clive@drutx.ATT.COM (Clive Steward) (01/12/88)
The basic answer: carefully, and keep your Desktop clean.
After 2 months of working with Multifinder, daily seeing the
'Application XX quit because of' messages, I have found what it takes
to make it run, well, perfectly. Shows it can, and it's really enjoyable.
Maybe others can benefit from the experience. Just possibly, there
are a few things that could be made easier in a later release.
1) First, Thanks to Larry Rosenstein of Apple.
By confirming that MacTerminal 2.2 works fine under Multifinder, he
took away one variable, and this, combined with writing and using
a simple on-line memory checker, led to location of the rest of
the problems. Explanation is below.
MacTerminal does work just fine, I'm using it at the moment with
Hypercard, Word 3.01, MacProject 1.2, and the Hearts game all
under Multifinder, with an original 128K Mac Apple upgraded to a
Plus and 2.5 meg memory. Except for the Hearts, it's been up all day.
2) Keeping the hard disk and its desktop file clean seems to be the
main key to avoiding all the problems I've observed, including the
MacTerminal (and Word and Hypercard) crashes.
This is not completely easy. I'm using a MacBottom HD45, with
which I've had very good luck otherwise, so doubt it's a special
problem in this regard. It is within 3-4 megs of full.
Here's the problem. If at any time there's a forced (programmer switch
or power switch) reboot of the Mac, the next session will usually soon
crash of it's own accord, sometimes even just as Multifinder is reloading
the programs.
To avoid this, I find the following procedure works:
a) reboot with clover key down, which brings up non-Multi
Finder, after the disk does some kind of lengthy (but not
Desktop, I think; probably VTOC) rebuilding.
Running or rebooting Multifinder now will soon crash, so don't.
(Having previously increased Finder memory allocation to 200k
or so definitely helps avoid the crash, but doesn't seem to fix
everything. I'll experiment further later.)
b) You can optionally move your Finder Startup out of the System
Folder before this step, to save present MF configuration.
Immediately Set Startup to Finder Only, and Restart with
Clover, Option, and Shift down to request rebuild of Desktop.
Say yes, and wait.
c) Set Startup to Multifinder Only. Move back in your saved
Finder Startup if you saved it.
Restart, and you should be back on the air.
Clearly, it would be nicer if this all wasn't necessary, and the fact
that increasing the Finder's allocation helps, seems to say that it's a
memory reservation problem.
Do Apple team members have any suggestions?
Or maybe it's something overly greedy about the PCPC device driver, or
the fact that the disk is full? The desktop rebuild won't complete if
it's attempted in Multifinder: says out of memory (actually, it looks
good, though I haven't trusted the looks against the message).
3) One other way to get into trouble I've found with an old (ancient)
version of Versaterm; other programs might cause similar problems.
I noticed that if I had data coming down the line, normally going
to another program under Multifinder would properly exert flow
control and stop it. But then switching to a third program (Word
seemed to do it always) would somehow release flow control, and
the line would run wide open.
This resulted in memory overwrites, and soon, crashes.
I'm sure (waiting on mine being delivered) the modern Versaterm
doesn't have this problem, given the net reports. Could be they
did something special for a driver, which gives the great speed
(vicinity of 9600 baud true, 19.2k on uploads), which in 1985
didn't include what Multifinder needs.
4) The problem I consistently observed with MacTerminal was actually
caused by a DA simply being present under Suitcase.
This was McSink, and after locating it with a binary search of my
main suitcase file, unfortunately I managed to delete it without
saving, so can't go in with ResEdit and find what I suspect, that
there is a resource with the same name as something used by MacTerminal.
Whatever the true cause, the result was that MacTerminal came up
always with an alert complaining that it was being asked to open a
damaged file, when in fact no file at all had been specified.
5) I am running now a slightly increased allocation for two programs;
Hypercard gets 800k, and the Finder 180k. I left Word at 384k after
some suggestive language was offered seeming to predict dire
results if it got more.
I don't know that either of these increases are necessary; they
made for happier times while I was having trouble. After a while,
I'll experiment with reducing them and see if stability remains.:w
6) I run 80k over the 'nominal' System Heap allocation, set in the
boot blocks with Fedit+ or Widgets.
This means most ordinary DA's now run fine under the DA handler;
in fact most of the ones I use didn't before, and many didn't do
the courtesy of informing that they couldn't open -- just crashed..
I chose 80k over, since that's what the distribution disks in the
Multifinder package from Apple had.
Final note (whew).
Working as well as this does now, it's a true pleasure, and a _real_
gain in productivity. Multifinder alone really streamlines integrating the
Mac with the general Unix and printer environment here, and it makes
HyperCard a truly useful moment-to-moment tool.
As a consultant, I'm the only one responsible, and I only use what helps.
This does, and I thank the Apple engineering group kindly for providing it.
And thank them again, for having the courage and responsibility to
participate on the net in the manner that they all do.
Thanks, guys.
Clive Stewardsteele@thorin.cs.unc.edu (Oliver Steele) (01/14/88)
clive@drutx.ATT.COM (Clive Steward) writes: >2) Keeping the hard disk and its desktop file clean seems to be the > main key to avoiding all the problems I've observed, including the > MacTerminal (and Word and Hypercard) crashes. >[....] > To avoid this, I find the following procedure works: > > a) reboot with clover key down, which brings up non-Multi > Finder, after the disk does some kind of lengthy (but not > Desktop, I think; probably VTOC) rebuilding. b) run an application c) exit the application with cmd-opt pressed. The finder will request confirmation, and rebuild the desktop. You can also boot with cmd-opt from a non-MF floppy for the same result. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Oliver Steele ...!{decvax,ihnp4}!mcnc!unc!steele UNC-CH LING Senior steele@cs.unc.edu Life is a negative-sum game.