Info-Mac-Request@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (The Moderators) (08/16/89)
Info-Mac Digest Tue, 15 Aug 89 Volume 7 : Issue 140
Today's Topics:
Apple's lousy warranty
Application builders
CAP atis segmentation fault
Changing SCSI Icons
Comments on Macintosh Programming Primer.
Ethernet Board Summary
Help with Video Driver
HP DeskWriter. Wow!
HP Plotter Driver
MIGHT AND MAGIC PATCH
Music from floppy disks with Hypercard
Palette Manager vs. 32-bit Color Quickdraw
Questions about Imagewriter II, Word 4.0
Request for help avoiding the mouse. . .
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.
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Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 11:27:08 CST
From: decwrl!pro-party.cts.com!hplabs!d.m.p.@labrea.stanford.edu (Don Peaslee)
Subject: Apple's lousy warranty
I read with interest the August 7th issue of InfoWorld (a publication
that normally is heavily biased towards the Messy-Dos computer types)
which rated all the various Macintosh machines -- from the Plus up to the
IIcx. The scores were all "Excellent" or "Very Good" until they
got to "Technical Support" which was given a rating of "POOR" and then
the clincher was "Support Policies" which they gave a rating of
"UNACCEPTABLE." Sadly, these two areas caused the total ratings of
the machines to drop considerably. Many of my MS-DOS type colleagues
read this publication, and I really was hoping for a high rating just
so I wouldn't have to take any more flak from them, but with Apple's
current 90 day warranty is it any wonder that InfoWorld downgraded
these wonderful machines? C'mon Apple, it's way past time to warrant
your machines for at least 12 months!
Don
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 9 August 1989 11:22am CST
From: CYAI336%UTA3081.CC.UTEXAS.EDU@utxvm.cc.utexas.edu
Subject: Application builders
>Has anybody had any experience with application building programs? Two in
>particular I am currently looking at are Prototyper 2.0 (from SmethersBarnes)
>and AppMaker 1.0 (from BOWERS Development). They both claim to let you build
>menus, windows, dialogs, alert boxes, etc. They also both claim to let you do
>it nicely and interactively, and then generate the source code (C or Pascal).
>Any experiences with these two (or others)???
I purchased Prototyper 2.0 recently and am amazed at its versatility. Not only
does it allow you to quickly create a prototype of an application, the source
code that it outputs is fully commented and very understandable (assuming one
is already somewhat conversant in Mac programming). I generated a test
application less than an hour after opening the package that compiled correctly
the first time using LightSpeed Pascal 2.0. And it wasn't even a trivial
program. It contained several windows, controls, dialog boxes, menus, etc.
In short, it is an impressive product that I highly recommend.
Patrick Parker
CIS: 71260,3711
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 09:53:21 CDT
From: brian@natinst.com (Brian H. Powell)
Subject: CAP atis segmentation fault
We're running the CAP 5.0 software on a Sun 3/160 running SunOS 4.0.3.
We've had this problem for some time, under SunOS 4.0 and SunOS 4.0.1 and
maybe even SunOS 3.2 before that.
Every now and then (about every month or so), our "atis" program dumps
core with a "signal 11, Segmentation fault." I compiled "atis" (but not the
cap libraries) with the -g flag for debugging, and got a backtrace from the
core file:
#0 0x4c0c in do_ddp_chksum ()
#1 0x4a58 in ddp_protocol ()
#2 0x764e in kip_get ()
#3 0x69a4 in fdlistenread ()
#4 0x6f26 in abSelect ()
#5 0x6d68 in abSleep ()
#6 0x2bba in main (argc=1, argv=(char **) 0xeffffd4) (atis.c line 387)
It looks like the "cnt" passed to do_ddp_chksum is bogus:
_do_ddp_chksum(0x231d8,0xfffffff5,0x1560) + 1a
(cnt is the -11.) This happens at the second call to "ddp_chksum" in
"ddp_protocol". Could be a variety of problems, I suppose.
