Info-Mac-Request@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (The Moderators) (01/04/90)
Info-Mac Digest Wed, 3 Jan 90 Volume 8 : Issue 2
Today's Topics:
6.0.4, WDEF
6.0.4 problem
Closing Open Windows During the Boot
Dan Bricklin & Mitch Kapor
Info-Mac Digest V7 #230
Installing SIMMs
LaCie Hard Drives??
Looking for clipper-15.hqx
Mac/Accelerator Benchmarks Wanted
MacTCP
Mac to video
mcvert addendum
On the Road Again
Responses To Request for Calendar Program
Something that passed by by desk
Statistical Free/Shareware
System 6.0.4 bombs
the GRIPS disk
WDEF virus
Whatever happened to 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: Wed, 3 Jan 90 13:05 EST
From: "PAUL R. POTTS" <PPOTTS%WATSON.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: 6.0.4, WDEF
In regard to another suspected case of System 6.0.4 poisoning:
Once again, will people please be more cautious before blaming Apple's
new system software release for their problems? System 6.0.4 is a very
clean release, and I have had no problems with it. I run MultiFinder
and use the following INITs:
ADSP (Data Stream Protocol), Aesthete, AppleShare, PacerLink AT DRiver,
AutoIdle, Responder 2.0, Timbuktu, Public Folder, MS Mail 2.0, VIREX Init,
and a couple of other INITs which have proven to be clean. If you are
using public-domain and freeware INITs which were hacked together in
someone's basement, you have much less of a guarantee that these INITs
were written while keeping in mind all the details of which trap calls
are allowed to move memory and which aren't, that they were written with
a good 32-bit clean compiler, etc. Apple Developer Tech support
guarantees that software which doesn't follow their guidelines to the
letter will break.
I have no objections to people posting compatibility problems they have
found, but I do object to them being posted under titles like "System
6.0.4 bug." I don't think many of us on the list are qualified to
diagnose the bugs that do, of course, exist in the Mac system software,
and in most cases it is more likely to be the fault of the application,
or INIT, etc.
On the subject of the propagation of the WDEF virus:
It appears that there is indeed a mechanism where the Finder looks for
WDEF (perhaps MDEF) code in all desktop files that are mounted and runs
it, indiscriminately. I've never seen this information documented anywhere
and this makes me wonder how anyone figured out how to write WDEF. Maybe
it was an inside job... anyway, it is definitely a security risk and
Apple should do something in the next system release to close this hole!
-Paul Potts-Academic Computing Services-The College of Wooster-PPOTTS@WOOSTER
-The opinions expressed are not those of my employers or of the College-
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 90 21:32:25 PST
From: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt)
Subject: 6.0.4 problem
I upgraded my system to 6.0.4 recently. When I select the Finder
Icon and choose get Info, funny vertical lines come on my screen
and the mouse locks up. I have GateKeeper Aid, GateKeeper,
Warning, Suitcase 1.2, SFVol INIT in my system folder. Any
suggestions, answers?
You're running Gatekeeper Aid 1.0, right? If so, it's a known
problem... due to a bug in the documentation for the Resource Manager,
the first version of Gatekeeper Aid accidentally closes the Finder
resource file when the Finder is running. The results are bad.
You can make this problem go away by upgrading to Gatekeeper Aid 1.0.1
(posted recently) or switching to Eradicat'Em 1.0 (ditto). Both of
these INITs use a slower, but more accurate method to determine which
resource files are open and should not be closed after examination.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 90 21:06:14 PST
From: C43MRP%AVIARY.gm@hac2arpa.hac.com
Subject: Closing Open Windows During the Boot
Last night my SE started to crash with ID=01 everytime I tried to open a
particular folder. I could click the restart button in the alert box and
everything was fine until I would try to open the folder again. Strangely,
though, applications could open the files inside the folder. So I Stuffed all
the files and deleted the troublesome folder. Then I created a new folder and
unstuffed the files. When I tried to open the new folder I got the same
problem again except the alert box flashes, the ID changes rapidly through
several values and I have to use the programmer's switch to reboot everytime.
But now every time I try to mount the disk (a Jasmine 45 by the way) it crashes
when it tries to open the window of the new folder.
