01659@AECLCR.BITNET (Greg Csullog) (12/30/88)
I want to thank all who replied to my postings; however, as yet I do not have a solution to my problem. 1. I DO have 128K ROMs and they are installed properly. 2. All codes that will run on 64K ROMs run OK but neither HYPERCARD nor EXCEL 1.5 will run. All I get is the message that the applications are either damaged or busy. David Small - where are you?
lharris@gpu.utcs.toronto.edu (Leonard Harris) (12/31/88)
I also have a problem when running (or trying to run) hypercard and multifinder. I get the message that the application is busy or damaged and then my master apple disk gets fried. This has happened a number of times. Yes, I follow all the rules about ejecting disks etc. Also, if I format a disk on my spectre, sometimes I can't read it on a mac. /leonard
Xorg@cup.portal.com (Peter Ted Szymonik) (01/03/89)
As for HyperCard, if you are sure that the chips are in right and everything is working fine then you have a System/Finder problem. I'm running HyperCard just fine using System 4.0/Finder 5.4. Try playing with the System/Finder - its not usual that they can be corrupted. Pete
Richard_Alan_Kaapke@cup.portal.com (01/06/89)
There was mention of problems with HyperCard and MultiFinder on the Spectre 128. DUMP THE MULTIFINDER! FORGET YOU EVER SAW IT!! Even Macintosh users hate it; it seldom works to anybody's satisfaction on genuine macs. It seems to really kludge out on less than 4 megs of memory, and it will screw up like crazy the special vectors that Spectre is trying to use to keep everything working. Multifinder is ca-ca, folks. Richard_Alan_Kaapke@cup.portal.com
johng@iscuva.ISCS.COM (John Gardner) (01/09/89)
In article <13234@cup.portal.com> Richard_Alan_Kaapke@cup.portal.com writes: >There was mention of problems with HyperCard and MultiFinder on the >Spectre 128. DUMP THE MULTIFINDER! FORGET YOU EVER SAW IT!! > >Even Macintosh users hate it; it seldom works to anybody's satisfaction >on genuine macs. It seems to really kludge out on less than 4 megs of >memory, and it will screw up like crazy the special vectors that Spectre >is trying to use to keep everything working. Multifinder is ca-ca, folks. > >Richard_Alan_Kaapke@cup.portal.com Being a 2meg Mac II and 1meg Spectre 128 owner I would have to disagree with the general statements made about MultiFinder on the Mac. It does require at least 2meg IMHO and I use it exclusively on the Mac. You have to use it for the source code debugger in THINK C. The only time I don't use MultiFinder is for a few ill behaved games and color paint programs which want all of my 2meg of memory. We are developing a commercial terminal emulation program and use the Spectre and Mac II for development environments and find it works well. In fact I'm using our program now to type this and it's running from THINK C and in MultiFinder. Spectre could have problems with MultiFinder since we don't have a ST with that much memory. These are my experiences with the types of programs I use, your mileage may vary. John Gardner Tricom Software UUCP: {backbone}!uunet!iscuva!johng
bam@sbc2.SGI.COM (Brian A. McClendon) (01/10/89)
In article <13234@cup.portal.com>, Richard_Alan_Kaapke@cup.portal.com writes: > There was mention of problems with HyperCard and MultiFinder on the > Spectre 128. DUMP THE MULTIFINDER! FORGET YOU EVER SAW IT!! > > Even Macintosh users hate it; it seldom works to anybody's satisfaction > on genuine macs. It seems to really kludge out on less than 4 megs of > memory, and it will screw up like crazy the special vectors that Spectre > is trying to use to keep everything working. Multifinder is ca-ca, folks. > > Richard_Alan_Kaapke@cup.portal.com Actually, the reason Multifinder causes so many problems is that it removes all the protection that Dave put it for illegal programming on the Mac. It probably also causes problems itself, but most of the crashes are due to bad programming and occur even on the Mac (and ALWAYs on the Mac II). Interestingly, I got Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer last week and it failed no matter what I did by going into an infinite loop between the background pattern and a white screen. Later in the week I was running Multifinder and wanted to show someone the problem, and when I ran AFT, it ran without ANY problems!! (Well, no sound). Dave thinks the problem with the first case is that it is doing page-flipping for the title screen and that is where it dies...why Multifinder fixed it, noone knows... AFT is VERY well-behaved, not protected (in SW anyway, it has an "enter some info" protection), and alot of fun to play (even better on a Mac II in color with sound, oh well).. -- - brian Brian McClendon uucp: ...!uunet!sgi!bam work: 415-335-1110
Richard_Alan_Kaapke@cup.portal.com (01/14/89)
There has been feedback in mail and publicly regarding my harsh words about MultiFinder. I was partially in error. It is true that MultiFinder will interfere with the SPECTRE 128 functions. It is also true that my company's publications department had nothing but headaches using Multi- Finder. A kind spokesman from Apple informed me about MultiFinder, and it seems that some problems were related to applications incompatibilities and perhaps bugs in the system release 6.0.0 from Apple. System 6.0.2 along with the current release of the applications in question DO work on other Mac systems, and MultiFinder is no longer suspect. Back to what IS important: MultiFinder is NOT recommended by Dave Small for SPECTRE 128 (release 1.75 anyways). It was specifically in a "doesn't work" list I got with my 1.75 release. There didn't seem to be much hope in it ever working, but who knows? Richard_Alan_Kaapke@cup.portal.com
