INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA (Moderator David Gelphman...) (12/04/86)
INFO-MAC Digest Wednesday, 3 Dec 1986 Volume 5 : Issue 20
Today's Topics:
fonts
File formats
Lightspeed Pascal Editor Wishes
LSP or Borland's Turbo Pascal?
Ram-Based HFS Questions...
Re: LSC 1.5
pong.hqx
resedit-switcher_templates.hqx
Go program
Word 3.0
MacIntosh in Engineering conference
MacDraft
why SCSI drive is so expensive
re:HD for the Mac
The Smallest System?
Group viewing of Mac screens
image cameras for the Macintosh
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: fonts
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 86 18:09:40 -0800
From: duggie@portia.STANFORD.EDU
I want to draw (and word wrap) text vertically, with the letters stacked
on top of each other
l t
i h
k i
e s
and do it semi-proportionally, i.e. stagger the spacing so that there is
one blank line between each letter, which means letters with decenders will
be taller than other letters. I'll also need to either center the letters
horizontally or use a monospace font, but that`s another issue, as is the
question of how I get this to print decently on a laserwriter...
Anyway, there is supposed to be an 'optional character height table' that
is generated by the font manager in the new roms. So far so good. But
what data structure contains it, and how do I get the offset to the start
of it (given that there seem to be many variable-length arrays in these
records), and how do I know how long it is? Inside Mac Vol IV is quite
vague about this.
Does anyone have a quick answer? How about the centering and laserwriter
problems?
-- doug
duggie@portia.stanford.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 02 Dec 86 20:04 EST
From: CML5A9%IRISHMVS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Subject: File formats
I am in the process of writing a word processor conversion
program. I already have it working for Waterloo SCRIPT
and would like to add as many types of other word processors
as I can. However, I first need the file format for them.
Needed formats include:
DisplayWrite3 (IBM PC)
Nota Bene (IBM PC)
WordStar (any)
Word Perfect (IBM PC)
Microsoft Word (PC)
AppleWorks (Apple II)
AppleWriter (Apple II)
Add your favorite WP here...
I have a DA that will convert files such as this to
MacWrite, however I need the formats before I can do
the conversion code. Any help would be appriciated
greatly.
-Tom Dowdy
CML5A9@IRISHMVS.BITNET
"I am increasingly of the opinion that a vast majority of
wrong thinking people are right."
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 86 09:17:09 est
From: rs4u#@andrew.cmu.edu (Richard Siegel)
Subject: Lightspeed Pascal Editor Wishes
A folding editor would be nice, but something that's quicker to do and even
more useful would be splitbars for the editor windows... And a little more
scrolling speed... Why is it that the scrolling pauses every screenful?
--Rich
------------------------------
From: Bill Roberts <bill%ncar.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET>
Date: 2 Dec 86 16:34:50 GMT
Subject: LSP or Borland's Turbo Pascal?
To my understanding, LightSpeed Pascal offers a true symbolic debugger whereas
Turbo Pascal only supports Macsbug and TMON. But Turbo Pascal allows up to
8 "processes" at once. That is, according to the mailer, one can have up to
8 separate programs in memory... a window in which one is editing a module
(UNIT) while compiling another one, while running a program in a third. Now
this sounds pretty hot "if true"! I don't think LS Pascal allows this type of
operation. On the other hand, LS Pascal is supposed to have a real nice
symbolic debugger, which I don't think Turbo Pascal has. Also, neither LS
Pascal nor Turbo Pascal support Object Pascal.
Which one would you chose? And why? Thanks in advance.
--Bill UUCP: !hao!bill
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 86 18:20:40 est
From: rs4u#@andrew.cmu.edu (Richard Siegel)
Subject: Ram-Based HFS Questions...
I am using a 512K Macintosh (old ROM) with an external 800K drive, and I am
using a Hard Disk 20 startup disk that I got this past summer. It's an
original Apple disk, with version 1.0 of the Hard Disk 20 file on it.
