Info-Mac-Request@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (The Moderators) (05/16/89)
Info-Mac Digest Mon, 15 May 89 Volume 7 : Issue 88
Today's Topics:
6.0.3
Allegro CL
Color Pattern Maker 1.1
Desginer Draw
digitizing boards ?
Finally, Peer-to-Peer non-dedicated AppleShare, this month!!!
Hypercard
Info-Mac Digest V7 #83
Insect DA
Launcher
MAC picture format
NFS Source?
pmmu
Repoman sounds
THINK Pascal 2.01 Patcher
Your Info-Mac Moderators are Lance Nakata, Jon Pugh, and Bill Lipa.
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].
Please send articles and binaries to info-mac@sumex-aim.stanford.edu.
Send administrative mail to info-mac-request@sumex-aim.stanford.edu.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 May 89 20:53:13 PDT
From: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt)
Subject: 6.0.3
> Ok, I know those of us without an SE/30 or a Mac II(c)x don't *need*
> System 6.0.3, but is there any *harm* in using it?
I don't believe so. 6.0.3 has the "hooks" for using the newly-released
32-bit Color QuickDraw; QD32 has some pretty neat capabilities (dithered
images, for example) that some of your folks might want to play around
with. There's no harm in using 6.0.3 on any machine from a Plus on
up... it differs very little from 6.0.2.
If you have any external hard disks that you like to keep in a bootable,
ready-to-use condition, you should probably install 6.0.3 so that they
can be used on any machine.
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 14 May 1989 17:43:28 PDT
From: John Sotos <sotos@sumex-aim.stanford.edu>
Subject: Allegro CL
If this has been discussed before, perhaps someone
can refer me to the proper archive...
Anyway, I am embarking on a development effort soon
that will be very difficult without object-oriented
programming. What has been the general experience
with OOP in Allegro Common Lisp?
In particular, every review I've seen of it mentions
that Allegro's non-standard object system has not
been "optimized" and is perhaps not suitable, therefore,
for serious development work. True? Somewhat true?
Also, has anyone tried using the Portable Common Loops
package?
If there is interest, I can summarize for the net.
Thanks,
John Sotos
Johns Hopkins Hospital
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 May 89 17:50:19 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Norman William Franke, III" <nf0i+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Color Pattern Maker 1.1
This is version 1.1 of Color Pattern Maker, a program which will create 8, 16,
32 or 64 square ppats for use as desktop patterns. Version 1.0 had a bug
that caused an error if one tried to save a 64 * 64 ppat, this is fixed in
this version. Color Pattern Maker is shareware, $8.
Norman Franke
nf0i+@andrew.cmu.edu
[Archived as /info-mac/util/color-pattern-maker-11.hqx; 51K]
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 May 89 07:57 EST
From: "Steven W. Holland" <HOLLAND%RCSSWH@gmr.com>
Subject: Desginer Draw
> It turns out that the shareware version 1.0 of Designer Draw (April 1987)
> works fine on a Mac Plus, SE, or SE/30, but will not work on any Mac II
> series machine. I suspect the problem is related to the bigger screen.
Designer Draw is now out as version 3.1 which runs on Mac II's. It is
available from Compu$erve MACBIZ data library 3 under the name Design.sit.
The shareware fee is $45. The nearly 100K file contains a 23 page user
manual and several examples in addition to the program.
-Steve Holland, GMR
____________
Message Was Also Addressed To ...
rcvax::net%"Les_Ferch@mtsg.ubc.ca"
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 12 May 89 23:41 CDT
From: "Sandro Corsi, Univ.of WI-Oshkosh" <CORSI@oshkosh.wisc.edu>
Subject: digitizing boards ?
Sergio <Sergio.Sedas@rouge.edrc.cmu.edu> asks about graphic tablets for the
Mac...
If you can get hold of a copy, the February 89 issue of "The Active
Window", put out by the Boston Computer Society's Mac Group, carries a
comparative review of Mac tablets by Lawrence San (p.38).
To make a long story short, he recommends the Kurta IS/ADB over the
Summagraphics Bit Pad Plus. He also mentions a product by CalComp, but does
not include it in his tests due to unavailability.
