INFO-MAC@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU.UUCP (02/28/87)
INFO-MAC Digest Friday, 27 Feb 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 58
Today's Topics:
unix-xbin: newer version?
Mac Paint file format
Changing defaults in LaserWriter print box
dialog analogous to Standard GetFile
Vertical Retrace Tasks
UserItems in Dialog Boxes
Launching an application from Pascal
Shutting Down
Re: Shutting down (V5 #57)
Atari 20M hard disk SCSI
Help Resources
Chinese Macintosh Softwares
Help DA
Resource decompiler...
Shutting Down with SCSI
800k drives
Re: AppleShare <INFO-MAC Digest V5 #57>
Word 3.0 comments (and possible bug)
Re: Word 3.0 comments (and possible bug)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 87 18:57:39 pst
From: mkhaw@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (Michael Khaw)
Subject: unix-xbin: newer version?
The Unix xbin program in the info-mac archives on sumex appear to be for
BinHex 2.3 . I've seen a lot of postings recently that say "must be
decoded(?) with BinHex 4.0 . Is there a newer Unix xbin somewhere?
Thanks,
Mike Khaw
internet: mkhaw@teknowledge-vaxc.arpa
usenet: {hplabs|sun|ucbvax|decwrl|sri-unix}!mkhaw%teknowledge-vaxc.arpa
voice: 415/424-0500
USnail: Teknowledge, Inc., 1850 Embarcadero Rd., POB 10119, Palo
Alto, CA 94303
------------------------------
Date: Wed 25 Feb 87 08:20:16-PST
From: Doug Beck <DBECK@SRI-KL.ARPA>
Subject: Mac Paint file format
Could someone please point me toward a Mac Paint file format description?
Thanks. Doug Beck dbeck@sri-kl.arpa
------------------------------
Date: 25 FEB 87 14:11:57 CET
From: <MPC27Q%DGOGWD01.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: Changing defaults in LaserWriter print box
Pardon if this has already been discussed, but I'm interested in
modifying the paper sizes available on the LaserWriter, specifically
getting A5 and making A4 the default on the American LaserWriter file
(common problem in Europe). This is very easy to do on the
ImageWriter with PREC Manager from Q&D Vol. II; inspection of the
LaserWriter file, however, reveals no PREC#3 or #4 but a whole bunch
of other ones. I went through them all, but couldn't find any that
made sense according to the format of PREC[34]. Could some kind soul
explain the differences or point me to the info? Thanks...
Chris Borton
Max-Planck Institute, Goettingen, West Germany
MPC27Q@DGOGWD01.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: 25 FEB 87 14:12:40 CET
From: <MPC27Q%DGOGWD01.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: dialog analogous to Standard GetFile
I am looking for source code examples (C preferred, anything
reasonable welcome) to a dialog analogous to Standard GetFile, only
with file names *I* provide (as Str255's most likely). I believe the
Standard File source code is somewhere in the older IM docs, and there
may be other forms. I would greatly appreciate any source fragments
or pointers to such. Thank you!
Chris Borton
MPI for Biophysical Chemistry, Goettingen, West Germany.
MPC27Q@DGOGWD01.BITNET26-Feb-87 12:16:07-PST,1114;000000000001
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 87 15:19:24 est
From: rs4u#@andrew.cmu.edu (Richard Siegel)
Subject: Vertical Retrace Tasks
Does anyone have some Pascal source that demonstrates how
to put a durable task in the vertical retrace queue? By "durable" I
mean a task that will persist across launches of different applications.
IA good example of such a task is MenuClock or JClock, but I don't know
where source for those is to be found, and I doubt that they're in Pascal,
at any rate.
Any responses would be much appreciated...
Rich
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 87 09:01:16 est
From: rs4u#@andrew.cmu.edu (Richard Siegel)
Subject: UserItems in Dialog Boxes
Thanks to the information provided in Tech Note 34, I was able to implement
a modal dialog box with multiple scrollbars. I'm right now working on
putting a List Manager list in a mnodal dialog, and when I get it working I
will post the Pascal source to the net.
Rich
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 87 00:08 PST
From: <C9017%UWAV4.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: Launching an application from Pascal
Hello,
I am looking for a way to transfer between application in a similar
fashion as seen in EDIT, QUED, or most linkers and compilers. I am
working in Pascal. I have seen that there is an assembly language call
in the Segment Loader section of Inside Mac, but there is no corresponding
Pascal call. Inside Mac says that a "launching" of an application must
be writtern in assembly, is there no way around this as my knowledge of
assembly language is very poor. I am refering to the
Inside Mac commands of LAUNCH and CHAIN.
