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Date:         Sat 11 Jul 87 23:14:37 PDT
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Original-From: Info-Atari16 Digest 
Subject:      Info-Atari16 Digest V87 #272
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Info-Atari16 Digest   Saturday, July 11, 1987   Volume 87 : Issue 272

This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield

Today's Topics:

                     Query on Magic Sac status...
       MODULARS232 (long) - easy serial communications cabling
                             IBM emulator
          Re: NL-10 Printer loses characters at End-of-Page
          Re: Computer Aided Voicing (Product Announcement)
                        Supra 20Meg HD Quirks
                  Re: Disk R/W times for large files

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

Posted-From: The MITRE Corp., Bedford, MA
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
Subject: Query on Magic Sac status...
Date: Mon, 06 Jul 87 14:49:43 EDT
From: jhs@mitre-bedford.ARPA

A friend of mine is very interested in the possibility of buying an Atari ST
and Magic Sac as an alternative to buying a Mac.  Can anybody give me a
current status report on:

    (a) Software that will and will not run with Magic Sac;
and
    (b) Estimated price and availability date for the rumored
        Data Pacific Macintosh-compatible floppy drive for the ST?

Is there any other source for an ST drive that can read/write Mac disks?

Any other information on advantages or disadvantages of an ST with Magic Sac
would be appreciated.

-John Sangster / jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa

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

Date: 6 Jul 87 18:33:22 GMT
From: braner@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu  (braner)
Subject: MODULARS232 (long) - easy serial communications cabling
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

[This is not specific to comp.sys.atari.st.
 If you know the most appropriate group please tell me.]

My friend Richard Furnas has devised a wonderful solution to the
age-old DCE/DTE dichotomy.  Devices set up to fit his standard are all
the same, and any two can talk to each other with the same cable.  And
his method uses compact, positive-locking but easy to (dis)connect,
inexpensive, widely available connectors and cables.  I am posting this
for him since he has no access to Usenet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Handy Dandy Serial Connections with Modular Connectors
------------------------------------------------------
By Richard Furnas

For some time now I have been evolving a system for connecting RS232
serial devices using modular connectors.  The arrangement I am
reporting here is the result of much thought and experimentation.  I
have been delighted with the elegance of the modular connectors ever
since they appeared and hope this adaptation of them does justice to
the elegance of the design of the connectors themselves.

Rationale for the setup:
========================

When I first looked closely at modular connectors and the way that
telephone extension cords are wired, I thought it was all very sad.
While the connectors are polarized (can only plug in one way), the
usual extension cord flips things over seemingly ignoring the
polarization in the plugs!  I knew the phone people spoke of RING and
TIP but from my experience with playing with installing my own phone
lines in my house, it never seemed to matter which way things were
hooked up, they always worked anyway (Diodes no doubt).

It wasn't until I started to think about the RS232 application
that I realized the simple elegance of the modular adapters and plugs:
All devices are the same, and the cables do the swapping so RING and
TIP retain their identity.  While the RED and GREEN lines in the
building may remain true to which is which (they are installed by
professionals who know their colors and maybe even carry voltmeters),
the cables are 'smart' enough not to care.

The minimal Serial connection requires 3 wires, Ground, data in and
data out of each device.  This is a symmetric situation:
         ______              ______
        |      |====Data===>|      |
        |device|===Ground===|device|
        |      |<===Data====|      |
         ------              ------
At first I knew that 95% of the direct connections I wanted to make
would be 3-wire connections and so wanted to set things up to be able
to use ordinary phone cabling.  But which lines to use and how?  I took
a tip (TIP?) from the phone setup:

    Make all devices the same and let the cables do the thinking.