My personal experience... about a year ago I bought ten Kurta IS/ADBs with
corded styluses (you can also get them with cordless styluses, and with
corded/cordless pucks) for our Mac II's. Aside from occasional stylus
switch flakyness, the things proved a good investment. HOWEVER -- we are
only interested in having a responsive medium (i.e. -- something you
control with your fingertips instead of your elbow) for freehand drawing. I
cannot vouch for their accuracy in precise tracing applications such as CAD
and drafting (besides, such applications would be best served by pucks --
and we haven't bought any). On the subject of corded vs. cordless -- stick
with the old-fashioned ways. I've tried cordless styluses at Kurta's booth
at a couple of conventions, and derived the impression that responsiveness,
and possibly resolution, are inferior.
San's article provides the following addresses:
Kurta Corporation
3007 East Chambers St.
Phoenix, AZ 85040
1-800-44-KURTA
Summagraphics Corporation
60 Silvermine Rd
Seymour, CT 06483
1-800-221-9244
CalComp, Inc.
2411 West La Palma Ave.
Anaheim, CA 92801
1-800-CALCOMP
AutoEase, Inc. (third-party drivers for Kurta & Summagr. tablets)
1325 South 800 East #315
Orem, Utah 84058
1-800-752-3273
In addition, it is possible that in the meanwhile also GTCO came out with
an ADB tablet.
BTW -- the foregoing ONLY applies if you have a Mac from the SE or II
families (i.e., with ADB ports). If you have a Plus or older you'd have to
look for a tablet with a serial port interface. In my early days I used a
Summagraphics serial MacTablet on a "Slim Mac", with fairly good results --
but that was a long time ago... I doubt whether they even make them
anymore.
Best,
Sandro Corsi
Art Dept.
Univ. of Wisconsin - Oshkosh
Oshkosh, WI 54901
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 13 May 89 04:28:31 EDT
From: Alexis Rosen <cucard!ccnysci!alexis@columbia.edu>
Subject: Finally, Peer-to-Peer non-dedicated AppleShare, this month!!!
Finally, a Peer-to-Peer non-dedicated distributed AppleShare!
For a long time now, people have been wishing for an AppleShare server
which didn't require a dedicated Mac. For just as long, people have been
buying TOPS instead. But now we are beginning to see just how bad TOPS
really is. It's totally incompatible with AppleShare, and Sun has no
interest in or desire to implement AFP compatability in the near future,
despite markting claims to the contrary. There are also a host of bugs
that make using DBMSs with TOPS difficult to impossible.
Finally, a solution is at hand. IPT will shortly be releasing
Peer-to-Peer AppleShare, which does NOT require a dedicated machine for
file service. You can read all about it on page 1 of next week's
MacWeek, but here is a summary:
1) Peer-to-Peer AppleShare runs on Macs, PCs, and Unix machines.
2) Price for the Mac software is *** $150 *** per server!
3) Claimed speed is "slightly faster than AppleShare."
4) Fully compliant with AFP.
5) Does NOT send out garbage serial-number packets on the net.
6) To be released by June 1.
Now, all this comes from talking to their marketing VP. She is a very
capable person technically, so the chances of her being wrong because of
a lack of understanding the subject are pretty much nil. As to whether
or not they are overestimating their speed or compatability, I will know
soon, as we are receiving beta copies early next week.
Note that the price for setting up a network initially looks like it's
about 1/2 the price of a TOPS network. After all, TOPS is $289 per Mac
while this is $150 per Mac. (I am using list prices here for
convenience, but this should scale down to street prices pretty evenly.)
In fact, IPT's server is MUCH cheaper even than that. For example, one
of my clients has a network of about 100 Macs and a few dozen PCs.
Forgetting the PCs for now, it would cost $28,900 to network them on
TOPS, and probably only ten percent of the machines (or less) would
actually be file servers. So they could actually buy AppleShare on eight
dedicated Mac SEs to serve the net, at the same price. In fact, they did
just that, before I started working with them.
On the other hand, consider the cost of setting up this same net with
Peer-to-Peer Appleshare. If you want ten machines as servers, your total
cost is *$1500* since you only need to buy copies of the software for
the servers. All the other machines on the net use the AppleShare client
server software that comes with all Macintoshes.
For smaller networks, when less money is available, the difference is
even more impressive. For a ten Mac network, with one server, TOPS would
cost $2890, and AppleShare would cost $2600 (or more, depending on what
kind of Mac you use for a server). IPT's AppleShare would cost $150.
Also note that Tops consumes almost 70K more memory than the AppleShare
Client software. That means that every user who doesn't need to serve up
his disk gets back 70K. That's enough room for QuickMail, QuickKeys, or
a bunch of smaller INITs, for example. On a 1MB Mac, it could instead
mean the difference between being able to run MultiFinder or not.
Administrators of large networks will be glad to know that IPT's server
does not send out serial-number packets every few seconds, unlike TOPS.