I've noticed some bugs in the HFS implementation, and I was wondering if
Apple had released an update (version 1.1?). Has anyone seen such an update,
or is it archived anywhere?
Thanks for any help...
--Rich
[ note from moderator: there have been updates to the HD 20 file since
1 year ago when the HD20 was introduced. The latest version I am aware
of comes with the system update disk from the update to system 3.2 from
last June, 1986. DAVEG ]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 86 08:36:16 PST
From: chuq@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Subject: Re: LSC 1.5
Just FYI: As of two days ago, Think was saying that LSC 1.5 had not
shipped yet, but that it was almost ready and "worth the wait" -- this
from compuserve.
chuq
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 86 13:33:21 est
From: jonathan@mitre-gateway.arpa (Jonathan Leblang)
Subject: pong.hqx
Here is an implementation of the game of pong. I got it from a local
Mac bulletin board. It apparently is in the public domain--there is
no notice to this effect, but there is absolutely no copyright notice
or "About Pong" message under the apple menu.
[ archived as
[SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU]<INFO-MAC>GAME-PONG.HQX
DAVEG
]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 86 13:34:07 est
From: jonathan@mitre-gateway.arpa (Jonathan Leblang)
Subject: resedit-switcher_templates.hqx
Massive apologies, I tried my own medicine and had an allergic reaction.
Please toss out the previously posted "CFIG" resource template. Upon
using it this evening I found that I have incorrectly specified bits for
the flags. On second inspection of Inside Switcher (and after a sudden bomb)
I find that each flag is a full byte. So, if you use the previous CFIG
resource on Switcher, bad things will surely happen sonner or later; try
the "Show Info" option, that's what bombed me.
Attached is a revised CFIG resource which is set up properly for the byte
sized flags used by Switcher. I suggest throwing out any copy of Switcher
modified via the CFIG template unless you know exactly what to do to
fix the resource in Switcher. The old ESCK template is in this document
as well, there have been no changes to that template.
[ archived as
[SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU]<INFO-MAC>RESEDIT-SWITCHER-TEMPLATES.HQX
DAVEG
]
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 86 19:08:03 PST
From: <LOGANJ@byuvax.bitnet>
Reply-to: LOGANJ%BYUVAX.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu
Subject: Go program
This is the latest version of the Macintosh Go program, as promised. Before
you can use the program you must take out these first few lines of comments,
and convert the hex code below with BinHex (using Upload to Application).
The total size of the hex code is 110K bytes, and the Go program is 81K bytes.
This program lost by 1 point to the 2nd place program in the Taiwan Go
tournament in November.
Regards,
jim (loganj@byuvax.bitnet)
[ archived as
[SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU]<INFO-MAC>GAME-GO.HQX
THIS VERSION replaces the previous version. DAVEG
]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 86 11:01:32 est
From: jonathan@mitre-gateway.arpa (Jonathan Leblang)
Subject: Word 3.0
I saw a demo of a beta version of Microsoft Word yesterday, and in a word...
Mindblowing! From what I saw, repaginating is about 5 times as fast, you
have the option of keeping either the program or the file or both in memory,
You can save documents in Word, MacWrite, text, and 4 other formats, headers
and footers are set up in seperate windows, a la MacWrite. Automatic index
and table of contents generation, ability to handle material in columns, and
perform arithmetic on the numbers.
It includes a formula definition language, similiar to the one in
Lotus manuscript (see November Byte). Text options include strike-through,
variable height sub & super scripts, double & dotted underlines, small caps,
all caps. There is now a font menu that lists font names and sizes (no more
dialog boxes for font changes). There are both long and short menus. The
short menu option allows all of the complexity to be hidden, making it look
almost like MacWrite. Long menus allow the full power of Word to be accessed.
Menus can also be customized. For example, on the style menu, if you never
use shadowed text, you can remove that choice from the menu. You could
customize the font menu to show just Laser fonts, or just Imagewriter fonts.
