info-mac@uw-beaver (04/28/85)
From: Moderator John Mark Agosta <INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
INFO-MAC Digest Sunday, 28 Apr 1985 Volume 2 : Issue 37
Today's Topics:
Re: req. for SWITCH (not Switcher)
Changing the boot drive
Easy Selection of entire Macwrite document
BITNET mail follows
SWITCHER 2.0 bugs/suggestions
EXCEL product announcement
postscript to impress
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 16 Apr 85 07:34:04 EST
From: singer@harvard.ARPA (Andrew Singer)
Subject: Re: req. for SWITCH (not Switcher)
I think I may be able to go one better than a SWITCH program. I
have a variant of the RamStart program, intended to be run as the
startup application on a boot disk. It will not only install the
RamDisk, but will also copy every file on the boot disk (except
itself) onto the RamDisk, eject the boot disk, and then launch the
Finder on the RamDisk.
You install it, as before, by moving the DRVR and INIT resources
from the RamStart resource file to the System resource file on the
boot disk. Then make the RamStart application the Start Up
Application with the Finder and reboot. Be sure that there's roughly
90K free on the boot disk; the RamDisk is somewhat smaller than a
physical disk, and the RamStart application will get a Disk Full error
if it tries to copy more than the RamDisk will hold.
The BinHex source for this application follows:
[ Find it in RAMSTART.HQX -jma ]
------------------------------
Date: 23 Apr 85 14:34:58 EST
From: John.Pane@CMU-CS-IUS
Subject: Changing the boot drive
ChgBoot is a small application which will toggle the default boot
drive between the internal and external drives. In other words, after
running this application, your Macintosh will default to booting off
of the external drive. Running it again returns the default to the
internal drive. The application beeps if it is successful in making
the change. If it is silent, it was not successful.
John Pane pane@cmu-cs-ius.arpa
[ Find the binhex code in chgboot.hqx -jma]
(This file must be converted with BinHex 4.0)
:"d0SCd*[Eh3!39"36%e03d-!N!J#FQ$j!*!%!3#3!`)S!!!"+!#3!dS!!`"#!!%
*@J!$!'J!!4MU!!-!GJ!"'B3!!`#+!!%C[J!$!+3!!3%1H#NJ+L!SH#NT$50NC@C
TEQ8J4%P69#Ki-5ai-Laj-5aj-LNJ+(0aFR3S8e&5+(Jb,AJa+5Y689)SH6)YH6%
TN!-0$@eKD@iS+3el$3PMD'&b)'0S1`d*C'peBQaP)'ia)$dJ05i`1`d*C'peBQa
P)'ib)$dJ-6!Z-$X0#@4[G@*XC5"bCA0eE(3l$3N0#A*PFh9XG#!p)%4*8e3SEM%
XEM)XEM%XEM)T1`d*F(*TER4Q+#)PCPaZ)L`JFQ9cG@ad+6X0#A0MB@i!N!-J!*!
$-!#3"a!!N!-J!!!r2!!"UI!!!$mm!!+Tm!#3!rB!N!-"S$CCMbmm4%&836mm!!#
TS#CI@Bm[#kQP+"mk22rk5-9%K5!&d)5M(LK)fF8Kc!+f)&-L6#!%S#i[#kQM6Ud
!+N(Y!#Si+2rq,`LTm9Q2,ca$6d4&2`5TS#"IS%QJ(8KXrrT)E2rq6VS!9P#2,bc
rqMmXrrj1ZJ!'A)p1G8j@rrJYI!!)!!$rq%kk!$BY32rm)'lrr!TS!"!!%LmZrrJ
[,[rm6VS!+P#2$%!!!'B!!!`r2!!$6VS!,P526Pj1G8je6PB!!#!m!!!"q%jH6R9
19J!!)(`!!!(i)$crN!5J1%jH6R919J!!2bi!#+R)6Pj1G3#3!`B!#!!"6R8!!!%
!N!-#+!!!!5J!N!0+!!"1(!"F!*!$(!"+!!"$6d4&!!)!#J!#rrm!!!%H!!$!HJ!
"rrm!N!-N!*!'rrm!N!MZZ!: 919J!!2bi!#+R)6Pj1G3#3!`B!#!!"6R8!!!%
!N!-#+!!!!5J!N!0+!!"1(!"F!*!$(!"+!!"$6d4&!!)!#J!#rrm!!!%H!!$!HJ! "rrm
------------------------------
Date: Wed 24 Apr 85 14:13:13-PST
From: BBISHOP%ECLD@ECLA
Subject: Easy Selection of entire Macwrite document
I noticed a complaint about the difficulty in selecting the entire
document in MacWrite. I had this problem too, but found that there is
an easy way to do this: First select part of the beginning of the
document (say, the first word) then scroll to the end of the document
(with the scroll bar), place the mouse past the last word in the
document, and shift-click. This will select everything between the
first selection and the current mouse position (needless to say, this
will work for any large selection within a document).
Toward more undocumented features,
Brian (BBISHOP)
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 85 10:04:44 PDT
From: <DAVEG%SLACVM.BITNET@Lindy>
Reply-to: DAVEG%SLACVM.BITNET@Forsythe
Subject: BITNET mail follows
Date: 18 April 85 10:03-PST From: DAVEG@SLACVM To: INFO-MAC@SUMEX-AIM
Subject: BITNET mail follows
Date: 18 April 1985, 10:03:36 PST From: David M. Gelphman 415-854-3300
x3186 DAVEG at SLACVM To: INFO-MAC at SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD Subject:
non-official upgrades and the new ROM
There have been rumors regarding the proposed ROM upgrade for the
Macintosh. Lots of people (including myself) are excited by the
possiblility of having more stuff in ROM which not only adds functions
to the MAC not existing (new file system) but also speeds up the
operation and efficiency of the Mac (system resources, etc.). The
disturbing possibility seems to exist that those of us who have taken
the initiative to upgrade our Macintoshes to 512k without spending
$1000 (now $700) to do so will be penalized.
