MacFormat 1995 March/macformat-022.iso/Shareware City/Info/tb/tidbits-251.etx

Internet Message Format | 1994-11-22 | 29.3 KB | [TEXT/unix]

From: [e-mail] (Adam C. Engst)
Subject: TidBITS#251/07-Nov-94
Date: Mon, 7 Nov 94 20:36:40 PDT

TidBITS#251/07-Nov-94
=====================

Find out below why Apple is a lousy lover, according to long-time
   developer Dave Winer. We also take a long, hard look at SCSI
   Manager 4.3, which could improve performance on most 68040 Macs
   with System 7.5 and the right applications. Mark Anbinder
   presents a brief bit on the Power 8100/110 and also looks at CE
   Software's QuickMail Internet Access Kit. Finally, check out
   the new URL for our Web server, and a $199 deal on a Newton
   MessagePad 100.

This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 -- <[e-mail]>
   Makers of hard drives, tape drives, and neat SCSI accessories.
   For APS price lists, email: <[e-mail]>

Copyright 1990-1994 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
   Automated info: <[e-mail]> Comments: <[e-mail]>
   --------------------------------------------------------------

Topics:
    MailBITS/07-Nov-94
    Better, Stronger, Faster
    Workgroup Internet QuickMail
    It's All About Love
    Why SCSI Manager 4.3?
    Reviews/07-Nov-94

[Archived as /info-mac/per/tb/tidbits-251.etx; 30K]


MailBITS/07-Nov-94
------------------
  We very much appreciates the email condolences we've received in
  regard to Tonya's neck injury, and we'd especially like to thank
  Martin Stoermer of the University of Queensland in Australia for
  collecting get-well messages from lots of wonderful people on
  several mailing lists. The combined email get-well card raised
  Tonya's spirits, and we'd like to offer it as an counter example
  whenever someone starts ranting about how unpleasant the Internet
  can be. Again, thanks so much for the kind words. [ACE]


**TidBITS Web Server Moves** -- Andy Williams <[e-mail]>
  of Dartmouth College, who runs the public TidBITS Web server
  recently moved it to a more capable machine to improve access and
  reliability. Check it out at the URL below, and if you keep links
  to this site on your own Web page, please update them. [ACE]

http://www.dartmouth.edu/pages/TidBITS/TidBITS.html


**The Newton envious** may want to check out a current offer from
  several mail-order sources (including MacConnection and MacMall)
  for a Newton MessagePad 100 complete with Power Organizer Pack
  (fax modem and some software) for $199, hundreds less than the
  current price for a MessagePad 110. The 100 has the updated ROM
  (with better handwriting recognition) of its more expensive
  cousin, but has less RAM. Buyers should ask specifically for the
  MessagePad 100 with fax modem and software; apparently some buyers
  who weren't specific received just the MessagePad, which doesn't
  have the current ROM. [MHA]


Better, Stronger, Faster
------------------------
  by Mark H. Anbinder, News Editor <[e-mail]>
     Director of Technical Services, Baka Industries Inc.

  Delivering on its promise to raise the Macintosh performance
  ceiling as PowerPC technology improves, Apple today introduced the
  Power Macintosh 8100/110. The new Mac incorporates a 110 MHz
  version of the PowerPC 601 processor and costs $6,379.

  Apple expects quantities of the new model, available in a single
  configuration with 16 MB of RAM, a 2 GB hard drive, and built-in
  CD-ROM drive (item M3561LL/A), will be limited for the first few
  weeks. Those who must have the fastest possible computer, however,
  may find the unit worth waiting for. The new model will crunch
  numbers about a third faster than earlier Power Macintosh 8100/80
  models.

  The Power Mac 8100/110 will be aimed at high-end computing users
  such as publishing, technical, and multimedia software users. All
  current configurations of the 8100/80 model will remain available.
  No 8100/110 logic board upgrade is planned at this time.

