info-mac@uw-beaver (03/29/85)
From: Moderator John Mark Agosta <INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
INFO-MAC Digest Friday, 29 Mar 1985 Volume 2 : Issue 23
Today's Topics:
Apple University Consortium reflections
Corrected Version of unix-xbin.shar
Re: How to handle super-compressed '.hqx' files in [sumex]<info-mac>
Hebrew Word Processor
132 column output and VersaTerm
Finder Comment resources
Additions to the demo-banana documentation
Mac benchmarks
Inside LaserWriter question
Macintosh for the blind?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu 28 Mar 85 16:45:46-PST
From: John Mark Agosta <INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Subject: Apple University Consortium reflections
Reader:
I hope others who were here will share what they saw and found. I just
want to mention a few information type items.
A suggestion came up that BITNET be used by the Consortium
universities for a bulletin board more aimed towards their activity
and organization concerns. Also it is likely that a directory file
server for Macintosh software is in the works on BITNET. I am all in
favor of this.
A comprehensive review of Consortium activities is compiled by Peter
Olivieri at Boston College. It's called "Wheels for the Mind" He has
already published a Jan 85 and Mar 85 issue. I got my copy from Lynn
Takahashi at Apple.
Apple's marginal e-mail system will be replaced by an electronic info
service (mail, database but no bboard?) run by Direct Support Programs
at Apple. This is a specialized, limited subscription service aimed
mainly at sales support, not developers. Delphi will, I hope cater to
the later.
There's talk of a reviewed journal, inspired, but not limited to the
Macintosh. One (ambitious) suggestion was to emulate a "Scientific
American" model.
Finally I got a commitment that some of the Tech Support folks at
Apple will look at info-mac, and respond judiciously to questions that
arise. Actually this has been going on most of the time in a very low
key way.
-jma
------------------------------
Date: 26 Mar 85 (Tue) 17:13:10 EST
From: Dave Johnson <ddj%brown.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa>
Subject: Corrected Version of unix-xbin.shar
Yet another version of "unix-xbin.shar" has been posted to <info-mac>
and to net.sources.mac.
The first one had an embarrassing number of problems, including
misspelling the USG routine strrchr (without the trailing 'r'),
forgetting to close files, and not resetting eof when trying to read
the second .hqx file in a row. My apologies for any inconvenience,
especially to anyone who might have run into these bugs.
As usual, please continue to report any problems, suggestions, or
improvements to me.
Dave Johnson
Brown University Computer Science
ddj%brown@csnet-relay.ARPA
{ihnp4,decvax,allegra,ulysses,linus}!brunix!ddj
[ unix-xbin.shar is replaced on info-mac -jma ]
P.S. If you're trying to download the banana system, you must
download the DeskTop .hqx file and binhex it on a fresh disk with
standard System and Finder as instructed in Info-Mac V2 #21; then
after booting another disk and removing the standard System and
Finder, the other three files can be run through xbin and downloaded
via MacTerminal. If you download the binary DeskTop, MacTerminal will
call it "DeskTop (Via MacTerminal)" rather than replacing the existing
DeskTop, which doesn't work with the new System and Finder.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 85 21:52:30 pst
From: chavez%ucbcory@Berkeley (Thomas M. Chavez)
Subject: Re: How to handle super-compressed '.hqx' files in
Subject: [sumex]<info-mac>
[ Alot of folks have asked for this downloading help. I guess
binhex.hex
is version 4 and the binhex2 on sumex is the outdated version? -jma ]
Mike-
Download the .hqx files using the -u option of macput. Then convert
them on your mac using binhex4.0. If you don't have any of the binhex
programs, you can download them from sumex. First in ftp get into the
8-bit transfer mode by typing 'tenex'. Get the file binhex.rsrc onto
your unix machine. Get it onto your mac by using the -r option of
macput. This is for resource forms of programs. You will now have an
executable form of binhex on your mac, but it is not the infamous
version 4.0. To get it, use ASCII transfer of ftp to get binhex.hcx
onto your unix machine. Then use macput -u to get it onto your mac.
Then use the executable binhex on the file which will make a usable
form of binhex 4.0 for you. Now you can convert all of the files with
the .hqx suffix to executable stuff (or documents or whatever they
are).
If this is not clear, or I can offer any other help, write back.
Tom Chavez chavez@BERKELEY
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 85 16:14:37 EST
From: mazur@harvard.ARPA (Eric Mazur)
Subject: Hebrew Word Processor
I recently received some information on a Hebrew (right-to-left) word
processor for the Mac from
Bernard Marks and Associates
Software Distributors
Rehov Ha'avoda 24
Tel Aviv 63821
ISRAEL
tel: (03) 285105, telex: 341667
The price seems pretty steep to me: $199. The letter stated that "a
press release and a sample of work done with the program" were
enclosed. But the envelope only contained the letter I just quoted. A
friend of mine received exactly the same letter, again no enclosures!
So I cannot give any other information, but since there were requests
for a Hebrew processor a while ago, I thought I'd circulate this
information.
Eric Mazur Harvard University
ARPA-NET: mazur@harvard.arpa BITNET: MAZUR@HARVUNXH.BITNET UUCP:
{seismo,harpo,ihnp4,linus,allegra,ut-sally}!harvard!mazur
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 85 16:11 EST
From: Karney%PPL@LLL-MFE.ARPA
Subject: 132 column output and VersaTerm
VersaTerm version 1.4 doesn't support 132 column output (a la
MacTerminal). But it DOES allow you to print 138 columns with Print
Stream. This you can't do with MacTerminal as far as I'm aware. I
find scrolling method of viewing 132 column output used by MacTerminal
to be somewhat awkward and so prefer just to read the hardcopy
provided by VersaTerm.
