@Daz

I believe there's a config file defining font types with AmiPDF. (Typing @ work right now, using internet exploder 8 of all things... will check it out when I get home)

@salass00

Ooops! Did I mention I've requently trashed my system memory?

s@freddix

I've had the same problem recently, trying to convert my palmos databook database to lipidclock reminder format. Luckily, I just do:

char *string;
if((string=malloc(strlen("string to enter"))!=0)
{
sprintf(string, "%s", "string to enter");
}
else
{
printf("Memory allocation error!\a\n");
}


To swap different string, I guess you need to use the (previously mentioned) realloc() command, eg..
char *string1 = "first string";
char *string2 = "second string";
char *changestring;

if((changestring=malloc(strlen(string1))!=0)
{
sprintf(changestring, "%s", string1);
};
if((changestring=realloc(strlen(string2))!=0)
{
sprintf(changestring, "%s", string2);
};

Also, I prefer to use sprintf() instead of strcpy, the additional formatting options are very useful. (personal preference though). Sprintf uses the same args as printf, the pointer before the format string is where you put the array name)

I've made extensive use of a couple of websites that have been quite life-savers for looking up stuff, too.
cplusplus.com, though you have to be careful with this one if you're using straight C, and not C++. Plus, the language can be kinda thick at times, though it has some good example code.

C Programming Reference is one I found the other day, but it looks like beginner-level example code. Also DOS/X86 based afaik.

C programming.com seems useful for beginner level stuff, too.

I've been getting used to the memory allocation probs myself, having trashed my system memory to the point of requiring a cold reset. (I'm using BlizKick to set up a custom 3.9+goodies kickstart, which isn't "locked", resulting in a restart and a lovely red screen when it gets trashed. Using RTG means I need to flip the VGA switch to even see that...)

EDIT: If you go to those links via Ibrowse, you may want to disable javascript to speed things up a bit. (I have them in the URL prefs w/ Javascript disabled)

After seeing so many others popping the "A" keys off their Amiga keyboards for a PS/2 one, I figured I'd try it on mine, and post the response...


A few probs. I ran into, though. Apparently the springs that went shooting off into parts unknown (probably vacuum cleaner fodder by now) were important, as the 2 Amiga keys are "spongy", and offer no resistance. Unlike the ps/2 keyboard, C= relied on those springs for that. (I still have several keys left to cannibalize for springs) Also, the keyboard is white. Well, after sitting in a basement for years on end, the keys are white, and the case is yellow. Either way, it doesn't match the grey Amiga keys. The A1200 keyboard uses a round peg-stand, instead of the square ones the ps/2 keyboard uses, and the square ps/2 ones are molded directly onto they key. (No way to remove it, except with a steak knife that my wife threatened to use in horrible ways if I don't stop hacking up plastic with it) But the key and round peg do snap together, and are able to push the contact on the keyboard. I've included pics of the pegs, in and out of the keyboard backing, and close-ups of the 2 keys. (4 actually, but aside from one Amiga key being filled and the other an outline, its the same idea.)

@ssolie

I looked about on Google, and came accross a site that did custom keys. I e-mailed them, but they cater to larger companies that need labeled keys for their company systems, and would charge too much for an individual user. The only way to make that work would be to have perhaps Elbox or Amigakit order in bulk and sell retail. Otherwise, the link that was posted previously might work, not sure which way would be cheaper, or if the Ami distributors would be willing to go for the "Bulk and retail" idea. I'll edit with the link if I can dig it up again.

In the meantime, I use an office labeler to print off 2 stickers with italisized A's on them. :D

Was thinking, wouldn't it be possible to write an "arexx.library" with the data port addressing routines in it, and just include that into Python? (Unless workbench.library already has something like that)

@xenic

LOL, yeah, thats a good point. But with a 40GB drive (a monster even for AOS 3.9) I suppose it wouldn't be too bad. But AREXX is lightweight, and does what it was designed to do. (AFAIK, swapping data between apps, and simple scripts to automate mundane tasks like the one that started this surprisingly lengthy thread) Though adding an AREXX port to python would be an interesting approach, and would allow for much more complicated daemons, and perhaps a sophisticated data port management system, though I'm having trouble finding a good use for that amount of power given the limitations of many programs AREXX interfaces. I would LOVE to have an AREXX port in AmigaWriter, which I use for school alot, my homework being hosted on a website in HTML. Python I suppose could be used to decode the HTML, and "manually" enter the formatting into an AREXX enabled word processor, making my life that much easier. Though the same could be done in AREXX, the code would be rather chaotic and a pain to manage. I'd probably end up writing a ton of C code, and using the "address command" function alot.