These packets can really clog a large network. They are especially
antisocial when you are putting Macs on an EtherNet cable along with
lots of other machines, a practice which is becoming more and more
common at universities and large companies.
When I get the Beta copies next week, there are a number of interesting
questions that I will then be able to answer. For starters, how much
memory does a server use? How much does this slow down the CPU? How does
is respond under heavy load? Is it *really* compliant with AFP,
including byte-range locking and the Desktop Manager calls?
Will this software really performs according to IPT's claims? I'll let
you all know, but for now it seems likely that they've done it right.
IPT has been in the business since the Mac first came out, so they've
got the experience to do it.
Assuming it works, this will have an incredible impact on the Mac
market. It will demolish TOPS virtually overnight, which might well be
what Sun really wants anyway (after all, Sun's game plan calls for NFS
to rule the world, not TOPS, and they've done nothing to integrate the
two in almost two years). It will also consolidate the Mac networking
market around AFP, and put even greater pressure on 3Com to finish up
it's AFP services sooner.
It is interesting to watch history repeat itself. In early 1986
InfoSphere, publisher of MacServe, virtually owned the networking
market. 3Com was only a bit player. There was nothing else, except this
upstart called TOPS. The great thing about TOPS was that it allowed
people to use the same folders on the same disks at the same time,
whereas MacServe only let one person have write access to a given disk
(or volume, actually) at the same time. InfoSphere refused to upgrade
their product and as a result their market share went from upwards of
90% to about 0% today. (Amazingly, from the ashes of MacServe rose
Liason, a truly wonderful product which bridges multiple AppleTalk
nets.)
Today, the same thing is about to happen. TOPS dominates the market.
They are starting to lose market share to AppleShare because they are
incompatible with AFP (and thus certain important programs, such as
FoxBase). But they still hold their position on the basis of TOPS's
ability to run in the background and serve folders from every Mac on the
net. Now IPT is introducing a product that does all this, and is also
fully compatible with AFP and AppleShare, at a fraction of the price.
For every thing there is a season, and TOPS' season is just about over.
It's about time.
Perhaps it would be wise to wait until I post my evaluation early next week
before you call them. If you want to talk to them right away, though,
their address is:
Information Presentation Technologies (IPT)
23801 Calabasas Road
Suite 2008
Calabasas, CA 91302
Their telephone number is (818) 347-7791. I spoke to Olivia Fazela, but
probably anyone there can answer questions.
Mention that you saw my posting on the net- It won't get you a deal, but
the more respect companies have for the net as an influence on their sales,
the better it is for all of us...
I have absolutely no affiliation with either IPT or TOPS, except as an
unsatisfied customer of TOPS' and as a Beta site for both companies.
Copyright 1989 by Alexis M. Rosen.
Please do not reprint this (distribution on the internet is OK) because
it will serve as the basis of the review I am writing.
---
Alexis Rosen
alexis@ccnysci.{uucp,bitnet}
alexis@rascal.ics.utexas.edu (last resort)
You can also try alexis@sci.ccny.cuny.edu, but it may not work yet.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 May 89 09:51:58 EDT
From: Mike Lutas <MLUTAS%SBCCVM.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Hypercard
I just borrowed Hypercard 1.2 for a test drive on my 1M Mac SE and without fail
it crashes whenever I want to change fonts in a field or look at a button icon.
HELP!
Mike
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
| |
| |
| People say I should use a signature box so I guess I will. |
| MLUTAS@SBCCVM |
| Mike Lutas |
| 189 North Washington Ave. |
| Centereach, NY 11720 |
| (516) 467-7910 |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------------|
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 May 89 07:27:52 EDT
From: David_Detlefsen@ub.cc.umich.edu
Subject: Info-Mac Digest V7 #83
Is there something I'm missing here? Try this script
in Hypercard. I'm using Hypercard 1.2.2 on an SE/30 with
Finder 6.03, System 6.1 and 2 megs of RAM.
on mouseUp
global array
put empty into array
repeat with x = 1 to 5
put x into item 2 of line x of array
end repeat
repeat with x = 1 to 5
put line x of array
wait 120
end repeat
end mouseUp
The results I get are that the x goes into item 2 of the first
line while going into item 1 of subsequent lines. If,
however and of course, you put something into item 1 to
occupy space, things work out as expected.
on mouseUp
global array
put empty into array
repeat with x = 1 to 5
put "dummy" into item 1 of line x of array
end repeat
repeat with x = 1 to 5
put x into item 2 of line x of array
end repeat
repeat with x = 1 to 5
put line x of array
wait 120
end repeat
end mouseUp
David Detlefsen
University of Michigan
Chemistry Department
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 May 89 10:07:51 EDT
From: ephraim@think.com
Subject: Insect DA
Enclosed is the very latest version of the Insect DA. This version
works properly on the Mac 128, 512, 512e, Plus, and SE. It does not
work properly on the Mac II and later models because:
1. It seems not to hook HideCursor correctly. This probably
isn't too hard to fix, but I haven't looked into it.