I've looked at the code, but nothing leaps to mind. I'm not exactly
familiar with this stuff. Anybody have any ideas what could be going wrong?
Brian H. Powell National Instruments Corp.
brian@natinst.com 12109 Technology Blvd.
uunet!cs.utexas.edu!natinst!brian Austin, Texas 78727-6204
AppleLink:NATINST (512) 250-9119
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 11:21:23 EDT
From: DBecque%UMass.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu
Subject: Changing SCSI Icons
The icons for the drive are located in the driver software!!!
The consenses is that the software should not be tampered with
but that it might be possible to change the icon in the installation
software and reformat your disk. That's a big might be because
you might also crash everything...
Another easier way is to download an init from Sumex called Facade.
Facade iterrupts the calls by the driver software and allows you to
associate any ICN# with any drive just by the name of the disk.
You sacrifice a little of the system heap to do this but it makes your
desktop all the more interesting to look at.
Dan Becque DBecque@UMass.bitnet
UMass at Amherst Daniel Becque@Mars.UCC.UMass.Edu
Department of Exercise Science
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 07:51:38 EDT
From: Michael D. Prange <prange@erl.mit.edu>
Subject: Comments on Macintosh Programming Primer.
I bought the book "Macintosh Programming Primer--Inside the Toolbox Using
THINK's Lightspeed C" when it first appeared. In my experience, it is
the best macintosh programming tutorial I've seen to date. However,
since it applies to version 3.0 of THINK C, I'm not sure how relevant
it will be to version 4.0.
Michael
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 16:14:27 EDT
From: rpk@goldhill.com
Subject: Ethernet Board Summary
Here are responses to my Ethernet board query of several months back.
**************************************************
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 89 21:25:50 -0400
From: John Watlington <wad@media-lab.media.mit.edu>
We have a lab with 6 Mac II/IIx machines, all equipped with Apple's
Ethertalk card. They have performed with no problems ( despite
another group reporting a problem with an early batch. ). We use
NCSA Telnet v2.0 for file transfer and remote terminals. For
software development, we use Kinetics TCPort ( for MPW 3.0 ).
Unfortunately, the TCPort drivers seem to interfere with Telnet's
usage of the Ethertalk card. We communicate with IBM PCs, Sun Workstations,
Vax of all sizes, and Next machines.
wad
**************************************************
Date: Mon, 19 Jun 89 11:35:38 PDT
From: nomdenet@venera.isi.edu
> So, in terms of performance, compatibility, and quality, is an
> Ethernet board an Ethernet board an Ethernet board ? The only one I
> could find in a Mac Connection ad is one from Dove Computer (Fastnet
> III, I beleive).
I've recently had occasion to research this topic, and I've found three
manufacturers of Ethernet boards:
Apple EtherTalk Interface Card $595
Dove Computer FastNet III 599
Kinetics EtherPort II 695
As yet we haven't bought anything, but an acquaintance whose judgement
I trust believes that, indeed, an Apple EtherTalk Interface Card is a Dove
FastNet III is a Kinetics EtherPort II, and recommended we purchase Apple's
card because of their good discounts for educational institutions. They all
come with drivers, and my impression is that all available software will work
with any set of drivers.
I'd recommend you get Kinetics' information packet, an impressive 5/8-inch
thick, and containing a first-rate Network Primer which concisely presents
networking issues. (800) 433-4608 or (415) 975-4445. My contact is Janet
Perry, who is a rarity among salescritters: Knowledgeable about her subject
and quite competent. Her title is "Educational Accounts Manager", so she
probably would refer you someone handling commercial accounts.
There's also the matter of software, as twisting and complex a maze as ever
I've found, and too much to go into here -- especially since you restricted
your query to hardware with no clues as to the project or application needing
Ethernet access. I'd be happy to correspond with you about Ethernet things,
or talk with you over the telephone.
