BBS in a Box 4/BBS in a Box - Macintosh - Volume IV (January 1992) (BBS in a Box).iso/Files/Word/I/InfoMac5.1

Text File | 1987-06-09 | 24.2 KB | 630 lines | [TEXT/MACA]

INFO-MAC Digest           Sunday, 7 Jun 1987      Volume 5 : Issue 100

Today's Topics:
   RE:  HELP WANTED - Catching all keyDown events in a desk accessory.
         Poison Folders, MacII monitor gripes, weird SE keyboard
                 Is there a patch for FKey 3 under 4.1?
                                 MacIII?
                            Juggler 1.0D ????
 menu maze: public domain puzzle, with source, using hierarchical menus
                 paintps.shar update for LaserWriter 4.0
                     re:  Any biologists out there?
                          Re: Boxes in word3.0
                             re: XP40 noises
                     Sys 4.1 and Hyperdrive (V5 #98)
                           Mac II Benchmarks?
                   Tektronix T4010 plots to PostScript
                            hard disks on Mac
                        PageMaker 2.0 (oh yes...)
                    demo of SuitCase and PowerStation
                        Usenet Mac Digest V3 #42
                        Usenet Mac Digest V3 #43


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Date: Sat, 6 Jun 87 09:56:31 CDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: RE:  HELP WANTED - Catching all keyDown events in a desk
Subject: accessory.

    I am writing a Desk Accessory which transforms every input character.
The transformation is affected by a previous character, a current char,
Caps Lock key, shift key, option key, and command key.  My DA does *not
have its own window*; it is running in the *background* and transformed
chars will be passed to an application (e.g. MacWrite).

    My DA is working fairly well now.  The big problem is that ONLY SOME
input chars do get transformed; however, there are other input chars which
do not get transformed.  I will show you a skeleton of my DA in Lightspeed
Pascal to give you a concrete idea.

procedure OpenRoutine;
begin
    dCtlStorage:=NewHandle(SizeOf(PrivateStorage));
    dCtlFlags:=$6400; {DA can respond to control calls;}
        {DA needs time for performing periodic actions;}
        {DA will be locked in memory as soon as it is opened}
    dCtlDelay:=0; {must be called as often as possible}
    dCtlEMask:=keyDownMask;{meaningless?}
    whenSaved:=0;{evtQWhen of the latest keyDown event processed by a DA}
end;

procedure ControlRoutine;
begin
for counter:=1 to LIMIT do begin {LIMIT will be explained below}
    evQHdrPtr:=GetEvQHdr; {get a pointer to the header of the event queue}
    CurrElem:=evQHdrPtr^.qHead;
    while (CurrElem <> nil) do
        if (CurrElem^.evQElem.evtQWhen > whenSaved) then begin
            {an event which has not been processed by a DA; do transformation}
            CurrElem^.evQElem.evtQMessage:=transformedChar;
            whenSaved:=CurrElem^.evQElem.evtQWhen;
            end; {if}
        end; {while}
    end; {for counter}
end;

procedure CloseRoutine;
begin
    disposHandle(dCtlStorage);
end;


    I tested my DA using MacWrite.  At first, LIMIT was 1 (i.e. no for loop).
The result was that about 2/3 of input chars did not get transformed.
The following table will help:

LIMIT            portion of input chars which did not get transformed
  1              2/3
 10              1/2
700              1/10
1000             1/15
2000             < 1/30

    When LIMIT was greater than about 500, some characters were lost if
I typed fast (due to the maximum event queue size).  I guess that LIMIT
should be set to 1 and some other mechanism must be adopted to get around
the problem. Does Vertical Retrace Manager have anything to do with it?

    Could anybody give me clues/hints/comments as to how to CATCH ALL THE
KEYDOWN EVENTS IN A DESK ACCESSORY AND TRANSFORM THEM?  Please e-mail to me
since my site does not subscribe to info-mac.

    Thanks in advance.

Kyongsok KIM

Dept. of Computer Science; Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
arpanet/csnet: [e-mail]
usenet/uucp  : {seismo, pur-ee, ihnp4}!uiucdcs!kkim

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 4 Jun 87 23:21 CDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Poison Folders, MacII monitor gripes, weird SE keyboard

Three things:

1) Last winter, I began running into problems like freezing mice after
clicking on a particular folder.  I was using a Mac+ and HD20.  This had
me totally bewildered.  I booted up off a floppy and replaced the System
and Finder.  Every thing seemed to go okay for awhile.  A couple of days
later BOINGO!  It happened again!  I went as far as accusing my little
brother of doing some unauthorized System hacking and/or abuse.  After
many episodes of this sort, the problem went away.  I don't know why.  A
couple of days ago however, it ocurred to me that if one is developing
software (as I was) and has the cache on (as I did), a wild memory
reference by the software can accidentally write into the cache.  When
the cache is finally written out to disk, you get whacko data.  Seems to
me if this data happened to be associated with the DeskTop file, screwy
things like poison folders could be the result.  Sound plausible?