  Information from:
    Apple propaganda


Workgroup Internet QuickMail
----------------------------
  by Mark H. Anbinder, News Editor <[e-mail]>

  The small office Internet email game is easier than before, thanks
  to CE Software's new QuickMail Internet Access Kit. The entry-
  level bundle (expected to sell for around $549) includes a ten-
  user QuickMail package; a Mail*Link Remote UUCP gateway from
  StarNine Technologies, Inc. licensed for ten users; a copy of "Dr.
  Bob Rankin's Accessing the Internet by E-mail" (a book that offers
  advice on making the most of an email-only Internet connection);
  and an introductory offer from UUNET for UUCP mail service. (UUCP
  access to the Internet uses on-demand modem connections to
  exchange incoming and outgoing mail files.)

  QuickMail is CE Software's workgroup-oriented electronic mail
  software (see TidBITS-240_), and a QuickMail ten-pack has a retail
  price of $649, which CE says is typically available for about $200
  less than the retail price. A Mail*Link Remote ten-user license is
  available from CE for $279, so the QuickMail Internet Access Kit
  is a great deal for those planning to buy both products anyway.

  StarNine Technologies says the new version of Mail*Link Remote
  included in this bundle (version 1.5) offers a greatly streamlined
  installation process. Since the bundle includes ten free hours of
  UUNET service and a waiver of UUNET's setup and registration fees,
  the software comes pre-configured to work with UUNET. The
  purchaser can fax a registration form to UUNET to quickly obtain a
  domain name and other customized information needed to set up a
  mail gateway.

  Mail*Link Remote uses a modem to communicate regularly with UUNET
  or another service provider, and exchanges electronic mail
  messages and Usenet news articles. (QuickMail has no practical
  facility for handling news, however.) Mail*Link Remote 1.5 has a
  number of improvements over previous versions of the StarNine
  gateway, though it doesn't have the polish of its big brother,
  Mail*Link SMTP, which requires a full-time Internet connection.
  The company plans an affordable upgrade for Mail*Link Remote in
  the first half of 1995 that will further beef up the product.
  Meanwhile, QuickMail Internet Access Kit buyers who decide they
  need a higher-level connection will be able to upgrade to
  Mail*Link SMTP at a reduced price, once they hook up the full-time
  Internet line.

  StarNine's David Thompson comments that one powerful possibility
  with this bundle includes mailing list management. QM-Postman (see
  TidBITS-237_) offers centralized creation and maintenance of email
  distribution lists, which can include recipients on the Internet.

  If your office already has QuickMail, and you just need a gateway,
  CE Software now offers separate Mail*Link Remote packages on its
  own price list. A ten-user pack costs $279, 20-user $399, 50-user
  $899, and 100-user $1199. Another option is UMCP\QM from
  Information Electronics. This gateway, available at $395 for an
  unlimited number of users on a single mail server, pays a bit more
  attention to Internet mail conventions in converting between
  QuickMail and Internet mail. IE's PostalUnion/SMTP for QuickMail
  offers a much more complete solution than UMCP\QM, but like
  Mail*Link SMTP is intended for use with a full-time Internet
  connection. The company plans a PostalUnion/UUCP gateway for
  QuickMail for early 1995 release, and will make upgrades available
  to UMCP\QM owners.

  Using a gateway between a desktop email program and the Internet
  is never a perfect scenario, but for many businesses it's the best
  approach. More Internet-oriented solutions are most affordable in
  single-user environments (such as the dialup SLIP service and
  assorted TCP/IP utilities described in Adam's Internet Starter Kit
  for Macintosh); such solutions for workgroups are only feasible
  with full-time network connections, which are still expensive
  enough to be beyond the reach of many small businesses and a good
  number of larger ones as well. A UUCP gateway has the advantage of
  being inexpensive to operate; Internet service providers can offer
  UUCP services without needing much in the way of resources.

  CE Software has been embarrassed by the ugly Internet mail
  addresses <[e-mail]> it uses
  internally, but a company spokesman assures us that a change is in
  the works, and CE will soon have its own domain name registered.

