Info-Mac-Request@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (The Moderators) (02/28/89)
Info-Mac Digest Mon, 27 Feb 89 Volume 7 : Issue 42
Today's Topics:
All the rumors that fit we print
Archive access
Character Map DA Addendum
GIF file format
MACII and the HP Laser Jet
Non-proportional font
Problems in a Novell 2.15 network
Sharing modem ports on a Mac II
TARGA->PICT2 on PC or VMS?
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.
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Date: Sun, 26 Feb 89 22:40:26 EST
From: Murph Sewall <SEWALL%UCONNVM.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: All the rumors that fit we print
VAPORWARE
Murphy Sewall
From the March 1989 APPLE PULP
H.U.G.E. Apple Club (E. Hartford) News Letter
$15/year
P.O. Box 18027
East Hartford, CT 06118
Call the "Bit Bucket" (203) 569-8739
Permission granted to copy with the above citation
All in One LAN.
NetFrame Systems of Sunnyvale, California plans to deliver
by year's end a multiprocessor 80386-based network server to
seamlessly link Novell Netware, OS/2 LAN Manager, and UNIX
networks. The NetFrame Server will initially be offered in
two sizes, one designed for between two and five processors
and another for between three and 17. NetFrame's future
plans call for integration with networks based on Motorola
68030 and 88000 CPU's, Sun's SPARC processors, and the Intel
80486. - PC Week 13 February
Major OS/2 Upgrades.
Microsoft plans a new release of OS/2 this fall that will
permit the operating system to access non-OS/2 storage
devices. Hardware vendors will be able to create OS/2
Installable Files Systems (IFSs) for their products, and
OS/2 users with corresponding file systems will then be able
to access DEC VAX, CD ROM, Macintosh, or UNIX-based
devices. Two further versions of OS/2 are planned for
1990. One will be a multiprocessor release that will allow
users of MCA and EISA architectures to take full advantage
of their multi-channel capabilities, and the other will be
specifically written for 80386 computers.
- PC Week 30 January and InfoWorld 6 February
Porting Macware to PM.
Developers and industry observers say a substantial number
of Macintosh applications should start appearing in releases
for IBM's Presentation Manager (PM) later this year. The
rivalry between the Macintosh and PM interfaces may lead to
more buyouts of smaller software firms. Porting the
programs is far from trivial, and small developers probably
won't have the resources to sustain the effort. While
Apple's lawsuit against Microsoft appears to be having
little effect, a major drawback is that most Macintosh
applications are written in Pascal while PM development
generally is done in C. - InfoWorld 30 January
The "Year of the CPU" Continues.
The 16 MHz 3-slot Mac should make its expected debut March 8
at the Hannover (West Germany) Computer Fair (see last
month's column). The more powerful 25 and 33 MHz Mac II
descendants which also will have a 20 MHz version of the
NuBus (twice as fast as the 10 MHz bus in the Mac II, IIx,
and 3-slot) will appear in August (with a hefty price tag
ranging from $10,000 to $15,000). Apple will be releasing a
new generation of Laser printers using the new Canon 400 dpi
engine in August as well. - InfoWorld 30 January
WalkMac/030.
You may actually see a LapMac from Apple later this year
(have you heard that before?), but by that time, Colby
Systems will already have shipped a 12-pound laptop based on
the new SE-030. Under an arrangement with Apple and
dealers, Colby provides unfinished portable units to dealers
who complete the systems by adding Mac motherboards. The
WalkMac/030 will include the 1.4 Mbyte Superdrive, a 40
Mbyte hard disk, and a 2400 baud modem. The portable
measures 12 by 15 by 3.5 inches, has a double supertwist
blue backlit LCD, a built in keyboard, and internal
batteries which can last up to four hours. Sufficient
motherboards to make the WalkMac/030 available are not
expected for at least two months. Colby expects to be able
to offer the machine for $6,500. - InfoWorld 6 February
No Low-Cost Mac (from Apple).
Apple CEO John Sculley told stockholders last month that the
firm has opened a second design center to focus on designing
machines for the low end of the market, however a Mac with a
price tag below $1,000 will not be offered this year.
Products Division president Jean-Louis Gassee also is quoted
as saying the company doesn't plan to offer a low-cost Mac
configuration anytime in the next two or three years.
- InfoWorld 30 January and PC Week 6 February
An SE-30 Clone (Sort of) Already?
At least some of Atari's new $2,000 68030 computers are
expected to ship this Spring with genuine Macintosh ROMs
legally obtained from a third-party. - InfoWorld 6 February
Bus Transfer.
