Re: Where to find 'Outwrite!'?

[Andrew Collier]

At 8:28 pm +0100 28/8/99, Robert Wilkinson wrote:
>> So has Outwrite! been uploaded anywhere else?
>If anybody else knows of an alternative site, and can place them, then
>please get in touch with me, and I will gladly send them on.

I can put them on mnemotech.ucam.org if you like (email me).

Alternatively, you could upload them to nvg


Andrew

--
 --  Andrew Collier  ([EMAIL PROTECTED])  --My other
  --  http://mnemotech.ucam.org  --   .sig is a
   -- Part 3 Materials Science, Cambridge --  PDF file
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Re: Where to find 'Outwrite!'?

[Robert Wilkinson]

-Original Message-
From: Thomas Harte <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: SAM Mailing List 
Date: 28 August 1999 07:47
Subject: Where to find 'Outwrite!'?


> To quote Robert Wilkinson "I've sent Outwrite! and a Morse code tutor to
>David Ledbury to place on the Persona site.". But to summarise the thread
>'Persona dead?', that web site no longer exists, and probably won't for a
bit.
>
> So has Outwrite! been uploaded anywhere else?
>
> -Thomas
>

David Ledbury e-mailed me direct, and offered to put above titles on the
Persona site.

I duly sent the files and asked David to let me know when they had been
placed.
To date I've received no reply.

If anybody else knows of an alternative site, and can place them, then
please get in touch with me, and I will gladly send them on.

If you want a copy now Thomas, then let me know and I can send it to you
direct.


Bob Wilkinson.   [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Where to find 'Outwrite!'?

[Thomas Harte]

To quote Robert Wilkinson "I've sent Outwrite! and a Morse code tutor to
David Ledbury to place on the Persona site.". But to summarise the thread
'Persona dead?', that web site no longer exists, and probably won't for a bit.

So has Outwrite! been uploaded anywhere else?

-Thomas

A small SAM upload

[Thomas Harte]

though I didn't think anything of it at the time, I receieved when I was
younger a SAM disk featuring the Spectrum games Chase HQ, WEC Le Mans and
Tetris 2 appearing exactly as they would on a 128kb ZX Spectrum. Also, some
old ZX Spectrum emulator appears.

Since I have been investigating SAM and ZX programming of late, I am now
aware that to achieve this, someone will have had to reprogram the memory
paging scheme and the sound chip stuff (after all, an SAA is not an AY).

Now, because no-one else seems to offer these games (though I am aware 
that
Aley at least has them), and because all three of these games are available on
WOS I've taken a moment to SAMDSK the disk, clean up the files (though please
excuse the rather 'basic' menu at the start - I can't have been more than 12
when I wrote it) and upload it. Also, concerning the Spectrum emulator, the
ROM is now free for emulation and the emulator is freeware anyway.

Anyway, just thought someone might be interested.
http://www.btinternet.com/~t.harte/SAM128.zip (contains a DSK image file, but
at least Chase HQ doesn't run very well in SIM).

Sorry if I'm just cluttering up e-mail inboxes . . .

-Thomas

Re: Graphic Modes Stuff

[Gordon Wallis]

Andrew Collier wrote:
> 
> At 10:58 pm +0100 27/8/99, Thomas Harte wrote:
> >   First : are there any speed differences between the graphics modes? I
> 
> Mode 1 is a special slow case, but modes 2 to 4 should all have the same
> effect on memory accesses.
> 
> >understand that Mode 1 is slowed down deliberately to loosely approximate a 
> >ZX
> >Spectrum...

Blimey, I learn something new about the Sam every day (almost). I always
assumed Mode 1 was full Sam speed, but that the emulating software was
rigged to slow things down. Not that it seemed to work, with all the
flickery sprites that turn up in most of the games I've tried...

Gord.

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Re: SAM networks

[Andrew Collier]

At 11:13 am +0100 28/8/99, Jarek Adamski wrote:
>Andrew Collier wrote:
>> Unfortuantely, the only time I ever had more than two Sams in
>> the same room to test it was at the first Weatherby show, the
>> code didn't work and I didn't really get chance to figure out
>> what was going wrong.
>Well, I know someone who has 3 SAMs, not far from me... Could
>you share the code with me?

Unfortunately I don't appear to have the correct disk with that particular
source file with me in Cambridge at the moment. Sorry.