    CE Software, Inc. -- 800/523-7638 -- 515/221-1801
      515/221-1806 (fax) -- <[e-mail]>
    Information Electronics -- 912/638-1893 -- 912/638-1384 (fax)
      <[e-mail]>
    StarNine Technologies, Inc. -- 510/649-4949 -- 510/548-0393 (fax)
      <[e-mail]>

  Information from:
    CE Software
    Information Electronics
    StarNine Technologies


It's All About Love
-------------------
  by Dave Winer <[e-mail]>

  [One of the long-time developers in the Macintosh world, Dave
  Winer has written ThinkTank and MORE, among others. More recently,
  he founded UserLand Software and in 1992, shipped Frontier, which,
  according to Dave, is "AppleScript done right."]

  To Apple, and to the rest of the world - market share is a head-
  trip. It isn't the issue. Developers are key. Apple's economics
  are out of whack. Definitely. But increasing market share isn't
  what it's about.

  Love is what it's about.

  This is going to take some explaining.

  When I woke up this morning I found a bunch of flowers in my
  mailbox from Bill Gates. What a guy! I recently noted in a rather
  public message that I didn't have a Windows 95 beta to play with.
  Bill-the-Platform-Vendor correctly read the message. Dave wants
  flowers. The love letter in my mailbox began "Bill Gates requested
  that we add you to the Windows 95 Beta Program." Ohhhh.

  Another platform vendor who gets it, Jean-Louis Gassee (Be Inc.),
  had sent me a love letter too. I can't repeat his message here; it
  was too sexy.

  Have you read the Celestine Prophecy? These guys were getting me
  ready to write this angry love letter to Apple Computer. Reminding
  me that love is out there. There _are_ options.

  Developer relations is a mating game. Think of platform vendors as
  the guys, and developers as the girls. Send flowers. Like wives
  and girlfriends, developers just want to be thought of. It's the
  little things that count. That's a big secret. You sent flowers
  last week? So what! You gotta send them every week, rain or shine.

  Apple always made a big deal of how many girlfriends it had. And
  it tended to favor the glamorous but less reliable ones (Lotus,
  Borland, etc.), while ignoring the ones that cooked the meals,
  cleaned the house, made the babies.

  I've received my share of flowers from Apple, mostly in 1986 and
  1987. There was a renaissance at Apple in that period. The
  Macintosh market was booming, which was great for the faithful and
  lucky developers who survived the mess of late 84-85. I remember
  those times fondly. I did win-win deals, almost routinely, with
  Apple. Many thanks to Guy Kawasaki, Bill Campbell, and Jean-Louis
  Gassee, who understood that a good developer is worth a hundred
  promiscuous girlfriends. In those days my mailbox overflowed with
  floral arrangements. And I cooked some great meals!

  Then, something predictable happened. Kawasaki, Campbell, Gassee,
  and people of similar spirit were forced out. A legion of
  employees invaded the platform, hired by other employees to
  replace the developers with high-paid, low-output, loveless
  computer scientists. That's the major reason Apple's economics are
  way out of whack right now.

  Back to Gates... I have never heard him say a negative thing about
  the Macintosh. Quite the opposite. At the System 7 rollout, not a
  single Apple executive could explain why the new OS was so cool. I
  sat in the audience, amazed that Bill Gates was the only one on
  stage who could get me excited about System 7. (It was also
  amazing that I was in the audience. I was the only developer in
  the room that was building on System 7 in a meaningful way [with
  Frontier]. I was being punished for that. I could have given a
  stirring speech, but Apple people were afraid that some of them
  would lose their jobs if I was successful.)

  On 23-Oct-94, in an email to me, Bill Gates said "Other large
  developers have humiliated the Mac through their statements or by
  dropping support, in some cases many times. Over the last few
  years we have introduced more new titles for the Mac than any
  other company. This is despite Apple suing us and discriminating
  against us."

  Has Apple ever thanked Bill Gates for developing for the
  Macintosh? What about Paul Brainerd? John Warnock? Tim Gill? Marc
  Canter? Nat Goldhaber? Don Brown? Leonard Rosenthol? Andrew
  Singer? What about me?