2) I dinked around with a MacII at our University the other day.  It
must have been a pre-release (I hope it was) because it wasn't very hard
to crash it.  I was running the program that shows the robot arm,
Mandril, etc.  I think they call it ParisDemo.  Anyhow it had Apple's
monochrome monitor which is made by Sony.  Now for some peculiar reason,
Sony makes all their video tubes flat in the vertical direction.  The
result is image distortion around the corners.  This may be fine for TV
(I don't think so) but it drove me crazy to see the menu bar and window
edges curve up (or down) around the edges of the sreen.  It just looks
bad.  I think when I get a MacII, I'll forgo Apple's monitors and go for
SuperMac's or some other non-Sony monitor.  Does this bug anyone else as
much as it bugs me?  Since they first came out with the Mac, I always
thought of Apple as a company that took great pride in the aesthetics as
well as the technical quality (which should be a given) of their
products.  Where has that pride gone?  Did it leave with Jobs?  I hope
not.

3) We got a MacSE some time ago that insisted on spraying dashes (-)
right after booting up into the first text item it could, usually the
title of the startup disk.  We fixed it by opening the keyboard and
reseating all the chips (maybe it was only one) and the ADB connectors.
I don't know if this problem might be related to the mouse problems I
read about, but it might be worth a try if you don't mind voiding your
warranty.

Over and out.

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 05 Jun 1987 10:46 PDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Is there a patch for FKey 3 under 4.1?

Is there a patch available to allow FKey 3 to take pictures of the screen with
menus down under System 4.1?  I tried using the patch I had for System 3.2, and
it worked-- sort of.  The problem is that it would crash my RAM disk (Ram+) as
it tried to load the System.  If I ran it off the diskette, it would take a
snapshot with the menus down.  But it makes me nervous.

If anyone has a patch that works well for 4.1, I'd be very grateful for a copy.
Since our mail system isn't interactive, I'd need to have it E-mailed to me or
posted as hex code on Info-Mac.

Thanks in advance.
Andre Lehre
Geology Dept
Humboldt State University
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Fri, 5 Jun 87 13:49 CDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: MacIII?

Any one hear a rumour concerning a 68030 based Mac?  I believe the 68030
has a Memory managment unit built in.  Its also supposed to have a 68882
co-processor.

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 1 Jun 87 08:23:23 edt
From: [e-mail] (Mike Bell)
Subject: Juggler 1.0D ????

    I'm sure that everyone has heard Juggler---the latest member of the
Switcher/Servant family. I have been reading a lot about it, but I have not
seen a release copy. The other day, however, I was logged on to a BBS in
New York ( The Laser Board ) and guess what was posted ---- Juggler 1.0D.
When I tried to download it, I was given a message that said "file has been
removed." To the best of my knowledge, a developers version has not been
released but I could be wrong. So, what I would like to know is if Apple
has actually released a copy of Juggler (1.0D) or are the people running the
Laser Board playing some kind of game ?

  Thanks for any answers.

Mike Bell
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 6 Jun 87 22:54:27 PDT
From: [e-mail] (David Phillip Oster)
Subject: menu maze: public domain puzzle, with source, using
Subject: hierarchical menus

MenuMaze.c by David Oster and Matthew Grayson
June 6, 1987
Synopsis: This program is an example of how to write hierarchical menus
and why you should't. Hierarchical menus are a feature in the ROMs of the
Macintosh SE and the Mac II. They are available to mere mortals who are
using Apple's System 4.1 system software and who have the 128K ROMs:
People who have either a MacPlus or a 512K Mac, Enhanced.

This program compiles under LightSpeed C version 2.01.
This program may be freely redistributed. It is hereby placed in the
public domain. So There.

Menu Maze is a game: Lost somewhere in the maze of menus is one "Quit"
command. If you can find it, you can escape from Menu Maze.