It includes an 80,000 word dictionary and hyphenation. In the page-preview
mode, margins can be changed, and page breaks inserted; multiple columns
can also be seen in page preview mode (but not in regular edit mode).
You can define styles, and then change the style of multiple paragraphs
very easily. There were some other things, and if I remember, I'll send
another message. If people have questions, I'll try to answer them.
DISCLAIMER: I have no connection with Microsoft Corporation, and am
reporting only as an impartial (though impressed) ovserver.
The views above are my own and should in no way be taken
as an endorsement by The MITRE Corporation.
_____ __ ___
|\ /| | | | \ | ARPA: jonathan@bert.mitre.org
| \/ | | | |__/ |__ BELL: (703) 883-5761
| | | | | \ | MAIL: 7525 Colshire Drive
| | | | | \ |___ McLean, VA 22102
Jonathan A. Leblang
The MITRE Corporation
------------------------------
Subject: MacIntosh in Engineering conference
Date: Wed, 03 Dec 86 13:10:49 -0500
From: tbmoore@ATHENA.MIT.EDU
I went to the MacIntosh in Engineering conference in Framingham, MA yesterday.
Sponsered by Apple, it was a showcase of third-party products that supposedly
make the MacIntosh more useful for engineers. Some highlights, impressions,
and biased opinions.:
Appletalk-EthernetTCP/IP bridges: Kinetics is marketing these devices,
along with Appletalk boards for the microVAX. This hardware,
along with software from Alisa Systems or pacer, turns the VAX
into a file server.This stuff seemed pretty functional from the demos,
although slow.
Big Screens: The Megascreen from IDT was the only big screen on display. It was
FANTASTIC. The display is very crisp with no ghosts, etc. This would
increase the usefulness and enjoyment of every MacIntosh program.
Levco Prodigy: Another demo, useing the stastical package MacSpin, nearly made
me fall of my chair. It's soooo fast...
CAD : Several venders had neat CAD programs.
Fiberoptics: DuPont has implemented Appletalk on fiberoptic cable. Kind of
neat.
Communications: There were several vendors vending terminal emulation programs
that emulate the Tek 4105, DEC vt240, etc.
If you have any questions about hardware or software that I mentioned,
please write to me and I will give you more details. One negative impression:
Apple said over and over again that the Mac won't compete with large CAD
systems.It seems obvious to me that, with some of the add-ons mentioned above,
the Mac could be very effective as a CAD machine.
-Tim Moore (tbmoore@athena.mit.edu)
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 Dec 86 22:48:12 PST
From: mse%Phobos.Caltech.Edu@DEImos.Caltech.Edu (Martin Ewing)
Subject: MacDraft
(From: wilson%eniac.seas.upenn.edu@cis.upenn.edu
(What about MacDraft? Have
(people simply not seen the recent versions of this program? Is there some
(major problem with it?
(...It is a bit more expensive than MacDraw but it's a really nice program.
I wondered the same thing. I use MacDraft 1.2a regularly, and have very
little reason to go back to MacDraw.
I never used <v1.2a, but I find the current version still unpleasantly buggy.
In particular if you have a largeish drawing and wish to recenter it, as
one commonly does, you "select all" and drag, the drawing disappears and
sometimes never comes back on the screen, leaving some random fuzz instead.
If you get to that point, "save" and "quit" immediately, for MacDraft will
crash after a few more operations. Fortunately, the drawing can usually
be saved correctly. I suspect the program cheats on memory allocation.
Even with this serious problem, I use the program. The best feature for me
is the very flexible zooming. Arcs and rotations are very useful too.
The one major functional drawback MacDraft shares with MacDraw - inordinately
long time to refresh the screen when looking at a complex drawing at low
magnification. I suppose this is QuickDraw's fault, but a really spiffy
program would be able to "summarize" a drawing quickly when zoomed out.
