joseph@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Seymour Joseph) (03/03/89)
I coordinate an apple II users group in NJ and have owned a series of Apple II computers since 1978. I purchased my IIGS in October 1988 right after the announcement of GS/OS and the darn price increase :-(. My current system has 1.25 meg of ram, a Sider 10 MB hard disk (ported over from my old //e) and some other random boards (supersonic...). I have been hearing lately that Apple //GS software is not selling as well as it should. I have been buying (and lately returning) a great deal of it and I think I know some of the reasons. I waited until after the announcement of GS/OS to by my machine because I felt the earlier proDOS 16 versions were simply too crude. Below is a list of some of the products I have purchased since I bought my GS. NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM works properly when launched from GS/OS. In addition, the publishers have been unwilling to comment on proposed dates for updates that fix their compatability problems. From Activision: Draw Plus (has printing problems) Paintworks Plus (freaks out) Paintworks Gold (won't launch) Writer's Choice Elite (unstable) Music Studio 2.0 (unstable) From Claris: Multiscribe GS (Dictionary and Thesaurus don't work) From Spectrum Holobyte Tetris (won't quit back to GS/OS finder.) What gives? These are major developers, not yahoos. They were seeded with GS/OS way before its release and today, almost six months after the public introduction and shipping of the Apple //GS operating system, I have been unable to find a single personal productivity product that works correctly with it. This week I am returning Multiscribe GS. I like the product design a lot. I used all the earlier versions of Multiscribe on my //e (they worked correctly with the OS for the //e), but I am unwilling to pay Claris for a product that makes me go back to booting from a floppy every time I wish to run it. This is not the kind of performance I bought a GS for. (and this is not the kind of lack of support I expected from Claris either!) I must give them credit for offering to refund my money. These products are still on dealer shelves, being sold today with no notice on the package or documentation to inform the user that they won't run with GS/OS. Why? Apple //GS software isn't selling very well because the software environment is in a state of violent flux and developers are not keeping up. Often the products you buy are incompatible with the operating system, common hardware add-ons or each other. Example: I share an AppleTalk Imagewriter II with my wife's Mac. This is not unusual and it is a supported configuration. Activision's Music Studio 2.0 will simply crash if booted while AppleTalk is enabled from the control panel. No warnings, no mention in the manual, just a 45 second boot that ends with the old familiar <beep> and leaves you looking at a blank screen. Therefore, every time I run this program, I have to remember to turn AppleTalk off and of course, I can't print from Music Studio. AppleLink Personal Edition comes with a long list of control panel settings that must be made in order to run it on a GS. These include changing the PRINTER settings (I asked both Apple and Quantum why I have to change the printer settings and neither has been able to supply an adequate answer). Included in the required printer changes is turning all handshaking with the printer OFF. If you leave applelink PE and run an old ProDOS 8 application to print something the printer will screw up because the settings are wrong for anything else BUT AppleLink PE. Conclusion: Well written Apple //GS software should never ASSUME that the control panel is set a certain way. It should check the settings and warn a user if they are inappropriate. Well written Apple //GS software should NEVER require the user to make a control panel change to run it. If it needs a change to run properly, it should ask the user permission to make the change, do it and then restore the original settings before quitting. In cases where the machine must be restarted to make the change, the program should store the original settings, make the changes, instruct the user to resetart, run, and upon quitting, restore the original settings, and inform the user that the machine must be restarted again to have them take effect. This is all very grungy. A really well designed program shouldn't have to diddle the control panel at all. Comments? Questions? Answers? Seymour Joseph (joseph@elbereth.rutgers.edu) Coordinator ACGNJ Apple II users Group Micro Facilities Manager, Rutgers University
