INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA.UUCP (11/24/86)
INFO-MAC Digest Sunday, 23 Nov 1986 Volume 5 : Issue 15 Today's Topics: Summary of answers to my laserwriter questions... VAX to Laserwriter Re: Re: Apple's response about Bugs in Apple Software NumCaps 2.0 Re: document can't be opened Re: Difficulty in launching MacWrite Re: DynaBook Lives! Mac Engineering MIDI Interfaces looking for least square fit software ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Nov 86 14:01:56 PST From: chuq@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) Subject: Summary of answers to my laserwriter questions... A while ago, I sent out a note asking for help on a number of laserwriter related questions. I got LOTS of answers -- thank you! Since others may well have similar questions, I'm summarizing what I found out. My comments are [bracketed] and everyone elses are in semi-random order. Since a lot of people wrote in with the same information, I'll pulled all the names and taken representative comments to keep the size reasonable. Thanks to everyone for the information and the help. > First of all, am I going to have trouble hooking it up to my system? I'm > currently running a Paradise hard disk off of the printer port, an > Imagewriter/Thunderscan and a modem off of an A/B switch on the modem port. > Appletalk also plugs into the modem port, right? ... >(note: since the LW can't do mailing labels, I can't completely retire the >Imagewriter, although the Thunderscan may be retired soon). [Appletalk plugs into the printer port. In my specific case, I can plug the paradise into the modem port, so there is no problem. It is also possible to A/B switch Appletalk and a modem of the printer port, but I've been warned not to put modem control stuff out Appletalk, as it might make life interesting. The long term 'fix' is to upgrade to a mac+ and get a SCSI disk, but the current siuation is workable without the Thunderscanner. This is no big deal, since I find the Thunderscanner doesn't really do what I need it to do -- I'm going to look for a firm that has a 300dpi scanner I can rent time on instead. Oh, I was very wrong on the fact that the LW can't do labels. It can, and you can get sheets of labels that can be hand fed into it. So I probably won't need to keep the Imagewriter (one less toy to cable in...)] > Question #2. How well in reality does bitmapped (i.e. MacPaint) art and > graphics reproduce? Am I (as an example) going to want to upgrade to > SuperPaint so I can do Postscript graphics? Has anyone played with the > new Postscript clip art starting to come out? Is SuperPaint better than > MacDraw? What are the tradeoffs? With the new LaserWriter drivers (which have been out for a few months now) bitmapped graphics, like MacPaint graphics, will come out beautifully. They finally implemented the printing right, so you can tell the LaserWriter that you'd like your MacPaint bitmaps smoothed, or not. As far as reproduction quality, you've nothing to worry about. I haven't tried SuperPaint, so I can't comment on it. I use MacDraw for any drawing tasks I have, since I generally don't deal with bitmapped images. On the Laserwriter, MacDraw produces some of the most fantastic output I've ever seen. It's pretty compatible with MacPaint, so you can paste in a bitmap from MacPaint, and mess around with it, and print it out... ================= MacPaint images pasted into true LW pages look pretty poor -- the larger dots really leap out at you. What you could do is paste them in at 1 Mac pixel to 1 LW pixel (they would come out 1/4 the size), but I have no idea how you do this. The latest issue of 'Colophon', Adobe Systems' News Publication, says that it used GrayPaint(tm) software from Fractal Software; I imagine this lets you work with bitmaps at the high resolution of the LW. There's also a product called Bill's Ultimate Bitmap Editor, or something, which simplifies editing 300dpi stuff. It was mentioned in some recent Mac magazine (MacUser? Macazine?). You need a special bitmap editor because at 300dpi it's incredibly time- consuming to work on a dots by dots basis. ================= Macpaint won't print any worse then on the imagewriter. The one thing is until you get a laserwriter you don't realize how bad (+ noisy) the image writer is. In fact if you turn on smoothing, the lw will make somethings look better. BUT 300dpi lines are NEAT. ================= the main problem with the LaserWriter is that programs such as MacDraw do not align the bitmaps properly with object text, no WYSIWYG. SuperPaint does. No program is practical for editing 300 dpi bitmaps, unless it includes AI. You can certainly do it with SuperPaint, but