mcli@ur-tut.UUCP (Maurice Ling) (09/04/87)
As I promised before, here is the summary of the Magic Sac Users Conference
Mailing:
August 13, 1987
********
Date: 12 Aug 87 23:27:00 EDT
From: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu>
Subject: mail received
To: "mcli" <mcli@tut.cc.rochester.edu>
Reply-To: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu>
Status: RO
As far as Compuserve goes, not much news right now. Dave is about ready to
put out 4.5 via the USMail, for $10 or $20. It includes the hard drive
support, which he says is real fast. He also responded to one of my
trivial complaints (most of mine are) by storing defaults from the startup
page, so you don't have to say 832K, etc. each time. We had a discussion
about the fact that, with System 4.0 and up, you can shutdown and restart
without having to reboot the Sac. You can even install a Shutdown Fkey to
do it. And the Magic Drive is apparently bug-free now and in some stage of
production. No word as to cost.
I'll let you know if I pick up any hot rumors. Speaking of which, Dave
didn't answer when I asked if the rumors of Magic Sac for Amiga were
credible.
*Roger
**********
Another thing this newsletter is good for, as I mentioned before, is
the compatiblity issue. We can discuss which programs do work as well
as the ones that don't work. That way, we can save some time by not
downloading programs that we know will not work. I will try to keep
an up-to-date list of usable and unusable Mac software.
August 14, 1987
newsletter 1.2
A couple days ago, I downloaded Servant.95I from Usenet. It does *not* work
with 64K ROMs (That's what it said when I double-clicked on it).
One thing I would like for the next revision of the Magic Sac is properly
defined keys on the keypad and the cursor keys. VersaTerm, for instance,
has the best vt100 emulation that I've seen for the Mac so far. However,
the Magic Sac defines the keypad keys to be exactly the same as the number
keys on the keyboard. This is a pain when I access the CMS and VMS machines
that need the keypad keys for function keys.
As far as programming languages go, Sesame C, a PD C compiler works fine.
LightSpeed C boots fine, although I didn't get to compile with it. Turbo
Pascal loads fine also. I compiled one of the demos on it with no problems.
MacPascal 2.0 (yech!) doesn't work. I haven't tried 2.1.
We have more comments and news from Roger, who has gotten System 4.0 and
Finder 5.3 to work. There is also some interesting news regarding HFS:
**********
Date: 13 Aug 87 18:05:00 EDT
From: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu>
Subject: Finders
To: "mcli" <mcli@tut.cc.rochester.edu>
Reply-To: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu>
Status: R
...I'm using System 4.0, Finder 5.4. I have been told
that the Shutdown/Restart feature I'm using does not work unless you use
System 4.1. Is does,work, and it claims to be 4.0.
>Roger
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Date: 13 Aug 87 20:19:00 EDT
From: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu>
Subject: Magic Drive news
To: "mcli" <mcli@tut.cc.rochester.edu>
Reply-To: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu>
Status: R
I have to send you this juicy bit from Dave. I just wrote to him on CIS
to ask about Magic Drive. My worry was that, since Magic Sac does not do
HFS, we've got a problem--HFS disks won't be readable on Magic Drive. I
was also unsure about whether the Mac expects all double-sided disks to be
HFS.
Dave says:
>Yes, the Mac *could* read a DS MFS disk. The MackSack will learn HFS soon
>enough though.
This is really nice news. The effort he's putting into the details is
really impressive.
#Roger
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August 24, 1987
newsletter 1.3
Here's a response to my inquiry on vt100 keypad emulation on the sac:
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Date: Sat, 15 Aug 87 17:57:35 EDT
From: Ravi Subrahmanyan <ravi@mcnc.org>
Message-Id: <8708152157.AA09074@alvin.mcnc.org>
To: mcli@tut.cc.rochester.edu
Status: R
Hi Maurice,
I have a comment about your statement that you would like
the Sac to support the keypad (for versaterm), etc. I remember talking
to Dave Small about this earlier, and he said that the reason it isn't
supported (at least now) is that the Sac emulates a Mac (not Mac+), in
_every_ way, and the original Mac does not have a keypad! Strange,
but true! He may get around to it when he adds support for the
regular Mac + extended keyboard,
-ravi
**********
Here's some more interesting news about the status of the Magic Sac Disk drive
and the next revision of the software:
**********
From marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu Tue Aug 25 00:52:34 1987
Received: from yale-eng-venus.arpa by tut.cc.rochester.edu id AA02874 (5.52wj3); Tue, 25 Aug 87 00:52:10 EDT
Message-Id: <8708250452.2874@tut.cc.rochester.edu>
Date: 24 Aug 87 01:27:00 EDT
From: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu>
Subject: Re: Magic Sac, printer driver
To: "mcli" <mcli@tut.cc.rochester.edu>
Reply-To: "BERNS::MARKS" <marks%berns.decnet@venus.ycc.yale.edu>
Status: R
Some News:
Magic Drive definitely WILL work with both internal and external drives.
It is to be available "soon", price "around" $220. It would appear that
the drive will not be able to use HFS disks, at least for now, which is a
pretty big drawback, since all normal 2-sided Mac disks are HFS. The Mac
will apparently read the 2-sided MFS disks, and you can even get it to
format them that way by some trick.
By the way, Magic Drive uses the MIDI ports.
Magic Sac 4.5 is due out, perhaps this week. Disk distribution, $20. Seems
that hard disk support is the only major addition from 4.36. People are
asking about sound, but it seems like a big job. There is something called
MacBeep or Magic Beep going around; this gives you limited sound--beeps
only.
Along with 4.5 will come MOVER.PRG, which does TOS <-> Magic conversion.
4.5 works with memories up to 4 Meg. It has been tested on Mega ST and an
Aerco 4 Meg-upgraded ST.
Hypercard needs slightly more than 828K and hence won't run on a 1040.
People seem to think it will work if you have more Megs.
--Roger
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**********
Here is a request from Mike about getting the European version of the Sac:
**********
Date: 25 Aug 87 10:03 +0200
From: "Mike Gerard CERN-DD (JMG AT CERNVAX)" <rochester!seismo!mcvax!cernvax!priam.CERN!jmg>
To: ur-tut!mcli
In-Reply-To: <8708241544.23657@tut.cc.rochester.edu>
Message-Id: <1657*jmg@priam.cern>
Subject: testing 1-2-3
Status: RO
...
I still need an answer on whether I will get any help in getting the
European version(s) of the Sac. See newsletter 2 to note that the Sac
uses key numbers on input, and we have an extra key (lucky us!!!!!!!!).
**********
If anyone wants to join this conference mailing, please send a request
with your prefered e-mail address to me.
Maurice
BITNET: MCLI_SS@UORDBV, MCLISS@UORVM
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