geb@cadre.UUCP (03/22/84)
Some of Apple's technical people gave a demonstration and talk at CMU and we learned a few things that may be of interest. 1) Apple has published a three volume set of Macintosh technical documentation for software developers. It is being distributed by a third party publisher who is being swamped by requests at the rate of 150/day. The 3 vols are $150. Looking through the three volumes, they document the ROM routines very well. These allow the applications programmer to manage menus, windows, graphics, etc. by rom calls which make his programming job easier and assures that the user interface to his program will look the same as all the other software for the mac. Of course he doesn't have to use these calls, but anyone would be a fool not to if he plans to market his software. 2) Apple is working on a K & R standard C (no UNIX, however) for the LISA and one for the MAC that the person did not know for sure whether would be K & R standard. The Mac version might be ready in late 1984. He felt that Apple was evolving into C as the systems language, whereas before it has been UCSD Pascal. 3) Microsoft has a VAX C compiler that compiles code for the MAC. 4) Sony has not yet successfully produced a double sided 3 inch drive. Samples are expected this fall. 5) Tecmar has a hard drive that interfaces through the floppy port.