it will take all day (according to the president of Silicon Beach) to do anything sizable, so it seems most appropriate for recurring artwork. In short, 72 dpi bitmaps from MacPaint or FullPaint turn into 75 dpi bitmaps, shrunk 4%. What a LaserWriter means is that you use MacDraw or SuperPaint to draw objects whereever possible. I'm using MacDraw and SuperPaint for my book, but MacDraw has a number of annoying bugs (e.g., it remembers fonts by position, not name or number, so if you read a doc on another system disk, all your fonts have changed!) and made some illustrations with SuperPaint that could have not been done with either {Mac,Full}Paint or MacDraw. I will use SuperPaint exclusively once I get 1.0; the only thing missing now is align to grid, which I use all the time, particularly for sizing boxes. For using the LaserWriter, you can't beat object manipulation in FatBits-style. ================= You will definitely want to use a program such as Draw to get the maximum quality from drawings on the Laserwriter. I write papers for my Microeconomics Theory class here that usually have several graphs with lines and arcs illustrating the point I am making, and I will never go back to Paint for this kind of stuff for output on the Laserwriter. You see, if you use bit-mapped graphics, which are 72dpi (I think), you can't take advantage of the Laserwriter's outstanding 300dpi resolution. And it makes a huge difference. I don't know about Superpaint, but MacDraw yields really professional quality illustrations on the Laserwriter. As for your letterhead, why not design one in MacDraw using the Laser fonts? It should look really nice with the Laserwriter's high resolution. ================= I think that SuperPaint is pretty neat. Especially the LaserBits stuff. I think that it is easily better than MacDraw if you want to be doing things where it is useful to have both a bitmap layer and an object layer. Especially when you want to do some really deatailed bitmaps for printing on the Laser. > Question #3. Does anyone know of a grahics librarian for PICT stuff? > Picturebase (?) does it for macpaint bitmap stuff, but not for macdraw > format graphics. Am I stuck with the Scrapbook for now? [Editorial comment. Bad choice of words. What I meant to ask about was macdraw object (not PICT) format, which nobody to date supports.] Picturebase is one. I don't know of others. Why would you be stuck with the Scrapbook? Why not just store them as MacPaint pictures. If you do use SuperPaint, MacPublisher, or what have you, there's a DA that allows you to copy from any MacPaint file from anywhere, so... ================= Both Microsoft File and Business Filevision will store PICT stuff. I have not extensive experience with File and PICTS, so there might be some hidden problems. WIth Business Filevision, however, I am sure that this works fine (that's becasue I designed Business Filevision and wrote the part that files PICTs - so if it doesn't really work for you you will know who to complain to!). I believe the street price on either of these programs is under $200. > Question #4. What are your favorite laser fonts? Now that I'm not going > to be limited to 72dpi, I want to pick up a few distinctive typefaces for > some of my stuff. I particularly would like to find a good London style > Old English font, if it exists. What other fonts are available, and > which ones do you like? Call up Adobe (800)45-ADOBE to ask for a brochure on fonts and find your nearest font dealer. I would advise against going with anyone else's fonts unless you really see all of them at a lot of different styles and sizes. Poorly designed LW fonts look even worse than all the ImageWriter junk fonts. There is an article in the Nov 12th Bay Area Mac Classifieds on 'Unusual Type Effects with Downloadable Fonts' (together with some ugly sample fonts). With an ordinary LW you can only download 2 fonts per document (2 per text block in Page Maker), so if you want to use lots of fancy fonts, you should think about getting a LW+. If you buy a font designer program, you can in theory put somewhat sophisticated clip art in the font, and bypass MacDraw/MacPaint altogether. All the Adobe fonts are good looking. ITC Lubalin Graph is kinda techy, Optima is cool, ITC Souvenir and Palatino are easy to read... have fun! ================= The only one I've tried is Bodoni from the Cassady folks. I wasn't all that impresses. I read somewhere that there are now over 100 PostScript fonts, so... ================= Since I do a lot of technical writing, my preferred font is Times 14. It's not distinctive, but it is easy to read. Keep in mind that with the new drivers, ANY Macintosh font