info-mac@uw-beaver (08/31/85)
From: (Temp) Moderator John Mark Agosta <INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.arpa>
INFO-MAC Digest Saturday, 31 Aug 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 37
Today's Topics:
MDS Edit Bug and "munge.c" relief
Smalltalk for the Macintosh
MacTutor - A Programming Journal for the Macintosh
Report on Fastime SASI/SCSI Host Interface Adapter for the Mac
vertical retrace sync solution
rumors, gossip, etc.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 85 20:07:47 PDT
From: shebanow%ucbernie@Berkeley (Mike Shebanow)
Subject: MDS Edit Bug and "munge.c" relief
I discovered an interesting bug in MDS Edit, while developing a
midsized application. I noticed that my source files seemed awfully large
considering the size of the documents they contained. After some examination,
I found that MDS Edit (Version 1.0, as distributed with MDS), has a bug which
causes it to write duplicate resources (of types EFNT and ETAB) EACH time a
'Save' operation is done. Although the resources themselves are small, the
cumulative affect is quite large. My source files, which previously amassed an
amazing 200K, are now only 70K long! Since I have a floppy system, that 130K
makes a big difference. What's strange is that all of these resources have the
same ID. I didn't even know you could do that. Anyway, I fixed my files by
copying each file's contents to a New file, saving with the same name using
'Save As', which was a real pain in the neck.
So I wrote a small program to purge all duplicate resources from a file.
Here is the source and a '.hqx' version of the application, called
'munge'.
Have fun...
Andrew Shebanow
shebanow@ucbernie
[ UTILITY-MUNGE.C 4324(7) 30-Aug-85
.HQX 14406(7) 30-Aug-85
Andrew Shebanow <shebanow@ucbernie>
Removes duplicate resources produced by MDS edit
or any other file munger.
- is the 00dir entry. The entire message has also been posted to
usenet net.sources.mac -jma ]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 85 17:53:19 pdt
From: Mark Lentczner <mark%apple.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: Smalltalk for the Macintosh
[]
Just thought I'd clear things up,
Smalltalk is now available for the Macintosh (yes, not "MacLump",
but real honest to god Macintosh, all you need is at least 512k,
and of course it will run on the MacXL too). It costs only $50.
The correct address to write to for an order form is:
Smalltalk Request
c/o Eileen Crombie
Apple Computer, Inc.
20525 Marianni Avenue
Cupertino, CA 95014
Please do not send anything to the other address posted until you
have the order form. This is very important as the other address
will not be able to send you order forms or send you Smalltalk
without and order form.
If there is a call for it, I have a 102 line info file that I can
post about Smalltalk on the Macintosh.
-mark lentczner
Smalltalk Group
Apple Computer, Inc.
20525 Marianni Avenue, MS:22Y
Cupertino, CA 95014
UUCP: {dual, nsc, voder}!apple!mark
CSNET: mark@apple
------------------------------
Date: Fri 30 Aug 85 10:17:25-PDT
From: MBALAMUT@USC-ECL.ARPA
Subject: MacTutor - A Programming Journal for the Macintosh
There is a wonderful magazine available called:
MacTutor - The Macintosh Programming Journal
It is published by Dave Smith and his wife. They have assembled an
excellent group of regular contributors to the magazine. The August
1985 issue (Vol. 1 No. 9) is 64 pages long is excellent as usual.
MacTutor is created with a Mac and is a pleasure to read.
The contents of the August issue include:
Department Title Author
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mousehole Report "Stealing a Journal Driver..." Rusty Hodge
Letters "Pascal Stacks with Megamax C..."
Pascal Procedures "Printing Party Banners!" Alan Wootton
Programmer's Forum "PrLink Source Code in Asm" Paul Snively
Toolbox Tips "Quickdraw Arrowheads in C" Rick Flott
Basic School "Cursor Editor Fat Bit Style" Dave Kelly
The Electrical Mac "RAM and ROM Memory" Jeff Mitchell
Ask Prof. Mac "Readers Technical Questions" Steve Brecher
Asm Language Lab "Wired for Sound" Chris Yerga
Lisp Listener "CONS, CELLS and Quickdraw" Andy Cohen
Modula 2 Mods "Try the Alternate Screen" Tom Taylor
C Workshop "Vertical Retrace Manager" Robert Denny
Forth Forum "Inline Code Speeds MacForth" Jorg Langowski
The above contents is typical for MacTutor, which is published monthly.
Back issues are available and they are also making diskettes of
software published in the magazine available. There are two diskettes
for issues 1-8 and there is also a utility diskette (includes a
resource and icon editor among other things).