Thanks in advance for any ideas...
Bob Ruderman
Department of Geography
University of Washington
Seattle, Washington 98195
Bitnet: C9017@UWAV4.BITNET
Arpanet: C9017%UWAV4.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA
Usenet: C9017%UWAV4.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 87 08:59:16 est
From: rs4u#@andrew.cmu.edu (Richard Siegel)
Subject: Shutting Down
There's a procedure callable from Pascal or C called "Restart", which
is basically a jump to this magic ROM location, which does a restart.
Before you do that, you need to eject AND UNMOUNT all mounted volumes.
Whoops! Before you eject, also be sure to call FlushVOl for each volume.
And close all open DA's with CloseDeskAcc.
Rich
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 87 21:04:32 PST
From: jww@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu (Joel West)
Subject: Re: Shutting down (V5 #57)
What timing! I figured out how to do this yesterday morning, got
it working like a charm, and said to myself "I wonder if anyone
else would like to know how to do this?"
Since it's Pascal, I don't use ROMBase+10, but instead the Pascal
glue equivalent. Otherwise, it should work in any language (it
better, I stole it from Darin Adler, and I KNOW he knows what
he's doing. :-) )
Joel West
sdcsvax!jww (temporary location)
*****
PROCEDURE ShutItDown;
(* By Joel West, ihnp4!gould9!joel, 2/25/87 *)
TYPE
VCBPtr = ^VCB;
VAR
vcbp: VCBPtr;
refnum,dmyerr: INTEGER;
BEGIN
{ thanks to Darin Adler/TMON EUA for the implementation }
vcbp := VCBPtr(GetVCBQHdr^.QHead);
WHILE vcbp <> NIL DO
BEGIN
refnum := vcbp^.vcbVRefNum;
{ Things are flakey. (we may have unmounted the system disk)
Ignore any OS errors and procede directly to shutdown. }
dmyerr := Eject(NIL, refnum);
dmyerr := UnmountVol(NIL, refnum);
END;
Restart; { OS Utility does the work }
END;
------------------------------
Date: 25 FEB 87 14:09:13 CET
From: <MPC27Q%DGOGWD01.BITNET@wiscvm.wisc.edu>
Subject: Atari 20M hard disk SCSI
The Atari 20M hard disk is a SCSI inside. ("So?" "Well...)
This is an interesting piece of information that *may* be useful in
the States, and IS very useful (price-wise) in Europe. All you have
to do to use it is open it up, run your own 50-pin SCSI to 25-pin SCSI
cable out of it, and use Ephraim Vishniac's SCSI Installer program to
set it up. Here in Germany that is rather useful, since an Atari HD
is DM 1024 (university price, ~$500) and the best price for a Mac SCSI
I've seen here was DM 3000. I'm not sure of the price on the Atari HD
in the States.
On the subject of 110V/220V conversions, the Mac+ analog board is set
up to switch EXTREMELY EASILY. [Earlier boards aren't so easy :-(]
You could even theoretically do it with a switch in back... All that
is necessary to switch from 110V to 220V is cut a jumper and replace a
fuse. The instructions are on the paper cover on the back of the
analog board. The 50/60 Hz difference doesn't matter for Macs. I've
been running my Mac/IW I/HD20 with a transformer well for 6 months
now. Apparently the U.S. IW II won't work on 50 Hz according to that
Tech note from Apple recently published here (Danke, Werner), but it
also indicated that the U.S. LaserWriter wouldn't work with 50 Hz:
we've been running such a setup here for a long time! ?!?!?
I hope anyone undertaking such actions will realize the warranty
violations... and that I take no responsibility for that...
Chris Borton
MPI for Biophysical Chemistry, Goettingen, West Germany.
MPC27Q@DGOGWD01.BITNET24-Feb-87 13:07:30-PST,2785;000000000001
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 87 12:53:37 PST
From: PEPKE%FSU.MFENET@nmfecc.arpa
Subject: Help Resources
Please forward this to Delphi, as I have no access.
The suggestion made by Richard S. Palais to introduce a new HELP resource type
is a good idea, but I think the specific suggestion is inadequate. First of
all, a single str255 is too small to hold any sort of reasonable explanation.
Even a TEXT-like type is not enough. I personally like to use pictures in my
help screens to show what part of the screen looks like at a certain time,
etc. Therefore, why not have each HELP look like an ALRT or a DLOG, with its
own DITL? The Help Manager could then put up the appropriate alert or dialog.