covertr@gtephx.UUCP (Richard E. Covert) (01/17/89)
Brian, Dave Small still hasn't gotten the SLM804 (also known as the Slime 804!!) to work on Spectre 128. There is no word when, if ever, Dave will support the Slime 804. Heck, Atari even gave Dave a Slime 804 last Sept so that Dave would write a Quickdraw printer driver for it. But no dice. Richard (Slimey owner) Covert
dsmall@well.UUCP (David Small) (01/25/89)
(The base note, which I'll save space by not echoing, concerns Multifinder on the Spectre 128). Richard, the reason I don't recommend Multifinder on the Spectre is that when Multifinder is started up, Multifinder steals away the "bus error" vector, at location 8, and points it to itself. Many Mac "day to day" operations generate bus errors on the Atari, from storing into 0 accidentally because of a pointer gone awry, or a NIL return from an OS trap; to testing for if the host machine is a Lisa or Mac; to turning sound off and on. I have a lot of code that the bus error vector points to which examines the bus error and, if possible, recovers from it; the Magic Sac started getting really compatible when this code went in, as a surprising amount of Mac software was generating ST bus errors. Thus, when you go into Multifinder, you've disabled all the bus error trapping that is holding things together. You'll notice that whenever you exit an application, for instance, you get an "unexpectedly quit ID=1" message; that's multifinder's bus error handler. As soon as I jiggle in some code that tests for location 8 being altered, and fixes it up if so to my code (and then have my code jump to their code if I can't handle it -- standard vector stuff), Multifinder will probably stabilize considerably. As is, I'vehad 8 well behaved applications up t once on my 4-meg ST, and 1.5 of free RAM to go.. Hence, please don't say (as the base note does) that Multifinder won't ever be supported on Spectre. The product has only been out since September, and I've had a few things to do.. -- Many thanks, Dave Small, Bottlewasher Gadgets by Small, Inc. p.s. The hplabs!boulder!tcr!gadgets!dsmall is temporarily down; I'm trying to fix that... the 7300 is acting up.
jmg@cernvax.UUCP (jmg) (02/22/89)
My only Spectre problem is that I cannot get any answer from the Small family (are you there, David?). Having had my messages to well.uucp bounce back to me and my snail mail producing no response I am hoping that this broadcast gets some response. How much do they cost (for several at once)? Progress on the version with sound? Read real Mac disks without Translator-1? -- _ _ o | __ | jmg@cernvax.uucp | | | | _ / \ _ __ _ __ _| jmg@cernvax.bitnet | | | | |_) /_) | __/_) | (___\ | (_/ | J. M. Gerard, Div. DD, CERN, | | |_|_| \_/\___ \__/ \___| (_|_| \_|_ 1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland
dlm@druwy.ATT.COM (Dan Moore) (02/28/89)
in article <937@cernvax.UUCP>, jmg@cernvax.UUCP (jmg) says: > My only Spectre problem is that I cannot get any answer from the Small > family (are you there, David?). Having had my messages to well.uucp > bounce back to me and my snail mail producing no response I am hoping > that this broadcast gets some response. Dave is on two systems on the net. Neither one seems to be a very reliable method of contacting him, at least not yet. You can send him mail at: dsmall@well.UUCP {big sytem}!boulder.Colorado.EDU!tcr!gadgets!dsmall If Gadgets received your snail mail they should have responded. Sometimes they are a little slow, mostly due to the volume of mail they receive. I don't know if they have done anything to handle foreign orders yet. They may be waiting till a decision on foreign distribution is made before answering foreign mail. The absolute best way to contact Dave is via GEnie, Gadgets by Small has their own "Roundtable" (GEnie discussion group). Dave normally gets on GEnie at least once a day to answer messages. Gadgets also has a section in the "Atari Vendor Forum" on CompuServe. Dave normally gets on there every day or two to answer messages. > Progress on the version with sound? Version 1.9 which has limited sound support is just entering beta test. The Mac normally samples sounds at 22 khz, the Spectre is currently limited to 11 khz. The 68K in the ST is just too slow to really handle 22 khz and doing anything else (like move the mouse). The Mac uses DMA (part of the screen data fetch) to move one byte of sound data from the sound buffer to the hardware every time a scan line is displayed. Dave is looking into ways of supporting 22 khz playback on the ST, possibly for version 2.0. > Read real Mac disks without Translator-1? Gadgets received the first prototype GCR circuit boards a couple of months ago and Dave has started working on the code for them. They haven't announced a release date yet. My guess would be late spring or early summer, of course I could be off by 6 months either way. Dan Moore AT&T Bell Labs Denver dlm@druwy.ATT.COM dlm@druhi.ATT.COM