info-mac@uw-beaver (03/23/85)
From: Moderator John Mark Agosta <INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
INFO-MAC Digest Friday, 22 Mar 1985 Volume 2 : Issue 19
Today's Topics:
More on MacTerminal Keys
MacPlot from MicroSpot (UK)
Switcher 1.5
3.0x Finder comments
MS Chart & Imagewriter 15
MacWrite on Microsoft Word cover
More GEM
experlogo ?
B-tree routines ?
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 21 March 85 11:12 EST
From: RGG%CORNELLC.BITNET@Berkeley
Subject: More on MacTerminal Keys
I had a small inaccuracy in my recent rave on the subject of
MacTerminal keyboard mapping. At the end where I said that the action
codes (those values higher than 127 in KCKH) are mapped through STTB,
I was wrong. STTB is a state table for incoming character
interpretation. What really happens with the action codes is as
follows:
The action code is actually mapped through the resource KMRC.
KMRC contains two integers at the beginning, which are the lowest and
highest action codes that it will map. The low value is subtracted
from the action code and the result is used to index the two-byte
entries that comprise the remainder of KMRC. Each of these two byte
entries contains a one byte action and a one byte argument. The
actions for the VT100 (ANS mode) action table (KMRC-256) are:
0 -- No op
1 -- Send "ESC O arg" or "ESC [ arg" (depending on a flag I
don't understand)
2 -- Send "ESC O arg"
3 -- Send "ESC O arg" or arg - 64 (if in applic mode for the
keypad)
4 -- ???
5 -- ???
6 -- Send a break. The arg determines the length of the break
7 -- ??? something to do with XON XOFF Obviously I don't
understand this part too well. I hope this is of use to some
body...... Tom Dimock (RGG@CORNELLC)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 85 19:26:18 pst
From: Harry Saal <hjs@Lindy>
Subject: MacPlot from MicroSpot (UK)
We have just acquired a copy of MacPlot from England, and spent some
time using it. We connected it to an HP7550A, which although not one
of the "supported" plotters, operates well, as a superset of the HP
7475, which is supported.
Using MacPlot is a bit inconvenient, as it takes its "input" from the
ClipBoard. Hence doing a number of plots involved a bit of advanced
planning, putting images into the scrapbook, transferring it, and then
moving them to the Clipboard, and finally to the plotter. While you
can see the whole Clipboard (scrolling around using scroll bars!) you
can't select subsections for plotting. This was mighty inconvenient in
practice.
Images were transferred from MacDraw and MS Chart, and worked
reasonably. The documentation is sufficient, although the description
of the "official Apple Imagewriter cable" pinouts was wrong and led us
off on a wild goose chase for a while.
The program scans the clipboard images, selects all the distinct line
styles, areas, and fill patterns, and permits you to map them onto pen
numbers, and a wide choice of fill and crosshatch patterns. Hence olne
easily gets color pie charts, etc. producdc.
Negatives: circles from MS Chart were not plotted as circles; they are
noticeably elliptical to the eye (5% off round). The crosshatching
spilled out over the edges of the pie wedges, and the wedges didnot
meet neatly in the center of the pie. It looks like a problem in the
scaling and math handling by MacPlot; plots made by SuperCalc3 on the
same plotter are exquisite. (MicroSpot has been notified about the
problems).
Bottomline: Not quite ready for Prime Time. OK for the MacGarage, but
not acceptable for the MacBoardRoom until cleaned up.
------------------------------
Date: 21 Mar 85 11:22:00 PST
From: CALVIN TEAGUE <cal@su-star>
Subject: Switcher 1.5
Reply-to: CALVIN TEAGUE <cal@su-star>
I have been using Switcher 1.5 for several days, primarily with
MacTerminal (or VersaTerm) and Edit. This makes a very nice package
for local editing on a larger host system, and overall I am very
pleased with Switcher. However, it has one easily-corrected problem
which could be very frustrating for users of remote systems. The
three special characters intercepted by Switcher (command-[,
command-], and command-\) can never be passed to the application
programs, in particular, to the terminal emulator. Command-[ is <ESC>
and can be generated by another key, so that isn't a problem.
However, I don't know of any way to generate the <FS> and <RS> codes
other than by command-\ and command-], and for many versions of Unix,
control-] is the escape character for telnet.
I see three possible solutions:
1. Condition the special characters to Switcher by another key.
Perhaps command-shift-] could be used instead of command-]. The codes
could be displayed in the menu as command-{, command-}, and command-|.
The unshifted codes could be passed to the terminal emulator as usual.
2. Provide a menu command to disable processing of the special
characters when the user so requests. The Switcher could still be
accessed through the menus, and the applications have access to all
character codes. When the user no longer needs to use those
characters in the application, they could be re-enabled for Switcher.
3. Don't process any special characters in Switcher, and depend
completely on the mouse and menu to access the Switcher. This really
isn't too bad, especially since a swith can be made very quickly by
clicking in the <--> symbol in the menu bar.