If it is too much trouble to define the window, why not have the HELP be a
DITL without any buttons? The manager could then make an alert or dialog box
big enough to hold the items and an OK button and then append the items in the
DITL after the OK button.
Beyond simply putting up help screens, I can think of two other things that
would be nice: sequenced help and heierarchical help. Sequenced help could be
done by one of these methods by saying that if there is a button in the DITL
with the name of one of the other help resources, pressing that button brings
up the help. I don't know a clean way to do heierarchical help, but maybe
it's too silly anyway.
On a related topic, I have been using an OK way of doing help in a dialog box.
Basically there is a Help button (always item 3), and there are items in the
DITL that give help. When the dialog box is brought up, the help text and
pictures are below the visible items. A special version of ModalDialog is
called which automatically intercepts the presses of the help button. When
the help button is pressed, it looks at item 4, which is assumed to be the
bottom-most help item. It then resizes the dialog box to include the help
text and dims the Help button. The Help button needs to be at the bottom of
the screen so the special ModalDialog can figure out what the bottom margin is
for resizing purposes. Although this may seem cumbersome, it has the
advantage that if I remember to use the special ModalDialog in my program and
make sure that dialogs that don't have help yet don't have a button as item 3,
I can add help text and pictures at any time I like, and they will
automatically work. If there is any interest in this code (in Lightspeed C),
I will hack it into presentable form and upload it.
Eric Pepke
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32304-4052
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 87 01:52:54 est
From: chi@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Wei-Juang Chi)
Subject: Chinese Macintosh Softwares
I am interested in developing chinese software for the Macintosh, the
difficulties lie in the fact that Chinese characters are not the same
asEnglish, in the sense that they are not composed of alphabets.
Therefore, to develop a software in chinese, say Excel in chinese, is not a
simple task without a unified way of entering chinese characters into the
programs.
Recently, I read about systems for entering chinese characters, chinese
word processor, and a Japanese Mac which I'll briefly describe below. I
would appreciate more information on those items:
(1) January 1987 Macworld (p. 83) - Unisource Software Corp. has introduced
a chinese word processor called FeiMa. According to the news, the software
let you enter chinese characters in two keyboard methods, and one phonetic
methods, has a dictionary of 2450 characters, support ImageWriter, Toshiba
1350, Epson FX-80. BUT dose not support LaserWriter, and worse than that,
won't support clipboard cut and paste. This means you cannot cut part of
the articles into PageMaker, or ReadySetGo, or MacWrite, neither can you
put MacPaint/MacDraw picture into the document created by FeiMa. The demo
package would cost something like $70(they force you to buy manual with
it). Well, have anyone use the package, or has a demo version which you
can download into the library?(There was a time when the demo disk was only
$9, someone must have got one)
(2) February 1987 MacUser (p 136, top second column) - Dan Cochran
mentioned a software by Apple named Hanzi Script Interface System for
Chinese character program input. Sounds like a general system for chinese
character input. Anyone from Apple is listening? I am interested in
knowing more about this(technical specification, when will it come out, and
how to get it).
(3) February 1987 MacWorld (p 13) - Apple computer's KanjiTalk, the
operating system that converts any Mac Plus to a Japanese Mac, to allow
printing on the LaserWriter. Anyone out there knows about this?
I am interested in receiving information/comments regarding experience
in using those software. Also on how to get my hands on them
(Hanzi system and KanjiTalk)?. Thank you very much for any help.
Wei-Kuang Chi
chi@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (ARPANET, CSNET)
University of Pennsylvania
Towne D3
220 South 33rd Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104
(215) 898-5593
------------------------------
Date: Wed 25 Feb 87 21:59:54-EST
From: Carlos A Albuerne <CU.ALBUERNE@CU20B.COLUMBIA.EDU>
Subject: Help DA
Help DA's primary use is to provide on-line help for other developers
applications or Internal company database applications.
This desk accessory was developed as a general tool for other developers,
companies with specialized applications or anyone who may have a need to
provide on-line help to the user of an application.
Help DA allows multiple help files on a volume so that the user may
select the desired help file required for that application.
Help DA is a shareware product.
[
archived as [SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU]<INFO-MAC>DA-HELP-TEMPLATE.HQX
DoD
]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 87 13:29:23 CST
From: Scott Comer <wert@rice.edu>
Subject: Resource decompiler...
I don't know if you have any resource decompilers, but here is a shareware
thing that I wrote last summer and forgot to post.
scott out.
ResDecomp is a resource file decompiler. It produces a listing of the
commonly editable resources from a resource file. These include MENU,
WIND, DLOG, ALRT, DITL, etc. ResDecomp output is compatible with the MDS
RMaker input format.
