SHULMAN@sdr.slb.COM (Jeffrey Shulman) (07/27/87)
Date: Mon 27 Jul 87 10:56:46-EDT From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN@SDR> Subject: Delphi Mac Digest V3 #35 To: Delphi-List: ; Message-ID: <554396206.0.SHULMAN@SDR> Mail-System-Version: <VAX-MM(218)+TOPSLIB(129)@SDR> Delphi Mac Digest Friday, July 24, 1987 Volume 3 : Issue 35 Today's Topics: Fortran 77 + 68881 for the Mac II (3 messages) RE: Using assembly language with MicroSoft FORTRAN RE: Do the PostScript strech... (3 messages) re: Control Panel vs. Chooser Selecting print quality (3 messages) SE video problems Re: Re: Control Panel vs. Chooser Re: Debugging frozen mouse problem (2 messages) Lisa (what's that?) hard disks RE: Mac II Beep SND RE: Region structure? (3 messages) synching to vidoo blanking (2 messages) Deactivating statictext (4 messages) Looking for an FKEY... Mac II w/multiple video cards color picker (2 messages) PageMaker 2.0 "features" (2 messages) SoundWave NEW Bernoulli drives RE: equation composers re: Arrow keys and collapsing selection edititem disable (2 messages) cdevs ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: DWOOD Subject: Fortran 77 + 68881 for the Mac II Date: 14-JUL 20:48 Programming Does anyone have any info on FORTRAN77 that supports the co-processor for the Mac II. I can't find the address for Absoft anywhere in my office, so if you have it handy could you leave it here? Or if you know the latest dope on that please let me know. I heard that they are going to market it themselves -- the thought MS was not pushing it enough. I have seen some other F77 compilers advertized -- are there any that you would recommend? Thanks in advance for the info --- Doug ------------------------------ From: YMUG Subject: RE: Fortran 77 + 68881 for the Mac II (Re: Msg 21241) Date: 14-JUL 21:19 Programming Absoft,4268 N.Woodward,Royal Oak,MI,48072,Tel.(313)549-7111. Don't ask. ;-) ------------------------------ From: DWOOD Subject: RE: Fortran 77 + 68881 for the Mac II (Re: Msg 21242) Date: 18-JUL 20:38 Programming I also called the tech support line in Florida. They said that version 2.3 in in the second of weeks of Beta testing and no big problems had come up. WHen they ship they will have a 68881 option in the compiler. Price: 495 list Less 100 if you have MS FORTRAN or MacFORTRAN and want to upgrade to 2.3 Absofts Fortran will compile on the Mac II, by the way, if you have the latest toolbx.sub and f77.rl run-time library. It does not take advantage of the 68881, however. V2.3 is supposed to do that. BTW: look for ver. 3 of Dan Kampmeier's wondeful McFace subroutine that works on the Mac II and has many nice NEW features. -Doug ------------------------------ From: MALOY Subject: RE: Using assembly language with MicroSoft FORTRAN Date: 15-JUL 11:01 Network Digests SUBJECT: Using assembly language with MicroSoft FORTRAN The MS FORTRAN linker is not REL-file compatible. The Linker expects SUB-files to have DATA forks containing executable code starting from the beginning of the file, and MDS REL-files do not fit this description. However, the MDS linker can be used to convert MDS REL-files to MS FORTRAN SUB-files. As an example, suppose you wanted to create the DATE.SUB file from the DATE.ASM file provided. First, modify DATE.ASM to be MDS Assembler compatible by changing the asterisk comment characters to semi-colons. Then MDS Assemble the file to create a DATE.REL file. Now, we're ready to have the object code "linked to a data fork." Create a file called DATE.LINK containing the following: /DATA /TYPE ' ' ' ' DATE.REL /OUTPUT DATE.SUB $ MDS LINK with this file as input and you will create a SUB-file which can be dynamically linked at run-time or linked to a main program using the MS FORTRAN linker. Bill Maloy NSTL, MS (601)688-5572 ------------------------------ From: DDUNHAM Subject: RE: Do the PostScript strech... (Re: Msg 21206) Date: 15-JUL 03:08 Business Mac Do the stretching after pasting the object into a word processor or page layout program. ------------------------------ From: MACINTOUCH Subject: RE: Do the PostScript strech... (Re: Msg 21266) Date: 15-JUL 20:34 Business