[net.micro.mac] Delphi Digest Volume 1 Issue 10

shulman@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (Jeff Shulman) (12/02/85)

Delphi Digest          Monday, 2 Dec 1985      Volume 1 : Issue 10

Today's Topics:
     Administrativia - Arpanet & Apple Tech Notes
     RE: Drafting Software (Re: Msg 3360)
     Dental Package
     Comdex Report
     more on comdex
     Blown HD 20
     RE: Usenet Digest Volume 1 Issue 10 (Re: Msg 3569)
     Non-modal Dialog Problem
     RE: PageMaker (Re: Msg 3629)
     macpub II
     DECENT ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Jeffrey Shulman (MODERATOR)
Subject: Administrativia - Arpanet & Apple Tech Notes
Date: 2-DEC

These digests are soon to be available on the Arpanet.  In cooperation with
the INFO-MAC moderator, Richard Alderson, they will also be placed in the
INFO-MAC archives.  The Usenet Digests I make up will also be available by
request to the Arpa community.

Thanks to Apple and Delphi I have all the currently published Tech Notes
online.  

Usenet people:
Since they amount to 280K I would rather not send them to NSM and
get us in further hot water.  What I propose is this:  send me a note if
you want them and a list of all hosts *your* site would be willing to send
them to.  After I receive all messages I will compile a distribution list
inform those people who sent in their requests.

Arpa people:
The Tech Notes will either be available directly from me or will be placed
in the INFO-MAC archives.  Stay tuned for details.


							Jeff

uucp:   ...{harvard, seismo, ut-sally, sri-iu, ihnp4!packard}!topaz!shulman
arpa:   SHULMAN@RUTGERS
Delphi: JEFFS

------------------------------

From: MACMAG (3450)
Subject: RE: Drafting Software (Re: Msg 3360)
Date: 18-NOV 23:24 Business Mac
 
You're a bit hard on MacDraft. As always, in a part/counter-part here is the
other side
 
1- MacDraft works only on a 512K mac: Yes, most people now have 512K (or more)
and by doing so, it's much faster to move the page, more objects in Draft.
 
2- You can't resize bitmaps: Usually, when you want to resize a bitmap
image, you want to keep it in proportion. In Draw, this is very
difficult to do. In draft, you simply paste the bitmap on another
window which has a different sizing system. The n you copy it back to
your original drawing. By doing so, you can sesize bitmaps, and
they'll always be in proportion.
 
3- Draft has no "reduce to fit": In fact it has better than that, it has many
different zoom modes that not only zoom in (as enlarge) but also zoom out (as
reduce to fit).
 
4- Draft is copy protected: No argument there. You're totally right, this makes
the software package clumbersome to use.
 
5- Can you get me Finder 5.0?
 
haha...
 
from Rich to Rick

------------------------------

From: CARLEPSTEIN (3530)
Subject: Dental Package
Date: 22-NOV 07:53 Business Mac
 
I have been asked by a friend who is a Dentist, if there is a good Dental
Package running on the Mac.  I would appreciate any feedback you were able to
give me on this....  Thanks

------------------------------

From: MACINTOUCH (3533)
Subject: Comdex Report
Date: 22-NOV 12:48 SIG Business
 
Well, three days at Comdex and the feet are ready to fall off.
 
some highlights:

a company called Spectrafax is showing a 200-300 dpi digitizing unit
for the Mac and PC for $3995.  The nice thing about it is that it
offers plug-in cards so that the unit can perform OCR and Fax tasks.
currently, the Mac version only digitizes into MacPaint, but will have
the OCR, Fax and digitizing into a Draw document by the middle of next
year.
 
Adobe has announced over 30 fonts for the LaserWriter, mostly ITC typefaces
(Zapf, Palatino, Garamond among them).  They will be offered starting in Jain
packets of 4 faces for $185, which is thousands less than fonts cost for
typesetting systems.  The packages will consist of two elements, Font/DA Mover
files for] the screen fonts, and an installer program that will download the
fonts to the LaserWriter.  The fonts will stay in memory until the LaserWriter
is turned off again.
 
