Spectre 128

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Screenshots - Spectre 128

Spectre 128 atari screenshot
Spectre 128 atari screenshot
Spectre 128 atari screenshot
Spectre 128 atari screenshot
Spectre 128 atari screenshot
Spectre 128 atari screenshot
Spectre 128 atari screenshot

Information - Spectre 128

GenreHardware - Emulation / OS FixingYear1989
LanguagePublisherGadgets by Small
Developer[n/a]Distributor
ControlsMouseCountryUnited Kingdom
Box / InstructionsEnglishSoftwareEnglish
Programmer(s)

Small, David

LicenseCommercial
SerialST TypeST, STe / 0.5MB
ResolutionHighNumber of Disks1 / ?
DumpMISSINGMIDI
ProtectionDongle

Instructions - Spectre 128

  ****************************************************************
		** Documentation for 1.9 F release **

					** 3/10/89 Dave Small **


********** CAUTION: Backing Up the Spectre Disk CAUTION ***************

	CAUTION: The Spectre release disks (1.51,1.75,1.9F) are
Twister-formatted disks (e.g., 10 sectors per track). This gives us
400K of storage on the disk, as opposed to the 360K we'd get in
regular single-sided ST format.

	Another advantage of Twister is that it cuts the time it takes
to load & run Spectre in HALF of what the normal old ST format gives us; in
other words, it doubles the disk speed.

	The only problem is that if you try to back up this disk using
the "Disk Copy" routine from the desktop (e.g., format a new disk with
the ST, then drag disk icon A to disk icon B), you'll only copy 9 sectors
per track -- not all 10. The ST only knows about 9 sectors per track.
Thus, your backup will not work.

	The solution is to format a new disk, and copy the files
by dragging the FILES, not the disk icon, to the new disk. We'll try to
keep the size of the files under 357K, total, so it'll fit on an ordinary
ST disk, though.

	Twister is written by myself and Dan Moore, and published by
START magazine. There are also various public domain 10-sector
formatters on the market.


**************************************************************************
			1.9F Relase Notes
							Mar 10, 1989

Hello again!

	Here we have version 1.9 F of the Spectre. (If you're wondering,
Versions A-E were only seen by Beta testers; they had various interesting
bugs, the last of which held up this release slightly..)

	It's got a bunch of bug fixes, and BETA releases of two
important new additions: sound and laser driver support.

	A word on what "BETA test" means. It means the bugs might not
all be out, there's probably ways to crash it, and the user interface
might be clunky. It's not meant to be smooth, polished, and finished;
it's there for you to play with and have fun with.

	Since both lasering and sound are fairly complex, we're trying
to encourage people to try the drivers, and tell us their results, on
the online networks. You don't have to use them if you don't want to.
This way, when time comes to release 2.0, with the
"final" versions of the sound and laser drivers, we can have a variety
of bugs fixed. (There is no possible way we can test every feature of the
laser and sound drivers ourselves; there are over 3,000 Mac programs
out there. Only by releasing what we've got, and letting those who want
to use it, can we find problems and fix them).

	On the other hand, we usually charge for upgrades, and don't
charge for bug fixes. You're getting the first pass of two major upgrades,
sound and lasering, for free, so it's a pretty good deal. They're solid
enough for everyday use; exotic use may crash them, but so?

	*Please* *don't* *call* on sound/laser bugs. Our phones are already
very busy with information requests and orders; also, there's this thing
where a hundred people call reporting the same bug, and our phone-answerer
jumps out the nearest window, and flees for the hills. We're well aware that
sound and lasering aren't perfect; however, they're good enough to let you
start "pushing the envelope" with, and make some good noises/printouts.

	The place to report bugs/thoughts/it works/it fails is online,
on Compuserve or GEnie. (See below for directions). You may see when you
get online that someone else has already found the bug, and possibly a fix,
too, which is to your advantage.



**************** Bug Fixes in 1.9 Reversion F ***********************
*						3/10/89 dms


1. Seagate hard drives with integral controllers running at 1:1 have
had a special option added which slows down SCSI to what they
can handle. The commonest offender is the ST-277N drive. (Incidentally,
the ST-277R drive, with an OMTI controller, has no problem at 1:1; it's
only Seagate integral controllers that fall apart). To use this option,
select the "SLOW SCSI" option under the "Hard Disk" main menu. (You
may want to "Save Settings" to make this default).

	If you see "File xxx skipped" or "Could not be copied" messages
on *your* hard drive, you might want to try the slow SCSI option as well.
It doesn't affect performance much, and it's cheap insurance; most drives
were built for IBM PC's, that can't get anywhere near 1:1 interleave
performance, and for Mac Plus / SE's, that can't go 1:1 either. Little
did you know just how fast the Atari hard disk really is... a really nice
job on Atari's part.