Can anyone give me a clue as to what is going on? I am running an older
version of SUM. Maybe that is causing the problem. Is there a way to force
all the windows closed during the boot so that I can recover some files and
then reinitialize the disk?
Thanks for your help.
Mark Probert
probert@aviary.gm.hac.com
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 90 11:15 EST
From: SOULES@ecs.umass.edu
Subject: Dan Bricklin & Mitch Kapor
{dear editor, please chuck my previous note called Dan Bricklin...}
Greeting MacPlanet,
DAN -----------------------------------------------
Does anybody know the whereabouts of Dan Bricklin?
Is his new company called Software Garden?
Please e-mail any info (addresses, phone, etc.) directly
to me at: soules@ecs.umass.edu
(I think he was involved with VisiCalc in the 70's)
MITCH ---------------------------------------------
Could somebody please send me any info on Mitch Kapor's
company, On Technology?
I'd like the addresses (snail and e) and phones (voice & fax).
Thanks,
Timothy Baird Soules
Electrical & Computer Engineering
UMass- Amherst
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jan 90 04:41:56 GMT
From: jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Jeffrey M White)
Subject: Info-Mac Digest V7 #230
In article <8912301922.AA23150@sumex-aim.stanford.edu> Info-Mac@sumex-aim.stanford.edu writes:
>Date: Fri, 29 Dec 89 16:52:45 EST
>From: cory%aaec1.UUCP@dspvax.mit.edu (Cory Myers)
>Subject: INITShare Problems
>
>I have been trying unsucessfully to use INITShare in our environment.
>Particularly, I have system 6.0.2, Finder 6.1, MultiFinder 6.0.1,
>Suitcase II 1.2.5, and TOPS 2.1. I think the problem is an
>incompatability with TOPS. Particularly:
>
>1. INITShare finds the inits and cdevs if I move them to another
>folder on the same startup disk.
>
>2. INITShare does not find them if I put them on a TOPS volume.
>
>Has anyone else had this problem, or, better yet, anyone solved this
>problem?
Since init's load in alphabetical order, it sounds as if InitShare ('I')
is looking for volumes that haven't been mounted yet, since Tops ('T') hasn't
loaded yet. You might want to try to renamed InitShare to ZInitShare, so that
the TOPS volumes would have had a chance to mount themselves.
Another question about InitShare. Does anyone know if it's possible to
have mulitple copies running at once. The problem with InitShare is that
you have to run EVERY init in that directory. Running from a true AppleShare
server, I wasn't able to use Init Manager to deactivate certain ones from
running. My other idea was to have two copies if InitShare under different
names (like I read you could do with Public Folder), but only the last copy
of InitShare that was loaded ran.
Jeff White
University of Pennsylvania
jeff@eniac.seas.upenn.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 90 14:42:34 PST
From: Paul Romaniuk <PROMAN%UVVM.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Installing SIMMs
Hi all!
I just received 4X1 meg SIMMs for my Mac II, which currently has 5 meg
of RAM installed. I popped the top off to see if I could do the
installation myself (moved the disk platform, etc), and I think I could
do it, if I could just figure out how to remove the 256K SIMMs that are
already in there. They seem to be lodged in pretty tightly, and are
held in place by two "tabs" that go through holes on the SIMM board. Do
I need a special tool to extract these things? Is there some sort of
trick involved? Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Paul Romaniuk
University of Victoria
PROMAN@UVVM.bitnet
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 90 10:44 EST
From: SOULES@ecs.umass.edu
Subject: LaCie Hard Drives??
Hello MacPlanet,
I'm considering buying/marrying a LaCie Hard Drive.
Probably the 42MB, 27ms unit for $599.
Should I spend $100 more for the 15ms unit?
Any comments would be appreciated.
Send notes to my address...
I'll send a summary to Stanford.
Thanks,
Timothy Baird Soules
UMass-Amherst
Dept. of Electrical & Computer Engineering
soules@ecs.umass.edu
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 90 15:27:53 PST
From: del%sdbio2@ucsd.edu (Del Richardson)
Subject: Looking for clipper-15.hqx
I am looking for Lofty Becker's Clipper FKEY, version 1.5, which
is able to break text on the clipboard into lines of 70
characters.
