INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA (Moderator David Gelphman...) (09/27/86)
INFO-MAC Digest Friday, 26 Sep 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 121
Today's Topics:
Reset instruction again
Re: INFO-MAC Digest V4 #120 (PICT file)
Re: INFO-MAC Digest V4 #120 (MacinTalk)
Re: Thomas D. Schardt: Problem with TOPS?
Prodigy
Slow Motion Mode in MacsBug - Is TN#7 Correct?
where is the 68020 Macintosh??
Vax VMS -> LaserWriter
Usenet Mac Digest V2 #78
MacMemory Upgrade Horror Story
Statistic Packages
LaTeX book info
WhatsA Bernoulli ? 'n HowGoodsIt Anyway?...
hard disk recommendations
Ringing the Mac's bell
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Reset instruction again
Date: 25 Sep 86 16:18:27 EST (Thu)
From: "Steven B. Munson" <sbm@purdue.edu>
Thanks for all the comments. It seems that using the reset
instruction to reboot is safe unless you have a Hyperdrive. Notice,
though, that what the Mac does when you hit the "restart" button in the
system bomb box is simply execute a reset instruction (at least that was
the case with system 2.whatever), so I still think it is the best way
for a program to reboot, since software cannot turn off the Mac.
Steve Munson
sbm@Purdue.EDU
sbm@Purdue.CSNET
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 86 12:47:34 pdt
From: gould9!joel@nosc.ARPA (Joel West)
Subject: Re: INFO-MAC Digest V4 #120 (PICT file)
Tech Note #21 gives the format of a QuickDraw picture. The MacDraw
PICT file is nothing more than a picture with some boiler plate
in front (256 bytes? 512 bytes?) which your program can ignore
or make 0.
One way to recognize a valid picture is that, near the front, it will include
$11,$01 Picture version
$01,..... clipping region
The MacDraw pictures also include 'picture comments', but the format
of these is not documented. Since the comments have a length
given by TN #21, it is possible to skip them and ignore them.
Joel West MCI Mail: 282-8879
Western Software Technology, POB 2733, Vista, CA 92083
{cbosgd, ihnp4, pyramid, sdcsvax, ucla-cs} !gould9!joel
joel%gould9.uucp@NOSC.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 86 12:50:54 pdt
From: gould9!joel@nosc.ARPA (Joel West)
Subject: Re: INFO-MAC Digest V4 #120 (MacinTalk)
MacinTalk works fine on my Mac Plus.
It could be that the file 'MacinTalk' is not in your blessed folder,
normally <Bootdisk>:System Folder. When OpenResFile goes to find it,
it uses the poor man's search path (I don't know where the PMSP
is documented) which I believe consists of the current folder,
blessed folder, and (??) root folder of boot disk.
Joel West MCI Mail: 282-8879
Western Software Technology, POB 2733, Vista, CA 92083
{cbosgd, ihnp4, pyramid, sdcsvax, ucla-cs} !gould9!joel
joel%gould9.uucp@NOSC.ARPA
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 86 19:21 EDT
From: Hess@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA
Subject: Re: Thomas D. Schardt: Problem with TOPS?
When I run TOPS and dismount a floppy volume, it DOES look out over the
network (or in its internal tables? I can't tell) to see if any client
has used the volume to be dismounted, and gives you a warning box with
Cancel/Continue buttons. Admittedly, I've only used a Mac-published
volume with an IBM PC accessing it, but I would assume that it doesn't
matter who the client is. And when I go to access the dismounted volume
on the PC, it just says "No files" in a directory listing. Similarly,
trying to write to that volume says "File creation error" on the PC.
That's not to say TOPS is bug-free; I can definitely make the host Mac
crash by properly timed local floppy application launch and remote
client disk access of the same disk. But on the whole, it's acceptably
stable. My main use is of an XT as a file server for the floppy-only
Mac, and I don't transfer files into the Mac's directory on my PC hard
disk too often. When I do, it seems to work. The TOPS windowing
software and laser printer software (version 0.20, 7/86) on the PC is
large and slow for what it does, though -- stay away from any of their
bag-biting memory-resident utilities on the PC.