2. The arrow keys are working! Yep, finally found the bug.

	The "color" mode shift-around keys are now shift-keypad-(,),/,*.
(We had to free up the arrow keys for this usage).

	Note: We haven't fully tested sound with a color monitor; it
may have distortion problems. We just don't really know yet. The big
problem is the refresh rate of 50 hz, vs. the monochrome 70 hz.

3. The notorious "flashing A" bug, where the Spectre wouldn't present
a flashing "A" on a disk eject request, is fixed. Remember having
to press F1 to get the "A" to start blinking, then F1 again to "eject"
the disk? Say goodnight, bug.

4. Automounting of hard disks is enabled. If you select this item
under the Hard Disk menu, all available hard drives will be mounted
when you go into Spectre mode (e.g., you won't have to press F4 F5 F6 etc
to get to them). What this basically does is press F4 F5  F6 *for* you.

	Note that things will appear to stop for a moment as the hard
disks mount, when you first get to the Mac desktop. Mounting a number
of hard disks can take awhile -- especially if you just crashed, and
did not "eject" the hard disks. (The directory is checked when the disk
is mounted if that happens).

	Note also that if you run with a nonstandard hard disk
configuration, such as the popular MFS-with-no-boot-sectors that's
"booted through", automount will just confuse the issue. It doesn't
"re-press" the original, already mounted, F3 drive; it just does the
rest.

	Note finally that only drives you've selected from the front
Spectre "Hard Disk" pull-down menu  will be mounted. By the way,
it can be a *very* good idea to put two or three different system/
finders on some very small partitions at the start of the hard disk,
then have your big HFS partitions; then, select the one you want to
boot off of, and disable the other system/finders. This makes
switching to a new system a matter of a mere reboot.

5. Hypercard's error dialog message no longer hangs you. It used to be
that if you did something wrong, and Hypercard popped up an error
dialog, the machine would "hang" -- buttons wouldn't work, etc. This has
been repaired. Happy Hypercarding!

	Note: there's a note on GEnie that says that sound under Hypercard
is strangely broken. No word on this yet; we *think* it's related to
a strange quirk of the Mac Plus hardware, called the bigger Parameter
RAM chip. This may also be why Hypercard doesn't run under 6.0.2. This
is all brand new news, and we haven't had time to test it yet.

6. Microsoft Word 3.02 is not fixed! (Oh, well, can't win them all).
Seriously, I spent a long time tracing it out, consumed several trees
worth of paper, talked with Microsoft, and failed to find the problem.
On the other hand, I *did* test out Microsoft Word 4.0, and it works
fine -- so this problem is going to pretty much solve itself.
Sorry I couldn't get it working, but this is some *strange* problem.

7. In the "Goodies" menu, you'll see "Sound - 11" and "Sound - 22".
These activate the Beta-test sound drivers. To use, just select one
or the other; to turn off completely, just un-select them. More on this
in the About Sound section. Note: 64K ROMS may not work with sound;
this hasn't really been tested. There's enough bugs in the 64's that
they may just roll over and die. The vast majority of machines out
there are 128's; remember, we only provided 64K support as a temporary
convenience to get you started.

8. The startup process has been sped up a few seconds.

9. Shift-UNDO does a Mac "RESET"; e.g., warmstarts the Mac.

10. Shift-HELP completely RESETs the ST; it's the same as pressing
the RESET button. If Shift-HELP doesn't work, the machine is crashed
past the point of listening to the keyboard, and you'll have to
press RESET. No more reaching back behind the Mega to find the little
button.

11. Programs that required the sound manager to be up now usually work,
for instance, World Builder Construction Set adventure games (a la
Current Notes library).

12. Known Bug: 832K mode, in color, on a 1 meg ST, does not work. 
Color mode essentially requires another 64K of memory, so we *cant*
give an 832K mode in it; it used to send you to 512K mode. Anyway,
something's broken in it. Select 512K, okay?

	NOTE: 512K is NOT the default, you'll have to select it once
then do SAVE SETTINGS.

13. There's a new "hidden dedication page" you don't want to miss.
It goes along with a newer Gadgets Saying:


	"There are some operating systems you don't go into alone."



************************** Sound *************************

	"Mac sound is probably impossible to do..."

				-- Dave Small, November 1986

	"I can't see a way to do Mac sound..."

				-- Dave Small, July 1987

	"The machines aren't compatible enough to do sound."

				-- Dave Small, August 1988

	"Version 1.9 supports sound."

