Atari ST - Atari Corporation - 1992
SpeedoGDOS
1 / 7- Genre
- Patch / Driver
- Year
- 1992
- Language
- [unknown]
- Publisher
- Atari Corporation
- Controls
- Mouse
- Distributor
- -
- Players
- -
- Developer
- [n/a]
- Resolution
- Low / Medium / High / VGA / RGB
- Licensed from
- -
- Programmer(s)
- [unknown]
- Country

- Graphic Artist(s)
- —
- Software
- English
- Game design
- —
- Box/Instructions
- English
- Musician(s)
- —
- License
- Commercial
- Sound FX
- —
- Serial
- CA500070-03
- Cover Artist(s)
- —
- ST Type
- ST, STe, TT, Falcon030 / 2MB
- MIDI
- —
- Version
- [Revision A]
- Dump
- Download
- Number of Disks
- 2 / H / HD Installable
- Dump format
- MSA
- Protection
- —
INSTRUCTIONS
A User's Guide to SpeedoGDOS INTRODUCTION This document describes the new features of SpeedoGDOSTM. We should begin with a quick review of what GDOS is and what it allows you to do. GDOS is actually an extension of your operating system. It allows the programs that you run to output text and graphics to printers and other devices besides the screen. GDOS also enables you to print text in many different typefaces. Instead of typing characters in the standard system font, you now have access to Swiss (the Bitstream version of Helvetica), Dutch (the Bitstream version of Times), and a multitude of other fonts. GDOS is run when you first turn on your machine. For now, don't worry about where to put it or what it needs to run. Either your machine came with GDOS pre-installed or our INSTALL program will set your system up so that everything will be placed in the correct location. Please read the next two sections before starting. BASIC CONCEPTS SpeedoGDOS represents the latest and by far the most powerful release of Atari GDOS. Your first question is probably What's the difference between the GDOS that I have now and SpeedoGDOS? The main difference between the two is that SpeedoGDOS allows programs to print in scalable outline fonts instead of bitmap fonts. Outline fonts offer high-quality text at all sizes, whereas bitmap fonts are limited to a small number of sizes that become unappealing when crudely scaled by the system. Furthermore, unlike the bitmap fonts found in regular GDOS, outline fonts allow you to use the same font file to print a character of almost any size on almost any output device. This is because the description of the characters and not the character data is stored in the font file. An a for example is built using the same set of rules whether it's built at 10 points or at 24 points. This means you no longer need a separate font for the different screen resolutions and, more importantly, you no longer need separate fonts for your printers and other devices. SpeedoGDOS can create all of these characters for all devices and all sizes using the same font description. If you want to continue using some of the bitmap fonts that came with GDOS, that's fine. SpeedoGDOS will still support bitmap fonts. In fact, another new feature in SpeedoGDOS is font caching. With old versions of GDOS, every bitmap font that you used took up memory, and your machine would quickly run out of space. With font caching, you tell SpeedoGDOS how much memory you wish to devote to storing your bitmap fonts. This memory is called a cache. SpeedoGDOS will load in the font as it's used. When there is no longer any room for the next font, SpeedoGDOS will get rid of one of the fonts to make room. As long as the memory that you allocate is bigger than the largest font, SpeedoGDOS will be able to use as many bitmap fonts as you wish in a limited amount of space. GETTING STARTED Installing SpeedoGDOS onto your system is a simple task. Either you already have SpeedoGDOS pre-installed on your hard drive, or you have to install it from floppies. In the former case, you don't need to do anything. In the latter, put disk #1 into your floppy drive. Run INSTALL.PRG to put a new GDOS onto your system. The INSTALL program will walk you through the steps needed to install your GDOS. When the installation is complete, you will have all of the necessary files on your system. After the installation is complete, you must reboot your machine to enable the new edition of GDOS. If you've installed it correctly, you'll get the new SpeedoGDOS sign-on message while you boot up. If all went well, GDOS was installed and you should be seeing a normal desktop. If GDOS gives you an error message while booting up, run the INSTALL program again paying close attention to any installation error messages which may come up. Note that the installation program will install brand new device drivers, and that old drivers will not work with SpeedoGDOS. SpeedoGDOS should be compatible with whatever word processing and drawing programs that you have now. Try running some of these programs to see how they work with SpeedoGDOS. Note that the installation program will set up your system so that you can use all of your new Speedo fonts immediately. To change the setup (e.g., to add more point sizes), read the next section on how to use the Outline Fonts and Printer Drivers Utilities. USING THE UTILITIES SpeedoGDOS comes with two utilities to help you customize your setup. The first utility, Outline Fonts, will allow you