marvel@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Howard P Marvel) (04/12/89)
Some of you will surely have noticed the extensive articles in MacTutor on the Apple Data Stream Protocol and HyperCard. I am in the process of freezing the interface of my HyperCard stack and am considering including a button for network communication, but I need some advice as to feasibility. I don't have the ADSP materials from Apple, but perhaps some of you do. Anyway, here are a few questions. 1. Do the XCMD's work? I have a copy of a previous incarnation of the network drivers -- these for ATP, not ADSP -- called HyperStation. HyperStation is from the same author, but I cannot get it to work properly. In particular, a user's memo message is passed to an ATP routine in a local hypertalk variable, but I cannot see where it is to be handled by the server or listener end of the transaction. My skim of MacTutor suggests that the ADSP routines are likely to be capable of easier communication, but I would like some assurance that they work. 2. What is the distribution policy for the ADSP system software? Will it be built into later system releases, or will it be an add-on? 3. Can I get header files for THINK C from somewhere? My cursory scan of the headers provided with my compiler did not turn up anything. 4. Heaven would of course be C source to do the same stuff as the MacTutor article does in Pascal. 5. As a summary, do you out there believe that communication between machines with or without server intervention is going to be feasible in the very near future, or is this a feature best left to a release somewhere in the foggy future? I note that the Focal Point II networking requires the intervention of a server, while the HyperStation approach suggests that peer to peer communication could be handled without interrupting drastically what the target user is doing. That is, I have in mind that a message would be received by an idle handler that would stuff the message into a global and set the hilite of the communications button indicating that a message was waiting. Is this sensible and/or feasible? Thanks in advance.