🚀 go-pugleaf

Rainbow Echomail Digest                      OCT 25, 1989

In this issue:
   FOUND TRACTOR FOR DECW4
   RE: QUME SPRINT/11 PRINTE       (3 messages)
   RE: RE: DEC RAINBOW DISK        (2 messages)
   DEC RAINBOW 100 DISK FORS
   RAINBOW VIDEO-FOSSIL            (2 messages)
   COPYING (READING) IBM SIN
   BUG EXPOSED!
   FLOPPY DRIVE
   ROW


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------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date:      10-22-89 (16:54)
Subject:  FOUND TRACTOR FOR DECW4
From:      ERIC SPEARS

ARE YOU OFFERING A DW IV 4 SALE?  HOW MUCH?  LEAVE $ AND I'LL CHECK AROUND
FOR A POSSIBLE BUYER.

--- TMail v1.12a
* Origin: Total Access Board 138/103 Tacoma, Wa (206)472-9884 (1:138/103)
------------------------------
Date:      10-22-89 (16:56)
Subject:  RE: QUME SPRINT/11 PRINTE
From:      ERIC SPEARS

THANKS FOR THE REPLY FRANK,  I FOUND THAT THE QUME INERFACE HAD BEEN MODIFIED
TO HANDLE THE VICTOR 9000'S SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT OUTPUT.  IS RAINBOW PRINTER
PORT PINTOUT THE SAME AS AN IBM?

--- TMail v1.12a
* Origin: Total Access Board 138/103 Tacoma, Wa (206)472-9884 (1:138/103)
------------------------------
Date:      10-22-89 (09:22)
Subject:  RE: RE: DEC RAINBOW DISK
From:      ERIC SPEARS

WHAT ABOUT COMMERCIAL PROGRAM "UNIFORM" FROM MICROSOLUTIONS (I THINK) AND
PERHAPS XENOCOPY?


---
* Origin: Horsefeathers + Burn a flag for freedom! + (Opus 1:343/30)
------------------------------
Date:      10-22-89
Subject:  DEC RAINBOW 100 DISK FORS
From:      GEOFF REED

MM>    Hmmm. Do you mean that it defaults to 8 sectors/track when you tell

MM> it to format a single sided diskette? That would make sense. Thank you.
MM> I'll have to try it!
MM>

No, it defaults to 9 sectors /track Hence the 179,000 or so bytes of free
disk space on the disk that's been formatted, it's just that whoever told
you that your rainbow can only read 8-sector single-sided disks is WRONG,
it can read 9-sector single-sided disks fine (at least all of the rainbows
I know of in the greater seattle area have no problem doing this, so you shoul
either...)



--- msged 1.99L MSC
* Origin: StarShip_Inconnu, Cruisin' the Stars  (1:343/3.1)
------------------------------
Date:      10-22-89
Subject:  RAINBOW VIDEO-FOSSIL
From:      GEOFF REED

ER>  >  Well, apparently there are a few mites in msged, but the video
ER> problem
ER>  >was with the vfos_dec.  Unfortunatly.....
ER>
ER> It's working fine here.  As a matter of fact, I test the vfossil with

ER> msged and my own routines.  If you have the disappearing text problem,

ER> change your color definitions in msged.cfg.
ER>
ER> Ed

What color definitions?? I've tried switching them all to white/black and
white + intense / black to no avail, my text still disappears after the 24th
column or so.....  what version of dos are you using??

--- msged 1.99L MSC
* Origin: StarShip_Inconnu, Cruisin' the Stars  (1:343/3.1)
------------------------------
Date:      10-23-89
Subject:  RAINBOW VIDEO-FOSSIL
From:      GEOFF REED


ER> It's working fine here.  As a matter of fact, I test the vfossil with

ER> msged and my own routines.  If you have the disappearing text problem,

ER> change your color definitions in msged.cfg.

Ed, here are my color definitions..., I can't figure out what's going wrong,
Bink seems to be working fine, Msged on the other hand is displaying 24
to 30  columns and then the characters are invisible, (that's with 0.25,
0.24 works  great)

video fossil
color normal whi / bla
color warn   bla+ / whi
color quote  bla / whi
color block  bla / whi+
color info   whi+ / bla
color hilite whi+ / bla

--- msged 1.998x
* Origin: StarShip_Inconnu, Cruisin' the Stars  (1:343/3)
------------------------------
Date:      10-23-89 (08:49)
Subject:  COPYING (READING) IBM SIN
From:      AMER NELSON

Geoff is correct.
I quote from the User's Guide which is a part of the MS-DOS
documentation (Appendix C, page C-1) -- "The Rainbow MS-DOS
operating system can copy an 8-sector or 9-sector, single-sided
IBM diskette."
Straight from the horses mouth.
++ Amer ++


---
* Origin: Glacier Peak Rainbow, Bellevue, WA - 206/644-8431 (Opus 1:343/3)
------------------------------
Date:      10-23-89 (11:09)
Subject:  RE: RE: DEC RAINBOW DISK
From:      VAN VANHORN

I had been told that Uniform wouldn't read RX-50, so why pay money for it
for that purpose?  I use Uniform to read Altos disks on the AT, and that
works nicely.  I wouldn't want to use Uniform, because then I would have
to re-run Uniform every time I switched formats; now E: is the RX-50, F:
is Altos.

