[Coco] My Windows Readme

[Gene Heskett]

On Sunday 05 April 2015 00:29:54 Stephen H. Fischer wrote:
> Top posting, of course when a reply in line is not the best way to go.
>
> If I have to scroll down I say stop this nonsense or just move onto
> the next post.
>
> Too many times looking down I cannot find what is changed.
> If I cannot remember what is being discussed likely I am not
> interested.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Gene Heskett" <gheskett at wdtv.com>
> To: <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2015 7:27 PM
> Subject: Re: [Coco] My Windows Readme
>
> > On Saturday 04 April 2015 20:05:40 Stephen H. Fischer wrote:
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I put my coding pad down decades ago.
> >
> > Your choice. At 80 yo, I still have a byte or 3 of coding in me.
> >
> >> My recent attempts have not gone anywhere near completion.
> >>
> >> http://www.avsforum.com/forum/26-home-theater-computers/731457-hdho
> >>mer un-dual-atsc-qam-ethernet-box-66.html#post24078505
> >
> > Off topic to this? I do not see the connection at all clearly.
>
> Just that I cannot finish what I start these days. Even an AWK script.
>
> >> Urbane got a huge number of downloads but no indication that it was
> >> being used.
> >
> > I wasn't even aware it was out there, what does it (Urbane) do? 
> > URL?
>
> http://www.coco3.com/urbane/
>
> There was a lot of discussion on:
>
> http://www.tandycoco.com/forum/index.php?sid=d3950d0e720bf8ec2375de334
>ed51282
>
> But "This board has no forums." Says it all.

I am not, and never was, all that interested in DECB. It forced one to 
write machine code in data statements.  Kludgy was about as kind as I 
could be to it. Discovering OS9, with a real assembler, was the barrier 
destroyer.  Up until then my coding efforts were the result of looking 
up the nemonic of the next operation I wanted to do, either in the RCA 
1802 manual, or one of many z-80 books, and entering it as hex code into 
memory with a hex monitor. But that 1802 code then went on to live at 
KRCR-TV in Redding CA, for 16 years that I know of as it did a job that 
every commercial made had to have done to it in preparation for that 
commercial being sent to air by an automatic station break machine.  
Doing it precisely timing wise, while if requested replacing the old 
timey wheel of a clock called an academy leader on the video track.
There was not then, and never was, a commercially availble device to do 
that job.  Microtime, who had about 1/3rd of it on the table as a 
preproduction "is there a market for this?" tickler, when I saw it and 
commented that I had already done a far more complete version of it, 
paniced, and by the time I walked by their display booth again half an 
hour later it was gone, and never it never existed.  Their lawyers 
paranoia, afraid of getting sued, succeeded in killing the company in 
another 4 or 5 years.  If anything, I was interested in consulting fees 
while it was brought into production as it was a perfect fit, designed 
to work with their automatic station break machine. Since the broadcast 
market is quite limited, I wouldn't have been able to lengthen my ladder 
up the side of the hog by even a rung with a $25 royalty for every one 
sold. Based on numbers of the Automatic station break machines they had 
sold, the potential market might have been for 25 units.

> >> I attempted to look at installing my window descriptors into
> >> NitrOS-9.
> >
> > For what I want to do, the existing ones have worked.
>
> I want to do much more and did lots of it.
>
> On one screen usually three windows. One for editing the source, one
> for looking at the output and one to run the program.
>
> Look backward in this thread for the attachment to the very first
> post. Or  perhaps the second if you can read monospaced text.

Absolutely.

> >> Boy was I hit with a huge landslide that stopped that cold.
> >>
> >> Shellplus, a lost cause, throw it away and start over.
>
> It's not just ShellPlus but every part of NitrOS-9 that might handle
> what you typed in. I would not call it a mess but hard to understand
> where things have gone wrong. The author of ShellPlus 2.2 (?) said
> here that he might have been responsible. Not proven.
>
> Clearly ShellPlus is damaged goods, but then I was such a heavy user.
>
> That I was able to help the CP/M author is just one sign that I was.
>
> > Possibly, but its been part of my arsenal for quite some time.
> >
> >> After ROTROD I may go back to improving the ShellPlus documentation
> >> for OS-9. Maybe somebody will see if NitrOS-9 ShellPlus matches
> >> what I document.
> >
> > I don't see why not, if we have command examples to test for
> > function.
>
> Just start at the beginning of the ShellPlus documentation and try it
> all out.

If I could find a good copy.  On the other hand, I haven't looked very 
hard.