Although the 030 Direct Slot in the new Mac SE-030 isn't
compatible with NuBus cards used in the Mac II or cards for
the original Mac SE, Second Wave, Inc. of Austin, Texas says
that in April it will begin shipping the Expanse II/SE-30
which will expand the SE-030's single Direct Slot into eight
(8) NuBus slots as well as adding a 130 watt power supply, a
cooling fan, and support for three SCSI devices. The
company already is shipping an eight slot expander (the
Expanse II) for the Mac II and IIx (providing a total of 12
slots). Both Expanse products are priced at $2,295.
- InfoWorld 30 January
Virtual Memory for the Mac II.
Little known start-up, Connectix, demonstrated a $295
program at last January's Macworld Expo which enables Mac
II's equipped with 1 Mbyte of RAM (and sufficient hard disk
space) to run applications accessing up to 8 Mbytes of
memory (the maximum allowed by the current operating
system). The program, called Virtual, requires a 68030 or
the 68551 Page Memory Management Unit (PMMU) in a Mac II
with a 68020. - InfoWorld 30 January
Desktop Unpublishing.
Xerox plans to ship its $995 Datacopy Accutext software for
the Macintosh during the second quarter. Accutext uses
artificial intelligence to increase scanning accuracy and
can recognize a wide variety of fonts and character sizes
>From 6 to 24 points. It not only translates scanned
documents into text, it can create word processing files
(Mac Write, Word) which include information for column
margins, paragraph indentation, indented blocks, and tabs.
The program also processes graphics into TIFF, PICT, or Mac
Paint files in resolutions from 75 to 400 dots per inch.
- InfoWorld 23 January
MCA/1+?
In response to widespread rumors, IBM Senior Engineer Chet
Heath denied the existence of an enhanced MCA architecture
(MCA/2 see January's column) that would be incompatible with
current PS/2 computers. However, Heath also is said to have
confirmed that some enhancements, presumably using undefined
"reserved lines" in the original MCA specification will be
introduced in the 33 MHz Model 70 in August (see last
month's column).
- PC Week 6 February and InfoWorld 13 February
RISC-based Graphics.
Hardly had Compaq and TI teamed up to produce a graphics
board to outperform IBM's 8514/A adapter (see last month's
column), than word arrives that Big Blue will announce a
board with 1,280 by 1,024 pixels by 256 colors or 1,600 by
1,200 pixel monochrome resolution (the 8514/A provides up to
1,024 by 768 pixels). The new RISC graphics processor and a
daughter board that will dramatically speed printing of
complex graphics will be introduced later this year. The
boards will support Interleaf publisher, but it is not clear
whether they will support any other software at the time of
their release - PC Week 13 February
Color Clamshell?
Later this Spring, IBM will unveil a color LCD display said
to offer the brilliance, resolution, and readability of
standard CRT's. Look for the display in a laptop this
summer. - PC Week 23 January
Excel 2.2.
Microsoft plans an April release for the latest upgrade of
its popular Macintosh spreadsheet program. Version 2.2 will
require a minimum of 1 Mbyte of RAM and will support
spreadsheets as large as 5 Mbytes. The new Excel will be
able to import and export in industry standard (MS-DOS)
database formats (Ashton-Tate's dBase and others) as well as
Lotus 1-2-3 "WRK" format. Other features include using as
many as six styles of type and an unlimited number of fonts,
annotation of cells with visible or hidden text, and support
for color on the Macintosh II and IIx. - PC Week 23 January
OS/2 Applications.
Word Perfect's OS/2 version, a straight port of MS-DOS
version 5.0, is expected by the end of March. OS/2 will
permit background printing and lifting of memory
constraints. A Presentation Manager version is planned for
release by the end of the year. Microsoft's Word,
originally scheduled for December, also is expected by the
end of the month. Word 5.0 will be a single program that
can be configured to run under either MS-DOS or OS/2.
Ashton-Tate plans to release dBase IV version 1.1 for both
DOS and OS/2 sometime this Spring.
- PC Week 30 January and InfoWorld 13 February
Windows Applications.
Microsoft has been demonstrating several, as yet
unannounced, Windows programs to selected corporate
accounts. Windows versions of Microsoft Word (October),
Power Point (third quarter), Project Manager (third
quarter), and a new Systems Application Architecture (SAA)
database (October) are scheduled for release later this
year. - InfoWorld 13 February
Forever Vaporware.
Tektronix has canceled its previously announced Postscript
compatible printer, the Phaser LP. Problems with the
printing engine's print quality were given as the reason for
the demise of the printer which was announced last November
and scheduled to ship by the end of March.
