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From: trb@stag.UUCP ( Todd Burkey )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Mega Bug?
Keywords: uw bug mega SUPERQUEST
Message-ID: <513@stag.UUCP>
Date: 4 Jul 88 22:26:22 GMT
Organization: Mindtools ST Access Group, Plymouth, MN
Lines: 66


Has anyone had problems with programs 'losing the mouse pointer' on Mega 2
machines? We recently purchased 20 Mega-2 monochrome systems at ETA (as part
of our summer Superquest project) and have seen this problem on 5 or 6 of the
ST's. We primarily see it when a student is using Unix Windows (the Lachman
version), has several terminal sessions going on the screen and then moves
the mouse up into the pulldown area. The pulldowns will start reversing when
they shouldn't (i.e. messing up the top line) and when the mouse is moved
out of the pulldowns and the pulldowns are dropped, the mouse disappears. I
wrote a little desk accessory to allow turning off of the mouse, but then you
get these 'patches' on the screen wherever you use the mouse. The mouse is
very useful in the Lachman version of UW, since it allows cutting and pasting
of text between windows, dynamic scaling of windows, and scrolling up and
down in tall thin windows. I would normally think it is just a bug in the
UW software itself, but the problems seem 1) to be intermittent on a machine
basis, and 2) don't appear at all on some machines. If anyone has any ideas,
please drop me a line.

Some related info: We have currently set up the students using the following
software:
  1) UW - allows multi-session use on the Silicon Graphics workstations. This
	  lets the student open a window up for telnetting over to our ETA10
	  supercomputer, and then do local compiles, edits, rogue playing, etc
	  in other windows. Logging to up to 7 files simultaneously is great.
  2) Uniterm - Unfortunately, UW doesn't support kermit or xmodem, so Uniterm
	       gets used heavily for file transfers between the ST and the SG.
  3) Absoft Fortran - Great fortran compiler. The students do most of the
		      preliminary compiles on the ST, since that way they
		      get the fastest feedback, have the fastest editor, and
		      can do their work at home or when the Unix system is
		      'busy' (i.e. hung, rebooting, or otherwise tied up).
  4) Tempus - Very, very nice editor...could use a few more key options, but
	      its speed and power make up for a lot.
  5) Micro C shell - For those who hate Gem...also, this allowed the students
		     to become familiar with the C shell before they arrived
		     at ETA (although how they all seemed to know about rogue
		     I'll never know).
  6) Word Writer - Nice, inexpensive word processor.
  7) Publisher - Nice, DTP package by Timeworks.

I would like to thank Atari (Sig in particular) for helping out in this project.
We invited Sig Hartmann out to ETA about 3 weeks ago and he was so impressed
with the Superquest project that Atari ended up donating two DTP systems for
the project (Mega-2 ST's with Atari Laser printers). I think this type of
involvement (associating Atari ST's with supercomputers) could really help
out Atari's credibility in the business community. After all, MOST of us know
already that it makes a very powerful development machine.

Some asides:

If any of you are using Silicon Graphics workstations (CDC 910's), we have
a version of the unix windows server that actually works. Drop me a line
if you need it. This is a modification of the 4 file uw distribution, not
the more recent 20+ file mac version of the server. It is kind of half way
between BSD and SYSV (i.e. we are using INET sockets, but SYSV terminal
routines, and some really strange pseudo tty stuff).

BTW, Sig, if you read this, thanks for inviting me to visit out there. I had
a blast talking to everyone. I've tried EMAIL'ing you, but site 'sun' seems
to be inaccessible (assume that is your sites' feed). And during the day,
I've been run ragged helping the Superquest students out...very, very sharp
kids, so playing phone tag wasn't practical. Within one week of arriving,
some of the students were generating output on the supercomputers and
displaying graphic displays on the Silicon Graphics workstations.

  -Todd Burkey    "A member of STdNET-The ST developers' Network"
   trb@stag.UUCP     -- To join, mail to ftg!dave@stag.UUCP --