				-- Dave Small, March 10, 1989


	Oh, well. I'd rather be wrong *this* way.


			Sound !

	This release is our first public release of sound. It isn't yet
perfect, yet it's good enough to start playing with and testing.
Hopefully we'll get enough feedback to determine exactly what can and 
can't be done with it; we've already tested it quite a bit. After we've
had several hundred people testing and evaluating it, we'll know a little
more of what its limits and bugs are. Sound is enough fun that I don't think
we'll have any problem finding people who are willing to do some testing.

	Do understand you're pushing the envelope a bit with sound, and
be prepared for little weirdnesses to show up from time to time. It's
brand new and you could be the first to discover a bug -- or something
that works just fine.

	First, if you run	
into something that crashes when sound is enabled, just shut sound off
from the Spectre startup page, and things will go back to being exactly
like they were in version 1.75. That startup-page select is like a 
master switch for sound -- if it isn't on, ESC doesn't do anything, 
sound manager isn't enabled, and so forth. (I firmly believe in "leaving
you a plug to pull" if the machine goes haywire on a new software 
release. Saw The Forbin Project too many times, I suppose.) 

	Mac sound is *digitized* sound, like the ST's ST-Replay. It's 
mostly at 22 khz. (Mac files are sometimes recorded at 11 or 5 khz, but
the Mac hardware always "plays back" at 22 khz; the files are just 
"stretched" to work at 22 khz during playback.)
	
	Hence, it's entirely possible that you could move Mac
sound files to ST-Replay, and vice versa, using Transverter, and have
them work. If you do this, let us know how it works out, okay? I
don't see any reason it wouldn't work, but I've not tried it personally.

	First off, the system "beep" now "beeps", instead of doing nothing.
It'll do the startup "Bong!", too, which you'll notice first off.
So, if you set the volume under Control Panel, you'll hear a short
"beep". If not, turn up your speaker volume. (grin) You'll also hear a
beep when you get an "Alert" dialog (e.g., "do you REALLY want to
leave MacWrite without saving your work?")

	You will notice that the volume control doesn't do much. This is
because volume is handled in the Mac's hardware, and we can't really
emulate that part. Fortunately, the ST's speaker has so little power
that you're going to want sound playing at full blast, anyway; don't
worry about it. (You'll see, it's not any big deal).

	You'll probably want to toss Magic Beep if you're using it. I'm
not sure how it'll mix with real sound.

	Popular Mac programs for playing sound seem to be
working okay, in our testing. We've tried out SuperPlay, SoundMaster,
and Mac-CD. SuperPlay and Mac-CD play back sounds from data files; they're
pretty straightforward. (Run them, pick a sound, and select Play. It
plays). Also note that in these programs, you can play back sounds at
22 khz (normal), 11 khz, and sometimes 7 or 5 khz -- those are just
slowed sample rates, typically for sounds that don't need high frequencies.


		SoundMaster: A Must-Have

	SoundMaster is a complete blast. This is a CDEV (Control Panel
accessed device; put it in your System Folder, then use Control Panel
to access it. You'll need at least Finder 6.0 / System 4.2 ("System Tools 5")
to do this. You can find SoundMaster on any online system; it's very popular.

	Anyway, then you can select from a variety of Mac Happenings, from
startup to keypress to a "beep" to... and tie Mac sounds to them.
For instance, my Spectre now plays Pink Floyd when it starts up, Dragnet's
theme on a Bad Disk message, and even has a *keyclick* sound whenever
I press a key. Handy! -- I've wanted a keyclick for a long time. And
when there's an error beep, it says, "I'm sorry, Dave, I can't do that.",
in HAL 9000's voice.

	(My beta testers tell me that disk eject/insert sounds are UnCool,
as they seem to mix sound and disk access. Probably best to avoid those
until we scrute the unscrutable and figure out what's wrong.)

	SoundMaster also lets you play back sounds to test them, temporarily
toggle a sound on and off, and so forth.

	There's a huge number of digitized sound files on GEnie and
Compuserve, and in various public domain libraries. Hey, maybe Current Notes
will release a few disks now (hint, hint). For instance, BCS has five double
sided disks packed full of sounds. If you really want to be a sound collector,
a hard disk is probably a good idea -- there are tens of megabytes of
sounds available. And if the ST's ST-Replay sounds can be moved over, then
we've got another zillion megabytes waiting.

