Conference 7.286::atarist

    
    Hi Richard,
    
    If I put the second video shifter in my ST, and the bit of logic as
    described in USENET, to give me the same color resolution as your STE,
    will you allow me to talk to you? 8>)
    
    Pat K
    

    As my GURU and font of all my knowledge so far how could I refuse :-)
    Richard

    Silica Shop are shipping all their stock as STE's now, one of my
    partners went upto Silica and they actually took out the FM and
    put in a STE. ;-(
    
    Peter

    Well I tried changing the parameter in DESKTOP.INF (#E 18 03) and
    success, but it stoppped confirming deletes. Seems the STe looks at the
    bits differently, so the right half of the second byte is confirm
    delete.
    
    Thus I had to set it to #E 18 13. This now works successfully!.
    
    Richard

    The STe uses the case has the ST. Have they improved the keyboard
    at all? Still spongy key action???
    

    Very little difference externally between an STe and an STfm etc, same
    stlye, keyboard, but extra channel sound output at rear, and two extra
    15 pin ports on the left side just alongside the keyboard. (to the
    right of the DMA socket.
    
    So if you didn't like the keys before you still won't like them.
    
    Richard.

    
    Could someone post a list of games that are incompatible with the
    STe as I would like to know which games I can buy and which I can't.
    At the moment I am particularly interested in buying Drakkhen but
    would like to know if it will work before I spend 30 quid.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Robert.
    
    

        Re:          <<< Note 729.9 by UKCSSE::RDAVIES "Live long and prosper" >>>

        I may be wrong about this, but I believe you will have to
        purchase two 1mb x 8 SIMM modules to replace your 256k x 8 SIMM
        modules.
        
        I know I had to purchase two of them.  The reason, I believe, is
        that you're memory needs to be 16 bits wide.  With only 8 bits
        you loose the upper byte - the even byte(??).
        
        Also, #95 (sorry I can't seem to find the right pound combination
        today) seems a bit steep for 1mb x 8 SIMM modules.  I picked up
        mine 1 mb x 8, 100 nsec for $92 each, plus shipping.  That should
        roughly translate to #58 each.
        
        Bob

    Re: .10
    
    Correct; the ST[e] uses a 16-bit memory word, and you'll need 2 8x1M
    SIMM modules.
    				- hbm

    I double checked the ad, quote:
    "The 1040 STe also has four slots but comes standard with one 1Mb SIMM
    card built in." 
    
    They also supply them this way so I suppose they should know. The only
    way I'll find out is if someone IS interested in taking the 1/2 Mb off
    my hands!. (see .12 for offer).
    
    

As I've now upgraded to an STe from a 1040 STFM, I thought I'd throw in
a few comments about the new machine.

EXTRA MEMORY

This was the reason for the upgrade. Owning a 1040, upgrading to 2MB would
have been extraordinarily costly - somewhere in the region of 300 pounds - 
for the board and the extra chips. Since the STe uses cheaper SIMM modules, I 
was able to buy a 520 STe expanded to 2MB for 420 pounds. Selling the old 1040
at 300 pounds, the memory upgrade was effectively 130 pounds. Taking the 
machine to 4MB costs an additional 170 pounds.

THE BLITTER CHIP

To be honest, haven't really noticed this making much difference (whereas
TurboST makes a real difference).

NEW OPERATING SYSTEM

I tend to run the ST in a NEOdesk environment, and use FSELECT.PRG as an
alternative to the new ST file selector, so TOS 1.6 isn't a significant
improvement. You can now rename folders, and have more than 40 in any
particular partition. You can also AUTOBOOT programs outside of the AUTO
folder. This has meant I have been able to throw out a lot of small workaround
utilities that have been sitting in the AUTO folder on the hard disk.

HARD DISK

This was the only real surprise. I use a 32MB Hard Disk. Somewhere inside it is
an ICD Host Adaptor. Hard Disk access with the STe has been very noticeably 
increased, both reading and writing. For example, SHOW INFORMATION on a Hard 
Disk Partition was painfully slow; now it's pretty much instant. 