If we are to use telephone-style connectors, it is important to protect
the computer devices from the higher voltage of the phone line in case
the cable is plugged into a phone outlet by mistake.  Most simple
telephone lines have 4 wires and only the center two have the higher
voltage of the phone line.  The outer two are either totally unused or
have a lower voltage for lighting your princess phone.  Therefore I
short the center two lines together and use them for the signal ground.
This solves two problems.  If the connector gets plugged into the
typical phone outlet, it merely "takes the phone off the hook" and does
no damage to the computer device.  It also makes the cable symmetrical.
The outer two lines can be used for the data lines.  If two devices are
configured identically at their respective connectors, an ordinary
telephone-to-wall cable will serve as the 'null modem' cable for a
three wire connection between the devices.

But there is more to serial data transfer than just three wire
connections.  Many serial printers prefer a hardware handshake.  This
requires another wire and hardware handshake can naturally be
symmetrical as well.  Talking to a printer is usually a one-way affair
but two computers may want to talk that way on occasion as well.  (Ever
want to capture EXACTLY the output intended for a printer and put it in
a file?)

The standard modular line cord (NOT handset cord) uses a 6-position
connector with only the middle four of the positions actually occupied
by wires.  This is called "6-4".  "6-6" versions of the connectors
along with the 6-conductor cable are harder to come by but can be had
from several of the parts vendors that advertise in the back of BYTE or
Computer Shopper.  This extra pair of wires preserves the symmetry of
the connection and means that once again the business of swapping lines
can be done by a uniform, standard cable.  The 6-6 setup may not
provide adequate handshaking for use with some modems and modem
programs since they actually use the additional handshake lines to
determine the progress of the call.

MODULARS232 Specifications
==========================

Imagine (if necessary) that you are sitting at a desk, and you have a
standard modular desk telephone on the desk.  Rotate it 180 degrees so
that you see the connector on its back.  Unplug the cable.  Look into
the socket.  It will most likely have the wires on the top and the
notch for the locking clip on the bottom.  (If it doesn't, turn it
upside down.) Now imagine that this phone is actually a computer (or
printer or graphics tablet or...).  If it conforms to the "MODULARS232"
standard, the wires, as you're looking at them, are wired as
follows (the mnemonics are introduced here):

      A T G G R Q
    __+_+_+_+_+_+__       (Acknowledge) handshake signal coming out
   |  | | | | | |  |      (Transmit) data coming out of this box
   |               |      Ground
   |               |      Ground
   |               |      (Receive) data going into this box
   |               |      (Query) handshake signal going into this box
    -----     -----
         |   |          (looking into the socket from outside the box)
          ---

If, when this socket is vacant, you can measure live voltage (12V)
between the ground wires and the R or Q wires then you got it reversed:
"coming out" means the box applying voltage to the outside world,
"going in" means sensing the voltage that is arriving.

For the time being we have to live with existing equipment, so the
MODULARS232 set-up has to be achieved by making "adaptors".  I have set
up this system for communications between arbitrary pairs of the
following devices, using the pin assignments given below.  The lists are
the numbers of the pins (in the conventional connectors mentioned) that
should be wired to the A,T,G,G,R,Q wires respectively inside a modular
socket to make the correct adaptor.

Basically DTE Devices:
======================

IBM PC-XT Clones (DB25P Connector on Chassis)
20,2,7,7,3,5; Jumper: 4-6-8 on DB25S (Note 1)

IBM PC-AT Clones (DB9P Connector on Chassis)
4,3,5,5,2,8;  Jumper: 1-6-7 on DB9S (Note 1)

TRS-Model 102 (DB25S Connector on Chassis)
20,2,7,7,3,5; Jumper: 4-6-8 on DB25P (Note 1)

HP-IL to Serial Convertor (DTE Setting, DB25P on Chassis)
20,2,7,7,3,5; Jumper: 4-6-8 on DB25S (Note 1)

HP Thinkjet (TM) serial printer (DB25S on Chassis)
HP 7475 (TM) Serial Plotter (DB25S on Chasis)
20,2,7,7,3,5; Jumper: 4-6-8 on DB25P (Note 1)

Basically DCE Devices:
======================

Prometheus Promodem (TM) 1200 (to Eagle w/ MITE and to MAC)
8,3,7,7,2,20 (Notes 2,3)

