Moderators.David.Gelphman@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU, Dwayne.Virnau@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU, Lance.Nakata@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (09/29/87)
INFO-MAC Digest Monday, 28 Sep 1987 Volume 5 : Issue 119
Today's Topics:
RE: Lightspeed C PopupMenuSelect
HyperCard script editing warning
Postscript versus VMS
LightspeedC and project data fork
Word 3.0 and LaserWriter
IW2 top-of-form
IW-I on PC
One Plus One bedtime story (long)
Word/Clipboard. Finder/System/Flashing Apple
Memory upgrades for an old 128K Mac
Fast Eddie Problems
Request for US Map
Ear trainer?
Reflections upon the convention and the future
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 87 13:24:39 PDT
From: PEPKE%FSU.MFENET@NMFECC.ARPA
Subject: RE: Lightspeed C PopupMenuSelect
The piece of code to demonstrate the use of PopupMenuSelect posted recently
by Dewi Williams through DELPHI uses an unneccessary glue routine. In
Lightspeed C the best way of defining this trap is to include the following
line after the funtion prototype:
pascal long PopupMenuSelect() = 0xA80B;
This can be done for any trap that uses the Pascal stack convention.
Eric Pepke pepke%fsu.mfenet@nmfecc.arpa
Supercomputer Computations pepke%scri.hepnet@lbl-csa2.arpa
Research Institute pepke%fsu.bitnet@wiscvm.wisc.edu
Florida State University
------------------------------
Date: 8 Sep 87 15:23 PDT
From: Kelley.pa@Xerox.COM
Subject: HyperCard script editing warning
Do not try to "edit script of HyperCard". Or at least, save all of your
work first. I get a system error and have to re-boot.
-- kirk
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 87 15:38:25 PDT
From: PUGH%CCC.MFENET@NMFECC.ARPA
Subject: Postscript versus VMS
I have a question for you all...
I have a VMS VAX with a TI Postscript printer hanging off of it. I can print
just fine if I roll the printer into my office and hook up to the Appletalk
connector, but I cannot send a Postscript file through the VAX and get it to
print.
The problem seems to stem from some long lines at the end of the Laser Prep
file. These lines do not agree with the VAX, which has a 256 character limit
on traditional text lines. Without the header, a postscript file (generated
with a Command-F) is just so much Quickdraw. Has anyone done this with the
4.0 driver? Has anyone done it with any driver? Could you please enlighten
me so that I may print on the path of righteousness.
Jon
N L pugh@nmfecc.arpa
M A L National Magnetic Fusion Energy Computer Center
F T N Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
E L PO Box 5509 L-561
C Livermore, California 94550
C (415) 423-4239
------------------------------
Subject: LightspeedC and project data fork
Reply-to: nagel%bonnie.uci.edu@ICS.UCI.EDU
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 87 12:05:57 -0700
From: <nagel@BONNIE.UCI.EDU>
I am developing a small program that will need to store information in the
data fork of the application (i.e. itself). I figured out how to do this
with GetAppParms, but I was wondering if anybody knows how LightspeedC handles
this. Should I use an alternate file until I actually build the application
or will LSC do the correct thing even though the application doesn't
*really* exist yet. I suspect I will need to do the former, but if anyone
knows for sure, please e-mail me your answer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mark Nagel
Department of Information and Computer Science
University of California, Irvine
nagel%bonnie.uci.edu@ics.uci.edu (ARPA)
{sdcsvax|ucbvax}!ucivax!bonnie!nagel (UUCP)
"If George Washington had given up at Valley Forge, we'd all be speaking
*English* today!" -- Balki
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 87 06:27:20 PDT
From: chuq@Sun.COM (Chuq Von Rospach)
Subject: Word 3.0 and LaserWriter
> Does anyone have any information on the problem with Word 3.0 and
> the Laserwriter that when you spool a job, the "no paper" light comes
> on (yellow), but there is still paper in the LaserWriter?
Yes -- the last person who printed out with Word did it with manual feed.
Word 3.0 for some bizarre reason does NOT reset itself to the feed tray, but
will keep the manual feed as default. This can be quite irritating at times,
since it is different from EVERY other application in the world.
