em@ihopb.UUCP (Ed Moskowitz) (10/10/84)
XA 6: R ATKINS.CO1 MAUG CONFERENCE (Part 1) Sept. 23, 1984 9:00 P.M. EDT ----------------------------------------------------------------------- [ This longest-ever conference featured Bill "Iron Man" Atkinson, and ran over five hours including rain delays. To put that in perspective, five hours is long enough for TWO Boston marathons, long enough to drive from New York to Washington and back with Clara Peller, or long enough to watch nearly half of the Super Bowl pre-game show. Over 120 MAUGers were present during the early part of the meeting, but by the end, at 2:30 A.M. Eastern time, fewer than 10 percent remained. The rest succumbed to drowsiness, prior commitments and/or the federal bankruptcy laws. --- Walt Marcinko 70320,244 ] ---<**********>--- (Neil Shapiro / Sysop) -- Order, please. Our guest tonight is Bill Atkinson, author of the MacPaint program! (Mike Cohen) -- Not to mention ** QuickDraw **. Before we take questions from the audience, I have collected just a few questions that I am sure are on everyone's mind for Bill to answer. First, Bill, is MacPaint going to be updated for the new 512K Macs, and if so, what will be some of the additional features? Next, what other programs are you working on? And do you feel that the graphics potential of the Mac has been reached yet? (BILL ATKINSON) -- 1) Version 1.4 of MacPaint is currently being shipped. All versions work fine on the 512K Mac, but version 1.4 uses the extra memory to speed up scrolling quite a bit. No new features. Version 1.4 also runs fine on the 128K Mac. 2) As for other programs, I am working on a dynamite new application for the Mac that I'm not at liberty to describe. Hold your horses, Mac fans. 3) Mac's graphic potential is barely tapped. In a few years the programs on Mac should be a lot smoother. (Neil S. / Sysop) -- Okay, Larry Loeb is the first questioner. Go ahead, Larry! (Larry Loeb) -- Welcome to MAUGing, Bill. As one of the people I can think of who has had some full experience with the 512K Mac, how do you feel it advances the "unfolding art" of the Mac? Is it just for developers? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Well, memory makes a lot of things possible, but it doesn't really change the Mac spirit. It takes more memory to make things easier to use. Wish we had the big chips to start with. Wish they were cheaper today. (Gary Shell) -- Is there a way to get a catalog to work on an alternate disk with a single drive machine? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Yes, open a document from that drive. Print Catalog uses the disk that the current document came from. (Gary Shell) -- Bill, that bombs! [ A few minutes later.] (BILL ATKINSON) -- Just confirmed new bug in MacPaint. It does indeed bomb. Thanks for new info, will look into it. (David S. Rose) -- Bill, one question of concern to many of us Maccers is the question of compatibility between different types of graphics programs. For example, MacPaint seems to use a pixel type of definition, while MacDraw uses QuickDraw calls and Filevision seems to use a combination. Is there any hope for a better integration or conversion between types? (BILL ATKINSON) -- The unstructured bitmap, as used in MacPaint, is the lowest common denominator. All the other graphics can be converted to it, with the loss of their structure. Bitmaps can represent anything the printer can print, including scanned images and freehand painting. You can paste QuickDraw pictures into MacPaint, and for full-page images I'm sure someone will write a utility to convert a Draw Page to a Paint document. (Paul Dobbs) -- Two short questions: 1) Is there any possibility of our seeing Rolodex as a desk accessory? Sure would be nice! 2) Do you know of any efforts to make a character-recognition program for the Mac to go with any of the video digitizers? (BILL ATKINSON) -- 1) Rolodex searches fast because the data is all in RAM. Desk accessories are limited to 8K bytes of heap use on the 128K Mac. Also, Rolodex needs a home base for the RoloFile to live, which doesn't work too well if you're swapping disks. 2) I don't KNOW of anybody doing character recognition for the scanners, but it sounds like a great idea, especially for the Thunder scanner which can take in a whole page at high resolution. (Chris Goodman) -- Bill, is it possible to work with QuickDraw commands to create regions larger than the Mac screen but would fit on one page of paper? If so, are the tricks available in "Inside Macintosh"? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Easy: OpenRgn; MoveTo, LineTo... CloseRgn. Coordinates can range up to 32K, independent of Mac screen size. "Inside Macintosh" contains complete documentation on QuickDraw. (Chris & Pam Allen) -- Bill, I want to thank you not only for MacPaint, but for your contributions to public-domain software. Two questions: Pam asks if you consider yourself an artist, and I ask if you mind the MacPaint takeoffs, like mousepaint for the PC (even uses your icons!). (BILL ATKINSON) -- The whole point of MacPaint is to unleash the artist in all of us. Yes, even I am an artist, though I'm not very skilled at draw- ing. I would love it if the MacPaint clones were building and improving on MacPaint. Most of them seem to mislead people into thinking that Mac- Paint runs on their IBM system, and people may be duped into buying a PC instead of a Mac. (Lane Hauck) -- What's your affiliation with Koala Technologies, and have you seen any other good camera digitizers for the Mac? (BILL ATKINSON) -- I am a good friend of George White, chairman of Koala, and I wrote a desk accessory for the Koala Camera which lets you scan images into MacPaint or other applications. Koala has a license with Apple for the software. No, I don't know of any other good camera inter- faces for the Mac. Thunderscan is nice but takes 20 minutes per scan instead of 5 seconds. (Richard J. Boyhan) -- Bill, I have two personnel questions. 1) Could we have a little history on Bill Atkinson (birth, school, work, etc.)? Nothing too long! 2) What hardware are you using now? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Born 3/17/51 in Ottumwa, Iowa. Jumped from second-story window at age one. UCSD Undergraduate in ... Chemistry!! University of Washington graduate in ... Neuroscience and Electronics. Joined Apple in March, 1978, employee #51. Will have first baby in 3 weeks, oh boy! (Girl.) I am typing on a 128K Mac with MacTerm 1.1 and an Apple 1200 modem. My room has Lisas, Macs, Apple IIs, and prototypes. (Neil S. / Sysop) -- Bet we would all like to hear about those "prototypes". (Arthur Greenwald) -- Bill, you're a true artist. I use MacPaint for TV storyboards and to design menus for my wife's catering business. I love MacPaint, but it's hard to keep a lot of small text lined up. (Grid incre- ments are too large.) 1) Will future software enable larger screen work areas? 2) Can other printers like the HP LaserJet or Canon Laser create sharper camera-ready images? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Far out! Glad to see somebody using MacPaint for real thing! 1) No. 2) Looks great on prototype Apple laser printer! (James Doherty) -- MacPaint is great for making forms at work. My question is: Are there any plans that you know of for including any of the new graphics standards such as NAPLPS, and would QuickDraw routines be of help in this? (BILL ATKINSON) -- I have heard of a few groups who are bringing up NAPLPS interpreters for Mac, built on top of QuickDraw. Also ... [ a line may have been lost here] ... consider writing a word processor in either of these. (Bill Davis) -- When you spoke about Desk Accessories, you said that you were limited to 8K. Is that program and data, or just the program? (BILL ATKINSON) -- When you are a Desk Accessory, you are a guest in some- one else's house, so you should be as inconspicuous as possible. We have settled on informal standards of 8K bytes of total heap usage (code + data) on a 128K Mac. [ continued in "ATKINS.CO2" ] XA 6: R ATKINS.CO2 MAUG CONFERENCE (Part 2) Sept. 23, 1984 9:00 P.M. EDT ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (Jerry G. Harris) -- Are there any QuickDraw routines tailored for 3-D? (BILL ATKINSON) -- There's a whole unit called Graf3D. It is available from Tech Support and it layers 3-D transforms on top of QuickDraw. (Neil S. / Sysop) -- Can anyone get that or just developers? (BILL ATKINSON) -- All developers have it already (including all consortium universities). Ask a friend for a copy. (Hal Finney) -- MacPaint manages to update the screen literally in the blink of an eye (between one frame and the next), but for me QuickDraw takes several frames for some operations. What's the magic involved? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Open the pod bay doors first, Hal... Seriously, MacPaint uses QuickDraw to draw into an off-screen bitmap, then transfers the result to the screen to avoid any flicker. (Ronald Jones) -- 1) Will the Finder or operating system provide for tree- structure directories in the near future? 2) Is Steve Jobs as immature as he appears in recent interviews? 3) Is the day of the hacker gone, in favor of the "serious developer"? (BILL ATKINSON) -- 1) Yes. 2) No. 3) Who knows? (William J. Jones) -- Will dealers have the MacPaint 1.4 update? (BILL ATKINSON) -- MacPaint 1.4 is the current production version being shipped with all Macs, including 512K machines, which take advantage of 1.4. There are [ system dropped line(s) here ] (Phil Porter) -- Will MacPaint eventually support light pens or digitizer tablets? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Nothing in the works from Apple, but I know of two tablet makers who are writing mouse drivers for Mac, and their tablets will be usable with all Mac programs. [ At this point, CIS appeared to have suffered a significant system failure, causing many MAUGers, including CO guest Atkinson and beloved Sysop Shapiro, to be dropped from the network. The conference resumed after about 40 minutes of collective thumb-twiddling.] (Neil S. / Sysop) -- Okay, order everyone. Let's try to get this thing going again. (BILL ATKINSON) -- I'm back!!! Stupid computers, hate them anyway. (Neil S. / Sysop) -- The next person before the disaster struck was to have been Marion Stokes. Marion, do you remember your question? (Marion Stokes) -- Welcome back, Bill. Will the 512K Mac accept the full range of font numbers, up to 511 with positive ID's? (BILL ATKINSON) -- I don't know. We have made no changes to the ROMs or to Font Mover, just added more memory. Sorry. (Bill Steinberg / Alt.Sysop) -- The problem is with Font Mover, not with ROMs or System or fonts. Use RMOVER in our XA4 database for numbers higher than 256. (Marion Stokes) -- Get negatives when past 253. (Dennis Brothers / Alt.Sysop) -- Bill A., it's sad but true that the best graphics on //s (and IBMs) are achieved by programs which bypass the ROMs and go to screen memory directly. Do you think the same will be true of the Mac, or will QuickDraw be good enough for the Bill Budges of the world? (BILL ATKINSON) -- I believe 95% of Mac programs will find QuickDraw suffi- cient. For those with special requirements, where specialized code is worth it, the Mac has a very clean screen mapping that makes things simple. Also, if you insist on hitting the screen directly, use address $7A700, which will work for both the 512K and 128K Macs because of wrap-around addressing. (Kerry Lynn) -- 1) Does QuickDraw represent region boundaries using run- length encoding? 2) Will Apple be licensing QuickDraw technology? Is there a contact? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Mac is an "open system", including a disassembler. I worked for quite a long time developing QuickDraw for Apple, and I hope people will respect the investment Apple has put into Mac. Please don't rip me off. But if you must, the best place to look is at ROM address ... disconnect security violation. -- I think Kerry hit my question. Will you be able to produce pseudocode logic for some of your QuickDraw routines in future Comp Graphics text? Also, how is Alan Kay doing? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Unfortunately, the algorithms invented for Apple in QuickDraw are still important for the success of Macintosh. I would like to tell all, but don't want to hurt Mac. Alan Kay is doing "INSANELY GREAT". (Ray Fleischmann) -- Since Mac is still so new, there haven't been many conflicts with fonts/icons and their assigned Resource ID numbers. But as time goes on there will be more and more fonts/icons by people other than Apple. What, if anything, is Apple going to do to keep everyone from walking all over each other's fonts/icons. Will Apple keep MAUG and current users posted? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Fonts and icons are a bit different. Icons have a local ID number which does not conflict with the global ID assigned by the Finder when installing into the desktop, so you don't have to worry there. (Saved by the bundle.) Fonts do have to be unique. Cary Clark is helping assign the limited 256 font IDs and we are working out a way to allow 65,536 different fonts. Still, you would want to get a block of numbers from Tech Support. (Neil S. / Sysop) -- Well, it is getting on past midnight on the East Coast. Before getting the last group of questions, I'd just like to thank Bill very much for having been here, and Bill, I hope that you will be able to make other COs in the future. (BILL ATKINSON) -- Why do we have to stop at midnight? (Bill S. / Alt.Sysop) -- (Neil maybe has to stop at midnight.) (Neil S. / Sysop) -- We don't if you're game! (BILL ATKINSON) -- I'm game all night. (Steve Meuse) -- Bill, I read that the QuickDraw routines support color. Will a hypothetical color Macintosh using these routines have less hori- zontal resolution than the black-and-white display (a la Apple ///)? Also, who are writing mouse drivers for graphics tablets, if you can say? Finally, were you really online for the practice CO as "Elmer Pix"? (BILL ATKINSON) -- 1) Depends on which hypothetical color Mac you had in mind to invent. 2) Summagraphics, and another that I forget. 3) Sho'nuff. (Neil S. / Sysop) -- Okay. Well, Dennis Brothers, who is a programmer and hence never sleeps, tells me that he can take over the CO to allow me to get enough sleep that I can catch my 7 A.M. train tomorrow! (Bill S. / Alt.Sysop) -- (I told you Neil wasn't allowed up past 12.) (Nel S. / Alt.Sysop) -- So, I am just going to personally thank Bill Atkinson for being here and all of you for making the MAUG CO the most popular conference line on the network! Dennis, carry that torch! (Dennis Brothers / Alt.Sysop) -- Okay. <stage fright> Take it, Doug Olson. (Douglas K. Olson) -- Bill, I am using MacForth to write an application for the Mac. I have "Inside Macintosh" but find it hard to understand calls without being able to experiment. (No Lisa/Pascal.) Thus, how does one update a window bitmap after a window has been reactivated (i.e., holes left in window from overlaps)? Also, how does one update window areas after a scrollbits? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Sorry, but I haven't used MacForth yet, so I can't help you there. In general, updates are handled by calling BeginUpdate, then drawing entire contents (will be clipped automatically), then EndUpdate. After a ScrollRect call, you should SetClip to the UpdateRgn returned by ScrollRect, then draw window contents as usual. Hope I have been of some help. Perhaps you could send a message on MAUG asking for MacForth programmers to help you out. (Don Krapf) -- A few days ago on the message board you mentioned that the 512K upgrade has a few new runs and a new pad for a PAL. Is any of this for anything other than addressing the new memory? (BILL ATKINSON) -- No. The board rev is just for the new memory. (Bill Steinberg / Alt.Sysop) -- How would one go about getting a formal description of the structure of the directory and of the desktop file maintained by the Finder? (BILL ATKINSON) -- The directory structure is spelled out in the File Manager document in "Inside Macintosh". I don't know where to get the Finder stuff. (Try Cary Clark?) (Dick Weismann) -- Could you briefly explain how a MacPaint file can be "translated" for output to a digital phototypesetter? (BILL ATKINSON) -- First, read the MacPaint document format described in an appendix to "Inside Mac". Basically you skip the 512-byte header, then the rest is 720 scanlines, each 576 bits wide, but packed with PackBits. Use UnpackBits to unpack each scanline, then do whatever you want to the bits. George Litho and Compugraphic offer a service if you don't want to write your own. Have fun! [ continued in "ATKINS.CO3" ] XA 6: R ATKINS.CO3 MAUG CONFERENCE (Part 3) Sept. 23, 1984 9:00 P.M. EDT ----------------------------------------------------------------------- (Walt Marcinko) -- Bill, here's a question we've traditionally asked of CO guests since the late '50s. What is your favorite color? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Green. (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- Leave it to Walt to ask the hard questions! (Walt Marcinko) -- "It's a dirty job, but..." (BILL ATKINSON) -- I was just informed by Apple's corporate counsel that I am not authorized to discuss matters relating to color. (Walt Marcinko) -- (The goons strike again.) (Jerry G. Harris) -- Bill, what role does the 68020 microprocessor play in the future Mac? (BILL ATKINSON) -- The 68020 screams like a bat out of hell, and all Mac code runs on it without change. Apple would be stupid not to build the 68020 into some future machine. The only question is when. (Ken Elinger) -- Which language do you like to program in? 68000, C, Pascal? (BILL ATKINSON) -- All of the above. Usually I start in Pascal and rewrite the critical parts in 68K. I'm fairly new to C, but it seems to get the job done with the minimum of wrist-slaps. (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- Is there a profiler for Lisa Pascal that runs on the Mac? (BILL ATKINSON) -- I'm not sure. It would be pretty easy to write one, using the extra memory of a 512K Mac to hold the data. (R Jones) -- Doesn't Motorola put out a 12Mhz 68K, and if so, why didn't Apple use it? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Not in Mac [sales] volumes! (Douglas K. Olson) -- Bill, I have three questions. Answer if able. 1) Can we expect Lisa-type concurrency on the Mac? Via a desk accessory maybe? 2) As far as RAM is concerned, what's beyond 512K? I've heard a wish/rumor that Apple might be putting a 3.5" 20-Meg hard drive INSIDE a future Mac. True? 3) Where would you personally like to see the Mac of the future go? (BILL ATKINSON) -- 1) I'm not sure what you mean on the concurrency. Mac already lets the Calculator, Notepad, etc. run concurrently. The 512K Mac may allow larger desk accessories that come closer to being full applications. 2) I think we'll stick with 512K for a while. It really helps developers to settle on a common configuration, and 512K is pretty nice. 3) I personally want to see Mac getting into homes. Individual people using computers to enhance their personal creativity and satisfaction. (Walt Marcinko) -- Bill, to follow up on an earlier line of questioning, what is your favorite Mac font? (BILL ATKINSON) -- I personally designed the cursive font we call Venice, but my own favorite font is Athens because it is so strong and crisp. I also like the Paris font that Cliff Joyce designed for Mac the Knife. (Marion Stokes) -- First, thanks a million for the game of Life. Is there any animation package from Apple or anyone besides the Ann Arbor group? (BILL ATKINSON) -- MacroMind is working on a neat animation package that lets you edit music and bitmaps both. I don't know when they will ship, but they have some great people and what I've seen so far looks great. (Bill S. / Alt.Sysop) -- I have a LOT of fonts and I like to have them available to MacPaint. I can either put them all into the System file (making a System file of over 200K), or I can put them into MacPaint's resource fork, making for a huge MacPaint and a small System. My Mac- Paint disk has ONLY MacPaint on it, so I don't care if the fonts are "unavailable" to other applications (in this case). Is there an advantage to storing the fonts in one place rather than the other (speed, etc.)? (BILL ATKINSON) -- I think you understand the options about as well as I do. Try it each way and let me know which works better for you. I'm sure it's affected by whether you have an external drive. Good luck! (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- That brings up one of the commoner questions we get on MAUG. People are always running out of space for MacPaint work files on the MacPaint system disk. Is there any way to force the work files to a data disk in the external drive? (BILL ATKINSON) -- No. Paint1 and Paint2 work files are opened on volume 0. Have heart, if you get so rich and lucky as to have a 512K Mac, Paint1 and Paint2 disappear and the entire document stays in memory. This makes scrolling mucho faster! Note that version 1.4, the current release, has this enhancement. (Jerry Tompkins) -- Have you heard anything recently about progress of the Lotus project? What is it going to look like? Any ideas? (BILL ATKINSON) -- I saw it a long time ago and it looked pretty nice then. I don't think I'm supposed to give details about it, since they showed it in confidence. "Soon". (Ken Addison) -- I was/am one of the "few" people working with the now unsupported Clascal/Toolkit for Lisa. I really like object programming. Is there any chance of an object-oriented programming language on the Mac? (BILL ATKINSON) -- I don't know if Apple has plans to bring the Toolkit over to Mac, since most developers are asking for C right now. Somebody will undoubtedly bring up various object-oriented languages on the Mac. Ask in the message section. (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- What's the current and future status of Apple support for independent development on the