Intectra Serial to Parallel Converter
5,3,7,7,2,20

DTE or DCE?  Who cares, here's the connection:
==============================================

Eagle (TM) II CP/M Computer
4,3,7,7,2,5;  (Note 2)

Macintosh with DB9 Socket
Mac+ with mini8 to DB9 Socket converter
Imagewriter II with mini8 to DB9 Socket converter
6,5,3-8,3-8,9,7;  (Note 2)

Note 1:
=======
     For many applications it is not necessary to jumper pins 4-6-8.
Especially in direct connect applications which are using software
handshaking, the driver software often will ignore the status of the
hardware handshake pins anyway.

Note 2:
=======
     Some devices (notably some computers) do not support proper
hardware handshake on data input.  (Note this is the 'A' line on which
the computer could output a signal saying it is full for the moment.)
The Eagle II and Macintosh fall in this category.  The connections
above are compatible with driving printers and all 'three wire'
connections and even allow the same connectors to be used to the
Prometheus modem.  (The MAC just has the +12V line connected signalling
the MAC is as ready as it will ever be.)

Note 3:
=======
     The best way to drive an honest to gosh modem if you have a
device which supports the modem handshake lines properly (e.g. a PC
clone), is with a cable with more wires in it than this modular setup.



Practical hints
===============

     In practice what I have done is wire a cable for each of my
desktop machines which has the DB-whatever connector on one end and a
modular PLUG on the other.  (If I need to connect something I'm going
to need some length of cable as well so might as well build it into
the adaptor.)  Then I just need a double female modular connector to
establish the connection.  On highly portable devices, I have the DB-
whatever and a modular socket.  Actually I have cut holes in them and
installed the socket in the chassis without any jumpering (so the port
can still be fully functional).  The modular plug on any of the
desktop machines now goes to the socket I have built in my Model 102
for example.

    To summarize pictorially looking into the socket:

       _Handshake_ ... Hardware handshake support with 6-6
       | _DATA__ | ... 3-wire connection with ordinary 6-4
       | | GND | | ... take phone off hook-won't fry device
       | | | | | |
       A T G-G R Q ... Our new mnemonics
       R T G-G R C }
       T X N-N X T } ... RS232 (DTE) Signal names (sort of)
       S D D-D D S }
       | | | | | |
       out     in ... this side accepts input signals
       out     in ... the other side puts out signals
       | |     ^ ^
       v v     | |
           ___
            -

    Just a reminder:

          /_    Standard flat cable      _\
         d__=============/ /=============__b

    And for troubleshooting, if your connection does
    not work, you will find this cable useful:

          /_    Inverting cable
         d__=====================---p
                                 --/

I have a 3 inch cable like this I use for troubleshooting (with a
double-female on one end).  With a 3-wire (6-4 modular) connection this
will serve to swap the data transmit and receive lines just in case you
got them backwards.  Recommendation: If that solves the problem, FIX
YOUR CONNECTORS.  Otherwise you'll be haunted by the incompatible setup
until you do.  I suggest using crimp pin DBxxx connectors so that the
pins can be easily moved if you get something backwards.

     Richard E. Furnas
     Microcomputer Power
     111 Clover Lane
     Ithaca, NY  14850
     (607) 272-2188
     CompuServe ID 76556,3444

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Moshe Braner

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

Date: 2 Jul 87 16:23:00 GMT
From: pyramid!prls!philabs!hhb!rob@decwrl.dec.com  (Robert R Stegmann)
Subject: IBM emulator
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

[]

Hi all,

I just read in the August issue of Compute! magazine about an IBM PC
emulator (in software) for the ST.  It is called "pc-ditto" from
Avant-Garde Systems, 381 Pablo Point Dr., Jacksonville, FL 32225.
(The brief article is on page 118, in the News & Products column.)

The article says the program costs $89.95, isn't copy protected, supports
3.5"/80-track or 5.25"/40-track formats, monochrome or color, and runs (quote)
"virtually all of the major IBM programs, such as Lotus 1-2-3, Multiplan,
Symphony, Flight Simulator, Dollars&Sense, Sidekick, DAC Easy Accounting,
Turbo Pascal, and many others."