  Why not take Gates at face value? If he's produced so much
  Macintosh software without any gratitude from Apple, maybe he'd
  support the platform even more enthusiastically if Apple showed
  just a bit of appreciation.

  1994 is the ten-year anniversary of the shipment of the Macintosh.
  Did Apple honor the developers who were there at startup?
  Absolutely not. Not even a plaque. Not even an email saying thank
  you. I was pissed.

  At the ten-year celebration at Moscone Center in San Francisco on
  January 6th, I sat in the audience, fuming, listening to Bill
  Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld talk about the magic of the Macintosh,
  how great _they_ were, without a single reference to any
  developers. Where was Spindler? Didn't he have anything to say at
  this important milestone?

  Today, Macintosh is an empty, loveless house. Not a home. All the
  developers walked but left the babies behind. Not because of
  market share; that can be fixed with economic tweaks. We walked
  because Apple is a lousy lover.

  A platform is like a harem of sorts. One rich husband. Lots of
  wives. If the husband abuses one wife, it hurts all the wives. All
  of sudden food starts getting cold. The bed is empty. All of a
  sudden, the husband isn't so rich.


Why SCSI Manager 4.3?
---------------------
  by Adam C. Engst <[e-mail]>

  One of the least well-publicized bits of semi-recent technology
  from Apple has been SCSI Manager 4.3, which I've seen discussed
  mostly in MacWEEK, primarily in Ric Ford's MacInTouch columns.
  It's a complicated subject, but with some welcome help from well-
  placed sources, this article attempts to explain what SCSI Manager
  4.3 is, what it does, and what programs and drivers support it.


**What is it?** SCSI Manager is software that mediates between
  SCSI requests (such as disk reads and writes) made by applications
  or by SCSI drivers and the physical SCSI devices attached to a
  Mac. Between the clients (applications or drivers) and the SCSI
  Manager code sits the SCSI Manager software interface, also known
  as an API (Application Programming Interface) or SPI (System
  Programming Interface).

  The old SCSI Manager software interface supported one bus with
  SCSI IDs 0 through 7, with the Mac at SCSI ID 7. In contrast, SCSI
  Manager 4.3 supports up to 256 buses, 256 SCSI IDs per bus, and
  256 LUNs (Logical Unit Number) per ID. However, to make things
  easier to use and develop for, SCSI Manager 4.3 makes it appear to
  programs and drivers as though all devices are on the same bus.

  In real life, this means that if you use a Wide SCSI card that is
  SCSI Manager 4.3-compliant, such as the FWB JackHammer card, any
  4.3-savvy client can access all SCSI IDs from 0 through 15. The
  same goes for the dual SCSI chains on the Quadra 900 and 950.

  SCSI Manager 4.3 supposedly adds support for the SCSI-2 standard,
  but in fact, all Macs support all the mandatory SCSI-2 protocol
  functions for initiating devices. What most Macs don't support are
  two frequently discussed SCSI-2 features - Fast and Wide transfers
  - that are optional. SCSI Manager 4.3 directly supports SCSI-2
  features, including the optional Fast and Wide transfers. However,
  the hardware on Mac motherboards (called the HBA, or Host Bus
  Adapter, and controlled by software called SIMs, or SCSI Interface
  Modules) doesn't yet support synchronous SCSI (actually part of
  the SCSI-1 standard), fast synchronous SCSI (10 MB per second), or
  wide SCSI. To gain access to these features, even with SCSI
  Manager 4.3, you need an HBA and SIM that supports them, and the
  only current one is FWB's JackHammer card.


**What's it good for?** The goal of SCSI Manager 4.3 is to
  increase performance of the system as a whole, and in the process,
  to take advantage of new hardware such as DMA (Direct Memory
  Access). Essentially, SCSI Manager 4.3 is "fully asynchronous and
  fully concurrent," which means applications can submit any number
  of asynchronous SCSI requests to different devices on the same or
  different buses, and SCSI Manager 4.3 properly queues those
  requests up for when the device is ready, returning as much
  control to the application as possible in the process. To maintain
  backward compatibility with programs that are not SCSI Manager
  4.3-aware, SCSI Manager 4.3 steps back to the constraints of the
  old SCSI Manager interface when performing old-style synchronous
  SCSI Manager requests. Thanks to some serious programming
  wizardry, SCSI Manager 4.3 can also handle old, synchronous SCSI
  Manager requests simultaneously with the new, asynchronous
  requests.

