Info-Mac-Request@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (The Moderators) (02/23/89)
Info-Mac Digest Wed, 22 Feb 89 Volume 7 : Issue 38
Today's Topics:
Cabling
Canvas 2.0 review
Chemical Elements Stack (part 1 of 4)
GKS-Mac Interface
Jasmine AppleShare box
Journalling Mechanism
Montana
Mounting a Mac II on it's side
No multi-launch under 6.0.2 (2 msgs)
recognizing scanned images as structured drawings
SCHEME availability?
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Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 08:15:39 +0100
From: Sigurd Meldal <sigurd@eik.ii.uib.no>
Subject: Cabling
I don't know the general theory on this, but w.r.t. monitor cabling
the maximal length seems to vary with the graphics card and or the
monitor. I bought a Kensington set of extension cables. The Apple card
with the Apple RGB monitor worked fine with the new, long cable. My
Supermac card/trinitron monitor got a bad case of seasickness.
-- SIgurd
------------------------------
Date: 22 Feb 89 13:51:09 PST (Wednesday)
From: "Ron_Fischer.AISNorth"@xerox.com
Subject: Canvas 2.0 review
I have to agree with Elliot on Canvas. Its an excellent drawing program
and, its rather competitive against things like (eck) SuperPaint (even the
new one). My only complaint is that its a little slow to update the
display on an SE with a complex display full of bezier curves, but even
there its not too bad.
When I shopped around for drawing programs I looked at Freehand,
Illustrator, and SuperPaint. I bought Canvas 1.0 with the expectation of
2.0 being provided for free. No disappointments so far. A great mid-level
graphics program.
(ron)
------------------------------
Date: 20 Feb 89 12:00:59 GMT
From: gordon@june.cs.washington.edu (Allyn)
Subject: Chemical Elements Stack (part 1 of 4)
I am posting this stack, Chemical Elements, for a friend. Here are his
notes about it:
Chemical Elements - This stack is similar to several other "Periodic
Table" stacks that have been distributed, combining the best features
of several of its predecessors with additional data on element char-
acteristics. It's fun, in particular, to use the "Show Stack" button
and watch the electrons fill the orbits as the black dot marches
through the table icon.
[Archived as /info-mac/hypercard/chemical-elements.hqx; 120K]
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 18:02 N
From: <HEWAT%FRILL.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: GKS-Mac Interface
Does anybody out there know of a GKS-Mac interface that can be called from
Fortran ? (GKS is the Graphic Kernel System commonly used for graph output
on larger computers).
Alan W. Hewat, ILL France (Bitnet HEWAT@FRILL)
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 01:54:57 EST
From: Greg Brail <ST601396%BROWNVM.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Jasmine AppleShare box
I heard a rumor that Jasmine is coming out with an AppleShare-
compatible fileserver. From what I heard, the box runs AppleShare a bit
faster than a Mac Plus. Apparently, it's just a hardware box with a
LocalTalk connector and 7 (!) SCSI ports. Server administration is
handled remotely while the device is running. The price is supposed to
be about $1,200, but don't quote me on that.
Is this true? Has anyone seen, heard about, or used this thing? Does
it exist, or is is vaporware? Does it do any kind of print spooling?
It would seem to me that making a device that could serve as an
AppleShare server would make a lot of sense if the box was, say, as fast
as a Mac II and as cheap as a Mac Plus. It would also probably do well
with people who balk at having to dedicate a computer to be the fileserver.
After all, it's "not a computer," is it?
While we're on the subject, what would be the best way to speed up
an AppleShare network consisting of 10 Mac Pluses, 2 Mac IIs, 3 printers,
and a Mac Plus filserver -- a faster fileserver (Mac II or SE/30?), or
faster network hardware (i.e. FlashTalk, since Ethernet is too expensive).
With an AppleShare network and LocalTalk cabling, what's the limiting
speed factor -- the network transmission speed or the speed of the
fileserver?
If anyone has tried to answer this question before, let me know.