CAD/CAM is big for the Mac -Two high-end packages, MicroCAD/Micro/CAM
andEZ-Draft, are priced in the $2000 range for the full products, but look real
powerful.  EZ-Draft looks like the better product, but we won't know until they
are released.  Easy3D, marketed by Ashton-Tate, looks like a fantastic 3D
modeling/drafting package, for $149.  Its screen and object-handling look
superb, but the drawing elements look like they still nedd a bit of work.
 
Laser printers are big too -- the QMS and Dataproducts PostScript printers are
expensive, but offer a bit more functionality than the LW.
 
A complete video disc recording system is being unveiled for courseware
applications.  The video editor is damn slick, with a lot of nice little Mac-
type utilities and functions. The whole system is expensive - over $30000 - but
most of that is due to the $27000 price of the VDisc Recorder.  The company is
called Edudisc, and you will be hearing more about them.
 
SuperCrunch doesn't look as hot as its press release indicated - its interface,
while powerful, is a bit clunky, and they haven't optimized the program as much
as they claim.  too bad.
 
Nexpert is hot, very hot.If you truly need some expert systems modeling
capability, this is the package for you.  We will be looking at this one too...
 
Parties, parties, parties.   Infocom was dull, boring.  John Dvorak's roving
party was awesome.  Where else could you see Philippe Kahn, Bill Gates and
Hunter S. Thompson having a meaningful (??) discussion?  Esther Dyson won the
Esther Dyson lookalike contest at that one.  Kahn bought 200 bottles of
champagne for the crowd.  We are still a bit hungover from that one.......
 
Thats it for now.  We'll be back with more.  Excuse the typing, the phone lines
(and your humble reporter's mind) are very noisy.
 
Rick Le Page
MacInTouch

------------------------------

From: RICKLEPAGE (3672)
Subject: more on comdex
Date: 28-NOV 00:20 Mousing Around
 
well, back and un lagged.  here is a bit more on what we saw at comdex.
 
business filevision shipped the week before last.  it looked pretty finished.
telos sent out the first copies to all who paid up front back in august and
september.  press and dealers come later.  ahh well.....
 
tempo is also nearing completion.  it works with HFS now, should be out soon.
 
another 3D package joined the ranks.  Mac3D is a traditional
wire-frame based program.  it didn't look too hot for the price ($79),
but had a nice feature we would like to see elsewhere - a
spreadsheet-type grid for entering points in free space (x, y, and z
axes).  this allows more exact positioning of a drawing.  do your
equations in excel, tk solver, whatever, and plug em in there.
 
the 3Com network looks pretty slick.  they even have a LaserWriter spooler.
god, what i would give for their tape backup unit.....
 
more later.
 
rick le page
MacInTouch

------------------------------

From: BKV (3541)
Subject: Blown HD 20
Date: 22-NOV 21:07 Hardware & Peripherals
 
        I recently had a bad experience with the Apple H.D. 20 drive. As
most know, there are some programs that don't work under the new System
and Finder and Aztec C by manx is one of them. I called Manx a few days
ago about thgis and was told to use the InstallConsole application on one
of the 3 disks and install the comsole drivers in the new System. I did this
and shortly thereafter the drive shgut down - froze up the Mac completely.
        I returned the drive to my dealer and showed him the problem.
At this moment I'd like to extend my deepest appreciation to Lew
Cutler, the manager of The Computer Store in Brockton, MA for his
unflagging attention to my problem.  He spent hours on the phone with
Apple in No. Carolina and Calif. with the result that Apple air
expressed a complete set of the internal workings of the HD 20 to him
for my replacement. I had me drive back in 2 days. My thnks also to
Apple for addressing this dilemma so promptly.
 
        HD 20 owners beware - not only will some programs not work, they will
actually corrupt the system and finder so badly that the drive is unuseable!
 
