Charles Richmond espoused:
> CBFalconer wrote:
>>
>> Herb Johnson wrote:
>> >
>> ... snip ...
>> >
>> > That said, some people may not have access to such tools; they may
>> > have preferences to older and/or less flexible tools; or they may
>> > have visual or other limitations. These may oblige them to only
>> > add text at the top of a previous message.
>>
>> I greatly doubt that any such depraved newsreader system exists.
>>
> The words "defective" and "seriously broken" come to mind about
> such a system...

Well he is using Netscape 4.78 on Windows 98, at least, according to the
headers, anyway. It's so long since I've used this, I can no longer
recall how it does news, other than it's an awful piece of software as a
newsreader. No wonder he's having problems.

--
| Mark Kent -- mark at ellandroad dot demon dot co dot uk |
Kiss a non-smoker; taste the difference.

On Mon, 05 Jun 2006 15:10:41 -0700, Craig M wrote:

> Hey guys!
>
> I was poking around at CP/M documentation, and found alot of information
> pertaining to the BDOS, and CP/M in general, but what I've really been
> looking for is something specifically focusing on the BIOS.
> Does anyone know of such documentation?
>
> Thanks,
> Craig

The definitive document is the CPM System Alteration Guide.
http://s100-manuals.com/gaby/DRI/CPM...tion_Guide.pdf

The sample BIOS chapter in that book is a reference implementation for an
Intel MDS 80 system. You would normally change this to work with your
hardware. If you study and understand the reference BIOS you will be able
to understand any other BIOS implementation or make your own.

It is very helpful to study the BIOS source code for different CP/M
systems too. Western Digital FDD controllers were very common so many
machines differ only in I/O and interrupt mapping in the FDD area. Some
machines had memory mapped video cards and it is interesting to look at how
the vendor maps the TTY output into the video buffer.

If you have the BIOS for your current system and know how to sysgen a new
boot floppy then you can have lots of fun messing around with tweaks.

There used to be two favourite tweaks to 'hot up' one's CP/M. Both
involved stealing some memory from the system to implement a full track
cache for the floppy and a printer fifo for those slow old dot matrix
printers.

Mark Kent wrote:
> Well he is using Netscape 4.78 on Windows 98, at least, according
> to the headers, anyway. It's so long since I've used this, I can
> no longer recall how it does news, other than it's an awful piece
> of software as a newsreader. No wonder he's having problems.

Well, I'm using Netscape 4.8 and its newsreader, and don't see anything
wrong with it. It isn't great, but it works. I've tried other programs,
but have kept coming back to Netscape. It doesn't impose any limits on
top vs. bottom posting, or in how quoted material is handled. Mostly, it
stays out of my way and does what it's told.

It seems like most of the problem is style. Everyone has their own
opinion of how it "should" be done, and prefer readers that support that
style. Of course, then everyone else's style offends them.

Maybe we need readers that edit the style of received documents to
whatever the user wants to see. Just as you can turn off headers, html,
or attachments so they won't be seen even if present in a received
document, maybe you should be able to turn off top-posting, long quotes,
etc.

Think of the possibilities -- spellcheck, fix punctuation, replace
swearing, correct capitalization, etc. all on receive! Maybe the program
can even be smart enough to delete pointless phrases or mindless
babbling! (I'm thinking of an article in a ham radio magazine about a
"by golly" filter. It eliminates stupid comments so effectively that in
the end there was nothing left! :-)
--
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget the perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in -- Leonard Cohen
--
Lee A. Hart, 814 8th Ave N, Sartell MN 56377, leeahart_at_earthlink.net