Brian
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 86 13:55 PDT
From: PUGH%CCV.MFENET@LLL-MFE.ARPA
Subject: Prodigy
Yesterday the Levco guys were here with their Prodigy board to run our Fortran
benchmarks, known as the Livermore Loops. We have run these benchmarks on
just about every mainframe ever made, plus a lot of the most popular micros in
use today. The loops used to be a set of 14 programs, but they have been
combined into a single monsterous Fortran program that reports on a number of
CPU performance factors.
This was my first first-hand experience with a Prodigy and I was impressed.
Everything you have heard about this machine is true. It is blindingly fast
compared to any other Macintosh. With four megabytes of RAM, they were
running completely out of a RAMdisk instead of off their internal hard disk
and it still took several seconds to save the changes necessary for the loops
to run (the loops are about 10,000 lines of code).
The compilation worked very fast and had no errors, but the execution revealed
a compiler bug. The loops are written redundantly, with many checks designed
to verify that the program is running correctly. One of these was tripped. We
were not disappointed, after all, our Fortran compiler is revision 131p. The
shear fact that this micro was able to compile and execute the program was
very monumental.
So, I will be reporting the benchmarks at a later date. The initial report,
based on the speed of the compile, is that the Prodigy is 1/100th the speed of
the Cray in scalar operations. That's not bad at all.
Jon
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 86 15:44:14 est
From: munnari!csadfa.oz!jlo@seismo.CSS.GOV (John O'Neill)
Subject: Slow Motion Mode in MacsBug - Is TN#7 Correct?
In TN#7, it is claimed:
"To turn slow motion mode off, simply enter MacsBug and type SS".
This does not appear to work for me - slow motion mode stays on.
Is it finger trouble?
My work-around is to exit via:
SM 0 a9f4
G 0
which exits to LightspeedC, but that is not really optimal.
The SS command is not documented in my MacsBug documentation
(LightspeedC Appendix A).
John O'Neill Phone ISD: +61 62 68 8165 STD: (062) 68 8165
Dept. Computer Science Telex: ADFADM AA62030
University College ACSNET: jlo@csadfa.oz
Aust. Defence Force Academy UUCP: ...!seismo!munnari!csadfa.oz!jlo
Canberra. ACT. 2600. ARPA: jlo%csadfa.oz@SEISMO.CSS.GOV
AUSTRALIA CSNET: jlo@csadfa.oz
I'm only here to get my union ticket!
------------------------------
Date: 25 Sep 86 16:11:00 EDT
From: <bouldin@ceee-sed.ARPA>
Subject: where is the 68020 Macintosh??
Reply-to: <bouldin@ceee-sed.ARPA>
This came in from a friend on bitnet. I share a lot of these sentiments.
This is being posted in the hopes of spurring some debate on the future
Macintoshes now in the works. I particularly hope that this can get back
to Apple and encourage them to get the 020/881 machine(s) out the door.
There is a widely held belief that the 386 machines are faster 020 machines.
This is _NOT_ true, but in the absence of readily available 020 machines at
reasonable prices, it is difficult to prove this to a wide audience. Responses
to this note can be sent to me directly or to Warren at
<WARREN%UWAPHAST.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>. We are both interested in discussion
on this topic.
***************************************************************************
Musings on 32 bit microprocessors...
flame on..............................
As a result of the announcement of the 030 on the heels of the compaq 386
machine (and of course the clipper) , I am forced to make the following
(depressing from our point of view) observations. Of course, I have waxed
melancholy before, mainly due to the incredible sluggishness of fast 68020/881
machines appearing on the market (for reasonable prices). Consider the first
popular 020 machine and compare it to the compaq and I think you will be forced
to conclude that the 68xxx world has screwed up again. The 020 machine, of
course, is the prodigy 4 (the only 020 machine with a reasonable software base).
Its outrageous price is again indicative of the elitist nature of the 68xxx
world; they think that they can charge mainframe prices for machines which will
perform like mainframes (supposedly).