2. It assumes the screen depth is one bit (i.e., monochrome).
This could be tough to handle properly.
This latest version uses its own local random number generator so that
it needn't care about A5. (The toolbox _Random is a quickdraw
routine, and depends on access to the quickdraw globals via A5.)
Complete source code is included. The insects are VBL tasks, so this
might be interesting even if you don't want little bugs crawling up
your screen.
Ephraim Vishniac / Internet: ephraim@think.com / AppleLink: ThinkingCorp
Thinking Machines Corporation / 245 First Street / Cambridge, MA 02142-1214
"Arlo Guthrie, it seems, has found what he was looking for:
God, and the Macintosh." (Boston Globe)
[Archived as /info-mac/da/insect.hqx; 18K]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 13 May 89 14:15:18 EDT
From: Wayne Folta <folta@tove.umd.edu>
Subject: Launcher
This is Launcher, a free utility that launches other programs. I got
it directly from CompuServe. Instructions are included, but you
basically make as many duplicates of Launcher as programs you want to
launch. The first time you launch each Launcher, it prompts you for
the program and optional file that you wish Launcher to launch. Launcher
can also change your colors (for example, set colors to B&W for programs
that require this). On the downside, each copy of Launcher takes up ~14
Kbytes. It claims to work on ALL Macs ever made, and I have run it
for several months on my Mac SE.
[Archived as /info-mac/util/launcher.hqx; 71K]
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 13 May 89 13:30:52 LCL
From: Sedat ALIS <SEDAT%TRYILDIZ.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: MAC picture format
How can I find Macintosh's(MacDraw) standard picture format?
Thank you.
Sedat
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 15 May 89 14:14:50 EDT
From: Dave_Busse@sdatl1.ceo.dg.com
Subject: NFS Source?
A friend of mine has the problem of integrating a couple of Macs into
a Sun System network. Does anyone know if NFS is in the public
domain or is in anyother way available in any form for the Mac? I
think he is interested in source code, but would be willing to look
at anything. His primary concern seems to be cost. He gets to
attempt this project with little or no funding......
Thanks in advance for any info.
Dave Busse
dave_busse@sdatl1.ceo.dg.com
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 13 May 89 08:32:17 EDT
From: Raynaud <ULMO031%FRORS12.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: pmmu
About products that use the PMMU to give extra RAM :
_ first, the PMMU has been done exactly for this job.
_ second, it works just fine. The only problem is to find a PMMU at a decent
price. So if anybody knows ?
When you have the PMMU, you only lack software, which is not so
difficult to write, and probably soon, we will see in the Public Domain
an equivalent of Virtual.
So, if I could find a not too expensive PMMU, it would be all I need.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 11 May 89 14:20:18 EDT
From: djhill@rodan.acs.syr.edu ( Number_6 **)
Subject: Repoman sounds
This file contains some classic quotes from the film Repoman. Be warned that
some may offended by the language in one sound but hey, if you've seen Repoman
you'll already be used to it.
Unfortunately this will be the last series of sounds I'll be able to post for
a while since I'll be graduating from S.U. on May 14th.
Douglas J. Hill - djhill@rodan.acs.syr.edu
RSDJH@SUVM [ BITNET ] or
User #1 at Europa BBS (315)-426-8092
[Archived as /info-mac/sound/repoman-various-part1.hqx; 168K
/info-mac/sound/repoman-various-part2.hqx; 156K]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 4 May 89 15:52:53 EDT
From: siegel@harvard.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel)
Subject: THINK Pascal 2.01 Patcher
This Is a superset of the 2.0p1 patcher, and fixes the additional crasher
that occured when clicking rapidly on the spray can.
R.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rich Siegel
Staff Software Developer
Symantec Corporation, Language Products Group
Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu
UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel
"She told me to make myself comfortable, so I pulled down my pants
and sat in the pudding." -Emo Phillips
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Archived as /info-mac/lang/think-pascal-updater-201.hqx; 57K]
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End of Info-Mac Digest
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