info-mac@uw-beaver (06/28/85)
From: Moderator John Mark Agosta <INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.arpa>
INFO-MAC Digest Saturday, 22 Jun 1985 Volume 3 : Issue 12
Today's Topics:
Deficiencies in QuickDraw support for LaserWriter
128K Macs *CANNOT* laser
Text files into multiplan
Mac disk caches
TurboCharger
Wrong fonts on startup
Flaming Macs
burning down the house !!
fan for mac
Overheating problems
Synertek 6522/RTC chip ?
Neon Special Price
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From: stew%lhasa@harvard.ARPA
Date: 18 Jun 85 23:59 EDT
Subject: Deficiencies in QuickDraw support for LaserWriter
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OK, so I've spent maybe two or three months working on this software,
and I've been careful to use only the generic printer routines
described in the phonebook edition of Inside Mac, so that when my
LaserWriter finally arrives, I will be able to draw my pretty pictures
(structural formulas of organic chemicals) on the laserwriter with a
minimum of hassle. It works fine on the ImageWriter, generating
surprisingly good looking structures for a dot-matrix printer. But
today I get the LaserWriter, Set it up, Choose Printer, and print.
Gosh, I did things right! It's printing! Then I look at the printout
and feel a large screw coming at me. All the lines are there, but
anything defined with QuickDraw regions is missing completely. After
a short debugging session, I determined that my program was still
working, and that everything's still great on the ImageWriter. So I
call up a friend who got on an early list for "Inside LaserWriter"
(mine was ordered two months ago and 'will be there Real Soon Now').
Quoting from "Optimizing for the LaserWriter":
Using QuickDraw with the LaserWriter
o Only SrcCopy transfer mode is supported, the other 15 are not.
o The grafverb "invert" is not supported.
o Do not change the origin witin PrOpenPage and PrClosePage.
o Regions are not supported, try to simulate them with polygons.
o Clip regions should be limited to rectangles.
o Rotated or Scaled bit images will not print correctly.
o There is a small error in character widths between screen and
printer fonts, so don't rely on them being exactly the same.
Only the end points will be accurate.
o If you are using PicComments to left, right or center justify
the text, only those points will be accurate.
I make extensive use of regions, and also of odd-shaped clip regions,
in particular, clip regions with holes in them. What do I do now?
Learn postscript? Does the lack of regions indicate a lack of support
for such things in PostScript? Or did Apple just not take the time to
do it right? Will I have to generate the bitmap in bands on the Mac
and ship a 1.25 megabyte bitmap over appletalk?
Be warned.
Stew Rubenstein
Internet: rubenstein@harvard.arpa
uucp: { ihnp4,ut-sally, seismo } ! harvard ! rubenstein
USSnail: Harvard Chemical Labs, 12 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138
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Date: Wed 19 Jun 85 09:17:55-CDT
From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: 128K Macs *CANNOT* laser
as we found out (rather than were told verbally or in the
documentation)
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Date: 20 JUN 1985 11:00 CST
From: C27830AD%WUVMD.BITNET@Berkeley
Subject: Text files into multiplan
To transform text files into SYLK, or vice versa, or into DIF, or
several other formats, take a look at 1st PORT, from Desktop Software
of Princeton. It is designed to help transfer text or other files
into 1st BASE format, but they set it up to deal with other formats as
well and it works both ways - to and from each format. It also
combines a terminal program, but I haven't tried this part yet. It
should do the job.
Art Denzau C27830AD@WUVMD.BITNET (314)889-5688
Dept. of Economics Box 1208
Washington Univ.
St. Louis, MO 63130
------------------------------
Date: 20 JUN 1985 11:00 CST
From: C27830AD%WUVMD.BITNET@Berkeley
Subject: Mac disk caches
The Nevins disk cache, TURBOCHARGER, works extremely well. It allows
you to set its size from 32K to 256K (and a maximum beyond that, but
caused a bomb), and will also run itself on startup. Once things are
in the cache, it runs as fast as RAMdisk on reads, and is especially
in three uses: compiling and assembling - it cuts turnaround time
with Megamax C or MDS in less than half as the only disk whirring that
occurs now is for writing the compiler, assembler or linker output.
Second, it is great with SWITCHER, as it allows you to switch between
programs that are largely resident in memory (it works best with only
two applications, no screen memory save, and 192K of cache). Third,
it does a great job with any large application with many segments,
such as the microsoft series, etc. In addition, once the cache is set
up initially, it speeds up all subsequent application programs run.
Art Denzau C27830AD@WUVMD.BITNET (314)889-5688
Dept. of Economics Box 1208
Washington Univ.
St. Louis, MO 63130
------------------------------
Date: Wed 19 Jun 85 07:47:40-PDT
From: Steve Dennett <DENNETT@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: TurboCharger
Steve,
There is a fairly lengthy review of the Nevins disk caching software
("TurboCharger") in the 31 May 1985 issue of Semaphore Signal (issue
24).
Semaphore Signal ("The publication for Macintosh users and
developers") is available free to Mac and Lisa owners. Send requests
to:
Signal
207 Granada Drive
Aptos, CA 95003
Hope someone writes a public domain cache real soon!
Cheers,
Steve Dennett dennett@sri-nic.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 85 01:18:36 EDT
From: Tom Russell <EN301034%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA>
Reply-to: EN301034%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
Subject: Wrong fonts on startup
If your MAC seems to be using the wrong font for the icon labels in
the Finder, this is because the battery settings for the default
application font have bee n altered. You can fix this by removing the
battery, waiting for a minute and the re-inserting it. The battery
RAM settings will go to zero and are then s et to their default values
when you put in the first startup disk. The first d isk that you put
in the machine after removing the battery should be a backup d isk to
be sure that the settings stored on the disk have not been corrupted
by some application. One could also create a stand alone application
to read the current RAM settings and then reset them to whatever value
you like, however, r emoving the battery works quite well.
