Info-Mac-Request@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (The Moderators) (09/08/89)
Info-Mac Digest Thu, 7 Sep 89 Volume 7 : Issue 160
Today's Topics:
Administrivia
2 systems on a hard disk - summary
Appleshare, Tops, and Unix...
Apple tape 40 SC
Bugs
Buying a Mac - any suggestions?
Help with Text region
Launch INIT 1.1
LocalTalk/PC Query
Mac II Problem
NoICON INIT
Problems with Oracle for Mac
problems with psfig
SendPS tool for MPW 3.0
Slide Printer Info Wanted
Supercard 1.0
Wanted: PostScript printer
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, 7 Sep 1989 17:08:17 PDT
From: The Moderators <Info-Mac-Request@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
Subject: Administrivia
The scripts which produce the abstract files have been modified somewhat. Now
the first few lines of text files are included in abstracts, as well as the
headers of .hqx files as before. Also, the scripts specifically look for the
info-mac digests in the archives and extract the Today's Topics list. That
should make it easier to look for things in back issues of the archives.
Send all tokens of appreciation to trewitt@miasma.stanford.edu.
Bill
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 6 Sep 89 16:13:37 BST
From: Stuart MacFarlane <stuartm%hci.heriot-watt.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk>
Subject: 2 systems on a hard disk - summary
A few weeks ago, I asked for help on ways to get more than one
system folder on a hard disk, promising to summarise responses. Well,
I forgot the summary; here it is now.
Thanks to all who responded, some by posting here, others by mail. A
variety of solutions were suggested. There are two pieces of software
that do the trick exactly as I hoped: Blesser and System Switcher.
They are both in the info-mac archive; at
/info-mac/util/blesser.hqx and /info-mac/util/system-switcher.hqx
Two kind folks sent me copies - both work. I'm happily using blesser.
Apparently there is something called `layout' which allows a system
on a floppy to be made the default (rather than the one on the hard
disk).
Various people suggested partitioning the disk in various ways, all
of which seemed to be more complicated than Blesser, so I haven't
tried them.
Stuart MacFarlane UUCP: ..!mcvax!ukc!hwcs!hci!stuartm
Scottish HCI Centre, Heriot-Watt Univ, JANET: stuartm@uk.ac.hw.hci
Mountbatten Building, ARPA: stuartm@hci.hw.ac.uk
31-35 Grassmarket, Edinburgh, Scotland +44 (031) 225 6465 ext 510
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 10:17:16 PDT
From: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt)
Subject: Appleshare, Tops, and Unix...
We have two labs here that we would to have exchange files
easily. One lab is Macs, the other is Suns, and the Mac lab
runs Appleshare. Ideally, we would like to have the Sun lab
directly recognize the Appleshare server (and if possible
somehow, have the Mac lab recognize some volume in the Sun
lab).
I don't know of any product that would give Sun users the ability to access
an AppleShare file server.
Going the other way (accessing Sun volumes from a Mac) is relatively
easy; if you have a K-box or GatorBox connecting your Mac net to
your Sun net, you won't need any additional hardware. Simply get CAP...
the excellent Columbia University AppleTalk Package. It comes with
an AppleShare-compatible file-server called "Aufs", which can be used
to publish one or more Sun directories as AppleShare volumes. CAP is
free; it can be FTP'ed from one of Columbia University's systems
(cunixc.columbia.edu, perhaps??) and might also be in the Info-Mac
archives.
CAP includes source code for all of its libraries... so you might be
able to cobble up an AppleShare client package that would run on the
Sun, and let you transfer files from your existing AppleShare server
over to a Sun. As far as I know, nobody has tried this yet... but it
might well be possible.
Dave Platt FIDONET: Dave Platt on 1:204/444 VOICE: (415) 493-8805
UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!dplatt DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com
INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@uunet.uu.net
USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc. 3350 West Bayshore #205 Palo Alto CA 94303
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 07:02:41 EDT
From: dahbura@hamal.gsfc.nasa.gov (Anton Dahbura)
Subject: Apple tape 40 SC
If I remember correctly the newest version of DiskFit contains a driver
for some tape units. I think the Apple unit was one of the drives supported
The driver can be placed in your system folder. You might want to contact
SuperMac to see if they can help.
Tony Dahbura
--No Disclaimer--
------------------------------
Date: 10 Jul 89 19:00:44 GMT
From: jurjen@cwi.nl (Jurjen N.E. Bos)
Subject: Bugs
In the May issue of Scientific American we had this nice idea of an
"Evolution Simulator". This is a version of that program. It is nice
to watch and play with for a while.
Algorithm notes:
The field is a pond were bugs live. A bug has health from 0-1500.