nicholaA@moravian.EDU (03/04/89)
> I waited until after the announcement of GS/OS to by my machine > because I felt the earlier proDOS 16 versions were simply too crude. > Below is a list of some of the products I have purchased since I > bought my GS. NOT A SINGLE ONE OF THEM works properly when launched > from GS/OS. In addition, the publishers have been unwilling to > comment on proposed dates for updates that fix their compatability > problems. > From Activision: Draw Plus (has printing problems) > Paintworks Plus > (freaks out) > Paintworks Gold (won't launch) > Writer's Choice Elite (unstable) > Music Studio 2.0 (unstable) > What gives? These are major developers, not yahoos. They were seeded > with GS/OS way before its release and today, almost six months after > the public introduction and shipping of the Apple //GS operating > system, I have been unable to find a single personal productivity > product that works correctly with it. Unfortunately, what you say is true. I've seen what goes on 'behind the scenes' at Activision -- they subcontract all their work to other small companies, notably Version Soft of France. Activision's problem with all of this is that VS was bought by Electronic Arts, so when there are problems with existing packages, Activision must contract with VS to get the bugs fixed. VS can then usually take as much time as they like dependent on what they are working on at the time (ie, dictate the terms of the contract because they, too, have work to do). _That's_ one of the reasons why things from Activision have been incredibly slow to get fixed. ------------- Andy Nicholas CsNET: shrinkit@moravian.edu Box 435, Moravian College InterNET: shrinkit%moravian.edu@relay.cs.net Bethlehem, PA 18018 liberty!batman!shrinkit@sun.com uucp: rutgers!lafcol!lehi3b15!mc70!shrinkit AppleLink PE: ShrinkIt rutgers!liberty!batman!shrinkit
RXBROWN@UALR.BITNET ("MR.FANTASTIC") (03/06/89)
TO: Seymour Joseph... I agree with your comments on well designed software. They sound pretty good. But they problems you have had with some or your software sounds strange. I have 1.25 memory, but I only have one drive right now, so if a program is bootable I will boot that disk instead of going through GS/OS. This may seem like a dumb question, but have you tried this? I have not tried to do some of the things you described, and I don't have some of the things you have, but I have no trouble with Paintworks Gold, or Tetris. As I said if the disk will boot by itself thats the way I boot it. Robert Brown RXBROWN@UALR APPLELINK: ROBPHD
jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (03/08/89)
I have several of the above products and don't have a bit of problem launching/using them from inside GS/OS. As far as Paintworks Gold goes, it doesn't work from inside GS/OS because GS/OS uses more memory than ProDOS 16, and PG has a very small free memory margin... i.e. you need more than 1.25meg to run paintworks gold under gs/os. I also have a problem with Tetris, I think it's just a bug in the program. GS/OS works quite well with 99% of the GS software I have. The few that don't work are usually because GS/OS uses more memory than its predecessor. [clearing up the GS/OS badness] jawaid bazyar jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
ALBRO@NIEHS.BITNET (03/10/89)
<jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu = Jawaid Bazyar> writes: > GS/OS works quite well with 99% of the GS software I have. The few that >don't work are usually because GS/OS uses more memory than its predecessor. I have 1.75 Meg of memory in my GS, all of which is CAS before RAS, all 120ns, (except the original 256K) and all of which tests good by the AE checker as well as the general purpose utility on the old Legend disk. I can keep loading big files into AppleWorks until essentially all the RAM is in use, and save changed files correctly from any of it, which may be a more severe test than the others. None the less, I frequently gertt crashes under GS/OS that I neve r got under the P16 on system disk 3.2. Most commonly, the system crashes when I return to the finder from a SYS program and try to select either BASIC.SYSTEM or any Basic program. A reboot is required. Guaranteed to cause a crash - running TIC v.3.0, returning to the finder, and selecting a Basic pgm. Z.LINK has some problems of its own, but it will not run at all if GS/OS has been booted. In contrast to Mr. Bazyar, my problems are not due to insufficient memory. Has anyone noticed how amazingly long it takes to return to the finder under GS/OS from a P8 SYS program? GS/OS gave me a speed advantage over P16 only for P16 programs, with a major slow-down for P8 programs. So I am now back to using the system disk 3.2 op system. -Phil Albro- ALBRO@NIEHS.BITNET