The magazine is well written and I really enjoy it. The cost of a
subscription is $24 for 1 year US, $30 Canada & Mexico and $36 Overseas.
A SAMPLE COPY IS AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST.
The address is:
MacTutor
P.O. Box 846
Placentia, CA 92670
for more info you can call (714) 993-9939
If anyone has any questions for me my "address" is: mbalamut@USC-ECL
Happy Networking and Happy Computing
Morris Balamut
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 85 23:21:07 CDT
From: Rick Watson <rick@ut-ngp.ARPA>
Subject: Report on Fastime SASI/SCSI Host Interface Adapter for the
Subject: Mac
Here's a preliminary report on the Macintosh SASI/SCSI interface made by
Fastime.
I mailed a check for $150 about a month ago. The interface arrived last
Thursday. For $150 you get: the interface board, a disk with some software,
and some printed documentation.
The board consists of a NCR SASI/SCSI bus controller chip, a couple of 7400
series gate chips, some resistor packs, some feed-thru sockets, and a 50-pin
connector. The board is aprox 2 and a half inches square (rough guess.)
To install it, you remove the roms from the mac, plug in the board where
the roms were, and plug the roms into the board. There is a one wire chip
clip that you are supposed to clip to a lead on a nearby chip. I didn't like
the chip clip, so I cut it off and soldered the wire where it was supposed to
go. The only difficult part of the installation (beyond getting the Mac apart)
is putting the logic board back in the Mac. The 50-pin connector sticks up a
bit too far and you have to wedge things a bit. Then you plug in your 50-pin
cable. I was able to run the 50-pin cable out of the back of the Mac beside
the battery case. I cannot put the cover back on the battery case, but
since my Mac is still under AppleCare, I don't want to hack the case. I could
at this point remove the board and make it look like the board was never there.
You then plug the other end of your cable into a SASI/SCSI disk controller, and
presuming you have that connected to a disk and power supply, you are ready to
go. I am using a Xebec S1410A hard disk controller and a Shugart 604 5-mb
winchester disk.
The software that comes with the kit supports the S1410/Shugart combination,
so I didn't have to make any changes. The software includes the sources for
a disk formatter and the driver for the Mac. Also there is a driver install
program. Sources are Aztec C. Some of the C includes assembler, so conversion
to other C is not as easy as one would like. I know that Megamax C supports
in-line assembler, but not the same. The formatter and driver are also already
built. The driver install program was supposed to be there, but was not.
It took me about half an hour to build a driver install program using
Megamax C. It is a very short program, but the calling parameters for
OpenDriver are different between Aztec and Megamax C. My program kept
crashing until I stopped to look at InsideMac.
Once you are hooked up, you run the format program. Be sure your Xebec is
jumpered for 512 byte sectors. BE CAREFUL with the format program. It does
not bother to ask you if you want to format the disk.
After the disk is formatted, you run the driver install program. When you
return to the Finder, there is the hard disk with a little over 5000K free!!!
The driver install program does not bother to make the hard disk the startup
disk and eject the boot floppy as I would like. At this point, you can
copy the System and Finder to the hard disk. Then you command-option-double-
click the Finder on the hard disk to make it the startup disk. Then, you
copy ALL your favorite files to the hard disk.
The driver supports a non-partitioned disk. There is supposed to be
a new software release "soon" that supports some kind of partitioning.
The software works great as long as you don't have any disk problems.
This version does not appear to check for disk errors. I had some problems with
this as I had a bad sector in the directory. Hopefully, the next version
of their software will correct this. The price list I got with the kit
says the upgrade will be available 8-15-85 (yes, < today) and costs $20.
I hope they don't really expect me to pay for this. The lady I talked
to on the phone today didn't know anything about the new software, but
promised to call me back.
The hard disk works quite well (barring disk errors). Very rough timings
put it at about the speed of a Hyperdrive, but I didn't have very good
times for the Hyperdrive. I have about 130 files on the disk now and
launching the finder (4.1 from the desktop) takes about 9 seconds.
This compares to 15 seconds for a floppy with 30 files and even longer
for 2 floppies. Other things like edit/compile and simply exit to finder are
much faster, and it is really great to have 1 disk with plenty of room
instead of squeezing onto 2 floppies. I have a program
that writes 512 bytes to the controller, and reads it back. It will do
1000 passes in 16 seconds, so I am getting 500,000 bits/sec including
all the overhead. Note: this is reading/writing the controller ram, not the
disk.
Overall, I am very pleased. The software could use some work. It needs:
1. Error detection. The XEBEC does retries, but if there is a bad spot,
there is just no way for the controller to recover.
