info-mac@uw-beaver (02/20/85)
From: John Mark Agosta <INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA>
Date: 19 Feb 85 1642-PST
Reply-to: INFO-MAC@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA
Subject: INFO-MAC@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Digest V2 #4
INFO-MAC@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Digest Tuesday, 19 Feb 1985
Today's Topics:
Apple Developer Support Plans
Re: XLISP 1.4 Source Available
MassTech 512K upgrade
Macintosh 512k Upgrades
Screen height and brightness
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Date: Tue, 19 Feb 85 16:32:16 pst
From: John Mark Agosta <info-mac-request@sumex-aim.arpa>
Dan Cochran, Apple's Development Tools Product Manager, spoke last
Wednesday night at Stanford, detailing much of Apple's strategy that
affects Developers.
He made several new announcements ( at least as far as what I knew )
and told us what we might expect concerning development products,
support, licensing and the future in general.
Products: Lisa Pascal 3.0 shipments are backlogged, and this demand
should be filled in 3 to 6 weeks.
The long awaited Macintosh Development System "MDS 128", originally
developed by Bill Duvall is now being shipped for duplication. This is
an editor (released separately thru the software supplement as the
"AppleEditor"), assembler, linker and debugger(s), that fills two
disks.
The second to last software supplement has been assembled. It is
fourteen disks. One more will be distributed before the spring. By
that time Apple will finish "Inside Mac", which they will print in a
"perfect binding" an sell in the $25 range (please don't quote me.)
Apple will make this available to all third party vendors of
development products for cost, so you can expect to see it included
with various compilers, etc. Addison Wesley has the publishing
contract on the final version, which will be 3 vols.
Support: The three items which they have provided with support -
Inside Mac, "Inside AppleTalk" and the software suplement will be
frozen in final form in the spring. In their place Apple will use an
electronic information service provided by "Delphi" for distribution
of software and documentation to developers. They will use this
something like Compuserve, e.g. Inside Mac, etc will be posted, and
there will be a bulletin board slated to be run by Dennis Brothers.
Subscriptions will be open to anyone, for $30 and about 3-4$/hour for
connect time.
Basically the information available to certified developers will be
completely available to the rest of us.
Licensing: Apple will license the source code to Core Edit, Macsbug,
Macintalk, and Switcher (Andy Herzfeld's utility for running several
applications resident in ram at one time.) for a reasonable cost.
Macterminal sources will also be licensed but probably at a cost in
the several k$ range.
Future: We saw part of it in a demonstration of "Object Pascal", also
known as "MacApp". This is a compiler that incorporates much of the
code that is common among applications using the Mac User Interface.
In the spirit of SmallTalk, objects in the interface (e.g. windows,
etc.) have default procedures associated with them, so you don't have
to write code, unless you want to customize the interface. The
language is syntactically much more elegant than this two sentence
description implies, and I hope we can get a product description for
this to post soon.
In a separate effort, Apple is working on a MDS 512 system, expected
sometime in the 4th quarter. The link and object formats will change
from the Duvall MDS: this will be a totally new product. It is not yet
decided if they will try to bring some UNIX (tm) tool functionality
into it. Probably the Object Pascal compiler, and the Greenhill C
compiler will be re-written to be the compilers included in MDS 512.
The whole package will probably run in the several hundred dollar
range.
I think its great that alot of speculation about Apple's planned
support for developers is now laid to rest. I think the coming of
Delphi will help focus Info-Mac's role, and the stimulation that this
provides to devlopment should be good for the discussions on this
bboard.
Please don't take anything said here too literally. Remember there's a
disclaimer attached to it, since this is one sleep starved person
relating by memory what he recalls another sonambulent saying.
-jma
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 17 Feb 85 19:50:24 EST
From: winkler@harvard.ARPA (Dan Winkler)
Subject: Re: XLISP 1.4 Source Available
Oops.. you're right. The xlisp.shar file didn't have xlstub.c in it.
There's not much to xlstub.c and you only use it in place of xlobj.c
if you don't want objects. I had renamed xlstub.c to xlstub.c.NOTUSED
so I could cc -c *.c and so on without getting those functions defined
twice. I'll add xlstub.c to xlisp.shar now. In fact, it's so short
that I'll also include it here:
/* xlstub.c - stubs for replacing the 'xlobj' module */
#include "xlisp.h"
xloinit() {} NODE *xlsend() { return (NIL); } NODE *xlobsym() { return
(NIL); }
That's all there is to it. David, let's combine xlstub and xlobj and
use #ifdef OBJECTS around the object code.
Dan.
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 1985 01:56:25-EST
From: James.Fisher@cmu-ee-gauss
Subject: MassTech 512K upgrade
Has anyone allowed MassTech to upgrade their Macs to 512K? (Upgrade is
$400, or cheaper if you supply the memory chips.) My concerns:
- Is this considered (by Apple) as a violation of warranty?
- If so, will authorized repair centers still perform repairs?
- Quality/neatness of physical work.
- Did software designed to sense the presense of 512K of
memory function properly?
- Safety afforded by shipping containers.
- A better business bureau check on MassTech?
- Any other customer views. Note: neither the price nor the
description of the updating procedure appearing in Feb. MacWorld
(p.100) matches the printed instructions/ information received from
MassTech.
Thanks in advance. Jim Fisher jlf@cmu-ee-gauss
------------------------------
Date: 19 Feb 1985 17:21:41-EST
From: Saul.Kravitz@cmu-ee-faraday
Subject: Macintosh 512k Upgrades
I am considering upgrading my "slim Mac" to a "fat Mac". I am
unwilling to be a guinea pig for either the DDJ approach or the
commercial organization(s) that will perform the upgrade, or at least
parts of it. I would like to hear from people who have done
do-it-yourself upgrades or paid someone (other than Apple or its
authorized service centers) to upgrade their mac. Please send mail
directly to me (sak@cmu-ee-faraday), no need to burden the bboard with
this. I will post the results of this unscientific survey to the
bboard. I am most interested in how difficult it is to perform the
upgrade, how long it took, how much it cost, the reliability of your
machine after the upgrade, and any problems with service following the
upgrade. If you had your upgrade done commercially, please note the
turnaround time, warranty, and general user-friendliness of the
company. Thanx in advance for your replies.
Saul Kravitz sak@cmu-ee-faraday
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From: allegra!packard!topaz!RU-BLUE!BRAIL@uw-beaver.arpa
Date: 18 Feb 85 16:38:17 EST
Subject: Screen height and brightness
My Mac's screen is not as high as most other Macs. When placed
next to another Mac, it seems the screen on mine is smaller
vertically. Circles appear to be a little oval-shaped. What's wrong?
It's not a serious problem, but it bothers me. Is there a control I
can adjust inside the system unit?
Also, when I first got my Mac, I turned down the brightness
all the way for a little while to prevent etching. When I came back
and turned the control back up, nothing happened, but it worked fine
when I rebooted. What's up?
ARPA: BRAIL@RU-BLUE.ARPA
UUCP: ..ihnp4!ut-sally!topaz
!ru-blue!brail
..allegra
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End of INFO-MAC@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA Digest
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