unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User) (10/03/89)
Just a little disclaimer added to the beginning before I post
this...These were written the night I went to each day of the show and
are PURELY from memory...Thus I most likely have some things wrong. If
they are important it would be nice if I were politely corrected. Also,
I know that some of it is old material...I would have posted it earlier,
but our phone line at school was messed (actually it was a short) up so
I've not been able to post it until now.
REVIEW OF DAY ONE
Well, just my thoughts about the first day of AppleFest. Pretty
disorganized...Just spewing out what I thought of it.
Although I missed about 15 or 20 minutes of the opening keynote, I
still found it very interesting. It was done by Jean-Louis Gassee, President of
Apple Products, obviously at Apple Computer. He used to be president of Apple
France. (or head of or whatever they call that position)
He showed the NUCLEUS demo. That was a surprise. I saw two Apple //GSes
and a Mac on the table he used to demonstrate and thought "OH HELL, HE'S GONNA
DEMO MAC CRAP TOO"...But the Mac was only used for the mandatory server for the
networking...He showed how that you can just plug a networking cord back in if
it's taken out accidentally or whatever...It usually screws up networks.. He
took a little bit out of a Mac document, saved it on the networked drive, and
the used it on the GS...Pretty cool...
Oh hell..Had to go back to re-edit this message to put the following
in. At the end of the question and answer session, some bigwig (I forget if he
was president or something, I doubt it though) from Western Digital Systems or
Western Design Center SAID THAT THEY ---CAN--- ship faster versions of the
65816 (GS CPU) NOW. Jean-Louis Gassee was acting probably correctly like
a very important person at Apple should but he was still saying like "We
shouldn't talk about that here" and things like that.
The booths and stuff didn't seem to impress me as much as last year,
maybe because there weren't people giving away much (except for this little
videotape I got, haven't looked at it yet), like they did last year. Got lots
of disks last year. I must say that I actually only spent a few hours looking
at the booths today as I went to a bunch of conferences...
I got to meet Andy Nicholas (author of ShrinkIT, probably the best
packer yet available on the Apple // line)...He had a place at the Zip
Technology area... He has MADE SHRINKIT GS A COMMERCIAL PRODUCT.
{JUST A LITTLE NOTE added in before I post this... If you only need to
be able to UNPACK NuFX archives, you will still be able to do that
for free...} <Didn't feel like reformatting this part in vi> While that's
unfortunate for us cheapskates, he said it would be available for about $20
mail order and I think I'm gonna actually go that way. He was demoing it and
there were a few things that didn't work... Adding to an already existing
archive didn't work, and deleting files from an archive didn't work...But he
said it's gonna be SHIPPING IN NOVEMBER FOR SURE. He had assumed he needed to
be DONE FOR APPLEFEST and worked like hell, but then he later found out that
wasn't true...so he's really most of the way done. There's also a new way of
putting files with resources into a special AppleSingle format or something
like that. It doesn't shrink them, but I assume you can then shrink the
AppleSingle format into a NuFX archive...
I went to three of the conferences:
(1) Resources for Beginning Programmers: What's available.. This was a
kind of interesting talk even though it was for people who were who were really
really beginners while I think I'm sort of a beginner/intermediate even though
I'm not into programming with the Toolbox yet. Was mostly GS specific info.
(2) System Disk 5.0...The Technical Ins and Outs: This was really
really interesting. There is a system disk 5.0.2 update out...I remember
5.0.1, but heard of 5.0.2 for the first time today. They barely mentioned 5.0.2
though...It seems that no REALLY REALLY REALLY major bugs were there that
needed to be fixed except for some BLOAD bug in BASIC.SYSTEM... I honestly
forget most of the rest of what this conference was about but it was really
interesting and although I forget it now, I will remember more information
that I learned in this one...
(3) AI, CD-ROM, Knowledge Navigator, and Future Innovatios. This was a
really good one too... Nothing Apple specific at all, just basically a
discussion of issues that are inherent in technology and what kinds of new
technology may come out...
I got to talk to Matt Deatherage and Gary Little at this one.
{Note from me about a week after originally writing this... I'M A NAME
DROPPER, OK???}
START OF REVIEW OF DAY TWO
First I went to the Saturday Keynote, Bernard Gifford, Apple USA Vice
President, Education, obviously at Apple Computer. Before going to this speech,
I had expected to be bored to death and leave early, although I wanted to at
least give it a chance so I went. It wasn't the absolute most interesting thing
in the world, yet some uses of the Apple Video Overlay Card were shown which
were very interesting. [Finally something for the Apple // series that comes
out before the Mac version. For those of you who do not know, the Video Overlay
Card is a "genlock" device which allows NTSC standard video sources to be shown
on the computer screen. I would have originally guessed that the card makes the
NTSC source into "Apple video"'s standard instead of the reverse, yet it makes
much more sense when I thought about it]. They made two separate fairly crude
stick-figure animations of two kids throwing a ball by drawing on the screen
over the genlocked picture, and showed how they could quickly do that to
analyze their pitching. There were many other things shown, but I will only
tell about two more of them since I've spoken too much about this already. They
also showed how this could be made to be a controller for a VCR. That is, you
could mark starting and ending sections of a tape to play and call it
something, and that data is saved to a file. The computer actually rewinds and
finds that place and plays it when you want it to. You would probably actually
have to see it to think that it has any use whatsoever. The other fairly
interesting thing they showed was a "hypermedia" presentation about dinosaurs.