		Use Compatible Sound Files

	Note that there are other sound formats for the Mac -- for instance,
Studio Session -- that aren't really digitized output compatible. You want
files that say they're compatible with "SuperPlay", "MacCD" or "SoundMaster".
That's like the difference between ST-Replay files and MIDI files on the ST.
It'll take a little while to get used to. Also, most Sound files tend to
be either PACKITed or STUFFITed (something like ARC), so you'll have to
uncompress them before playing them. It'll be a little confusing at the
start, but you'll soon get the hang of it. (Typically, read the comments
stored with the sound, to see what it's for.)


		BeepInit / SoundInit

	Oh, yes. The "beep init" and "sound init" programs don't work.
You want to use SoundMaster to do both changed beeps and startup sounds
instead, anyway (SoundMaster completely replaces the beepinit/soundinit
functions, so it doesn't matter that they don't work).

	Many Mac programs which used to crash, because they were
invoking the sound manager (which was turned off in 1.51 and 1.75) now
function, such as the "World Builder" series of adventure games in
the Current Notes library.

	Many Mac games use sound, and it's pretty good.
Crystal Quest seems to be the best, my Beta testers say. Try the demo
of it on the online networks.


			Sound - 11 & 22

	There are two sound modes you can invoke, Sound-11 and Sound-22.
They both do "22 khz" sound. The only one that works worth anything is
Sound-11.

	"Sound - 11" is the current supported Sound Beta test mode. This plays
back every other byte of the sound, at an 11 khz rate, so it simulates
a 22 khz output rate, without hammering the CPU into the ground, as 22 khz
mode really does. (It is extremely processor intensive to play sound on the
ST, or for that matter, on the Mac; it's possible to interrupt the CPU so
much that nothing gets done!) It loses some high frequency data, but it's
not much of a loss.

			Toggling Sound On/Off

	While sound is *playing*, you'll notice the ST slows down; this is
because about 50% of the CPU is busy doing nothing but sound. Some Mac
programs don't "follow the rules" and turn sound off properly after they're
done, so you have to do it by hand. Note that things shouldn't slow down
just because sound is enabled (e.g., possible); only when it's *playing*.

	Manual control of sound: Press ESC once to turn it on, ESC again
to turn it back off if it's on. Press SHIFT-ESC to turn sound on 
unconditionally (the ST can get confused if Mac programs lie to it about
whether or not sound is on). Thus, Shift-ESC, ESC will ALWAYS kick sound off.

	To some extent, sound is turned on and off automatically. Because
of the way this is done (during a "bus error"), it is difficult for the
Spectre to determine exactly what's happening -- it's so busy saving the
ST from crashing, which is the important thing (you don't want the
Crash Message every time sound is kicked on or off), that it doesn't always
take time to find out if the Mac was trying to turn sound on or off. Still,
it does an okay job, and I'll be adding to it for release 2.0. In the
meantime, if the machine seems slow, kick sound off with ESC. (Soon, you
will be able to see the difference in performance just pulling down the
Desk Accessory bar).

	Note: SoundMaster is bad about leaving sound on. You'll want
to press ESC after the sound on bootups when you select a startup sound.

	"Sound-22" mode is not really supported. It sort of works, but
beats on the processor so hard that it's hardly worthwhile. Play with it
if you like, don't do anything you wouldn't want a crash to interfere
with (hint, hint). I need to tighten down the interrupt service routine,
and that's a major job -- and I wanted 1.9 to get out. Remember, this
is a free, given-away version of sound, okay?


			High Pitched Sound


	So, you've noticed that the sound is a little high pitched, right?
This is because the ST is faster than the Mac. It's also because our
"vertical blank" is at 70 times per second, not 60 like the Mac, so
I have to play faster to "get it done" before the next reload of the
sound buffer -- otherwise the sound gets so distorted you can't understand
it. This may be addressed in 2.0, if I go to a regular 60 hz
vblank; there are other reasons that may prevent it (animation timing, etc.)

	Anyway, there's sure to be a lot of discussions about both sound
and laser printing online, so be sure to check in there. We'll be collecting
information and hints there.

	A list of sounds can be made by scanning for the keyword
"sound" in the Mac libraries of any online system. Also, usually they
put sounds in their own special category.

	Have fun with it, and let us know what you find out!


******************* Laser Printing ********************************

	Also included in the package is our first, definitely beta test
driver for the Atari SLM-804 laser printer. This means you can print
to the SLM other than just page-dumps. This was *extremely* tricky to
write, as it turned out; we had to go to a new approach, and bring
in Dan Moore to do another one of his hired-gun programs, to make it go.
Fortunately, he lives only a couple of miles away.

	This is what's known as a "Quickdraw" driver; it prints directly
from the Atari, not going through PostScript.
 