Charles Karney
------------------------------
Subject: Finder Comment resources
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 85 13:16:36 EST
From: Kent_Flowers%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
I'm writing a catalogger application that uses the finder comment
(FCMT) resources for files and prints the comments with each file in
the directory. Also, I want to have the program be able to edit and
create new finder comments. However, after many tests and hours of
hair pulling, I cannot figure out the algorithm for converting a
file's name into it's corresponding 16 value used on the associated
FCMT resource ID. So far, it appears to be some sort of XOR and ASR
for each byte, but not always. Different algorithms are used
depending upon the number of bytes in the name, whether the ASCII
value is odd or even, etc. In working with this, I found a strange
phenomenon--name a file as ")" without quotes. Open its info window
and give it a very unique comment. Close the info window. Now, name
another file as "00" (that's zero-zero). Open its info window.
Notice anything strange? The files share the same comment! Now,
close that info window, and rename "00" to "XX". Then, open up both
info windows. The "00" file stole the comment permanently from the
")" file! I'm surprised no one has noticed this before. It doesn't
just happen with ")" and "00", "," and "22" works, as does "/" and
"44"... The algorithm is sophisticated enough that with normal length
English file names, there is enough uniqueness to avoid most comment
overlappings.
Anyway, please send me any information on the method used for
determining FCMT resource ID's if any of you have figured it out, or
who at Apple I should talk to.
Kent_Flowers%UMich-MTS@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 26 Mar 85 21:34:16 pst
From: chavez%ucbcory@Berkeley (Thomas M. Chavez)
Subject: Additions to the demo-banana documentation
John--
Could you add the following stuff to the net and call it
<info-mac>demo-banana-documents.txt so that newer people can download
the system and have instructions?
Thanks Tom
[ Done -jma ]
------------------------------
From: <bang!crash!bwebster@Nosc>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 85 16:47:18 PST
Subject: Mac benchmarks
The following times are for the [in]famous Sieve of Erastothenes
benchmark. I tried to make the base versions as similar as I could;
then, where possible, I did some "optimization" for each specific
language. The C, FORTH, Modula-2, and MacAdvantage (UCSD Pascal)
versions also contained their own timing code; this didn't affect the
timings (except, perhaps, to make them more accurate), but it did have
an impact on compile and link times, i.e., those times reflect the
additional overhead of being able to call the toolbox routine
TickCount. The MacASM (68000 assembly language) version has a call to
SysBeep for timing purposes (I didn't feel like adding all the
additional code needed to have it write out TickCount values). My
copy of MacPascal is a BETA copy sent to me months ago by Think
Technologies (via Apple); I don't know if the release version is
significantly faster (or slower).
As always, a single benchmark doesn't prove a whole lot, but it does
give you some feeling for the relative speeds of these different
languages.
..bruce..
Bruce Webster/BYTE Magazine
bang!crash!bwebster@nosc
{ihnp4|sdcsvax!bang}!crash!bwebster
Language........ Compilation Linking Execution Normalized
+--------------------------- ------- --------- ----------
MacASM...............1.1........--.......3.1.......1.1
longword fill.......1.1........--.......2.9.......1.0
Megamax C............3.2.......27.8......6.5.......2.2
register vars......3.1.......26.8......4.4.......1.5
MacFORTH (1.1).......1.3........--......25.3.......8.7
using FILL.........1.3........--......20.0.......6.9
MacModula-2.........46.4......22.8......84.8......29.2
range check off...44.6......22.5......71.6......24.7
MacAdvantage........22.6.......--......104.1......35.9
range check off...22.4.......--.......88.6......30.6
and FillChar......22.7.......--.......69.1......23.8
MacPascal (Beta).....--........--.......1235.......426
MS-BASIC (2.0).......--........--.......1294.......446
(Yes, those last two times are 1235 and 1294 seconds, respectively.
Kinda slow, huh?)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 27 Mar 85 21:25:04 EST
From: cadtroy!schoff@cadmus
Subject: Inside LaserWriter question
Does anyone know if on the AppleTalk the LaserWriter uses Apple's Data
Stream Protocol (DSP)? I assume so but I don't have the document to
determine that.
thanks,
marty schoff@cadmus.ARPA {wivax,bbncca,seismo}!ucadmus!schoff
------------------------------
From: <bang!crash!frankb@Nosc>
Date: Mon, 25 Mar 85 17:41:12 PST
Subject: Macintosh for the blind?
Some months ago I remember a message on Info-Mac concerning a word
processor for the blind. The author stated he and his colleagues were
designing a word processor which would use voice output to help the
blind writer. The scheme involved dividing the screen into boxes and
making a noise each time the mouse moved over a box boundary.
Has this been realized? Is the project still even going on?
Moreover, does anyone have any experience with blind people using
Macintoshes? I have read the section on the subject in Cary Lu's
book, but know of no one who has actually tried it out. I have a
blind friend who is intrigued by the Macintosh - but I can't recommend
it to him in good conscience unless I talk to others more experienced
in such matters - perhaps the Macintosh is even useless for the blind
- what with having to point at icons and such...
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has worked or is working
with the visually disabled and the Mac. I will summarize any personal
responses I receive. Thanks very much.
Frank Boosman
bang!crash!frankb@nosc {ihnp4,bang}!crash!frankb
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End of INFO-MAC Digest
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