(even stranger, it doesn't affect other applications -- print manual from
word, go to something else and print, and it uses the tray. go back to word,
and you're back on manual. foo)
chuq
------------------------------
Subject: IW2 top-of-form
From: KNIGHT%MAINE.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu (Michael Knight)
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 87 11:50:32 EDT
I'm posting this reply here because my original msg bounced back to me.
To: cohen@pluto.UUCP (David Cohen)
>I think that I'm going to have to get an Imagewriter ll after all since
>I need something soon. A silly question--what is the proper place to set
>the top of form on the Imagewriter ll so it'll do headers correctly,
>etc. ? I seem to remember reading, maybe here, that one has to be more
>careful with the Image- writer ll in this regard than with the
>Imagewriter l since it can mess up the print-out if one doesn't get it
>right.
I have found that setting the top-of-form to the top of the plastic
paper feed guide (in front of the print head) works well for me. I've
also heard rumors that Apple has modified the paper feed path a bit
in it's recent IW]^ to fix the old problems it has had with paper jams.
--Mike Knight
Knight@Maine.bitnet
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 87 23:33:00 EDT
From: "Stephen C. Hill" <STEVEH@AI.AI.MIT.EDU>
Subject: IW-I on PC
I'm using my Imagewriter I on my PC sometimes. WordPerfect also has a
driver for it, but usually I just use it directly from other programs.
The printer requires the following addition to my AUTOEXEC.BAT file:
Mode Com2:9600,N,8,1,P
Mode Lpt1:=Com2:
and the cable is:
PC IW
2 ---------- 3
3 ---------- 2
4 +
|
5 +
6 ---------- 20
7 ---------- 7
20 ---------- 6
Could anyone provide me with the printer control codes, or a pointer
to where I might have overlooked the obvious?
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 87 02:50:25 IST
From: Ami Zakai <RPR1ZAK%TECHNION.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: One Plus One bedtime story (long)
One men's experience with a do it yourself memory upgrade
or WARNING: do it yourself upgrades may be hazardous to your Mac
A few weeks ago I got Levco's One-Plus-One memory upgrade for my
MacPlus.. I am not a hardware man, I can use a screwdriver and am not afraid
of voltmeters but would rather pay then put a soldering iron to a
multi-layered printed circuit.
The kit I got from Levco was decently priced, its not the cheapest on the
market but Levco got a good reputation and I am willing to pay a little more
to stay out of trouble , it includes a 1meg memory upgrade and a piezo
electric fan, it came in a handsome silver box with a nice book of
instructions for the memory upgrade and a nice blue leaflet for the fan.
The first thing I did was to go over the content list.. and what do you
know.. I missed some of the minor stuff.. like velcros and other little
plastic gadgets.. being a little far from Levco's headquarters (ie Israel) I
decided to improvise.
Opening the Mac was easy.. just use the special Torx T-15 screwdriver and a
bit of guts when the case doesn't seem to want to come apart. It felt almost
sacrilegious to have my Mac open on my desk.
Installing the memory is very straight forward, you have to use a moderate
amount of force to get the SIMMS out and back in but with a little bit of
patient it works, the Jumpers are easy but putting the digital board back
into place requires some doing.. since the board is now too fat to slide
back into place the manual tells you to pop it back to place by 'gently
prying the frame with a flatblade screwdriver *shudder*. Once the board was
in place I noticed I forgot to note the serial number for the Owner
Registration card, well I am NOT deinstalling for that.
Having done all that the next step was to install the 'MacBreeze' piezo
electric fan and there was where the trouble started. I got over the missing
parts rather easily and attached the delicate butterfly to my internal drive
as instructed, then I was suppose to find two diodes on the analog board and
draw power from them to the fan by means of two plastic hooks. Levco gives
you a big blown out drawing of part of the analog board and now you are
suppose to find that same area on the actual board, to make a long story
short, mine doesnt have it. I don't say its Levco's fault, mine is a funny
Mac, it started out as an American 128K weeny back then when Macs where
for the hackers and fools and gone thru several upgrades to make it a
MacPlus with a European 220v analog board. Needless to say, Levco didn't
think about European boards when deciding to attach the hooks to diode CR25
and CR26, poor CR26 is in the least accessible point (LAP) on the board.
Fools tread where angles are afraid to, so I attached it to CR24 instead,
what the hell, all it does is draw power .. (it works).
