Moderators.David.Gelphman@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU, Dwayne.Virnau...@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU, Lance.Nakata@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (10/05/87)
INFO-MAC Digest Sunday, 4 Oct 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 123
Today's Topics:
6809 assembler
Modal dialogs and MultiFinder
Highlighting icons in the absence of a mask
Comments on MultiFinder
Re: Print Spooler for Diverse Printers
Re: problem with MacPlus video display
Re: A HyperCard About Button
Re: Borland's Turbo Pascal
MacKermit on the II
MAC II memory upgrading
Driving Plotters
Optical Character recognition on a Thunderscanner
Reading and Writing MS/DOS Floppies
A/UX
Modems, modems...
Set Clock
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 3 Oct 1987 12:16-EDT
From: Bruce.Horn@VLSI.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: 6809 assembler
This spring and summer I wrote a cross assembler for the Mac, XAsm,
that handles the following machines:
MC6800/02, MC6801, MC6804, MC6805, Hitachi HD6305, MC6809, Hitachi 6301,
and MC68HC11.
Features:
Built-in text editing (TE's 32K limit, however) with tabs;
Window positions and sizes saved;
Desk accessories automatically opened;
LSC-style search/replace;
Reasonably fast (I *still* don't know how LSC is so fast...);
Nice include facility;
Listings with optional cycle count;
and a few other things that I can't remember.
For information about XAsm, write or call:
Tangent Instruments
2440 Leghorn Street
Mountain View, CA 94043
(415) 969-3296
I realize this could be considered an advertisement, but I don't make
any money on the sale of XAsm, and I don't even think they advertise.
I basically wrote the program so that my friends at Tangent could sell
their IBM-PC clone!
By the way, I used a compile-time switch for each different target
machine, so you have to get a copy of the program for each machine you
want to compile for.
Have fun,
Bruce Horn
Carnegie-Mellon University CSD
Pittsburgh, PA 15217
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 13:46:07 PDT
From: PUGH@NMFECC.ARPA
Subject: Modal dialogs and MultiFinder
On the topic of programming for MultiFinder:
The common use of a modal dialog box for displaying the progress of a time
consuming event is going to have to change. In it's place a modeless dislog
box should be used. In this realm, what we need is a call that uses the same
interface as ModalDialog, but calls WaitNextEvent instead of GetNextEvent. As
MutiFinder stands right now, you cannot switch out of a ModalDialog call.
Therefore, you must either code the modeless dialog yourself or call an
equivalent routine. I should think that Apple should implement such a beast
since there are many times where an application cannot proceed until something
has happened, but it would be alright for the user to go off and do something
else.
What does the rest of the net think, or has this become purely a Q&A sort of
discussion?
Jon
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 09:51:24 PDT
From: dplatt@teknowledge-vaxc.arpa (Dave Platt)
Subject: Highlighting icons in the absence of a mask
From what I've heard (read), MultiFinder contains code that calculates
an icon mask (a la the second half of an ICN#) using the information
contained in the icon bitmap itself (the first half of an ICN#). In
MultiFinder, the icon mask in an ICN# is completely ignored, and a
dynamically-calculated mask is used instead; this was apparently done
because so many people were using the mask to perform "icon animation",
which looks like doggie poop on a color monitor.
It wouldn't surprise me if HyperCard were to be using the same mask-
calculation code as MultiFinder uses. I'd guess that the code locates
the boundary of the icon, sets this up as the border of a region, and
then fills the region with one-bits... sort of like a combination of
the 'lasso' and 'paint bucket' tools in MacPaint. [I have a vague
memory from early '86... something to the effect that the "paint bucket"
algorithm from MacPaint having been added to the ROM. You might find
a clue in Inside Mac IV]
Good hunting,
dave
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 87 23:24:07 MET
From: Norbert Lindenberg <norbert%germany.csnet@RELAY.CS.NET>
Subject: Comments on MultiFinder
MultiFinder is a great environment, but it still isn't perfect. There
are three points I want to criticize:
Layer Management
I don't understand what's the reasoning behind this feature. When I
extract a sheet of paper from the piles on my real desktop, I have never
seen any other sheets pop on top that happen to have been scribbled on
with the same pencil. I don't see any advantage of this policy either,
usually it's quite annoying to have all those Finder windows come up
when I just want to have a look at one folder.
Open Documents
When I try to open a document that's handled by a program that's already
running, I get a dialog box saying that I have to open the document from
the application. That's okay for today, but I'd like Apple to introduce
a new event (openEvent) that MultiFinder can feed an application to tell
it to open another document. Most applications now are prepared to handle
many documents in parallel, so it should be easy to integrate such an
event.
