[comp.sys.mac] Multifinder 1.0

clive@drutx.ATT.COM (Clive Steward) (12/16/87)

in article <48@qucis.UUCP>, cordy@qucis.UUCP (Jim Cordy) says:
> 
> The new system/finder/multifinder seem not to work quite right for me.
> What am I doing wrong?
> 
> 1) MacTerminal 2.2 crashes the system.  
> 2) Double clicking on a Word document gets a message about not being able to
>     find an application for this document.

Would someones from Apple and Microsoft like to comment on these?

I stopped using MacTerminal 2.2 because it wouldn't boot as part of
as Set Startup group without funny messages; and as noted, it does
rather seem to crash.

Word 3.01 generally works, but after a while, bombola, at least in my
experience.  Often around saving or printing time, but not necessarily 
(perhaps that's just the Murphy's law part).  Even if it's the only 
thing (and newly) up under Multifinder besides the finder.

The recent note about certain applications loading low on the memory map, 
I believe, implicates one of our friends here....  Thus, though boot blocks 
perhaps shouldn't matter, setting my hard disk (45 meg MacBottom) up to 
80k over standard, just like the distribution disks for Finder6.0/Multifinder,
really helps most situations.  I can almost always open das under the Da 
manager now, and surely have less crashes.

Can anyone verify that Word 3.01 is/isn't truly crash-free under heavy use
with Multifinder?  About all I'm running extra is Suitcase, and for me
it's definitely not.  Finder 6.0 si, alone under Multifinder, no.

It would be nice to know.  Heck, even my own programs sometimes do
things I think they shouldn't -- just uncovered a bug which would
cause a (signal caught and dealt with, at least) bus error in my
natural language system for AT&T -- a case where a sentence with a
percent sign in it could slip through and get run through a sprintf,
thus trying to access wherever a random spot on the stack pointed to.

How about it, guys?


Clive Steward

psych@watdcsu.waterloo.edu (R.Crispin - Psychology) (12/18/87)

The Word 3.01 bug that stops allowing double clicking of a document can
be fixed by rebuilding the desktop for the disk/volume that contains
Word 3.01. This can be done by holding option & cloverleaf when quiting
the application. This fixes the problem till it happens again. Microsoft
seems to be aware of the problem.

Richard Crispin
Dept. of Psychology
University of Waterloo
Waterloo, Ont.
Canada    N2L 3G1
(519)885-1211 ext 2879

chuq@plaid.Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach) (12/19/87)

>Would someones from Apple and Microsoft like to comment on these?

I'm from neither, but since I'm a user of both...

>I stopped using MacTerminal 2.2 because it wouldn't boot as part of
>as Set Startup group without funny messages; and as noted, it does
>rather seem to crash.

I have never crashed MacTerminal 2.2 under Multifinder. I use it rather
heavily, including loading it, Word 3.01 and Ready, Set, Go! 4.0 all in
memory at the same time and watching things thrash. But no bombs. 
It's very stable on my machine.

>Word 3.01 generally works, but after a while, bombola, at least in my
>experience.  Often around saving or printing time, but not necessarily 
>(perhaps that's just the Murphy's law part).  Even if it's the only 
>thing (and newly) up under Multifinder besides the finder.

Again, I work pretty heavily with Word 3.01, and I've had one bomb, in an
extremely bizarre set of circumstances that are reproducible but unlikely.

Note that Word likes memory. The default size partition for it is very small
if you're doing large files or complicated edits. I've set mine for 640K, and
I'll probably up it beyond that one of these minutes to about 750K (RSG 4.0
is the same way -- the size partition is way too small for the work I do in it)

>It would be nice to know.  Heck, even my own programs sometimes do
>things I think they shouldn't -- just uncovered a bug which would
>cause a (signal caught and dealt with, at least) bus error in my
>natural language system for AT&T -- a case where a sentence with a
>percent sign in it could slip through and get run through a sprintf,
>thus trying to access wherever a random spot on the stack pointed to.

As far as I can tell, both programs are stable, as long as you make sure
they have enough memory. I wouldn't run Word in less than 512K under any
circumstance; but then I've also never had it crash, so I must be doing
something right.