to add or subtract fonts, change the available sizes, and adjust cache sizes. The other one, Printer Drivers, will be useful if you want to change printers or change some driver setting such as final/draft mode or paper size. If you have one megabyte of memory or less, the installation program installed the utilities, OUTLINE.PRG and DRIVERS.PRG on the root of your boot drive (i.e., C:\). To run the utilities, treat them like any other application; we recommend that you keep OUTLINE.PRG and DRIVERS.PRG on your desktop, so you can use them right before or right after you exit your program. If you have more memory, the installation program will make them accessories, placing them on the root of your boot drive as OUTLINE.ACC and DRIVERS.ACC. The accessories will appear in the menu bar, and will be accessible while an application is running. You can run a desk accessory anytime by selecting it on the menu bar. Although more convenient, accessories use up more system memory, so if you are running MultiTOSTM or just need more memory, you could make them programs by changing the filename extension from .ACC to .PRG. For the rest of this discussion, we will refer to either accessory or program as a utility and will refer to them by their respective names: Outline Fonts and Printer Drivers. The following sections will briefly discuss how to use the utilities. If you are an expert user or just want more detail, refer to Appendix II. For a more concise explanation, try the Quick Reference Guide. The Outline Fonts Utility The Outline Fonts Utility allows you to configure SpeedoGDOS to your particular system. Using this utility, you can tell SpeedoGDOS which fonts you want to use and what point sizes you need for each font. After bringing up the utility, you will notice a list of installed fonts. These are the fonts currently active, which means that you will be able to use them in your applications. When you click on one or more of the font names (and it becomes highlighted), you can click the Remove Fonts button to delete the font or click the Set Points button to change the available point sizes. To make multiple selections, hold down the keyboard's [Shift] key and click on the font names. Double-click on a font name to change its point sizes. The point sizes that you choose are the ones that you can use with applications, although newer programs allow you to choose any point size without specifying them through the utility. In order to add different fonts, you can click on the Install All button to make every font available, or click on the Unused Fonts button to examine the list of available fonts. Now you can choose from the list of unused fonts and activate them. Select some uninstalled fonts and click on the Install Font(s) button. The fonts will be activated, and they will be available when you run your applications. You can see the new fonts on the installed list by clicking on OK, returning to the first display. Then click on Save to save your changes. The Printer Drivers Utility The Printer Drivers Utility's primary function is to allow you to select a printer driver to match the printer that you are currently using. When you first run the utility, the active printer driver should be displayed at the top under Current Printer. Following that is a list of other available printer drivers. If the Current Printer does not match the one that you are using, select the correct printer from the list, and click on Save. You can change the settings on the current driver by clicking on Configure. The Configure dialog box allows you to change settings such as the paper size, the dots per inch, or the number of colors. If you return to the main menu, you can also set the Quality of subsequent printouts for your printer by choosing either Final or Draft. Draft mode should produce lower-quality output at a higher speed, and Final mode should produce the highest-quality output from your printer at a slower speed. CONCLUSION You now know enough about SpeedoGDOS to be able to use it to print scalable fonts using both new and existing programs. At the end of this document is a quick reference guide; the guide should assist you to use SpeedoGDOS and its utilities. If you want more details about how SpeedoGDOS works or about either of the utilities, please go on to the following appendixes. Appendix I - A Detailed Look at SpeedoGDOS THE EXTEND.SYS FILE SpeedoGDOS looks for a special file, the EXTEND.SYS file, in the folder in which you keep your Speedo fonts. The EXTEND.SYS file provides a mode of communication between you and SpeedoGDOS. This works in very much the same manner as the way that GDOS is given information through its ASSIGN.SYS file. The file contains the list of installed fonts, their point sizes, the different cache sizes, and even widthtable information. Fortunately, your Speedo utilities handle the details of what is contained in this file, and you should never have to examine or modify its contents. CACHE MANAGEMENT One of the things in the EXTEND.SYS file that your utilities will allow you to manipulate is cache size. SpeedoGDOS maintains two caches to keep track of Speedo font information. The first of the two, the Character cache, holds the