SHULMAN@RED.RUTGERS.EDU (Jeffrey Shulman) (01/18/87)
Delphi Mac Digest Saturday, 17 January 1987 Volume 3 : Issue 5
Today's Topics:
RE: MacWorld expo note
SuperLaserSpool for DataFrames
Cricket Draw (4 messages)
shut down hook (4 messages)
Better screen fonts
LaserWriter labels (2 messages)
Stock Market (2 messages)
Re: Program control of the MacPlus disk
OS9
trap patches (14 messages)
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? (2 messages)
ListMgr/TextEdit Data >32k (2 messages)
RE: Pictures in Word
RE: downloading postscript
Re: Excel templates
Re: mac cooling
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From: NWOLF
Subject: RE: MacWorld expo note
Date: 15-JAN 03:33 Network Digests
to: chuq@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Your notes on MacExpo were no doubt well-received. Your outlook is a
good positive one which will be appreciated by many (myself included).
However, you certainly give user groups short shrift. And unduly so.
There are currently well over 200 user groups in this country. There
are also a good number of user groups in Europe and also in Australia.
Japan has a devoted Macintosh following and knowing the Japanese, I
would suspect there is a healthy user group scene there as well.
Obviously Apple feels that not only are user groups not "gone", but
that they are a valuable resource. In the past year they have gone out
of their way to provide liasons, support (both technical and
otherwise), materials and equipment, and AppleLink to user groups all
over the country. In Portland, Oregon (from where I am writing) there
are three Macintosh user groups, on~re of which is devoted strictly to
business applications. (There is also a business-oriented user group
in Seattle.) Portland Macintosh User Group has over 800 members. The
west coast premier showing of Microsoft Word 3.0 took place at our
November 10 general meeting. The Corvallis (OR) group is nationally
known for the tips published in each issue of their newsletter, Mouse
Droppings. Several of the California user groups publish newsletters
which would serve as models for other publications in our society.
Some Texas user groups, although small, regularly release information
far in advance of conventional sources. Many vendors of Mac hardware
and software (not to mention services) got their beginnings in a user
group environment where they were first able to test their wares,
obtain feedback, improve their product, learn the ropes, and
eventually make it in local and national markets. User groups spawned
creative ideas for many of the products around us today.
Consider the AUC program. Each school involved in AUC is, in a sense, its own
user group. Although these are not usually counted in with the rest - because
many of them do not publish a newsletter - they are none-the-less potent forces
in the Macintosh community. BCS and BMUG are far from the only user groups
around. In fact BCS is really a much larger organization devoted to many types
of computers and comprised of several user groups, of which the MUG is only a
part. And although I wasn't at MacExpo, I am positively certain that there were
more that just two groups represented there - perhaps you overlooked them.
User groups are an important part of the developmental scene for more than just
the reasons that they are people who share a common interest in a computing
machine. May I suggest that they are an important part of the electronic
community, have something to contribute, and are worthy of being counted and
respected. After all, their members are the ground troops in the movement for
change in our society's way of doing business, communication, recreation. These
users, and the groups to which they belong, are the vanguard of social change
and - far from being gone - are leading the rest of society headlong into the
electronic era. They are hardly "gone".
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From: MADMACS
Subject: SuperLaserSpool for DataFrames
Date: 15-JAN 17:52 Hardware & Peripherals
I was wondering what luck people were having with SuperLaserSpool. I had it
totally zing my system file when I first installed it. Then, when I took out
the ImageWriter Spooler DA from (also from SuperMac) it installed ok.
It works just great in MacWrite, Excel and Word, a typical
paper of 10 pages or so spools in under a minute while the printing
may take several. This is going to be a real time saver! I can't
wait to try it on my newsletter in PageMaker (it worked for a test I
ran). The NL can take over an hour to print it all and so I am hoping
it will spool in a few minutes and let me get on with my life.
I have found that SuperLaserSpool does not work with Double Helix and Pheonix
3DDo you know of any others? Perhaps we could start a thread and then collect
them for a report to SuperMac. -Doug (MADMACS)
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From: PEABO
Subject: Cricket Draw
Date: 14-JAN 23:48 Creative Pursuits
Before purchasing, be sure you have 128K ROMs and an 800K floppy drive. It
needs them.
peter
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From: JIMH
Subject: RE: Cricket Draw (Re: Msg 16430)
Date: 15-JAN 23:16 Creative Pursuits
Peter, do you have cricket draw? I looked at it breifly the other night and it
looked SLOW! was it just what they were doing or is it really that slow? jim
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From: PEABO
Subject: RE: Cricket Draw (Re: Msg 16470)
Date: 15-JAN 23:24 Creative Pursuits
The demo file is incredibly slow. I think it took about 10 minutes to print on
the LaserWriter. It uses a lot of what they call 'fountains', which are shaded
fills that can be linear or logarithmic density across, or which can be radial
(a sort of poor man's illumination model for spheres). I bought it at the $177
show price from ComputerWare, which may also be their catalog price.
peter
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From: MOUSEKETEER
Subject: RE: Cricket Draw (Re: Msg 16471)
Date: 16-JAN 21:07 Creative Pursuits
Ya, it depends on the file, but Cricket can take a goodly time to do a print
out of a file. I've managed a couple that took around 20 minutes per, and one
other that I gave up on after 30 minutes.
