SHULMAN@sdr.slb.com (Jeffrey Shulman) (11/05/88)
Date: Fri 4 Nov 88 20:09:39-EDT
From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN@SDR.SLB.COM>
Subject: Delphi Mac Digest V4 #21
To: Delphi-List: ;
Message-ID: <594695379.0.SHULMAN@SDR.SLB.COM>
Mail-System-Version: <VAX-MM(218)+TOPSLIB(129)@SDR.SLB.COM>
Delphi Mac Digest Friday, November 4, 1988 Volume 4 : Issue 21
Today's Topics:
Sounds like a good reason....
RE: re SUM
HP LASER PRINTER
Microsoft Excel (2 messages)
Text editors (2 messages)
From FGS re Suitcase II updates
Re: Data Glove?
RE: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #150
Save the Whales?
Relisys Monitors
re: A pulldown menu question
RE: Need a laser printer... (5 messages)
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From: MOUSEKETEER
Subject: Sounds like a good reason....
Date: 24-OCT 19:37 Hardware & Peripherals
Maybe it's just me, but I found a comment from Apple in the new Oct.
24 issue of InfoWorld to be at least mildly amusing. Bud Colligan,
director of higher education marketing at Apple was discussing the
challenge NeXT's box might have on the Mac & Mac II and pointed out that
one reason why people might not buy the NeXT was that the Mac already
has a base of 3,500 available applications.
Wasn't that the sort of thing that IBM used to say a lot about four
years ago? Well, at least he didn't comment that the NeXT computer also
uses some new, funny kinda disk that no one else uses...
Alf
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From: MACWEEKBOS
Subject: RE: re SUM (Re: Msg 27687)
Date: 25-OCT 11:03 Business Mac
I think SUM's documentation is less comprehensive in theoretical
content. On the other side, my impression is that SUM is better for hard
disks - I'm not sure 1st Aid is nearly as comprehensive in features and
my experience with it was terribly slow on a hard disk. There's a new
version out, though, that I haven't tried.
I also haven't tried the new PC Tools. All I know is that SUM is
definitely worth the money and it has solved a lot of problems for me.
Ric
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From: SKIRBY
Subject: HP LASER PRINTER
Date: 26-OCT 22:04 Hardware & Peripherals
ANYBODY OUT THERE HAVE EXPERIENCE CONNECTING A HEWLETT-PACKARD
HP2276A DESKJET LASER PRINTER TO AN APPLESHARE NETWORK? HOW
COMPLICATED IS IT? WHAT DRIVERS ARE REQUIRED AND WHERE CAN WE
GET
THEM?
THANKS.
--STEVE
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From: NUTTYED
Subject: Microsoft Excel
Date: 26-OCT 22:34 Business Mac
I need help with a formula for computing an average variance when one of
the variables is not always present. I have a rather large and
constantly expanding database. In row 10 is an index number that is
present for every day of data, ranging from column " L" out to column
"AA" (which is the crrent extent of the daily observations. In rows 11
thru 180 are data on different securities prices, not all of which have
data for each day. In each row of securities data I need a formula that
will give me the average variance of that security"s prices from the
index prices, but only for those days that have an observation for that
In awkward terms I need something like:
=average(Lll-L$10(if(L11="",L$10="",L$10=L$10) over the range L:AA.
I know that syntax is messed up, but if anybody knows how to accomplish
this without having to add an extra row for each of the 180 securities,
I would appreciate your help.
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From: HALL
Subject: RE: Microsoft Excel (Re: Msg 27716)
Date: 27-OCT 19:33 Business Mac
Your formula means nothing to me (I'm not an Excel user), but why don't
you use a negative number (like -1) for the price on those days when you
don't have a real price. When you're doing the average, check for a
nonnegative number; if it's negative, skip to the next one.
Brian
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From: FIDELITYIC
Subject: Text editors
Date: 27-OCT 14:48 MUGS Online
I need a powerful text editor that works on the Macintosh. Ideally it
would be able to do the following:
1) fast & flexible search & replace with regular expressions
2) ability to handle above with tabs, line feeds,
& other invisible hex chars
3) able to handle large "wide files"
(around 400 to 500 chars per line)
4) rectangular block editing capabilities
5) other bells and whistles that one can expect from
a real powerful editor.
I am currently using & abusing MS Word for this purpose. I've also
recently played with McSink.
Thoughts anyone? What have you used and what do you like? I've heard
some good things about QUED/M. What's it like? Other comments on
generic search and replace or other text manipulation tools would be
appreciated (I've also played with Evolutions (fast but very limited)
and Cleanup (can't seem to get it to work properly)).