dcw@athena.mit.edu (David C. Whitney) (03/12/89)
In article <8903091708.aa16609@SMOKE.BRL.MIL> ALBRO@NIEHS.BITNET writes: >or any Basic program. A reboot is required. Guaranteed to cause a crash - >running TIC v.3.0, returning to the finder, and selecting a Basic pgm. Z.LINK >has some problems of its own, but it will not run at all if GS/OS has been >booted. The Finder crash has been attributed to a programming error in the FINDER. The programmer failed to lock down a handle, and *sometimes* memory gets shuffled around when launching the next program. This seems to happen *only* after running some P8 program. Note also that GS/OS sometimes doesn't launch P8 stuff very well. Z-Link works just fine from under GS/OS (I do it all the time - not figuratively but literally). Unfortunately, sometimes it gets launched poorly, and parts of it don't load properly. This causes some rather spectacular crashes ranging from a crash at startup to file xfer not working very well. I have seen similar crashes from other applications as well (BASIC and Appleworks) I do hope this silliness gets fixed in the next system release. Now for a bug report.... I don't know if it has been said before, but the 'cleanup' option does some strange things. For example, put files into a window such that the window is too small to display all the files. Cleanup. Now scroll thru the window and then restore your original position (ie - go all the way right and then back all the way left). Cleaning up now shouldn't do anything, but it will - everything has magically shifted a little to the right. Another twist on the cleanup bug: clean up a window and then move the window vertically one pixel. Clean up again. Everything goes down a pixel. (This doesn't happen all the time, but it will happen.) Why can't we put folders on the desktop? The Finder has trouble loading icon files. Ie, if there are two files containing icons for the hard disk or trash cans (empty and/or full), then either the finder won't redefine those icons, or the icon gets erased completely. This doens't happen with any other icons. I can't rename any 5.25" disks. The Finder insists that the disk is locked. I can reformat the disk, but I can't rename it. This one happened on Sysdisk 3.2, and I haven't checked lately to see if it still happens, but... If I dragged a file to the hard disk icon, it would put that file into one of the windows currently open AT RANDOM instead of dropping the file at the top directory level. The Mac Finder has the easter egg of allowing you to copy files on the same disk by holding OPTION down when you drag the file. Can this be put into the GS Finder? This one isn't finder-specific...Why are windows restricted on their ability to move horizontally? I want to move a window one or two pixels to the right, but it always goes in groups of 8 (I think). I know it isn't a problem with where the window can be drawn, as a window can be placed anywhere when it's created. It just won't move in small increments. Can anyone say if these bugs have been fixed? Dave Whitney A junior in Computer Science at MIT dcw@athena.mit.edu ...!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!dcw dcw@goldilocks.mit.edu I wrote Z-Link & BinSCII. Send me bug reports. I use a //GS. Send me Tech Info. "This is MIT. Collect and 3rd party calls will not be accepted at this number."
prw@meccts.MECC.MN.ORG (Paul Wenker) (03/13/89)
In article <9761@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> dcw@athena.mit.edu (David C. Whitney) writes: >This one isn't finder-specific...Why are windows restricted on their >ability to move horizontally? I want to move a window one or two >pixels to the right, but it always goes in groups of 8 (I think). I >know it isn't a problem with where the window can be drawn, as a >window can be placed anywhere when it's created. It just won't move in >small increments. When calling _DragWindow, the caller passes a grid value to use for dragging. If an application is letting _TaskMaster handle the window dragging, it will get the default grid size of 8 pixels. If the application wants to go through a little more work, it can do the dragging itself and use a different grid size. Using a grid size of 8 keeps the window word aligned at all times. This helps speed up window updating, especially when the window contains bitmapped graphics. --- Paul Wenker UUCP: prw@mecc.mn.org MECC, Advanced Development AppleLink: MECC.TECH