Eating a bacterium gives 40 health points. Each step decreases the
health by one. If the health is 0, a bug dies. A bug splits if
health>1000 and age>400. The two bugs will have slightly different
genes, that influence the walking pattern of the bug.
Program notes:
Clicking on (or near) a bug gives its status: age, health and genes.
It is possible to change the bacteria growth and population. Source
(THINK C 3.0) is included. It contains lots of dirty assembly code
to frighten the reader and speed up the program.
Reference notes:
Scientific American, may 1989, column "Computer Recreations".
--
| | "Never image yourself not to be otherwise than what |
| Jurjen N.E. Bos | it might appear to others that what you were or |
| | might have been was not otherwise than what you had |
| jurjen@cwi.nl | been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." |
[Archived as /info-mac/app/bugs.hqx; 24K]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 07 Sep 89 15:21:29 EDT
From: caliusep@apollo.ml.wpafb.af.mil
Subject: Buying a Mac - any suggestions?
What I would do if I were in your position:
_ Buy a Mac Plus. Forget the printer for now. Use the savings to
buy a 68020/68881 accelerator. There are a couple which use the Mac's RAM
instead of requiring their own on-board RAM. They cost maybe $500-600. Even
if the accelerator only runs at 8 MHz, you should still get performance half-
way between that of an SE and that of a Mac II. That seems cost-effective to
me. You might even try to buy a "bare" board and pick up a 68020 and a
68881 from your local Motorola distributor and save some money.
_ Use some more of those savings to buy RAM. It's down to $100/1 Meg
SIMM. I very strongly recommemd that you install 2 Megs or more. Depending on
your applications mix (do you use MultiFinder?) 4 Megs might be good.
I like to run compilers, file transfers and I/O intensive stuff from RAM disks,
but other applications don't benefit as much. Unfortunately things like MPW,
Mathematica, TeXtures, etc. don't usually fit on a RAM disk.
_ I have worked off RAM disks on machines in my office that had no
hard drives, and I ended up bringing in my personal hard disk from my home
Mac. I suspect that you might find it frustrating too. On the other hand,
hard disk technology is going through a lot of changes right now, so you
might get a better cost/meg in a few months... Shop around. There's a big
spread in prices for similar equipment. There is a store called HDI (Hard
Drives International?) which usually had the best deals. They do mail order
too. Consider buying a kit. They're really easy to assemble.
Please feel free to contact me if you would like to further discuss
any of these issues. I'm in the process of selecting an upgrade for my old
Plus-type machine (which started life as a 1985 vintage 128K Mac). I'm leaning
to a 68030/68882 board so that I can make full use of System 7.0, virtual
memory and software that makes use of the math co-processor.
Good luck.
Emilio P. Calius
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 13:51:25 EDT
From: jwm@stdc.jhuapl.edu (Jim Meritt)
Subject: Help with Text region
Is there a graceful way to rotate a text region (with a scroll bar) 90
degrees to the left? I want to put the (original) top on the left, and
the (original) left on the bottom with the scroll bar (originally right)
on the top.
This is being done with MPW C.
.............................................................................
jwm@aplvax.jhuapl.edu,jwm@aplvax.uucp,meritt%aplvm.BITNET,jwm@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu
------------------------------
Date: 16 May 89 23:00:56 GMT
From: twu@caip.rutgers.edu (Theodore Wu)
Subject: Launch INIT 1.1
This is an INIT that records macintosh usage information to a specified
file. Information recorded include program name, date, time, length of
use, and user name. System startup time is also recorded and more
(read documentation).
This program has been used in more than 6 locations for more than three
months at Rutgers University Macintosh Labs running AppleShare and
Tops.
This is a shareware; send $5 shareware fee for each copy of program
used.
-Ted Wu
[Archived as /info-mac/init/launch.hqx; 15K]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 14:22:34 EDT
From: williams@cbl.umd.edu (Bill Williams)
Subject: LocalTalk/PC Query
I recently ordered a LocalTalk/PC card from my local Apple dealer,
partially because I thought there'd be software with it. In fact, I
asked on this network about how to use it and several people assured me
it would come with software. Harumph: it didn't! The manual suggests
purchasing AppleShare (actually "suggests" isn't strong enough; it says
I "need" it) software, which I don't need. Grumble, grumble, grumble.
I assured my division head that networking the PC with the Mac's would
be an extremely inexpensive proposition, and he isn't likely to be happy
to spring for an extra hundred-odd bucks worth of software.
So..... Any suggestions? If Apple once shipped software with this card,
maybe I could persuade them to ship me the old-style software. Is there
anything in the public domain that would do it?
And, finally, if I have to byte the bullet and actually *BUY* something,
what do people like? TOPS? Do I have to buy it for every Mac in the
system, too?
Grumble, grumble, grumble..... I was looking forward to hooking the
thing up today ..... grumble, grumble, grumble....