2. A mount program that makes the hard disk the startup volume and ejects
the startup floppy (a la RamStart).
3. Disk partitioning (promised).
4. Multi-drive support (might come with partitioning). The XEBEC will
suport 2 drives.
5. A hard disk backup program.
This is what my system cost:
1. Fastime interface $150
2. XEBEC S1410A (from Kieruff) $165
(Paramount carries S1410's for $125. They could not
tell me over the phone if they were S1410A's. I
use the S1410A because I have them in other equipment.
Either should work with this software.)
3. Shugart 604 from Priority I (5 mb) $ 99
4. Cables, power supply. ~$ 60
You need to be a moderately good hardware hacker to go this way. Their
documentation is pretty terse. You also get schematics in MacDraw
format on the software disk. You even get a schematic for their
next product -- a SASI/SCSI controller plus some parallel ports.
They also sell kits that include the disk controller and hard disk.
I would be interested in anyone else using this product. I have written
some quick and dirty utilities to dump error stats out of the Xebec, and
read all the sectors on the disk. You can use Fedit to put any bad
sectors into a file. My directory sector problem went away after I
re-wrote it. I will be doing some more work if their next
software release does not have everything I want.
You can order from:
Fastime
p.o. box 12508
San Luis Obispo, CA 93406
(805) 546-9141
Basic Mac SCSI Host Adapter Kit $150.
UPS shipping $5.00. UPS COD $10.00
I have no connection with Fastime or DMS design. This is a home project
not supported by where I work.
Rick Watson
University of Texas Computation Center
Austin, Tx 78713
(512) 471-3241
rick@ngp.UTEXAS.EDU rick@ut-ngp.arpa
...ut-sally!ut-ngp!rick
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 1985 03:20 EDT
From: LEVITT%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: vertical retrace sync solution
help--vertical retrace sync?
From: zim@mitre.ARPA
Can someone suggest a simple way to get drawing-to-the-screen synchronized
with the display refresh?
... could I do something as simple as loop until the tickcount
changes? I'm happy to use a little in-line assembler if necessary....
In the release versions of the MDS, Bud Tribble's "Sample" program (in
the Template folder) uses an assembly routine called SYNC that does
exactly that, calling the _TickCount trap repeatedly.
------------------------------
Subject: rumors, gossip, etc.
Date: 28 Aug 85 08:41:15 EDT (Wed)
From: zim@mitre.ARPA
Following are some interesting items, mainly rumors, from local (Washington
DC area) Mac boards; I pass them along without comment:
-------------------------
From:ARTHUR DAVIS To:ALL
Subject:Rumors Date:8/20/85 21:5
Some of the latest tantalizing rumors from CompuServe here, and they are
winners fans:
Apple's Mac successor project (code-name Jonathon) is going to be
introduced to the stockholders' meeting in Jan 86. The Jonathon
is said to be like the following: 17 inch B&W high resolution screen,
expansion slots, enhanced business keyboard with trackball, SCSI interface
for high speed peripherals, 1MB RAM expandable to 16MB, 1 800K floppy.
Rear panel accepts plug-ins with full buss access. Transportable with less
than 1 sq. ft. desk footprint. Room in the cabinet for an internal 3.5
20MB hard disk.
And if that's not enough, projected for release in late 86, "Jason" - a color
Mac with 800X600 resolution.
Apple is also researching the impact of using the 68020 in the new products.
I have lots more rumors to spread, but I'm pressed for time now. All I can
say about Jonathon, is that it sounds like the Sun super-micro "for the rest
of us", and I sure hope all this is true, and it will be able to be purchased
for less than a mint.
-------------------------
From:MICHAEL YOURSHAW To:ALL
Subject:Dorchester Date:8/22/85 7:14
I flew up and back for the Dorchester Mac Expo, yesterday. Sure wish I could
have spared all 3 days - lots to see, and a very friendly, energetic crowd.
Dr. TOM was drumming his great database; he didn't have a booth set up, so
Apple graciously made a station available to Carol and the Dr.
Got a chance to meet some of my personal MacGods, such as Bill and Ann Duvall
of Consulair, Steve Jasik of MacNosy (wait 'till you see the T-shirt he sold
me), Dave Smith of MacTutor, and many others.
Announcements: 20Meg Hyperdrive shipping 6 Sep., upgrades 10>20 avail 6 Dec.
New Hyperdrive software has print spool, disk cache, and (at last!) garbage
collection. Boreland - Sidekick for the Mac! (I got one and will report.)