Despite my dislike of intel, at least they have always made "people's
computers" that , while being absolute kludges, were at least priced at an
affordable level. Also, they didn't snub the engineering users and included
a FP processor from the start. Contrast Motorola. Even the mac was way
overpriced at the outset; would you have bought one at the list price?
And NO FP coprocessor (Motorola's laziness). Despite the fact that
the 020 was out much earlier than the 386, we finally have the compaq out at
a reasonable price (presumably available NOW). For much less than the Prod. 4,
you can get a reasonable 386 machine with 1 Meg, hard disk, hi res graphics,
etc. When they get their software act together, it will perform on a par with
the 020 and not have the obnoxious intel segmentation, etc. What is apple
doing? Absolutely NOTHING! They have to wait for their ridiculous, magical
stockholders meeting to announce anything. Even the inexpensive Atari and
Amiga do not invalidate what I am saying, since the absence of a standard
68xxx operating system (Apple's greed?) makes these computers lame ducks.
I fear that very soon we will see some very reasonably priced 386 machines
which lack that which we hated on the pc or "at": segmentation and lo res
graphics. They will grab much of the market due to the software compatibility
even though we know that the compatible software will not perform very well
(there are a lot of computer illiterates, particularly among businessmen).
So long as the Motorola people remain smug elitists (the most disgusting
example is levco), the intel folk will again win the day.
flame off............................................
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 86 14:01:10 edt
From: rs4u@andrew.cmu.edu (Richard Siegel)
Subject: Vax VMS -> LaserWriter
As far as I know there's no way to interface a machine other than an IBM PC
or Macintosh to the AppleTalk network. This is because part of AppleTalk is
implemented in hardware, as well as in the AppleTalk driver resources. Maybe
you could use an IBM PC or AT with AppleTalk card and a serial port, use the
port to get the PostScript text, then use the AppleTalk card to send it to the
laserwriter. It's fairly easy to write the software... For that matter, you
could do all this with a Macintosh, use the modem port for highspeed input of
the text, and the AppleTalk port for the LaserWriter.
It's an interesting problem; it's one that I'd tackle if I had the time to
do it...
---Rich
[ note from moderator: my understanding is that the Seagate project allows
one to use a unix machine on appletalk with an ethernet<->appletalk box
and have it work as a file server. Also the Kinetics people have a
(I believe) more general ethernet<->appletalk box so you can put your
Macs on an ethernet. Also of interest in the fact that the people at Centram
systems (who are responsible for TOPS) are working on a hookup for other
systems and I believe VMS/VAX is one of them. Contrary to the above opinion
I believe that there are solutions either available now or will be in the
near future (can you say Vaporware/rumor/inuendo? I knew you could.)
DAVEG ]
------------------------------
Date: 25 Sep 86 21:36:59 EDT
From: Jeffrey Shulman <SHULMAN@RED.RUTGERS.EDU>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V2 #78
Usenet Mac Digest Thursday, 25 September 1986 Volume 2 : Issue 78
multiple modems on a mac?
Using serial drivers
Printer Drivers
Modula_2
Re: multiple modems on a mac?
DataFrame changes
Query: daisywheel printer drivers
Re: DataFrame changes
How to detect a \"double click\"
Mathematical word processing on the Mac?
The Motorola 68030
TeX on Mac
Possible ROM bug in TESetSelect
Re: DataFrame 20
Re: DataFrame changes
Color Printing on the ImageWriter II
Used Mac boards
Re: TeX for the Mac (LONG)
Re: MacServe Info Wanted
Re: The Motorola 68030
Postscript to Impress ...
[ ARCHIVED AS
[SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU]<INFO-MAC>USENETV2-78.ARC
DAVEG
]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 26 Sep 86 16:16 PDT
From: PUGH%CCV.MFENET@LLL-MFE.ARPA
Subject: MacMemory Upgrade Horror Story
Well, I have been trying to find an upgrade to 2 megabytes for my Mac+ with
it's internal Micahdrive. I had seen the MacMemory MaxPlus advertised and it
was in the display case at ComputerWare, so I called them. After about five
tries to reach the guy in charge of memory upgrades, I asked if the MaxPlus
was Micah compatible (ComputerWare sells Micahdrives also, so they should
know). Well, he told me that MacMemory had taken had some problems with that
and that the latest batch of boards were compatible. So I bought one for the
very reasonable price of $330 for two megabytes.