can be downloaded, so if you have some really nifty public-domain font, you don't have to worry. It'll look as good, and in many cases better, than what you see on the screen. So go ahead and use your London, and enjoy... New Century Schoolbook, or Optima (you have to buy this from Adobe though). Garramond is big as shit, and will not all load into the laserwriter with laser prep. Remember, A LaserWriter requires the space for the LaserPrep file, unless you run JustText, which cranks pure postcript. ================= By all means be sure to get the *complete* set of Apple laserwriter fonts. They are professionally designed fonts, and far better than any of the other fonts I've seen. My favorite font is "Palatino", which is a Roman font with serifs and a somewhat rounded, "modern" look to it (but the serifs make it look much better than a lot of the sans-serif modern fonts). The "N Helvetica" (narrow helvetica) is also good for captioning figures. There is also a font called "ZAPF Dingbats" which contains a lot of professionally-designed dingbats. For some reason the existence of these fonts is not well-known around here, so they may be hard to find without searching. I found them on one of the Software Supplement disks (*not* the "Printer Install" disk) which simply says "LaserWriter Fonts: Macintosh Format--Single Sided, (C) Feb. 1986 Apple Computer, Inc." and which says (in the Get Info box) "Laserwriter Fonts 1.0". One of our folks here who keeps track of all the disks claims that some of the fonts are out of date, and he thought maybe those were, but they have worked fine for me on our LaserWriter Plus. The really good fonts are in the file called "Laserwriter Plus Fonts". It may be that the disk also comes with the Laserwriter nowadays since I notice our Laserwriter Plus manual has the copyright information on those fonts in it. > Question #5. What do you recommend for things like custom font/logo/graphic > design? If I want to develop my own font characters and dingbats, what > should I look at using, assuming I want PostScript and not bitmap characters? Fontographer wins for font design. You create a font in terms of its outline, and you have an assortment of straight segments, curves, and angles with which to build your font. > Question the last. With the laserwriter coming in, I'm thinking it would > be a Good Thing to start using honest letterhead instead of pinfeed with a > bitmap letterhead logo for stuff. Any suggestions on kinds of paper (also > colors and tints ) that work well in a laserwriter? What sort of thigns > should I plan on avoiding (textured papers, for instance...). Does the > printer have trouble with heavy (say 20lb) paper? The printer can handle VERY heavy paper. How about 40lb? No prob! It's just the very light stuff that I'd aviod. Also, take care to not have any BIG swaths of black, as the Xero-graphic engine doesn't like it very well. While I haven't done too much with heavy paper, or anything really strange, I have printed a bit on lightly textured bond paper (weight unknown) without any problems. I would want to stay away from anything extra-heavy or extra-rough textured.. I would recommend you try some extreme cases, and see what happens.... We have put ALL kinds of paper into our machine, from overhead slides to heavy J-Card paper (J Cards are cassette inserts for tapes) with no problem. For thick paper, some adjustment might be needed on the manual feed, but it should hav little problem. ================= I need to print disk labels for a project and created the design using MacDraw. Then using Avery full sheet labels (#5455), these are 8.5x11 inches, I single sheet feed them through the Laserwriter. Worked like a champ. I also need to print manual covers, using some 110 pound paper (more like card board), i single sheet feed the covers through with great results. ================= Our new version of Word for the Macintosh allows imbedding of PostScript in an "intelligent" manner (i.e., it recognizes the postscript and handles it properly, although I am not sure exactly how it works). I have seen some really interesting 3-D letterheads done using Postscript in Word 3.0, though. [editorial note: ReadySetGo3.0 also is supposed to have what is known as a PostScript window so you can program graphics directly in PostScript for your page layout, too] ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Nov 86 16:59 EDT From: <VENARD%EDUCOM.