                        Brad

------------------------------

From: PEABO (3575)
Subject: RE: Usenet Digest Volume 1 Issue 10 (Re: Msg 3569)
Date: 23-NOV 22:31 Mousing Around
 
Concerning Kanji word processing:
 
There is an excellent article on universal WP programs by some folks
at Xerox PARC ... it appeared a year or so ago in Scientific American.
After mentioning the obvious problems of Semitic character sets, it
goes into more detail about ligatures that put the English ffi and ffl
to shame.  Then it speaks of problems with Thai, in which the "vowel"
sounds are written on either side and below certain consonants, and
the special problems of quoting a left-to-right text fragment inside a
right-to-left language.
 
Then the interesting stuff begins:  katakana, hiragana, romaji, and kanji!
 
Romaji is particularly interesting, because it is a Roman transliteration of
Kanji, which allows an English language keyword to be used to enter Kanji text.
As mentioned in the Usenet post, the form of Kanji is ambiguous out of context,
so a grammar is used to parse the input on the fly and resolve ambiguities.
 
---
 
Concerning MacProject file format:  Tech Note 14 describes MacProject, but it
has not been released by Apple yet.
 
peter

------------------------------

From: BRECHER (3579)
Subject: Non-modal Dialog Problem
Date: 23-NOV 23:28 Programming
 
To: Al Gettier
Teknekron Infoswitch
ihnp4!infoswx!al
convex!infosxw!al
 
The second argument to DialogSelect, theDialog, is, in Pascal, a VAR parameter.
In C, this means you should pass the address of a variable into which
DialogSelect will place a pointer to a dialog record (if the event involves an
enabled item).
 
Your current code passes the address of a dialog record, which is is
causing the first four bytes of that dialog record to be clobbered.
 
------------------------------

From: MACMAG (3643)
Subject: RE: PageMaker (Re: Msg 3629)
Date: 25-NOV 22:20 Business Mac
 
Got MacPublisher ][ some weeks ago. It has many new features that will make
PageMaker run for it's money...
 
- Automatic/Manual Kerning: This advanced feature lets you justify
text not only by adding spaces between words, but also between each
letter to give the text a more natural look.
 
( for example, the letters AVAWA can be moved closer to one another etc... )
 
- New Zoom moded (2X to 9X) (moded = modes)
 
- 99 patters that can be color coded and then printed with the new ImageWriter
][ color printer.
 
They also plan to introduce a desk accessory that will automatically
hyphen your text files for you.
 
RICH.

------------------------------

From: RICKLEPAGE (3671)
Subject: macpub II
Date: 28-NOV 00:13 Business Mac
 
ptr,
macpublisher II is indeed still in beta test.  and it still is very buggy.  it
does have a few nice options, like truer justification than can be found in the
other mac programs (Word, PM, RSG, etc.) at present.  one nice option is the
ability to include kerning tables for better letterspacing.
it does look a lot better than its earlier version, though they still have a
ways to go to clean it up -- or maybe that is the rule of thumb on these damn
page makeup programs (let them be beta testers)
 
we are waiting anxiously for justtext.  the final version should be
ready very soon.  it could be the one that many of us old line
paginators have been waiting for......
 
rick

------------------------------

From: SYNTHONY (3674)
Subject: DECENT ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE
Date: 28-NOV 02:12 Business Mac
 
HELP!!!
I have been searching for a decent business accounting pak for the Mac.  I have
tried Back to Basics, seen demos of Maconewrite, and even purchased all RAGS TO
RICHES modules.  I NEED A DOUBLE ENTRY SYSTEM THAT IS BOTH FAST, EASY TO USE,
WILL DO A/P & A/R, with adjustable accounts, reports etc that is FAST!  Would
also be nice if I could invoice from the program, or better yet A POINT OF SALE
type pgm attachment!  I am currently using KG systems G/L for the IIe, and want
to retire it.  HELP ME PLEASE!!! (HI PEABO!).
 
BILL

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End of Delphi Digest
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