A. R. White
USC/Information Sciences Institute
4676 Admiralty Way
Marina Del Rey, California
90292-6695
(213) 822-1511, x162
(213) 823-6714 facsimile
ARPA: nomdenet @ ISI.edu
**************************************************
Date: 20 Jun 89 09:08:00
From: Steven.D.Ligett@mac.dartmouth.edu
Our chief wizard in such things says that the board from Asante is about twice
as fast (on the NuBus side!) as the Kinetics one, and doesn't have the bugs
that Kinetics has. (Driver bugs, I assume.) I asked him for Asante's number
and address a couple weeks ago for another request, and threw it away
yesterday. I'd be embarrassed to ask again, but would if you can't find them.
**************************************************
From: gateh%CONNCOLL.BITNET@cunyvm.cuny.edu
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 89 13:33:19 edt
Dear Robert,
I just received Apple's EtherTalk Interface Card, however it is not completely
installed as of yet. If I recall correctly, there are about 3 or 4 Ethernet
boards presently available, and for the price the Apple board seemed the best
bet. I'm going to be using it in conjunction with the NCSA Telnet 2.3b2
TCP/IP software package for high-speed file transfers with our minicomputer
network. I also hope to test some of the Mac-to-mainframe packages later.
If you are interested in any of this, I'd be more than happy to update you
as I proceed.
Hope this is of some help - Gregg
*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*=*
Gregg TeHennepe | Academic Computing and User Services
Minicomputer Specialist | Box 5482
BITNET: gateh@conncoll | Connecticut College
Phone: (203) 447-7681 | New London, CT 06320
------------------------------
Date: Wednesday, 09 Aug 89 15:09:22 EDT
From: senn@laurel.psy.cmu.edu (Jeff Senn)
Subject: Help with Video Driver
Does anyone have some example code they could send me that deals with
Status/Control calls to the Mac II video driver (the standard Apple one).
In particular I'm interested in manipulating the gamma table.
My code seems to be affecting the driver in anti-deterministic ways--thus
I fear I'm doing something wrong...
C code would be best--anything else is fine.
Please e-mail to me since I don't read the digest religiously.
=============================================================================
Jeff Senn Arpa: Senn@Psy.cmu.edu
Research/Systems Programmer
Psychology, Carnegie Mellon (412) CMU-SKY1
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 89 09:16:03 CST
From: decwrl!pro-party.cts.com!hplabs!d.m.p.@labrea.stanford.edu (Don Peaslee)
Subject: HP DeskWriter. Wow!
After much advice, thought and consideration (and consternation...),
I just purchased a DeskWriter printer, and am extremely pleased. It
gives my work the professional look that is so important at a price
that is still affordable. With the "Smooth Bitmaps" option on, it is
nearly as good as any laser printer, and at a much more affordable
price. The printer is fast, quiet, elegant, and the output is
gorgeous.
Printing on a paper such as Eaton's "Natural Finish, Laid,
Heavyweight" typing paper gives a professional look that anyone would
be proud of. This paper is "buff" colored and has a rough texture
with Eaton's seal imprinted -- very classy. Also experimented with a
stiff paper (ala business card thickness) and did some printing of
same. They came out superb. Used a paper cutter to square the cards
off, and looks as if they were done at the local printshop. The
advice in the manual about being sure to put the various papers in "right
side up" is important to realize the really best ASCII/graphic output
of this printer. Of course, you can use just about any other
standard paper as well. For example, copy machine paper works nicely.
Oh, one last thought. I purchased the printer on Friday at 5:45 PM
and it was up and running by 6:15. Easy installation and well
written documentation sure makes it nice. Can't remember the last
time things went this smoothly when adding hardware!
Price paid was a high (???) $896 including cable. It was bought
locally here in San Antonio, TX. (To rationalize... at least I had
the machine within several hours and have local support.) :-) Used
Amex so that the normal one year warranty (C'mon Apple get with it,
no one else in electronics has just 90 days) was doubled to 24
months.
Don
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 08 Aug 89 22:35:31 CST
From: Timothy Bergeron <C09615TB%WUVMD.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: HP Plotter Driver
Does anyone know if a printer driver for HP plotters exists and how I can
get a copy of it?