Mac I used to do this with MacDraw and PageMaker. Create the text in MacDraw, save it in an Acta outline, and paste it into PageMaker, where you can stretch the object horizontally or vertically. MacWEEK uses the technique for their headlines. Ric ------------------------------ From: NATURAL Subject: RE: Do the PostScript strech... (Re: Msg 21272) Date: 15-JUL 23:38 Business Mac but then when I paste back into SuperPaint (even using Acta as a middle-DA), it still reverts. I guess I'll leave it in PageMaker. ------------------------------ From: DDUNHAM Subject: re: Control Panel vs. Chooser (Re: Msg 21214) Date: 15-JUL 03:08 Network Digests >From: wrs@k.cs.cmu.edu (Walter Smith) >Subject: Control Panel vs. Chooser My guess is that Chooser chooses among files (printer drivers, AppleShare driver), while Control Panel doesn't normally. Note that Startup Device deals with local hardware, the Chooser more with remote devices. >From: jww@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Joel West) >Subject: Re: Control Panel vs. Chooser I have 30 DAs under my Apple menu (thanks to the forthcoming Suitcase from Steve Brecher's Software Supply), and use most of them occasionally. I do think both are useful and different. ------------------------------ From: SOCCERKING Subject: Selecting print quality Date: 15-JUL 14:14 Programming Techniques How does one go about selecting the print quality from within an application, without going through the dialogs. Like the es one go about selecting the print quality manually without having the user going threw the dialog, like the {PrintOptions} variable in MPW. ------------------------------ From: DDUNHAM Subject: RE: Selecting print quality (Re: Msg 1876) Date: 16-JUL 22:28 Programming Techniques If you do it, you risk being incompatible (isn't MPW burned by that one with the latest drivers?). If you just want to be draft, then you can use low level printing (which actually looks much nicer than draft on an ImageWriter), though I've heard rumours that Apple will stop supporting low level printing in the future. ------------------------------ From: DWB Subject: RE: Selecting print quality (Re: Msg 1876) Date: 19-JUL 22:35 Programming Techniques One way is to have a print record which get's read from a resource. If the resource doesn't exist, you can put up the dialog and have the user select whatever options you think you need. Then save the resource. Whenever you need to print load the resource (or create it as above) and validate it with PrValidate. That way you are guaranteed to be compatible with whatever's going on in the current print driver and at the same time the user is only required to specify o[ptions a minimum of times. Presumably you can even do the selection before you ship the stuff so they will probably never see it needing to be done. That cryptic enough for you... David ------------------------------ From: MACINTOUCH Subject: SE video problems Date: 15-JUL 21:21 Bugs & Features I think I've stumbled on one of the things that causes video problems with the Mac SE. I've been opening the SE up a lot, testing accelerators and hard disks, and noticed that the red wire from the flyback transformer was touching the white ground wire. I separated them a little, and the real-time- rubber-screen effect on the left side seemed to get better - now it expands and contracts less. (You might have to see it to understand). Tweaking the brightness controls on the analog board didn't seem to help anything much, not even the barrel distortion. Ric ------------------------------ From: BRECHER Subject: Re: Re: Control Panel vs. Chooser Date: 16-JUL 02:35 MUGS Online To: mo@well.UUCP (Maurice Weitman) Subject: Re: Re: Control Panel vs. Chooser > The only real objection I have to Chooser being separate is the DA slot it > uses, and that is something that will no longer be a problem, RSN, right > Steve? Right. The revolution starts in booth 1321 at MacWorld Expo, Boston. ------------------------------ From: BRECHER Subject: Re: Debugging frozen mouse problem Date: 16-JUL 02:35 MUGS Online To: smethers@psu-cs.UUCP (Paul Smethers) Subject: Re: Debugging frozen