Shutdown
When I choose 'Shut down' from the Finder menus, MultiFinder tries to
convince all applications to quit, so the Finder can shut down the
machine. That's a good idea. It does so by looking at the
names of the File menu and the Quit item. That's not so good: there are
other languages than English. In German programs the menu reads 'Ablage'
and the item 'Beenden', so MultiFinder is not able to quit the
application, and the Finder will not shut down. Perhaps there should be
still another event (shutdownEvent), that tells an application to quit
if possible. Changing the mstr 100 and mstr 101 resources will not do
the job, I often have applications with German and English menus run
concurrently.
Maybe these points have already been addressed by new proposals from Apple
or somebody else, that have not yet made their way to Europe, if so,
please tell me.
-- Norbert
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 7:02:49 MST
From: Major John Buono
From: <buono%asbf-imp.huachuca-em.arpa@HUACHUCA-EM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Print Spooler for Diverse Printers
I think that SuperLaserSpool will fit the bill, it will spool to any
printer picked by the Chooser, as long as it is on AppleTalk. I have used
it with an ImageWriter II and LaserWriter for over 6 months now. It is
distributed by SuperMac.
John Buono
buono%asbf-imp@huachuca-em.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 7:06:38 MST
From: Major John Buono
From: <buono%asbf-imp.huachuca-em.arpa@HUACHUCA-EM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: problem with MacPlus video display
>My MacPlus had been working fine until one time when I turned it on, the
>screen was brighter then normal. I checked the brightness knob and found
>that even after turning it all the way down, the screen was as bright as it
>had originally been at 9/10 brightness, and it adjusted upwards from there.
>Does anyone know what the problem could be?
>
I sounds like you power supply is about to go out. Take it to a dealer and
have them check it out. A friend of mine's started to exhibit the same
symptoms, a week later the power supply went totally out. Hope this helps
John Buono
ARPA buono%asbf-imp@huahuca-em.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 7:17:02 MST
From: Major John Buono
From: <buono%asbf-imp.huachuca-em.arpa@HUACHUCA-EM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: A HyperCard About Button
I had the same problem with coming up with a generic About Box but solved
the problem a little differently. I created a background button and a
background field. When you pressed the button the field was display. Then
the the buttons script filled the field with the script that I wanted. ON
MOUSE down in the background script it disappeared. This has worked very
nicely for me.
John Buono
ARPA buono%asbf-imp@huachuca-em.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 7:25:09 MST
From: Major John Buono
From: <buono%asbf-imp.huachuca-em.arpa@HUACHUCA-EM.ARPA>
Subject: Re: Borland's Turbo Pascal
To answer your question on MacPascal and Turbo, you can read MacPascal files in
Turbo. They both use a form of the TEXT file. As to compatabiltiy in the
plain vanilla environment it is about 80% to 90% (can't remember exactly what
was and was not). In the MAC environment you will have some problems with
MacPascal implmentaton with the glue routines and trap calls. But nothing
that can't be over come. I would suggest using Light Speed Pascal. I
own all three and have found LSP to be a much better environment then Turbo
though Turbo is slightly faster, I can develop code in LSP faster. Hope
this help
John Buono
ARPA buono%asbf-imp@huachuca-em.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 10:01:14 PDT
From: dplatt@teknowledge-vaxc.arpa (Dave Platt)
Subject: MacKermit on the II
You can FTP a new version of Kermit [ported to the Megamax C
environment] from Columbia. FTP to cu20b.columbia.edu, log in as
"anonymous" (using your last name as a password), and "get
ker:xkmker.hqx"; you may want to "get ker:xkmker.bwr" to fetch the
"beware" file also. This experimental version (numbered 0.8(35))
should work for you, with a couple of caveats:
1) I don't know whether it's compatible with System 4.1; many Megamax
programs aren't unless they're patched to avoid use of the BasicGlob
global, which was "reserved for future use" and has been preempted
in System 4.1. Symptom: programs that abuse BasicGlob tend to bomb
when you try to quit to the Finder. Fix: use FEdit or some similar
file-patching tool (e.g. MacSnoop) to locate the byte string "02b6"
and change it to "0a78".
2) Neither 0.8(34) [ckmker.hqx] nor 0.8(35) [xkmker.hqx] contains a
FOND resource for the font(s) that they contain. This leads to
confusion on SEs and IIs; the screen display is apparently
garbled. The fix is described in some detail in the "beware" file;
simply put, you make a copy of ckmker, then use the Font/DA-mover to
open both copies, remove the fonts from one copy, and copy the same
fonts across from the other copy. FDAM will notice that you're
moving FONT resources that don't have a corresponding FOND, and will
create one.