I don't know about Xenocopy.

I should probably not have been so emphatic in the first message.  And you
should hit your shift lock key, your message was entered in all upper case.
If it hadn't been entered here on this system, I wouldn't have even read
it.

Van


---
* Origin: Horsefeathers + Burn a flag for freedom! + (Opus 1:343/30)
------------------------------
Date:      10-23-89
Subject:  BUG EXPOSED!
From:      GEOFF REED

ER>I'll continue to see if it can be fixed from within the vfossil.  I
ER>should have a new version shortly, mostly bug fixes of this kind.
ER>
ER>If you notice any other problems with the DEC vfossil, feel free to
ER>give a shout.

Thanks Ed, at least I know what to do to get the vfossil to work now!



--- msged 1.998x
* Origin: StarShip_Inconnu, Cruisin' the Stars  (1:343/3)
------------------------------
Date:      10-22-89 (17:10)
Subject:  FLOPPY DRIVE
From:      GEORGE TURNER

I am trying to understand the process that goes into formatting
a floppy disc. Is it the drive controller or FORMAT  that formats the disc.
If you connected a non-RX50 disc drive to the 'Bow's
floppy controller would it work? What would happen if you tried to
format a disk in such a set up?

---
* Origin: Midnight DEC - The place for DEC sales & information (Opus 1:101/45)
------------------------------
Date:      10-23-89 (20:20)
Subject:  RE: QUME SPRINT/11 PRINTE
From:      BILL MAYHEW

Define "can't get it working..." Does it do NOTHING at all, or...??
I remember from years ago when I had a Sprint/9 that it used the opposite
pins for transmit and receive than what I expected.  I had to build a cable
that swapped pins 2 and 3.  Beyond that, if you tell it to ignore incoming
RS232 control signals, it should work; as I recall, the Qume will support
XON/XOFF, which is just what the Rainbow prefers for flow control.

--- ConfMail V4.00
* Origin: Still Servicing the Rainbow - Maybee Forever (1:101/1)
------------------------------
Date:      10-24-89 (11:55)
Subject:  RE: QUME SPRINT/11 PRINTE
From:      FRANK MALLORY

> THANKS FOR THE REPLY FRANK,  I FOUND THAT THE QUME INERFACE
> HAD BEEN MODIFIED TO HANDLE THE VICTOR 9000'S SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT
> OUTPUT.  IS RAINBOW PRINTER PORT PINTOUT THE SAME AS AN
> IBM?

I'm going to let someone else more familiar than I with the nuts and bolts
answer your question.

My impression, tho, is that a short answer would be "no".  The "standard"
printer interface on the IBM is a parallel one; the connector, however, is
a female 25-pin RS-232 serial type.

Assuming you are talking about the serial interface for the PC, you are closer
but not quite there.

I would suggest you look on pg. 58 of the Rainbow Owner's Manual, where there
is a table showing the printer connector signals, and decide for yourself
what kind of cable or interface you need.

BTW, is there some way to turn off Caps Lock on the terminal you are using?


---
* Origin: Silver Bullet - Silver Spring, Maryland - 301-622-2247 (Opus 1:109/1
------------------------------
Date:      10-24-89 (14:12)
Subject:  ROW
From:      FRANK MALLORY

OK, now I have what I need to take on Sun, Silicon Graphics, and the rest
of those overpriced workstations:  RAINBOW OFFICE WORKSTATION!

Somebody just came into the office and dropped an unopened copy of this gem
on my desk.

You can bet I wasted no time in installing this powerful, new (1985) tool
on my 'bow.  Had a little trouble registering, tho, because when I say "ROW"
it says "System requires CONFIG.SYS" (which of course, I have) and dumps
me back to MS-DOS.

Undaunted, I went onto my VAX to register there, giving the specified command
"@RBC$TOOLS:INITUSR.COM".  Unfortunately, my 750 seems to be a few years
behind the times, because it couldn't find that particular file.

So here I am: my ship has come in, but I'm dead in the water until I can
get the 'bow and VAX to accept my registration.  What should I do next?

---
* Origin: Silver Bullet - Silver Spring, Maryland - 301-622-2247 (Opus 1:109/1
------------------------------