mouse problem > I'm having problems finding a bug the freezes the mouse. Has anyone found a > good debugging method for finding these bugs (i.e. is there some way with > some tool to trap the memory access to the bogus address)? Find a Mac II and run your code on it; the offending code will likely cause an immediate bus error trap into the debugger. I know of no other debugging technique for this problem. ------------------------------ From: DDUNHAM Subject: RE: Re: Debugging frozen mouse problem (Re: Msg 21281) Date: 17-JUL 06:45 MUGS Online I've had a frozen mouse on my II; I suspect it happened because interrupts got disabled (couldn't enter TMON either). ------------------------------ From: HALL Subject: Lisa (what's that?) hard disks Date: 16-JUL 17:04 Hardware & Peripherals Is there any way to use a Lisa internal hard disk on a Mac? What kind of interface does the Lisa use? Thanks, Brian ------------------------------ From: NATURAL Subject: RE: Mac II Beep SND (Re: Msg 21312) Date: 17-JUL 15:41 Macintosh II > grayson@cartan.Berkeley.EDU (Matthew Grayson) > Subject: Re: Mac ][ First Impressions... > Date: 23 Jun 87 15:52:05 GMT > Organization: Math Dept. UCB Matt, thanks for that great Mac II SND tip. One quick question though... I would like to modify SoundWave to save SND resources as yours does. Can you post the patch or send it my way? Thanks. Joshua Wachs Natural Intelligence Consulting Delphi: NATURAL MCI : NATURAL ------------------------------ From: SOCCERKING Subject: RE: Region structure? (Re: Msg 1875) Date: 16-JUL 18:50 Developers' Corner The structure of a region is given in the book "Hidden Powers of The Macintosh" by Christopher L. Morgan. It is put out by The Wait Group. Instead of making you buy it I will be a nice guy and give it a shot. The data that defines the shape of a nonrectangular region is a list of integers that makes up a sequance of fields, each specifies the corner points of the shape that lie along one horizantal line in QuickDraw's coordiante system. Each field begins with a y coordinate that uniquely specifies the height of the horizontal line, followed by a sequence of x coordinates that specify the horizontal positions of its corner points. Each field terminates with an integer whose value is 32767, and the entire list terminates with an extra 32767. The field are given in increasing order of theri y coordinates, and the x coordinates within each field are also given in increasing order. Now lets try an example! visualize this... A L shaped figure with corner points (100,100) - (200,100) (200,200) - (300,200) (100,300) - (300,300) ok the region in memory would look like this 100, 100, 200, 32767, 200, 200, 300, 32767, 300, 100, 300, 32767, 32767 put that in a understandable format and you get 100, 100, 200, 32767 200, 200, 300, 32767 300, 100, 300, 32767 32767 Gee thanks Mr. Morgan! Now maybe some one can help me with selecting the print quality? Brent. ------------------------------ From: HPP Subject: RE: Region structure? (Re: Msg 1878) Date: 19-JUL 02:03 Developers' Corner I also found a ref to quichdraw regions on another net( all right there are others..not as good of course) by DADLER where he mentioned that Apple had patented their region structure in the UK and maybe USA..and described as a series of short words: 1)size 2)rgnBBox 3) a series of lists Y1,X1,X2..0x7fff Y2,X22,X23,X24..0x7fff .. 0x7ffff as a fence as end of Y.lists. Each Y,X iverts all points to the right and below as to beinog IN or OUT of the region. Im interested to know whether a hardware can enhance graphic ops on macs...Phil Peterson ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: Region structure? (Re: Msg 1888) Date: 19-JUL 16:24 Developers' Corner Hmmm ... it would be interesting to know what claims Apple patented. Patents are never issued on an entire thing (pardon the imprecise wording here). Instead, the patent lists a number of claims, or aspects of the process, which are subject to the patent. Region operations can be extremely slow. Tony Nelson's Apple-shaped windows demonstrate this nicely (I think when you move them). What I'd suggest you do is analyze region operations for a couple of properties: 1. CPU time compared to the size of the region (this would give you an idea of how much overhead is inherent to the amount of memory taken ... no matter how fast the hardware is, a region with more corners will take longer to process) 2. Use of the stack (I don't know if region operations are recursive). 