jose@calvin.ee.cornell.edu (Jose M. Rosado-Roman) (06/28/91)
OK, so I have this friend with a really old mac (128K)! And he has asked me to post a request for him... Do any of you out there know where I can get a copy of a really old application called SWITCHER?? It is supposed to be a pre-multifinder application that did what the multifinder does now... He is looking for it because he likes the way it used to 'shuffle' from application to application. He had a copy on a 400k floppy but the floppy gave out on him... Having heard this from him, I have gotten interested in the 'shuffling' part of it and am wondering if there is anyway to do this with Sys7.0?? I think it would be neat to see the 'shuffling' of application windows... I use my plus for work and play... -- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jose M. Rosado-Roman :Internet: 353 E&TC :jose@calvin.ee.cornell.edu Department of Electrical Engineering :Who's Mr. Roman??
philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) (06/28/91)
In article <1991Jun28.050137.22383@calvin.ee.cornell.edu>, jose@calvin.ee.cornell.edu (Jose M. Rosado-Roman) writes: |> OK, so I have this friend with a really old mac (128K)! And he has |> asked me to post a request for him... |> |> Do any of you out there know where I can get a copy of a really old |> application called SWITCHER?? It is supposed to be a pre-multifinder |> application that did what the multifinder does now... |> He is looking for it because he likes the way it used to 'shuffle' from |> application to application. He had a copy on a 400k floppy but the |> floppy gave out on him... |> |> Having heard this from him, I have gotten interested in the 'shuffling' |> part of it and am wondering if there is anyway to do this with Sys7.0?? |> I think it would be neat to see the 'shuffling' of application windows... To my recollection, Switcher needed 512K or more - are you sure the machine has only 128K? The "shuffling" could either be instantaneous, or you could get an animated effect, where the screen slid sideways as the other application's screen moved onto the screen. If you had enough memory, each switched out application remembered its whole screen, which avoided the updates necessary with multifinder when an application moves to the front. Multifinder, with all applications visible at the same time, was touted as an improvement (mostly, it was; I wonder how many people remember or know which multifinder features were originally introduced as clever hacks to make Switcher work). Still, it seems something was lost in the process. It would be an improvement if the System 7 hide feature, instead of just making the windows of an application invisible, moved them offscreen if memory was available. Kind of ironic that this should come up at the same time as the thread about how great the Amiga multiple screen feature is. -- Philip Machanick philip@pescadero.stanford.edu
johnston@minnie.me.udel.edu (06/29/91)
In article <1991Jun28.162441.26851@neon.Stanford.EDU>, philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) writes... >In article <1991Jun28.050137.22383@calvin.ee.cornell.edu>, jose@calvin.ee.cornell.edu (Jose M. Rosado-Roman) writes: >|> Do any of you out there know where I can get a copy of a really old >|> application called SWITCHER?? It is supposed to be a pre-multifinder >|> application that did what the multifinder does now... >To my recollection, Switcher needed 512K or more - are you sure the >machine has only 128K? True. But what an amazing thing that Andy Hertzfeld gave us! I used to be able to "download" in the background with Switcher by running a macro that occasionally switched to Red Ryder to soak up the contents of the serial port buffer. >Multifinder, with all applications visible at the same time, >was touted as an improvement (mostly, it was; I wonder how many >people remember or know which multifinder features were originally >introduced as clever hacks to make Switcher work). Not to mention the fact the Multifinder development was done parallel to Hertzfeld's Servant project. Servant did many neat things that ended in System 7.0 with just a bit of a twist ... I loved the hand icon that let you drag the window around, and the zoom views, and the easy access to resources ... and the NAME especially. Multifinder (huh?). We didn't even have a "Find" command in UniFinder until System 7.0. Servant was a name that made sense. >Kind of ironic that this should come up at the same time as the thread >about how great the Amiga multiple screen feature is. But please don't xref to comp.sys.amiga.advocacy ... ;-) Bill (johnston@minnie.me.udel.edu)