  SCSI Manager 4.3 increases performance in three main ways. It
  enables asynchronous access to SCSI devices, supports SCSI
  disconnect-reconnect, and also uses DMA when available. Let's take
  a look at each of these methods of improving performance:


**Asynchronous access** means that other things can happen at the
  same time as the disk read or write, something that has been
  generally impossible before. Although this would be nice to have
  in all applications so saving or opening files wouldn't take over
  the machine, it's most important for applications like digital
  video that need to move a lot of data while not tying up the CPU
  for other processing. Another good example of the utility of
  asynchronous access is backup to tape, where a program can read
  from the hard disk at the same time it writes to the tape.

**SCSI disconnect-reconnect** is related to asynchronous access,
  and means SCSI Manager 4.3 doesn't have to wait for responses to
  commands sent to SCSI devices. While the device is working on a
  command, such as formatting a disk, the device can disconnect,
  enabling the Mac to work with other SCSI devices. Once our example
  disk is done formatting or needs to inform the formatting program
  of its status, it reconnects, signalling SCSI Manager 4.3 to pick
  up where it left off. By being asynchronous, SCSI Manager 4.3
  enables application-level activities to occur while a SCSI
  operation is in progress, even if the device doesn't disconnect
  (unless the application issues a synchronous file system request
  that ends up going to disk).

**Using DMA** when available improves performance by reducing the
  amount of work the CPU has to do in dealing with the fact that a
  disk read or write is in progress. If DMA is present, the DMA
  hardware can move data directly from the SCSI chip into memory (or
  vice versa for a write), never bothering the CPU with the
  transaction. Without DMA, the CPU must handle the data transfer
  between the SCSI chip and memory, reducing the amount of time it
  can spend on application-level tasks like recalculating a
  spreadsheet. DMA requires DMA support in hardware, which exists
  only in certain Mac models, specifically the Power Macs, the AV
  Macs, and the Apple Workgroup Server 95 (it has DMA on the two
  extra SCSI channels on its special PDS card). The elderly IIfx has
  DMA support, but SCSI Manager 4.3 doesn't currently support its
  older SCSI chip.

  Interestingly, using DMA is not necessarily any faster (and is
  sometimes even slower due to the overhead of setting up and
  tearing down DMA buffers) than moving data via the CPU. So, raw
  performance numbers don't benefit from the use of DMA, but real
  world performance often does, since the CPU has more time to spend
  on applications.


**So where'd it go?** SCSI Manager 4.3 sounds like a good thing,
  so why don't we hear more about it? There are several reasons, but
  most simply, it's because users shouldn't have to care since SCSI
  Manager 4.3 works at such a low level. In addition, driver support
  has been slow to arrive. This isn't entirely the fault of driver
  developers; for some time there was no good documentation or much
  sample code. Some companies didn't have active engineering teams
  working on their formatting software, and others attempted to hack
  their old synchronous drivers to add asynchronous support, a
  strategy which often proved more difficult than rewriting from
  scratch. Finally, SCSI Manager 4.3 was a major change for the
  industry, and there's no doubt that some people weren't happy
  about the change, not so much due to the advantages provided, but
  because of the amount of work entailed in converting driver
  software.

  Even though users shouldn't have to care about SCSI Manager 4.3
  specifically, they should care about asynchronous file access,
  because it translates into increased performance and productivity.
  In fact, since few applications issue direct SCSI Manager
  requests, it's silly to say that an application supports SCSI
  Manager 4.3 - it would be better to write the application to
  access files using asynchronous calls and to call out that fact
  for users.