Can anybody out there who has any experience with this product or company
comment?  Does this emulator run at speed, or is it slow?
Is it real or vapor-ware?

It sounds interesting enough to buy, but life can be full of little
disappointments, can't it?

I called Florida information and got a phone number for Avant-Garde,
which turned out to connect me with some company that refuels Navy jets!
I explained to the man who answered the phone that I was trying to reach
a software company to ask about their product, but instead of simply
telling me he didn't know what I was talking about, he gave me another
number!  I tried THAT number several times, but it was always busy,
so I haven't been able to contact Avant-Garde.
I suspect they may be employees of the refilling company who are
moonlighting.

P.S. What about the "MS.EM" package from Paradox?
I heard it was poorly done.  Does anybody know if it has been improved?

[Please note that I am in no way affiliated with any of the above-mentioned
organizations, neither do I endorse any of the above-mentioned products.]

rob

Robert Stegmann
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax}!philabs!hhb!rob
I in no way represent my employer in this matter.

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

From: David Maden 
To: Digest 
Subject: Re: NL-10 Printer loses characters at End-of-Page
Return-Receipt-To: David Maden 

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote ...

> I have a Star NL-10 printer connected to my 1040STf via the printer port. The
> plug-in unit on the Star-10 is a so-called Parallel Interface-Steckmodul. My
> problem is that, when I manually feed in single sheets of paper to the printe
> to get a print-out of a file from the desk-top (i.e. double-click the file an
> then select the "print file" option), I lose characters (the number that get
> lost appears random but is usually about 16) when changing sheets of paper.
> Etc ....

Thanks to help from Holger Brieger in Berlin, I have been able to fix the
fault. The problem is the Version of the EPROM in the NL10 Plug-in Cartridge.
You can see the version number by invoking the printer's self-test feature.
Mine was P1.4 and is now P1.5 and works much better. On changing sheets of
paper, though, I now have to press the on-line button as well which was not the
case before (but I guess this could be a feature rather than a bug since you
then have a chance to check that the paper is straight!!).

Since I have seen this same fault on many printers in the shops in this part
of Switzerland, there may be other Atari users out there in need of the same
upgrade.

                David Maden,
maden@czheth5a.bitnet                   Swiss Institute for Nuclear Research,
                                        CH-5234 Villigen

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

Date: 7 Jul 87 06:39:00 GMT
From: well!csz@lll-lcc.arpa  (Carter Scholz)
Subject: Re: Computer Aided Voicing (Product Announcement)
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

> Message-ID: <784@sask.UUCP>
> Date: 2 Jul 87 20:53:34 GMT
> Organization: University of Saskatchewan, Canada
>    Product Announcement                                 July 2, 1987
>    Synchro-Systems presents DXMATE,  an  integrated  Computer  Aided

I thought Usenet policy forbade for-profit commercial
announcements here.

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

Date: Tue, 7 Jul 87 08:21:26 EDT
From: csrobe@icase.arpa (Charles S. Roberson)
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
Subject: Supra 20Meg HD Quirks

I have had a Supra Hard Disk for about 4 months (90 day warranty,
of course) and it is starting to make some unusual sounds, and do
some disquieting things.  The first thing I noticed was that it
occassionally 'burped' during the power on sequence.  Normally, I
would hear a cresendo whir followed by two beeps.  Then I noticed
an occassional:
    whirrrrrrrr    beep BURP beep beep
but everything worked fine.  Then the big-time hit, the machine
had been on for several hours (4 or 5) and was quite toasty.  I
had micro-emacs load a file, the disk started to spin up for a
read and it never stopped!  It got faster and faster.  I had to
turn the drive off to stop it.  By this time my heart was pounding
and I was sweating bullets.  Well, it started again, it burped
again, and everything seemed ok for about 4 mins then it took off
again.  I let the machine sit idle for a couple of days while I
moved.  Then I hooked it up again, and it whirred, beeped, BURPED,
and beeped some more.  EVERY TIME I started it.

