can calculate what we expect when the screen is on, but more importantly the answer gained in mode 1 will probably allow the contention behaviour to be inferred. Especially if you do the experiment again with a line interrupt set at the top of the screen (this will tell you if there is any contention in the top border area). imc
Re: Sam's worst ever game
On Wed, Sep 22, 1999 at 09:23:44AM +0100, Dan Dooré wrote: I had a superb cheat device for Decathlon consisting of an alternate left-right wired rotary switch - It's in front of me now ;-) It worked fine, with a bit of broom-handle as a handle and a foot pedal stolen from a Stenorette (sp) tape machine for 'fire' What if you attached the rotary switch to an exercise bike... then playing the game would actually do you some good and be a test of your performance. :o) imc
Re: Defender on SimCoupe (Was: Defender Source Code)
On Fri, Sep 17, 1999 at 12:07:01PM +0100, Si Owen wrote: Ian Collier wrote: Do you also ensure that the screen is black when the display is disabled? Er, actually I didn't... :-) imc
Re: Might be interested
On Fri, Sep 03, 1999 at 12:00:25PM +0100, Andrew Collier wrote: On Fri, 3 Sep 1999, Ian Collier wrote: Unlike places such as ... Mold :o) Cheat! That's just an English translation of the unpronouncable Welsh name... It isn't a translation. I forget what Yr Wyddgrug means, but it isn't Mold (whatever that means). Anyway, look on any map and see which name it uses for that town. imc
Re: Might be interested
On Thu, Sep 02, 1999 at 01:39:34PM +, James R Curry wrote: I like Swansea. Swansea is a nice place. And it's one of the only places in Wales that doesn't have a name made out of hyroglyphics. ;-) Unlike places such as Bala, Barmouth, Barry, Brecon, Cardiff, Cardigan, Conway, Harlech, Holyhead, Knighton, Lampeter, Mold, Montgomery, Newtown, Oswestry, Pembroke, Porthmadog, Portmeirion, Rhyl or Welshpool, you mean? :o) imc
Re: Sam's worst ever game? (was Re: Who Wants To Be A... )
On Mon, Aug 30, 1999 at 11:21:32AM +0100, Graham Goring wrote: But it is 32-bit already... I think he means a version he can easily use on the desktop, a la zx32. But you can... on your Linux desktop. imc
Re: Sam's worst ever game? (was Re: Who Wants To Be A... )
On Tue, Aug 31, 1999 at 12:48:56AM +0100, Graham Goring wrote: Don't be silly. Wayne works for Reflections, he's used to programming games for a viable software environment. :) That's dangerous talk on a Sam list... Anyway, ask Red Hat whether Linux is a viable software environment. imc
Re: Sam's worst ever game? (was Re: Who Wants To Be A... )
On Tue, Aug 31, 1999 at 10:59:53AM +, James R Curry wrote: Let us imagine that we are business men, and not geeks. Now, our latest 3D-texture-poly-lumi-sphereoid-grafixo-engine(TM) enhanced shoot-'em-up which breaks all the boundaries in gameplay and technical acheivement... I gather that a recent release of Quake came out first on Linux, but not having the first idea what that even is :o) I couldn't substantiate that. ...are we going to find Linux or Windows the more viable platform when it comes to making A SEVERE AMOUNT OF MONEY? I don't believe I said anywhere that it was more viable than something else. Being viable and being more viable are entirely different things. imc
Re: Sam's worst ever game? (was Re: Who Wants To Be A... )
On Mon, Aug 30, 1999 at 12:02:49AM +0100, Martin Fitzpatrick wrote: Hehe,... SCADS eh? Ahh, them were the days :)... I was always a bit peeved with Jupiter Software over that [SNIP] Er, I seem to be experiencing déjà vu... imc
Re: Graphic Modes Stuff