  Most major hard disk formatting programs now support SCSI Manager
  4.3 or will soon, but users seldom think about updating their disk
  formatting software. It's out of sight, and thus completely out of
  mind. Like many software companies, the companies that make
  software for formatting hard disks don't always notify their
  customers of updates, and some, like La Cie, never notify
  customers at all (they've never notified me in the five years I've
  owned Silverlining). If you call and ask for an update, you can
  get one, but that requires a level of technical knowledge and
  vigilance beyond the call of duty.


**Application support** -- Another problem with SCSI Manager 4.3
  is that it requires application support to be useful. If an
  applications don't make asynchronous calls, SCSI Manager 4.3
  services the older, and slower, synchronous calls. Currently, only
  a few major applications support SCSI Manager 4.3.

  First, Dantz Development's Retrospect 2.1 supports SCSI Manager
  4.3 directly, and the performance increase is shocking. I watched
  the start of a long backup session shortly after installing
  Retrospect 2.1 on my 660AV (which has SCSI Manager 4.3 in ROM),
  and the backup flew along at 12 MB per minute, with both the hard
  drive and the DAT drive in constant use. Second, FileMaker Pro now
  uses asynchronous file I/O to overlap disk operations with other
  activities. Unlike Retrospect 2.1, FileMaker Pro doesn't directly
  access SCSI Manager 4.3, but its use of asynchronous file I/O
  enables it to take advantage of SCSI Manager 4.3's capabilities.
  Third, Drive7 from Casa Blanca Works, along with being a SCSI
  Manager 4.3-savvy driver, supports SCSI disconnect-reconnect while
  formatting, so you can start a disk formatting and continue to
  work in Drive7 (formatting other drives if you want) or other
  programs.

  Despite the seeming paucity of programs that use asynchronous
  calls, the problem is apparently more that many programs expect to
  wait for those calls to be processed before continuing, sitting in
  a loop and spinning a cursor instead of doing something useful.
  The trick, then, is two-fold. Programs must use asynchronous
  calls, and they should have something else to do if that call can
  be serviced by SCSI Manager 4.3 and an asynchronous driver.


**Hardware support** -- Perhaps the main confusion with SCSI
  Manager 4.3 is which Macs support it. The 660AV and 840AV have the
  SCSI Manager 4.3 in ROM, as do the Power Macs and the Power
  Macintosh Upgrade Card. Until System 7.5, those were the only Macs
  that supported SCSI Manager 4.3, but the SCSI Manager 4.3
  extension in System 7.5 provides support to all 68040-based Macs
  and Performas, except for the Quadra 630 and the 68040-based
  PowerBooks. The extension might appear on older 68030 Macs if you
  install a system "for any Macintosh," but it won't do anything for
  them. The 68040 PowerBooks use different SCSI hardware that isn't
  supported by SCSI Manager 4.3.

  On an AV, the extension completely replaces the SCSI Manager 4.3
  code from ROM, and it fixes some bugs in the Power Macintosh
  Upgrade Card ROMs, but it doesn't do anything for Power Macs.
  There are a few patches to the SCSI Manager 4.3 code that's in the
  Power Mac ROMs, but they exist only in the System 7.5 System file
  and in the PowerPC Enabler for System 7.1.2.

  Using a DMA-equipped Mac, such as a Power Mac or an AV, without a
  SCSI Manager 4.3-savvy disk driver can reduce performance
  significantly (one report placed the slowdown at thirty percent).
  This performance degradation happens because SCSI Manager 4.3 is
  backward compatible with the old SCSI Manager way of working with
  4.3-clueless drivers. The old SCSI Manager mode handles DMA in the
  AVs and Power Macs badly in comparison with the way SCSI Manager
  4.3 handles DMA. In other words, if you have an AV or a Power Mac
  with a third party disk drive that hasn't been formatted with SCSI
  Manager 4.3-savvy driver, you're probably taking a hefty speed
  hit.


**In the end** -- So, to take full advantage of the performance
  enhancements promised by SCSI Manager 4.3, you need the following:

* The right Mac, which means Power Macs and 68040-based Macs other
  than the Quadra 620 and 68040-based PowerBooks. Macs with DMA
  hardware, including the AV Macs and the Power Macs, will enjoy
  increased system performance when the DMA hardware frees the CPU
  from mediating SCSI requests.