-Bill Williams
St. Mary's College of Maryland
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 09:50 CST
From: <MPARK%UTMEM1.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Mac II Problem
My Mac II is cranky getting started now too. Nearly
every morning, it will not boot right away. Instead it
displays the question-mark Mac icon for many minutes.
My ad hoc solution has been to push the restart button,
which usually works on the second or third try.
Until it does work, there is no sound from the
hard disk, so I have interpreted this as the disk
not starting up when it should, much like the
problems with external disk drives reported in
info-mac in the last three weeks.
So, we have an in-house service facility here, with
at least three Apple-certified technicians. I told
one who was in my office doing other work about the
boot problem. Her response was brief but illuminating.
"40 Meg hard drive?"
"Yes," I answered.
"They all do that after a while."
"Is it disk or logic board?"
"Disk."
"Is there an easy fix?"
"We would have to replace the disk."
"Oh."
"I just tell the people to leave their machines on."
As a further note, I have a PDP-11 with a 5 1/2" hard
disk that has been off a total of only about 20 hours
in the last six years. They seem to hold up well to
being left on.
------------------------------
Date: 4 Jun 89 00:52:08 GMT
From: d83_sven_a@tekno.chalmers.se (Sven (Sciz) Axelsson)
Subject: NoICON INIT
I, like most Macintosh "power-users", have a lot of INITs and cdevs in
my System folder. Most of these insist on displaying their cute little
icons when starting up, thus cluttering up my nice startup-picture.
Well, with many cdevs it is possible to turn off the startup-icon, but
with the INITs it is not so easy.
Fortunately, most of these icon-displaying critters use a common means
of putting their icons on the screen, namely Paul Mercer's ShowINIT INIT.
So, instead of resorting to ResEdit or other equally violent methods,
I wrote the NoICON INIT to get rid of these intruding icons. The code
is really extremely trivially simple (only 14 bytes), so I've enclosed it
too. Maybe there are someone more than myself who might find it useful.
+-------------------------+--------------------------------+------------------+
| Sven Axelsson | d83_sven_a@tekno.chalmers.se | DISCLAIMER: |
| dep:t of Linguistics | (^^ best ^^) | |
| univ. of Gothenburg | dlv_sa@hum.gu.se | This is not |
| SWEDEN | usdsa@seguc21.bitnet | a disclaimer. |
+-------------------------+--------------------------------+------------------+
[Archived as /info-mac/init/noicon.hqx; 4K]
------------------------------
Date: 7 SEP 89 15:40-
From: DECNET%DERDBS5.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Subject: Problems with Oracle for Mac
Date: 7-SEP-1989 15:38:29.51
>From: M. Nagler - IMMD VI, Uni Erlangen I627 AT DERDBS5
To: GATEWAY::"Info-Mac@sumex-aim.stanford.edu"
Subj: Problems with Oracle for Mac
Macintosh MPW 2.0.2 and ORACLE DBS 1.1.0
PASCAL/OCI Interface Bug.
ORACLE provides the OCI Call Interface to be used from high-level languages.
Using MPW Pascal and MPW C we cannot link our object codes to the ORACLE
supplied libraries. Though linking ALL available ORACLE-object-files, the
MPW linker is not able to resolve our references to OCI-calls like 'OLON',
'OLOGOF' and prompts 'undefined entry'.
We are interested in exact linker options and necessary ORACLE libraries or
another way to access ORACLE from MacApp programs.
martin nagler
University Erlangen-Nuernberg
IMMD VI
Martensstr. 3
8520 Erlangen
West Germany
Electronic Mail: na@derdbs5.bitnet
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 11:44 EST
From: Steve Bradtke <BRADTKE@cs.umass.edu>
Subject: problems with psfig
I've installed the latest version of Trevor Darrell's psfig
package for including PostScript images in a LaTeX document. All of
the examples Trevor gives seem to work just fine, including the
figures he generated from Macintosh pictures. However, I am unable to
use any of my own Mac-generated PostScript images. The specific error
I get is that the operator ``waittimeout'' is undefined. But removing
all reference to ``waittimeout'' just results in a message informing
me that the operator ``and'' has been applied to the wrong type
argument!!
The two printers that I've tried this on are DEC's LPS40 and
LN03R ScriptPrinter.
I'm using dvi2ps-li as obtained via ftp from
linc.cis.upenn.edu.
I've tried Mac-generated PostScript from MacDraw II, MacDraft
1.2a, Cricket Draw 1.1, Canvas 1.01, and Canvas 2.0. I notice that
the examples Trevor gives of Mac-generated PostScript include the line
%%IncludeProcSet: "(AppleDict md)" 68 0
while all of mine include the line
%%IncludeProcSet: "(AppleDict md)" 65 0
It seems likely that we don't have the right system software on our
Macs. Perhaps we've got an old system or laserprep file. If so,
where do we get the current versions?
