INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX-AIM.ARPA (Moderator David Gelphman...) (09/15/86)
INFO-MAC Digest Sunday, 14 Sep 1986 Volume 4 : Issue 115
Today's Topics:
Anybody using Graf3D with Aztec C?
RE:TextEdit Bugs
RE:Terminal Emulator 'benchmarks'
Rumours of new Apple products
directory listing of Macintosh files available from NGP follows:
Porting Fortran programs to MAC
Jobs knocks desktop publishing market
TOPS and LANs
Trouble cutting & pasting with MacPaint 1.5
Help with MacTeX, please!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 86 02:33 N
From: <INFOEARN%HLERUL5.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: Anybody using Graf3D with Aztec C?
Does anyone have experience in using the Graf3D library supplied with
Lisa-, LightSpeed- and TML Pascal with C? Specifically Aztec C? I was
hoping someone had written an include file for Aztec C... otherwise it
looks like I'm going to have to do it myself.
-- Thomas
FRUIN@HLERUL5.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 86 02:36 N
From: <INFOEARN%HLERUL5.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: RE:TextEdit Bugs
This message is in response to Paul DuBois (dubois@uwmacc.UUCP) message
about TextEdit Bugs.
RE:the certain bug. Sorry, Paul, it doesn't seem like you're doing anything
wrong here. The problem is easily reproduced in MockWrite. However, I've
been using the Mac for over a year and it took this message to make me aware
of it. But it's a bug all right.
RE:depending-on-taste bug (or TextEdit not word-wrapping spaces): Again,
MockWrite displays the same problem. You can clearly see what happens when
you go into MockWrite, type a line of text with a bunch of spaces in the
middle, put the caret in between the spaces and then resize the window so
the spaces dissappear off the right edge. So does the caret!
before resizing after resizing
_________________________________ _______________
|Text with | spaces | |Text with | |
| ^ | |spaces | ^
| blinking caret | | | caret is here in
|_______________________________| |_____________| never-never land
I also have a third bug to add to the list. It isn't a serious bug, but it's
something you have to be aware of when you're programming with TextEdit.
Several text editors, including MockWrite and MiniEdit from Macintosh Revealed,
always make sure the edit window is completely filled with text, if possible.
This means that they scroll their text down whenever empty space appears at
the bottom after a cut or paste. Part of checking how far to scroll down is
looking at the value of nLines which tells you how many lines the TextEdit
record has.
However, if the caret is all the way at the end of the text record on an empty
line, TextEdit doesn't consider this a line and therefore nLines is one too
little. This means that our text editor (MockWrite) will not scroll down far
enough and the caret will be on a nonexisting and invisible line! As soon as
you type a character, TextEdit creates the new line, the text editor will see
scrolling is necessary and your caret comes back into view. But once you type
a backspace, the line is destroyed and the caret vanishes again.
caret on the last line of the text after typing a character
_____________________________ _____________________________
|Some sample<cr> | |text here<cr> |
|text here<cr> | |a| |
||__________________________| | ^ ________________________|
^
caret is either invisible or text scrolls up and the typed
just barely visible character appears with caret
Ah, what would life be without bugs!
-- Thomas
FRUIN@HLERUL5.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 86 02:39 N
From: <INFOEARN%HLERUL5.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: RE:Terminal Emulator 'benchmarks'
Although I can't argue with screen update times for terminal programs (since
I have no way to check) I can mention some other differences between
VersaTerm and Red Ryder I have found important.
VersaTerm has the annoying habit to be *very* modal in some cases: when I
do a Send Stream or a Paste in the terminal window, VersaTerm sends out text
line by line and waits for a prompt from the host before sending the next
line. Once you tell VersaTerm to start sending this text, THERE IS NO WAY
TO STOP IT! At least I've found no way. It's especially irritating when
you're logged on to a BBS which doesn't send back a ^J prompt like our VAX
does. Then VersaTerm waits a couple of seconds before sending out each line.
Imagine you want to stop sending out 10 to 20K of text. The only option left
is the little reset button.
Red Ryder does this marvelously - it lets you interrupt Pasting or Sending
of text at any time. However, VersaTerm has the advantage over Red Ryder in
having a decent resizable and movable window. This is very nice when using
MultiMac, since you make VersaTerm's window small and have easy access to
other programs lying under it. With Red Ryder you are stuck with a window
that can neither be resized nor moved.
Who is going to make me the combination? Or is that MicroPhone...?
-- Thomas
FRUIN@HLERUL5.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 86 02:34 N
From: <INFOEARN%HLERUL5.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU>
Subject: Rumours of new Apple products
Remember how Sculley said Apple was going to introduce more products this
year than during all the years since Apple was started? Well, we haven't seen
many yet, but here are some of the *rumours* I've been coming across lately:
- Apple is going to announce two SCSI hard disks within the next two weeks,
a 20 Mb and a 40 Mb. I don't know if they are interal or external.