* The SCSI Manager 4.3 extension from System 7.5 if you have a
  non-AV Mac.

* A SCSI Manager 4.3 compatible hard disk driver, which you can
  obtain from any of the following hard disk formatting packages (we
  hope this list is at least partially complete; see below for
  contact information for these vendors):

    HD SC Setup 7.2 or later (Apple)
    Drive7 v.X.X (Casa Blanca Works)
    Anubis 2.5 or later (CharisMac)
    Hard Disk Toolkit 1.5 or later (FWB)
    Silverlining 5.6 (La Cie)
    FormatterOne Pro (Software Architects)
    MicroNet 6.0.0 Utility (or later, but only with MicroNet drives)
    SCSI Director Professional 3.0 or later (Transoft)
    Lido Disk Formatting Utility 7.31 (Surf City Software)

* Applications that intelligently use asynchronous file system
  calls so they can do useful work while SCSI Manager 4.3 deals
  with the asynchronous call. Current examples include Dantz's
  Retrospect 2.1 and Claris's FileMaker Pro.

  In the end, support for SCSI Manager 4.3 could be the main
  hitherto unknown reason for most Quadra and Centris owners to
  upgrade to System 7.5 and a SCSI Manager 4.3-savvy hard disk
  driver.


**Vendor list**
    Casa Blanca Works -- 415/461-2227 -- 415/461-2249 (fax)
      <[e-mail]>
    Claris -- 800/544-8554 -- <[e-mail]>
    Dantz -- 510/849-0293 -- <[e-mail]>
    MicroNet -- 714/453-6000 -- 714/453-6001 (fax)
    FWB -- 415/474-8055 -- 415/775-2125 (fax)
      <[e-mail]>
    CharisMac Engineering -- 916/885-4420 -- 800/487-4420
      916/885-1410 (fax)
    Transoft -- 805/565-5200 -- 805/565-5208 (fax)
    Surf City Software -- 714/289-8543 -- 714/289-1002 (fax)
    Software Architects -- 206/487-0122 -- 206/487-0467 (fax)


Reviews/07-Nov-94
-----------------

* MacWEEK -- 31-Oct-94, Vol. 8, #43
    GroupWise 4.1 -- pg. 33
    PhotoFlash 2.0 -- pg. 33
    Arrange 2.0 -- pg. 36
    ScanPrepPro 1.2.6 -- pg. 40
    microLaser PowerPro -- pg. 40


$$

 Non-profit, non-commercial publications may reprint articles if
 full credit is given. Others please contact us. We don't guarantee
 accuracy of articles. Caveat lector. Publication, product, and
 company names may be registered trademarks of their companies.

 This file is formatted as setext. For more information send email
 with the single word "setext" (no quotes) in the Subject: line to
 <[e-mail]>. A file will be returned shortly.

 For an APS price list, send email to: <[e-mail]>

 For information on TidBITS: how to subscribe to our mailing list,
 where to find back issues, how to search issues on the Internet's
 WAIS, and other useful stuff, send email to: <[e-mail]>
 Otherwise, contact us at: [e-mail] * CIS: 72511,306
 AppleLink & BIX: TidBITS * AOL: Adam Engst * Delphi: Adam_Engst
 TidBITS * 1106 North 31st Street * Renton, WA 98056 USA
 Issues available at: ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/issues/
 And: http://www.dartmouth.edu/pages/TidBITS/TidBITS.html
 To search back issues with WAIS, use macintosh-tidbits.src
 On the Web, use http://www.wais.com/wais-dbs/macintosh-tidbits.html
 -------------------------------------------------------------------




--
Adam C. Engst, TidBITS Editor -- [e-mail] -- [e-mail]
    Author of Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh -- [e-mail]
             Internet Explorer Kit for Macintosh --  [e-mail]
                Internet Starter Kit for Windows -- [e-mail]