Consulair - Smart linker & librarian, Mac C v. 4.0. Manx - symbolic debugger
(avail in a few weeks). Many cos. - 1-2 Meg memories. MacCharlie - I saw
one work (impressive) and was told they are in stores. (The VP I talked to
had heard that Fredrick was a discounter with negligent support; boy did I
straighten HIM out!) MacRevealed vol. 2 - I got one (official release to stores
in a few weeks). Megamax - new version of C released last week. Most wonder-
ful product! - Custom calculator construction set by Electronic Arts (avail
Nov.) Does what it says: Makes custom calculator DA's, I saw HP 12C and
HP33. You define appearance, program each button. MindSight business plan-
ning and analysis (avail Sept). MacDraft, shipping since 2 Aug.
-------------------------
From:MICHAEL YOURSHAW To:ALL
Subject:Dorchester (cont.) Date:8/22/85 7:32
Several 3D design programs demoed. New ver. of ExperLisp is shipping.
Electronic arts also had Pinball Construction Set ( avail ?). Miles - Mac
the Knife vol. 3 (clip art). MacBottom is real (and uses printer port!)
Paradise drive had a power supply the size of the drive (almost) hidden behind
the table. Mainstay - Disk Ranger catalogger and labeller (< Ides) avail.
Sep. 16. MouseX Terminal, RSN (< Paul). WormStat, HP-12C, both are now
available as improved, commercial products. On Stage Pascal compiler:
Prsonal version (list $119) avail now ? Developer's version avail Oct. 15
list $399. Boreland Turbo Pascal, no promises; maybe end of year.
TimeBase a nifty schedule management system, includes multiple, SPOKEN alarms.
Several new Logos.
Finally, I got a Paint Cutter (Silicon Beach) so I'll shut up abainlicoiewepressive graphics/text ad-
venture game with full sound (chash of swords, roar of dragon), very realistic.
-------------------------
From:ARTHUR DAVIS To:ALL
Subject:Miscellaneous Date:8/23/85 20:4
I hope to pass on more rumors (which have now been fully verified by a
front page article in Electronic Engineering Times), but won't do so
until the board is less full (I'm trying not to be a board-hog). I did
want to say that Craig Vaughan has gotten a copy of the $49.95 native
code Pascal compiler advertised in the new Mac Buyer's Guide. The
product is the MacLanguage Series (Pascal & Basic). It looks good,
complete & fast. The "Alpha" release Craig has compiles to MDS .ASM and
thus requires the MDS assembler and linker, but the release will not.
Most all Toolbox traps seem to be represented in include files, with the
definitions equating to the in-line traps. An example: Craig compiled,
assembled, linked and executed the famous Sieve while I was listening on
the phone. Compile/assemble/link time seemed about 10-15 seconds. The
execution time was about 6 seconds. Craig is experimenting with MacPascal
& MacLanguage Pascal compatibility. This may be the Landing winner, fans!
And $49.95! Watch out Turbo if this works out. (Maybe watch out Aztec,
and Consulair, and ...). More info from Craig or me later.
-------------------------
From:CRAIG VAUGHAN To:ALL
Subject:A nifty compiler... Date:8/23/85 21:43
As Arthur mentioned in the previous msg., I have just received the pre-release
version of the MacLanguage Series Pascal compiler from TML Systems in Melbourne
FL. From my initial testing and perusal it seems to be a winner and at only
$49.95, a heck of a bargain. The version I received is not yet in the final
form but definitely useable. I spoke with the author, Tom Leonard, and indicat-
ions are that the final release will be within the next 30-45 days. Family
Computer Center in Fair Oaks Mall will be stocking it (and can order it for
those to impatient to wait for the final release). If you do order it now, the
final release will be sent out at no cost. As Arthur reported, the current
pre-release version requires the MDS assembler, but the final release will
compile directly to .REL format for use by the MDS linker which will be
provided along with the editor and RMaker. The code produced is quite compact
and an examination of the .ASM file produced by the compiler shows no "fluff".
The Sieve, as Arthur reported, takes about 6 secs. for 10 iterations and oc-
cupies only 1736 bytes. The ability to define inline chunks of code is a nice
facility allowing easy definition of toolbox trap interfaces. The release
version will feature separate compilation using Units, complete implementation
of standard Pascal I/O routines, etc. The current version already allows the
use of segments to break up large programs and has include files for virtually
all the ROM and OS trap routines (QuickDraw, Toolbox, Packages, etc.).