At specific points in the playing of the videodisk (on the computer screen
through the Video Overlay Board, obviously), you could go to a few separate
places. It was about excavating dinosaur bones, so you could see a whole
dinosaur skeleton or continue with the excavation, for example. WHEW enough
description of this!
Didn't learn much worth remembering at the Peripherals and Add-Ons
conference.
At the "Ask Apple" conference, a lot of people were asking about weird
problems with their printers... One interesting point was that an Apple person,
just recommended an OBVIOUS fix to one weird printer problem, instead of just
taking it to a dealer and paying through the nose. (He did preface his
quick-fix idea with an "As an official answer, I must tell you..." answer). I
learned more from what I asked though. I asked about the weird "wavy patterns"
(later called Moire patterns) I and most other IIGS owners have on their
screens. Apple people said they were inherent but could be made worse by power
problems...Someone else later told me he has them on one computer of his and
not on the other..odd.
The Programming the Sound on the Apple IIGS was one of the most
impressive conferences. The sound tools were first described, which I don't
have to really go into very detailed specifics, other than both tools for
playing an already made sound (digitized for example) and for making your own
sounds were described. Making your own sounds can make things sound better, yet
they are harder to do. A demo of a future-release tool/program was played. The
tool and program have pre-defined sounds for you such as piano, etc, which
sound very realistic. I believe it also makes making your own sounds easier. It
was an EIGHT AND A HALF MINUTE demo to a MIDI keyboard. It sounded AWESOME. And
how much disk space do you think it took up? 60K! That's wonderful.
Games on the IIGS: Xenocide, Rastan, BATTLECHESS GS (!), and a few
other programs were demoed. Rastan was described to be JUST the same (EXCEPT
FASTER) as the arcade version and looked it. The graphics are the same and the
sounds are too. Very impressive game. They just ported everything. No graphics
or sounds were redone. This was probably the best conference yet I've gone on
long enough about the other conferences. BattleChess GS is out SO LATE compared
to versions for other computers because the programmer quit in the middle and
other people had to start from scratch.
Interesting tidbits learned in the exhibit area:
The author of TAXMAN (remember that?) is now selling the source code of
that game plus an assembler/linker for $20. It's sort of to teach programmers
how things are done (and to make the guy some money of course). It took maybe a
minute to compile and link all of the sections and execute it. An interesting
point I found out was that ALL of the 'major' versions of Pac-MAN made for the
Apple // (AtariSOFT Pac-Man, and a few other companies that bought it after
AtariSoft went under) are just slightly modified versions of TaxMan.
I spoke to Andy Nicholas some more today, especially about porting
LHARC to the Apple // (GS most likely), as I think that most packers should be
available for many computers as is true with ARC and happening with ShrinkIT,
or more accurately, NuFX archives. (If you didn't know, Andy Nicholas is the
author of ShrinkIT and ShrinkIT GS). I prefaced my bringing up the subject by
saying that I thought he might think the idea was kind of dumb, yet he's tried
to do it. He did not have an IBM to work with over the summer to see if his
port (he has original source code) was doing everything correctly. Now that he
does, he may continue on a port of it or an inclusion of it into ShrinkIT. He
did mention though that an IBM took 35 minutes to pack a 230K file, but it
ended up 20% of its original size. He has ideas of how to speed it up on the
Apple, or maybe not even be a LHARC port, just a combination of packing
algorithms to make things smaller than they currently are.
Before I went to AppleFest at all, I had planned on semi-politely
complaining at companies that had Mac stuff at AppleFest as AppleFest was
designed as an Apple // only show (Cambridge Marketing's just screwed up by
letting it be Mac only), and there really wasn't TOO MUCH Mac stuff.. Yet today
I got into a discussion with a guy who I thought was a salesman. He was at a
Mac II demoing some admittedly neat-looking game called Leprechaun. I just
mentioned that I thought Macs should stay out of AppleFest as THEY have
MacWorld and MacFest and whatever other ones there are yet Apple //s only have
the yearly Boston and SF AppleFests. It turned out he was the author of
Leprechaun and was ALSO the author of one of the Apple //e games that I think
is/was really good: Rescue Raiders. He also wrote Eliminator. These don't
change my mind about not wanting the Mac at AppleFest, yet it was fun talking
to the guy and I'll probably speak with him more tomorrow. I said maybe he
should write a //GS version of Leprechaun and he said something like "No, you
can do it, I'll give you the source." I also mentioned how similar the Mac and
IIGS are now in terms of programming, he still didn't like the idea. Hell,
maybe in 5-10 years I'll take him up on that deal (even if the //GS doesn't
exist anymore in terms of current sales, it'd be fun to try). Much of it would
be simplifying the graphics.