Tom Russell EN301034%BROWNVM.BITNET@WISCVM
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Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1985 03:41 EDT
From: TIM%MIT-OZ@MIT-MC.ARPA
Reply-to: TIM at MIT-MC.ARPA
Subject: Flaming Macs
We all keep hearing about peoples machines "burning up" and whatnot,
but is the proportion of Macs with thermal problems being accurately
represented on INFO-MAC? I know of half a dozen Macs which are
powered up 24 hours a day with no fans and no thermal problems
It is hard to give advice to anyone considering keeping their Mac
powered up all the time without knowing the details of when is was
manufactured and with what components. Keeping a Mac powered on all
the time -should- make it less prone to failure, but as we have heard,
there are cases of of thermal failure of the worst kind (fire).
Someone should ask Apple if they have been keeping Q/A statistics
corellated to serial numbers. It's too bad they can't accurately
assess the effect of fans on failure rate...
------------------------------
Date: Wed 19 Jun 85 09:10:54-CDT
From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@UTEXAS-20.ARPA>
Subject: burning down the house !!
seems as if my kids catch every bug passing through here, and my MAC
is of same design quality (-:
Anyway, this Sunday, I smelled "burnt" but found nothing out-of-order
in the kitchen. I remembered the MAC-warning and *RAN* (not walked)
to where Mickey hangs out ....
BLACK SMOKE (no visible flames) coming out of the right rear vents
(you all know already what's underneath there ...)
Mickey never rests, always does something useful, and I have every
intention to keep it running all the time in the future also. And,
you bet, I'll sue Apple, should I come back home to smoldering ruins
!!!
If you don't have AppleCare - go out and buy it - showing that you
have a "functioning MAC" qualifies you anytime (not just before the
warranty expires), at least, so I am told. If you don't have
fire-insurance, ...... If anyone wants to join forces to hire a
lawyer, ......
Hmmmmm, Werner
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Date: Thu, 20 Jun 85 01:27:28 edt
From: Velu Sinha <velu@maryland>
Subject: fan for mac
I have been experimenting with a piezo-electric fan for the Mac.
I have found a fan, sold by Dragonfly Software in Philadelphia, which
seems to do the trick. The fan (appropriately called the Dragonfly
Fan) has two mylar blades attached to ceramic piezo-electric elements
which are connected directly to 110 VAC.
I have found that the fan (which weighs just a few ounces, draws .1
watt, and produces less than 30 db (which is apparently less than the
noise in a normal office)) mounts very nicely to the side of the
disk-drive, inside the Mac case.
The 110 VAC for the fan is most easily tapped from the rectifier
diodes on the video/power board. Either clip-on leads, or soldered
connections can be used. (The reason for tapping off of the bridge is
so that the fan is only on when the switch is turned on...)
The fan mounts to the disk drive using dual-sided adhesive, available
from the neighborhood Radio Shack. (Dragonfly Software actually ships
a piece of tape with the fan).
The price is about $30, which seems quite reasonable.
Their address:
Dragonfly Software
Mac Fan Division
729 Westview Avenue
Philadelphia, PA 19119
As usual, I am not affiliated with Dragonfly Software, etc.
(N.B. This is only useful if you have a Torx wrench, and are willing
to mount this yourself. If anyone needs more detailed mounting
instructions, I'll be glad to give them - Dragonfly does not provide
you with any Mac mounting instructions.)
Velu Sinha velu@maryland.ARPA ...!seismo!umcp-cs!velu (UUCP)
University of Maryland College Park
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 20 Jun 85 00:55:24 pdt
From: huxham%ucbcory@Berkeley (Frederick A. Huxham)
Subject: Overheating problems
Before I got a hyperdrive, my Mac would sometimes do very strange
things after a few hours of continuous compiling (which caused a big
rise in temperature).
After I got the hyperdrive and noticed my Mac running event hotter I
started to worry. Then, when the fan decided to rattle loose and make
annoying buzzing noises about once a month, I decided it was time.
I now run my Mac with no cover on it. Needless to say, it gets great
air circulation, runs very cool, and the fan never rattles loose
(since its not there).
I don't know how safe this is, but when I was at Andy Hertzfeld's
house a few months ago I noticed that he ran his Mac with no cover.
(Thats where I got the idea in the first place)
Since he ran his Mac that way, I figured it must be relatively
safe...either that or he gets quick repairs from Burrell Smith, his
next door neighbor.
I've run my Mac this way now for about 5 or 6 weeks with no trouble,
and its cheaper than a fan.
Fred A. Huxham huxham@BERKELEY
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 21 Jun 85 17:13:21 edt
From: REISOR <ron%udel-cc-vax3.delaware@udel-louie.ARPA>
Subject: Synertek 6522/RTC chip ?
I was wondering just what the Synertek 6522 in my Mac could do so I
called Synertek to see if I could get data/spec sheets. They seem to
be out of business! Would someone in the know tell me how to
data/spec sheets for the 6522.
I was also wondering about the 'RTC' real time clock chip - where
could I find out more about it too.
Thanks,
Ron Reisor
------------------------------
Date: Thu 20 Jun 85 12:31:51-MDT
From: Tony Jacobs <T-JACOBS@UTAH-20.ARPA>
Subject: Neon Special Price
For those who may be interested, the special price of $150 for Neon
only lasts until the 30th of June! AND if you're serious I can save
you up to $15 extra. After the 30th the price will be $300.
Contact me if you have any other questions about NEON. ---Tony
Jacobs---
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End of INFO-MAC Digest
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