[comp.sys.mac] Some Mac II Misc. ramblings.

chow@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (Christopher Chow) (12/11/87)

1.  Right now I have a few color pictures created by various color demo
	programs which I'd like to make into either startupscreens or
	backdrops.  Unfortunately, it appears that alot of the pictures
	which I have require special programs to display them, and don't
	support saving images as a PICT resource file.  In particular,
	I have images which are displayed by:

	a.  Giffer 0.96...I heard somewhere that there is a Giffer 1.0
            which does support PICT resource files, but I haven't seen
	    it anywhere.  It it exists, can someone mail me a copy of
	    it?

	b.  Image B3...apparently a program written at Apple for 
	    showing off the Mac II when it was first announced.

	c.  Render Display...apparently displays data done by some
	    commercial package.

	Any help in transfering these pictures from their internal formats
	to standard color PICT resources types is appreciated.

2.  This summer I was in Berkeley, and Mark Letzner (sp) of Apple, who
	had a major role in the sound aspects of the Mac II came in and
	gave a talk.  One of the interesting points was that the Mac II
	does a diagnostic when it boots up, and the chime heard upon 
	reboot/power-up indicates a sucessful diagnostic run.  Apparently
	different hardware problems detected during the diagnostic will
	trigger different tones.  Does anyone have a list of these tones
	and the problems which they point out?

3.  I've noticed that FKEY-3 and FKEY-4 don't like a Mac II in anything other
	than 2-color mode. FKEY-4 just prints strange things on my 
	Imagewriter I, while FKEY-3 is a bit more intelligent about things 
	and just beeps.  Wouldn't it be nice if FKEY-3 would dump the window
	image into a color PICT resource file instead of a MacPaint file if
	the screen depth is anything other than 1 bit?  Has anyone written a
	patch to do this?

4.  I have a few 'snd ' beep sounds which play at the wrong speed.  How do
	I play around with the sampling rate to get them to playback at the
	right speed.  Also, Apple decided to make the Mac II beepsound
	syncronous... which is a major pain since alot of applications 
	assume the standard beepsound (i.e., the beep on the Plus) and beep
	a few times...thus a somewhat long beepsound really slows things 
	down (e.g., Smart Alarms triggering).  Cheapbeep was kind of cute
	in that it would retrigger a unfinished sound if another sound
	follows it, kind of like when you hit the same key on a sampling
	keyboard quickly when the sample is long.  Has anyone patched
	the sound routines to do something like this yet?

5.  Is it safe to plug and unplug ADB devices when the machine is on?


Christopher Chow
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dlw@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (David Williams) (12/12/87)

>Is it safe to unplug ADB devices while the machine is on?

Well the answer seems to be no! I have removed the mouse and keyboard from
a Mac II and the program running at the time continues to operate ok. The
problem arises when you try to plug things back in! The machine hangs. 

lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein) (12/12/87)

In article <3148@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> chow@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (Christopher Chow) writes:
>
>1.  Right now I have a few color pictures created by various color demo
>	programs which I'd like to make into either startupscreens or
>	backdrops.  Unfortunately, it appears that alot of the pictures
>
>	b.  Image B3...apparently a program written at Apple for 
>	    showing off the Mac II when it was first announced.

Images can save files in PICT format (the same format used by MacDraw).
This consists of 512 bytes of header followed by a standard Quickdraw
picture.  

The easiest way to get a PICT *resource* is to copy the picture and paste it
into the Scrapbook.  Then use Resedit to copy the PICT resource and paste it
somewhere else.  You could also write a program that reads the picture from
the data fork ofthe PICT file and create a PICT resource.

>	and just beeps.  Wouldn't it be nice if FKEY-3 would dump the window
>	image into a color PICT resource file instead of a MacPaint file if
>	the screen depth is anything other than 1 bit?  Has anyone written a
>	patch to do this?

I believe this is one of the programs found in the Colorizer package, which
is a commerical package of color utilities for the Mac II.

-- 
Larry Rosenstein

Object Specialist
Apple Computer

AppleLink: Rosenstein1
UUCP:  {sun, voder, nsc, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr
CSNET: lsr@Apple.com

ws0n+@andrew.cmu.edu (Walter Ray Smith) (12/12/87)

One nifty-sounding MacII noise is produced when you hit the Interrupt switch 
while the "happy Mac" is showing.  Keep hitting the switch to hear more tones.

The first time this happened was a couple of days after getting my MacII.  I 
was debugging a program around 4:30 AM, when the system crashed *really* 
badly, and made that noise.  I almost fell out of my chair.

- Walt
--
       Walter Smith, CS graduate student, Carnegie-Mellon University
      uucp: ...!seismo!cmucspt!wrs ?         ARPA: wrs@f.gp.cs.cmu.edu
              usps: 5706 Darlington Rd.; Pittsburgh, PA  15217

gillies@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu (12/15/87)

On a similar note:

I am searching for nifty color PICT resources for my Mac II.  I have so
far located:

  1.  A color version of Cheryl Tiegs
  2.  A color BMX motorcyle logo (wierd colors).

Please send me e-mail if you know of other public domain color
pictures floating around out there (preferably digitized, but
beautiful 3-d renderings such as the floating mirrored balls from
Apple are o.k. too).  I will summarize if there is interest.

Also, does anyone know if there is a color camera program for the Mac
II?  This would help in capturing some PICTs from 3-D programs.

-------------- Removing ADB Devices ------------------------

According to a recent article (MiniMicroSystems?), each ADB device has
a dirt-cheap microprocessor (TMS-1000?), and one of the ADB pins is a
POWER pin.  This reduces the manufacturing cost of a mouse by $3.  So
when you disconnect your mouse/keyboard, you are actually
erasing/resetting a program stored in the microprocessor's ram (bad
news), which was loaded during boot-up.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Don Gillies {ihnp4!uiucdcs!gillies} U of Illinois
            {gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu}

jwhitnel@csi.UUCP (Jerry Whitnell) (12/17/87)

In article <76000076@uiucdcsp> gillies@uiucdcsp.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>
>I am searching for nifty color PICT resources for my Mac II.

Best place I've found for color pics in the Picture forum on Compuserve.
GO PIC to get there.  Has a large selection of color pictures.  Most are
320x200x[16,256], although someone (I forget his name) has been uploading
640x400x256 (i.e. Mac II size).  These are stored in GIF format, so you'll
want Giffer 1.0.  Many have been done by Atari ST/Amiga/IBM EGA, hence the
smaller size.  

Jerry Whitnell				Lizzi Borden took an axe
Communication Solutions, Inc.		And plunged it deep into the VAX;
					Don't you envy people who
					Do all the things You want to do?