omalley@mace.cc.purdue.edu (John O'Malley) (09/17/90)
In article <11276@spool.cs.wisc.edu> tonyrich@titanic.cs.wisc.edu (Anthony Rich) writes: >I'm hoping the next feature will be added by Apple: Screen-blanking >protection in hardware. I once saw an Apple Lisa with a dimmed screen ... move the mouse and it came up to full brightness. But I have no clue whether it was hardware or software. If it was hardware, then that's even more reason that Apple should add similar functionality to the Mac line. -John --- John O'Malley / Macintosh / Purdue University / (317) omalley@mace.cc.purdue.edu / Specialist / Computing Center / 494-1787
russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) (09/18/90)
In article <5532@mace.cc.purdue.edu> omalley@mace.cc.purdue.edu (John O'Malley) writes: >I once saw an Apple Lisa with a dimmed screen ... move the mouse and it >came up to full brightness. But I have no clue whether it was hardware >or software. > >If it was hardware, then that's even more reason that Apple should add >similar functionality to the Mac line. It was indeed hardware-- you could control parameters like how far it dimmed and how long it took through some routines hung off of TRAP #5. I think that this kind of screen blanking would have to be handled by the video board rather than the Mac itself, at least in the Mac IIs, though Apple could help things along by providing standard interfaces that did useful things like SetBlankingTime, etc. (The Lisa had two other features that no current macs have--- one is that it could set the contrast via software, the other is that not only could it turn itself off, it could TURN ITSELF BACK ON after a given interval...) -- Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu .sig under construction, like the rest of this campus.
gillies@m.cs.uiuc.edu (09/18/90)
> (The Lisa had two other features that no current macs have--- one is that > it could set the contrast via software, the other is that not only could > it turn itself off, it could TURN ITSELF BACK ON after a given interval...) I have always wanted to build a small ADB device to do this with a Mac II. I think a small company is marketing an ADB time bomb that will turn any II-series machine on, after a given interval.
Sonny.Shrivastava@f555.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORG (Sonny Shrivastava) (09/23/90)
Why is it necessary to have screen saving implemented in hardware? Seems to
me that Pyro, After Dark, and a host of public domain/shareware screen
blanking utilities do a more than adequate job. Why needlessly add more
components to the motherboard, just to blank the screen?
What would be better would be for Apple to implement some form of screen
blanking as a standard feature of their System software. I would go for
that. But then you'd get complaints from companies which make screen
blanking software.
--
Sonny Shrivastava - via FidoNet node 1:125/777
UUCP: ...!uunet!hoptoad!fidogate!161!555!Sonny.Shrivastava
INTERNET: Sonny.Shrivastava@f555.n161.z1.FIDONET.ORGfadushin@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Phred Dushin) (09/27/90)
>What would be better would be for Apple to implement some form of screen >blanking as a standard feature of their System software. I would go for >that. But then you'd get complaints from companies which make screen >blanking software. This raises an interesting question. There is a tiny (1k) "init" called macsbug (not to be confused with the assembly debugger, though they must be related somehow), which does a nice job blanking the screen. What is exceptional about this software is that it operates even after the user has selected shutdown in the finder. For those of us in the dark ages (with our macs:mac<macSE), selecting shutdown does not shut the machine off. It merely parks heads, gives you that nice, "okay, turn me off" dialogue, or whatever. I have not seen a screen saver besides this one that has this very nice feature. You might be asking, what good is it? Well, if you leave your mac on 24hrs a day like me, but you are concerned about leaving the heads on your hard drive perilously close to your platter, selecting shutdown before you leave the mac alone seems like a good idea. Does anyone know why/how macsbug is able to do this, while none of the other inits seem to be capable of it? Oh yeah. Maybe this is a feature that could be built in to the new system. That would be a nice gesture for those of us who can't scrape up the cash to enter the fun new world of adb. Fred Dushin Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY Internet: Bitnet: fadushin@rodan.acs.syr.edu fadushin@sunrise.bitnet
draphsor@portia.Stanford.EDU (Matt Rollefson) (09/29/90)
In article <1990Sep27.040610.3720@rodan.acs.syr.edu> fadushin@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Phred Dushin) writes: >This raises an interesting question. There is a tiny (1k) "init" >called macsbug (not to be confused with the assembly debugger, though >they must be related somehow), The reason it's named 'macsbug' is so that it will load in first at startup time. The Macintosh software looks first thing for something called 'MacsBug', which it then loads in at startup. Basically, the author of this init decided to do it this way instead of putting a low-ascii character before the name. >which does a nice job blanking the screen. >What is exceptional about this software is that it operates even >after the user has selected shutdown in the finder. For those of >us in the dark ages (with our macs:mac<macSE), selecting shutdown >does not shut the machine off. It merely parks heads, gives you that >nice, "okay, turn me off" dialogue, or whatever. I have not seen >a screen saver besides this one that has this very nice feature. Moire version 3.whatever has a checkbox option in its cdev interface which allows you to have it run at shutdown. It displays its normal pattern and periodically flashes the word 'shutdown' at random positions on the screen. >Does anyone know why/how macsbug is able to do this, while none of >the other inits seem to be capable of it? That, I couldn't tell you. >Fred Dushin Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY >Internet: Bitnet: >fadushin@rodan.acs.syr.edu fadushin@sunrise.bitnet -- Draphsor vo'drun-Aelf draphsor@portia.stanford.edu
jimb@silvlis.com (Jim Budler) (10/02/90)
In article <1990Sep27.040610.3720@rodan.acs.syr.edu> fadushin@rodan.acs.syr.edu (Phred Dushin) writes: >This raises an interesting question. There is a tiny (1k) "init" >called macsbug [...] >What is exceptional about this software is that it operates even >after the user has selected shutdown in the finder. For those of [...] >a screen saver besides this one that has this very nice feature. >Does anyone know why/how macsbug is able to do this, while none of >the other inits seem to be capable of it? You must be out of date 8^) The later rev's of Moire, Pyro and After Dark all have this capability. Ithink Moire is shareware, Pyro and After Dark are commercial. There is a significant difference in the way that Pyro 4.0 and After Dark 2.0 handle this feature. I own both, and Pyro loads it's next module from disk, while After Dark uses the default, builtin module "Starry Night". The result of this difference is that Pyro can enter the screenblanker only once. If you move the mouse, the screen blanking stops, and the "You may now ... " dialog remains on the screen forever more. After Dark, on the other hand, enter screenblanker, can be brought out by moving the mouse, and will return to screenblanking at its timeout, or if you move the mouse to the "sleep now" corner of the screen. They both are great, many people (Mac II owners for one) could care less about this difference. jim -- Jim Budler jimb@silvlis.com +1.408.991.6115 Silvar-Lisco, Inc. 703 E. Evelyn Ave. Sunnyvale, Ca. 94086
ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith) (10/02/90)
Maybe it uses a vertical retrace task? Those keep running after shutdown. Tim Smith