@ChrisH

Yeah, I have to agree with that. For little things like the way I cleaned up my fastlink bar its the best thing, but for larger things I tend to use a C proggy and run it through GCC. Or a combination of the 2. (An AREXX script that launches CLI applications I wrote to handle more complex items, I did this whith an AmigaDos script designed to give me an AmigaGuide formatted boot log I can review if I have problems. Had to rip non-filesystem characters out of a programs console output, as I was using the c:date output as a filename) But for swapping minor amounts of data about, it works just fine. Somewhere, I have an Arexx compiler, too, but I've never gotten it to work. I probably could, but it would be too much effort for what I really use AREXX for.

@TSK

Swapping info to/from public ports is the most useful thing in AREXX, if something else that is 68K OS3.9 compatible does that, I would probably tinker with it a bit.

@Raziel

I know, its old, but so is my miggy. (Using OS3.9 here) It's proven incredibly useful in this situation among others.

Amusing thing happened today. I recently cleaned up the "fastlinks" in Ibrowse, after realizing I only use the first 4 buttons (Amiga.org, Amigaworld.net, Amigans.net, and EAB) by clicking one, opening a new tab, clicking the next, etc....
So, I whipped up a quick arexx script in Bareed:

/* Goto favorite Amiga forums */
address ibrowse
gotourl 'www.amigaworld.net'
'NEWBROWSER URL=www.amigans.net'
'NEWBROWSER URL=www.amiga.org'
'NEWBROWSER URL=http://eab.abime.net'

And assigned this to just one button. Not a big deal, until my wife (who uses Google Chrome on her XP box) wanted to know how to do this on hers.... (There is a way to do it, with clever use of javascript, but it isn't as convenient, and took me twice as long to do.. I'll have to post that when I can VNC into her computer, which I can't do while she's playing Mahjongg....) Anyway, looking at having a new job soon that will require multiple web-site logins on a W2K maching w/ Internet Explorer, I'm trying to relish using a computer for 8 hours and it seeming like 2, instead of the other way around.

Now to write a YAM inbox to HTML converter in Arexx, because I'm too lazy to un-iconify it.

Hello all, have a problem that I've not been able to google the answer to. I have an Amiga 1200T+mediator w/ 100mbps ethernet, and did a search for BBS systems in my area (recently hooked up a 56K external modem to send faxes), and found alot of telnet access ones. I installed telser.device, and set a few of my favorites to the phonebook. When I log into a site with Term, it seems to be "skipping" alot of data. AMTelnet works fine with the sites, so I think its a configuration problem with either Term or Telser.device. (I'm looking for other ways to test telser, trying to pin it down a bit more) Anybody know the best configuration for this? (I'd post my settings, but I'm on my wifes computer right now.)

@tommo1975

Yeah, that'll do it. Had an escape key that never worked due to a (slightly) damaged green cable. (switched to a pc-key 1200 at adapter)

@daveyw

I found this on Aminet, apparently classic amiga's parallel port isn't enought to handle a zip drive, and this particular hack runs lines over from the joystick port. Not sure if an A1 would have similar leads, I believe you probably have a PS/2. I'm not sure if the pinout would have anything that could be run off of an Amiga mouse port, though. Or if the drivers themselves would even work under OS4. It might be possible to install the parallel port model on your 1200, and move the SCSI version to your A1, however.

Hello all. I've recently gotten my new tower system up and running, and she seems pretty stable at the moment. (A1200 put into a EZ4 tower case + mediator, SVGA card, SoundBlaster, (unsupported) NIC, SubWay USB, etc...) There's only a few minor probs, I was considering doing a separate post on each, but I would end up hijacking the entire welcome page if I did that.... Anyway,

The RTG system works almost flawlessly, but ReqAttack and Tinymeter don't seem to support 24-bit graphics. ReqAttack's docs state it recognizes CGFX, but all my textures with more 'subtle' shading end up floyd-steinberg dithered and reduced to 256 colors. (Less, considering it can't adjust locked pens) I'm currently using P96, which apparently has cgfx emulation inlcluded, but either its not working or I'm missing something with reqattack.

TinyMeter does the same thing, but I don't think it supports 24 bit gfx at all, and will probably have to live with it. (I know a few tricks to make it more attractive, using a 128 color WB for so long has some advantages :D )

The mouse pointer corrupts on occasion, when switching from regular to busy, or to the text-editing pointer on some programs. The only way I know to get it back is to move the mose over sensative content several times. (Ibrowse link, one of the text gatdgets that cause it to change)

Also, Shapeshifter and PC-Task act strangely. I've narrowed down PC-tasks behavior to several commodities I had running, which would cause it to freeze. Now it just sits at the boot-up screen, and refuses to continue. However, it doesn't lock, as I can still quit using either the close gadget or RAMIGA-DEL combo. Shapeshifter works fine (though I'm having trouble running it in a window instead of Full-screen), but only from hardfile up until I try to format a regular partition. (Both PC-Task and Shapeshifter partitions are before the 4GB limit on a 40GB drive, the last 36 GB are my Work: and Temp: partitions for software and Ibrowse/Aweb cache)

For the hardware, the only things I can't figure out involve the keyboard and floppy drive.

