jdb@mordor.UUCP (John Bruner) (04/25/85)
I haven't seen a description of the new *Inside Macintosh* in this newsgroup yet. Two days ago I received my copy. Although I don't regret purchasing it, I was a little disappointed. Officially this is the "promotional issue", although the term "phone book edition" is very descriptive. The paper and binding are approximately the same quality as a typical telephone book. It is essentially a bound version of the loose-leaf edition. There is no global page-numbering scheme (each "chapter" is numbered independently). (They didn't even use page numbers of the form "1-1", which would make it a lot easier to look things up.) The chapters are printed just like in the old *IM* (not typeset), although the dates on them are more recent. There are a couple of new sections, including one on the Appletalk protocol (as seen by software). The various chapters have been updated, but they still aren't complete. (There are still instances of "*** this hasn't been written yet ***". For example, the OS Event Manager manual is supposed to describe how to set up an alternate keyboard map [I want to redefine CAPS-LOCK as CTRL] but they haven't written that section yet.) The cover states that Apple will be coming out with a "final" edition of *IM* later this year. This "final" edition will be higher quality and will be available for sale in bookstores. If you don't have a copy of *Inside Macintosh* yet and you want one now, or if you want a more up-to-date version than the loose-leaf one, then you'll probably want to buy this. However, if you're not in a rush you may want to think seriously about bypassing this promotional edition and waiting until the higher-quality (and more complete) one comes out. -- John Bruner (S-1 Project, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) MILNET: jdb@mordor.ARPA [jdb@s1-c] (415) 422-0758 UUCP: ...!ucbvax!dual!mordor!jdb ...!decvax!decwrl!mordor!jdb