	It works like this. We have a little guy inside the Spectre that
watches characters being output to the printer. If you tell him to, he
interprets the characters as "bitmap" instructions being sent to a printer,
and builds up a laser bitmap image of what the printed material would
look like. When the page is done, he sends it to the laser printer.

	In this first pass, when we were just learning how to do this
(okay, okay, I had Dan do it, I admit it), we emulated an Epson MX-80
printer. We learned a lot in the process, as you'll see. SO IT ONLY
DOES MX-80 EMULATION THIS PASS. If you send it ImageWriter or LQ or
whatever else data/print codes, a mess will result.

	First off, "draft" mode, which uses the internal characters of the
Epson, doesn't work at all, period. This is because there are no
internal characters in the SLM. Standard and High Quality mode do
work. (Note: MacPaint alone calls Standard "draft" and High "final",
just to add to the confusion of new Mac users.)

	If you just engage the laser printer from the Spectre front
panel, the shift-keypad-0 screen dump "sideways" and the shift-keypad-1
"straight up" screen dumps will work as usual. To activate the print
interceptor, use shift-keypad-2; to deactivate it, use shift-keypad-3.
Default is deactivated, so you can still use your dot-matrix.
(Note: You'll get a nasty surprise if you use shift-keypad-4 through 9,
just so you know.) You must have reserved the megabyte of space that
the SLM-804 requires before using Shift-Keypad-2, by selecting
SLM-804 on the Spectre "printer" pulldown, okay?

	Note that activating the print interceptor, logically enough,
turns off "normal" printing out the serial / parallel ports; you
don't need two copies...

	This intercepter ONLY understands Epson MX-80 codes, nothing else.
We've got better ones we're working on, but they weren't stable enough
for release at 1.9 time (Epson LQ, at 180 dpi or so, ImageWriter (72 & 144),
and NEC P6, at 360 x 360 dpi (!!), are being written now.) Again, this
is just our first pass at it, and it's free; we take a software version,
"freeze" any changes to it, then start weeding out bugs until it's releasable;
we can't be updating it, or it would never get released. 
In this case, it took up until revision F to be ready... in the meantime,
other development is taking place, for version 2.0.


	An example often clarifies things, so:


	Thus, to (say) laser print a MacPaint picture:

	1. Select SLM804 printing at startup.

	2. When in Mac mode, go to Chooser, pick the SoftStyle
MX-80 printer driver. Note: We haven't tested it with anyone else's
MX-80 driver (like MacEnhancer or GDT), but it has definite possibilities
of working.

	3. Press Shift-Keypad-2 to activate the interceptor, anytime
through here.

	4. Go to MacPaint, pull up your picture, do either Print Draft
or Print Final. You'll see it *slowly* print onscreen, and the CANCEL
button will be slow to respond.

	We've timed it out, and found it's spending around 80% of its
time in Epstart (and Quickdraw); the laser driver is NOT slowing things
down. Blame Epstart (grin).

	5. When the picture is done printing, the SLM will turn on, and
spit out the page.

	6. To disable laser intercepting of the printing, just press
shift-keypad-3.

	We know that this keypress stuff is kludgy, it should be on the
front panel -- but for debugging reasons, it's MUCH easier for us to
have it keyboard activated. Maybe we'll go to CTRL-Function keys or
something in 2.0 ... got any suggestions?

	You may find that standard quality ends up looking better than
high quality; it really depends on the data being output. All sorts of
funny "dithering" goes on in high quality mode. Sometimes characters
look better in high quality, graphics in standard. 

	Also, the more "black space" on the picture, the longer it will
take to print -- just like on a printer. Blank lines will print fast.

	Make sure your SLM is SCSI device 7; they're now being set to 5.
We only work with 7. If necessary, open up the controller box and fix it.
If you can do a shift-keypad-0 screen dump, it's okay.

	MacWrite can also print to the laser. Again, don't be in any
hurry; Epstart is NOT fast. (It was built to drive relatively slow
dot matrix printers, so it never needed to be).

	You may notice some distortion in the output. This is because
the Epson "dot" size doesn't find evenly into the laser dot size,
and because there are roundoff errors in our math routines for 300 dpi.
(300 dpi / 72 dpi yields "a third of a bit" error, as does one line's
linefeed.)

	So, for instance, a page that's full of data will print to full page
length, and a page with lots of blank spaces will be slightly shorter. It's not
bad, but if you look for it, you'll see it. (We've got that problem fixed,
finally... had to go higher than 300 dpi in the internal routines to
prevent roundoff error. More Dan wizardry... But I digress.)

	Overall, the output looks very good, especially for a first try
at something. The first laserprinted picture of Brooke is up on the wall here.