The Floppy shows DF0:Unreadable, even with no disk in the drive. (Until I hid it with the workbench preferences) Thinking it might be a CIA problem, I hooked up an old 880k external I had, and it works, as does the printer and the serial port. The floppy is a 1.44, which I purchased along with the other upgrades, so I'm sure its good. Just in case, I tried it with the old floppy drive I had, and the same thing happens. (Its been happening for awhile, just thought it was a bad floppy drive until the new one did the same)

The keyboard works fine (PC-Key 1200 w/ ps/2 to AT adapter connected to ps/2 keyboard), but it expects a keypress before "activating" it. I was wondering if there was something I could do in the startup-sequence to "force" the activation before a keypress? The reason for this is I have a wireless ps/2 keyboard, and it wants the activation before it sends any keypress information. But it won't get the activation before it sends a keypress.

Thanks for any help on any of these!

Been awhile since I've updated this, so I figured I'd do so when I had a few moments. I promise to use the Enter key this time, too.

Got everything slapped together and working, hardware wise, with a couple exceptions.

The 10/100 mbps ethernet isn't working with either fastethernet.device or mediatornet.device. Its not really compatible with the mediator drivers, though I have a right=angle PCMCI adapter with my old 3com card until I find one that works.

Ultra-33 PCI Ide card doesn't work, no drivers. wasn't really holding my breath on this one.

Subway USB stack not working, thinking I'm just missing something fundamental. I had problems earlier with Picasso96 installing, because I had to use my wifes XP machine along with a samba share to do so, messing up the protection bits. I've double checked this with the subway drivers, too. but to no avail. Might just go with a pci card for usb.

Floppy drive shows "bad" icon, doesn't matter if there's a floppy in there or not. I set df0: to not show on the workbench for now.

IDE adapter not fully installed, for want of a longer IDE cable to hook things up. I have the cables I need now, so not a real problem.

2.1GB drive is still in there, I have a 40GB. Prob is, they're both laptop drives, and I only have 1 connector for this. I'll have to do alot of drive-swapping to get the filesystem(s) transferred. (2 SFS partitions, 2 FAT32 partitions, 1 MFS mac partition. I need a way to save and restore non-Amiga RDB's to restore the win95 and win3.11 partitions, the macintosh one I could care less about, as I have a shapeshifter-hardfile backup on the fileserver)

Wireless keyboard not working. This is interesting, I have a pc-key 1200 Amiga-AT adapter, and the only AT keyboard I had was an old ergonomic annoying, bulky, ugly, dirty, piece of $%#!&!!!!. A friend of mine @ Rivcom Computers had a spare ps/2 to at adapter (and the longer IDE cable I needed), and let me use them. However, when the Amiga powers on, the pc-key seems to wait for some kind of input from the keyboard to activate. (I Usually hit the CTRL button, then the led's on the keyboard flash) With the wireless keyboard, it seems to want to wait for the input from the computer before its able to send a keypress, which is an obnoxious cycle. There should be some easy way of breaking this, even if I need to solder some kind of "pulse" component into the ps/2 line. I'll see what google has to offer for this. (Unless someone here has a suggestion?)

The dual-monitor thing. I kinda like having 2 monitors (1 for AGA, 1 for RTG), but would like to have the ability to maintain the AGA display while working on the RTG display. If you notice my Screenshots, Ibrowse takes up most of the screen, which is fine, but I would like to move WookieChat and Jabberwocky over to the AGA screen, which would help immensely in clearing up real-estate on the RTG display. The resolution is already maxed out for the card, and I have to squint on a 20" monitor to read some of the fontsizes I haven't updated yet, so I don't really want to increase the res. at all. This is probably a config thing I'm missing, so I'll do some digging on it. I'm using the Matrix screensaver, which can blank RTG and AGA simultaneously (and looks awesome in a dark room when it does it ), but any other program I run switches AGA to a blank grey screen when I L-Amiga M out of it. (Or L-windows M in my case. which reminds me, has anyone dealt with These guys?



There's some software probs, too. mostly with various patches.

1) Reqattack doesn't like 24-bit textures. Apparently, I need to manually convert them into 24-bit .ra files (The tool to do so is included in the archive), simply putting the taskname in the v 43 datatype prefs causes ugly results.

2) MagicASL locks up. I REALLY like this patch, I think the standard ASL requesters are a bit bland for the system I'm running.