Their upgrade consisted of a board I was to plug my four 256K SIMs into,
making it a 1 Meg SIM. It also came with a 1 Meg SIM consisting of 256K
chips; this being the aforementioned banana board. Neither of these boards
cleared the Micah ROM board, although the banana board came close enough to
tempt me into applying dangerous amounts of force. It also came with a fan,
of the flapper variety (are these the piezoelectric ones?), a RAMdisk program
and a print spooler DA.
So, after opening up my Mac and finding out that neither of their boards would
fit into the now vacant SIM slots, I called MacMemory tech support. They told
me that they knew the MaxPlus wouldn't fit with the Micahdrive in there. He
also told me that their product, which was mentioned in their manual under
"Internal Hard Disk Compatibility", the MaxPlus 2.5 Megabyte upgrade, was not
available due to technical problems (i.e. they were burning up power
supplies). He recommended that I buy another banana board from ComputerWare
and that that would fit in my machine. He also assured me that he had spoken
with the same guy I had talked to at ComputerWare and that he should have
known the score.
So, by this time I was moderately chafed. I called ComputerWare back up and
talked to the memory fellow again (isn't it wonderful how I am keeping names
out of this?). He told me that MacMemory had been jerking him around and that
he was getting tired of it. He said that their last shipment had been quite
late and that they had assured him that they would work with internal hard
disks. He recommended to me that I return the memory for a full refund and
that I forget about dealing with MacMemory. By this time I was ready to
agree.
Well, I didn't return the memory. Instead I traded it for a TOPS board for my
PC and a couple of copies of TOPS (I love the way they punched the holes in
those TOPS manuals, a 1/4 inch of paper hanging out of the bottom of the book)
with someone else here at the lab. He doesn't have internal drives in his
Macs. It just seemed easier than dealing with a return.
The moral? Figure it out for yourself. I have no connection with either of
these organizations. I just wanted to relate my experiences in case other
people were trying to do something similar. If anyone has any information
about memory upgrades that are compatible with a Micahdrive, please let me
know.
Jon
Stress : The suppression of the natural urge to beat the living crap out of
someone who demonstratably deserves it.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 86 16:55 EDT
From: BELSLEY%BCVAX3.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU (DAVID A. BELSLEY)
Subject: Statistic Packages
I've had experience with StatView and StatWorks. The one from North(?) is
Basic based and looks completely out of it. StatView comes in two versions,
the original and StatView 512+ designed to take advantage of the 512K and Mac
Plus. It is not a bad package for doing basic statistics, but it doesn't
have the guts to do any serious research. It will indeed allow multiple
regression and is quite speedy. Neither version, however, allows supression
of the intercept. The old version at least printed out an estimate of the
standard error of the intercept term, but the new version does not. They
have taken a big step backwards here. For doing ANOVA and other basic
statistical operations, however, it is quite nice. It also allows importing
of data from Excel or Multiplan, so you can use those environments for data
entry and editing.
StatWorks came on the Market and off again quite quickly. It had a number of
bugs, and I would not trust it. I know for a fact that it calculates
standard errors incorrectly when the intercept is supressed.
None of these packages is good for sophistocated time series analysis, by which
I assume you mean ARIMA and the like. The only package that is around that
has a chance of doing such things is Paul Velleman's Data Desk. Paul is also
the only statistician who is designing a stat package for the Mac at this
time (so far as I am aware). His package is very nice indeed, and it does
things the other don't (such as data rotation). But it doesn't yet have
included the "econometric" like elements of regression analysis and time-series
analysis, and I don't know when he will make them available. He has it in
mind; but that's only a small start. I also don't know if he is actually
shipping Data Desk as yet. You might give him a call at the Dept. of Stat.,
Cornell University.