It used to be on Sumex-Aim, but was removed due to
lack of space. Unfortunately I read about it right after it
was removed. If you have it along with it's documentation, please
send to me via e-mail at the address below.
Thanks,
Dr. Delwood L. Richardson
(dlrichardson@ucsd.edu or dlrichar@ucsd.bitnet)
Dept. of Biology B-022
University of California at San Diego
La Jolla, CA 92093
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 90 11:44:57 EST
From: sticklen@cpswh.cps.msu.edu (Jon Sticklen)
Subject: Mac/Accelerator Benchmarks Wanted
does anyone have available any timing benchmarks which
would compare various mac/accelerator combinations with
SUN4-Sparc stations? in particular, if anyone has
any such comparisons which would be running
Apple Allegro LISP on the mac/accelerator, and
Franz Allegro LISP on the SPARCintosh, i would be
overjoyed.
please respond to me by e-mail, and i will summarize
for the net.
thanks in advance,
---jon---
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 02 Jan 90 22:04:57 EST
From: Peter Furmonavicius <PETER%YALEVM.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: MacTCP
Software that has MacTCP as a prerequisite is becoming more and more common.
I was wondering what other universities were doing about this.
Are most places getting site-licenses? I'd be interested in hearing what you
all have to say. Thanks,
Peter
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 90 01:11:41 PST
From: ZWENNES_%HLSDNL5.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu
Subject: Mac to video
Hi there,
I would like to have an answer to these questions:
1) Is it possible to connect a Mac II with standard 640*480 color card to a
video-projector (you know, with three colored lights!)? The projector I want
to connect my Mac with is a Sony type M1020 (?).
2) If I need an interface of some kind, can you tell me who makes such an inter-
face. How much does it cost? Where can I buy it (in Holland?).
3) If I only need a cable, can you send me the connections?
Alexander Zwennes
AH_ZWENNES@PTTRNL.NL
.
QUIT
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 03 Jan 90 08:21:08 PST
From: trewitt@miasma.stanford.edu
Subject: mcvert addendum
A number of people have sent me mail saying that mcvert doesn't work
properly for them, that it reports a checksum error. I suspect that
this is a machine dependency problem. I run it on a VAX under Ultrix
3.0. (Essentially 4.3 bsd UNIX.)
It does have one bug that I'm aware of that "someone should fix". It
claims a premature EOF if the last line of a .hqx file does not end
with a newline. Some .hqx files I've seen routinely have this problem,
notably the Kermit distribution from Columbia.
Wish I had time to fix this, but I'm busy dissertating.
- Glenn
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 03 Jan 90 08:55:02 EST
From: ZAK@cu.nih.gov
Subject: On the Road Again
Now that the so-called Macintosh portable (it's portable if you played or
could play pro football) is out, I'm looking for a realistically-sized (and
priced) laptop. My needs aren't that sophisticated. I'm a writer who
needs to have basic text input capability on the road and quick and easy
upload to my unadulterated, plain vanilla Mac Plus when I get home.
I see that Radio Shack has a new beast--the Tandy WP-2 Portable Wordprocessor--
that is advertised as being able to transfer files "to your personal
computer," and is priced at $349.95. An additional 32K RAM expansion is
$49.95.
Has anyone experience with the WP-2 and transferring files from it to the
Mac?
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jan 90 07:52:00 EDT
From: "Ed Verhoef" <verhoef@fsdec4.wtp.contel.com>
Subject: Responses To Request for Calendar Program
In Issue 218 of Infomac Digest I asked for suggestions for a program that could
be used to alert me of appointments. In particular, my request read:
>I'm looking for something that would allow me to build a list of
>triplets where the elements of each triplet are a date, a time, and a
>text string. Then, when the date and time occur, if my Mac is turned
>on, I would like it to beep and display the triplet. It would be
>particularly neat if the triplet would continue to be displayed until
>I take some action to acknowledge it and if, in the meantime, any
>other triplets whose time has come would be added to the display.
>It also would be nice if, when the date and time occur and my Mac is
>turned off, that the beep-display action would take place as soon as
>the Mac is turned on again.
