KEN ABOUT .......... Pasi, PRESENT AND FUTURE
by Ken Ross: petlibrary@bigfoot.com

Web Site: http://members.tripod.com/~petlibrary

A WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFF

That's the best way to describe this lot! For those of you interested the download archive for CBM/PET files has had a few problems but they've now been sorted out (where's my lucky floppy disk?). Project Upload will resume and a couple of new projects have been drafted up. By now 'Sunset Beach' will be in its last days and I still maintain that its based on Commodore ;->

MORE THAN ONE ISP?

If you want to have more than one ISP set up on your Mac, for whatever reason takes your fancy, it's quite easy. I'm using the PPP and TCP/IP control panels - if ConfigPPP and MacTCP is in your machine it's a slightly different procedure but the concept is the same. If your Mac uses a modem it's also best to install the 'Open Transport' extensions, which enables you to connect at the fastest possible speed. Otherwise you're stuck with the port speed set up in ConfigPPP.

The info required is:

ISP phone number
Authentication user name & password for the PPP control panel
name server address (either 1 or 2 sets of quad numbers such as 200.150.5.100 / 200.175.8.100)
additional search domain ( text.net ) for the TCP/IP control panel

(Your Authentication user name & password may not be the same as for your email set up!)

The procedure is:

open PPP control panel
file menu / configurations option
duplicate
rename the duplicate to suit (- important note- don't rename the original 'default'!)
enter data into the renamed duplicate positions.

Follow the same procedure for the TCP/IP panel then just make the required set active when needed.

Simple wasn't it ;->

Some ISP's are more Mac friendly than others just to balance things out :-<

INTERESTING LINKS

If you've ever caught the original "Munsters" on its randomly scheduled appearances and wondered who created the car they drive and a lot of other custom cars in the 60's - the answer is Chuck Barris, car customiser, surf dude and writer of that classic pop tune 'Palisades Park'. His website can be found at :
http://www.barris.com
A lot of the site is under construction at present.

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Another place to check out is Mat Irvin's website at :
http://www.smallspace.demon.co.uk
Some people will ask - who he? If you've watched any BBC SF there's a good chance that you've seen his model work.

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For cartoons with a Mac bias the 'hey stuff this' archives can be found at :
http://www.macworks.com/storestage/stuff99.las
where they can be downloaded in either GIF or TIFF format to be chortled over at your leisure;->

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As some people will know I've got an interest in COMAL so I was pleased to receive this note.

Subject: COMAL
from Doug Snell

We have a links page to other sites with an involvement in COMAL. Our site is:
http://www.macharsoft.demon.co.uk
Have a look at our X-platform page - we think it might be useful. we're PC-oriented, although anything COMAL goes. we think all COMAL users should hang together, or we'll hang separately!

(Editor - Those of you who go way back with ICPUG will remember I also have an interest in COMAL. In conjunction with UniComal and Commodore I promoted it in the UK in the very beginning. I still answer COMAL queries in fact, having deal with a Commodore user and a PC user in the recent past. Macharsoft set themselves up as the UK distributor for UniComal for the PC quite some time ago. I can thoroughly recommend this web set as the definitive site for COMAL related material)

UNDERESTIMATION

Not that long before Christmas

IF

	(you visited Rymans AND
	picked up a leaflet with a serial number on it AND
	signed up for BT Talk 21 email service AND
	filled a form out on Rymans web site)

THEN

they'd send you a real £5 Rymans gift voucher

ENDIF

Now you didn't have to use the service beyond the sign up and it was possible to put in multiple applications with slight variations.

After a while BT realised what was happening and stopped the Rymans side of things

Now what sort of person would take advantage of BT's generous offer?

PRINTERS

For a while I was using a Hefty Printer Extra Large till it started to emit smoke, (always a bad sign!), so I looked around for a replacement.

A bargain priced ALPS machine seemed to fit the bill but further research revealed that it used the SCSI port. That meant a new expensive cable and a re-arranging to enable it to fit in place. Also, the life of a print cartridge would have been around 30 sheets and they were only available through mail order. Doing my sums ruled this machine out.

A better bet was the Epson SP700 and I'm very pleased with the results. With photo glossy paper it can turn out spectacular artwork for my wife.

Checking out the cartridge prices the best prices for original Epson's were:

1/ John Lewis ( colour & black )

2/ Jessops ( colour )

3/ W.H. Smith ( black )

In the Jessop's, (a photographic chain with lots of branches), catalogue they advertise their own brand cartridges but looking inside the SP700 on demo in-store revealed no sign of own brand. Only Epson originals and no space for own brand on the peg board ;->

Dixon's & Rymans position in the price range were the very last places I'd buy them!

The conclusion? - Although the ALPS machine offered the best price its cheapness was outweighed by the need to spend lots more on the bits it needed. Although the Epson was more expensive in the beginning the cost/life/availability of the print cartridges outweighed this.

(Editor - Having moved from an HP DeskJet using an HP1526A cartridge to an Epson 640 last year I was amazed at how much smaller the Epson black cartridge was in comparison, yet the price was not that much cheaper. I have subsequently looked around and found a few different own brand cartridges at very different (lower) prices. Despite the warnings, I think I shall be using own brand when the time comes. I think Japanese printers are a bit like their motorcycles. Look wonderful, great performers, competitively priced (when they have competition), but they recoup their money when it is time to buy bits to keep them working.)

