3-Feb-84 14:57:02-MST,411;000000000000 Return-Path: <@MIT-MC:BEC.SHAPIN@USC-ECL.ARPA> Received: from MIT-MC by SIMTEL20.ARPA with TCP; Fri 3 Feb 84 14:56:50-MST Date: 3 Feb 1984 1348-PST From: Ted Shapin Subject: please add me To: amethyst-users@MIT-MC.ARPA Postal-address: Beckman Instruments, Inc. Postal-address: 2500 Harbor X-11, Fullerton, CA 92634 Phone: (714)961-3393 pls add me to your list. ------- 13-Feb-84 08:49:49-MST,957;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from CMU-CS-G by SIMTEL20.ARPA with TCP; Mon 13 Feb 84 08:49:27-MST Date: Sunday, 12 February 1984 11:30:53 EST From: James.Wendorf@cmu-cs-g To: H19-People@mit-mc, Amethyst-Users@simtel20 Subject: Amethyst System Requirements Message-ID: <1984.2.12.16.14.17.James.Wendorf@cmu-cs-g> I am considering purchasing Mince and Scribble to run on my H89. I have a 48K system with one internal 100K floppy and two external 200K floppies. Will these programs run reasonably on such a configuration? In particular, how painful would it be to run Mince, i.e. is Mince very slow at swapping and keeping the screen updated? Would increasing the RAM to 64K help much? Also, do you have any suggestions about the best place to purchase Mince and Scribble? What is the best price available, both separately and as a package? Finally, could I use C/80 to make modifications to the programs, or is BDS C essential? 14-Feb-84 10:22:32-MST,837;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from MIT-MULTICS.ARPA by SIMTEL20.ARPA with TCP; Tue 14 Feb 84 10:22:19-MST Date: Mon, 13 Feb 84 23:43 EST From: Hess@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Re: Amethyst System Requirements To: James.Wendorf@CMU-CS-G.ARPA cc: amethyst-users@SIMTEL20.ARPA In-Reply-To: Message of 12 Feb 84 11:30 EST from "James.Wendorf at CMU-CS-G" Message-ID: <840214044350.410146@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> Scribble is hopeless on 48K systems. Mince is OK. Mince alwyas does data swapping, so it'll be as slow as your floppies on files greater than about 16K. It used to run in 32K, but grew a little. Since you're at CMU, try asking the Comp[.Ctr. people for high-bandwidth advice. They have a large license to distribute the stuff, although they might not support yourmachine internally. 14-Feb-84 16:17:19-MST,1941;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from RICE by SIMTEL20.ARPA with TCP; Tue 14 Feb 84 16:16:48-MST Received: by RICE (AA00185); Tue, 14 Feb 84 17:08:20 cst Received: by RICE-JANUS (AA06951); Tue, 14 Feb 84 16:27:46 cst Date: Tue, 14 Feb 84 16:07:55 CST From: Paul Milazzo Subject: Re: Amethyst System Requirements To: James.Wendorf@cmu-cs-g Cc: Amethyst-Users@simtel20 Message-Id: <1984.02.14.16.07.56.430.06819@Rice-Janus.rice> In-Reply-To: a message from James.Wendorf dated Sunday, 12 February 1984 11:30:53 EST I currently use Mince and Scribble on my H89, with 64k RAM and two 640k floppies (Tandon TM100-4). I'm very happy with the arrangement, although swapping is sometimes very annoying. On your system, I would strongly recommend expanding to 64k, or you'll find the system unuseable. If you are using your 100k floppy as your `A' disk, you may also wish to patch Mince's default swap drive, since it looks for the swap file first on the current disk, then on the `A' disk. A 100k floppy doesn't allow much of a swap file. If you plan to bind things to function keys, you'll have to run a BIOS with interrupt-driven console I/O (such as Heath 2.2.03 or later) and configure Mince to do BIOS input, otherwise you'll lose some of the characters. I also recommend configuring for direct port output, since it is markedly faster. I can't help you much with price because it's been a long time since I got my copy. You will