THINGVOL@LAX.WISC.EDU (04/01/91)
Coming soon : MultiSwitch GS ! ---------------------------- MultiSwitch integrates the MultiSwitch program itself and MultiTask, a multi applications/multi-tasks environment for the Apple II-GS. ProgramUs functionalities : Switches between GS/OS applications : For instance, on a 1280Kb machine with system 5.0.4 it is possible to use at the mean time Beagle Draw, Deluxe Paint and MultiScribe GS. The configuration used during the tests was a 1280Kb GS equipped with a TransWarp , a 40Mb SCSI hard Disk, a 20 Mb internal hard disk (Western Digital compatible drive), an AppleDisk 3.5S running with GS/OS 5.0.4, 16 Kb GS/OS cache, an accessory for the French keyboard translation and the two accessories of MultiSwitch. Times to switch between applications - from the moment the next application is selected through the DA designed for this purpose to the moment the application is ready for work - are as follow : BeagleDraw and Deluxe Paint were loaded from a 800Kb disk and MultiScribe from a 40Mb SCSI Seagate( hard disk. BeagleDraw to Deluxe Paint : less than 3 seconds Deluxe Paint to Beagle Draw : 4 seconds Beagle Draw to MultiScribe : 3 seconds another example using Prosel 16 : BeagleDraw to Prosel 16 : less than 1 second This is particularly noticeable with applications compatible with the Scrap Manager. One can draw with Deluxe Paint and immediately include the work in a stack created under HyperCard GS. Then write a text with BeagleWrite and fill a TextField of the HyperCard stack very quickly. One can launch text or graphic based applications, use shells designed for APW, Merlin or Prosel without loading these applications. It is possible to speed up GS/OS applications theoretically incompatible with ExpressLoad. Up to 15 applications may reside in the mean time in memory . This amount will be increased in future releases. MultiSwitch GS contains a completely new Prodos 8 which is able to run clean Prodos programs without destroying the GS operating system. For instance it is possible to use Copy //+ and Beagle FontEditor or Block Warden but when the Quit option is selected one can launch immediately a GS/OS program loaded by MultiSwitch. The Prodos 8 applications are able to access the caching system of GS/OS, resource forks or files and more than two volumes per slot and all the enhancement of a 16 bits operating system. Up to 10 Prodos 8 applications may be loaded through the P8 emulator. Might an application not be compatible with the P8 emulator - name of this new Prodos - then it is still possible to launch as formerly with a classic launcher or it can be loaded in memory and switch (up to 8 Prodos 8 applications can reside at the same time in memory). MultiSwitch GS protects GS/OS much better than the Finder does. Returning from Prodos is very fast : 1 second for AppleWorks 8bits. There is a direct access to AppleSoft programs and switch to Basic.System. The break vector is redirected to this Basic under Prodos 8. Thus a crash is not fatal. Under GS/OS a CDA (QuickQuit) can be used to exit from System Death Errors, ExpressLoad mistakes, crash in monitor, endless loops or bugs of a program. MultiSwitch GS fixes system bugs like those affecting Startup Tools and NDAUs, the tool setup, sfGETFILE I It can install INITs (temporary or permanent), GS/OS drivers, CDAs and NDAs. It is also possible to re-install INITs, like Debug. For systems with few memory, one can use a Switcher Text or mini-launcher (graphic 540 bytes). MultiTask GS is a multi-application, multi-task environment for the Apple II-GS. Multi-task dialogs, inter-application communications, inter-processes communication, multi-task shells, share of documents/commands between programs, a powerful memory management with virtual memory capabilities are available. The use of windows, dialogs and pulldown menus is far much easier than in the single application mode. The system hides or shows the windows which belong to the front end automatically, it handles controls in dialog. The task manager is able to use multi-processor systems in many configurations (two processors or more addressing the same memory space, processors on expansion cards addressing their own memory) and - as soon as our AppleTalk network will be in use - the Task Manager will use GSs connected under AppleTalk. MultiTasks is provided with four applications and their APW sources : two samples for developers illustrating the use of dialog, shells, pipe-lines, I/O managements, tasks management ; a program to display documentations (useful for users groups) and a text processor (four texts, four clipboards, communication with the shell). ************************************* Approximative price: $80 Available: April 1991 Contact : BrainStorm Software 7, alle Murat - Bois Imprial 54630 Richarmnil FRANCE Fax: (33) 83-57-57-65 -------------------------------------
unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User) (04/01/91)
In article <21033120440843@lax.wisc.edu> THINGVOL@LAX.WISC.EDU writes: >Coming soon : MultiSwitch GS ! >---------------------------- >MultiSwitch integrates the MultiSwitch program itself and MultiTask, a multi >applications/multi-tasks environment for the Apple II-GS. Could this be compared to MultiFinder? Even after reading the description, I can't quite tell.. Why don't you just put each application's name under the Apple menu (like in MultiFinder)?? Also, can you see the window for the other application underneath the current window? -- /unknown@ucscb.ucsc.edu Apple IIGS Forever! ULTIMA VI GS -mail me. CDs-mail me\ \ McIntosh Junior: The Power to Crush the Other Kids. /
jeff@pro-avalon.cts.com (Jeff Jungblut) (04/03/91)
In-Reply-To: message from THINGVOL@LAX.WISC.EDU Regarding all the hype about MultiSwitch GS: this is the best April Fool's joke I've seen this year. It had me going up to the description of the "P8 emulator". Didn't any of you guys notice the Date: line on this message?! -- jeff@pro-avalon UUCP: crash!pro-avalon!jeff | pro-avalon ARPA: crash!pro-avalon!jeff@nosc.mil | 619/632-7161, 2400, 81N INET: jeff@pro-avalon.cts.com | Leucadia, CA