On Fri, Aug 27, 1999 at 06:29:08PM +0100, Thomas Harte wrote: First : are there any speed differences between the graphics modes? I understand that Mode 1 is slowed down deliberately to loosely approximate a ZX Spectrum, but are there any other differences in other graphics modes? Not really. Apparently the difference between mode 1 and any other mode is that the memory is contended as if all 312 lines were screen lines instead of there being 120 off-screen lines and 192 on-screen ones. Third : is whichever page of memory which doesn't contain any of the screen still contended? Am I right in thinking that the only effect of contention is to frequently round t-states up to the nearest 4? No. :-) All 32 RAM pages are contended whichever one the screen happens to be in. ROM and external RAM packs are not contended. If the screen is turned off then the CPU has to wait until the next multiple of 4 T-states for any memory access in an affected RAM page. This often has the effect of rounding the instruction timing up to the next multiple of 4. If the screen is on then for 256 out of the 384 pixels on a line for 192 of the 312 lines it works in multiples of 8 instead of 4. This doubles the time for memory-intensive operations; some instructions take less than double. INC HL is a rare example of an instruction that takes the same amount of time (8 cycles) whether or not the screen is active. imc
Re: your mail
On Mon, Aug 30, 1999 at 09:02:58AM +0100, Me wrote: test Er, yes. Thank you for that fascinating insight... imc
Re: Sam's worst ever game? (was Re: Who Wants To Be A... )
On Sun, Aug 29, 1999 at 05:30:45PM +0100, Graham Goring wrote: NB. I was speaking to Wayne today, and he says he'll finish Kaboom! when there's a 32bit version of SIM Coupé to do it on... ;) But it is 32-bit already... imc
Re: SAM networks
On Thu, Aug 26, 1999 at 03:54:29AM -0700, Simon Cooke wrote: Umm.. actually, the priority of the other computers aren't taken into account; the ROM just checks to see if the line is busy; if it is, it waits ... a random amount of time before checking again ... until it isn't. Because of course if it waited a fixed amount of time then the computers would clash again after that time had elapsed. imc
Re: SAM networks
On Thu, Aug 26, 1999 at 12:37:39PM +0100, Jarek Adamski wrote: Does is use a kind of network protocol (frames) or only sends bytes like for tape? The Sam ROM does not use network protocol and behaves pretty much like the tape interface. If MasterDOS is loaded then you can do it by putting n: at the beginning of the file name. I seem to remember there was some quirk about doing this, but I forget exactly what. Maybe it was that device n didn't work but putting n: in the name did. DEVICE N: LOAD works. Well I forget what the problem was exactly, but I think there was one. Perhaps it is with SAVE instead. imc
Re: SAM networks
On Thu, Aug 26, 1999 at 02:14:23AM +0100, Gasson wrote: Kinda-sorta right. It is the MIDI port, but it's not the MIDI hardware running the thing, AFAIK. As far as I know it is the MIDI hardware running it, but there may be an extra buffer or something driving those two extra pins. At least, I don't know of any way to control those two pins separately from the MIDI, and the networking bits of the Sam ROM use port 253 in such a way that you can connect a normal MIDI lead and communicate over it. imc
Re: SAM networks
On Tue, Aug 24, 1999 at 11:06:53AM +0100, Justin Skists wrote: I had always had the impression that the network port was, in fact, the MIDI port. You connect the SAMs up as a daisy chain and tell the SAM about it. If there is no DOS loaded then the Sam accepts device n and will save and load through the MIDI port. I don't think I have tried this with two Sams, but I have used it with a Sam and a +3 by writing a prog on the +3 to imitate what the Sam does. If SamDOS is loaded then device n is no longer a valid device. In order to use it you have to poke a sysvar to pretend there is no DOS. If MasterDOS is loaded then you can do it by putting n: at the beginning of the file name. I seem to remember there was some quirk about doing this, but I forget exactly what. Maybe it was that device n didn't work but putting n: in the name did. imc