CBM 8000's USER PORT & CENTRONICS PRINTERS

A recent query had me digging out an old item dealing with the user port on the CBM/PET. The main use I've put it to in the past has been to drive a parallel printer with just the addition of a home brew cable. (A Panasonic daisy wheel printer salvaged before bin men got it!) The user port is the edge connection between the IEEE edge connector and the cassette#1 port. The top side is mostly diagnostic, the underside is the easy to use area. It's an I/O ( Input/ Output) system that you can control with a few PEEKs and POKEs. Reading from left to right as you look at the back of the beastie the connections are .....

A	ground
B	input to 6522 VIA, CA1
C D E F G H J K L	I/O lines ( 8 of them ) , PA0-7 [ data lines ]
M	CB2 line from VIA can be I/O
N	ground

The text file to be printed out can be read a character at a time with MID$(etc). The ASCII value of each character, (represented by DATA), is sent to the following PRG for printing. Quite high speeds can be reached even without having to compile it.

( This is actually a section of listing just printed out from my 8096 - hence untidy numbers )

3010 POKE 59459, 255 : REM make PA0-7 into outputs
3020 POKE 59467,PEEK(59467) AND 277 : REM disable shift register
3022 RETURN : REM finished with this sub ( this enables the user port for this purpose )
3023 REM this sub puts the data into output
3024 if DATA <32 then goto 3080 : REM line does biz for LF & CR
3026 if DATA => 65 and DATA <= 90 then DATA = DATA +32 : goto 3029
(petscii lower case is chr$(65-90) but ascii uses 97-122)
3027 if DATA => 193 and DATA <= 218 then DATA = DATA -128 :goto 3029
(petscii upper case is chr$(193-218) which has to be shifted to ascii 65-90)
(ascii uses up to 127 but petscii uses up to 255 for chars)
3029 REM line below sets strobe low to inform printer new data character on way
3031 POKE 59468, PEEK(59468) AND 31 OR 192
3035 REM below sets strobe high as data arrives
3045 POKE 59468,PEEK(59468) AND 31 OR 224
3050 POKE 59471, DATA : REM at last data is POKEd!!! ( the data numbers from above )
3060 POKE 59468,PEEK(59468) AND 31 OR 224 : REM strobe high still
3065 REM handshake sub
3066 POKE 59467, PEEK(59467) OR 1
3067 WAIT 59469,2
3068 K=PEEK(59457)
3069 REM end of handshake sub

( well it works for me!! )

3070 RETURN : REM back to main area for next data
3080 REM bit for LF & CR sub & return

( this depends on the printer and the same procedure for paper eject if needed )

 The cable connections are

CBM - CENTRONICS
CB2 - DATA STROBE #1
PA0~7 - DATA1-8 #2-9
CA1 - ACKNOWLEDGE #10 (or BUSY #11 depending on printer!)
GND - grounds #14 , 16 ,24 , 33 , chassis gnd 17

More modern printers will also need additional commands to enable things.

On my web site at :
http://members.tripod.com/~petlibrary/printesc.htm
are the commands needed for Epson printers (with the exception list of Epsons that don't use them!). If any more info turns up it'll be there eventually.

ZIPPING UP THE C64

On Xmas day 1999 the C64 had a new item of software released that makes life a lot easier for me - a zip compressor! (This may not mean much to PC types but it's quite a break through for the 8 bit world). Now I can create archives on the C64 that can be truly multi-platform. The latest version of PUZIP.C64, (and its counterpart PUZIP.128), can be downloaded from the creator's ("Ojala Pasi 'Albert'" ) web site at :
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~albert.
E-Mail: <albert@cs.tut.fi>

I've been using it since early Xmas morning, (yes really!), and I'm very pleased with it indeed. Previously it was thought that to create zip archives an expanded C64 was needed and so very little was done about it.

It was while using this PRG in the year 2000 that I shifted some files over to the Mac and I noted the various dates that were decided upon by things :

in the Amiga via ami64link	15-june-78
in the Mac via AFE	18-oct-1926
after checking with Hexedit	01-11-100 ( yes 100!)
after using PKZIP in Mac	11-01-2000

(also I've seen a date in 1980 at times after using AFE)

BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT!

They've got Leonard ( 'I can do more than Spock!' ) Nimoy flogging PCs on the telly, which brings to mind the time that Commodore got William Shatner to front the campaign for the VIC-20 when it was introduced to the unsuspecting American public. Although I've got no actual footage of the event there's a re-enactment of the event to be found at :
http://members.tripod.com/~petlibrary/VICTREK.HTM

THE FUTURE AIN'T WHAT IT USED TO BE!

The moment I arrived in the 21st Century I dashed to the window and looked out to see what marvels mankind had produced. I had my copy of "Dan Dare's Spacebook", set in the year 2000, with me to compare results. The future wasn't meant to be this way. Taking a short cut past the back of a local supermarket revealed a large amount of food thrown out, which seemed at odds with the image that it tried to portray with its banking service. Surely the night before I'd seen similar stuff given to the homeless in soup kitchens set up for Christmas?

Turning another page I saw the Mekon, (Dan Dare's arch enemy), with his band of lackeys (the Treen). We don't need an evil alien intent on world domination - we've got Bill Gates with his own version of things.