TOS 1.62 (STE) - what to put in free space there ?

[CoachOta]

Jumping in a bit late here but here's my thoughts.

 

Probably the main sore point for me in the vanilla desktop is the text viewer. Having some basic line up/down and page up/down navigation plus simple searching ("/" style like in less) would be nice. Fixing text viewing of more than 40 columns in low res. mode so it line wraps instead of clipping would also be good. A final viewer enhancement would be to detect if the file looks like a binary format and display a hex view instead of just garbage characters. Checking a readme or other text file is a pretty common activity that I don't really want to load up 1st Word, Everest, QED, etc.

 

Having a built in text editor would be nice to have but not essential. Seems mostly useful when trying to bootstrap a system. As others have mentioned, a terminal emulator would be handy. Really helpful when setting up a bare system if you don't have a floppy drive on your Mac or PC. The VT52 emulator accessory looks like it's only 6kB but it would grow in size with the addition X/Y/Z-modem support plus any UI additions for port settings. Flash is over 100kB but that's much more features than needed for a basic terminal. There must be something in between out there that can be a starting point.

 

In any case, thanks PLM for looking working on this.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Looked Tempus, UK version by Hisoft. It's not long, and can fit packed in free space. Don't see are files PRINT.SYS & KEYSYS.INS necessary for basic work (no this names in exec, so don't think that it loads them automatically) .

Of course, it needs to be started somehow, and I'm on to add new menu item for it. Worked on, but it will take some time - need plenty of changes, since TOS code for Desktop is for 4 menu items, and don't like adding new stuff.  Maybe some hotkey would be simpler .. Or maybe that it appears as cartridge APP ?

 

[calimero]

When you double click file, maybe you could add “edit” button?

 

[calimero]

Here is Tempus review https://www.atarimagazines.com/st-log/issue22/79_1_REVIEW_TEMPUS_THE_EDITOR.php

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I  tried it little, works without those 2 files, and pretty fast. Was long time ago when I used it (little).

Adding that edit button would be not easy, and may confuse.

I think that found solution how to run program(s) placed in free TOS ROM space. From ROMdisk Z - normal partitions go C-P, so later letters are free.

Then APPs there can be associated with file extensions in Options, Install Application . And of course can start program in usual way.

[Cyprian]

text editor/notepad (like STeno) sounds cool

also would be cool to have a bit better file selector

[MegaSTEarian]

Not sure it is doable but here are my 2cents as other wishes like editor and file zip/unzip have been mentioned. 

Would it be possible to add right click functionality? 

 

 

Welcome to myself, btw, you guys have a nice corner here . Nice meeting you all.

[Cyprian]

zip/unzip directly from the Desktop sounds cool

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Right click and some other ways are not easy to solve/implement - would need serious digging in C source files - and for 1.62 they are not available. Following code with machine code tracer is very hard, especially when it is done with C compiler. Plus, I don't think that we need some new ways of launching APP. TOS has good ways. Yes, best is to do it in usual way - double click on executable in drive window, or Options, Install Application - associate file extension with certain APP.

So, I made new build, with Tempus in ROM  disk P, and there is Quick ST too in TOS ROM.  162PPXQ.ZIP

It is UK 1.62. PP means partition P extra, Q is for Quick ST.  First idea was to put ROM disk as Z: , but it works not, there is plenty of 16-bitness in TOS, even if drive bits system variable is 32 bit long, only 16 lower bits are really usable (that's the reason for 14 partitions limit too - A + B +14 (C-P) = 16) . So, ROM disk is at P, and there is Tempus (SFX packed). You can run it from there, or associate extension, and then will start when click on such file (like *.TXT), and load clicked file, open it in editor. I think that it is pretty good, even for 2021.

There is Quick ST, activating at AES start, and can be disabled (mentioned crash by res. change with it on). And I implemented drive icon improvement for Desktop - with this icons for C-P will show if there are such (logical) drives (partitions). P will for sure. Talking about case when no DESKTOP.INF file in boot disk root. If there is such, then will show only icons what it contains (may check with viewer/editor).

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Looked around about popular utilities for Atari ST, considering file sizes, and for instance STZIP is just too long for this. KKommander is nice utility, but too long 2 . But Kobold2 seems to be OK (good and fast file copy tool). There are some disk editors of small size, like CHKDSK3 .

Here must say that file sizes don't reflect capabilities of SW well. It depends a lot from coding style, language, compiler (and I would add lazyness and not caring about  how much RAM, disk space it will use) . I really don't like for instance how Xcontrol is solved - some trivial task modules are 10-s of KB-es, while whole thing can be solved with proggie of 200 bytes. ACC is nice thing, but it takes RAM, so should load only if really need it.

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Solved that ROM disk  is Z:  - and that's good because P is then usable for hard disk partition (and that's last letter with regular TOS) .

It needed some changes in GEMDOS/filesystem part of TOS, mostly changes from 16 to 32 bit operation, buffer.

So, here is archive with 2 IMG files. One is with Tempus and Quick ST. Other is with game Missile Command . Both work in color and monochrome mode.

Missile Command is squeezed from org. 188 KB to 60 KB with good packer.

 

162TMMC.ZIP

And this includes automatic icons for partitions C-L on Desktop improvement, + crash fix for text mode displaying of large files sizes (over 10 MB) .

I opened new thread about possible larger space in TOS ROMs, where can have larger ROM disk, for instance.

[CoachOta]

Good progress!

 

The 162PZXQ.IMG is working ok for me in High res but crashing when switching from Low to Medium res. Also, it looks like it's trying to access drive A: when changing resolutions and gives the standard disk error dialog. Canceling instead of retrying is followed by the crash. I put a blank disk in and didn't get the error dialog but it went straight to the crash. I'm using Hatari v2.3.0 configured for STE with 4MB of memory.

[ParanoidLittleMan]

I was writing about that Quick ST crashes when changing res. You need to disable it's install after boot with key N (when text about it appears), then set wanted res and Save Desktop. After that may reboot with Quick ST active.

[zzip]

On 2/13/2021 at 5:33 AM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

Here must say that file sizes don't reflect capabilities of SW well. It depends a lot from coding style, language, compiler (and I would add lazyness and not caring about  how much RAM, disk space it will use)

Developers in general don't really care for optimizing for space or speed until they have no choice

[Cyprian]

what about adding a better fileselector?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

OK, I will work on some better fileselector. Looked what is available to see what is worth to build in. It will need couple weeks for sure.

Using some existing one - I don't think that it will be easy to change that work from TOS ROM, but who knows ... Is something with sources available ?

 

[zzip]

On 2/15/2021 at 3:11 PM, ParanoidLittleMan said:

I was writing about that Quick ST crashes when changing res. You need to disable it's install after boot with key N (when text about it appears), then set wanted res and Save Desktop. After that may reboot with Quick ST active.

Another possible enhancement:   Could Low/Medium res be selected with a keypress during boot, instead of booting into the wrong res, then changing it in the desktop?