Timothy Bergeron
Educational Computing Services
Washington University
St. Louis, MO
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 89 01:30 CDT
From: GREENY <MISS026%ECNCDC.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: MIGHT AND MAGIC PATCH
A few weeks ago I posted a request for the patch necessary to remove the
key disk request within the Might and Magic program. I received several
requests for what I discovered, as well as several promises of the patch which
never materialized. I therefore turned to GEnie and got the answer. However,
since I always try to keep my promises, I am willing to forward this tidbit
of info to the Mac list here on the nets, as I lost the addresses of the
folks that wanted the patch.
Please only use this if you actually purchased the program (as I did!) and are
annoyed as hell with the stupid copy protection.
How to do it:
1) Get your favorite disk editor out (FEDIT, Symantic Tools)
2) Start it up
3) Search for the following string:
In version 1.0 of the program search for:
4EBA FC86 7E02
In version 1.04 of the program search for:
4EBA FB5A 4EBA FD82 7E02
4) Effect the following changes to the "found" strings above:
In version 1.0, the search string should become:
4E71 4E71 7E02
In version 1.04, the search string should become:
4E71 4E71 4E71 4E71 7E02
5) Write the sector back out.
6) Quit the favorite editor
7) Start up M&M. Volia! No key disk request! Yeah!
Bye for now but not for long
Greeny
BITNET: MISS026@ECNCDC
Internet: MISS026%ECNCDC.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
GEnie: GREENY
MacNet: GREENY
Disclaimer: I'm not a pirate, don't advocate piracy, and don't want to hear
flames about this. It is to be used by purchasers of the program
only. I am -- for the record -- AGAINST ALL COPY PROTECTION.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 09 Aug 89 11:15:45 EDT
From: Peter Jones <MAINT%UQAM.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Music from floppy disks with Hypercard
I have a friend who is trying to use Hypercard to display diagrams of figure
dances while music is played to accompany each figure. Ideally, the music
should play without pausing between the 2-bar frames. When a dance is played
for the first time, there are frequent pauses to read the floppy disk, and the
sound of the music is often garbled.
The manual suggests, to avoid the garbling, to wait for the music buffer to
empty itself before reading the next block on disk. Wouldn't that cause a break
in the music?
Is there a way to load a whole dance (about 128K) and play it through without
stopping for disk reads? The machine is a MAC II with 1 meg. There is no
hard disk.
Thanks for any help. Sorry if this question is too simple for this list.
Peter Jones MAINT@UQAM (514)-987-3542
"All's well that ends." :-)
[Moderator's Note:
This might have trouble because of your lack of memory, but you need to read
all the cards in before beginning the music. Do this before playing to
buffer all the cards in Hypercard's cache.
lock screen
repeat for number of cards
go to next card
end repeat
unlock screen
--Jon]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 14:05:10 PDT
From: eastman@csa4.lbl.gov (Jack Eastman)
Subject: Palette Manager vs. 32-bit Color Quickdraw
Dave Platt notes:
>> "Users of Apple's 32-bit QuickDraw have encountered some problems with
>> Version 1.8.3 of Adobe Illustrator 88. It seems that Illustrator
>> crashes everytime you quit the application, but one user who reported
>> the bug to the company said that a fix for the problem is not expected
>> until the end of the year."
>Hmmm. This sounds as if it might possibly be the same problem I encountered
>when adapting my MandelZot fractal program for 32-bit Color QuickDraw.
>The system would crash on exit 100% of the time, if it was running
>under the single-Finder and if it had ever created a custom palette and
>applied it to an on-screen window. The crash would not occur under
>MultiFinder, or if I commented out the SetPalette() call that applied the
>palette to the window.
I've also encountered trouble using the Palette Manager under 32-bit Color
Quickdraw. I have a cdev that remembers the Control Panel's palette and sets
up my own at cdev initialization time, and restores the palette at cdev
termination time (bearing in mind that the Control Panel's window may not go
away at this time.) I observed two symptoms:
1) If my cdev had ever been shown, when the Control Panel was closed the
menubar would flash with some strange color pattern. It looked as though
some random chunk of memory were being interpreted as a pixPat. Closing
the Control Panel causes DrawMenuBar to be called twice; the menubar was
drawn in the goofy color scheme on the first call, and properly on the
second.