It's interesting... some people have reported severe problems getting
MacKermit to run on the SE and II, and other people have had no
problems whatsoever. There doesn't seem to be enough information to
pin down the cause yet...
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 16:41:54 EDT
From: Jack Hill <jdhill@bfly-vax.bbn.com>
Subject: MAC II memory upgrading
A gentleman here asked me to install 2 1 MEG SIMM strips into his MAC II.
I did so, but the MAC would not see the extra memory. Later, we found out from
Apple that you have to install 4 strips at a time. So, we took 4 256k SIMMS
from an old MAC+ and had the MAC loaded up with 8 256k SIMMS- 2 MEG total. But
still the MAC only saw 1 MEG. The SIMMS we took from the MAC+ were rated at
150ns while the ones originally in the MAC II were rated at 120ns. We installed
just the MAC+ 150ns SIMMS and everything worked fine. Then we added the MAC II
120ns SIMMS and we still found only 1 MEG of memory.
By the way- As I understand it Apple says memory can only be configured as
follows:
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
__________ __________
256k 256k or 1 M
Is this true?
What could be the problem?
Jack Hill
jdhill@bfly-vax.bbn.com
[ note from moderator: both banks can be populated with 1 Mbit chips but if
only one 4strip bank is filled with 1mbit chips it must be the bank
FURTHEST from the CPU. I believe I may have incorrectly reported differently
before but have now found out through experience! DAVEG ]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1987 17:37 CDT
From: Eric Oberle <C09615EO@WUVMD>
Subject: Driving Plotters
I'm looking for drivers that would allow me to connect my Mac to either
a Tek 4695 plotter or a Taxan 710s plotter which emulates an HP7470, HP7475,
HP7575, HP7574A, HP7475A (or so the manual says. Whether all these really
exist or if they are simply one of many typos in the documentation, I don't
know)
Please help me. I'm dying of a terrible disease and I need this informtion
in order to finish a project which will provide a cure. OK--not really, but
still I would appreciate some help.
------------------------------
Date: 3 October 1987, 21:30:41 PST
From: David M. Gelphman 415-854-3300 x2538 DAVEG at
From: SLACVM
Subject: Optical Character recognition on a Thunderscanner
Olduvai software has an ad in MacUser for a program called
Read-It! TS, which claims to do character recognition with Thunderscanner
files. It is $149. Has anyone seen this software and what is the scoop?
Is it any good? What resolution do you have to scan your pages at?
David Gelphman daveg%slacvm.bitnet@forsythe.stanford.edu
------------------------------
From: steinmetz!mikeg@brspyr1.brs.com (Mike Gionfriddo)
Subject: Reading and Writing MS/DOS Floppies
Date: 2 Oct 87 18:03:59 GMT
I am looking for any advice on devices that hook to the Mac and can read
and write MS/DOS floppies. I have seen ads for a few of these (MacCharlie,
Dynafile, Abaton 5.25) but have not been able to locate any "hard" information
about such products. If there is enough interest I will summarize and post
to the net. Please send followups via e-mail. Thanks in advance.
--
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|| Mike Gionfriddo || mikeg@brs.com || Umm, my favorite soup, ||
|| (518) 783-1161 || ihnp4!dartvax!brspyr1 || Cream of Nowhere ||
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
------------------------------
Reply-to: <Anne_Dolce%PEGASUS.CEO.DG.COM@adam.DG.COM>
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 16:34:20 EDT
From: Anne_Dolce@PEGASUS.CEO.DG.COM
Subject: A/UX
Does anyone know the availability date of A/UX for MAC II's?
Will it have X-windows support in the first revision? Thanks.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 87 09:36 EDT
From: Traveller <Traveller@WAIKATO.S4CC.Symbolics.COM>
Subject: Modems, modems...
Can anyone recommend
a good 2400 baud modem
for a Mac Plus
for around $200-$300?
Addresses of good mail-order houses for such things
would be greatly appreciated, also.
Replies to TRAVELLER@WAIKATO.Symbolics.COM
Thanks,
W.R.S.
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 3 Oct 87 20:48 EDT
From: <ZACCONE%BKNLVMS.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Set Clock
I have version 1.4 of Set Clock (dated December 15, 1986). I recently
switched to system 4.1 and finder 5.5. Since then, Set Clock hasn't been
doing its job. It places the phone call and receives the correct time,
but doesn't change the Mac's time. Has anyone else had this problem?
Does anyone have a version that works?
Rick Zaccone
zaccone@bknlvms.bitnet
------------------------------
End of INFO-MAC Digest
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