I received six responses by E-Mail. Five of the six recommended a commercial
program called Smart Alarms/Appointment Diary from Jam Software, (PO Box 1345,
Pt. Reyes Station, CA 94105, (415) 663-1006); the other suggestion was Sidekick
by Borlund. It was reported that Smart Alarms does all I ask except for
alarming after the Mac comes back up if there was something while it was off.
Plus it can set up regular alarms, say daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, etc.
Smart Alarms works in conjunction with an appointment diary in which you record
the events of which you wish to be reminded. If your Mac is shared among
multiple users, it appears that each user can have a private appointment diary,
all of which are monitored by the single Smart Alarms program. I have found
Smart Alarms advertised by Mac Connection for $49 for a single user up to $299
for up to 25 users.
I'm sorry for the long delay in sending this response. I tried to send it out
just before the Christmas break and it failed to get out because of some error
in the address. I didn't learn about that until I returned this morning. I
hope it gets through this time.
Ed Ver Hoef
Contel Applied Systems Division, Software Engineering
Chantilly, VA
Disclaimer: I speak only for myself except on those occasions when others
speak for me -- then I speak not at all.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 3 Jan 90 16:47:37 EST
From: Ted Charrette <charrett@erl.mit.edu>
Subject: Something that passed by by desk
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Date: 25 Dec 89 00:47:57 GMT
_ #2584 of 2586 From Aracnid on Dec 22 at 6:34am
~Subject: "modeming"
MOBILIZE!
=========
Two years ago the FCC tried and (with your help and letters of protest)
failed to institute regulations that would impose additional costs on
modem users for data communications.
Now, they are at it again. A new regulation that the FCC is quietly
working on will directly affect you as the user of a computer and modem.
The FCC proposes that users of modems should pay extra charges for use
of the public telephone network which carry their data. In addition,
computer network services such as CompuServ, Tymnet, & Telenet would
also
be charged as much as $6.00 per hour per user for use of the public
telephone network. These charges would very likely be passed on to
the subscribers. The money is to be collected and given to the
telephone company in an effort to raise funds lost to deregulation.
Jim Eason of KGO newstalk radio (San Francisco, Ca) commented on the
proposal during his afternoon radio program during which, he said
he learned of the new regulation in an article in the New York Times.
Jim took the time to gather the addresses which are given below.
Here's what you should do (NOW!):
1- Pass this information on. Download all the above info and the next
letter. Find other BBS's that are not carrying this information.
Upload the ASCII text into a public message on the BBS.
2- Print out three copies of the letter which follows (or write your
own) and send a signed copy to each of the following:
Chairman of the FCC
1919 M Street N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20554
Chairman, Senate Communication Subcommittee
SH-227 Hart Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Chairman, House Telecommunication Subcommittee
B-331 Rayburn Building
Washington, D.C. 20515
Here's the suggested text of the letter to send:
Dear Sir,
Please allow me to express my displeasure with the FCC proposal
which would authorize a surcharge for the use of modems on the
telephone network. This regulation is nothing less than an attempt to
restrict the free exchange of information among the growing number of
computer users. Calls placed using modems require no special telephone
company equipment, and users of modems pay the phone company for use
of the network in the form of a monthly bill. In short, a modem call
is the same as a voice call and therefore should not be subject to any
additional regulation.
Sincerely,
[your name, address and signature]
It is important that you act now. The bureaucrats already have it in
their heads that modem users should subsidize the phone company and are
now listening to public comment. Please stand up and make it clear that
we will not stand for any government restriction on the free exchange of
information.
Thanks for your help.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 03 Jan 90 11:10:40 EST
From: "Gregory E. Gilbert" <C0195%UNIVSCVM.BITNET@ricevm1.rice.edu>
Subject: Statistical Free/Shareware
Would someone be so kind as to direct me to some statistical free/shareware?
Thanks much, have a good 1990!
Greg
Postal address: Gregory E. Gilbert
Computer Services Division
University of South Carolina
Columbia, South Carolina USA 29208
(803) 777-6015
Acknowledge-To: <C0195@UNIVSCVM>
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 03 Jan 90 13:33:14 CST
From: C277839%UMCVMB.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu
Subject: System 6.0.4 bombs
Last week I was helping a friend with her new SE with 6.0.4 installed
by the Campus reseller here at MU. With no inits installed, it was
bombing on file transfers, and when we got info on a file. This happened
about 2 percent of the time. And it seemed like certain files would
cause the crash upon copying them. Very strange.