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> (Robert Venard) Subject: VAX to Laserwriter We have a VAX 11/750, and a number of micros, including some Macintoshes and a Laserwriter. I have recently discovered that the Laserwriter has a Diablo 630 emulation mode. The Diablo 630 is among the printers which are supported by WORD11, our word processing package on the VAX. So, I connected our Apple Laserwriter to an asynch line connected to the VAX, used SET TERM to make the appropriate modifications to the terminal settings, and used the WORD-11 managers utility to make the device known to WORD-11. I printed some WORD-11 documents, with various success. For the most part, it works just fine. However, there is a problem with bolding. I think I could get around this if I knew the sequence of control characters which the Laserwriter needs to turn on and turn off bolding. Any ideas on how I might obtain this information? ------------------------------ Date: Friday, 21 November 1986 19:58:32 EST From: Thomas.Newton@spice.cs.cmu.edu Subject: Re: Re: Apple's response about Bugs in Apple Software > What isn't being dealt with? MacWrite, MacPaint, and MacDraw. > > MacWrite almost singlehandedly killed off the Word Processing market for the > Mac. It, like the 128K Mac (remember that?) is an obsolete product. Why > would anyone buy MacWrite at $195 (list -- remember, it isn't free anymore) > when they can buy Word for about $100. This might be a good argument for Apple to stop selling MacWrite. But it isn't a good reason for them not to support the people who already have it. If they are really serious about washing their hands of MacWrite, they should (1) stop distributing it as an Apple product (whether bundled or not) and (2) distribute the sources to user groups, net.sources.mac, INFO-MAC, GENIE, etc. so it can be maintained (or not) by programmers in the user community. Otherwise, they should at least attempt to fix its bugs, if not its numerous misfeatures. > The same can be said for MacPaint. I don't believe that MacPaint is as obsolete as MacWrite. It does have some bugs and shortcomings that need to be fixed: how it decides where to locate the Clipboard, the always-grey background that doesn't go well with Servant, the inability to do anything while DAs are open, and the inability to make a selection that's larger than the drawing window. Fixing a few of the obvious problems won't make it into FullPaint, but it still seems like a fairly useful program and there are a -lot- of users who already have it. > Both of these programs, by the way, significantly deviate from published > Apple interface standards. To bring them up to spec would require many > non-compatible changes to the programs. For MacWrite, any effort that's more than bug-fixing and less than a complete rewrite to make it more like MS-WORD would be wasted. As for MacPaint, while it's interface isn't standard, it isn't completely nonintuitive modulo the DA and large selection problems noted above. > Apple has made the decision to stay out of the application market. Funny -- they're currently selling MacWrite, MacPaint, MacDraw, MacTerminal, MacPascal, MDS, and betas of MPW. Doesn't sound much like staying out of the market to me. Or do you mean that they are willing to take people's money for programs that are obsolete (MacWrite and MacPascal, due to Microsoft WORD and to LightSpeed Pascal), that have known bugs and problems (MacPaint, MacDraw), or that could stand major functionality improvements (MacPaint, MacTerminal)? > If Apple put resources into updating these programs and started remarketing > them, it certainly WOULD affect the third party market, to everyone's > detriment. I think the problem may be that Apple never put enough resources into these programs in the first place. As to the matter at hand, I fail to see how it will harm any third-party company if Apple fixes the bugs in their software. Any sales that Microsoft WORD, FullPaint, etc. get because the corresponding Apple program has bugs are sales that the third-party product doesn't really deserve to get. I suspect that most people who choose these programs over the Apple programs do so because of the great difference in functionality; fixing a few bugs in MacWrite/MacPaint and MacDraw isn't going to change their minds. > I threw out my copy of MacPaint months ago, as well as MacWrite. I > couldn't function without Word, without FullPaint. If Apple hadn't > taken this stance and let the third party people take over the > application market, the mac would be much worse off. But again, what has this to do with fixing bugs in Write, Paint, and Draw? > The one place where I might disagree with the above is MacDraw. Why? > Because as of now, there isn't an application on the market that has > replacement functionality. So here we come to the heart of the matter. Is the basic idea that if we find bugs in MacWrite, we should buy Microsoft WORD; that if