Lisa? (BILL ATKINSON) -- You're getting in over my head. I know mostly about MacPaint, QuickDraw and writing code. Dan Cochran knows better what Apple is up to along those lines. Most developers seem to be a lot more interested in Mac because of the number of machines out there. Lisa seems to be getting a surge of interest coming mainly from Mac. (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- Just thought I'd try. We've already beaten Dan over the head with that one. Okay, one more probing question from Walt Marcinko. (Walt Marcinko) -- Bill, do you feel that jumping out that second-story window played any part in your success as a programmer? (BILL ATKINSON) -- No, I'm told that I landed on my butt. (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- A programmer's most-used organ! (Jerry Tompkins) -- I liked your comment about getting Macs in the home. My ten-year-old son did his homework this afternoon on Mac. No incentive problem if Mac's available! What's Apple doing to promote getting the BEST graphics program, MacPaint, into the schools, i.e., pushing Macs instead of //e's? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Apple set up the whole University Consortium and is expanding it even wider. Mac seems to be a hit in colleges, but the //e has a pretty strong hold on the elementary schools because of all its software. (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- Just a comment. It won't be MacPaint selling Macs to schools, but rather MacPascal (and there's a // version of that coming out). Mac right now is far too expensive for sub-college schools. (BILL ATKINSON) -- P.S. We did get Bill Budge to write MousePaint. (Jerry Tompkins) -- My kids like that, too! (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- Okay, any last questions? (W. Harry Feinstone) -- Will the 512K upgrade be totally equivalent to a factory 512? (BILL ATKINSON) -- Yes, the entire main logic board is replaced with a fully tested new board burned-in at the factory. No other part of the Mac is different in the 512K version. (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- I've got two final questions. 1) What are you guys gonna do with all those recycled 128K boards? 2) This is probably not your bailiwick, but I haven't been able to find the answer anywhere else. How is the resource ID in the FCMT (Get Info file comment) resource determined? (BILL ATKINSON) -- 1) Apple gets stuck with the 128K boards, since it can't ship them in NEW computers. 2) I have no idea. Try Cary Clark (poor guy). (Walt Marcinko) -- Maybe dealers could use the 128K boards in repairs and such (as replacements). (BILL ATKINSON) -- Now there's an idea. I'll mention it to Jobs. Thanks! (Walt Marcinko) -- I'll send you my consulting bill. (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- On behalf of the remaining stalwarts, and all who dropped in this evening, and all of MAUG, and all the little people, I want to extend our heart-felt thanks to Bill Atkinson for a great COnference. Raising my mouse in lieu of a gavel, I declare this confer- ence closed. <BANG> (Damn! Broke the little sucker!) (BILL ATKINSON) -- Okay, are we off-record? Can we talk about the color 68020 machine with 3.5-inch hard disk and voice recognition and integral laser printer and ******* SYSTEM DISCONNECT ERROR #1234 ******* (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- Th-th-that's all, folks. (Ted King) -- How am I going to get to work in the morning now? (Walt Marcinko) -- Darn, I was going to ask Bill about that item in the Enquirer concerning him and Marie Osmond. Something about a "Hawaiian love nest". (Dennis B. / Alt.Sysop) -- Walt, we KNOW it'll show up in the transcript anyway. (Walt Marcinko) -- <he-he> [ And with that, the remaining bleary-eyed MAUGers emptied their glasses, bid fond farewells, and staggered off in search of their homes, as the first rays of the morning sun lit the blossoms of the muca-muca trees swaying gently on the shores of the Canary Islands.] ---<**********>---
ag5@pucc-i (Henry C. Mensch) (10/12/84)
<<>>
This article is a PRIME reason why people should use
*real* home terminal software on their PC's (sp?) rather than
using some cheap PC/software/screen-board/whatever that only
has 40-character lines....
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Henry C. Mensch | User Confuser | Purdue University User Services
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