3. Generality. QuickDraw implements a subset of graphic operators, and you might want to have more operators available. 4. Pathology. It should be possible to construct some regions that cause blowups. This was definitely the case with the 64K ROMs because some fixups were made in the 128K ROMs. Once you get through this, you'll probably know more about regions than anyone except Bill Atkinson. :-) peter ------------------------------ From: JIMH Subject: synching to vidoo blanking Date: 18-JUL 02:03 Programming Paul, i dont think i understand how you synch to the vido blanking for the mac II? you seem to be installing your task in a vbl queue for the card. does that mean there is a seperate vbl queue for each card so it does synch with the card video blanking. I got a neat little hack in progress to use multiple screen aninimation on the mac II. works great i can have up to 4 screens now (8 with expansion) and dont have to violate any of the IM rules and it will work on any video card that follows apple video dr iver specs :-) i am finding some bugs in the video driver though (i belive) which i am trying to work out with apple tech support on link. anyway when its fully functional will send you code if interested. might be interesting to use it on globe instead of blitting bitmaps to screen. best jim ------------------------------ From: LOGICHACK Subject: RE: synching to vidoo blanking (Re: Msg 21326) Date: 18-JUL 02:45 Programming Yeah, since each video card can have a totally different video blanking time, Apple added at VBL task queue to each card. Its pretty sensible. If you check out the VBL.a file in Globe, you'll see that all my task does is increment a counter on every vbl. The main Globe code merely waits for this counter to increment before drawing, if the Sync to VBL option is chosen. Let me know if you need more clarification. Please send your video stuff. I'm always on the lookout for neat hacks! Gee, with expanded video, can't you do about 15 or more pages or mono stuff? Or do the page bounds have to lie at certain boundaries? Feel free to hack up Globe as much as you like. Please keep me up on how you're improving it. I was just thinking the other day and realized that I spend a sigificant amount of time just just doing normal event loop stuff. You'll see how fast quickdraw really is if you move the Globe window to the lower right of the scree, align the window, and then pull down the About... box. The About... box has a really small event loop and the globe spins much faster. Best, Paul :) ------------------------------ From: RABBIT Subject: Deactivating statictext Date: 17-JUL 23:38 Programming Techniques I am having trouble finding a (simple solution) to a small problem. I am writing an application that has a dialog box which contains StaticText that must be deactivated (dimmed). I figure i could use a pattern transfer but that seems to be to much (since the mac usually has nice little routines for such things). Is there any simpler technique or am I stuck with the pattern transfer. In this dialog there are 20 items which must be activated and deactived so that's why I'd rather not do a pattern trans. Scott ------------------------------ From: JIMH Subject: RE: Deactivating statictext (Re: Msg 1880) Date: 18-JUL 02:07 Programming Techniques Scott, hi i couldnt find any good way. i finally settled for HideDItem to hide the active text items. if you want to be compatable with old old roms ;-) you can move the dialog item off the screen. best jim ps using patterns are ok unless you need to do an update then old pattern shows up and tab still goes there. ------------------------------ From: RABBIT Subject: RE: Deactivating statictext (Re: Msg 1881) Date: 19-JUL 23:03 Programming Techniques Jim, Thanks for the response. At one