-Greg
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 09:41:25 CST
From: JohnD%CDCCentr.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu
Subject: Journalling Mechanism
About a year ago, I ran into problems using my existing journalling code
with new System versions. Mac Technical Support confirmed that
journalling was no longer supported by the new versions of the
System file. I suspect that this is still the case, and that
the package being sold by APDA is obsolete.
There were two primary uses of journalling--making applications run
themselves for demonstration purposes, and capturing test sequences for
automated testing. Animation packages are now used for the demos. Apple
showed a test harness called "Player Piano" at the last Developers
Conference, which plays back events from one Mac to another, but I
haven't heard anything more about it.
My experiences with using the journalling driver (which replaced the
journalling feature documented in IM 1) are several years old, but I'd
be glad to answer any questions you might have. Please E-Mail me directly.
John Dykstra - Operating System Design - Control Data Corporation
(612) 482-3749 JohnD@CDCCentr.BITNET
------------------------------
Date: 22 Feb 89 16:03:30 GMT
From: md32+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Joseph Darweesh)
Subject: Montana
Here's a card game programmed by my roomate-Eric Snider. It's the
traditional solitaire card game-Montana.
Enjoy.
[Archived as /info-mac/game/montana.hqx; 27K]
------------------------------
Date: 22 Feb 89 13:44:43 GMT
From: bobd@nisca.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Bob Debula)
Subject: Mounting a Mac II on it's side
I've been reading about those who had a similar problem to mine (i.e.
no desk space and lots of Mac II). I solved it by ordering a bundle
put together by Kensington from MacWareHouse. This set includes:
A Mac II side stand (actually two separate & unconnected leg braces
which hold the Mac II about 2" off the floor &
if positioned right, do not interfere with any
of the vent slots).
A cable extension set which includes a monitor cable extension and
a monitor power cable extension.
I believe that's everything I got with the set. These pieces (the
sidestand and the extension set) are orderable separately. I make
absolutely no guarantees that this will not have some adverse effects
on your Mac II at some distant point in the future, but it all seems
reasonable to me (Kensington is a reputable company & the Apple
requirement of 4 - 6" clearance on each side of a Mac II seems like
overkill). Try to find a computer hutch that has that much clearance.
Anyway, I've been using this combo for 2 months plus now with no problems.
Also something I've noticed is that this system leaves the air intake (I assume that's what it is) on top the Mac II completely unobstructed (note that when
Apple illustrates a Mac II that they show the monitor set all the way to the
right side as you're facing it? This appears to be for the purpose of leaving
that air intake as unobstructed as possible). Anyway, I consider the side
stand approach as having this added benefit. I believe just about any of the
mail order houses that carry Kensington goodies also carry the sidestand
stuff (Also, places like MacWareHouse and MacConnection deliver it to your
door *fast*; I ordered mine on Friday afternoon and had it Saturday
morning via Federal Express).
Bob DeBula
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 11:34:11 pst
From: Larry Rosenstein <lsr@apple.com>
Subject: No multi-launch under 6.0.2
In article <8902220412.AA16839@sumex-aim.stanford.edu> you write:
>...
>I'm afraid I can't help you, but perhaps you can help me... how is it that
>using Multifinder lets you get around the problem ? We have an AppleShare
>server running on an SE, and soon will have another on a Sun going thru a
>GatorBox. The entire network is back to system 5.0 precisely because we could
>no longer multi-launch applications with 6.0.2.
I tried multi-launching under MultiFinder under 6.0.2 and it worked fine.
Can you supply the specific case you tried?
>More in general, I have the impression that even under 5.0 multi-launching was
>a barely tolerated klutz: no clear documentation of it, and everything that is
>meant to be shared had to be manually locked in its Info window. Are there any
>true multi-launch applications around (nothing fancy -- just capable of making
>itself and documents it opens read-only -- forget about record/byte locking) ?