What you have here is a .hqx file. convert with BinHex 4.0, or equivalent,
to a .Pit file. Convert that with PackIt II, or equivalent, to the program
"Menu Maze" and the two source code files "MenuMaze.c" and "MenuMaze.R".
    David Phillip Oster            --My Good News: "I'm a perfectionist."
Arpa: [e-mail] --
Uucp: ucbvax!dewey.soe!oster       --My Bad News: "I don't charge by the hour."

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Date: Fri, 5 Jun 87 16:26:04 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Brian H. Powell)
Subject: paintps.shar update for LaserWriter 4.0

     Here's the update to make maclaser (part of UNIX-PAINTPS.SHAR that
was posted a couple of months ago) work with the latest LaserWriter
software.

Brian H. Powell
UUCP:   {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!brian
ARPA:   [e-mail]

   _Work_                                        _Not Work_
  Department of Computer Sciences               P.O. Box 5899
  Taylor Hall 2.124                             Austin, TX 78763-5899
  The University of Texas at Austin             [phone]
  Austin, TX 78712-1188
  [phone]

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Date: Wed, 03 Jun 87 09:31:05 ECT
From: [e-mail]

Subject: TOPS-BOOT-Problem

Just dowloaded this nice utility for publishing disc-volumes on Tops at Boot
time. The documentation states that it is possible to modify the 'PNT#'
resource to change the behaviour. This is OK, but it seems that only 3 mouse
down events are posted now matter how many coordinates that is given in 'PNT#'
Could the author (or somebody else) give me some advice how to modify. (Or
better post a new version with this problem fixed) the utility.
   Thanks in advance :-)

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jun 87 18:18:00 EDT
From: <[e-mail]>
Subject: re:  Any biologists out there?

Priscilla Baybutt of MIT writes:

> There is an graduate student in Biology here at the Whitehead Institute
> for Biomedical Research who is interested in interfacing a digitizer
> with a Macintosh for the purpose of studying DNA sequence gels.

> Does anyone on the net know of such a program?  This could be
> commercial, share- or freeware.  Any and all responses would be
> extremely welcome.

I've answered this directly in order to avoid boring the net with very
specific information.  If anyone else needs this, message me directly,
and I'll send the info along.

Greg H. Hamm                              || Phone:  [phone]
Director, Molecular Biology Computing Lab ||
Waksman Institute/NJ CABM                 || BITNET: hamm@biovax
P.O. Box 759, Rutgers University          || ARPA:   [e-mail]
Piscataway, NJ 08854 * USA                ||

------------------------------

Date: 6 Jun 1987 1330-PDT (Saturday)
From: Jon Udell <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Boxes in word3.0

To place text next to boxes in Word 3.0, place the text in a separate
paragraph and use the side-by-side paragraph feature.  This allows the
use of the box paragraph feature to create the box, so you don't have
to worry about the vertical lines not lining up.  It won't be WSYWIG on
the screen, but it should look ok during a page preview.

Jon

------------------------------

Date: 7 Jun 87 17:52:00 EDT
From: <[e-mail]>
Subject: re: XP40 noises

Joe Kennebec (GFJAK@ALASKA) writes about his XP40 sounding like it's torturing
mice, and solicits other experience.

I'm also extremely happy with the performance of my XP40.  It is is indeed
a bit loud when it reads/writes (though mine sounds more like a dry rustle
than the described "little brick").  When it's just idling, I don't think
it's much louder than any other drive I've heard - just some background
metallic white noise.

The only worrisome sounds I've heard occur (1) when it's coasting to a stop
after power off, there seems to be a critical speed where it emits a
high-pitched squeal for a second or two;  and (2) when I get a system bomb,
and my mac does a catastrophic reboot, the drive sort of groans, as if it
were really annoyed to have to do this.  (Sorry, but that's the best
description I can give.)

I've had the drive for about 4 months.  It has made these noises from day
1, and since no problem has ever resulted, I decided they must be "normal".
I hope this is correct;  I love the drive.

Greg H. Hamm                              || Phone:  [phone]
Director, Molecular Biology Computing Lab ||
Waksman Institute/NJ CABM                 || BITNET: hamm@biovax
P.O. Box 759, Rutgers University          || ARPA:   [e-mail]
Piscataway, NJ 08854 * USA                ||

------------------------------

Date: 5 Jun 87 15:54:07 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Joel West)
Subject: Sys 4.1 and Hyperdrive (V5 #98)

Apple should not take the rap for the Hyperdrive problems, nor particularly
GCC's delays in fixing them.  Apply West's rule #1

  If a dealer, developer, vendor complainer about something 'Apple did',
  did this also affect their competitors?  If no, PERHAPS it's the
  complainer's fault, such as by ignoring Apple's compatibility
  guidelines or cutting corners or just being sloppy.