actual character data (i.e., the bitmap of the individual character). When a character is requested, SpeedoGDOS builds the bitmap using the instructions which it gets from the font file. This takes a fair amount of time. Instead of building the character each time it is requested, SpeedoGDOS saves the bitmap of the character into the cache. The next time SpeedoGDOS needs the character, it simply retrieves it from the cache taking a fraction of the time that it would have taken to build it. Obviously, the performance of your machine will improve as you devote more memory to this cache. The second cache (Miscellaneous) is used for internal buffers and data structures. The size needed for this cache varies depending on how many fonts and point sizes are included in your EXTEND.SYS file. The cache size needed also depends on the size of the characters that must be generated. With all these variables involved, it is hard to recommend an optimal amount of memory to devote to this cache, although the Outline Fonts Utility recommends a minimum in the Cache Options dialog box. It is possible to have the cache set too small to accommodate a particular situation; the result is a Not Enough Speedo Cache Memory message. When you see this message, save your document as soon as possible and increase the amount of cache. You must reboot your machine to incorporate the new cache size. When you're adding fonts or modifying the cache size in the Speedo Outline Fonts Utility, the Outline Fonts Utility will warn you if it determines that your Miscellaneous cache is too small. Again, experiment with these values to tune it for your particular system. If you've got 4 megabytes on your system, you are able to allocate a lot more cache. If you're working with 1 megabyte, you may need to decrease these numbers. For normal usage (i.e., no 200-point characters), 100,000 bytes or so is probably the most you will need for the Miscellaneous cache. As mentioned before, SpeedoGDOS will also handle the caching of bitmap fonts (old-style GDOS fonts that have the file extender .FNT). It is a good idea to make the bitmap cache larger than the biggest bitmap font that you have in your ASSIGN.SYS file. If the cache is too small for a font, the font will not be loaded into the system. If the cache is too small to hold any bitmap fonts, SpeedoGDOS will ignore them altogether. If you don't plan to use bitmap fonts, you should set the cache size to 0. To set the sizes for all available caches, run the Outline Fonts Utility, and refer to Appendix II. Note that after changing cache sizes, you must reboot to make the changes take effect. In addition, fonts and point sizes may be added, deleted, or changed freely, but SpeedoGDOS will only recognize these changes when the next application is launched. WIDTHTABLES Another feature of SpeedoGDOS is widthtables. Programs need to obtain the widths of characters to determine where on the screen or page to place them. When the width of a character is requested, SpeedoGDOS will either get the width from the widthtables (if they're turned on), or get the width from the font generator (if widthtables are turned off). Most programs do not require widthtables, even if they are turned on, and unless your program will not work properly, we recommend that you keep them off. If widthtables are turned on, the user may notice long unexpected delays while the application is booting up. This delay is caused by the time it takes SpeedoGDOS to generate the tables. Obviously, the more fonts and point sizes you have, the longer the delay will be. If you have an often-used application that requires widthtables, the Outline Fonts Utility may be used to pre-build the widthtables and store them into your Speedo directory (see Appendix II). When the application is being loaded, SpeedoGDOS sees if the widthtables are turned on, and then checks this directory to see if the widthtables are there. If they are, Speedo will load them in and use them, saving considerable time booting up the program. The widthtable must have been built in the same resolution that you're currently running the application in order for SpeedoGDOS to recognize it. Finally, it is important to note that most current versions of popular software do not require widthtables, but certain programs (e.g., Microsoft Write), for reasons too complicated to discuss here, need widthtables turned on in order for them to run correctly. USING SPEEDOGDOS WITH MULTITOS SpeedoGDOS is completely compatible with MultiTOS, but a few precautions are in order. Naturally, if you run more than one GDOS application, expect more Miscellaneous cache usage; although GDOS shares most of its data between processes, every application requires some overhead. You will know if you've run out of Miscellaneous cache when the application isn't able to print, or when it can't run at all. You should simply increase the size of your Miscellaneous cache and reboot. Another behavior that you may encounter is inconsistent font information between applications when you use the utilities. In regular TOSTM, when you change something with the utilities while you are running an application, you have to quit the application and restart to invoke the