> I now have three more shell subs making the grand total of 5. On a
> properly set up system like I had one is not needed.
>
> >> How can I say that ShellPlus is broken on NitrOS-9 when there is no
> >> document saying what should work.
> >
> > We're on the same page here.  Docs are horrible.  The /sys/helpmsg
> > file needs to grow quite a few megabytes, and away from its
> > absolutely simplistic format as it exists today.  It will not get it
> > unless there is a solid set of formatting rules, it is broken into
> > individual pieces per program or utility, and ideally, help itself
> > is re-written not to scan a huge file to find the reference, but to
> > open the /sys/help/name file directly.
>
> On RTSI there are two or three help systems. I installed one, it was a
> collection of ~ 150 small files. Maybe a start.
>
> The other one I forget. But I did see one help system once that might
> be worth something.

The only one I am aware of uses one huge helpmsg file. A horrible kludge.
>
> > An individual file can be fixed on the coco even if the full
> > explanation is north of 20k.  A multi-megabyte helpfile has to be
> > edited external to the coco world.  So unless we can make that huge
> > file from the individual files as we build the repo on one of our
> > linux boxes, or convert help to look for the name passed, in a scan
> > of
> > the /sys/helpfiles directory, an operation that might even be faster
> > in some cases than scanning thru one big file.
> >
> > If my view seems to have the flavor of a linux man page, it does
> > because the man page on linux, while it does need more explanations,
> > and more examples in particular, is still 1000x better than what we
> > do have on the coco/Nitros9 planet right now.
> >
> >> I put my hat in the ring to run as dictator. I got one vote.
> >>
> >> That was fine except no one else got any votes.
> >
> > It's a thankless job.  And now you know it. :)
> >
> >> So the position remains open as it has been since Tandy vacated the
> >> position.
> >>
> >> I see signs almost every day that we are paying a steep price
> >> without one.
> >
> > We have one, he sleeps in the white house. :(
> >
> >> I know that the Linux people think that their system is a great one
> >> and thus it should be used for the CoCo.
> >>
> >> I think that stinks to high hell.
> >
> > Thats personal.  Explain why technically, so we're talking oranges
> > to oranges here.  I personally, because the architectures are so
> > similar, usually find myself right at home once I get over the
> > keyboard differences.
>
> It's the model of people do what they want and there is no one looking
> at the entire system and well, suggesting that things need to be done
> and follows up to make sure they were done right. And the whole system
> works well.

That is a company attitude.  While taken as a whole, we have some quite 
decent talent here, its applied in a "my back itches, heres a new 
backscratcher" style.  I am as guilty as the next in that dept.
>
> When I stopped most of what I did was without the system neededing to
> be fought. I had added fixes from Delphi, wrote programs as needed and
> lots of shell scripts.
>
> Example. Turn the CoCo on and boot OS-9. Replace the system disk with
> a disk with the source for the program to be worked on.
>
> Run a script to load the "C" compiler, and start the ram disk.
> Run  a script to load the ram disk with the program files.
> Edit the program.
> Run a script to do the compile.
> Test the changes.
> Repeat as necessary.
> Run a script to copy new and changed files from the ram disk to the
> floppy. I wish Bill would create a new program with the two columns
> that has the features of the program I wrote. I had that Idea two
> decades ago. Turn the computer off.
>
> Different program being worked on. Run the same scripts. Well, the
> same name but configured for each program.
>
Exactly.

> >> Someone please take over the dictator position and lead us out the
> >> huge mess we have.
> >>
> >> SHF
> >
> > Thanks Steven. I had expected a much more defensive reply.  Thank
> > you again.
> >
> > Now all we have to do is break you from top posting. Please
> > intersperse your replies so it reads like a normal conversation, as
> > I have done above. Does "X-Mailer: Microsoft Windows Mail
> > 6.0.6002.18197", disable the arrow keys to move the curser to where
> > you should type a reply?  Or does it force you to type your reply in
> > a box that it then assembles as Redmond sees fit?  In which case I'd
> > recommend you investigate thunderbird for windows.  I am told the
> > current version Just Works(TM), but I haven't used it in a decade so
> > my knowledge is obviously dated.
>
> I am using Windows Mail from Vista on W7 (Same as Outlook Express with
> the same bugs but you can search the normal W7 way). MS did for some
> reason not include a e-mail program like before, they required you to
> download one. I read about using WM from Vista on W7 and went that way
> so I did not need to learn another program. One command or two and I
> need to use system restore to make it work again.

I don't believe that thunderbird would do that to you, else I'd be 
reading about it from unhappy users.  I am not.  Its from the mozilla 
people, who make the firefox browser, a browser that if my web page 
stats are to be believed, is over 25% of the non-netscape-4.8 browsers 
that visit my web page. Since all these browsers can spoof their ID, I 
suspect 90% of the ones that claim to be netscape are firefox under the 
covers. All versions of internet explorer combined are still under 2% of 
the total.

T-Bird was first written for linux, ported to windows in another 6 
months, it probably has half of the non-webmail market cornered and has 
had for much of a decade.  And it got that share purely because it blows 
the M$ product into the next drainage.

> SHF

Cheers, Gene Heskett
-- 
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>