I can't think of any way this benefits Apple to have this sort of
vindictive attitude. I have several reasons why this would be a
diaster for both APPLE and 'the rest of us': a) I think there are a
lot of people out there who have these 'gray market' upgrades. If
they are left out of a ROM upgrade, there will be lots of people who
are VERY mad at APPLE. From the number of companies offering cheap
upgrades, the business must be very good. I saw lots of people at the
MacWorld expo having their Macs upgraded. HyperDrive is doing a good
business. b) It seems quite unfair to ex-post-facto announce that
opening your own Mac up will disqualify you for any Apple endorsed
upgrade. Admittedly Apple does not have any obligation to provide any
services after the warrenty period, but if such services are offered,
it is unclear why so many should be left out. c) Once upon a time the
claim was made that Apple designed the Mac as a closed box so that all
the Macintoshes would be the same. When a major change such as the
rom upgrade occurs, it is in everyone's interest to make sure that the
change is made on all Macintoshes and this consistency is preserved.
I guess all of this comes down to a disappointment that Apple may
be succumbing to the attitude that 'either buy it from us (even if you
can get it far cheaper elsewhere), or be left out in the cold'. I
think that if there are more people who are upset about the
possibility of being left out in the cold, then we should make our
voices heard so that these mistakes are not made. David Gelphman
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 21 Apr 85 13:48:46 EST
From: Jon L. Spear <JSPEAR@MIT-MC>
Subject: SWITCHER 2.0 bugs/suggestions
Yet Another List of Switcher Bugs:
1) "Convert Clipboard" doesn't seem to work.
Using the Convert Clipboard option either from the Options...
menu or with the command-option-[ wouldn't work for me. I tried
clipping between two copies of MacWrite 2.2 and later between MacWrite
and Utah Edit. In both cases, Clipboard Conversion caused some disk
activity when switching applications, and would often cause one or the
other of the application clipboards to be erased, but certainly didn't
do anything useful. This seems like something that would have been
noticed ages ago. Could I be missing something?
2) "Configure Then Install..." has problems with less than 56K.
When I set "Preferred Memory Size" to 55K, it launches with
23K instead. Set it to anything less than 55K and you get n-22K
allocated. (It is probably unrelated, but 22K is the screen-save
memory size.) Set to 56K (or more) it launches with 56K (or more).
So, if you want 24..55K allocated to a program, you are out of luck.
3) Renaming "Switcher 2.0" to "Switcher/2.0" breaks the apple menu.
If you rename the Switcher executable file to some things
("Switcher/2.0" for example), it will disable use of the Apple menu
option to return to the swticher from an application as a pull down
selection. However, hitting command-\ or clicking on the middle of
the <-> still works. The problem seems to be related to Switcher
naming that menu option from the file name.
- These last two aren't exactly bugs, but are things that might
benefit from beign cleaned up.
4) "Load Set" bombs without first quitting all active applications.
The documentation says you SHOULD quit all applications in the
switcher before doing a "Load Set", but the program seems to let you,
so I tried it. It seemed to work at first, but then everything bombed
a few minutes later. Perhaps a safety check could be added?
5) The "Switcher Information" memory display is not always helpful.
It is very difficult to determine the minimum memory needed
for an application. MacWrite 2.2, for example, shows up in the
"Switcher Information" window with only about 2/3 of its 128K being
used, so you could reinstall it with 100K and still have room for a
small document, right? Wrong. After much trial and bombing
(command-shift-option-period does usually work!) I find that the
absolute minimum needed to launch MacWrite is 110K (which still leaves
room for about a page of text). If this is a common problem, perhaps
the fudge factor used in that display should be adjusted so that your
actual mileage doesn't differ as much as it does now.
Otherwise, it looks pretty good to me. Just don't try opening
applications from another disk (on a one-disk system), and dont try
running switcher with RamDisk installed.
-Jon Spear
------------------------------
Date: Sat 27 Apr 85 15:37:07-PST
From: michael tchao <TCHAO@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: EXCEL product announcement
Page 44 of May's Byte shows a short piece on EXCEL, the
"Secret" Microsoft "Multifunctional Software" that Dvorak talked about
in his SF Chronicle column last week. The product (which apparently
will be announced May 2 and shipped this summer) will be:
1) A huge (256X16,384 Spreadsheet w/Macros)
2) Built-in Microsoft Chart
3) Limited Database functions
A sort-of super 1-2-3 for the Mac. While the application does
not integrate the 5 functions that make up Jazz, it retails for
$395.00. Hmmmmm. Mac gets more interesting with each day.
michael
------------------------------
Date: Tue 23 Apr 85 11:58:43-PST
From: Mark Richer <RICHER@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: postscript to impress
I am very interested in the issue of translating postscript files to
impress files (so they can be printed on an Imagen 8/300). A Stanford
staff programmers may be able to do a subset of the translations, but
it is necessary to get POSTSCRIPT output. As someone pointed out this
would be a more general solution than single program translators
(e.g., macdraw to impress). However, I don't have the foggiest idea
of how to get POSTSCRIPT files on disk. Does someone know how we can
get Macwrite, Macpaint, MS Word, and MacDraw to generate postscript
files we can save on disk for our own purposes? My understanding is
that the print commands in programs that support the LASERWRITER will
use a special print driver to do the printing, but it doesn't appear
that the PS files can be saved to disk also. mark
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End of INFO-MAC Digest
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