change (or reboot if you've changed a cache size). The same goes for MultiTOS, except that you should quit all GDOS applications. Appendix II - Using the Utilities Two utilities have been provided for SpeedoGDOS: the Outline Fonts Utility and the Printer Drivers Utility. The Outline Fonts Utility allows you to make fonts and point sizes available to applications, as well as manipulate caches and build widthtables. The Printer Drivers Utility lets you select a driver and change its settings such as page size or number of colors. The following sections explain how to use each utility. NOTE: Depending on how much memory your system has, the installation program created the utilities as either accessories or as plain programs. As accessories, you can run the utilities while inside an application. You can examine values and even change them, although you must exit the application or reboot depending on the changes made. As programs, you must exit an application in order to run either utility (unless you are running MultiTOS). In addition, accessories take up significant amounts of system memory. If, for some reason (e.g., an application will not run due to lack of memory), you wish to free up some system memory, rename your accessory's filename extender from .ACC to .PRG and reboot. THE OUTLINE FONTS UTILITY The Outline Fonts Utility allows you to configure SpeedoGDOS to your particular system. Using the utility, you can tell SpeedoGDOS which fonts you want to use, what point sizes you want available for each font, and how much memory to devote to different caches. The following is an explanation of the utility, broken up into sections based on either the label of the dialog box or the name of a button. Note: Changes made through this utility will be made effective only after you have quit all GDOS applications and restart; if you change any of the cache sizes, you must reboot. Installed Fonts After bringing up the Outline Fonts Utility, you will notice a list of installed fonts. These are the fonts currently active, which means that you will be able to use them in your applications. Removing Fonts When you click on one or more of the font names (and it becomes highlighted), the Remove Fonts button will become enabled, and it will let you delete the font(s). The font(s) will be put on the available list. Setting Points When you click on one or more of the font names (and it becomes highlighted), the Set Points button will become enabled, and it will let you change the available point sizes. You can also double-click on a font name to change its point sizes. The point sizes that you choose are the ones that you can use with applications, although current versions of most programs allow you to choose any point size without specifying it through the utility. Unused Fonts The Unused Fonts button will change the display so that you can look at the list of inactive fonts. The list is labelled Available Fonts. Install Fonts When you select one or more fonts from the Available Fonts list, the Install Fonts button will become enabled so that you can make them available to applications. Set Points When you select one or more fonts from the Available Fonts list, the Set Points button will become enabled so that you can set the point sizes available for the fonts. Select All The Select All button will select all of the fonts on the Available Fonts list. All of the fonts will be highlighted, and you can use the Install Fonts button to put them on the Installed Fonts list. Options The Options button brings up a dialog box so that you can change the path where fonts are found, set the default point sizes, change cache settings, or build widthtables. Path Options If you click on the Path Options button, the utility will display the path where SpeedoGDOS looks for the Speedo font files. To change the path, click on the path itself and the utility will bring up a file selector. You can then select the drive and folder where your fonts are to be located. Point Sizes This button will let you create the list of point sizes that every subsequently activated font will have. In addition, once you create the list, you can click on the Set All Fonts button and all of the currently activated fonts will use the default sizes. Note that most applications do not need fixed point sizes made available. Cache Options The Cache Options button brings up a dialog box that gives you pertinent information about all of the GDOS caches and allows you to manipulate them. Cache Settings. This section of the dialog box displays the sizes of all of the caches in kilobytes. You change the values by either using the up/down arrows or clicking on the corresponding value so that you may edit it from the keyboard. There are three caches that you must maintain: Character, Miscellaneous, and Bitmap Font. The first cache, labelled Character, is the cache where the individual outline font characters are stored. Remember that Speedo must build its characters before it displays them. You may notice a slight delay the first time that you type a character. Because Speedo stores (caches) away the generated character data, the next time you display those characters they will be output much faster. The cache