	Again, we're bringing up drivers for higher resolution Epsons,
and for the native ImageWriter, so you won't even need Epstart. But we
also need for the users to have some experience with what's there now,
so we know of problems that need fixing in release 2.0; many people have
the MX-80 driver and an SLM, and can use what's in 1.9. Please return us the
favor and let us know of bugs, so we can fix them for 2.0; everyone wns
that way. By the way, it's equally important to tell us what *works*.

	When the ImageWriter driver is released, we *may* add code
to directly map ImageWriter output to Epson dot matrix printers -- then, the
Softstyle stuff will be completely bypassed, and no longer needed.
Wouldn't that be nice!

*******************************************************************

	If you've not gotten the 1.9 newsletter, YOU WANT IT. It has
detailed discussions about SCSI, Sound theory, many, many valuable
hints about operation, AND A COMPATIBILITY LIST!!


******************* OLD RELEASE NOTES *****************************
*
* These date back to November 1988.
* I'm including these just in case you missed them -- if you
* went straight from 1.51 to 1.9, for instance, you'll not know
* of several fixes & features in 1.75 and thus in 1.9. I've
* noted with "1.9 NOTE" something that's no longer applicable in
* these notes.
*
* Besides, it's sort of a running history of the Spectre
*
*******************************************************************


							Nov. 2, 1988
	

Hello --

This is version 1.75 of the Spectre 128 (tm), by Gadgets by Small, Inc.

This is the second major release of the Spectre 128 software. It's
intended to fix reported bugs in the 1.51 release of Spectre 128.

	The files:

	1SPECTRE.PRG
	DRVR128.PRG
	SPECTRE.SYS

	you see here are essential to the operation of
the system. Please don't delete or alter them. If you copy this disk to
a hard disk for booting, please copy all three files. (Note that all these
files have been updated from version 1.51.)


		* Don't Post These Files *


	We ask that you *do not* post these files on BBS's or online
networks. Our past experience has shown that this *greatly* contributes to
people pirating the Magic Sac / Spectre. 

	It might seem like you're doing us a favor
by giving away the update, but you're really not. We're not charging
people for this update, since it's a bug fix.

	 Please, if you want support for this product six months
down the road, don't give copies of these files away!


		ONLINE SUPPORT


	Online support is available if you have problems with the product,
questions, or just like to chat.


	BIX: mail to "dsmall". There is no conference for
		support on BIX anymore (the old "magic" conference
		is unsupported; I'm no longer a Sysop for it.)

	Compuserve: mail to 76606,666 (that's me),
1.9:		76004,2136 is the official Gadgets PPN. There's
		a category in the Atari Vendor (GO ATARIVEN) area
		just for us. Thanks Ron!

	GEnie: 	Mail DAVESMALL with technical questions (only!)
		Mail SANDYSMALL with sales/marketing questions.
		
		Type "gadgets" at any prompt to get to the Gadgets
		support area. (Be sure to check out The Pub in the
		gadgets roundtable; first-timers get a free virtual
		beer).

		GEnie is easily our most popular area; there are
		many, many Spectre users on GEnie and lots of good
		information there.

		We usually show up for the Wednesday Night conference
		in the Atari ST area (10 pm EST, 7 pm Pacific).

		We hold our *own( conference in the Gadgets RT Tuesday nights
		at 10 pm EST, 7 pm Pacific.

		Note: That time could change when "Moonlighting"
		and "ThirtySomething" start with their new seasons.
		We're not uncivilized here. What's Maddy going to do?

1.9:		Note: Moonlighting is on hold, as of version 1.9F. Aargh!

	Usenet: hplabs!well!dsmall, or, portal!dsmall. I try to
		check these once a week. Note that mail from me
		doesn't always make it out of the Well, and I'm
		none too great a net navigator, so if you don't
		get a reply, it's probably not because I'm 
		ignoring you; I just can't get the reply through.

		Routing through "sun" seems to be the kiss of death.

		I also answer questions in comp.sys.atari.st, but
		the USENET feed can be erratic and not timely; expect
		up to a week turnaround on questions posted there.

1.9:		NOTE: There's now a UNIX machine here. *Try* posting
		to hplabs!boulder!tcr!gadgets!dsmall, and see what
		happens; if nothing else, it'll test out the link.

		-	-	-	-	-	-

	Bugs repaired in 1.75, and thus in 1.9:

	1. When using 64K ROMS, the 832K mode did not work on
1 megabyte machines (e.g., a 1040 ST). It just crashed. This one
bug took me nearly 3 weeks to fix. Talk about irritating. What
fooled me here is it worked fine on a 4 meg machine (my test
machine); it only failed on a 1 meg machine. So when I tested 832,
it worked, and off I went on my merry way.