3) PC-Task & Shapeshifter lock. I've set the picasso96 prefs to allow direct access, which should be working, but it isn't... I'll have to look closer at whats going on.

4) Corrupted mouse pointer. When the mouse pointer switches images (Normal to busy, normal to "select link" hand in Ibrowse, NOrmal to Text editing pointer for some MUI classes)the sprite becomes a random, corrupted rectangle on occasion. I could fix this by using soft sprites, but I have a 68060, and would rather save cpu cycles for other things as much as possible.

5) Ugly mouse pointer. According to some documentation I read online somewhere, the SVGA card only supports 3-color sprites, and one of those colors is a transparent one that does some wierd (and ugly) stuff. The recommendation was either a 2 color pointer or use soft-sprites. Neither this or #4 is a really big deal to me right now, though.

Anyway, aside from those probs, its apparent my computer acting more sluggish than a windows machine being used by a nympho on a 20-hour porn browsing marathon was due to C2P and 24bto8b conversions from standard web-browsing. I had the foresight to pre-convert everything I otherwise used (Winamp skins, background/mui patterns, etc...) Ibrowse now works as quicker than firefox on my mother-in-laws winxp PIII, and almost as well as my wifes Athlon. Except for Javascript loaded pages, which I rather expected. However, even those load faster due to the lack of FBLIT and C2P conversions dragging the CPU down.

My MP3's play much nicer using AHI with a soundblaster, though they still hog the CPU a bit. Still tinkering with it to find a happy medium between performance and sound quality.

All my games (mostly whdload installs) work fine, they just go to the AGA monitor. I've noticed various background tasks (eg. limpidclock) still update on RTG while the game is playing, which is handy) However, I'm still toying with the idea of getting a VGA switchbox.

Hello all. I've finally gotten enough money together to upgrade my 1200 into a tower case, due to a rather large tax return. I've gotten a tower case, subway, mediator, etc... from Amigakit.com, and it arrived a few days ago, and I've finally had the time to assemble it. Amigakit again has excellent customer service, and went out of their way to inform me of a mistake I made when I placed the order (wrong PSU adapter), and I'm quite pleased with them. :D Anyway, I've also ordered a pair of wireless sega controllers off E-Bay, and they arrived as promised as well. (when I get the guys merchant info, time permitting, I'm planning on dropping a good review for him) However, the wireless controllers don't work. Regular ones do, however, and I think I've tracked the problem down. according to pinouts.ru, Amigas have a +5 VDC on pin 7, while Sega has +5VDC on pin 5. Thinking the easies fix would be to wire a dbn9 serial cable with pins 5 and 7 swapped out, but wanted to get a more experienced take on this before I try it and end up blowing something to hell. This a good idea?

I had an idea about advertising OS4 to computer users at large, that I should have posted a while back. Not sure how effective it would be, but considering the average Amiga users seemingly profound love of customizing their Workbench environment, and bragging about it with a screengrabber, gfx converter, and a forum site to post to (myself included, even if I use AOS3.9 until I get some actual money) I found a site that might be ideal for an Amiga coup. Desktop Contest hosts a series of users desktops, and apparently award prizes to the most popular by vote. I did this last year, and had a comment on how rare Amiga workbench shots were up there. (My nick is Kvasir up there, the one with the wierd resolution Star Trek Theme) The current pot is up to a wild $.10 (probably due to it being only January), and the site can be a bit unreliable at times. But when the server is working, Ibrowse works fine with it. Last I checked, somebody won $50 because of a desktop theme revolving around their cat.... Anyway, it would be nice to see more OS4/3.x screengrabs up there, and they would probably have a good chance at getting a prize as most screengrabs of both look rather sexy compared to even some of the Linux shots I've seen on their site.

@Rogue

Forgot about that, youtube automaticall reduces video anyway unless you use their HD option. That could work as well, and still have comparable quality.

@Swoop

I'm thinking it would be possible to do a section-by-section grab, as moving a window wouldn't necessarily update an entire desktop screen. If there's a quick and dirty way of frame-comparing and only grabbing the changed data, this could be saved out and compiled to anything from mpeg4 to anim7 after the "recording" is done. I've been thinking of doing this myself, so I wouldn't have to stream pal or ntsc data to my windows framegrabber for this sort of thing, but my programming skills aren't that great. I'm thinking worst cast scenario is break the screen up into grids, run a crc check on the data similar to an HDD block check, and only grab the "squares" that fail a "current frame" "previous frame" crc, dump the raw data, and worry about compiling the whole mess afterwards. This along with some tricks, eg. not grabbing the mouse pointer so much as keeping track of its normal/busy state and tracking it's x/y position, and simply add the image in at compile time should be feasable.