- The successor to the Apple //e is called the //gs. Graphics and Sound.
It has the 65816 processor, which allows it to run just about all Apple //
software in 8 bit mode. You will also be able to use most of the old cards,
since the slots are the same. The 16 bit mode is the most interesting
technically, since it gives you access to a resolution of 768 by 6** with
4096 colours. The graphics are handled by a 'QuickDraw in silicon',
special custom graphics chips. The sound is fantastic, I've heard rumours
of 15 simultaneous voices, although that sounds a bit steep. The //gs will
come with 3.5" drives, a mouse and an excellent colour monitor.
The machine will *not* run Macintosh software - it's operating system will
be a 8/16 bit version of ProDOS. So the Mac is still the state of the art
in user interfaces. Apple might fake customers in bringing out a MouseDesk
or something similar, kind of like Commodore and Atari did :-)
The //gs is going to be priced very competitively compared to the Atari ST
and Amiga. And best of all: current Apple // owners will be able to upgrade
their machines to a //gs, by trading in their motherboard! Sounds familiar.
The Apple //gs will probably be announced in Holland at the Apple dealer day
on september 23rd.
- Apple will NOT announce any new Macs in 1986. It will definately announce
new Macs in 1987. My guess is that there will be at least two machines,
one yet a further upgraded Mac with more memory, perhaps a bigger screen,
memory management unit and one or two slots. Apple will announce an MS-DOS
board for one of those slots.
The second machine will be an educational workstation (the Jonathan?) with
a large screen, 68020, and run a windowing Unix. It may very well not be
Mac compatible. Or perhaps as compatible as the Lisa, which could run
Mac software only in a seperate mode.
- Some other products rumoured to come out: two new LaserWriters with much
higher resolution than the current one, CD-ROM and CD-RAM drives and an
AppleTalk file server (as seen on the current AppleTalk packaging?).
Remember that these are all rumours, although the information about the //gs
is *very* likely. Muse on this for a while.
-- Thomas
FRUIN@HLERUL5.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 86 11:01:26 cdt
From: werner@ngp.UTEXAS.EDU (Werner Uhrig)
Subject: directory listing of Macintosh files available from NGP
Subject: follows:
The collection of Macintosh-files on NGP mainly reflects what has been
available on USENET during the past 2 years and I have no idea which ones
are not available from the SUMEX-archives - if someone finds any unique ones
you may want to bring that to the attention of INFO-MAC-REQUEST@SUMEX.arpa
so the moderator may consider archiving them as the files on NGP may not be
available for much longer. Please note, that NGP is making no commitment
to keep those files available. So, please, limit your access to non-office
hours.
A listing of the files in the directory ~ftp/mac/* is available for FTP from
NGP in the file ~ftp/public/ngp_ftp-mac.dir and should be archived at SUMEX.
[ note from moderator: for those probing these archives I would appreciate
it if you could send interesting files not already in the info-mac archives
here to info-mac@sumex so that they can be posted to the archives here.
The directory of files archived on NGP in the directory mac
is archived as
[SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU]<INFO-MAC>NGP-MAC-ARCHIVES.DIR
DAVEG
]
------------------------------
Date: 12 Sep 86 00:37:00 EDT
From: <bouldin@ceee-sed.ARPA>
Subject: Porting Fortran programs to MAC
Reply-to: <bouldin@ceee-sed.ARPA>
The following message is an article that may someday appear in Mactutor. It
is a binhex 4 of Macwrite 2.2 format. Mainly considerations for porting
"vanilla" fortran programs to the mac.
[ archived as
[SUMEX-AIM.Stanford.EDU]<INFO-MAC>FORTRAN-PORTING.HQX
DAVEG
]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 86 13:27 CDT
From: Mike Linnig <LINNIG%ti-eg.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: Jobs knocks desktop publishing market
I thought you folks might find the following
article interesting....
-- Mike Linnig
==================================================
Steven Jobs say desktop publishing is deadend industry
By JOHN MARKOFF
San Francisco Examiner
SAN FRANCISCO -- Steven Jobs was speaking in polite tones, but what he was
saying was probably not what the 1,000 participants at a symposium on the hot
new field of desktop publishing wanted to hear.
"You're here at a $600,000 event to talk about a non-existent industry in two
years," the iconoclastic co-founder of Apple Computer Inc. told the Seybold
Conference on Desktop Publishing here last week.
Desktop publishing is the use of personal computers and high-quality printers
to produce the equivalent of high-cost typesetting.
"The perception is that desktop publishing is a market," Jobs said. "The
reality is that the technology will be built in."