I don't think we'll really see decent stat packages for the Mac until the
upcoming version with the 68020 and 68881 is actually out. In the mean time
we have to envy that aspect of the PC, and that aspect only.
david a. belsley
boston college belsley@bcvax3.bitnet
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 24 Sep 86 13:12 CDT
From: <BOYD%TAMLSR.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU> (Scott T. Boyd)
Subject: LaTeX book info
Addison-Wesley has published several TeX-related books.
These include:
The TeXbook
TeX: The Program
LaTeX -- A Documentation Preparation System
These and other books are available from the TeX Users Group:
TeX Users Group
P.O. Box 594
Providence, Rhode Island 02901, USA
Since TUG is a non-profit organization, here's some ordering information.
TUGboat back issues, $15/issue
The TeXbook by Donald E. Knuth, $17/ea, add $2 for surface or $5 for air
mail. Errata and Changes, add $2.
TeX: The Program by Donald E. Knuth, $25/each (plus shipping)
First Grade TeX: A Beginner's TeX Manual by Arthur L. Samuel, $6/ea.
The Joy of TeX by M. Spivak, $10/each (plus shipping)
LaTeX: A Document Preparation System by Leslie Lamport, $19/ea (+ shpng)
User's Guide to the HP teX Macros by Susan Daniels, $6/ea
TeX & Metafont: Errata and Changes, $4/ec
Mathematics into Type by Ellen Swanson, $15/ea (+shipping)
Proceedings 1st Euro. Conf. TeX Scientific Documentation, $40/ea (+ shpng)
TeX Lectures on tape (call for pricing)
Shipping drops to $1/ea for surface or $3/ea for air for additional
copies, up to a $25 or $100 maximum.
Addison-Wesley has officially published the five volume TeX set,
available in bookstores or mailorder. They are, of course, works
of art, and priced accordingly.
scott t. boyd
Computer Science Dept.
TeXas A&M University
------------------------------
Date: 25 Sep 86 13:50 CDT
From: MACA.AFCC@AFCC-4.ARPA
Subject: WhatsA Bernoulli ? 'n HowGoodsIt Anyway?...
A friend in my office just bought his first Mac and is excited about making it
for useful with bigger storage etc (with a conservative budget ... the usual
concerns off course for quality, growth...). He noticed an add in the Computer
Shopper, Sep 86, page 192 for a liquidation of The Bernoulli Box by IOMEGA for
$599 (70% off). Looks good on paper but...
My questions on his behalf are:
1) Is this being liquidated for some problem, obsolescense etc. that he
sould be concerned about?
2) What are these 5 MB cartridges? are they removable disks or bubble
memory or what?
Has anyone had any experience with this thing? Is it fast/slow? Reliable?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. If theres enough
interest I post to the net. Please send responses to me direct.
Jay Personius
MACA@AFCC-4.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 86 12:51:08 pdt
From: dan@ads.ARPA (Dan Shapiro)
Subject: hard disk recommendations
I realize that this request has probably been made before, but I
am interested in recommendations for SCSI 20 Megabyte disks. I'm
especially interested in those hidden criteria that one needs to
apply; like whether one can boot from disk, or if a specific piece
of disk utility software is available, or if there are special
problems with finding disk compatible software, given the
protection game.
I don't know the answers to these questions for disks on the
market, and I suspect there are a bunch of other questions I don't
yet know to ask. I'm also aware of the disk review in September's
Macworld. I'm after some more personal reports if people have
them.
Dan Shapiro
Dan@ads-unix.arpa
[ note from moderator: there was also an article about hard disks in a
recent issue of MacUser. DAVEG ]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 25 Sep 86 16:20 EST
From: GKN3M2%IRISHMVS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU
Subject: Ringing the Mac's bell
I operate a Red Ryder Host BBS and would like to ring the Mac's bell
as part of the opening menu. The bell character is generally
acknowledged to be a control-G, but I can't see how to include this
in a text-only document which has been prepared by MacWrite, WORD,
MockWrite, etc. Any help in this area would be greatly appreciated.
Evan Bauman
Dep't of chemical engineering
University of Notre Dame
gkn3m2%irishmvs.bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edu
------------------------------
End of INFO-MAC Digest
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