Info-Mac-Request@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (The Moderators) (01/08/90)
Info-Mac Digest Sun, 7 Jan 90 Volume 8 : Issue 3
Today's Topics:
Booting a Plus from SCSI with HD20 present
Dark line on SE/30 screen ...
FCC story is Urban Legend
Finding LONG Torx T-15 ScrewDriver
FoxBase+ Version 2.0
FullWrite Crashes
Gatekeeper Aid 1.0.1
GelReader on Mac
HyperCard Datebook Problem (Reprise)
Hypercard date problem
Hypercard date problem (happy new year?)
Installing SIMMS
Mac Problem
Modem usage costs to telephone companies
OxTeX
Proposed FCC surcharge
SIMM Installation Tips
WDEF virus
Whither Capps?
Your Info-Mac Moderators are Bill Lipa, Lance Nakata, and Jon Pugh.
The Info-Mac archives are available (by using FTP, account anonymous,
any password) in the info-mac directory on sumex-aim.stanford.edu
[36.44.0.6]. Help files are in /info-mac/help. Indicies are in
/info-mac/help/recent-files.txt and /info-mac/help/all-files.txt.
Please send articles and binaries to info-mac@sumex-aim.stanford.edu.
Send administrative mail to info-mac-request@sumex-aim.stanford.edu.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 10:17:59 GMT
From: elroy!grian!alex@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Alex Pournelle)
Subject: Booting a Plus from SCSI with HD20 present
There's another way--get a SCSI WSI from PCPC, which turns your turkey
HD20 into a real SCSI drive. Worth it, if they've lowered the price (I
wouldn't pay more than $250).
I've installed one; worked fine. Customer never came back (was it my
breath?).
When you call PCPC, make sure to ask about the "Scuzzy Wuzzy". You know
I had to tell _them_ that one--and from their own acronym, yet!
Alex
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 20:06 CDT
From: David Swanger <SWANGER@ducvax.auburn.edu>
Subject: Dark line on SE/30 screen ...
I just bought an SE/30 and it has a characteristic that I do not like. There
is a dark line that is constantly scrolling down the display. It's not the end
of the world, but it does bother me. Do all SE/30's do this? Or do I have a
lemon?
Thanks for any replies.
David Swanger
Academic Computing Services
200 L Building
Auburn University, Al 36849
SWANGER@AUDUCVAX <-- Bitnet
SWANGER@DUCVAX.AUBURN.EDU <-- Internet
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 90 21:57 EST
From: Steve Strassmann <straz@media-lab.media.mit.edu>
Subject: FCC story is Urban Legend
In Info-Mac Digest V8#2, a reader passed on a message about an alleged
plot by the FCC to charge users for modem use. Well, it just ain't so.
Note 1075.1 FCC Wants to Charge More for Modem Use 1 of 1
DELNI::GOLDSTEIN "The Titanic sails at dawn" 27 lines 3-JAN-1990 09:45
-< IT'S DEAD, JIM. THIS IS A CHAIN LETTER >-
UNFRIGGINBELIEVABLE!
Not the alleged FCC charges, since the rumor is false, but the tenacity
of this "chain letter"!
Lessee. It was in comp.unix.wizards a month or so ago, and I squashed
it there. Then it popped up last week in Telecom Digest, and I replied
to it there. Now somebody's polluting MARKETING with it! I wonder how
many other VAX Notes conferences have it.
Here's the facts: Last year, when Bush appointed Alf Sykes to be the
new head of the FCC, Congressman Ed Markey, whose subcommittee oversees
the FCC and its budgets, discussed the matter of enhanced service
provider surcharges. (Modems are used by many ESPs, but were NEVER
considered by special treatment by the FCC. Voice mail is an ESP, as
are many computer services. The definition was never clear.)
Markey made clear that Congress was prepared to pass a law preventing
the FCC from imposing them. As a favor to Sykes, the law was not
passed, but Sykes instead promised (in the Congressional Record, which
I have a copy of here) that the surcharge plan was dead. And it is.
Not that it couldn't get resurrected in some other format long in the
future, but it's not likely, nor imminent.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 12:55:51 -0500
From: grant@itd.nrl.navy.mil (Liam Grant)
Subject: Finding LONG Torx T-15 ScrewDriver
Well, that just about says it. Does anyone know of someplace that
carries a Torx T-15 screwdriver long enough to take a Mac apart.
