INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA (Moderator William J. Berner) (02/25/86)
INFO-MAC Digest Tuesday, 25 Feb 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 17
Today's Topics:
Switcher 4.6
TeX for the Mac
RAMdisk drivers that can recover RAMdisk after RESET
MacBriefs Vol.1 #2 arrived
TIP: how to disable "Call Waiting" while online ...
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Date: Tue, 25 Feb 86 00:48:19 pst
From: barry@playfair (Barrett P. Eynon)
Subject: Switcher 4.6
Here's a fresh version.
Best,
Barry Eynon
[ARCHIVED AS [SUMEX]<INFO-MAC>UTILITY-SWITCHER-46.HQX
-BB]
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Date: Mon, 24 Feb 86 10:46:10 PST
From: Edward_Sternin%UBC.MAILNET%UMich-MTS.Mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: TeX for the Mac
In response to an earlier query:
There is a TeX for the Mac. Contact
Kellerman & Smith Phone: 503-222-4234
534 SW Third Ave
Portland, OR 97204
The price is $495. This includes some fonts, all on a single
400k disk. There drivers for Imagewriter, Laserwriter and
a screen previewer. Depending on cofiguration you have and the
complexity of the page it is supposed to work @ 20sec-1.5min per
page. They "may offer a separately packaged <TeX Hacker's> set of
disks with, for example, the AMS-TeX and LaTeX macro packages..."
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Date: Tue 25 Feb 86 06:40:52-CST
From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU>
Subject: RAMdisk drivers that can recover RAMdisk after RESET
I thought it might be interesting to this group to know that such a program
exists. Hopefully someone knows how it is done leading to a PD-program
with such a feature, usable with other RAM-expansion boards.
OK, here's the beef:
TheMax babyboard, which adds 1Meg RAM to your 512k for a total of 1.5Meg
(currently, they offer 1.5Meg additional RAM for a total of 2Meg,
which I have not had a chance to evaluate yet .....)
came with a RAMdisk-program with some curious features, related to how
Mac's memory is used by the pre-MAC+ (i.e. "old") ROMs.
One feature of the old ROMs seems to be that during the boot-processing, a
destructive memory test (nothing physical; only "destroying" the data-contents
by overwriting) is performed on the "low" 512K RAM, but additional RAM is
ignored. Now, if a RESET is performed (i.e. power is not interupted to the
board) by pushing the RESET-programmer-switch, theoretically, all RAM above
512K stays untouched, so it's only a matter of having a 'smart-enough' program
to take advantage of that fact. Here is how I assume "they" did it:
(Note that the location of <VIDEO> is fixed just below address 512K;
a feature which was changed in the "new" ROMs, I believe)
The RAMdisk driver of TheMax allows you to use the RAM-memory in *ONLY* 3
different ways:
1) LARGE APPLICATION - NO RAMDISK
"This configuration is offered in case ththe MaxRAM RAMdisk driver
might interfer with another company's RAMdisk software, disk
cache software, or hard disk driver." [quoted from the mini-manual]
i.e.: <SYSTEM> <VIDEO> <APPLICATION>
<- 0 to 512K --> <--- additional RAM ---->
2) LARGE RAMDISK
low 512K is used in a standard "fat MAC" way, the rest is a RAMdisk
i.e.: <SYS> <APPLICATION> <VIDEO> <1-Meg-RAMDISK>
<------- 0 to 512K -------> <--- additional RAM ---->
3) SMALL RAMDISK - LARGE APPLICATION
low 512K is used for a "small" RAMdisk of 400K (plus System and Video)
the rest is a large Application area, useful for SWITCHER and other
applications such as EXCEL, etc, that "know" to make use of it.
i.e.: <SYS> <400K RAMdisk> <VIDEO> <APPLICATION>
<------- 0 to 512K --------> <--- additional RAM ---->
Now, when I use configuration 2 (LARGE RAMDISK) and my Mac locks up, I
hit the RESET-button, boot and fire-up the RAMdisk-driver program (if you
designate it with "Set Startup" you lose next to no time) and am told
"Recovered the RAMdisk" .... you can barely count to three before I'm up
and running again.
I sure hope there is a way to do some similar tricks with the new ROMs;
does someone know if it is possible to "disable" the destructive memory
test performed at boot-time?
Oh, one other caveat: All of the above is under Finder 4.1.
But I expect (hope?) that later Finders still allow this to work, as long
as you don't use the new ROMs - just another reason not to upgrade to the
new ROMs too hastily (at least for me)
PS: I would be interested in a continuous discussion of "non-standard"
uses of RAM, such as drivers for RAMdisks and RAMcache and
PRINTspoolers in a seperate mailing-list to avoid boring the
general readership of this group with details. Anyone interested?
In occasional messages to INFO-MAC of a digested summary of
messages of the subgroup, everyone could be kept informed of
matters discussed and interesting developments. Benefits to
the INFO-MAC moderator and the general readership should be
obvious (I definitely would like to help avoid a burnout of
the moderator again, such as the one which recently led to the
near-demise of INFO-MAC).
[PS: SOUNDS GOOD TO ME --BB]
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Date: Tue 25 Feb 86 07:22:26-CST
From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU>
Subject: MacBriefs Vol.1 #2 arrived
In December I posted a glowing review for the first Issue - well, the
arrival in this week's mail of the second issue makes me repeat me
recommendation: No Macowner/user should be without it.
get your first issue free and form your own opinion:
MacBriefs, PO Box 2178, Huntington Beach CA 92647-0178 (714)842-0518
Disclaimer: I'm interested to see them staying in business because I've
paid for my subscription already (-:.
PS: MacBriefs used my posting to this group recommending their first issue
in their current advertising - don't let that fool you. They
didn't ask my permission, nor did they try to say "thanks" before
using my name. To avoid repetition, note that this article is
(Copyright 1986 Uhrig)
PSPS: for an interesting and understandable essay on copyright-law
see recent postings on net.sources on Usenet, some of which I
forwarded to the ARPA-bboard INFO-LAW. I'm not sure that I
can really prevent anyone from attributing a correct quote
to me, in particular in advertising material, but my lawyer
might want to argue this case with your lawyer at no cost to me (-:.
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Date: Tue 25 Feb 86 07:41:54-CST
From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU>
Subject: TIP: how to disable "Call Waiting" while online ...
[ found in MacBriefs, Vol.1#2, page 14 ]
TIP: CALL WAITING ZAPPED by Tom Edwards, mini'app'les, 8/10, Oct 1, 1985, p12
Your "smart" modem goes to answer a second call while you're on-line,
downloading something. The program jumps out of receive mode and tells you
FILE TRANSFER UNSUCCESSFUL. CARRIER LOST.
To avoid this, phone company suggests: 1) prefix your dialing with 1170 (for
pulse dialers, *70 (for tone dialers). 2) continue by dialing the number that
you want to reach; dial straight through the 'fast busy' signal you hear.
[ given this problem, I don't have the Call-Waiting feature. so I can't
verify that this works. Also, while I've seen several postings warning
people about the problem and asking for solutions, I've never seen anyone
mentioning *70 or 1170. Does this work everywhere? Does anyone know
other, potentially, useful 11xx/*xx codes? ---Werner]
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End of INFO-MAC Digest
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