Andrew

--
 --  Andrew Collier  ([EMAIL PROTECTED])  --My other
  --  http://mnemotech.ucam.org  --   .sig is a
   -- Part 3 Materials Science, Cambridge --  PDF file
   --

Re: SAM networks

[Jarek Adamski]

Andrew Collier wrote:

> Actually, some years ago I did work on a token-ring[1] system
> for connecting Sams together - my experiments at the time only
> went as far as writing an IRC-style chat program, but it
> should have been extensible.
So, it still isn't working. I want to implement some network
protocols in my operating systems for SAM. Mostly for file
access (also for files like "TCP:name.of.server/port").

> Unfortuantely, the only time I ever had more than two Sams in
> the same room to test it was at the first Weatherby show, the
> code didn't work and I didn't really get chance to figure out
> what was going wrong.
Well, I know someone who has 3 SAMs, not far from me... Could
you share the code with me?

--
Yarek.

Power Supply Unit Woes

[Thomas Harte]

Now that the connection between the end of the power supply unit that 
plugs
into the SAM and the lead that runs from it to the power supply is almost
severed anyway, and because I couldn't find anything about it at the SAM Coupé
Scrapbook, I am wondering - if I were to cut the wire and try to resolder the
end slightly lower down, which coloured wire would go where?

-Thomas

Re: Graphic Modes Stuff

[Andrew Collier]

At 10:58 pm +0100 27/8/99, Thomas Harte wrote:
>   First : are there any speed differences between the graphics modes? I

Mode 1 is a special slow case, but modes 2 to 4 should all have the same
effect on memory accesses.

>understand that Mode 1 is slowed down deliberately to loosely approximate a ZX
>Spectrum, but are there any other differences in other graphics modes? How
>many t-states do I get per scanline, and are there still 312 of them?

There are 312 scanlines of 384 tstates each. (See my answer to your third
question).

>   Second : does altering the palette have any effect in Modes 1 & 2?

Yes, exactly as you would expect from having used Mode 4.

> Does Mode
>3 simply only look at the first 4 palette entries, or is it more complex than
>that?

Well, yes it is more complicated but the chances are you'll never really
need to worry about that

There's a fairly useless feature involving bits 5 and 6 of the HMPR - by
setting these bits, the pixels in mode 3 will be displayed using palette
entries 4 to 7, 8 to 11, or 12 to 15 instead of 0 to 3.

It is also worth noting that screen bits %10 are displayed as palette entry
%01, and %01 is displayed as %10. Mode 3 has always been a bit quirky!

>   Third : is whichever page of memory which doesn't contain any of
>the screen
>still contended?

No, all RAM pages are affected in the exactly same way, regardless of which
page is displayed at the paricular time.

> Am I right in thinking that the only effect of contention is
>to frequently round t-states up to the nearest 4?

Well, no... it also halves the speed of memory accesses during the time
that the screen is displayed.

In effect nearly all instructions take twice as long to execute during that
time, so it is easiest to keep the number of t-states per instruction
constant, and consider lines of 256 "usable" t-states. But a few
instructions which don't need to access memory will appear to "gain" 4
tstates over normal execution timings.

Andrew


--
 --  Andrew Collier  ([EMAIL PROTECTED])  --My other
  --  http://mnemotech.ucam.org  --   .sig is a
   -- Part 3 Materials Science, Cambridge --  PDF file
   --

Re: SAMDISK.exe + Simcoupe.

[Paul Walker]

> Can anyone tell me why Samdisk will not work with my PC.
> I have a 386 x 16mhz laptop and Samdisk works perfectly on that.
> I've had various flavours of PC.. 486 DX2 66   Samdisk would not
[snip]

Yep. It's because samdisk tries to read tracks 10 sectors at a time 
(reasonable enough, since sam disks have 10 sectors per track). 

*Newer* BIOSes, however, being indoctrinated (and lazy), assume that everyone 
is going to be using MS-DOS format disks which only have 9 sectors, and 
therefore trying to read 10 is an error. Honest. You don't really want to do 
that. (An attitude I also dislike about the Mac, to drag that into it )

The way around it is to read 9 then the other separately, but it's easier to 
use a program which is already aware of the problem. ;)

--
Paul

... I have it somewhere, and it does work. I regard it with irrational fear 
and a sense of shock.
 -- Tim Cook