I've seen the ads which sell these in some of the mail-order places,
but I'm not partial to spending 15-20 $$ and getting something which
looks like it was made from a coathanger. I've heard rumors about
something like a Sears part number, but I can't find it. Can anyone
help ?
Thanks in advance.
======================================================================
William (Leprechaun Liam) Grant Grant@itd.nrl.navy.mil
Code 5541 (202) 767-2392
Naval Research Laboratory
Washington, D.C. 20375
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 14:00:54 EST
From: "Judith T. Frawley" <JFRAWLEY%SUVM.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: FoxBase+ Version 2.0
I am a new user of FoxBase+. I am attempting to browse my database
with Active Fields. I have followed the instructions in the manual
to the letter, and I am not getting the right results.
I want three fields to be Active; last name, first name, department.
I open my database and select "Setup". Then I choose "Set Fields" in
the field picker dialog. I choose my three fields, move them to the
Active Field column and click OK. When I browse my database, I get
all the fields, not just the three I have selected.
I have been trying to get someone from Fox technical support to
call me back. I have called four times in the last three days to
no avail. I am using a demo version for the thirty-day tryout.
However, according to the manual (which isn't the greatest), I
should not lose any functionality, I should simply be limited
to 120 records.
I am using a Macintosh IIcx with 5MB RAM and System 6.0.2.
Does anyone have any suggestions about what I might be doing wrong?
Thanks, Judy Frawley
Microcomputer Consultant
Syracuse University
JFRAWLEY@SUVM.acs.syr.edu
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 04 Jan 90 16:23:45 EST
From: Matthew Quagliana <QUAG%BROWNVM.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: FullWrite Crashes
Lately I've been having some very strange FullWrite crashes.
(1) Endlessly Spinning Watch
The catch cursor appear while I am editting text and spins itself
silly. It never stops and all unsaved work is lost.
(2) Unexpected End of File error when opening a file. A coworker created
a FW file. When I try to open it I get either the above message or
the perpetually spinning watch. The original author can still open the
document just fine. I have tried this over both a Novell net and floppies.
No friend has tried resaving the file with the "Compacted" option on.
This does not help. Nothing works.
(3) Mystery indentations with sidbars. Place a "float with text" sidebar
in the document and the text where the sb is inserted indents itself.
Only deleting the sidebar and reapplying a style cures the problem.
All machines in question are MacII's with four megs of memory. I am running
Sys 6.02 and FullWrite 1.1. I have tried all the obvious stuff: killing
MultiFinder, getting rid of all INITS, copying files from the Novell server
to my hard drive.
A-T tech support has been no help. They said "Sounds like a corrupted file.
Save it as MS Word and re-open it." Gee guys, that's a swell idea, except
that all my custom styles, layout, sidebars, etc. will be lost.
The documents in question (there are two) are rather short. (13 and 15 pages).
They are each one chapter long and contain no index, TOC, or citation notes
(yet.)
If anyone knows how to solve these problems I would love to hear from you.
Matthew Quagliana
BITNET: quag@brownvm
INTERNET quag@brownvm.brown.edu
(401) 863-7324
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 89 22:25:59 -0600
From: chrisj@emx.UTEXAS.EDU (Chris Johnson)
Subject: Gatekeeper Aid 1.0.1
Gatekeeper Aid 1.0.1
(c) 1989 by Chris Johnson
Well, folks, 1.0 has been one of "those kind" of releases. Version 1.0
of Gatekeeper Aid went through it's testing process with flying colors,
but as soon as it found it's way into the real world things started
breaking.
Many of the problems were simply confusing features (the Implied Loader
messages), while others were actual bugs and caused real trouble (the
eject bug under MultiFinder, and applications that suddenly failed to
launch).
Although most users seem to have been able to use 1.0 without incident,
many did experience the aforementioned problems.
It's been real "interesting" at this end, I assure you. :-(
In any case, I think we can leave the bulk of these problems behind us.
Gatekeeper 1.0.1 is now ready for release.
It eliminates a problem caused by inaccurate and/or incomplete
documentation of the OpenResFile() routine in Inside Mac.
It eliminates the requests for reinsertion of diskettes under
MultiFinder. This alone eliminates a big problem encountered by DiskFit
users. (I don't think this particular bug was in Gatekeeper Aid, but
it's a long story.)