have to use BDS `C' for your modifications, since only part of the distribution is in source form. The remaining modules are only distributed as BDS .CRL (relocatable object) files. You must recompile to change key bindings, and since you're at CMU I suspect you'll want to change Mince's "MIT-like" bindings to "Gosling-like" bindings. Paul G. Milazzo Dept. of Mathematical Sciences Rice University, Houston, TX 15-Feb-84 08:10:55-MST,1326;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from MIT-MC by SIMTEL20.ARPA with TCP; Wed 15 Feb 84 08:10:38-MST Date: 14 February 1984 21:56 EST From: Paul L. Kelley Subject: Amethyst System Requirements To: James.Wendorf @ CMU-CS-G cc: H19-PEOPLE @ MIT-MC, Amethyst-Users @ SIMTEL20 In-reply-to: Msg of 12 Feb 1984 11:30:53 EST from James.Wendorf at cmu-cs-g I use MINCE on the H89 and am very happy with the results. I run my CPU and terminal at 4 MHz. Speeding up the CPU had the biggest effect on speed by cutting the floppy I/O times considerably. I also use extended density (1K sectors) to cut down the floppy I/O time further. Recently I added a hard disk, it's faster again by a factor of 2. I started out with a 30 second load time for MINCE and am now down to under two seconds. I have never run 48K, because when I got my H89 kit I piggybacked the last 16K on one of the other banks. I used wirewrap sockets with all leads soldered on the lower 4116s except for the chip select line. You could probably just piggyback the chips directly, 4116s are so cheap now that you can experiment with little cost if you make a mistake. Currently I am contemplating switching to 4164s and running a ramdisk system. This should speed up the old H89 even further. regards, Paul 21-Feb-84 08:41:40-MST,1155;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from MIT-MC by SIMTEL20.ARPA with TCP; Tue 21 Feb 84 08:41:22-MST Date: 20 February 1984 22:05-EST From: Jonathan David Callas Subject: "Dead Keys" in Scribble To: AMETHYST-USERS @ MIT-MC cc: JURGEN @ MIT-MC I have been helping my mother-out-law, an ABD musicologist, prepare her dissertation with Mince & Scribble. I have been successful in modifying Mince for her requests, but I am having a problem with Scribble. This is with the use of "Dead keys," which are like the keys on a European typewriter. On these, it is a key that type a special character (like an accent grave (`)), but doesn't advance the carriage. This way, by typing, "`a" one gets an "a" with an accent grave. The question is, how to deliver this via Scribble. I envision it as an in-line environment that allows overstriking. Sort of like typing "a@o(`)" to get the a-accent-grave. Has anyone done anything like this? Any mechanism that allows overstriking would probably suffice, or be enough of a help for me to modify Scribble. Even an in-line environment of any sort would help. Thanks, Jon 22-Feb-84 10:29:11-MST,1384;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from MIT-MULTICS.ARPA by SIMTEL20.ARPA with TCP; Wed 22 Feb 84 10:28:30-MST Date: Wed, 22 Feb 84 11:12 EST From: Hess@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA Subject: Re: "Dead Keys" in Scribble To: Jonathan David Callas cc: amethyst-users@SIMTEL20.ARPA, bnh@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA In-Reply-To: Message of 20 Feb 84 22:05 EST from "Jonathan David Callas" Message-ID: <840222161206.803024@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA> The easiest way to get dead keys is to (1) use a letter-quality printer (2) define a width table even if you are using a fixed-width print wheel (3) make the dead key spacings be zero (4) make an @ @# command which forces a white space (for use when you want the dead keys not to be dead). This is close to