	2. When using 64K ROMS, in 512K mode with cache, it did
not work; it just crashed.

	3. Various caching modes eventually gave trouble, depending
on your memory size and ROM size.

	4. The thing just plain didn't work on a 512K ST (e.g., a 520).
If you're curious, I have a 512K/1 meg test machine (switchable), except
it didn't really switch to 512K like I thought, so it fooled me. Does now.

	5. The laser support option didn't work on a 2.0 or 2.5 meg
machine.

	6. The laser support caused memory trouble on a 4 meg ST.
Oh, well, that'll teach me to put in laser support with two day's work.

	7. The laser support failed in 2 meg memory mode (was unselectable).

	
	Note that moving the mouse while doing a laser dump will probably
lock the mouse up -- the system will continue to work, but the mouse and
keyboard will be frozen. Laser support is still experimental, radioactive,
and generally hacked together.

	1.9 NOTE: Moving the mouse no longer hangs the laser.


		*	*	*	*	*	*

	Bugs still in here:

	(Please keep this bug list in perspective. 
Most EVERY major software package for the Mac works on Spectre 128;
these are *known* bugs we want to tell you about that we're
in the process of fixing, but that aren't fixed yet. We didn't
want to hold up the release of 1.75, which really helps out 64K ROM
users, any longer, so these bugs still exist.)

	We don't have our compatibility list done yet, or I'd include
it here.



		Program Problems


	1. Microsoft Word version 3.02, under 128K ROMs only, has some
memory problems. We believe this to be a Microsoft programming error; if
you don't believe Microsoft makes errors, try Excel 1.0 or Word 3.0 on
a Mac II. Crash. (That's why Microsoft hustled out Excel 1.03 and Word 3.01).

	It manifests itself during "Page Preview" and printing; it tells you,
"out of memory", when you're obviously not out of memory.

	1.9: This is still unfixed, darn it.



	2. MultiFinder version 1.00 causes big trouble or may not work
at all. This is because Multifinder cleverly takes over the "bus error
vector", e.g., the place the 68000 processor goes when it gets into Big
Trouble, away from my code. My code generally rescues the 68000 from said
big trouble, and keeps the machine going; when Multifinder switches my
code off, ka bang. Run Multifinder if you want to play, but expect
it to crash a lot (ESPECIALLY with Hypercard), expect an "unexpected
termination ID=1" when exiting any application (that's a bus error),
expect desk accessories to be fouled up ...

	If it makes you feel any better, Mac users call it "MultiCrasher".

	1.9 NOTE: Multifinder is considerably more stable now; I keep
grabbing the bus error vector away from Multifinder. Also, make sure you
have the D/A Handler file in your System Folder if you'd like to use Desk
Accessories. (See the 1.9 newsletter also for details).


	3. FileMaker 4 crashes while trying to access the SCSI chip inside
of the Mac directly. This is the only program known to do this.




	4. Installing PageMaker 3 should be done on a real Mac; then pack
the files together with PACKIT or STUFFIT (if you're a new user, those
are Mac ARC-like utilities), and unpack/unstuff them on the Spectre.
Pagemaker does Weird Things during install.

	5. MacWrite 2.2 doesn't work very well; you can do various things
inside of it that cause a crash. This is because MacWrite 2.2 is a mess
internally. Please upgrade to MacWrite 4.6 or 5.0 to cure this problem.

	6. MacWrite 4.5 doesn't work; it doesn't work on a Mac IIm, either,
which ought to tell you how "compatible" it is. The code reads like a textbook
of things not to do in a Mac program. Again, go to MacWrite 4.6 or 5.0,
just like Mac II owners had to.

	7. Switcher 5.0 is probably unstable; the "Always Convert
Clipboard" option definitely causes a crash. Switcher is hard-coded to
animate the switching for either a Lisa or Mac computer, not the Atari,
and also does direct sound accesses that aer bad news. Magic Sac used to
have an option to automatically fix this problem, but it caused a terrific
slowdown in disk operation, so it's gone.

	8. Finder 1.0 / System 0.97 doesn't work. (Who cares?)

	9. Hypercard crashes when an error dialog pops up; this is probably
my fault and is probably fixable. Sound might be causing this error. It
is always best to leave sound OFF (=0) on the control panel.


	1.9 NOTE: This is fixed (!!)


	10. Hypercard has trouble if you use up too much memory, especially
in 832K mode, and don't even try it with System 6.0.2 (the newest one). This
only happens if System 6.0.2 is *booted*. Weird, eh?

	So, just use 5.3/3.2 or 5.5/4.1 or 6.0/4.2 with Hypercard.