It eliminates the possibility of "normal" Desktop resources being
flagged as "Implied Loader" viruses.
It does some other good stuff too, and just generally improves the
reliability significantly. A few more details are available in the
enclosed "Gatekeeper Aid Docs." file.
Happy virus hunting!
Cheers,
----Chris
----chrisj@emx.utexas.edu
[Archived as /info-mac/virus/gatekeeper-aid-101.hqx; 44K]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 16:31:16 +0100 (Central European Time)
From: XBR2DB2Q%DDATHD21.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu (Rainer Fuchs, TH Darmstadt)
Subject: GelReader on Mac
We would like to use a GelReader to read sequencing autoradiograms and to trans-
mit the data to a Mac for storage and further analysis. All avaiable products
use IBM-PCs for data analysis. Does anybody out there know about or uses a con-
figuration GelReader/Maintosh?
Any help will be appreciated. I will summarize all the mails I`ll get for
the net.
Thanks in advance.
Martin Weber-Schaeuffelen
*******************************************************************************
* Martin Weber-Schaeuffelen * Post: Institut fuer Biochemie *
* * Technische Hochschule Darmstadt *
* EARN/Bitnet: XBR2DB2Q@DDATHD21 * Petersenstrasse 22 *
* * D-6100 Darmstadt *
* * FRG *
* * Phone: +49-6151-163653 *
*******************************************************************************
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 21:48:08 PST
From: Jay_Handel@mtsg.ubc.ca
Subject: HyperCard Datebook Problem (Reprise)
Bob Fillmore <FILLMORE%EMRCAN.BITNET> writes:
> Has anybody noticed a date problem in their DateBook Hypercard
> stack? Today I extended my six-monthly calendar and now I cannot
> display my weekly calendar. If you click on the icon to display the
> weekly calendar it displays the six-monthly calendar instead.
We've had the same experience. The problem appears to occur only with
the first week of January 1990. After opening the Home Stack, and
clicking on the Weekly Datebook Icon, we get the Six-month Calendar
(January-June 1990) instead. Clicking Week One of January in that
calendar produces some disk action, but nothing else. Clicking Week
Two opens the Weekly Calendar, correctly, to the week beginning
January 8, 1990. If we page back one week (using the left arrow icon
at the bottom of the page), the missing week appears.
But, if we _then_ click on the Six-month Calendar icon at the top of
the page, the following error message appears: "Can't understand
bracketWeek."
We're using HyperCard 1.2.2, System 6.02, and Finder 6.1.
And Disinfectant 1.5 says no viruses present.
"This looks like a job for ...?"
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 12:45 EST
From: <FILLMORE%EMRCAN.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Hypercard date problem
I have developed a workaround for the Hypercard date problem. This is
not the proper fix, and I'm still not sure what it has to do with 1990,
but it seems to work.
Use this procedure to fix it:
1) go into the datebook stack
2) select stack info
3) click on the "script button" (you must be at scripting level)
4) find the goWeekly script and insert the following line after the
"set lockscreen to true" line:
go to first card of bkgnd "Weekly"
5) find the goSixMonthly script and insert the following line after the
"set lockscreen to true" line:
go to first card of bkgnd "Six Monthly"
6) click on the OK button
I will post a proper fix if I find one.
________________________
Bob Fillmore, Systems Software & Communications BITNET: FILLMORE@EMRCAN
Computer Services Centre, BIX: bfillmore
Energy, Mines, & Resources Canada Voice: (613) 992-2832
588 Booth St., Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1A 0E4 FAX: (613) 996-2953
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 1990 9:54:43 EST
From: RICH@suhep.phy.syr.edu (Richard S. Holmes)
Subject: Hypercard date problem (happy new year?)
<FILLMORE%EMRCAN.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu> writes:
>Has anybody noticed a date problem in their DateBook Hypercard stack?
>Today I extended my six-monthly calendar and now I cannot display my
>weekly calendar. If you click on the icon to display the weekly calendar
>it displays the six-monthly calendar instead.
>If anybody has found the solution please post it!
I've noticed that problem, and I think I noticed it for pre-1990. I didn't
delve deeply into the symptoms, but I think what happens is it wants to open to
the page with today's date (or the date you click on in the six-month calendar)
and the algorithm it uses to find that page fails for the first week of a
six-month period. Or something like that.