what you want, and requires little or no work (if you don't want to make the @# command, just find an unused key and use translation tables to turn that into a space on output). You can do this with no source code modification at all. If you want a better solution and want to do the work, I suggest a NEW code for the .FIN format file which tells the program to do overstrike of two characters, then modifying the driver(s) to pay attention to it. I don't have the manual here right now, so I don't remember if there is enough source code provided to modify the .FIN format... Brian 23-Feb-84 09:44:39-MST,381;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from MIT-MC by SIMTEL20.ARPA with TCP; Thu 23 Feb 84 09:44:15-MST Date: 23 February 1984 11:44-EST From: Herb Lin Subject: "Dead Keys" in Scribble To: JURGEN @ MIT-MC cc: AMETHYST-USERS @ MIT-MC In-reply-to: Msg of 20 Feb 1984 22:05-EST from Jonathan David Callas if you get a response, pls share it. tnx. 27-Feb-84 08:31:16-MST,2720;000000000000 Return-Path: <@USC-ISID:lejm%edxa@Ucl-Cs.ARPA> Received: from USC-ISID.ARPA by SIMTEL20.ARPA with TCP; Mon 27 Feb 84 08:30:59-MST Received: FROM UCL-CS BY USC-ISID.ARPA WITH TCP ; 26 Feb 84 04:04:24 PST Received: from edxa.ac.uk by 44d.Ucl-Cs.AC.UK via Sercnet with NIFTP; 26 Feb 84 11:55 GMT From: LUIS HPS (on ERCC DEC-10) Date: Sunday, 26-Feb-84 11:28:50-GMT Message-ID: <131274364730@EDXA> To: amethyst-users Office-No: + 44 (031) 667-1011 ext 6445/6468 Home-No: + 44 (031) 665-2633 Snail-Mail: 74 Newhailes Crescent, Musselburgh, Edinburgh EH21 6EG, Scotland POM: LQ+2D.15H.49M.29S. Subject: Amethyst - Request for Light -------- Hello. I am not in this list, but I am seeking info on what sort of software I can get to run on a CP/M or CDOS/CROMIX (Cromemco) machine, or MSDOS. You see, after a couple of years of VAXen and DEC-10 use, with (mostly) immensely pleasurable use of an EMACS-like (very) extensible editor (TOP, written in POP-2) and SCRIBE, I am dismayed at the thought of having to use something else. I can't face the prospect of parting. And yet ... I will have to endure a Burroughs B6900 and maybe even an IBM 43xx for the next year. So I *must* buy a micro in order to survive the ordeal and be able to do some useful work. I am seeking eagerly anything which can, even remotely, resemble the environment that I am using. Ideally I would have a 68000 with 4.1bsd and 4Meg and a hard disk and ... But in practice I will have to use whatever I can afford. So, in a nutshell (finally): - How much EMACS-like, SCRIBE-like are MINCE/SCRIBBLE? - What are they written in? - Is source code available? - Is the documentation excelent? Good? Acceptable? Ghastly? - How much do they cost with/without source code? - Is MINCE extensible/customizable? - Are you satisfied with this products? How much do you use them? - Do you switch between VAXen/DEC-10/DEC-20 EMACS/SCRIBE and MINCE/SCRIBBLE a lot? Find it easy? Troublesome? - What kind of support does the vendor give? - Under what OS do they run? - Can you write Environments/Fonts/DeviceDrivers for SCRIBBLE? Easily? - Is this the best one can get when trying to preserve the EMACS/SCRIBE environment on a micro? - Finally, do they run under any of the UN*X-like OS floating around? Thanks a lot for your patience and please reply to me directly as I am not in the list. Luis Jenkins Dept. of AI Edinburgh Univ. or perhaps just -------- 27-Feb-84 09:28:18-MST,338;000000000000 Return-Path: Received: from HI-MULTICS.ARPA by SIMTEL20.ARPA with TCP; Mon 27 Feb 84 09:28:03-MST Date: 27 February 1984 10:15 cst From: Cargo.PD at HI-MULTICS Subject: Request for light To: amethyst-users at SIMTEL20 Anybody responding to Luis Jenkins please copy amethyst-users also. Thank you.