xerox@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (James Osborne) (05/07/89)
Yesterday I joined the few, (the proud?), to own the SE/30, and of course I am now one of the many with a thousand questions about it. I expected it to be a little buggy since it is a "new" item, but I feel I am getting more bugs than I deserve after what I paid. (Which by the way was $2850 for the 40SC version. College is wonderful) I after spending a few minutes copying everything from my (sold) Jasmine 45 I decided to begin "debugging" with the most important stuff: Games. <insert humor here> Crystal Quest 2.2 gives me a rather unique error message beginning with "EEEWEEYAK!" and ending with "things look cagey." Apparently the game thinks my computer, since it has the Color QuicDraw in ROM, has a color monitor and thereby tries to do the game in color... I tried fiddleing with the control panel and launching from older system on floppy, but to no avail. Any ideas about what to try or info about a patch? I borrowed my friend's copy of Falcon (the older one) but everything flickered.. I've heard of that problem before and can only hope they fix that before I buy it (or I won't!) Since I live on a hard-wired AppleTalk campus, I immediately tried NetTrek, which works (faster) BUT none of the sounds work! Being an audio- oriented person (to tell you the truth, one of the reasons I sold my SE and got an SE/30 was to hear that little chord at startup instead of the beep!), the lack of sound bothered me alot. I have not tried SoundMaster, since I haven't installed a 1 meg upgrade yet (I can't afford 5 and can't live with 1). I really don't understand why the program would work, but without the sounds. I can't test this with other games, since the only other sound game I have is CQ... Although come to think of it, Falcon's sounds didn't work either... I REALLY hope this is something that will be fixed... World Class Leader Board (golf) worked fine, but only when I booted up with a lower life-form (System 5.0). It hung after a few minutes running off 6.0.3. Infocom games work fine *whew!* (even the new graphic ones like Zork Zero). To move on to more important things... What is the deal with this FDHD I have? I work in the computer store at the college, with consultants surrounding me, and it wasn't until I went to format a disk with my new SE/30 that I learned that you have to buy a different kind of diskette to use the 1.4 meg option. Am I right here? I can not format a double sided disk as 1.4M? This is the first the store has heard of it since we don't even carry HD 3.5 disks. Ugh! I love the speed of the computer, but I noticed that using the scroll bars seems to be an acquired skill with my new computer. The scroll just too damn fast. Click once and it pages twice. Is this the price of speed? Anyone out there who usesd BackDrop, an INIT that allows you to have MacPaint files as finder backdrops, will have trouble here. There seems to be a problem with the screen redraw, so that things get shifted alot, and the integrity of the picture is lost if you open and close windows of any kind. The INIT Logout does not recognise the difference between sutting down and restarting with the SE/30. Now that I have ONE slot that I might actually use, I am worried about expansion. An external coolor monitor is in my near future, but so is an ethernet or other kind of card. Are there any developers that plan on making a card to expand your slot for more than one card, or was I locked when I got the SE/30 over the cx? (I couldn't afford the cx, with all the extras...at least not now.) The posting someone (i'm sorry, i forget who) did a few days ago was extremely helpful, but I need to know more now... Thanks for any help or info that you all can give. I'm sure that postings would be in order as respone to these questions, but my e-mail address is: Xerox@mac.dartmouth.edu notice it's different from the return address above (although that address will work too) -James Osborne "We're sorry, but that cutesy little footer you spent all day making has gone to file Hell."