Anyhow, I haven't tried to fix it, but there's a workaround: in the six-month
calendar, click on a date in the SECOND week (Jan. 8-14) to get to the
corresponding page of the weekly calendar, then go back a page. It's ugly, but
you only have to do it this week.
On a related point: I notice when extending the six-month calendar, it writes
"M T W T F S S" at the top "by hand"; i.e. the days of the week are not painted
on the background, but put into fields. Anyone know why? And, more to the
point, why are the weeks displayed with Monday first? Does anyone have a
script modification to make the six-month calendar conform to the American
practice of putting Sunday first, Saturday last? (Without breaking the
page-finding algorithm even worse, that is, or the extend algorithm, or...)?
Rich Holmes
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Richard S. Holmes Phone: (315)443-3891 or
Physics Department -2701
Syracuse University Bitnet: rich@suhep
Syracuse, NY 13244 Internet: rich@suhep.phy.syr.edu
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DISCLAIMER: I have no opinions.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 11:27 EST
From: ELIOT@cs.umass.edu
Subject: Installing SIMMS
Many people have been wondering about installing SIMMs in a mac, now that
memoy prices are reasonable. While you can do it yourself, it is also
possible to have it done very cheaply in some cases. The University PC
Maintainence service installed 2 meg into my SE for $12.50. Since I
would have to spend a few bucks to get a Torx screwdriver and worry
about static somehow &etc., I consider this well worth while. It doesn't
seem worthwhile to risk thousands of dollars worth of Mac to save five bucks.
Chris Eliot
Umass/Amherst
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 11:40:15 EST
From: bkgoodman@lynx.northeastern.edu
Subject: Mac Problem
I have a Mac SE with a 20Meg internal drive and in internal
FDHD. On two occasions, I have booted the system off of
the hard drive, and where the computer would normaly display
the "Welcome to Macintosh" thing, the screen is all black,
with a blank white window, (the same size as the one with
the "Welcome to Macintosh" sign.) Inside the window, where
the thicker double border goes, the border blinks on and
off at a very fast rate, appearing that like the window is
being drawn, the inside border is being drawn, then the
window is redrawn, (over the border,) then the border is
redrawn, over, and over, and over, and over. This cycle
doesn't stop, and I can't break out of it. The only way
out of it is to shut the computer off and reboot with a
3 1/4". I am using a startup screen (with a black backround...)
so the "Welcome to Macintosh" window should not EVER appear.
I do not think this is part of the problem, because the problem
can be reverted by replacing the SYSTEM file.
What's happened to my Mac?!?!
Brad Goodman
Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts
bkgoodman@lynx.northeastern.edu
------------------------------
Date: 4 Jan 90 10:43:35 EST
From: Garrett.Pelton@tapino.soar.cs.cmu.edu
Subject: Modem usage costs to telephone companies
I feel a little silly for standing up for the telephone company, however
one of the recent posts about FCC charging for Modem usage had some
incorrect facts. The key incorrect fact is that modem usage does not
use any telephone facilities differently than voice. The facts are that
the pattern of frequencies sent by a modem is much different than the
patterns sent by speech. In particular, a modem rarely stops transmitting
tones (talking), while usually only one person talks at a time during
a conversation. The telephone companies can take advantage of these periods
of silence, and actually multiplex multiple conversations over long distance
trunks. They use the same techniques within their Electronic Switching
Systems.
They can do this on analog trunks by switching conversations within
a limited trunk group as talking starts. On analog trunks they can get up
to 2-1 effective multiplexing by taking advantage of the statistical nature
of conversations. If a trunk is not available when one starts to talk then
on an analog system what you say is lost until a trunk is available.
Digital (fiber optic and others) trunks work in a similar way except
that rather than switch between bulky things like trunks they switch
between time slots in the bit stream. The overload characteristics of
digital statistical multiplexing is better also because as overload
conditions arise the telephone company can just send fewer bits per
time slot. The fewer bits causes some voice degradation but not much.
In Digital Electronic Switching Systems (ESS) the incoming signal is sampled
at some rate and this sample is then routed to the outgoing trunk. One of
the limiting parameters in Digital ESS's is the number of incomming
lines it can sample. In a similar manner to the analog multiplexers above
if the ESS could make some assumptions as to the statistical nature of
the incomming tones then it to could be made cheaper or handle more
incomming lines.