SOFTWARE COMPATIBILITY

The following programs definitely work. PROTEXT V4.2, PRODATA V1.1, TIMEWORKS,
DEGAS ELITE, EASY DRAW, SCRIPT, TEMPUS, HYPERDRAW, HYPERPAINT, PICSWITCH V0.7,
SIGNUM!, FIRSTWORD PLUS (I've read reports that this didn't; my version isn't
the latest, but it worked fine), NEODESK II, MINI-OFFICE COMMS, GRAPHICS & 
SPREADSHEET. The following Desk Accessories were also fine: K-ROGET, TURBOST,
INTERSECT RAMDISK, MOUSE SPEED. And Games: Dungeonmaster, Chaos Strikes Back,
Bubble Bobble (Phew!)

The only software that has failed to load is New Zealand Story and Populous. 

There was a large amount of press publicity about the STe here in the UK,
especially with respect to incompatible software. I suspect a large amount of
this was caused by shoddy journalism ... that is, editors printing without
checking to see whether software was truly incompatible. I've seen a lot of
reports that Firstword Plus didn't work. I guess someone with an STe bought a
bad copy of that program, and immediately attributed the fault to be the
computer, not the disk; and wrote off to tell everyone the news. The programs
I tested that didn't work ran happily on a 1040 STFM, so I conclude here that
it's the STe's fault.

PHILIPS CM8833 COLOUR MONITOR

The only complaint so far is that the STe seems to cause interference patterns
on the colour monitor: these are vertical bands which march left to right, 
subtly shifting screen colours, hardly noticeable but if you're looking for 
them, they're there with the STe but not the ST. I've spoken with the 
distributor who said that it's the cable (bought for the ST) which is at fault
(a problem to do with resistors) rather than either the computer or the 
monitor. When I've received the new cable, I'll report if it clears the
problem.

Regards, 

Carl
    

    
    
    Is there any way of getting the STe to run in high resolution mode
    as I have just bought some PD software and one disk sayas I must
    be in high res to run.
    
    Can anyone help?
    
    Cheers,
    
    Robert.

Of course, there is...plug in a monochrome monitor.

    To elaborate, (in case you are a novice) Hi-res only works with a
    monochrome monitor. To this end there is a pin in the monitor plug that
    signals a monochrome monitor fitted. This then 'enables' the hi-res
    option on the preferences menu or via the desktop.inf.
    
    I believe the monochrome feature also has a different scan rate to
    prevent you just linking the pin and using a lesser display.
    
    There is also software around that emulates monochrome mode to enable
    you to run these programs if you can't afford the real thing.
    
    Anybody help out on this?.
    
    Richard

    
    
    I am a novice at all this still now I know what to do. I have found
    a PD monochrome emulator so I think I will get that.
    
    Thanks for your help.
    
    Robert.

Regarding the boot message when using the HD...

Be sure you don't have STARTGEM.PRG in the AUTO folder. This will give a similar
message when used with TOS 1.4 and later.

    Thanks a lot Jeff. I will check STReport 649.
    
    It seems that also my Mark Williams C compiler V3 does have problems
    with the STe. It says "Illegal exception in CC1" and quits when
    compiling a program. Anything known about this?

I've used MWC V3.05 on the STe with no trouble, except that neither "db"
nor "rdy" can be used.  Neither is actually neccessary.

    Huh?  Not necessary?  How come?  I use both RDY and DB extensively...
    
    Have they been antiquated by something else that's better?  If so, I
    want it/them...
    
    _John_

For debugging, I have had to use CSD alone since the advent of TOS 1.4. 
The DB I have is TOS 1.0 only.  RDY works fine under 1.4, but doesn't
autoboot (or work at all?) with TOS 1.6.

I understand there is a version 3.09 - I'll call them and see what's
different. 