I've found what appears to be a bug in binding text to a freehand shape...
the screen (after a couple of minutes) will show the shading and the line,
but on printout, only a small portion of the shape/text will actually print.
I don't know if this is related to the memory limitations of the LW or what,
but doing the bind text is another time eater....5-10 minutes on the
few I tried out.
Still, it's a great program, and maybe even nicer in the next release.
$177 is ComputerWare's normal price for the program.
Alf
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From: RAMARREN
Subject: shut down hook
Date: 14-JAN 02:56 Programming Techniques
I am writing a program that needs to do some reporting back to the user at the
point he exits a computing session. I would like this to happen upon eliciting
the Shut Down command in the Finder. I am aware that Switcher manages to
intercept the Shut Down command on the fly and exit to its own routines; does
anyone know how this is accomplished and direct me to some source
examples/documentation?
thanks in advance. GDG
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From: DDUNHAM
Subject: RE: shut down hook (Re: Msg 1152)
Date: 15-JAN 22:02 Programming Techniques
I'd guess that Andy's trapping menu calls anyway (so he can add
"Switcher" under the apple), so it's not such a big deal. Also, I
think newer Finders change the menu title if Switcher's active.
------------------------------
From: PEABO
Subject: RE: shut down hook (Re: Msg 1164)
Date: 15-JAN 22:48 Programming Techniques
Yes, it says "Quit" instead of "Shutdown".
peter
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From: DWB
Subject: RE: shut down hook (Re: Msg 1166)
Date: 17-JAN 07:31 Programming Techniques
My understanding is that the finder notes that it is running under
switcher and fixes both it's menu and what happens when it gets
selected. Ie., that it's the finder taking some intelligent action,
not the switcher.
David
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From: MADMACS
Subject: Better screen fonts
Date: 16-JAN 20:41 Business Mac
A dealer at our local MUG meeting pointed out that better style fonts
(italic, outline, etc.) exist for the laser fonts. (screen versions).
But that they have to be installed individually and they take up
'slots' on the FONT menu. He claims that from IM IV he has found a
reference to a new kind of font called NFNT (p.47) that, if the
Font/DA mover were to use when the fonts are installed, would solve
the problem. The better screen versions would be available, and would
be used by Quick Draw, but that only the 'parent' name (Times,
Symbol,etc.) would show up on the Font menu.
Does anyone know any more about this? Can you get F/DA mover to do it right? (
You can renumber in ResEdit but that is tedious if you have several of them and
several disks to do.) Thanks!
-Doug (MADMACS)
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From: MADMACS
Subject: LaserWriter labels
Date: 16-JAN 20:44 Hardware & Peripherals
What is the best source for press-on label stock for the LaserWriter? I would
like to make return address labels with Silicon Press on our LW+. Also disk
labels. I hear that at the EXPO some one had a whole product line of labels
disigned to avoid the 1/2 inch border on the LW. Is this true? Is there a
better source? -Doug
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From: MOUSEKETEER
Subject: RE: LaserWriter labels (Re: Msg 16489)
Date: 16-JAN 21:19 Hardware & Peripherals
Don't know if these are what you are looking for, but Avery has started
pushing for a new line of label sheets for desktop laser Printers, sold
under product numbers 5260,5261, and 5262. You can call them at 1-800-
535-3232, ext. 30 for more info or local dealers carrying them.
Alf
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From: TPUGMAG
Subject: Stock Market
Date: 16-JAN 21:10 Business Mac
I am looking for a Public Domain Program that will chart, catalog or value a
stock. Would appreciate some help if anyone knows of any Carl Epstein
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From: NWOLF
Subject: RE: Stock Market (Re: Msg 16493)
Date: 17-JAN 00:48 Business Mac
Have you checked out Heizer Software's Excellent Exzchange? Although
not strictly public domain, they do have some cheap templates which
will do what you want.
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From: BRECHER
Subject: Re: Program control of the MacPlus disk
Date: 17-JAN 03:42 MUGS Online
To: rtech!rtech!mark@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Mark Wittenberg)
Subject: Program control of the MacPlus disk cache
The csCode=9 call to the .Sony driver affects that driver's track cache, which
is completely independent of the Control Panel cache. Program control of the
latter is undocumented. There are low-memory vectors to routines to do it, but
I don't know their location or the calling sequence for the routines.