Now the Levco manual says, assemble the Mac (so very easy now) and adjust
the power supply .. that's tricky, it tells you to insert the two little
pins of the volt meter to the ground and 5v outlet of any DB9 connector on
the back of the Mac (only the mouse on a plus), it doesnt tell you that the
Mac goes into spontaneous reboot cycle if they happen to touch by mistake
(very scary), well I found out by myself, twice, until I got the hang of
it.. I adjusted the power supply as told to the highest level below 5.2, it
also was as far as the little screw wanted to go.. easy ...
So now it should work.. boot .. happy face .. welcome to Macintosh .. the
finder about says 2048K success .. well almost .. since the keyboard is
dead..
A frantic search through the problems list in the back of Levco's booklet
shows that it never happened to them, some fast hacking with a (brave)
friend's keyboard shows the problem to be in the keyboard ROM, totally burnt
out.
I call to my favorite understanding dealer and since he knows that a night
with no keyboard is a fate worse then death he sends me a substitute
keyboard with a messenger and takes mine to the lab, phew, that was close..
I got my keyboard after a few days. The only place I could think of that
could have hurt the keyboard was those reboots during the the voltage
setting, yes, the keyboard was attached then, Levco didn't warn against it.
All's well that ends well so no more about that, or so I thought.
The next week was pure bliss, giant RAMdisk's .. big cache.. MultiFinder, I
am ready.. the new memory was acting perfectly, except that the side of my
Mac was getting very hot!!! now I never close my Mac, its open since the
day I bought it except for rare occasions, but the MacBreeze fan doesn't
seem to be able to handle the heat. A fast browse through the manual doesnt
say anything about that, but it made sense, 2meg generate more heat then
one..
After a while a funny thing started to happen, my screen got brighter and
brighter till I couldn't compensate with the brightness knob at the bottom
of the screen, being a seasoned professional by now I quickly opened up my
Mac and adjusted the brightness setting on the analog board. After another
week the potentiometer reached the end and the screen still got brighter,
thin white lines were beginning to show across the screen.
I did the only logical thing, panicked and called my favorite understanding
dealer, oh says he, its a known fact that some analog boards/power supplies
cant take the upgrade, pity, you are out of luck, it's not that you did
anything wrong, just bad luck, so I took my Mac to my favorite understanding
dealer and he installed a new analog board and since then every thing looks
fine.
Conclusions? well I leave them to you, I think Levco should have considered
European analog boards, warn about possible keyboard problems and had to
warn about possible problems with analog/power supply problems, its true
that's it has been all over the net digests but not everybody got access to
them.
I am happy, I got my 2meg Mac, the price is still a little cheaper then
Apple's upgrade after all the extra repairs. I took a risk by deciding to
install the memory myself and knew about analog/power supply problem so I
cant complain (I don't believe in Russian roulette players right for a
second chance) but every body should be aware of the possible hazards
before he takes on such a venture.
--Zak
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 87 16:24 GMT
From: SCCS6037%IRUCCVAX.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu
Subject: Word/Clipboard. Finder/System/Flashing Apple
We're using Word 3.0 on an SE with 20MB HD, LaserWriter+, etc.
It's OK now, but we had problems before installing a new version of
the Finder (British version). Cmd-Option-?, +, -, etc. just did not
work. When you tried to select a paragraph using the mouse on the
left-hand edge of the screen, you ended up selecting the whole
document. Instaling Finder Version B5.5 fixed that, so presumably
the Mac must be 'localized'. (??) Now everything is OK, BUT...
The secretary in the dept. of computer science wanted to do
some tables in Word. Not nice. The tables were to look something
like this:
+-----+--------+--------+-------+ ...
| 2.0 | 1.5 | 2.5 | 0.2 | ...
| | 3.6 | 3.4 | 0.7 | ...
+-----+--------+--------+-------+ ...
| 3.0 | ... | | | ...
except that graphic boxes, lines etc, were to be drawn, a la Word.
