[comp.sys.apple] in the making

GREYELF@WPI.BITNET (03/30/89)

>Which makes me wonder: what is happening out there right now? I am intensely
>interested in hearing what wonderful things people are working on in their
>spare time.

>       - Andy Nicolas has just recently made big splash with ShrinkIt.

>       - Dave Lyons has put out a number of wonderful programs, topped off
>         with that most wonderful of all utilities, Nifty List.

>       - Scott Lindsey tossed of a little integrated package now being
>         published by Claris.

>       - I myself have written a memory resident disk editor in the spirit
>         of Watson and The Inspector, and have also written an online help
>         system for BASIC.SYSTEM (it would describe commands, explain why the
>         error that just occured did so, had a built-in calculator, number
>         base converter, notepad, and calender...all available in their own
>         little text windows by holding down Open-Apple and another key).

>What else are people working on? What other gems can we find in the dark
>corners of people's hard disks and floppies? I think that if we get some ideas
>flowing, we could start a new generation of "neat hacks" that made the Apple
>II the coolest computer a person could possibly have!

>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Keith Rollin  ---  Apple Computer, Inc.  ---  Developer Technical Support
>INTERNET: keith@apple.com
>    UUCP: :decwrl, hoptoad, nsc, sun, amdahl:!apple!keith
>"Argue for your Apple, and sure enough, it's yours" - Keith Rollin, Contusions

Well Keith, one of us just came up with disk-based commands for the apple,
and just sent off a multitasking driver to apple2-l that can process
background tasks, at minimal slowdown of the processor, and in
addition to only requiring .5 K for itself and its buffers, doesn't
require the person writing a task for it to know a thing about
multitasking or interrupt drivers.

Anybody tried Daemon yet?

--
Michael J Pender Jr  Box 1942 c/o W.P.I.        I wrote SHELL and Daemon,
greyelf@wpi.bitnet   100 Institute Rd.          send bug reports, suggestions,
greyelf@wpi.wpi.com  Worcester, Ma 01609        checks to me.

P.S.  I help people too.

shawn@pnet51.cts.com (Shawn Stanley) (04/04/89)

>>Which makes me wonder: what is happening out there right now? I am intensely
>>interested in hearing what wonderful things people are working on in their
>>spare time.
>>
>[...]
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Keith Rollin  ---  Apple Computer, Inc.  ---  Developer Technical Support
>>INTERNET: keith@apple.com
>>    UUCP: :decwrl, hoptoad, nsc, sun, amdahl:!apple!keith
>>"Argue for your Apple, and sure enough, it's yours" - Keith Rollin, Contusions
>

Heh.  I guess you could say I'm obsessed with working on my Apple IIgs
65816-assembly-coded BBS.  I've been working on the BBS since 1985, when I had
it in 6502 under DOS 3.3 on an enhanced Apple //e with a California
Peripherals clock card and two Unidisk 3.5 drives.  It went to 65C02 under
ProDOS, from the S-C Assembler to Merlin Pro, and it's been under ProDOS in
65816 (via the Byte Works ORCA/M macro assembler), completely ProDOS 16
capable, for over a year now.  It makes use of the Apple IIgs clock and
interrupts, which allowed me to get rid of the clock card... :-)

But lately?  I'm never done with it.  I work on it because it's fun, and
because I have this underlying suspicion that a changing BBS is good for the
users too.  I'm always working on several parts of it at once.  It's a
topic-oriented BBS with an online game.  The system is single-user, mainly
because I have friends that can't afford the hardware I have but want to be
able to use the BBS on their Apple IIgs machines, so I keep it to a certain
memory and disk space requirement.

Right now, with the BBS I'm working on:
o Networking.
o Expanded file transfer ability (although the U/D section is mainly
  programmer-oriented; I don't want it to become a U/D BBS).
o Game modifications that are beyond the scope of this message... :-)
o General Feeping Creaturism additions.

If you're ever interested in what exactly it consists of at this time, give it
a call at 612/933-6427.  It's pretty busy, as I have about 150 regular users,
but it's easier to get on during weekends.

UUCP: {uunet!rosevax, amdahl!bungia, chinet, killer}!orbit!pnet51!shawn
INET: shawn@pnet51.cts.com