I didn't find enough new things to talk about to do a review of
the third day... It was still worth going all three days...
--
-The Unknown User (unknown@ucscb.ucsc.edu)hale@fraud.uucp (Greg Hale) (10/10/89)
In article <9297@saturn.ucsc.edu> unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User) writes: > > Before I went to AppleFest at all, I had planned on semi-politely >complaining at companies that had Mac stuff at AppleFest as AppleFest was >designed as an Apple // only show (Cambridge Marketing's just screwed up by >letting it be Mac only), and there really wasn't TOO MUCH Mac stuff.. Yet today >I got into a discussion with a guy who I thought was a salesman. He was at a >Mac II demoing some admittedly neat-looking game called Leprechaun. I just >mentioned that I thought Macs should stay out of AppleFest as THEY have >MacWorld and MacFest and whatever other ones there are yet Apple //s only have >the yearly Boston and SF AppleFests. It turned out he was the author of >Leprechaun and was ALSO the author of one of the Apple //e games that I think >is/was really good: Rescue Raiders. He also wrote Eliminator. These don't >change my mind about not wanting the Mac at AppleFest, yet it was fun talking >to the guy and I'll probably speak with him more tomorrow. I said maybe he >should write a //GS version of Leprechaun and he said something like "No, you >can do it, I'll give you the source." I also mentioned how similar the Mac and >IIGS are now in terms of programming, he still didn't like the idea. Hell, >maybe in 5-10 years I'll take him up on that deal (even if the //GS doesn't >exist anymore in terms of current sales, it'd be fun to try). Much of it would >be simplifying the graphics. 1) The programs on the //e series were: Exterminator (not well known) Rescue Raiders Cavern Cobra (//gs) Visualizer (//gs business) Floppy (lost to pirates) I enjoyed our discussion. Another correction: I would have someone do the conversion only because I don't have time. I now run a company :) Otherwise, I know the in's and out's of the GS. I was on the cursed thing when it was still a prototype in a //e box. Thanks for the comments on Leprechaun. I worked long and hard on it. I would enjoy answering questions about it by mail. Postings may be missed unless they have 'Leprehcaun' in the heading. Thanks, short and pudgy one. :) Sincerely, Gregory E. Hale, aka: The Leprechaun Guy P.S. Sorry about crashing your show, but I am sort of desperate for any marketing I can get. I am doing this all on my own and I don't have $50,000 to shove into a few (<3) advertisements. Thus, I try to go to shows and do my own PR. Apologies accepted? ||| Greg Hale #()-> Internet: hale@scam.Berkeley.EDU ||| UUCP: ...!ucbvax!scam!hale
bsherman@ibiza.cs.miami.edu (Bob Sherman) (10/11/89)
Before we blame Cambridge Marketing for the increase of Macs at Applefest, let's all remember one thing. It was NOT their doing. They were ORDERED to include macs and Mac related presentations in the seminar rooms by APPLE. They were told by Apple, that they had to increase to the amount of Macs at each show because Apple was going to do the same at their display area. These quotes were made to me before the Boston 'fest this year by the Vice President of Cambridge. In fact he told me that Cambridge fought with Apple and eliminated some of the Mac related seminars that Apple wanted at the Boston show.. That move chased several major vendors away from the show, and in the long run cost Cambridge money.. and they like to make money just like the next guy.. -- bsherman@ibiza.cs.miami.edu or bsherman@mthvax.cs.miami.edu bsherman@pro-exchange MCI Mail: BSHERMAN
philip@pro-generic.cts.com (Philip McDunnough) (10/11/89)
Network Comment: to #6006 by pasteur!fraud!hale@ucbvax.berkeley.edu Greg, I have a IIcx(Mac).What is Leprechaun and does it support good sound and color?Please E-mail any info(including how I can get it).Sorry for the mac rely people.Promise.... Philip McDunnough ->philip@utstat.toronto.edu
chines@pro-europa.cts.com (Clifford Hines) (10/13/89)
Comment to message from: umigw!ibiza!bsherman@handies.ucar.edu (Bob Sherman) It sounds like Apple is trying to convert us to Macs. By force. Some of us are converted. I will get a Mac for my next computer in the future. But Apple's actions are going get those Apple II'ers into the MS-DOS camp since some people don't like Macs. Just one person crying out in the woods. Cliff UUCP: crash!pro-europa!chines ARPA: crash!pro-europa!chines@nosc.mil INET: chines@pro-europa.cts.com