	Hypercard doesn't like to print to anything except an ImageWriter;
it doesn't on a real Mac, either. Weird. You can bet the Epstart, etc,
people are fixing this as we speak...


	11. The "System Crash" dialog, well, crashes. My fault.

	1.9 NOTE: It still crashes, just on a higher existence of being.

	12. Don't try to turn on Appletalk. You'll crash for sure. (Not my
fault.)

	13. To Laser print to a file, using PostScript:

1.9 NOTE: See David Zizza's documentation on doing this on GEnie; it's 
rather complex.


	14. Some public domain programs, such as Vanlandingham (the
Amiga-ish "bouncing ball") don't work under HFS or anything HFS
compatible (e.g., Hard Disk 20).

	15. World Builder adventure series doesn't work.

1.9 NOTE: This is fixed.

	IN GENERAL, you can find an update to these bug lists, workarounds,
and other very good information online, especially on GEnie, where all
old notes are permanently archived for your interest...




			* My foulups *



	1. I managed to break the arrow keys (for Excel / Word) before
release; I know I had them working once. I'm still looking for this one;
I think a line of code was accidentally deleted, somewhere, and it's
taking me awhile to find.

1.9 NOTE: Fixed.

	2. Shift-UNDO does not restart the system like it should. Whups.
I'm not too sure I'd use Shift-UNDO anyway; it doesn't completely reset
the Spectre (with about a zillion internal tables) anyway, and that could
give you trouble. 

1.9 NOTE: Fixed.

	3. If you select the "ignore disk drive insertion" option, the
write protect status of the disk isn't correctly reported. That's just
plain a bug.

1.9 NOTE: Fixed.

	4. It is possible something is wrong with high speed disk access
on the ST 277N disk drive (60 meg, RLL). I have an ST 277R and it works
fine. The problem shows up, apparently, as "File Not Copied" errors; it
can be cured by reverting to slow speed I/O, by pressing shift right arrow.
I have no idea what's wrong on this one, or if it's a real bug, even.


1.9 NOTE: Fixed.

	5. When you make a Spectre partition on your hard disk, your
hard disk will lose the ability to autoboot. Just re-run your autoboot
maker-installer to restore this ability. This happens because any
tampering with the boot sector causes it not to autoboot. This isn't
any big deal.

1.9 NOTE: This is still the same.

	6. Sometimes the Spectre gets quirky about ejecting a disk.
Symptom: The Mac plots up a box saying, "Please insert disk xx", but
DOESN'T give you the proper flashing A or B disk eject. E.G., it's telling
you to put in another disk, but not telling you which one to eject...

1.9 NOTE: Fixed.

	Solution: press the F1 or F2 key (for A/B respectively). The
flashing A/B will now begin; handle it normally from there on in.

	Don't just pop the disk out; you must get to the A/B first,
or the disk can be fouled up.


			-	-	-	-

			Misc. Notes

	1. It doesn't work under RAM (developer's) TOS 1.4; it does
work with ROMs. Don't worry.

1.9 NOTE: Still the same. Use the ROMS!

	2. There's no lovely fade-in in 832K mode; that's intentional,
as the fadein special effect takes up 64K to accomplish (truth!), and
832K is an attempt to give you all the memory I can. Not to worry.

	3. Some cartridges have failed because people haven't pressed the
ROMs in FIRMLY; they sort of "snap down" when they're all the way in.
Once you've made sure the pins are started well, give 'em a good shove.

	4. A mis-matched set of ROMS (e.g., two chips from two different
revisions of the 128K or 64K ROMS) will not work; they wouldn't work on
a Mac, either, so don't feel bad. To make this ultra-confusing, the
letters (a/b/c) indicating revision level don't match between chip lots.
If you get a "bad roms" message, and you've got the ROMs in okay, it might
be this;check with your supplier to make sure you didn't get a crossed set.



			- 	-	-	-

	Overall, I'm quite pleased with the first release of Spectre (1.51);
it is surprisingly solid, which was because it had been beta tested for
a month before release.

	Again, we're releasing 1.75 to bring up the 64K ROM users and
512K machine users who've been pretty patient with us, and our effort
has gone into fixing those bugs first, (to get them started), as opposed
to fixing specific applications programs.




 
********************* End of 1.75 documentation *******************

 (I've skipped on the 1.51 README; it is completely obsolete, and
would only confuse things).

Trivia - Spectre 128

Hardware
Requires Spectre 128 hardware device to run.


Book / Magazine Reviews - Spectre 128

 ST / Amiga Format · June, 1989Rating: 4/5 

Spectre 128 Atari review Spectre 128 Atari review 

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