Savetz Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 Great news! I recently interviewed Wes Newell, founder of Newell Industries (known for Omnimon and many other upgrades.) (The interview is not published yet.) He sent me hundreds of pages of documentation and source code to scan, and put online. And he's put it in the public domain!* So, I've scanned it all and uploaded it all to the Internet Archive. The manuals are pretty straightforward, seems to be rather complete set of Newell manuals. I need your help to identify and describe a lot of the source code. With more information about exactly what this stuff is, I can amend the metadata at archive.org. I think the Atari community will find some of this source code very exciting. So dig in and tell me what we've got. (*I'm not entirely convinced that the Omnimon/Omniview manuals are his to put in the public domain — they may be owned by David Young of CDY Consulting) so I didn't tag that PD in the uploads.) Atari 8-bit Source code https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesOSNXLv2 https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesOSNFv601 https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesOSNFv406 https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesOSNEv601 https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesCOPY256E https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesCOPY2561.219910620 https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesM1COPY https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesM1COPYv1.1 https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesOnePage https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesSDDD https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesSBM130source https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesSBM130v1.1 Atari ST Source code https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesSBMSTv4C https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesSBMsource MS-DOS Source code https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesSBM86v1e Atari 8-Bit Manuals https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustries8KOmnimonManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesRAMRODXL2Manual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustries256KXL256KUpgradeManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustries256KXLE256KUpgradeManualImages https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesSCXMSectorCopierManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesOmnimonManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesOmnimonOmniviewManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesSBMManual https://archive.org/details/MYDOS4.3AUserGuide https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesMEG130RAMCardRevBplusManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustries1MEGXLManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesRAMRODMMOSManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesRAMRODXLManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesSBM130Manual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesMEGXLRAMCardManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesMEGSTRAMCardManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesOmniviewManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesMEG130RAMCardManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesMEG65RAMCardManual Atari ST Manuals https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesSBMSTManual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesTHETABTOSAdapterBoardManual MS-DOS Application with Manual https://archive.org/details/NewellIndustriesSBM86 21 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted June 24, 2016 Author Share Posted June 24, 2016 Here's an easy link to get a complete list at archive.org: https://archive.org/details/@savetz?and[]=newell 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dropcheck Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 Outstanding!!! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndary Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 I used to have the Newel 1meg & 256k and the RamRod XL upgrades on my 800xl's 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted June 24, 2016 Author Share Posted June 24, 2016 I suppose OSNE/OSNF/OSNXL are versions of the source code for the Omnimon monitor, referenced in this thread http://atariage.com/forums/topic/213502-ramboramrod-newell/ Any corroboration from smart programmer people? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luckybuck Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 That is such an outstanding WOW! can't tell. Thank you so much: Wes Newell David Young and Kevin again. What a day. A few good news likes this, really let the world look better. Please go ahead with your outstanding work. That is all to fantasitic and hard to believe it is all true. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 Very nice! Anything for his program Pro Bowling? It seems this was published both by Newell Industries and APX. Also wondering whether Wes Newell wrote any other commercial games we wouldn't be aware of (he coded some public domain titles in BASIC but that's all the information we have). Thanks! -- Atari Frog http://www.atarimania.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted June 24, 2016 Author Share Posted June 24, 2016 Very nice! Anything for his program Pro Bowling? It seems this was published both by Newell Industries and APX. Also wondering whether Wes Newell wrote any other commercial games we wouldn't be aware of (he coded some public domain titles in BASIC but that's all the information we have). He did indeed do Pro Bowling, and we talk about it in the interview. I didn't explicitly ask about putting it in the PD, because it's already widely available. He didn't wrote any other games that we don't know about. Kevin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted June 24, 2016 Share Posted June 24, 2016 He did indeed do Pro Bowling, and we talk about it in the interview. I didn't explicitly ask about putting it in the PD, because it's already widely available. He didn't wrote any other games that we don't know about. Kevin We just need the manual. Allan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 (edited) I suppose OSNE/OSNF/OSNXL are versions of the source code for the Omnimon monitor, referenced in this thread http://atariage.com/forums/topic/213502-ramboramrod-newell/ Any corroboration from smart programmer people? Not claiming to be a smart programmer ... but yes, they are the source (or sort of) of Omnimon ... Now, I don't want to be ungrateful, or nitpick too much, because it is certainly great that he provided them and you that digitized and uploaded them. Thanks ... But I wonder if it is the full source code ... I don't see a single comment line, that's pretty strange for assembler. There are very few, really very few, inline comments in the same line than an assembler statement. But at first glance, I couldn't find a single whole line comment. As if comment lines were removed from the listing. Edited June 25, 2016 by ijor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atx4us Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Kevin, Many thanks and kudos to you (and others) for your persistent dedication to preserve the Atari computer materials! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenjennings Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 Now, I don't want to be ungrateful, or nitpick too much, because it is certainly great that he provided them and you that digitized and uploaded them. Thanks ... But I wonder if it is the full source code ... I don't see a single comment line, that's pretty strange for assembler. Took a look at the OSNXL listing. This isn't a program listing per se; it is the output at time of assembly. I see a lot of external symbols not defined in the source, (or otherwise could not find the definitions) , so there's probably an include file or two not shown in the listing. I do see the occasional comment in there. Not aware of any assembler that would attempt to excise comments in the assembly. It looks like the author just wasn't a big fan on in-line documentation and/or it was likely not something expected to be scrutinized in public. Common programmer feature (flaw) -- when you're working with something every day all sorts of decisions appear self-explanatory and documentation seems redundant. And then a year (or twenty) later you look at it and wonder what the heck you were thinking of. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sanny Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 And then a year (or twenty) later you look at it and wonder what the heck you were thinking of. Not true! This already happens after two or three months... 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted August 6, 2016 Author Share Posted August 6, 2016 Here's the interview with Wes: ANTIC Interview 212 - Wes Newell, Newell Industries 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted August 6, 2016 Share Posted August 6, 2016 I just posted another manual by Newell Industries to Archive.org. I have a couple of more to scan as well. https://archive.org/details/NewOmniviewXEFeatures Allan 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted October 8, 2019 Share Posted October 8, 2019 I guess nobody ever looked at this stuff or else they would have noticed some things. All the OSNxx listings are just the OS. No Omnimon and no Fastchip. The NE looks like it’s just the E: handler. The XL one is a full list while the two NF listings are just $F000-FFFF listed twice, the Exxx is missing. So really not much to be learned from them. The one pager source is just a routine to copy the OS rom to the ram underneath for XL and XE machines. I suppose this means the source code for Omnimon and the Fastchip are not available, although I saw a comment elsewhere that Newell’s fast FP code is just a copy of Marslett’s fast floating point. Is that true, that Fastchip was written by Marslett ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JR> Posted October 8, 2019 Share Posted October 8, 2019 16 hours ago, Alfred said: I guess nobody ever looked at this stuff or else they would have noticed some things. All the OSNxx listings are just the OS. No Omnimon and no Fastchip. The NE looks like it’s just the E: handler. The XL one is a full list while the two NF listings are just $F000-FFFF listed twice, the Exxx is missing. So really not much to be learned from them. The one pager source is just a routine to copy the OS rom to the ram underneath for XL and XE machines. I suppose this means the source code for Omnimon and the Fastchip are not available, although I saw a comment elsewhere that Newell’s fast FP code is just a copy of Marslett’s fast floating point. Is that true, that Fastchip was written by Marslett ? OSN, Omnimon, Omniview and Fastchip were all separate products on the 800 line. No reason that OSN source listings would include any of the others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1050 Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 To the best of my knowledge, Marslett is the author of Newell's FastChip code. Not sure about the financial arrangements if any and what ever source I can find for Marslett's FP code is a wild, not ready for prime time, first try gathering of nonsense that can't possibly render the final product. Tebe of MADS fame did a break down of the code though and it's well commented too. It is to be found in his MADS distribution in a folder off the beaten track there. But original Marslett source code commented is nonexistent, IIRC. His FastChip code carries his name and copyright date readable in ascii within it. Bob Puff offered the same FastChip code in some of his alternate OS roms as well. Newell has minimal comments in his source code which isn't source code per se. Only thing offered is a PDF of an assembly report of sorts that needs converting into actual usable source code. Newell E rom is the 0xE000 to 0xEFFF region code minus the character set from 0xE000 thru 0xE3FF, so it's only 0xE400 thru 0xEFFF instead. For the 800 since the 800 had two separate ROMs for those E000 and F000 regions too. OSNv601.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted October 9, 2019 Share Posted October 9, 2019 Well that's interesting. This is the header in the FP section of the T816 OS code: ; ************************************** ; * Turbo-OS Floating Point Routines * ; * (c)1984 Charles Marslett * ; * (c)1988,1989 DataQue Software * ; * Version 1.311a 04/11/1990 * ; ************************************** So I wonder where Chuck got his copy of the source, from Marslett himself back then ? I was going to ask Puff last night about the UltraSpeed OS, but he was doing one of his audio gigs, so he's calling me back tonight. There's not a lot of comments in the TOS code, but what there is I don't think came from Steinman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted October 10, 2019 Share Posted October 10, 2019 On 10/8/2019 at 5:11 PM, JR> said: OSN, Omnimon, Omniview and Fastchip were all separate products on the 800 line. No reason that OSN source listings would include any of the others. So what is OSN ? Stock OS with faster key repeat ? Hardly seems a product without any of the other stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1050 Posted October 10, 2019 Share Posted October 10, 2019 Faster key repeat and other toys such as green screen, but mainly launching of omnimon at 0xC000 which isn't the normal for an 800 with special keypress during a RESET. Or by fiddling with DIP switch having RAM at 0xC000 instead, etc. It seems all of Newells FP package has the bug at offset 0xE0 of E5h instead of Tebe and Puff's E9h. So how or where Steinman got his FP code might be obvious. I'll guess it's just copy and paste with no source just like the rest of us, 1984 is the ascii date Marslett put in the actual code. So Draco reports that this FastChip code breaks TurboBasic and it makes me wonder if his experience was with the buggy Newell version or not, if the working (good) FastChip code does the same trick anyway with TurboBasic? It would be a pity if it does not work with TurboBasic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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