- InfoWorld 30 January
Speculating on Vaporware.
Software publisher Claris has struggled financially since
Apple spun it off two years ago. However, Claris has shown
some signs recently of challenging Microsoft for leadership
in Macintosh software sales, and talks with investment
bankers about a stock offering have been resumed. A likely
date for the debut of publicly traded Claris stock would be
this summer, but stock market conditions will be the
decisive factor determining whether the company moves ahead
with an offering. Apple continues to control 82% of Claris
stock; so Apple board members will make the final decision.
Meanwhile, Wall Street rumors have Ashton-Tate (selling for
$23 a share in early February) as potentially "in play" (a
takeover target) at a price that may reach as high as $42.
- PC Week 23 January and 13 February
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Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 10:07:08 EST
From: paisley@mte.ncsu.edu (Mike)
Subject: Archive access
To VMS netters:
I have a new problem with the change in format of the Info-Mac archives. I'm
accesssing the system from a VAX-750 running VMS and using CMU's TCP/IP
package. I'm finding it difficult to find the files I'm looking for in the
archives because I can't use the Unix 'ls' command.
I've tried most all combinations of the QUOTE command which is supposed to
allow you to send any command line to the remote host, but the local machine
keeps trying to interpret it (I think). If I use the normal 'DIR' command, it
complains about invalid file identifier. If I use 'DIR *' then it works ok,
except it shows me all of the contents of the current directory AND the
contents of all of the subdirectories. This can be disconcerting when you're
at the top level of Info-Mac.
Any other VMS'ers out there running CMU that have figured a way around this?
Thanks.
Michael J. Paisley PAISLEY@NCSUMTE.BITNET
Materials Science & Engineering PAISLEY@MTE.NCSU.EDU
229 Riddick Laboratories PAISLEY%MTE@NCSUVX.NCSU.EDU
Campus Box 7907 Office: (919) 737-7083
North Carolina State University Messages: (919) 737-2377
Raleigh, NC 27695-7907 FAX: (919) 737-3419
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Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 13:47:30 EDT
From: Guenther Blaschek <K331671%AEARN.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Character Map DA Addendum
When I posted my Character Map DA a couple of days ago, I forgot to
include a hint for MultiFinder users. I'm just a poor Mac+ user with
not more than 1 MB RAM, so MultiFinder isn't relevant for me...
When you pick a character in Character Map DA, it simply posts a
keyboard event that is subsequently processed by the application. When
you run under MultiFinder, the current application is the DA Handler
that doesn't know what to do with keyboard events.
Thus, when runnung under MultiFinder, you should press the option key
when invoking Character Map in order to get it loaded in the application
heap and not under control of the DA Handler.
As a further inconvenience, Character Map cannot communicate with other
DAs.
I'm too busy in the moment to produce a new version of Character Map
now, but I promise to come out with one in the near future. It will
then support the Clipboard just like Key Caps does.
I've you have further suggestions/complaints, just contact me under
the eMail address listed below.
e Guenther Blaschek
gu EMail: <K331671@AEARN>
SNail: University of Linz / Austria
Institute of Computer Science / Software
Altenbergerstr. 69
A-4040 Linz
Tel.: +43 (732) 2468 / 447
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Date: Sun, 26 Feb 89 12:56:35 -0900
From: Reed Rector <SXWRR%ALASKA.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: GIF file format
The De-facto standard for transfering color images seems to be the GIF
format. I have a couple of programs for the Mac that display GIF format
pictures and there seems to be numerous images out there in this format.
I am taking a computer graphics class this semester using Masscomp
computers and I would like to wirte a program that will allow GIF pictures
to be displayed on our masscomps. Unfortunatly I don't know where to find
the specs for the GIF format. If anyone out there knows where I could get
some documentation for GIF files, please e-mail me a message. If I can
get a program running it would allow us to distribute some of the images
that we generate (including Ray-Traced and other rendered pictures) to this
list.
Thanks in advance,
Reed Rector
SXWRR@ALASKA (Bitnet)
SXWRR@acad3.fai.alaska.edu (Internet)
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Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 09:53:53 CST
From: "Elias Saab" <MATHES%UMCVMB.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: MACII and the HP Laser Jet
Isn somebody using GRAPPLER from ORANGE MICRO as a driver for the HP Laser Jet
on a MAC II? I would like to know if one can use it with Texture or with say
super paint, WritenNow. I would appreciate a response.