dlyons@Apple.COM (David A. Lyons) (04/04/91)
In article <28671.apple.net@pro-avalon> jeff@pro-avalon.cts.com (Jeff Jungblut) writes: >Regarding all the hype about MultiSwitch GS: this is the best April Fool's >joke I've seen this year. It had me going up to the description of the >"P8 emulator". Didn't any of you guys notice the Date: line on this >message?! > >-- jeff@pro-avalon > >UUCP: crash!pro-avalon!jeff | pro-avalon >ARPA: crash!pro-avalon!jeff@nosc.mil | 619/632-7161, 2400, 81N >INET: jeff@pro-avalon.cts.com | Leucadia, CA The BrainStorm folks appear to be legitimate. I have not seen their product, but they first posted their press release to the AII.NEWS$ group address on AppleLink several weeks ago, and I saw the letter Andy Nicholas received from them months ago. A P8 emulator is a very interesting idea; it could actually work, although I don't see how it can be *guaranteed* to work, since P8 programs will wind up doing device access behind the back of loaded GS/OS device drivers, and this could cause major problems (the GS/OS rule is never to make SmartPort calls behind a device driver's back). I also wonder whether they're switching the bank 0 portion of GS/OS in and out all the time, which would be tricky (for one thing, there's a heartbeat interrupt down there that dispatches SIGNALs). -- David A. Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc. | DAL Systems Apple II System Software Engineer | P.O. Box 875 America Online: Dave Lyons | Cupertino, CA 95015-0875 GEnie: D.LYONS2 or DAVE.LYONS CompuServe: 72177,3233 Internet/BITNET: dlyons@apple.com UUCP: ...!ames!apple!dlyons My opinions are my own, not Apple's.
bazyar@ernie (Jawaid Bazyar) (04/04/91)
In article <51124@apple.Apple.COM> dlyons@Apple.COM (David A. Lyons) writes: >A P8 emulator is a very interesting idea; it could actually work, although I >don't see how it can be *guaranteed* to work, since P8 programs will wind >up doing device access behind the back of loaded GS/OS device drivers, and >this could cause major problems (the GS/OS rule is never to make SmartPort >calls behind a device driver's back). I can see how that would cause a problem, with GS/OS drivers caching and all. Maybe during the duration of the P8 program they just tell the drivers to flush their caches. No problem then. >I also wonder whether they're switching the bank 0 portion of GS/OS in and >out all the time, which would be tricky (for one thing, there's a heartbeat >interrupt down there that dispatches SIGNALs). Wouldn't it be possible to just have the P8 program somewhere in regular, fast memory, since no P8 programs use long addressing (none should, although I'm sure naughties like ProTerm do)? All the short address references would refer to the particular bank the program was in, and they could easily hook their emulator into the MLI vector. Doesn't seem to hard to me. This multiswitch appears to be real- most excellent. We may order a copy soon- if/when we (too poor to buy it alone) get it, we'll let ya know how it is. -- Jawaid Bazyar |"I'm sure K&R have never heard of Mike." Senior/Computer Engineering | bazyar@cs.uiuc.edu |"That's okay. I'm sure Mike's never heard of K&R". Apple II Forever! | (discussion about Orca/C)
SHBOUM@MACALSTR.EDU (04/04/91)
In article <28671.apple.net@pro-avalon> jeff@pro-avalon.cts.com (Jeff Jungblut) writes: > Regarding all the hype about MultiSwitch GS: this is the best April Fool's > joke I've seen this year. It had me going up to the description of the > "P8 emulator". Didn't any of you guys notice the Date: line on this > message?! Well just to add in my $.02, we on the Tailsman BBS, gave the FTA a bunch of suggestions on software to write after they came out with the XMas demo, and on the idea of doing a Muliti-tasking program, they stated that they were not going to do one because another French group was already in the process of making one. Now we get a press release from a French group with a Multi-tasking program. Vaporware. Maybe, maybe not. But with Andy, Dave and the FTA giving positive remarks about it, this could be it! Hal | Hal Bouma | Send mail to: SHBoum@Macalstr.edu | Macalester College | and SHBoum@Macalstr.Bitnet | GEnie: H.Bouma | ".sig still under construction!"
dlyons@Apple.COM (David A. Lyons) (04/06/91)
In article <1991Apr3.230600.538@m.cs.uiuc.edu> bazyar@cs.uiuc.edu (Jawaid Bazyar) writes: >[...] > Wouldn't it be possible to just have the P8 program somewhere in regular, >fast memory, since no P8 programs use long addressing (none should, although >I'm sure naughties like ProTerm do)? All the short address references >would refer to the particular bank the program was in, and they could easily >hook their emulator into the MLI vector. Doesn't seem to hard to me. Problems: To make absolute addressing refer to the same bank as the P8 program, you'd have to set the Bank register to that bank, but where do you set the Direct Page register? It's limited to bank zero. And to run code with interrupts enabled outside of bank zero, you have to put the 816 in Native mode, not emulation mode. You can still leave A/X/Y 8 bits wide, but there are subtle differences between native and emulation modes. And you'd get killed trying to call firmware or SmartPort stuff from native mode & from outside bank zero. And the code would miss the $C0xx softswitches. (There's a hardware mode to enable $C0xx access in *every* bank, but that wouldn't be too helpful.) -- David A. Lyons, Apple Computer, Inc. | DAL Systems Apple II System Software Engineer | P.O. Box 875 America Online: Dave Lyons | Cupertino, CA 95015-0875 GEnie: D.LYONS2 or DAVE.LYONS CompuServe: 72177,3233 Internet/BITNET: dlyons@apple.com UUCP: ...!ames!apple!dlyons My opinions are my own, not Apple's.