If all you need to do is temporarily disable the cacheing of I/O,
without removing the cache itself, see "Macintosh Technical Note #81:
Caching." I presume, though, that you want to remove/reinstall the
cache for installation of your RAM disk.
------------------------------
From: SJL
Subject: OS9
Date: 16-JAN 23:19 Current Discussions
Curious- I noticed from PEABO's MW expo reports that LoDown has a
WORM avail - able for the Mac. Anyone know if the OS9-Interactive
programming environment is available for the Mac. Probably too early
yet. I'll go visit the OS9 sig and ask there also.
Thanks. Steve LeClair
------------------------------
From: JOSEF
Subject: trap patches
Date: 14-JAN 03:24 Programming Techniques
If a trap has been patched other than during system boot, is there any way to
determine what the original address was before the patch?
Joe
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From: PEABO
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1153)
Date: 14-JAN 13:15 Programming Techniques
The code that I have seen for patching always saves away the original
patch address in the system heap so that it can restore it when it
cleans up. I'd say your only bet would be to use Nosy to figure out
how the System applies patches, and that would be hazardous for two
reasons: it's not a published interface and might change in the next
release of the System, and if you're running within someone else's
environment (Switcher/Servant) there are patches which need to be
preserved that were applied between the time of startup and the time
your application started.
peter
------------------------------
From: JOSEF
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1155)
Date: 15-JAN 04:10 Programming Techniques
I suspected as much. What I'm trying to do is write a quicky utility
which will disable Smart Alarms so that Dark Castle (and other alt
screen/sound programs) will work. It turns out that Smart Alarms
patches the BUTTON trap to enter itself and then jumps to the actual
code in ROM. This means I will have to hard code the address which of
course has 2 serious drawbacks: my utility will only work on the
current incarnation of the Mac+ roms; and it will be incompatible with
any future releases of a System which patches the BUTTON trap. On the
other hand, I could pick off the address from where Smart Alarms
stores it, but will then be incompatible with future releases of Smart
Alarms. Looks like a gotcha either way.
Joe
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From: PEABO
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1160)
Date: 15-JAN 12:19 Programming Techniques
Might be worth a complaint to the makers of Smart Alarms, too. You could
suggest that they settle on a standard form of trap intercept, such as a JSR
followed by a JMP to the original routine, so that it would be easy to pick off
the original routine address.
peter
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From: DDUNHAM
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1155)
Date: 15-JAN 22:02 Programming Techniques
It's the trap-patcher's business how the old address is saved. I'm writing one
patch that doesn't ever restore the former address.
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From: DDUNHAM
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1160)
Date: 16-JAN 03:56 Programming Techniques
You could at least look at the address they save and see if it's in
the ROM. If the place they save it at changes, what's at the old
address probably won't be a ROM address.
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From: DDUNHAM
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1162)
Date: 16-JAN 03:57 Programming Techniques
Um, aren't you suggesting self-modifying code?
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From: PEABO
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1169)
Date: 16-JAN 13:02 Programming Techniques
No, I'm suggesting that the thing in the System Heap be a small non-relocatable
block containing the JSR and the JMP. It would be easy to recognize that way
and easy to find (because the trap would point to the JSR) and about as compact
as some kind of table or linked list of patches.
peter
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From: JOSEF
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1168)
Date: 17-JAN 01:56 Programming Techniques
Actually, I did something that's even more reliable than that, but only
slightly: I look to make sure that the address is preceded by a 68000 JMP
opcode. Even that is probably unnecessary since the first thing i check is the
size of the driver. If that has changed, then all bets are off anyway.
Joe
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From: JOSEF
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1169)
Date: 17-JAN 01:56 Programming Techniques
So what's wrong with self-modifying code? In fact, that's sort of what the
SMART ALARM folks did to jump back to the rom trap that they patched.
Joe
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From: JOSEF
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1170)
Date: 17-JAN 01:57 Programming Techniques
Peter, did you mean to imply that I might have a reason to complain to
the SMART ALARM people for not storing the patched address in a fixed
place? I would have to disagree since their patch doesn't really
change the basic operation of the trap; and what I'm doing is
admittedly somewhat unorthodox and probably never crossed their minds.
Joe
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From: BRECHER
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1153)
Date: 17-JAN 03:43 Programming Techniques
You could locate and disassemble the ROM startup code that initializes the
dispatch table(s) from the compressed(!) source table in the ROM. This will
provide original addresses before any boot-time System file or INIT patches.
Otherwise, there is no way, because there is no conventional technique for
saving or making available the original addresses.
