mcli@ur-tut.UUCP (Maurice Ling) (09/04/87)
As I promised before, here is the summary of the Magic Sac Users Conference Mailing: August 13, 1987 ******** Date: 12 Aug 87 23:27:00 EDT From: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu> Subject: mail received To: "mcli" <mcli@tut.cc.rochester.edu> Reply-To: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu> Status: RO As far as Compuserve goes, not much news right now. Dave is about ready to put out 4.5 via the USMail, for $10 or $20. It includes the hard drive support, which he says is real fast. He also responded to one of my trivial complaints (most of mine are) by storing defaults from the startup page, so you don't have to say 832K, etc. each time. We had a discussion about the fact that, with System 4.0 and up, you can shutdown and restart without having to reboot the Sac. You can even install a Shutdown Fkey to do it. And the Magic Drive is apparently bug-free now and in some stage of production. No word as to cost. I'll let you know if I pick up any hot rumors. Speaking of which, Dave didn't answer when I asked if the rumors of Magic Sac for Amiga were credible. *Roger ********** Another thing this newsletter is good for, as I mentioned before, is the compatiblity issue. We can discuss which programs do work as well as the ones that don't work. That way, we can save some time by not downloading programs that we know will not work. I will try to keep an up-to-date list of usable and unusable Mac software. August 14, 1987 newsletter 1.2 A couple days ago, I downloaded Servant.95I from Usenet. It does *not* work with 64K ROMs (That's what it said when I double-clicked on it). One thing I would like for the next revision of the Magic Sac is properly defined keys on the keypad and the cursor keys. VersaTerm, for instance, has the best vt100 emulation that I've seen for the Mac so far. However, the Magic Sac defines the keypad keys to be exactly the same as the number keys on the keyboard. This is a pain when I access the CMS and VMS machines that need the keypad keys for function keys. As far as programming languages go, Sesame C, a PD C compiler works fine. LightSpeed C boots fine, although I didn't get to compile with it. Turbo Pascal loads fine also. I compiled one of the demos on it with no problems. MacPascal 2.0 (yech!) doesn't work. I haven't tried 2.1. We have more comments and news from Roger, who has gotten System 4.0 and Finder 5.3 to work. There is also some interesting news regarding HFS: ********** Date: 13 Aug 87 18:05:00 EDT From: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu> Subject: Finders To: "mcli" <mcli@tut.cc.rochester.edu> Reply-To: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu> Status: R ...I'm using System 4.0, Finder 5.4. I have been told that the Shutdown/Restart feature I'm using does not work unless you use System 4.1. Is does,work, and it claims to be 4.0. >Roger ------ Date: 13 Aug 87 20:19:00 EDT From: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu> Subject: Magic Drive news To: "mcli" <mcli@tut.cc.rochester.edu> Reply-To: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu> Status: R I have to send you this juicy bit from Dave. I just wrote to him on CIS to ask about Magic Drive. My worry was that, since Magic Sac does not do HFS, we've got a problem--HFS disks won't be readable on Magic Drive. I was also unsure about whether the Mac expects all double-sided disks to be HFS. Dave says: >Yes, the Mac *could* read a DS MFS disk. The MackSack will learn HFS soon >enough though. This is really nice news. The effort he's putting into the details is really impressive. #Roger ------ ********** August 24, 1987 newsletter 1.3 Here's a response to my inquiry on vt100 keypad emulation on the sac: ********** Date: Sat, 15 Aug 87 17:57:35 EDT From: Ravi Subrahmanyan <ravi@mcnc.org> Message-Id: <8708152157.AA09074@alvin.mcnc.org> To: mcli@tut.cc.rochester.edu Status: R Hi Maurice, I have a comment about your statement that you would like the Sac to support the keypad (for versaterm), etc. I remember talking to Dave Small about this earlier, and he said that the reason it isn't supported (at least now) is that the Sac emulates a Mac (not Mac+), in _every_ way, and the original Mac does not have a keypad! Strange, but true! He may get around to it when he adds support for the regular Mac + extended keyboard, -ravi ********** Here's some more interesting news about the status of the Magic Sac Disk drive and the next revision of the software: ********** From marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu Tue Aug 25 00:52:34 1987 Received: from yale-eng-venus.arpa by tut.cc.rochester.edu id AA02874 (5.52wj3); Tue, 25 Aug 87 00:52:10 EDT Message-Id: <8708250452.2874@tut.cc.rochester.edu> Date: 24 Aug 87 01:27:00 EDT From: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu> Subject: Re: Magic Sac, printer driver To: "mcli" <mcli@tut.cc.rochester.edu> Reply-To: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu> Status: R Some News: Magic Drive definitely WILL work with both internal and external drives. It is to be available "soon", price "around" $220. It would appear that the drive will not be able to use HFS disks, at least for now, which is a pretty big drawback, since all normal 2-sided Mac disks are HFS. The Mac will apparently read the 2-sided MFS disks, and you can even get it to format them that way by some trick. By the way, Magic Drive uses the MIDI ports. Magic Sac 4.5 is due out, perhaps this week. Disk distribution, $20. Seems that hard disk support is the only major addition from 4.36. People are asking about sound, but it seems like a big job. There is something called MacBeep or Magic Beep going around; this gives you limited sound--beeps only. Along with 4.5 will come MOVER.PRG, which does TOS <-> Magic conversion. 4.5 works with memories up to 4 Meg. It has been tested on Mega ST and an Aerco 4 Meg-upgraded ST. Hypercard needs slightly more than 828K and hence won't run on a 1040. People seem to think it will work if you have more Megs. --Roger ------ ********** Here is a request from Mike about getting the European version of the Sac: ********** Date: 25 Aug 87 10:03 +0200 From: "Mike Gerard CERN-DD (JMG AT CERNVAX)" <rochester!seismo!mcvax!cernvax!priam.CERN!jmg> To: ur-tut!mcli In-Reply-To: <8708241544.23657@tut.cc.rochester.edu> Message-Id: <1657*jmg@priam.cern> Subject: testing 1-2-3 Status: RO ... I still need an answer on whether I will get any help in getting the European version(s) of the Sac. See newsletter 2 to note that the Sac uses key numbers on input, and we have an extra key (lucky us!!!!!!!!). ********** If anyone wants to join this conference mailing, please send a request with your prefered e-mail address to me. Maurice BITNET: MCLI_SS@UORDBV, MCLISS@UORVM UUCP : ...rochester!ur-tut!mcli