Jobs predicted that within two years, most personal computers will have
desktop publishing capabilities without the need for special software -- thus
making the current raft of expensive desktop publishing products unnecessary.
He drew a parallel between desktop publishing and word-processing programs,
noting that just a few years ago software publishers were selling expensive
word-processing programs that have since become obsolete because many computers
now come with built-in or very cheap word-processing programs.
Jobs, long known as a computer-industry visionary, was making his first
public appearance since leaving Apple almost a year ago to found a new computer
company, Next Inc.
Ironically, Jobs' old company has been heavily promoting the concept of
desktop publishing to sell systems based on its Macintosh computer and
LaserWriter laser printer, and as a result Apple has become the leading
hardware manufacturer in the desktop publishing market.
Jobs' prediction came at a conference that was supposed to celebrate the
growing desktop-publishing field, featuring the unveiling of many high-cost
computer programs that will enable personal computer users to produce news
letters, advertising material and other documents without professional help.
Contrary to Jobs' contention, many in the personal computer industry believe
that the desktop publishing business will lead to explosive new growth for the
personal computer industry as a whole.
For instance, another personal computer industry pioneer, William Gates,
chairman and co-founder of Microsoft Corp., said desktop publishing is having a
fundamental effect on the personal computer industry.
He said he had been surprised to learn that more than 300,000 laser printers
-- which provide high-quality graphics and text output -- have now been sold,
indicating that the desktop publishing market is growing rapidly.
John Scull, Apple's desktop publishing marketing manager, said Apple is
selling one laser printer for every two to three Macintosh computers.
Industry analysts say that desktop publishing is breathing new life into the
PC industry and reminding many of the personal computer boom of the early 1980s.
Paul Brainerd, chairman of Seattle-based Aldus Corp., said the desktop
publishing market had expanded beyond his wildest dreams.
"Desktop publishing has taken on a life of his own," said Aldus, who is
credited with coining the term "desktop publishing."
Although Jobs said he did not believe that a separate desktop publishing
market would survive, he predicted that new desktop-publishing capabilities
soon would be available to personal computer users.
For instance, he said he expects a new generation of "designer" memos,
reports and documents for desktop publishing that will allow users to select
styles designed by well-known graphic artists.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 86 11:07:25 pdt
From: Roger Tucker <roger%fresno-state.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>
Subject: TOPS and LANs
I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has experience with networks
consisting of PCs and MACs sharing peripherals. We are setting up a
department network and are particularly interested in TOPS and other
AppleTalk networks.
--Roger Tucker
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 Sep 86 11:29:43 edt
From: mayerk%upenn-graded@cis.upenn.edu
Subject: Trouble cutting & pasting with MacPaint 1.5
Ever since the last system update from Apple (Finder 5.1/System3.2?) I am
unable to cut and paste while running MacPaint 1.5 Sometimes the copy will
go through, but when I try to paste, I get a different picture from the one
I copied. It is impossible for me to paste into the scrapbook, I keep
getting "Disk full or system out of memory" errors. Finally, there are
times when I try copying and I get a dialog box saying that 'MacPaint is
having trouble reading the scrap.' Then the copy is canceled. Cutting and
pasting work in every other program I own without trouble, and when pasting
to the scrapbook, everything is fine.
I know I am using a 'clean' copy of the system because I am using the disk
that came with the Mac when I had the internal drive and the roms upgraded
to 800k, 128k. Has anyone else had these problems. They are fairly
repeatable, and happen on all of my disks with MacPaint.
Thanks,
Ken Mayer, University of Pennsylvania
mayerk@upenn-graded.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Sun 14 Sep 86 17:29:11-PDT
From: Emilio Calius <CALIUS@STAR.STANFORD.EDU>
Subject: Help with MacTeX, please!
To any and all TeX users on the Mac:
We have Addison-Wesley's TeX version 0.8 and earlier running on a Mac+
and printing on a LaserWriter. The user interface is excellent and its speed
quite acceptable when compared to a Vax BUT WE CANNOT GET DECENT OUTPUT IN A
FONT LARGER THAN 10 points!
If we use the Magnification, the text is the right size but the fonts
don't look good at all AND the equations (of which we have a lot) are NOT
magnified. The math stuff remains at 10 pts.
If anybody out there knows or can suggest a way of getting good quality
12 pt. LaserWriter output and/or generating a DVI (device-independent) output
file we could transfer to our Vax, PLEASE tell us about it.
We need to get some documents out, and Addison-Wesley keeps postponing
their release date. When we started doing the paperwork it was July. We're told
it's November now. So other potential users beware.
Thank you for any assistance you can provide.
Emilio P. Calius
Aero/Astro
Stanford University
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End of INFO-MAC Digest
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