    Jeff, after reading your reply in .-2 I tried a real bare bone program:
    the one-liner printf("Hello world!\n"). It gives the same error
    message:
    
    CC1.prg: fundamental errorcc: - - exception Illegal instruction.
    
    My release notes say version 3.05. What's wrong?
    

Do you have the "checksum" utility?  If not, you can upload it from
PRNSYS::USER2:[LOMICKAJ.HOBBY.ST]CHECKSUM.ARC.
Please do a:
	checksum c:\bin >t.tmp
	checksum c:\lib >t.tmp
and upload the resulting output files t.tmp and u.tmp.  They should have
the following numbers:

But first - while writing this note I called Mark Williams.  The latest
version is 3.09, which is insignificantly different from 3.05.  (There
is no reason to upgrade.) They have no plans to fix the TOS 1.4
problems with DB or CSD, or the RDY problems with TOS 1.6, because they
people with the skills to do that no longer work fom Mark Williams.

So, here are the checsums for my version of MWC (3.05) "bin" and "lib"
directories.  Particularly check the values for CC, CC0, CC1, and CC2,
and make sure they are the same.  If they are different, try restoring
the files from your original distribution disks.

File c:\BIN\ME.TOS length 124792 checksum 8596571
File c:\BIN\RESOURCE.PRG length 111741 checksum 9308028
File c:\BIN\CMP.PRG length 7254 checksum 538606
File c:\BIN\CSD.PRG length 79634 checksum 5654847
File c:\BIN\OD.PRG length 7734 checksum 593458
File c:\BIN\MSH.PRG length 61010 checksum 4736244
File c:\BIN\POSTFILE length 310 checksum 26866
File c:\BIN\AR.PRG length 17656 checksum 1381415
File c:\BIN\AS.PRG length 38310 checksum 2292349
File c:\BIN\AS68TOAS.PRG length 18398 checksum 1253718
File c:\BIN\CC.TTP length 20096 checksum 1495134
File c:\BIN\DB.PRG length 47858 checksum 3574510
File c:\BIN\DIFF.PRG length 13369 checksum 1035339
File c:\BIN\DRTOMW.PRG length 13874 checksum 1096014
File c:\BIN\EGREP.PRG length 12043 checksum 910719
File c:\BIN\FILE.PRG length 11148 checksum 846025
File c:\BIN\HELP.TTP length 10458 checksum 813072
File c:\BIN\LD.PRG length 25594 checksum 2132615
File c:\BIN\MAKE.PRG length 16454 checksum 1327955
File c:\BIN\MWTOMW.PRG length 11039 checksum 830140
File c:\BIN\NM.PRG length 11249 checksum 843625
File c:\BIN\PR.TTP length 12846 checksum 967249
File c:\BIN\PROFILE.FD length 6157 checksum 514770
File c:\BIN\RESCOMP.PRG length 47109 checksum 3476707
File c:\BIN\SIZE.PRG length 9188 checksum 673564
File c:\BIN\RESDECOM.PRG length 19658 checksum 1420572
File c:\BIN\RESOURCE.RSC length 27342 checksum 1842381
File c:\BIN\SORT.PRG length 14519 checksum 1119100
File c:\BIN\STRIP.PRG length 11252 checksum 829022
File c:\BIN\TAIL.PRG length 8983 checksum 691988
File c:\BIN\UNIQ.PRG length 7274 checksum 539803
File c:\BIN\VERSION.PRG length 11154 checksum 838599
File c:\BIN\WC.PRG length 6900 checksum 517349
File c:\BIN\PROFILE length 2219 checksum 181022
File c:\LIB\LIBC.A length 68563 checksum 3308148
File c:\LIB\CC0.PRG length 66385 checksum 5004686
File c:\LIB\HLPLIBC.HLP length 61661 checksum 5323855
File c:\LIB\CC1.PRG length 54298 checksum 3720597
File c:\LIB\CRTS0.O length 644 checksum 30186
File c:\LIB\CRTSD.O length 186 checksum 4843
File c:\LIB\CRTSG.O length 292 checksum 11086
File c:\LIB\CSDCURSO.HLP length 1128 checksum 85300
File c:\LIB\CC2.PRG length 38312 checksum 2894288
File c:\LIB\CC3.PRG length 18268 checksum 1280174
File c:\LIB\CPP.PRG length 9599 checksum 732413
File c:\LIB\CSDEDIT.HLP length 1229 checksum 98588
File c:\LIB\CSDEVAL.HLP length 1381 checksum 123694
File c:\LIB\CSDFIND.HLP length 1343 checksum 105100
File c:\LIB\CSDHELP.HLP length 1094 checksum 81448
File c:\LIB\CSDHIST.HLP length 1042 checksum 91644
File c:\LIB\CSDRUN.HLP length 1358 checksum 108480
File c:\LIB\CSDSELEC.HLP length 1383 checksum 107984
File c:\LIB\CSDTRACE.HLP length 1085 checksum 92427
File c:\LIB\HELPFILE length 20291 checksum 1743989
File c:\LIB\HELPINDX length 728 checksum 49446
File c:\LIB\LIBAES.A length 19691 checksum 696065
File c:\LIB\LIBM.A length 17509 checksum 869849
File c:\LIB\LIBVDI.A length 39870 checksum 1343236
File c:\LIB\MACTIONS length 88 checksum 4987
File c:\LIB\MMACROS length 89 checksum 6167
File c:\LIB\TOS.SYM length 2182 checksum 111751