In the case of System 4.1, yes, Apple made major changes and released
pre-release versions early this year and final 4.1 in May, so GCC
didn't have much time before the complaints started rolling in.
But why does this affect the Hyperdrive more than other internal hard disks?

A Hyperdrive uses 26,770 bytes in the System Heap for its trap patches.
(plus another 40K if you enable disk caching)  I believe this is the
only major program out there that changes the size of the System Heap,
something Apple discouraged developers from doing.  Other hard disks
tend to use their own PROM (SuperMac, Levco) or some other fix.

Until recently, the size and location of the heap was fairly
constant.  However, with 4.1 Apple grew the heap to allow for its own
trap patches and, in the future, the heap can change in size dynamically.

Incidentally, if you own a Mac 512, Apple recommends you use
System 3.2 and Finder 5.3; or 3.3/5.4 if you have AppleShare.
4.0/5.4 is discouraged for the 512Ke/Plus (which prefer 3.2 and
4.1, respectively), but not recommended for the 512 at all.

Joel West
{ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww      (ihnp4!gould9!joel if I ever fix news)
[e-mail]    if you must

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 3 Jun 87 13:12:41 PDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Mac II Benchmarks?

Has anyone seen the Lin Pack (of Argon Nat'l Labs) benchmarks run on a Mac II
yet, via Absoft Fortran?  I have a structural analyst who needs such figures
to justify a proposal.

thanks,
Godfrey DiGiorgi
digiorgi@jpl-vlsi
03Jun87

High Density Data Transfer: a boxcar of Compact Disks.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 2 Jun 87 21:48:10 EDT
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Tektronix T4010 plots to PostScript

  Does anyone know of commercial or public domain MacIntosh software
that will convert plot files in the Tektronix T4010 (or T4014, etc.)
command format into PostScript files?

I can be reached by this net or US Mail.

Thank you,

Robert H. Voelker
Solid-State Electronics Laboratory
EECS Building
The University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2122 USA

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 4 Jun 87 23:58:54 EDT
From: [e-mail] (David M. Siegel)
Subject: hard disks on Mac

Has anyone hooked up an off-the-shelf"scuzzy" disk to a Mac? That is, a
disk that hasn't been packaged for use with a Mac. I guess what I'm looking
for is some software that will drive random disk of different sizes.

Thanks,
Dave

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 6 Jun 87 13:45 ADT
From: <[e-mail]>
Subject: PageMaker 2.0 (oh yes...)

I've been using PageMaker 10-hours a day for almost two years now;
version 2.0 for 16 hours a day for about a month. I use PageMaker in
two classes that I teach, and I consider myself an unofficial
testing/destruction site for page layout software. I put together
documentation, publications, catalogs, fliers, posters, mailers,
certificates, etc for the Community college and everybody else they
care to lend my services to.

I'd like to hear from others who are using PageMaker 2.0, especially
those having problems. Aldus Inc is almost impossible to reach through
their Tech Support line (they have good support but are literally swamped
with calls). I think I can lend most a hand, and I have plenty of
questions to ask those I couldn't help...

I will be posting comments about the PageMaker vs Ready-Set-Go miasma, and
some "power users" tips about what the manual doesn't mention in the next
few days. I would appreciate feedback; public discussion on the net would
thrill me to death but I will summarize those comments sent directly to
me.

Write on.

Joe at University of Alaska/Tanana Valley Community College

 N   C    L    Y             STANDARD DISCLAIMER 11-76: If the Administration
  O   U    O    E                knew this network existed, they would cut
       T    G    T                     it's budget, too.        Joe
        E    O

Thats GFJAK@ALASKA to you netters....

------------------------------

Date: 2 June 1987, 11:43:03 PST
From: David M. Gelphman         415-854-3300 x2538   DAVEG    at
From: SLACVM
Subject: demo of SuitCase and PowerStation

Last night at the Stanford Macintosh users group we were fortunate
to have Steve Brecher show us his newest Macintosh programs which
are about to be released. Both of them were quite impressive but to
me the most appealing product is Suitcase.

Suitcase is an INIT and DA which together provide extended support
for Desk Accessories, Fonts, and Fkeys way beyond that provided by the
current Apple system software. Basically you create a DA (suitcase)
file with the Font/DA mover which contains the desk accessories you
wish to have available. No need to add them to the system file, just
create a  suitcase file. Similarly add fonts to a font file and
Fkeys to an Fkey file. These files are then put into a magic
folder in the system folder and Suitcase opens these on system startup.
The fonts, DAs, and Fkeys are available as if they were in the
system file. The good news is that the Apple restrictions on 15 DAs
disappears with this setup.