The problem is that there is no apparent way to kern the "2.0" so
that it appears midway between the "1.5" and "3.6" entries. Add that
to the fact that the top horizontal line was separated from the
"2.0 1.5 2.5..." entries by a miniscule amount of space, and a truly
gargantuan amount of space appeared between the bottom dividing line
and the "3.6 3.4 0.7..." entries above it, and you end up with a
none-too-professional looking table. No problem, we said, we'll just
pop across to MacDraw and manually kern the text so that it appears
reasonable. We do Cmd-Opt-D (Dump to graphic) and we get:
Selection is too tall for clipboard. Selection will be
truncated.
(or words to this effect)
in an alert box.
The question is, is this a Mac-wide restraint, or is Word placing
a limit on the size of a graphic clipboard? The limit appeared to be
approximately two-thirds of aa A4 page. We've only started using the
Mac recently, and it's excellent, but such things do not inspire
confidence. Splitting the Word table in half and switching to MacDraw
twice and lining up the two halves was a truly soul-searching experience.
Also, and I realise that this has probably nothing at all to do with
Word, the Mac's Apple menu (ie, the one with the DAs) has an annoying
"feature" in that the Apple, and what appears to be a space on either
side, switches to reverse video every 1/3 of a second, stays that way
for 1/3 of a second, and switches back again. Wassup? Our other SE
(exactly the same setup) does not exhibit this extremely annoying trait.
If you can help with any of these two problems, but, especially the
tabulation problem, please let me know. Any Tabulation DAs out there?
And, just as a matter of interest, where can I get MacEQN or some
(reasonably cheap) equation formatter?
Thanks in advance, and apogolies for asking so much, etc,
Turlough
| BITNET: SCCS6037@IRUCCVAX | SNAIL MAIL: Turlough O'Connor, |
| | Computer Sc. Dept, |
+============================+ University College, |
| D0 beats (E)AX every time! | Cork, |
| (Anyone remember AIBMUGO?) | Ireland. |
[ note from moderator: the blinking Apple is because the alarm clock went off
and you didn't reset it. Just pull down the alarm clock DA and turn off your
alarm clock. DAVEG ]
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 04 Sep 87 13:32:39 CST
From: "John Bertram Geis (Syzygy Darklock)"
From: <GEISJBJ%UREGINA1.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Memory upgrades for an old 128K Mac
I know, I know, your'e all asking "Why would anyone buy a 128K Mac
anymore?". Well, suffice it to say that I got a very good deal on the
purchase, but my problem now is that I simply MUST add more memory to it,
or it won't run half of my software.
Have you heard about or used any good upgrade packages from 3rd-party
manufacturers that you believe may be the answer to my problem. If so,
then please send me a mail message telling me what it is, from whom I can
get it (please include their mailing address if you have it), and how much
it cost. Also, anyone who would like to warn me off of a particular kit
or company, or suggest a different course of action is also welcome.
I will summarize the replies and post them to the digest. (If anyone has
trouble sending to me from your location, then you can just post them in the
digest and I will find them there when it is sent to me!) Thanks a lot in
advance.
John B. Geis
Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
GEISJBJ@UREGINA1.BITNET
Acknowledge-To: <GEISJBJ@UREGINA1>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 87 09:50:10 edt
From: moss!phoenix!lam@RUTGERS.EDU (Sau-hai Lam)
Subject: Fast Eddie Problems
I get FastEddie 3.1 from Macserve, and ran it under SYSTEM 4.1. Indeed
when I use 'tabs create spaces', the 'insertion I-beam' problem does not
occur. However, very frequently I get a bomb with ID=10 in the midst of
an editing session. Does anyone else have the same experience?
------------------------------
From: larus%paris.Berkeley.EDU@Berkeley.EDU (James Larus)
Subject: Request for US Map
Date: Wed, 09 Sep 87 10:17:39 PDT
Does anyone have a map of the United States in a form suitable for
editing with MacDraw?
Thanks,
/Jim
ARPANet: larus@ginger.Berkeley.EDU
Usenet: ...!ucbvax!larus
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 87 18:54:06 PDT
From: Ian Macky <Ian@SRI-NIC.ARPA>
Subject: Ear trainer?
Does anyone know of any ear training programs for the MAC? Something that
grills you on intervals, absolute pitch, etc. I'm willing to spend $ to
get it, if there's a commercial product (like the Amiga one I saw an ad for).