should be set to a minimum of 50,000 bytes, although if your system has only a megabyte of memory, 20,000 bytes would be reasonable. The second cache, Miscellaneous, is used by SpeedoGDOS to store internal data structures. It should be set to at least 50,000 bytes, or 20,000 bytes if you are short of memory. Note that the Miscellaneous required value in the Cache Information section should be used as minimum amount of memory. Remember that if you do have a limited amount of RAM, you should correspondingly limit the number and size of fonts that you choose. You can use Speedo fonts effectively on small systems with very small caches, as long as you aren't using too many fonts and you use normal point sizes (e.g. 10, 14, 24 points). Finally, the last cache is the Bitmap Font cache where the old-style, GDOS bitmap fonts are stored. To set this cache, find out which bitmap fonts you use and what their file sizes are. To set the very minimal cache size, just set the cache to be as big as the biggest bitmap font file. Cache. Using the Cache section of the dialog box, you are able to load, save, or flush your Speedo character cache. At first glance, you can see how useful these functions can be. As an example, say you had a document that contained only Bitstream Charter in 10, 14, and 18 point characters. Since the characters are being displayed on the screen, you know that they've been cached by Speedo. Save the cache, using a name that you can easily associate with your document file. The next time you're ready to load this file, flush the cache, then read in the cache which was saved out with your file. After loading the document notice how fast the screen is able to redraw. This is because Speedo does not need to generate any of the character data for the document. An append function (Merge Cache) allows you to add character data to your cache instead of replacing the already existing data. It should be noted here that your cache is not lost when you exit your program. If you leave your program and then enter it again without a reboot, your cache will be preserved. If the utility detects a file named DEFAULT.SPD in your Speedo directory when your machine boots up, it will automatically be loaded into the cache (Note: this feature only works as an accessory). Cache Information. This section of the dialog box displays useful diagnostic information for managing GDOS caches. The Miscellaneous Cache Required value is an approximate minimum value for the miscellaneous cache; this means that a reasonable application should be able to access the fonts that you have installed. You should set this cache to a size above this value, although there is no guarantee that your application will not use more of the Miscellaneous cache. The Unused Miscellaneous Cache value will give you an approximate idea of how much memory is available. You can check this value while your application is running to make sure that there is sufficient memory. The Unused Character Cache value also displays how much memory is available to GDOS to generate characters. If a larger character or your printer characters are not generated, or printouts take an unusually long time, check this value. The cache might be too small to accommodate a large character bitmap, or the cache might be thrashing (continuously flushing and reloading the same characters); in either case, increasing the Character cache could alleviate the problem. Widthtables This button will bring up a dialog box that allows you to turn widthtables on or off, and build them if necessary. You don't really need to know what widthtables are, but they may be necessary for your application. Refer to your application's documentation or call the software company that produced the application you are using to see if they recommend using widthtables (NOTE: Most applications no longer require widthtables). Otherwise, if your application handles text correctly without widthtables, leave them off. If you must turn them on, just remember to build them whenever you change something in the accessory when it warns you to build them. Note that you may need to build widthtables again if you change resolutions. Save This button saves the changes made to the EXTEND.SYS file. THE PRINTER DRIVERS UTILITY The main function of the Printer Drivers Utility is to allow you to choose which printer you wish to use with GDOS. This is particularly useful when you physically want to change printers (e.g., you switch from a dot-matrix printer for proofing to a laser printer for final output). You can also select final or draft mode from this utility. Selecting draft mode reduces the quality of output while speeding up printing time. (Note that some printers do not support draft mode.) In addition, the Printer Drivers Utility manipulates the configuration file called ASSIGN.SYS. This file contains the information on where GDOS locates its drivers and bitmap fonts and which of those GDOS should use. The installation program should have set up your ASSIGN.SYS file so that you don't really need to change anything. The utility will be most useful to you when you need to change printers. Novice users should limit the changes made with this utility, although users