What does all this mean for modem usage? Since modems continually transmit
tones they blow all these statistical usage patterns out of the water. Also
without special knowledge that a line is a modem the telephone company might
do something that causes the modem call to have undesireable characteristics
It could fail because not enough bandwidth is available all the time. The
arguments above are why a little PBX like switching system for ones office
is more expensive if it can support modem (read data) usage. The PBX companies
are doing the same tricks.
I think what is happening is that the phone company has realized that they
can achieve substantial savings by allowing only a slight degradation in voice
service, and a possibly large degradation in modem service.
The real question posed by the FCC is:
1) Do we want to support the same Quality of voice telphone service
as we have now?
2) Or will we allow the voice quality to degrade slightly
giving the telphone companies (and hopefully we the consumers)
substantial savings for voice calls, but also causing modems (data
services) to be charged extra for?
I would be for option 2 if I thought that I would have reduced voice
charges. However, I don't believe that will happen, and everything I read
talks about a glut of long distance digital services at this time. Thus
I don't see why the voice quality should go down and I will write my
Senators and representatives etc.
I would be interested if someone could explain why giving a glut of
services this is an issue at this time.
Gary Pelton
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 23:54:10 EST
From: "Mark A. Saper" <SAPER@xtal0.harvard.edu>
Subject: OxTeX
I'm looking for the e-mail address of OzTeX's creator to ask s/he a question
about using the PostScript fonts.
Thanks, Mark Saper saper@xtal0.harvard.edu
saper@huxtal.bitnet
------------------------------
Date: 04 Jan 90 08:43:54
From: Richard.A.Damon.III@mac.dartmouth.edu
Subject: Proposed FCC surcharge
In volume 8, issue 2 Ted Charrette posted a note (apparently a reposting from
comp.mail.misc) suggesting that people protest a propsed surcharge for modem
usage on public phone lines. The opposition was based on the idea that this
was "government restriction on the free exchange of information." The note
claimed that "Calls placed using modems require no special telephone company
equipment."
The idea that this is "government restriction on the free exchange of
information" seems, at best, paranoid. And the facts are, simply, wrong.
Modem usage does place a great burden on the telephone companies. The number
of lines used to service any area are figured based on average telephone
usage. Home telephones are computed to have some average number of calls of
some average duration. People using modems have completely different
patterns, especially regarding duration. I have been using modems for over
ten years. During the period when I was writing a master's thesis I was often
connected for 10 to 20 hours/day.
A surcharge such as was reported is quite reasonable. This is simply
requiring people to pay their own way, rather than being subsidized in their
hobbies (or work) by the general population.
Rick Damon
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 04 Jan 90 14:19:57 PST
From: Paul Romaniuk <PROMAN%UVVM.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: SIMM Installation Tips
Thanks to everyone who responded to my query on removing & installing
SIMMs. Turns out to be quite easy when you know the trick, and after 5
minutes of work I now have a 8 meg Mac II. For the interest of others,
I have appended one of the responses I received - many other people had
the same suggestion.
Paul Romaniuk,
University of Victoria
Bitnet: PROMAN@UVVM
========================================================================
Pete Gontier sent me these instructions:
I got the same Christmas present! :-) I wish I had a tool for doing SIMM
manipulations, but I don't know if one exists.
First, make sure you are grounded from static electricity.
Next, some definitions:
The tabs that go into the holes in the SIMM are there for stability in a
plane perpendicular to the motherboard. We'll call them Tabs. Tabs
need to be thought of as having a facing, which we'll say is the direction
they point.
For stability in the plane parallel to the motherboard, there are ribs on
each short side of each SIMM. We'll call them Ribs.
To extract a SIMM, gently spread its Ribs outward, away from the edges of
the SIMM. Thumbnails work well for this. Don't force anything. Eventually,
the SIMM should pop in the direction away from the facing of its Tabs. If
it doesn't, give it a nudge with an index finger.
To insert a SIMM, place its connector (metallic stripes) edge near the
metallic part of the SIMM socket, with the chips facing toward the facing
of the Tabs. Tilt the non-connector edge of the SIMM away from the facing
of the Tabs. From a position slightly in the direction of the facing of the
Tabs, insert the connector end of the SIMM into the socket. Now tilt the
non-connector end towards the facing of the Tabs. The Ribs should now begin
to spread until they snap over the SIMM. Spreading them might help here.