    In comes SUPRA!  I called their tech support line and
the guy I talked to said that a loose power cord could cause the
whir-up problem and that the BURP didn't mean anything as far as
diagnostics go.  I was skeptical but what could I do?  I tested
the power cord, started the machine, and started to work.  My
disk is partitioned into 4 5meg logical disks, with the fifth one
a Scratch disk.  I decided to run the Supra Hard Disk Utility to
"Map out bad sectors" on that logical disk (5).  At about 2400 of
the 10100 and some sectors the disk did its magical whirr.  I
reached to check the power cord again, but before my had was half
way there the disk drive reset itself and started the power up
sequence.  (Whirrrrrrrr, beep, BURP, beep beep).  The utility
said I had a bad sector, GEMDOS said I that the data on the drive
may be damaged, and that the drive needed to be connected
correctly.  I replied to cancel the operation, the GEM diaglog box
disappeared but the utility started mapping at the next sector.
The mapping completed without another hitch.

    I am worried and scared to use my machine.  I have almost
$600 invested in that disk.  A *MAJOR* investment on my part, and
I don't like the idea of it flaking out after only 4 months!  In
about a month and a half I am going to start doing research for
my Master's Thesis and I can't afford to have my machine freak
and my data flung into the bit-bucket.  I am also not so pleased
with SUPRA's response to my inquries, nor with their documentation.
So i leave you with this general plea:

 #    #  ######  #       #####    #
 #    #  #       #       #    #   #
 ######  #####   #       #    #   #
 #    #  #       #       #####    #
 #    #  #       #       #
 #    #  ######  ######  #        #

Chip Roberson

csrobe@icase.arpa        (ARPANET)
$csrobe@wmmvs.bitnet        (BITNET)
...seismo!gmu90x!wmcs!csrobe    (UUCP)

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

Date: 7 Jul 87 00:08:43 GMT
From: imagen!atari!apratt@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU  (Allan Pratt)
Subject: Re: Disk R/W times for large files
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu

in article <383@uop.UUCP>, exodus@uop.UUCP (Greg Onufer) says:
>
> Anybody care to explain what's wrong here?
>
> I used GULAM's timing function to time misc. file copies onto several
> formats of disk.  The tables should explain:
>

Big files will copy fast only if big reads and writes are used. If
your copy program reads one sector, writes it to the floppy, then
reads another sector, you'll lose.  The shell we shipped with the
developer's kit a while ago, called COMMAND.PRG, used a 1000 (not 1K)
byte buffer.  This is a real problem.  Big reads are optimized
to read a whole track at a time (for instance).  When this is
the case, sector skewing will LOSE, because it takes multiple
revolutions to read the whole track.

For operations like file copy, the lesson is to use as big a buffer
as you can.  Don't create a static 8192-byte array: instead,
determine how much memory you have available and use all of it.

Here is a little code in Alcyon C (this depends on the variable
_break, set up by gemstart and changed when you use gemlib's malloc).
It returns the number of bytes available starting at _break, and that
stays valid as long as you do no function calls (especially not
to gemlib's malloc()).

long freemem()
{
    extern long _break;
    long dummy;        /* &dummy is something near the current sp */

    return (&ret - _break - 512);    /* 512 is a chicken factor */
}

If you have used Mshrink to return memory to the operating system
(which is the case if you set the STACK variable in gemstart.s
to 0, 1, 2, or 3), you may have more memory than this available
using Malloc (the OS call).  Malloc(-1L) returns the largest Malloc
request which can be satisfied.  If you Malloc this, use it as a
disk buffer, then Mfree it, you will not run into trouble.

/----------------------------------------------\
| Opinions expressed above do not necessarily  |  -- Allan Pratt, Atari Corp.
| reflect those of Atari Corp. or anyone else. |     ...lll-lcc!atari!apratt
\----------------------------------------------/    (APRATT on GEnie)

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

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