Hi folks.

Does anyone know if CUBASE works on the STE ? (Maybe it depends on the version
of the software)

Thanks for any information,

Pierre

    
    
    I know there is a recent upgrade of all Steinberg programs for STE
    purposes and this does include CUbase..
    
    				Paul.

    	I have Cubase version 1. something and althought the program runs
    on the STe,the mouse doesn't work.
    
    	You can still control the program by using the keyboard.
    
    	Brian.

...lets try this again...

In Bill Rehbock's conference on CompuServe (Bill is the Atari Director of
Technical Services), he mentioned that the demo program contest was "...an
excuse for getting the STE DMA sound & scrolling documentation released to the
public..." and "It should be in the Software Library here on Compuserve".

I'm interested in getting this documentation on the STe's sound & scrolling,
but I don't have an account on CompuServe. Has anyone captured the above
documentation from CompuServe (or Genie, etc..)? Is there any chance you'd
make it available on the net?

  Thanks,

        Ray

> In Bill Rehbock's conference on CompuServe (Bill is the Atari Director of
> Technical Services), he mentioned that the demo program contest was "...an
> excuse for getting the STE DMA sound & scrolling documentation released to the
> public..." and "It should be in the Software Library here on Compuserve".

    I just got a 2 meg 520 STE over the weekend, and I would be very
    interested in this documentation.  Does any one know where I can
    find a copy from the Enet.

    Also does anyone know of any games/demo (pd, or otherwise) that
    use the extra features of the STE?

    Jim

I download the contest winner from GEnie.  It's pretty neat, but it's
huge.  Someday soon I'll upload it.

>    Also does anyone know of any games/demo (pd, or otherwise) that
>    use the extra features of the STE?

    I have started a collection of STE files.  See 9.308.

    Jim

    The STE I have has TOS 1.62.  Does anyone know what was changed from
    1.6 to 1.62?

    I have found at least one strange bug in this version.

    Every once in a great while when I click on a .PRG to start it, I get
    the TOS print/view/cancel dialog.  The program I wanted to run is
    highlighted in the files listing.  Selecting cancel, then trying again
    does run the program.  The really strange part is I use Quick View in place
    of the normal Atari print/view/cancel viewer, so I should never see the
    Atari viewer at all.

    Jim

    PS. It broke PINHEAD 1.8 because it does not recognise this version of TOS