xerox@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (James Osborne) (05/07/89)
As a followup to my previous posting, I will ahve all know that my brand new (1 day old) Mac SE/30's last act was to post that message. Now, one hour later, it is dead.about an hour after I sent that post, my brand spanking new SE/30 (1 day old) bit the big one. I turned it on to check my mail and all I got was a high-pitched whine that kind of "wound down" after I turned the switch off. Damn. This was not what I wanted. I am going to go to the college repair shop first thing monday morning, but... the damage is done... I'm disappointed, but I'll just assume it was a fluke, for now... The Lady Irony strikes again... I can just be glad that this did not happen 91 days after I got it.... -Jamie
jackd@copper.MDP.TEK.COM (Jack Decker) (05/08/89)
My SEx 40mb drive went down last week and is in repair shop too. Could this be another debacle on the scale of the infamous power supply failures? jack decker Tektronix
jnj@mibte.UUCP (Jim Jackson) (05/08/89)
In article <13380@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>, xerox@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (James Osborne) writes: > > > Since I live on a hard-wired AppleTalk campus, I immediately tried > NetTrek, which works (faster) BUT none of the sounds work! Being an audio- > oriented person (to tell you the truth, one of the reasons I sold my SE and > got an SE/30 was to hear that little chord at startup instead of the beep!), > the lack of sound bothered me alot. I have not tried SoundMaster, since > I haven't installed a 1 meg upgrade yet (I can't afford 5 and can't live with > 1). I really don't understand why the program would work, but without > the sounds. I can't test this with other games, since the only other sound > game I have is CQ... Although come to think of it, Falcon's sounds didn't > work either... I REALLY hope this is something that will be fixed... > We had the same problem with HARDBALL. The music starts as the first screen disolves, but there is NO sound throughout the rest of the game. Some one in our group talked with someone at apple and was told that some of the games used some internal fudging that is no longer supported but I'm sure the net would like a better explanation than this, and so would we. After all, this was a second-hand heresay explanation that was not understood. Does anyone know the facts? By the way, the sounds are available in the folder and can be played using SoundMaster, so the SE/30 IS capable of producing these sounds. Jim Jackson Ameritech Applied Technologies
jbrugge@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA (John Brugge) (05/08/89)
In article <13380@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> xerox@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (James Osborne) writes: > What is the deal with this FDHD I have? I work in the computer store at > the college, with consultants surrounding me, and it wasn't until I went to > format a disk with my new SE/30 that I learned that you have to buy a different > kind of diskette to use the 1.4 meg option. Am I right here? I can not > format a double sided disk as 1.4M? This is the first the store has heard > of it since we don't even carry HD 3.5 disks. Ugh! The only thing that tells the FDHD that the disk is a HD disk is a square hole on the top left side, opposite the read/write hole. A fellow at ComputerWare said that you can buy a punch for ~$7-$8 to make your DSDD disks look like the HD ones (but, of course, he didn't *advocate* this, or sell the punch). He didn't know of any other difference in the disks. Making your DSDD disks into HD disks is probably about as risky as formatting SSDD disks as DSDD -- they work most of the time, but you can't go crying to Sony when you lose your data. John
davidp@skat.usc.edu (David Peterson) (05/09/89)
Its not just SE/30, its something to do with the 1-40 (or 2-40) config. I have a 1-40 and it can't play the NetTrek sounds (during the game), but the 4-80 in our office has no problem with them. Also, I upgraded mine to 2 meg and accidently loaded NetTrek under multifinder. The sounds played fine until the game crashed. Anyone out there have any idea why this is happening. It can't be the memory (I've seen NetTrek on 1meg plusses before), but don't know what it might be. -dave.
s160041@castor.ucdavis.edu (Greg DeMichillie) (05/10/89)
In article <27547@teknowledge-vaxc.ARPA> jbrugge@teknowledge-vaxc.UUCP (John Brugge) writes: >In article <13380@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU> xerox@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (James Osborne) writes: >> What is the deal with this FDHD I have? I work in the computer store at >> the college, with consultants surrounding me, and it wasn't until I went to >> format a disk with my new SE/30 that I learned that you have to buy a different >> kind of diskette to use the 1.4 meg option. Am I right here? I can not >> format a double sided disk as 1.4M? This is the first the store has heard >> of it since we don't even carry HD 3.5 disks. Ugh! > >Making your DSDD disks into HD disks is probably about as risky >as formatting SSDD disks as DSDD -- they work most of the time, >but you can't go crying to Sony when you lose your data. > >John Acutally, trying to use a DSDD disk as an HD is *MUCH* riskier than trying to use a SS as a DS (gee, could I use some MORE abbreviations?) On most MS-DOS systems, a DS disk simply will not format as HD. The number of tracks per inch is different. Even if you got lucky and the disk did format, the chance of it working for any length of time is prett slim. Greg DeMichillie * Apple Student Rep - UC Davis lgdemichillie@ucdavis.edu * AppleLink : ST0178 Disclaimer: If you've seen one disclaimer, you've seen them all.