--ian@sri-nic.arpa
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 18 Aug 87 20:48:01 EST
From: Richard Ewing <EWING%YALEVM.BITNET@forsythe.stanford.edu>
Subject: Reflections upon the convention and the future
Now that the MacWorld convention in Boston is behind us, I'd like to reflect a
little on just where we've come from and how much farther we have to go as Mac
users.
When the Macintosh 128K was first introduced with big fanfare in January of
1984, Apple signaled that we were to begin a brand new age of computers and
how we interacted with them. They were only part right. The funky little
beige machine had lots of thought inside, but not enough power to properly
reach those lofty goals. The business community laughed and proclaimed it as
Apple's new visionary toy, which no real company would ever consider,
especially with its lack of PC compatibility. In fact, the IBM PC was
literally considered to be a hostile alien force whose sole purpose was to
crush the little band of rebels flying the pirate flag.
In 1985, we came a little farther. The 512K Mac finally made the scene and
showed to all of us just how memory hungry the little beast was. In 1984, we
hobbled around with the early likes of MacPaint, MacWrite, Microsoft File,
Habadex, Mac the Lion, and a few other efforts. Any Mac god back then
could probably name all the available software. Now we were introduced to the
likes of Thinktank, MacDraw, and other interesting goodies. Although
development tools were still crude, many independent programmers began to see
the programming potential of this new marvel, despite the trouble. "No pain,
no gain" to get that definetive Macintosh look. And we finally got a hard
drive, though buggey and sensitive. Real power users had that "Hyperdrive"
label on the front of their Macs. Some tried extended memory. And then there
was the shakeout. Many wrote offthe little machine and its company as
casulties of the struggle. But it survived. And the industry took notice.
Then we finally came into our own. The Macintosh Plus yielded its
voluminous(?) memory, its 800K disk drives that didn't sing, and that strange
"scuzzy" port that nobody knew what to do with immediately. And then came the
LaserWriter. And Pagemaker, Excel, MacDraft, and a host of other professional
efforts. Shareware started pouring in, fulfilling Steve Jobs prophecy in a
way for cheap software for the masses. And the world took notice. Some bold
firms decided to finally give the little box a shot at the plate. And it
didn't let them down. Especially with a networking option so cheap, you had
to have it. Even if a shoe leather network was almost as fast. It was cheap,
and it worked. And Apple, not satisfied, promised more.
In 1987, we got that more. Here came the platinum machines, ushering in a new
age for Mac users. Expandability, speed, richer ROMS, faster I/O, color, and
cheap workstation power were now possible. All without abandonning our
existing base of software, or succumbing to the MS-DOS influence. And now
people started on the bandwagon. Many businesses found that some things were
*only* possible on a Mac. If you wanted the best speadsheet, desktop
publishing program, presentaion graphics, and shared resources between
programs, the Mac was the only logical decision. MIS managers everywhere had
to swallow a little pride and begin authorizing their purchase. Our little
child was growing up.
By the culmination of this past convention, we really stand to bust some heads
in a serious sense. Never before has a computer convention been so active
with the knowledge that something new and interestingly useful lay at
every booth. And now we have Multifinder and HyperCard, our latest operating
extensions. They may not be evrything to everyone for features, but it
definitely keeps the Big Blue's camp of guard. Consider that back in April,
IBM herelded their new PS/2 line as the next era in personal computing, a
pronouncement about three years too late. It would bring the world windowed
graphics (three years late), a multitasking OS abd bundled database manager
(one year in the future). It promised new soultions in connectivity that
would ebenefit all. And it broughpromises of a new architecture so shrouded
in secrecy, that board manufactures are still trying to figure it all out.
Apple has brought us the real solutions to these very same issues now and
before anyone considered them problems. Congratulations. For IBM, its time
to return to the drawing board and produce great new miracles as the PS/2
Model 25, our equivilent to the Mac 512 unenhanced. Truly remarkable.
In closing, I'd just like to add that I've never been more excited about the
future of the Mac. Their will be some new growing pains, and more questions
and decisions (something Steve Jobs sought to avoid, he may have been right on
this one), but by next summer, I think we all know who will be running the
more powerful, and functionally useful machines. And our patience with the
initial design flaws will be rewarded. Sorry for taking so long here, but I
thought I'd like to say that. (Climbing off of soapbox).
--Richard Ewing
EWING@YALEVM.Bitnet
------------------------------
End of INFO-MAC Digest
**********************