[ note from moderator: I noted the above problem in MacDraft just today
while working with it. Unfortunately one really has the feeling that the
program is buggy while working with it. It really has lots of great
features but if they don't get it working relatively bug free I may have
to go back to MacDraw (gulp). DAVEG ]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Dec 86 15:44:24 est
From: levine@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Jonathan M. Levine)
Subject: why SCSI drive is so expensive
I think that we will all find that MAC hard drives are more expensive than
IBM drives because
(1) It's more expensive to put drives in boxes
(2) Mac hard drive sellers sell fewer Mac hard drives, thus pay more per
unit
(3) People are willing to pay twice the price for Mac hard drives.
Jonathan
------------------------------
Date: Wed 3 Dec 86 17:25:30-PST
From: David Liu <DLIU@Sierra.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: re:HD for the Mac
For the three reasons cited, I would like to make some comment:
1. The drive is expensive because it costs $$ to put it into a box:
-Then why the internal drive cost almost 2X more expensive? Even
it does, this operation should not cost several hundred dollars each.
2. the sales volume is smaller so it costs more for the vendors to get the
teh 'naked' drive:
volume discount should not make , again, ~$400 each less.
3. The Mac users are willing to pay$$$$$
I think that is the true reason. With the competitions coming in,
and Mac users have more good quality brands to choose, the price then may
become less outrages. The price drop from $1500 HD-20 (non-SCSI) to the
present price scale of SCSI drives is an interesting example.
------------------------------
Date: 2 Dec 1986 16:18-EST
From: mp1w#@andrew.cmu.edu (Marc Russell Pawliger)
Subject: The Smallest System?
I am interested in smallifying my system file. I know that with the
old roms and System 2.0, one could actually have a workable system that
was about 40K. This was by cutting out all essential fonts, installing
only a 38 byte DA (Compact), and cutting things like the MACS resource.
With System 3.2, what is the new limit? You can cut Chicago 12 font,
since that's now in ROM, you can cut out the ATP resources, once again
in ROM, what else? After a while you lose functionality - like cutting
out PAT# and so on - the interface degrades, but the mac still 'works'.
Also, is there documentation for the new resource types, particularly
the lowercase designated ones, that appeared with 3.X? Any help is
appreciated.
Marc
mp1w@andrew.cmu.edu
mp1w@te.cc.cmu.edu
------------------------------
Date: 2 Dec 1986 13:47-EST
Sender: PHORWITZ@G.BBN.COM
Subject: Group viewing of Mac screens
From: PHORWITZ@G.BBN.COM
I am part of a group that is working on MAC-based software for use in
the classroom. As part of the curriculum, we wish to use this software
in "demo mode", i.e. in such a way that the entire class can view it at
once. Given the small size of the screen and the closed architecture of
the machine, we obviously have a problem. Several solutions suggest
themselves:
(1) We are planning to AppleTalk the machines (approx. 6 per classroom)
together, so as to share resources such as printers. Does anyone know
of a way to use this network to produce a "master-slave" relationship,
such that anything typed (e.g. by the teacher) on one machine will
appear on all the others?
(2) Has anyone had any experience modifying the Mac Plus and hooking it
up to a large monitor? How successful pedagogically is this approach?
Please reply to me directly. If there is sufficient interest I
will summarize for InfoMac. Thanks!
Paul
------------------------------
Date: Wed 3 Dec 86 10:29:03-PST
From: Ivan R. Linscott <LINSCOTT@Score.Stanford.EDU>
Subject: image cameras for the Macintosh
The December '84 issue of MACWORLD carried an ad for what appears to be
a solid state image camera called the Micron Eye from Micron Technology.
The product was carried by the MacConnection in NH. They don't offer it
now, and do not know who does. I wonder what ever became of the Micorn Eye.
I am interested in finding a solid state image camera for the Macintosh.
Does anybody know of a product that would allow relatively noise free
images to be input to a Macintosh at say, 10 frames per second ???
Thanks.
Ivan Linscott - RadioScience Group
------------------------------
End of INFO-MAC Digest
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