we find bugs in MacPaint, we should buy FullPaint; that if we find bugs in MacDraw, we should wait for SuperPaint to come out and buy it? And what of the bugs and misfeatures in Microsoft WORD and FullPaint and SuperPaint? As every computer program has bugs, such a strategy will have all of us paying $$$ until we die or run out of money (whichever comes first). >> This seems to me to be a serious problem. If Apple must support existing >> products by using people who are working on newer products then that seems >> to me to be neglecting the interests of those who are currently using the >> product. This implies that there will never be nearly bug free software >> for any Apple computer since there will alwasy be another product which >> is being worked on. > This is a fact of the real world. People don't like to do 100% maintenance > programming. If you don't give them new toys to play with, they find > companies who will. The person who enjoys maintenance programming is > rare indeed, and should be cherished... You're missing the point. Sure, it may be necessary to use people who are working on new products to do maintenance. But it's not necessary to give the new products higher priority than the old ones, to say "don't fix bugs in OLD-FOO this week since the marketing guys want NEW-FOO next week". If it is indeed impossible to get anyone to do any maintenance, then that's a serious problem indeed, and one that says that the whole computer industry should be scrapped since we will -never- have any halfway-reliable software. But I don't believe that's the case, and I don't believe that you do either. > Again, though, it is a matter of where the resources can best be put. Aha! So resources can be put into maintenance after all. > Why maintain obsolete software where there is better, compatible and cheaper > software on the market? Because there may be people who depend upon the software and who have paid for it. (I paid $110 for MacWrite/MacPaint back in Feburary '84 when I got my Mac; my guess is that Apple unbundled Write/Paint from Consortium purchases for much the same type of reason that they made the Finder equate 1000 with 1K. I think that people who got it bundled with their Macs also paid for it, only they did not know how much of the machine's price was really for the "free" software.) > I'd rather see new and nifty finders and better hardware than a bug-free > MacWrite. We don't NEED a bug-free MacWrite. And will you trust those new and nifty finders if the people who wrote them (or their managers) decide they can't be bothered with maintaining them? > Apple isn't perfect, but in the last year they've made great strides. > APDA, Right. From APDA, I can buy a beta-test version of a C compiler with -no- support, -no- updates, and -no- discount on the final C compiler for just a few dollars less than I can buy LightSpeed C, which is supported. If I pay them $20 for the great honor of being able to buy it under legal terms that favor them in every way imaginable. > posting system software to Compuserve and Delphi, Under very restrictive terms, but I don't want to go into that again. > they've worked hard to improve between them and The Rest Of Us Huh? Is there perhaps a word left out of this phrase after "improve"? > The Mac Software is faster and more reliable, I thought we were discussing the topic of fixing bugs in Mac software, and you were on the side saying "don't fix them". How can you then say that the software is "more reliable"? > there are a lot of really hot products in markets (WP and Paint tools) > that previously Apple had choked off with their products. This has more to do with the unbundling of MacWrite and MacPaint than with their bugs; note that the WP and Paint tools are available even though the Apple programs are still available (granted, for more than they're worth). And of course, with the wheat has come the chaff -- at least one of the new WP programs is WORSE than MacWrite and the people selling it (for $30 plus your MacWrite master disk) have such fun sales practices as a $25 "shipping and handling" fee for taking advantage of the "money-back guarantee". -- Thomas Newton ------------------------------ Date: 23 Nov 86 16:46:19 EST From: Jeffrey Shulman <SHULMAN@RED.RUTGERS.EDU> Subject: NumCaps 2.0 Name: NUMCAPS 2.0 DA Date: 22-NOV-1986 09:56 by JEFFS NumCaps 2.0 is a DA that allows you to cut any character for later pasting into an application. Characters are specified by either using their character code (available from programs like FontDisplay) or just by typing them in. You can also select the font and size to use when pasting into applications that recognize MacWrite format clipboards. You can select ANY size between 1 and 127 points. [ archived as [SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU]<INFO-MAC>DA-NUMCAPS.HQX DAVEG ] ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Nov 86 22:05 N From: <INFOEARN%HLERUL5.