Thanks
MATHES@UMCVMB.BITNET
Elias Saab
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Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 09:35 EDT
From: HENRY YEE <HENRY@atc.bendix.com>
Subject: Non-proportional font
Have you tried Monaco? I think that's supposed to be non-proportional.
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Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 02:30 CST
From: "Kevin W. Mullet, UNT Academic Computing Services" <KEV@vaxb.acs.unt.edu>
Subject: Problems in a Novell 2.15 network
We've recently set up a Mac/IBM computer lab for the
students here at the University of North Texas using
Novell's Netware 2.15. There's a few things I need to
know in order to get everything ship-shape here.
HOME STACKS
What is it that makes a home stack a "home
stack"? Is it simply the name, or is there a resource I
can copy with ResEdit from the original homestack? I've
read elsewhere in this digest that it's the homestack's
requirement for read-writeability that precludes it from
being mulit-launchable (huh?) on a network. If this is
true, I'd like to simply give each of our station
accounts a seperate home stack as a menu-interface to
the network.
MULTI-LAUNCHING
Elsewhere in the digest, I've read that certain
applications can be made switch-launchable by changing
the cache bit through ResEdit. Could I have a bit (pun
intended) more info on this? I'd appreciate having
enough rope to hang myself.
SWITCH-LAUNCHING
Big problem on our network. We've got access to
LOTS of fonts and DAs that we'd like to let our student
users use. The problem is caused by the fact that our
students use the network from a lab full of 2-floppy SEs
with no hard drive. Minimal room on the startup disk
for all the fonts and DAs we'd like to provide. I've
tried switch-launching to system resources on the
network, but it doesn't work. I've tried using INSTALL
to install a network volume as a startup disk. nada. I
desperately need information on how I can put our fonts
and DAs out on the network and have them be used by our
2-floppy machine users. Preferably, I'd like to do so
transparently. Tall order?
Thanks to all who reply,
Kevin Mullet
Microcomputer Support
University of North Texas Academic Computing Services
Denton, Texas... "home of happiness".
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Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 19:14 EST
From: Karen Strauss <STRAUSSR@nyuacf.bitnet>
Subject: Sharing modem ports on a Mac II
A colleague of mine asked me to pass this question along. We have a
Mac II hooked up to a scanner and we also want to hook it up to a
modem. Is there any way to let these two devices share the same port.
The scanner and the modem are not used at the same time, but we
want to avoid the problem of changing cables every time we want to
use the other device. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Also -- several weeks ago there was a request for information about
scanners and OCR. I didn't see any reply. I would like the same
information (or summary of one is available).
Thanks in advance.
Karen Strauss
STRAUSSR@NYUACF
CompuServe 71571,3226
GEnie K.Strauss
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Date: Mon, 27 Feb 89 15:53:35 EST
From: Dick Dramstad <rad@mbunix.mitre.org>
Subject: TARGA->PICT2 on PC or VMS?
We've got several thousand images (badge photos, actually) that
were captured using an IBM PC-based TARGA-16 image capture system. We
need to convert all of these images to Macintosh PICT2 (color) format
and place them on a VMS VAX running AlisaShare. Right now, we are
using DECnet-DOS to get the PC images to the VAX, and then using
AlisaShare and a Mac-based photo retouching package from Avalon called
PhotoMac to convert the images from TARGA to PICT2 format. We're also
converting the TARGA files to Encapsulated PostScript for storage on
the VAX.
The process is slow and tedious, because the Macintosh doesn't
support a powerful enough Macro facility or, especially, a command
language to batch up the conversions. So far, we've struck out trying
to find companies that have what we need (precise requirements below),
and so are turning to the net for help. Free/public domain software
is, of course, welcome, but we're willing to pay for the software,
which would:
- convert TARGA to PICT2 format
- run on an IBM PC or on VMS (or both) (Note: high-level
language source code is highly desirable)
- run from a command line with all options specified and
amenable to batch processing; including specification of input and
output file names
- allow for TARGA image cropping before conversion
- support option of adjusting aspect ratio by 6% to account
for non-square TARGA pixels
- support image scaling
If anyone knows of any package that would meet some or all of
our requirements, or if you're experienced enough with all the relevant
pieces to propose a reasonable development effort, please contact Norm
Sutherland at the following addresses (please respond directly; we
don't always follow both of these newsgroups):
nbs@mbunix.mitre.org (E-mail)
(617) 271-3073 (Voice)
Norm Sutherland
The MITRE Corporation
M/S B010
Burlington Road
Bedford, MA 01730
Thanks,
Dick Dramstad (rad@mbunix.mitre.org)
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End of Info-Mac Digest
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