I tried replacing the system and finder with my 6.0.3 from my SE.
Wouldn't boot. Hmm. Very strange indeed. Ok, no problem. We'll
just reinstall the system with the new COPIES of the 6.0.4 installer
disks the Campus Reseller has supplied. We found that the installer has
been totaly reconfigured. Now it knows what is where on the 4 disks.
That's good to make things simple but the dealer had not given her
the correct versions of all disks. The Utilites disks were 6.0.2
and the installer balked at that point with the system partly installed.
Very very strange. More sysytem crashes. It crashed once with Word
when the Moire screen saver came on. Of course she was leaving town the
next day for months to do her masters project... OK, totally install
6.0.3 and things look ok.
Just another story in the 6.0.4 saga...
Ian k. Sights
--Since 1958--
c277839@umcvmb.missouri.edu
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 90 13:42:29 CST
From: hyde@ngstl1.csc.ti.com (Clint Hyde 343-7709 Strong Typing is for people with Weak Memories!)
Subject: the GRIPS disk
Government Raster Image Processing Seminar (GRIPS)
I got this several months ago. It DOES require the ISO 9660 biz, no matter
whose CD-ROM drive you use.
there's some nice stuff on it, but it's NOT EXCLUSIVELY mac files. more than
half is PC stuff--it is simultaneously formatted for both mac AND pc (not sure
how that's possible, but obviously the boot blocks are completely different).
it comes with viewing software for both machines--you'll need a color mac to
look at anything. a bunch of it is NASA photos from Voyager pix. also present
are some classic digitized pix (like the BOSS 924, Mona Lisa...) that have been
around for years.
i forget what format the files are in. i recall it being PICT2, i think. there
are a couple of files which are something like 80MBytes (no idea what they are--
I can't open a file like that). I had to look at these things on another
machine, since I don't have the drive--twas a IIx with EMachines T19. they
looked good.
price is right: $9 as stated. all free to be given away except those gigantic
files.
-- clint
------------------------------
Date: 3 Jan 90 14:52:48 GMT
From: npiatl!dkelly@gatech.edu (Dwight Kelly)
Subject: WDEF virus
hyde@ngstl1.csc.ti.com (Clint Hyde 343-7709 Strong Typing is for people with Weak Memories!) writes:
>unless it is taking advantage of something like
>the gnu mail virus that clobbered machines across the country a year ago.
^^^^^^^^
The Internet virus had nothing to do with any GNU software. It involved
sendmail and finger. Both are BSD programs, not GNU.
Dwight Kelly
Network Publications, Inc.
Atlanta, GA
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 03 Jan 90 12:03:42 GMT
From: PHY6JEM%cms1.ucs.leeds.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Subject: Whatever happened to Capps'
I'm just starting on a major hack of a program written by someone
else who used Lightspeed C 3.0 and Capps' (pronounced capps prime).
I've got Think C 4.0 but no Capps libraries. No problem, I thought,
I'll buy them from Symantec or a distributor. So I phoned their
UK office where they denied the product had ever existed. I checked
my facts and tried again and on the second try they admitted that
they had once marketed it but said that it had now been withdrawn
due to unspecified incompatibilities with Think 4.0. At some
unspecified later release of Think C, the Capps functions would
be incorporated into the compiler somehow. They also said that, had
they a copy of the old disks lying around, they'd be happy to duplicate
them for me, since as far as they were concerned they were obsolete.
However, since they didn't, they couldn't help.
That leaves me with a couple of problems. Does anyone know how I can
acquire a copy of Capps' and its documentation. Secondly, has anyone
used Capps' with Think C 4.0 sucessfully or if unsucessfully, how does
the incompatibility manifest itself? Does anyone at Symantec
head office read this??
Thanks in advance for any help.
John McMillan
phy6jem @ cms1.ucs.leeds.ac.uk
------------------------------
End of Info-Mac Digest
******************************