jacobson@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu (12/09/89)
I have a strange problem that has occured during the last two days twice on my Mac SE. Below is a history of the problem and my ideas on it. Does anyone have an idea as to why this is happening. If you do please email your input to me. I will be gone for a week starting Monday so if anyone replies and wants some furthur feedback on the problem I won't be able to respond for a few days. Yesterday I had a peculiar occurence on my SE. I noticed that the screen display of outline on all my fonts was not showing even though it would print outline to my laserwriter. After fiddling around I got it restored by copying fresh copies of Finder, System, and Multifinder to my system folder and reinstalling my fonts to the System file. What was peculiar was that this all happened while I was experimenting with post script files, the SendPs program, and the cmd-K, vs K files. What was even stranger was that another Mac II on the same localtalk net which we were using to send the postscript files via ftp over the eithernet to an MS-DOS system attached to our other Apple Laserwriter IINT began exhibiting these same symptoms. Even more strange was that after I got the screen outline display back by the obove method the problem on the MacII also disapeared without us doing anything to its System File. Well we were about to just forget it all. Then today I was messing again with the "k" and "cmd-k" keys with the laserwriter print dialog to get the laserprep file. Before I did all this my outline display on the screen was just fine. Late this afternoon after I finnished messing with the postscript files and such I went back to some applications and low and behold my screen outline had disappeared on the display of fonts again. I did find that if I left multifinder it reappeared on my displays and when I chose multifinder and rebooted again the outline display of fonts on my screen was still gone. Copying a new copy of multifinder to my system disk did not change this only copying a new copy of System and putting back all my laserwriter fonts would restore my screen display of outline in fonts. I am wondering what the heck is going on and am suspcious of my messing around with postscript, the cmd-k and LaserPrep has something to do with it. These are the only common things I did today and yesterday. And these are the only things that we did in common on the MacII yesterday when its outline display of fonts disappeared. One other weird thing that may be related also only happened today. After I recopied a new system file I of course went to my chooser to rechoose the laserwriter as my printing device. Normally the display of chooser after I click on the laserwriter image gives me the name I gave to my laserwriter (ie RJJ'slaserwriter). Today I got two names-- my assigned name of "RJJ'slaserwriter" still was there, but the second name "LaserWriter IINT" also appeared, which is the old default name before I changed the name of my printer. I choose my assigned name of "RJJ'sLaserwriter" and things printed fine. And for now I have my screen font display in outline mode back. But this second old default name reappearing after having been not there since I got the printer a year ago bothers me. I just am wondering what I am doing by playing around with postscript and LaserPrep. Could this be the source of my "corrupted" system file that seems to cause me to loose my screen display of outline, as well as the reason for two printer names appearing???? I also have a wilder theory about the reappearance of the default name. We do have the second LaserWriter IINT attached via a Baytech switch to a number of MS-DOS systems. Some of these PC's (and the Mac II I mentioned) are now starting to be installed on ethernet via a second twisted pair on the B-jack wall outlet of the building. At the same time all the Macs are hooked via localtalk on the same B-Jack on another twisted pair to the laserprinter on my Mac in my office. The eithernet is in the process of being installed and tested. Serveral mini's on the net have moved to different rooms also and some changes in the ethernet line have been made. Given all this could there be some kind of feedback/shorting between the two twisted pairs in the same B-Jack that would cause these problems and perhaps cause the other Laser writer on the Baytech that is attached to the MS-DOS systems to now show up with the default name???? I did not have time to test and see if I could print to this default name and see if it came out on my printer or the MS-DOS dedicated IINT. Whatever is going on is weird. Do you have any ideas on how my outline display of fonts keeps vanishing in multifinder??? Could it be caused by my playing with postcript files and laserprep today and yesterday? Or do I have a weird virus that keeps messing my system file up???? So if anyone out there has an idea on this problem I sure would appreciate knowing why it happened and how I can avoid it in the future. Thanks for you time. Russ Jacobson Illinois Geological Survey Champaign, IL 61820 217-244-2425