time I tried the HideDItem type of solution... But it just didn't look right. The dialog looked like it had gaping holes in it. Another problem I have is trying to make editext items look deactivated (at least not respond to mouse clicks and key strokes) but I'll have to save that till I get the deactivated text out of the way ! I guess I might have to do it the hard way (in the old days using the toolbox routines would have been considered to easy... funny how things change)... Scott ------------------------------ From: RABBIT Subject: RE: Deactivating statictext (Re: Msg 1882) Date: 19-JUL 23:13 Programming Techniques I appreciate that response! I should have said more about my application so you didn't have to write all of that for me. The items that will be deactivated will be selected by the user. I know that IM doesn't like this kind of stuff but I am going to have the user click on the statictext to enable and disable a database field (which contains edittext below each statictext item). This was the best solution to a very crowded screen. I will set up a loop to keep track of deactivated items in the database file so they can be deactivated upon creation of the dialog. I just can't beleive that apple didn't provide a simpler way (I guess I'm asking for to much now). I'm doing the APP in assembly language (don't ask, I'm just a nut). Any ideas on how to keep an edittext item in a dialog to keep from responding to mouse and keyboard events since they all share the same text record? Thanks...Scott ------------------------------ From: M_DELUGG Subject: Looking for an FKEY... Date: 18-JUL 08:17 Bugs & Features Hi gang, Camera DA gives me trouble now and then (maybe I have an older one?)... But I was *really* wondering if anybody had done this number in an fkey flavor? I'm probably having trouble with CAMERA cuz I'm running EZ-Menus and just bout anything else I like <smile>, including all kinds of fkeys and inits (what the heck can you do on a "PC" that even approaches the 'mad-cap' computing we do on our MACs?!?) OK, I'm biased, anyhow... Since the 128k roms WON'T ALLOW me to snapshot a menu, and I'd rather keep my DA & EZmenu status quo, is there a fix? - Mikey ------------------------------ From: DDUNHAM Subject: Mac II w/multiple video cards Date: 19-JUL 03:53 Macintosh II If you're using a Mac II with multiple video cards, be sure to use multiple monitors, too. Otherwise you can drag the mouse pointer off into never-never land. Apparently Apple's cards don't know if a monitor is actually attached. ------------------------------ From: METASOFTWARE Subject: color picker Date: 18-JUL 19:17 Tools for Developers anyone seen the new color picker for the MAC II? it didn't seem to be be in MPW. what's entailed? ------------------------------ From: DDUNHAM Subject: RE: color picker (Re: Msg 1885) Date: 19-JUL 03:54 Tools for Developers I used get_color(where,prompt,inColor,outColor) Point where; char *prompt; RGBColor *inColor, *outColor; { asm { clr.w -(SP) move.l where,-(SP) move.l inColor,-(SP) move.l outColor,-(SP) move.w #9,-(SP) dc.w 0xa82e ; _Pack12 move.w (SP)+,D0 } } from LightspeedC. Pascal programmers might be able to use some sort of inline thingy for the move.w and the _Pack12. ------------------------------ From: DDUNHAM Subject: PageMaker 2.0 "features" Date: 22-JUL 21:20 Bugs & Features Some bugs in PageMaker 2.0: PageMaker doesn't like an empty Clipboard. Open a desk accessory that supports text selection and copying (Acta, Calendar, miniWRITER, Phone Pad, etc.), and while the cursor is a flashing insertion point (i.e. no text selected), choose Copy. Now click the PageMaker window back to the front and enjoy the "Cannot paste from Clipboard Error -102" dialog. PageMaker doesn't draw colorized menus properly on a Macintosh II. If you select a picture in PageMaker and copy it to the Clipboard, you can't paste it into MacWrite (you _can_ paste it into the Scrapbook). PageMaker is writing a defective Clipboard. David Dunham "Whenever you see a sign 'No Exit,' it means Maitreya Design there is an exit." ------------------------------ From: MADMACS Subject: RE: PageMaker 2.0 "features" (Re: Msg 21425) Date: 22-JUL 21:46 Bugs & Features Some more PageMaker 2.0 bugs/problems: It doesn't print shadowed type correctly. It also won't print legal size paper correctly to the LaserWriter Plus (and I assume LaserWriter also) if you manually feed the legal size paper in (i.e., not using a legal size paper tray). And the HUGE file sizes, but Aldus considers that a feature I guess :-) I've also had some problems going from IBM-> Mac via TOPS. Bitmaps can get scrambled, and in one case all of the Zapf Dingbats characters were lost in a transfer. Don't know if this is Aldus or TOPS: Aldus had never heard of the problem (they claimed). Robert Hammen Madison Macintosh Users Group ------------------------------ From: MADMACS Subject: SoundWave Date: 23-JUL 01:12 Macintosh II I just got the update to SoundCap (called SoundWave) from Impulse (formerly MacNifty). I've played with it for about 5 minutes and have already crashed the machine twice (although I'm only using a 512e). It's "programmability" is in the form of swci resources you can create - they provide Lightspeed Pascal source for a sample swci resource, but claim you can use most any compiler (i.e. one that supports FKEYs) to produce these resources. I'll report more info when I have it. Robert Hammen Madison Macintosh Users Group ------------------------------ From: JIMWEINRICH Subject: NEW Bernoulli drives Date: 24-JUL 02:06 Hardware & Peripherals So, guys, does anybody have any experience with the NEW Bernoulli-style drives for the Mac? I've gotten answers about the Iomega (original) Bernoulli box, but at least 3 other companies seem to be doing them now, judging from ads in the Mac magazines. Thanks for your help! --Jim Weinrich ------------------------------ From: DDUNHAM Subject: RE: equation composers Date: 24-JUL 05:19 Network Digests A local prof who has looked at 4 different equation composers says that Expressionist is the "least bad" of them all. That means, he likes it, but (like most programs) it's got some flaws. It's $55. (I could have told you this quicker if you'd left the note on Delphi!) ------------------------------ From: DDUNHAM Subject: re: Arrow keys and collapsing selection (Re: Msg 21457) Date: 24-JUL 05:19 Network Digests >From: brian@ut-sally.UUCP (Brian H. Powell) >Subject: Arrow keys and collapsing selections I like handling Up or Down as in TextEdit. I think LsC works that way, and it's handy if you've found text, and want to insert something at the beginning or end. An actual move would require the cursor to be moved back. Actually, Left and Right might be handled that way, too. So go with solution 2. ------------------------------ From: RABBIT Subject: edititem disable Date: 23-JUL 23:32 Programming Techniques The SetDItem worked very well!! I forgot to read the section in the SetDItem explanation that said it didn't redraw the control. If the first item in the EditText list is disabled though I have to put a special check in or else the EditText item will still be active after an update event. I think I am going to write two routines DimStatText and DisEdItem for any future programs, it looks like they could be quite usefull. I did find one interesting thing. I did a GetPort and GetPenState and then a SetPort and SetPenState to save the current port and PenState (I originally thought that the penstate was part of the portrec). However, unless I restore the penstate before the port _evidently_ the penstate isn't updated properly. Scott ------------------------------ From: PEABO Subject: RE: edititem disable (Re: Msg 1909) Date: 24-JUL 01:48 Programming Techniques If you restore the port before the penstate, then what you are doing is setting the pen state of the port you saved rather than the port whose pen state you altered! peter ------------------------------ From: DDUNHAM Subject: cdevs Date: 24-JUL 00:24 Programming Techniques Are there any tricks to writing a cdev? When I switch from mine to General, General's font turns into Chicago 12. I'm using Geneva 9 in my own cdev, so I'm confused. ------------------------------ End of Delphi Mac Digest ************************ -------