There is much more. Since not too many people want to scroll through a
list of 150 DAs (Steve said there was one beta tester who was using
about this many) there is a simple and effective way to select the
DA you wish. Basically one selects the SuitCase DA (command key
equivalents are available), and you are presented with a scrolling
list of DAs (with scroll bars). The standard SFGetFile key equivalent
tricks are supported so you can type the first few letters of the
DA name to go right to it.

One can also open new files of Fonts, DAs, etc. once the system has
started up so Suitcase is a Fantastic Other... DA as well as font
sampler, etc.

Suitcase looks quite well thought out and based on previous work Steve
Brecher has done,  we can expect a solid implementation.
It is expected to be released about July 1st. Steve said a fully functional
version will be posted to the nets. The only difference between the
commercial version ($59.95 list) and the one posted to the net will be
an AD which will appear frequently as you use the free version.


Steve also presented PowerStation which is a very powerful Mini-Finder
substitute. Powerstation is intended to make it very simple to launch
applications (and DAs) without the hassle of dealing with the Mac
file system and folder structure. One can create very smart buttons
which allow you to easily configure and launch an application with
a default document of your choosing, or any document regardless
of the folder, and print any document(s) regardless of the folders the
documents are in. There is far more to this program
than I have the time to describe here (perhaps someone with more energy
can tell more) but suffice it to say it looks extremely useful.

I spent more time discussing SuitCase since I personally was more
interested in the functionality it has to offer and it probably has
a longer shelf life depending what moves Apple makes with the Finder
in the future.

Looks like a GREAT JOB on both products Steve!

David Gelphman                  BITNET address: DAVEG@SLACVM
Bin #88 SLAC                    ARPANET address:  [e-mail]
Stanford, Calif. 94305          UUCP address: ...psuvax1!daveg%slacvm.bitnet
415-854-3300 x2538              GEnie:   D.Gelphman
usual disclaimer #432 applies: my employer apologizes for the fact
that I have access to this net.

------------------------------

Date: Tue, 2 Jun 87 11:25 EDT
From: Jeffrey Shulman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V3 #42

Usenet Mac Digest     Monday, June 1, 1987           Volume 3 : Issue 42

Today's Topics:
     Microsoft Word V3.0 and its menu bar...
     Re: SE Power Supply (Europe -- U.S.)
     Re: Broken compilers
     Re: SE Power Supply (Europe -- U.S.)
     Re: Equations?
     AlisaTalk and Symbiotics Disk Servers? (2 messages)
     Re: Jasmine Disk Drives
     Patching the volume level in codes.
     Teaching music on the Mac
     Re: Equations?
     WriteNow - need help w/Headers
     How do you prevent Switch-Launch?
     Re: Mac Ethernet products?
     RamSnap by Dove Computer
     Results of the 2400 Baud Modem Responses
     Need VT220 terminal emulator
     Can windows overlap the menu bar?
     MacNifty for the Plus/SE ?
     24 pin postscript preview devices
     Re: Mac SE power
     Re: Disk format interchangeability.
     Re: MIDI interfaces (Mac+ & SE)
     MacHack West, Sept. 23-25, 1987
     Recovering Word 3.0 files

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Date: Tue, 2 Jun 87 11:26 EDT
From: Jeffrey Shulman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V3 #43

Usenet Mac Digest     Monday, June 1, 1987           Volume 3 : Issue 43

Today's Topics:
     Re: annoying bug in Lightspeed Pascal when used with Switcher
     File info help ?
     Re: Transparency film for the Apple LaserWriter
     Using a NEC MultiSync with Mac II
     Re: Broken compilers
     System 4.1 question.
     Re: Partial list of Math packages
     Re: Keyboard problems
     SE Power Supply (Europe -- U.S.)
     Re: Using a NEC MultiSync with Mac II
     Re: SE Power Supply (Europe -- U.S.)
     Finder 5.5 problem?
     Re: APL.68000 information request (also for PClones)
     s-records
     Font ID number listing
     Re: A/UX availability?
     Picture Files ("CLIPART") Software Needed
     SYSTEM 4.1 (15 meg sys file!)
     4.1 incompatabilities
     FzzPlot Requests....
     'AutoCursor' crashes System 4.1/Finder 5.5

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