Thanks.
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From: DDUNHAM
Subject: RE: Text editors (Re: Msg 27720)
Date: 28-OCT 04:01 MUGS Online
QUED (which I like better then QUED/M, tho if you buy it you'll be stuck
with the latter) handles wide files, assuming they fit in memory; QUED/M
may have regular expressions but I don't think QUED does. It does a
good job with invisible characters. QUED/M has macros (which I never
wanted to use), but no rectangular selections (probably no Mac programs
do -- since they support proportional fonts, it makes no sense).
If you want a super powerful editor, you might consider MPW. The
LightspeedC editor supports regular expressions.
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From: BRECHER
Subject: From FGS re Suitcase II updates
Date: 27-OCT 20:46 Business Mac
(A communication from Fifth Generation Systems posted at their request)
October 26, 1988
We at Fifth Generation Systems have egg on our face! All the
Suitcase II upgrades have now been shipped. However, there were
many problems.....
Approximately 1000 labels printed for shipping upgrades on
October 7, 1988 were lost. Customer Support was told that these
shipped. We just found and shipped those upgrades. The bad
news is that we have been telling people that they have shipped.
We made the grave error of charging credit cards and cashing
checks before orders were shipped. Our systems were not in
place to do this better; but it will never -- never! -- happen
again.
Many people have been calling our Technical Support lines to ask
about their upgrades. Customer Support rather than Technical
Support handles these calls. We, however, created the problem and
we are working very hard to correct it.
Fifth Generation Systems is making a dedicated effort to service
you, our customers, in the manner you deserve. We were caught
short during this upgrade with overwhelming volume (at the same
time as we were shipping an upgrade on another product).
Our telephone system was replaced a few months ago and has again
doubled in size to handle the volume of calls we were receiving.
We are again increasing the size of this system.
Our pledge to our customers is to do our best to serve your
needs. You have been exceptionally understanding during this
difficult period. We will make sure your patience is rewarded
by striving to give you the best service and support in the
industry. Steve Brecher has been a tough act to follow. Our
goal is to get to the same level of support for our customers
that Steve has always achieved - not an easy task!
Fifth Generation Systems, Inc.
------------------------------
From: JIMH
Subject: Re: Data Glove?
Date: 29-OCT 22:57 Network Digests
>From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
>Subject: Re: Data Glove?
>Date: 26 Oct 88 04:49:17 GMT
>Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
The data glove is sold with a mac II, a glove, and a polhemus three
space tracker. Our lab has two of them. They have some very
interesting animation effects of the hands moving which is quite fast
alas the tracking is prone to problems. The gloves are highly
tempremental
as to who they will fit. when doing the classic demo shown in
scientific
american of opening the box the box tends to get stuck to your hand and
you cant let go (grin). we have an f-15 and a helcopter simulation
that
uses helmet mounted binocular displays. we are working on integrating
the hand trackers to allow the pilot to touch virtual controls and
eventually build a totally software cockpit. This is part of the
airforces supercockpit program.
We have also run our 1" 1000 line crts from the mac II. its
really something seeing those tiny windows and pull down menus!
Jim Hopper
Manager Visual Systems
Applications
Science Applications
International Corp
Discalmers Nothing i say is binding or otherwise necessarily the opinon
of my employer.
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From: DDUNHAM
Subject: RE: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #150 (Re: Msg 27731)
Date: 30-OCT 21:45 Network Digests
>If you turn on "unlimited downloadable fonts" it will
>occasionally botch out a font change and print some text out in Courier.
Yes, I've seen that. It's real weird, and I think it happened most when
I also selected max print area.
I use MultiFinder spooling, so I don't care too much how much slower
it'd be if it worked.
David Dunham "If voting could change the system, it would be
illegal. If Maitreya Design not voting could change the system, it
would be be illegal."
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From: FIDELITYIC
Subject: Save the Whales?
Date: 30-OCT 22:52 Public Domain
This is a shareware "verbalized cartoon." If it inspires you, please
send a contribution to your favorite charity and pass the cartoon along
through any means of communication you wish -- word-of-mouth, printed
hard copy, computer bulletin board, etc.
Verbalized cartoon -- Visualize the following cartoon regarding the
recent effort to save the trapped California gray whales:
Americans (standing on one side of the ice channel) saying "We saved the
whales!