In any terminal or terminal emulator program, there really shouldn't
be ANY character (at least in the 0x00-0x7F range) which can't be
transmitted through the terminal. This includes Xon and Xoff. All of
the Macintosh terminal programs I have seen have been very good in
this respect, in contrast to several "smart" terminals of other
manufacture. I hope this can be preserved through the Switcher,
especially since the combination of Switcher-Terminal-Edit looks like
it will be very useful.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 22 Mar 85 00:57:37 pst
From: Harry Saal <hjs@Lindy>
Subject: 3.0x Finder comments
Comments on problems with Finder 3.0X (length 43891 bytes):
Whenever I open up a folder, I find that the carefully arranged items
I have put in there have been shifted over to the left edge. In
particular, when you use LONG file names, as I do, you find that the
leading several characters have been chopped off. The Finder should
not try and be so "helpful".
I have a 128K machine. Almost always (but not ALWAYS) when I eject a
disk (using cmd-E) it requests the disk back be inserted. This makes
it rather tricky (!!!) to copy a file between two disks on a
one-drive, 128K machine!
Otherwise no surprises in one hour of use.....
------------------------------
Date: 17 Mar 1985 12:00-EST
From: Duane.Williams@CMU-CS-K
Subject: MS Chart & Imagewriter 15
Microsoft Chart doesn't print well in High Quality mode using
Imagewriter 15. Not only is it very slow compared to printing with
the old Imagewriter, but it also doesn't always work correctly. I
have a chart with the following text below a chart. It is formatted
as shown when printed with the old Imagewriter, or with Imagewriter 15
in Standard mode.
Data from Consumer Reports, March, 1985.
Based on rates effective January 1, 1985.
When printed in High Quality mode using Imagewriter 15 this becomes:
Data from Consumer Reports, M
effective January 1,
Duane Williams (dtw@cmu-cs-k)
------------------------------
Date: 22 Mar 85 10:58:52 PST (Friday)
From: Mackey.PA@XEROX.ARPA
Subject: MacWrite on Microsoft Word cover
Anyone else notice that it's MacWrite, and not Microsoft Word, that's
running on the Mac shown on the cover of the box and the manual for
Microsoft Word? Why is this? Did they not even have a prototype ready
when they needed a cover photo?
~Kevin
[ P.S. Have you noticed also, in the manual you received with
Macintosh, a picture of a student with his gaze fixed on the
screen of a machine whose switch is off?
Thanks to Elgin for this one. -jma ]
------------------------------
Date: Sat 16 Mar 85 17:23:37-PST
From: Gustavo Fernandez <FERNANDEZ@SU-SCORE.ARPA>
Subject: More GEM
RE: GEM continued
Unfortunately, I was not able to judge GEM's performance as most of
what I saw were desktop screens. also, judging an XT vs a mac is not a
fair comparison. Compare a PC and a mac, or an XT and a Hyperdrive
Mac/
While it is true that Apple took much work from Xerox, such as the
basic window/icon/mouse strategy as well as the basic method of text
editing, Apple had many innovations of their own. Pull-down menus have
the advantage over Xerox's pop-up menus in that all menus are visible
at all times. There is no guess-work as to where a new menu might be
available. Also, Apple re-defined the general style of interaction.
It is much better to compare Apple's implementation of a windowing
system after Xerox with that of VisiOn, Microsoft Windows, DeskQ,
Apollo, Suntools, V, Spice, or others, than with GEM. The former
systems started with a basic windowing philosophy and branched out
from there. They can thus be considered "Second generation systems."
GEM started with a second generation system and added few innovation
of its own other than making it runnable on existing machines. The
figure below illustrates my point.
Xerox
(Alto, Star, Dolphin, Dorado, Dandelion, Dragon)
|
+----+--------+---------+---------+-------+------+----------+------+-----+
! | | | | | | | | |
!Microsoft Visicorp Quarterdeck Apple Apollo Sun Stanford CMU Symbolic
!(windows) (VisiOn) (DeskQ) (Lisa) (AEgis) (Suntools) (V) (Spice) (Lisp)
! (Mac)
+----+--------+---------+
| | |
IBM HP (DEC) |
(TopView) (new PC) (VAXstation) |
(pc 3270) |
|
Digital Research
(GEM)
------------------------------
Date: 20 Mar 85 1434 PST
From: Fred Lakin <FRD@SU-AI.ARPA>
Subject: experlogo
Anyone have experience with ExperLogo? We are using it as fast
prototyping tool for a large interface project, and it works well
enough to make us almost want to live with its serious flaws ...
We are using it under MacWorks on a Lisa. Is there a way to access
serial i/o? The predicate serialp would be very handy..
How about linking to subrs from other langs?
We would like to hear from anyone using ExperLogo and willing to
chat/type for a few minutes ...
Gayle Curtis, 493-5000 x4482 Fred Lakin, frd@sail
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 85 11:35:02 EST
From: greenes@harvard.ARPA (Robert Greenes)
Subject: B-tree routines
Does anyone know of a package of B-tree file handling routines that
can be used with a Pascal development environment for the Mac?
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End of INFO-MAC Digest
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