I will be uploading some sample programs put together with the compiler that
were taken from the Software Supplement onto the ABBS at (703) 471-0610. If
you have any questions about the compiler, leave me a note. As Arthur says,
by combining this compiler with the MacPascal interpreter, I think we have
-------------------------
From:CRAIG VAUGHAN To:ALL
Subject:Pascal Compiler addenda Date:8/24/85 13:47
I see that the last line or two got dropped from my earlier msg. about the
MacLanguage Series Pascal compiler. The final point I was making is that
by combining the interactiveness of the MacPascal interpreter and the ease
of use of the MLS Pascal compiler, I think there is now a development environ-
ment at hand that meets the "Landing" criteria. Even if you don't use the
MacPascal interpreter for fast turn around on debugging, the MLS Pascal compiler
is a fast way to develop programs. Further note on performance: by upping the
iterations to 100 and adding calls to the Mac's own clock, I have a normalized
(ie. 10 iteration) timing of 6.6 secs. for the Byte Sieve benchmark. Also,
another feature of the compiler worth mentioning is a compiler option that
puts each line of the Pascal source code into a comment statement in the
generated .ASM file. Thus you can see exactly what code is generated and if
you feel so inclined, it aids in hand optimizing the code (tho' that doesn't
seem to be very necessary).
#96C EE Times ... New Products
From: MIDNIGHT MACKER #457
When: 9:04p Wed, 21-Aug-85
Here is a summary of the front page article from the August 19, 1985
edition of the Electronic Engineering Times:
* Apple should announce the following products by next Jan 86:
* Johnathan Apple, a Mac with a 17-inch monochrome screen sitting on top
of a base control unit with 11 Mbytes of RAM expandable to 16 Mbytes,
an 800K floppy drive, an optional !internal! 20 Mbyte hard disk and
!slots! for RAM cards, a modem card, etc.
* Jason Apple, called Versa Mac by developers, with a 800 by 600 pixel
(approximate) color screen.
* A 20 Mbyte 3 1/2-inch winchester for the existing Mac line.
* A 550 Mbyte read-only 4.7-inch CD laser disk for the Mac and Apple II.
* A new, low-cost LaserWriter printer using a laser engine from Kyocera
capable of printing 10 pages a minute.
* A new low-cost dot-matrix impact printer, the ImageWriter II, faster
and quieter than the present ImageWriter.
* A shared-resource Winchester File server, which sources say features
at least a 40 Mbyte hard disk and RAM cache buffer to boost data
communications. It will communicate via both the AppleTalk (230 Kbits
per second) and a high-speed parallel port.
* Most of these products should be unwrapped at the shareholders meeting
but many probably won't be shipped until much later next year.
* Apple has assured software designers that, when they design graphics
modules to conform with Macintosh rules, their programs will work with
future models.
* Apple will market the new system ROM. It's a 128Kbyte chip that adds
adds expandable file-address space to the standard 64K ROM in present
Macs.
* Consultants and third party developers say Apple designers are attempt-
ing to implement the Motorola 68020 processor into the new Macintosh
systems. Apple is trying to determine if the 32-bit bus processor will
be fully compatable with all existing and developing software and
peripherals.
The article contained many more interesting insights into the workings
of our Apple, Inc. Find it and read it if you can.
Also, please read this with a large grain of salt. Apple has many
millions of dollars to spend for R&D and probably has lots of labs filled
with prototypes. Let's see what actually gets produced and sent to market.
I wish Apple the best in developing new products and regaining the
momentum that they have lost in recent months, in view of their layoffs
of 1200-1300 employees.
Since much of the Mac standard is based on software, they have a fighting
chance of a comeback with new hardware.
Midnight
#98H Open Architecture
From: BRETT #209
When: 1:55p Mon, 19-Aug-85
It looks like a good bet that the new open architecture for the Mac will be
a SCUZZY interface. I have no idea what the real acronym is, SCSI or
something. It is a modification of the old suggart winchester drive
interface. It is the same interface that the CD ROM manufactures are using.
It is suppose to be a VERY high speed (1.5 MEGBAUD) data transfer. It is a
8 bit data bus protocal, so it will be a small DB type connector (25 pins???
Less???) Anyone have more specific details on this interface?
Brett
-------------------------
From:JAY HELLER To:ALL
Subject:It's Out! Date:8/21/85 7:15
" MacFORTH programming for the rest of us " is out and can be ordered from
Creative Solutions 301/984-0262. The book is in and is real. I have one
sitting on my desk.
**********************************************
As always, I have no association with any companies mentioned above
(except for having lost $1000 or so in Apple's stock during the past 6
months!) ... and have no further data on the above rumors ... z
------------------------------
End of INFO-MAC Digest
**********************