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From: BRECHER
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1173)
Date: 17-JAN 03:43 Programming Techniques
Self-modifying code doesn't work on a 68020 with an enabled
instruction cache if the modified location is cached, and it won't
work on any future architectures that implement hardware memory
management.
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From: MACLAIRD
Subject: RE: trap patches (Re: Msg 1177)
Date: 17-JAN 07:22 Programming Techniques
It is possible to patch traps without generating self-modifying code. Just use
the value of the address rather than building an instruction and saving it off
somewhere.
Doesn't the Segment Loader (or rather the Jump Table) use
self-generated instructions? If so, whomsoever wishes to "roll their
own segments" in and out of the Jump Table will also have to be able
to clear the cache, which means s/he must be privileged. Since, if
appearances don't deceive, it is pretty easy to fake out a
non-privileged application executing privileged instructions on a
68010 or 68020, care must be taken when designing such patches.
I can even believe that A-line traps (setTrapAddress, GetTrapAddress)
could be put into application state. While the initial exception
arrives in System state (at the location specified in the real
low-memory vector) by the time control goes to the application's
&SetTrapAddress() the MPU could be back in application mode. I have
difficulty believing, however, that asynch i/o completion routines and
VBL tasks ("operating at interrupt level") would be anything but
privileged. I can see how they could be set up, but my instincts tell
me that they would not work very well.
One trouble with all of the hacks that went into the original Macintosh system
and software is that putting them properly on a 68020 will involve writing an
operating shell for the 68020 that does (at the least) all the work needed to
pretend the MPU chip is a 68000. MS-DOS emulation, wait a minute, we've got to
get 68000 emulation working first!
Laird
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From: DDUNHAM
Subject: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?
Date: 14-JAN 04:08 Mousing Around
Some of you may remember Cauzin's moose from previous Mac shows. This
time, the costume award goes to Borland for their tomato. (Someone
told me it was supposed to be a McIntosh, but apples don't have leaves
arranged the same way around the stem.)
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From: PEABO
Subject: RE: Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? (Re: Msg 16403)
Date: 14-JAN 13:17 Mousing Around
There was also something large and green walking around, but I just shook my
head and tried (successfully) to forget what booth it was inhabiting.
peter
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From: INTECO
Subject: ListMgr/TextEdit Data >32k
Date: 14-JAN 19:09 Programming Techniques
Where can I find a description how to use ListManager and TextEdit with data of
more than 32k size?
Uwe
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From: PEABO
Subject: RE: ListMgr/TextEdit Data >32k (Re: Msg 1156)
Date: 14-JAN 21:59 Programming Techniques
TextEdit doesn't work with data over 32K, so what you have to do is
treat each paragraph as a separate text item. It's still messy to
deal with because of the problem of selections which cross paragraph
boundaries. You could also perhaps deal with a limited data structure
covering the visible part of the file being edited, using TextEdit to
deal with that and then propagating the edits into your real file.
peter
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From: DDUNHAM
Subject: RE: Pictures in Word
Date: 14-JAN 22:48 Network Digests
to: cohen_3%husc4.harvard.edu@harvunxt.BITNET
re: Pictures in Word
The window with the ">" is the 128K ROM nano-debugger. At worst, you could
execute the eject-and-reboot program:
SM 50000 204F 42A8 0012 3178
SM 50008 0210 0016 A017 4E70
G 50000
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From: NWOLF
Subject: RE: downloading postscript
Date: 15-JAN 02:15 Network Digests
To: stew%lhasa@husc.HARVARD.EDU
The program Downloader will download both fonts and postscript text
files to any AppleTalk connected device. It is available from Adobe
Systems.
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From: NWOLF
Subject: Re: Excel templates
Date: 15-JAN 02:18 Network Digests
To: FALK%NORUNIT.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
There are some templates for Excel which may solve both your problems.
These are available from Heizer SoftwareUs Excellent Exchange, 5120
Coral Court, Concord, California, 94521. They are not very expensive.
Their catalog is available on disk along with o rder forms, bug
reports, etc. $6 US should be enough to get it to you. You will also
receive a bunch of demo prgrams, the program of the month and the
current Excel tip sheet. An excellent value!
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From: NWOLF
Subject: Re: mac cooling
Date: 15-JAN 02:21 Network Digests
To: mweasner@trwrb.UUCP
Your solution will cause a high-pressure airflow through the disk
drive housing. Unless you have a VERY clean environment and have
filtered the air you're circulating through your Mac ( and even if you
haven't), I would suggest you shroud the disk drive in such a way as
to prevent same. This will eliminate the eventual possibility of dust,
etc., finding its way into the drive. Granted a little positive air
pressure in the drive housing is beneficial in that it keeps dust from
entering through the drive RdoorS, but unless the air is clean you're
better of to seal it completely. Tape and cardboard do a great job.
neil wolf
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End of Delphi Mac Digest
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