familiar with the ASSIGN.SYS format will find it easy to configure their systems. Note: Some applications will allow you to change printer drivers, modify their settings, and switch final/draft mode while the application is running. You can experiment with your individual application, or you can always quit your application and restart when you make changes. Current Printer When you run the utility, it should come up displaying the current printer. If you wish to use a different printer, just click on a printer on the Available Printers list. Available Printers This is the list of available printer drivers. If there are none available, use the Set Path button to find out where your drivers are located. To make one of the printers the Current Printer, click on the name of the printer on the list. To change the settings on a particular printer driver, double-click or use the Configure button. Quality This allows you to choose final or draft mode for your current printer. Remove This allows you to remove the current printer driver so that none is selected. Configure This button brings up a dialog box to configure the current printer driver. Configuring drivers should be done before running an application. You should then see a display of the driver specifications. Note that if a box is shadowed, you may change its value by clicking on it. If the particular printer driver you have chosen supports a particular feature (e.g., different page sizes or color palettes), use the pop-up menu to look at the available selections. All you need to do is click on the appropriate selection. Note that some drivers do not have any configurable features. Also, remember that the utility will modify the actual driver on your floppy or hard disk when a modification is made. Note: One feature found on all drivers is the Print Area Offsets. When this feature is turned on, the size of the page that the driver will return to your application includes the non-printable area. If it is off, the size of the page will only include the printable area. Please consult your application's documentation to see whether to turn this feature on. The default is off, since older applications will not take advantage of it. Custom This button is for expert users, and the average user should never have to invoke this dialog box. The Custom button brings up a dialog box that allows you to change the device assignments found in the ASSIGN.SYS file. Set Path Clicking on Set Path will bring up the standard file selector and allow you to change where the drivers are found. Save Saves out all of your changes to disk. Exit Exits the utility; will not save your changes. A Guide to SpeedoGDOS A Guide to SpeedoGDOSQuick Reference Guide To Add Font(s): Run the Outline Fonts Utility. Select font names (shift-click to grab more than one). Click on Install Fonts or Install All. Click on SAVE. To Delete Fonts: Run Outline Fonts Utility. Click on desired font names (shift-click to grab more than one). Click on Remove Fonts. Click on SAVE. To Set Cache Sizes: Run Outline Fonts Utility. Click on Options button. Select Cache Options. If your application doesn't run, or only some or no fonts are loaded, increase the Miscellaneous cache. If you notice frequent regeneration of the screen characters or slow printer output, increase the Bitmap cache. If bitmap fonts that you've installed do not appear, increase the Bitmap cache. Save and reboot. To Set Point Sizes: Run Outline Fonts Utility. Select font names (shift-click to grab more than one). Click on Set Points or double-click on font name. Choose desired point sizes or click on Set to Defaults. Click on OK. To Set Default Point Sizes: Run Font Accessory. Click on Options button. Select Point Sizes. Choose desired point sizes. All subsequently installed fonts will use these point sizes. To set all active fonts to the defaults, click on Set All Fonts. To Change Printer Drivers: Run Printer Drivers Accessory. Select a printer from Available Printers. Save. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Basic Concepts 1 Getting Started 2 Using the Utilities 3 The Outline Fonts Utility 4 The Printer Drivers Utility 4 Conclusion 5 Appendix I--A Detailed Look at SpeedoGDOS 6 Appendix II--Using the Utilities 9 PLEASE NOTE: Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information in this manual. However, because Atari Corporation is constantly improving and updating its computer hardware and software, it is unable to guarantee the accuracy of printed material after the date of publication and disclaims liability for changes, errors, or omissions. Reproduction of all or any portion of this manual is not allowed without the specific written consent of Atari Corporation. Atari, the Atari logo, GDOS, SpeedoGDOSTOS, TOS and MultiTOS are trademarks or registered trademarks of Atari Corporation. GEM is a registered trademark of Digital Research, Inc. Speedo is a trademark of Bitstream, Inc. Helvetica is a registered trademark of Linotype Company. times is a registered trademark of Allied Corporation. Copyright 1993, Atari Corporation Sunnyvale, CA 94089-1302 All rights reserved.
TRIVIA (2)
Hardware
Requires hard disk
Origins
Introduced at COMDEX 1992 in Las Vegas