When they snap into place, the SIMM is installed.
The installation process SOUNDS more complex, but once you've done an
extraction, it's pretty intuitive.
Finally, remember that it only costs c$25 to have a professional install
your SIMMs, opening the Mac voids your warranty, "No user servicable parts
inside" is printed on the back of the Mac, and, most importantly, that
I discovered the techniques in this mail by experimentation on an SE/30.
(Yeah, that was probably foolhardy, but it was Christmas morning and I
wanted to see MultiFinder with a 1M disk cache...)
Disclaimer: I am not a hardware professional. Follow this advice at your
own risk. I deny everything. Martians are kidnaping me for the rape of
Elvis Presley's long-lost grandfather.
Pete Gontier | InterNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu, BitNet: 6600pete@ucsbuxa
Editor, Macker | Online Macintosh Programming Journal; mail for subscription
Hire this kid | Mac, DOS, C, Pascal, asm, excellent communication skills
============================================================================
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 90 14:19:13 +0100
From: Ingemar Ragnemalm <ingemar@isy.liu.se>
Subject: WDEF virus
In comp.sys.mac.digest you write:
>could someone explain how this thing propagates itself? I haven't been able to
>figure out how it could work, unless it is taking advantage of something like
>the gnu mail virus that clobbered machines across the country a year ago.
>if it DOES work that way (i.e., there's a way to get the uni-finder to execute
>a piece of code in the desktop file)
That is possible.
>that means there's a SERIOUS flaw in the
>finder that needs IMMEDIATE fixing, because darn-near ANYTHING could happen at
>that point, including completely wiping a disk (not irrecoverably, mind you,
>but suppose it could cause a background program to get started, something like
>an screen-saver init which waited for inactivity and then started reformatting
>your drives?). scary.
1: The fix is already made: there are anti-viruses like Eradicat'em and
Gatekeeper Aid.
2: Any virus can do darn-near ANYTHING. The flaw is not in the Finder, but
in the modern computer concept. So far, I don't know about any deliberatly
destructive Mac viruses, but I think they exists on other machines. (Not to
mention Trojan Horses.)
--
Ingemar Ragnemalm
Dept. of Electrical Engineering ...!uunet!mcvax!enea!rainier!ingemar
..
University of Linkoping, Sweden ingemar@isy.liu.se
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 5 Jan 90 00:53:01 EST
From: siegel@harvard.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel)
Subject: Whither Capps?
I'm not sure where the UK office got their information, but most of the
cited facts are incorrect:
- The Capps libraries are compatible with THINK C 4.0. You should
be able to include them in your 4.0 projects or converted 3.0
projects and use the routines without any problem.
- In a sense, the Capps functions are in the compiler, but only
because the compiler uses the same PE, grep, and file-search
routines which were later refined into the Capps libraries.
- Obviously, the product once existed.
I'll contact Symantec UK and give them the correct information.
On to your second problem:
Unfortunately, Capps has been discontinued. This is unfortunate,
because it was a good product. However, the cost of marketing the product
versus the revenues gained from sales was such that it was not practical
to continue supplying the product. The Capps package is still supported;
if anyone has a problem using it, our Tech support will help them. (In fact,
I'm the ghost-writer for Tech Support, since I've been maintaining the
libraries internally.) There are some problems with the PE library right
now; it's not 32-bit clean, and some people have reported problems when
running Capps-based programs on 68030 machines. We're trying to decide on
an effective policy for upgrading users who encounter these problems;
I'll keep the net posted as developments warrant.
For the stout of heart, the sources to the Capps package are
available; anyone who's interested in the purchase should contact
Julie Bingham at our Language Products Group office: 617-275-4800
(voice) or 617-275-2124 (fax).
I can't speak for anyone at the company headquarters, but I
and my colleagues at the language group (formerly THINK Technologies)
have followed the Internet and Usenet newsgroups since THINK was
an independent company; anything you say about our products, good
or bad, will be heard.
R.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rich Siegel
Staff Software Developer
Symantec Corporation, Language Products Group
Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu
UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel
"When someone who makes four hundred and fifty dollars an hour wants to
tell you something for free, it's a good idea to listen."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
------------------------------
End of Info-Mac Digest
******************************