kos@cunyvms1.gc.cuny.edu (06/29/91)
>In article <1991Jun28.050137.22383@calvin.ee.cornell.edu>, jose@calvin.ee.cornell.edu (Jose M. Rosado-Roman) writes: >|> OK, so I have this friend with a really old mac (128K)! And he has >|> asked me to post a request for him... >|> >|> Do any of you out there know where I can get a copy of a really old >|> application called SWITCHER?? It is supposed to be a pre-multifinder >|> application that did what the multifinder does now... About six months ago I dug out Switcher (can't remember which version-sorry) and tried to get it to word on my MacPlus with 1 meg with System 6.0.5. I couldn't get it to boot. I think I also tried it when I got 6.0.7. When it still didn't work, I trashed it altogether, thinking that it was so old that it just couldn't work in the then-current Mac environment. Is this true? Bob Kosovsky
peirce@outpost.UUCP (Michael Peirce) (06/29/91)
In article <1991Jun28.162441.26851@neon.Stanford.EDU>, philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) writes: > > Multifinder, with all applications visible at the same time, > was touted as an improvement (mostly, it was; I wonder how many > people remember or know which multifinder features were originally > introduced as clever hacks to make Switcher work). Still, it seems > something was lost in the process. It would be an improvement if > the System 7 hide feature, instead of just making the windows of > an application invisible, moved them offscreen if memory was > available. > > Kind of ironic that this should come up at the same time as the thread > about how great the Amiga multiple screen feature is. This seems like it might gobble memory very quickly. It also doesn't sound like it would handle muliple screens too well. I'm staring at a 19" screen with 24 bits per pixel, I wouldn't want to allocate 3 Meg for each screen that gets swapped out every time I switched from MacDraw Pro to PhotoShop to ResEdit then back to MacDraw Pro! Even turning on VM to get enough memeory would be way too ssllooww... -- michael -- Michael Peirce -- outpost!peirce@claris.com -- Peirce Software -- Suite 301, 719 Hibiscus Place -- Macintosh Programming -- San Jose, California 95117 -- & Consulting -- (408) 244-6554, AppleLink: PEIRCE
hooverb@h.cs.wvu.wvnet.edu (Bruce Hoover) (07/01/91)
From article <D2150035.jcyy5x@outpost.UUCP>, by peirce@outpost.UUCP (Michael Peirce): > > In article <1991Jun28.162441.26851@neon.Stanford.EDU>, philip@pescadero.Stanford.EDU (Philip Machanick) writes: >> >> Multifinder, with all applications visible at the same time, >> was touted as an improvement (mostly, it was; I wonder how many >> people remember or know which multifinder features were originally >> introduced as clever hacks to make Switcher work). Still, it seems >> something was lost in the process. It would be an improvement if >> the System 7 hide feature, instead of just making the windows of >> an application invisible, moved them offscreen if memory was >> available. >> >> Kind of ironic that this should come up at the same time as the thread >> about how great the Amiga multiple screen feature is. > > This seems like it might gobble memory very quickly. It also doesn't > sound like it would handle muliple screens too well. I'm staring > at a 19" screen with 24 bits per pixel, I wouldn't want to allocate > 3 Meg for each screen that gets swapped out every time I switched > from MacDraw Pro to PhotoShop to ResEdit then back to MacDraw Pro! > Even turning on VM to get enough memeory would be way too ssllooww... > > -- michael > Ah, but switcher didn't force you to store the screens, it gave the option of storing the screens. When you remember that several original Mac programs ran on 128 K machines, when we got our 512K, we could run switcher with 128 K partitions, and have two or three things running at once. This was several years before anyone ever even heard of multifinder. Remember as well, that the "Classic" line witht the built in monoochrome screen doesn't take much memory for one screen. Especially if you were running from the built-in 400 K floppy, it was slow, slow, slow. So having screens storing was a real treat. BTW, using switcher, it was not required that finder was loaded... you could if you wanted to, but you could save all sorts of memory by not including the finder in you group of partitions. Bruce Hoover