Hurray!" Russians (standing on their side) saying "Hurray! We saved
the whales!" Meanwhile the whales are swimming out to sea toward an
ocean and world
filled with bottles, dead fish, oil drums, and plastic syringes labeled
as follows: pollution, green house effect, nuclear waste, acid rain,
heavy metal poisoning, smog, ozone layer, devestated tropical forests,
etc.
Commentary on above -- It's ironic that so much time, money, and effort
was spent to fight a perfectly natural occurrence when there are so many
man-made disasters which need to be rectified. Unfortunately, these
ugly realities do not present as wonderful a media spectacle.
This cartoon was brought to you courtesy of T.t. Retnachne.
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From: NATURAL
Subject: Relisys Monitors
Date: 2-NOV-14:28: Hardware & Peripherals
I have the opportunity to buy a Relisys Color Monitor for the Mac II
(#RE5155). Does anyone have this/seen this/ monitor?
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From: DDUNHAM
Subject: re: A pulldown menu question (Re: Msg 27752)
Date: 2-NOV-21:07: Network Digests
>From: bwb@andante.UUCP (Bruce Ballard)
>Subject: A pulldown menu question
If the Menu Manager can't get the memory to save what's under the menu,
it (on 128K+ ROMs) generates an update event instead (64K ROMs would
crash). So something's eating memory.
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From: HAMMEN
Subject: RE: Need a laser printer... (Re: Msg 27758)
Date: 2-NOV-22:33: Hardware & Peripherals
Chuq,
I am a died-in-the-wool PostScript person myself (having learned the
language to deal with the quirky Linotronic beast). Yet, for a lot of
people, owning a PostScript laser printer is out of the question
(particularly for an individual like myself). Even the cheapest printers
are $3500 or so. Contrast that with the GCC PLP for $1300-$1500. Also,
consider the capability of the GCC printer to be upgraded to PostScript
at a later date. I know two people who have had the GCC printer for
about a year, and both are pleased as punch with them (and have had no
hardware problems). The scaled fonts work pretty well - they could do
better by offering more faces - and the printer is a hell of a lot
better value than the Apple LaserWriter IISC.
Robert
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From: CHUQ
Subject: RE: Need a laser printer... (Re: Msg 27767)
Date: 3-NOV-00:43: Hardware & Peripherals
Robert:
If all you need is good-looking output, I'd agree. Postscript in that
case is voerkill. But what I wonder is how quickly you'll outgrow it and
have to upgrade. When you start doing anything fancier than a good
looking letter or the kind of things you can print on a dot-matrix or
daisywheel, the printer really starts holding you back. you start doing
DTP sorts of things, you'll really notice the difference once you get
into it. That's why I take the position I do
-- maybe you don't need all that stuff now, but I think it's a good bet that
you'll wish you had them in six months or a year, and then it's too late.
chuq
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From: HAMMEN
Subject: RE: Need a laser printer... (Re: Msg 27769)
Date: 3-NOV-09:01: Hardware & Peripherals
Chuq,
You are aware, aren't you, that GCC offers an upgrade to the PLP that gives it
true PostScript? The upgrade is around $2k or so - you aren't penalized much for
doing the upgrade, if I remember correctly. Remember, not everyone can afford
$3500 for a PS laser right away. IF they buy the laser now for $1400, and then
upgrade to PS six months or a year from now, that's a big advantage. It's not
too late.
Robert
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From: JIMH
Subject: RE: Need a laser printer... (Re: Msg 27768)
Date: 3-NOV-21:35: Hardware & Peripherals
Chuq, might be but i can buy the upgrade to the postscript version of apples
laserwriter for ony slightly more that it cost me fto buy an NT in the first
place. so i guess if i find out i dont like it it wont cost me anything much to
upgrade. besides we have a bunch of postscript apple laserwriter at work and i
have only rarely ever used the postscript features. i just dont have the time
or the inclination. we have freehand but i just havent taken the time, what
with everything else to do. guess i am a
hopless engineer type with no poetry in my soul (grin) jim
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From: HALL
Subject: RE: Need a laser printer... (Re: Msg 27758)
Date: 3-NOV-23:20: Hardware & Peripherals
For most people, that's true, but I have a II SC and like it fine. I don't
often use Illustrator or any of those, and when I do, I can print on someone
else's IINT... PageMaker will actually print to the IISC; I haven't done much
with it, other than to find out that it would print (didn't really get the
margins right, but... ;-) ). Now that FontSizer is out, I can create bitmapped
versions of all of the downloadable PostScript fonts; I'm going to do all of
the Apple ones for the ImageWriter II, IW LQ, and II SC soon...
Brian
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End of Delphi Mac Digest
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