[
archived as [SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU]<INFO-MAC>UTILITY-RESDECOMP.HQX
DoD
]
------------------------------
Date: 26 Feb 1987 11:31:48-EST
From: koch@NADC
Subject: Shutting Down with SCSI
I have Apple's SCSI hard disk and am unsure of the procedure to power
down the system. The 20SC manual says to select "shutdown" from the
special menu and then turn off the 20SC and finally shut off the Mac+.
But, if after the "shutdown" you delay more than a second or two you are in
danger of interrupting the automatic startup from the hard disk. -- That's
not clean.
The Apple 20SC manual also says that if you are not going to use the
disk for a week or so then power it down, otherwise leave it run. But it's
pretty noisy to leave it on all the time and just not what I'd prefer to do
(I use it in a home environment).
Any suggestions? Should I leave the whole system powered on all of
the time (with the screen dimmed, of course). Should I turn off the Mac+
but leave just the hard disk on? And finally, is there a cleaner (but
safe) way of powering down?
Thanks,
Chuck Koch (koch@nadc)
(215-441-3794)
------------------------------
From: Paul Skuce
From: <ames!uwvax!seismo!mcvax!hatfield.ac.uk!comt-ps@cad.Berkeley.EDU
From: >
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 87 19:20:40 GMT
Subject: 800k drives
We have 40 Mac512/800 available to students and we are getting rather a lot of
broken drives and logic boards. This has been a bad week and 3 have gone back
for replacement drives. Does any one else have a failure rate like this.
Do those of you in other educational establishments have this exerience
or is it just us
Regards
Paul Skuce
Hatfield Polytechnic, School Information Science, P.O. box109
College Lane, Hatfield, England, AL10 9AB
comt-ps%hatfield.ac.uk%mcvax%seismo%.. from States
comt-ps%hatfield.ac.uk%mcvax%.. From Eur
comt-ps@hatfield.ac.uk JANET
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 87 17:16:18 pst
From: decwrl!voder!apple!lsr@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Larry Rosenstein)
Subject: Re: AppleShare <INFO-MAC Digest V5 #57>
In article <8702261034.AA22058@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> you write:
>INFO-MAC Digest Wednesday, 25 Feb 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 57
>
>Date: Sun, 22 Feb 87 11:40:04 PST
>From: Dorothy Bender <HK.DEB@forsythe.stanford.edu>
>Subject: Comments on Apple Share
I will try to respond to these comments. One caveat is that I am not a real
expert on AppleShare, although I have used the admin program to setup a
server for our group. Another is that these comments are fairly lengthy.
>1. It ties up an entire Mac Plus as dedicated file server. ...
> Also, in
>large offices, the speed of the AppleTalk network may become a very
>limiting constraint. (The server is also limited to 25 users at a
>single time.) Some of the available Mac networks, notably Centram
>TOPS, and MacServe run on concurrent servers.
The dedicated Mac is a valid criticism. One thing that will alleviate the
problem is having other services available on the same machine. AppleShare
allows you to run one application concurrently with the file server, which
presumably could be a print server or mail server, etc.
I have not found the speed to be much of a problem, although faster is
always nicer. (Note, however, that faster networks probably would cost more
to install.) I think the speed of AppleShare is comparable to a floppy
disk, although I haven't done any tests to see if this is true.
>2. The entire network must be brought down for all administrative
>functions, including: adding users and volumes, and doing backups.
A definite problem.
>3. Apple has not fully resolved the record/file locking issues.
>There are 3 levels of file protection (self, group, and world), but
>it is possible for one user to kidnap another's files, or change the
>protection so that they can't use it. Also, if more than one user
>is working on a file, only the last person's changes are preserved.
The file capture problem is serious, and is being looked at.
The problem of more than one user working on a file can be an issue
depending on the software. Remember that most of the current software was
written before there was a file server.
Applications that keep the file open while it is being edited will prevent
other users from accessing the same file. Applications that don't keep the
file open should check (at save time) to see if someone else has changed the
file. (By the way, MacApp 1.0 does this for you automatically.)
AppleShare permits real multi-user applications. An application can open a
file in shared read/write mode, and lock specific ranges of bytes in the
file. This allows more than one user to change the same file at the same
time (e.g., a multi-user database). Since this requires special code in the
application, it will take time before you see real multi-user applications.
As a simple example of what you can do, I have been running Smalltalk on a
Mac with 2 floppy drives, using the file server to hold the full Smalltalk
sources. In fact, several machines can share the same set of sources, since
Smalltalk does not change the sources file.