That's not true. Multi-Launching is clearly documented in some of the
AppleShare info. It requires that the programs have a special bit set,
and that they don't do anything that would prevent 2 users from using them
at the same time (ie, hardwire in the name of a temporary file, write to
the application file, etc.)
All that multi-launching does is open the application read-only. It is up
to the application developer to make sure that his/her application can be
run in that mode.
Multi-launching is different from the ability for 2 users to open the same
document at the same time. That requires that the application developer use
the locking features of AppleShare. I don't know specifically of programs
that permit this, but I know that some of the existing database programs
support multi=user network access.
As far as I know, multi-launching was not taken out of 6.0.2. This is one
of the features of AppleShare.
Larry Rosenstein, Object Specialist
Apple Computer, Inc. 20525 Mariani Ave, MS 46-B Cupertino, CA 95014
AppleLink:Rosenstein1 domain:lsr@Apple.COM
UUCP:{sun,voder,nsc,decwrl}!apple!lsr
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 14:07:27 MST
From: dbirnbau@nmsu.edu
Subject: No multi-launch under 6.0.2
At New Mexico State University, we have set up a file serving system running
under 6.0.2, which works just fine. However, in order to utilize the
multi-launch capabilities of programs such as Word and PageMaker, you have
to use ResEdit to set the cache bit in the finder attributes of the
application. This allows things to work just dandy.
Unfortunately, some applications don't function with this
modification. NCSA Telnet, HyperCard (because of the Home stack) and
SuperPaint are the applications that will not function as a
multi-launching application.
Applications that I currently have set up for multi-launch are Word
3.01, PageMaker 2.01, MacDraw, MacWrite, FullPaint, Excel, Cricket
Draw, Cricket Graph, Works and ReadySetGo 4.0.
One problem is that MacWrite 5.0, for some unknown reason, opens
the Main Dictionary as read/write, so only the first user can access
the dictionary. A pretty silly programming decision, if you ask me.
Other then that, most programs work just fine.
+--------------------------------------------+------------------------------+
| David Birnbaum, programmer/consultant | dbirnbau@nmsu.edu |
| Small Systems, Computer Center | VTIS001@NMSUVM1.BITNET |
| New Mexico State University <--+ They pay my bills, but |
| 10 PRINT "Basic is Dead!" : GOTO 10 | they don't write my opions! |
+--------------------------------------------+------------------------------|
| "It shouldn't be a suprise to anyone when the network screws up; |
| the suprise should be that the dang thing works at all!" |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 15:54:45 EST
From: sdl@mbunix (Litvintchouk)
Subject: recognizing scanned images as structured drawings
Now that we have Applescan, are there any software products that can
take a drawing that I scanned in, and recognize it as a structured
drawing (not a bitmap picture)? That is, I would like to take the
scanned drawing and further manipulate the various lines, boxes,
curves, etc., using MacDraw II or some other CAD software (not just
play with individual pixels).
If anyone knows of any such products, or any other way to accomplish
this, please reply directly to me (since I am not a regular subscriber
to this newsgroup). Thanx in advance!
Steven Litvintchouk
MITRE Corporation
Burlington Road
Bedford, MA 01730
(617)271-7753
ARPA: sdl@mbunix.mitre.org
UUCP: ...{att,decvax,genrad,ll-xn,philabs,utzoo}!linus!sdl
"Ada came at the peak of confidence in computing. We believe
the tide is now moving the other way." -- Bernard Carre,
University of Southampton and Program Validation, Ltd.
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 22 Feb 89 11:12:32 GMT
From: Arnold Smith <smith%cam.sri.com@ai.sri.com>
Subject: SCHEME availability?
I'm looking for a compiler/interpreter for Scheme (Lisp dialect), ideally
with good interfaces to the Mac Toolkit. Lots of universities must have
Scheme for teaching undergraduate computer science courses. Can anyone
point me in the right direction?
Arnold Smith
SRI International
Cambridge, England
agsmith@ai.sri.com (Internet)
smith@uk.co.sri (UKnet,JANET)
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End of Info-Mac Digest
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