2) The system would crash either immediately or some time after closing my
cdev. Stepping through my termination code I found that after the line
SetPalette(CPDialog, savedPalette, false)
the System heap became corrupted. (Note that savedPalette, obtained at
cdev initialization time with a GetPalette call, was typically nil.)
Yow. I noted that the General and Monitors cdevs provided with the 32-bit
Quickdraw package also manipulated the Control Panel's palette, so I stepped
through them to see what they were doing differently; and the only change I
could discern was that in both cases they were calling SetPalette with the
updates flag set to true (indicating that the Control Panel should receive an
update event whenever the color environment changed.) So I changed the false
to true in my SetPalette calls, and the bomb (2) went away!
Unfortunately the ugly menubar flash persisted. (If you want to see this for
yourself, try opening and closing the Control Panel with 32-bit Quickdraw
installed, but using the standard 6.0.3 or 6.0.2 release of the General cdev
instead of the version provided with 32BQD.) A note to Apple DTS yielded a
vague reply, admitting that there was a problem and indicating that there were
"rumors" that the 32BQD General and Monitors cdevs didn't flash the menubar
because their palettes used only courteous and explicit colors. I haven't
followed this up, so I don't know if that's true.
So...one rule seems to be: Don't call SetPalette(aWindow, nil, false).
Jack Eastman
Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
eastman@lbl.gov
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 00:29:29 CDT
From: "R. C. Davis" <RCD2403@venus.tamu.edu>
Subject: Questions about Imagewriter II, Word 4.0
Again, more Microsoft Word 4.0 blues...
I have a Imagewriter II and I have version 2.7 of the Imagewriter drivers. I
thought it would be a great idea to print on envelopes. So I set out to make
a form file for envelopes. Well, good idea, but not quite that easy...
First, I noticed that after setting the left and right margins at 1/4" and the
top margin at 1/4", the top line of addressee paragraph was missing! Putting
a blank paragraph (1 vertical space) above the paragraph solved the problem.
But then the Imagewriter proved to be quite difficult with envelopes. Worst of
all, the first 1/2" of the addressee lines always come up smudged. Grrr...
Question #1: Does anyone have a boiler plate for envelopes similar to the
mailing label forms Microsoft includes with Word v.4.0?
Question #2: Any helpful tips on envelope printing (should I use landscape
mode or some other cute tricks?)
Thanks for your help.
Ricardo Davis
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 89 16:15:12 CDT
From: "Jeff Balvanz" <GR.JLB@isumvs.iastate.edu>
Subject: Request for help avoiding the mouse. . .
Thanks to all who helped me out with my earlier request for text
searching utilities for the Mac! Responses included:
1. PC Tools for the Mac (desk accessory)
2. Gofer (also a desk accessory)
3. Grep-wc (public domain DA, in the archives)
The Provost's office decided (I think) to go with the first option.
Next question. I have a user with a 512K enhanced, which
unfortunately has the original keyboard. Because he has no fine
motor control, the mouse is pretty much useless for him. We have
been trying to use Easy Access, but the keyboard has no arrow keys!
Is it possible to use Easy Access with an original keyboard, or is
there another utility (preferably cheap/PD) that will do the same
sort of thing, i.e., give you keyboard control of the mouse pointer?
Thanks in advance for your help -- it's great having access to
someone who really knows where the Mac is at.
Jeff Balvanz BITNET: GR.JLB@ISUMVS
Senior Technical Consultant INTERNET: GR.JLB@WYLBUR.IASTATE.EDU
Microcomputer Services PHONE: (515) 294-8683
Iowa State University Computation Center USMail: 191 DURHAM CENTER, ISU,
AMES, IA 50011
"6502's FOREVER!" Compuserve: >internet:gr.jlb@wylbur.iastate.edu
------------------------------
End of Info-Mac Digest
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