>4. If the network administrator forgets the server password, their
>only option is to reformat the entire disk and start again. Apple
>has no way of getting into the server once the password is lost.
According to the AppleShare Administrators Guide, you can rebuild the server
information if you forget the password. If you have been making diligent
backups of the server info, then you will not lose anything. (The server
info contains the names of the users and groups and the folder access
privileges.)
In any event, when the server is not running the Macintosh acts normally, so
you can always get the files off the server. You should not have to
re-initialize the disk.
>5. AppleShare seems a little more complicated than standard Mac
>software, and there are guidelines that must be followed with
>current software so that things don't mess up.
This is true. The mechanics if setting up users and groups follows the
standard Macintosh interface, so that is not the problem. Most of the
complexity comes with setting up the privileges. You have to have an idea
of how much security you want and how to achieve your goals.
>6. AppleShare does not allow users to run applications off the
>network.
This is not true. If the workstation has 128K ROMs and uses Finder 5.4,
then it is possible for 2 users to run the same application at the same
time. Doing this requires that the application itself be sharable (for
example, it cannot write into its own file, and if it creates temporary
files it must assign them unique names). You also need to tell the Finder
which applications can be shared.
Again, none of the existing applications has the proper bit set, but there
probably will be such applications in the future.
>7. AppleShare does not come with mail or backup utilities, you must
>purchase these from 3rd party suppliers.
True.
>8. Finally, the 2 changes to the Finder/System outside of those
>needed for the network are trivial. The trash can now expands
>slightly when something is in it, and you can do cleanups on
>selected items instead of an open folder or desktop.
There were also bug fixes. I don't see how this relates to AppleShare,
however.
I agree with the general comments; this is the first release of AppleShare
and there are some limitations. On the other hand, I have found it to be
really valuable. (Most of the groups at Apple have their own servers and
use them to share files within the group. If you have bridges and gateways,
then you can share files between different groups, as well.)
AppleShare is not intended to replace other 3rd party server products. In
particular, some users may find the cost of dedicating a Macintosh to be too
high. In that case, there are other products (TOPS, MacServer, etc.) that
fill the need.
The protocol used in AppleShare is freely available; there is no reason
that 3rd party developers couldn't produce server products based on that
protocol. Such products would be compatible with the AppleShare workstation
software and could coexist with other AppleShare servers.
I hope this was helpful.
Larry Rosenstein
Apple Computer
UUCP: {sun, voder, nsc, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr
CSNET: lsr@Apple.CSNET
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 87 12:43:59 PST
From: chuq@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Subject: Word 3.0 comments (and possible bug)
My word 3.0 is here, and I think if I can figure out where it is in
the documentation, I'll be able to get it to slice bread for me.
Like, wow. With the exception of outlining, which I think is disappointing,
I'm pretty impressed.
One word of warning: The new Word 3.0 format can NOT be read by Ready Set
Go 3.0. It tries, but fails with an error. This means that documents need
to be stored in Word 1.0 format (easy to do, fortunately) to import into
the layout program. I think it is safe to assume this problem will be
endemic among things that can read Word files until the new format propagates
out to the rest of the developers and they get new releases out.
The documentation is somewhat overwhelming. I'm still trying to digest it
all and figure out what it can do. I'm especially impressed with the fact
that they seem to have ported eqn to Word...
Possible bug: Last night I was reading through all the new tech notes, so
I was opening and converting a bunch of MacWrite files. The fourth time I
did this, it finished the conversion, but never brought up the converted
file in a window -- hung permanently. I finally had to crash the mac and
reboot. Once I did, no problem with that file. I need to see if this is
reproducable, but be warned.
chuq
------------------------------
From: korn@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Peter "Arrgh" Korn)
Subject: Re: Word 3.0 comments (and possible bug)
Date: Fri, 27 Feb 87 20:09:08 PST
I've been playing with the pre-release copy of word for several weeks now,
and I've found that most crashes are non-destructive to the document they
crashed in. If you work with the debugger installed, many (most?) errors
can be treated with a "g" to the debugger, and then SAVE your document,
quit, restart, and work as normal.
Otherwise, WOW!!! Chuq, if you option-shift-command click in the title
bar of the first-footer, just 5 pixels of the center of the window title,
with the plus cursor, while you have the Define style sheet window open,
you'll find that the Word will even tie your shoes...(though maybe that's
just in the beta...) <grin>
Peter
------------------------------
End of INFO-MAC Digest
**********************