Please let me know if you've had any (positive) experience in
porting psfig to work on a DEC printer, or if you have any
suggestions on how to configure our Macs so that they'll work with
psfig.
Any information would be helpful!
Thanks,
Steve
Steven Bradtke
Computer and Information Science Department
Lederle Graduate Research Center
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003
bradtke@cs.umass.edu
------------------------------
Date: 9 Jul 89 09:00:40 GMT
From: amanda@intercon.UUCP (Amanda Walker)
Subject: SendPS tool for MPW 3.0
SendPS is an MPW tool that sends a text file to the currently
selected LaserWriter (or other PostScript device) as PostScript,
without any other interpretation. Any output sent back from the
printer is sent to standard output. For example, sending a file
consisting of the line:
FontDirectory { pop = } forall
will display a list of all of the fonts currently loaded into the
printer's memory.
--
Amanda Walker <amanda@intercon.UUCP>
InterCon Systems Corporation
"You don't have to take my word for it--I'll convince you!"
--Gurshuran Sidhu
[Archived as /info-mac/lang/mpw-sendps.hqx; 25K]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7-Sep-1989 12:30:42.58 CDT
From: <brooks%tamvxocn.bitnet@forsythe.stanford.edu> (Geochemical Research Group)
Subject: Slide Printer Info Wanted
Greetings!
We are currently looking into purchasing a slide printer sometime
in the next six months. Can anyone give me some information on prices,
capabilities, minimum system requirements, etc. I would prefer to hear
>From people who have purchased a slide printer and are familiar with its
quirks or extra features, but if a dealer/manufacturer has anything to
suggest, that would be fine as well.
I would like to be able to batch shoot slides, and preview each
one before shooting (to set cropping, background colors, etc.). I also
want to know what programs or file types are required for printing - do
files need to be in PICT format, or can you print from most programs.
I had a problem using a slide printer recently since I had set up all the
slides in PageMaker 3.0, and had to transfer the files to MacDraw using
the clipboard so they could be saved as PICT.
Also, has anyone had problems with Cutting Edge hard drives (45MB)?
I am wanting an external hard disk and theirs seems to be a relatively good
deal, but I'd like to hear from others before I spend money on it.
Thanks alot!
Dave Martin
The Geochemical & Environmental Research Group (GERG)
Texas A&M University - Oceanography Department
10 South Graham Road
College Station, Texas 77840
(409) 690-0095
BITNET: BROOKS@TAMVXOCN
INET : BROOKS@NEPTUN.TAMU.EDU
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 10:08:27 EDT
From: Damian%UMass.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu
Subject: Supercard 1.0
I saw that there was a couple of people out there using Supercard right now
and I was wondering if one of them could answer a couple questions!
I don't really care about color support, but I really need:
1. Better printing support. Hypercard by itself sucks at this and I am not
a good enough programmer to add my own printing routines. Does Supercard
support better printing?
2. Despite the fact that Hypercard is suppose to be a good database, its
sort and find capabilities are terrible. Does Supercard make any headroom
(oops! headway!) in these areas? I need to be able to sort according to
many fields and not just by the first letter in a field.
3. And lastly, does Supercard increase the maximum size of a field? In
Hypercard, these appears to be about 15 pages of text. I would ideally
like to be able to hold 50 pages.
Thanks in advance!
Damian Roskill
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Sep 89 18:46 EDT
From: Josh Smith <JBS92@swat.swarthmore.edu>
Subject: Wanted: PostScript printer
I'm looking for a 300 or more dpi personal PostScript printer (NOT PostScript
compatible--I want something that can use Adobe fonts etc.)--for less than two
thousand dollars. I've heard good things about the HP DeskJet, but it doesn't
speak PostScript; however, I've also heard that you can get a PostScript
upgrade board for it which will enable it to do so. Does anyone know the
definitive facts of the matter, and how much I could expect to pay for this
sort of thing? Or, if there are any other inexpensive 300 dpi PostScript
options available, I'd love to hear about them as well. Speed is not a major
factor (though faster is nicer, of course), nor is networkability.
Mail responses directly to me, if possible, and I'll post a summary of the
results.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
| Reality: Josh Smith | "I swear, by my life |
|Internet: JBS92@CAMPUS.SWARTHMORE.EDU | and my love of it, |
| BITNet: JBS92@SWARTHMR.BITNET | that I will never live |
| USMail: Josh Smith '92 | for the sake of another man, |
| Swarthmore College | nor ask another to live for mine." |
| Swarthmore, PA 19081 | -John Galt |
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
------------------------------
End of Info-Mac Digest
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