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> (Thomas Fruin) Subject: Re: document can't be opened Patrick, Try opening the document with Microsoft Word. That usually works. Then Copy the document over to MacWrite (piece by piece if it's big) using the Scrapbook, so fonts and formats and such won't be lost (they will be when using the Clipboard). -- Thomas FRUIN@HLERUL5.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Nov 86 22:07 N From: <INFOEARN%HLERUL5.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> (Thomas Fruin) Subject: Re: Difficulty in launching MacWrite Had the same problem too. I had two copies of Edit on a hard disk in different folders. Double-clicking an Edit document would always launch the Edit I had copied on the hd first. Once I removed that first Edit, there it was: "This application is either open or missiing...", even though there was still an Edit on the disk. This does seem to point to where the error lies. My solution was to rebuild the desktop file (by holding down Command and Option keys when the disk was being mounted). -- Thomas FRUIN@HLERUL5.BITNET ------------------------------ Date: Sat 22 Nov 86 13:32:27-CST From: Werner Uhrig <CMP.WERNER@R20.UTEXAS.EDU> Subject: Re: DynaBook Lives! My interest and curiosity was also greatly aroused by this product and Neil's message reminded me that I wanted to inquire if such a Dynamac machine might be available to keep me company on my Xmas trip to Germany. So I just called the company - here is what I can add to Neil's report: RE: Available in Jan. '87 starting at $4995. Keep in mind that the initial target is the business market. I was just told "not before February" and consider that 'wishful thinking' (and my good wishes are with them). There are currently only a few machines in existence (single digit), and, no, I could not buy or borrow one before Xmas. Apparently some major companies have been given access to demos, but, in general, compliance with FCC-rules is a problem (as for so many other companies). ------------------------------ Subject: Mac Engineering Date: Sat, 22 Nov 86 14:46:06 -0500 From: meltsner@athena.MIT.EDU It appears that the local Apple folks are targeting engineers for their next big push. There will be a seminar in Framingham, MA (all day, free lunch) to tell the local engineers about Mac-VAX connections, (i believe) Levco Prodigy-equipped Mac's, engineering/scientific graphics and report production., etc. This is the sort of seminar day that DEC offten runs for various focussed product groups. Considering how expensive these can be -- room rents, staff time, catering -- this indicates that Apple will probably be pushing the "desktop engineering" concept next. I can't go to this seminar -- dissertation crunch -- but perhaps someone who can will tell us about the day. ----Ken ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Nov 86 10:49 EDT From: Joe Mastroianni <JDM%SMVL%rca.com@RELAY.CS.NET> Subject: MIDI Interfaces I play keyboards in a band, and am interested in getting a MIDI interface (both hardware and software) for my Mac. I'm trying to figure out what products are available. Information seems to be limited. Does Concertware +MIDI include the hardware interface? I'd appreciate any input from my fellow MIDIphiles. This seems like a really neat way to use my already neat Mac. Tnx, Joe jdm%smvl%rca.com@csnet-relay.ARPA or on GENIE JOE-M ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Nov 86 11:40:12 EST From: T. C. Lau <tc@MEDIA-LAB.MEDIA.MIT.EDU> Subject: looking for least square fit software I am looking for a software that will do the best fitted-line for some experimental data. Can someone please help me out. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 21 Nov 86 18:40:41 est From: woo@nyu-acf4.arpa (Alex C. Woo) Why are MAC/SCSI disks so expensive? Here are some current prices for AT compatible Hard Disks Seagate 4026 -- 20MB: 39 ms av. access time $528 Seagate 4051 -- 40MB: 39 ms av. access time $680 Seagate 4096 -- 80MB: 28 ms av. access time $1195 AT Hard Disk/Floppy Controller $170 External Chassis & Power Supply $100 These prices are retail and they represent a reasonable profit margin. So what is so complicated with a SCSI interface for these drives? Does someone offer such a SCSI Hard Disk Interface which will interface with Seagate drives? Alex Woo woo@nyu-acf4 ------------------------------ End of INFO-MAC Digest **********************