PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/USEnet Digests/USEnet Vol. 3/USEnet 3.073

Internet Message Format | 1988-04-08 | 31.1 KB | [TEXT/ttxt]

Date: Tue 29 Sep 87 10:15:18-EDT
From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN@SDR>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V3 #73

Usenet Mac Digest     Monday, September 28, 1987     Volume 3 : Issue 73

Today's Topics:
     APPLESHARE server sitting on ETHERNET
     MacScheme+
     Text manipulation a la MacDraw, how to do it ?
     Apple HyperCard User Group Newsletter
     Re: Anyone Have ROvr 0? (Was Replacing system fonts)
     Re: Text manipulation a la MacDraw, how to do it ?
     Re: Hypercard
     Hard disk recommendations
     Re: Color for the SE? (Is this a dumb question?)
     Re: APPLESHARE server sitting on ETHERNET
     Hindi Language Instructional Software
     NCR 7901 or ADDS Viewpoint A2  (HELP)
     TML pascal.
     MacPlus Video Problems
     External clocking of AppleTalk
     AppleShare and RAM cache
     Re: TOPS Installer and System 4.1
     MACHACK WEST HYPERCARD KEYNOTE
     MacApollo: who has it, where can I get it?
     Re: HyperCard distribution For New SEs
     Physics and Computer Games

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

From: [e-mail] (Mike Rutenberg)
Subject: APPLESHARE server sitting on ETHERNET
Date: 16 Sep 87 20:27:25 GMT
Organization: Reed College, Portland OR

What is the status of putting an Ethernet card into an SE or MacII and
using the machine, connected only to an Ethernet, as an Appleshare
server.  The workstations are more normal Macs on Appletalks connected
through Kinetics boxes.

The big win for this bandwidth to the server and not crushing the poor
uses of the Appletalk the server would otherwise be sitting on.

Is anyone doing this, or thinking of this?  Please get back to me. I
will post any juicy replies.

Mike
--
    Reed College -- Portland, Oregon -- 503/775-7003 (before 9am)


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

From: [e-mail] (Takao 'Ta?i' SHIMONO)
Subject: MacScheme+
Date: 17 Sep 87 05:22:22 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


  Does anyone out there have info on MacScheme+
  from Semantic Microsystems, Inc.            ^

  than? in advance,
  -Ta?i (Takao SHIMONO)  a.k.a.  TDK - Tokyo Deconstruction Kid
  UUCP:   {allegra,decva?,ucbva?}!decwrl!tkov58.dec.com!shimono
  ? is a registered trademark of Project Hatena in my nightmare.
  What's HATENA? ? ??? ?  ?? Hatena Ain't The EpigoNe of Athena.


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

From: [e-mail] (J|rgen N|rgaard)
Subject: Text manipulation a la MacDraw, how to do it ?
Date: 16 Sep 87 07:42:13 GMT
Organization: DAIMI: Computer Science Department, Aarhus University, Denmark

Hello everybody !

Does anybody have an idea how MacDraw (for example) handles
text-rotation ? I suppose it is handled in another than than just
rotating the bit images.

Any ideas will be welcome

--
            Regards J|rgen N|rgaard
                e-mail: [e-mail]
                                or      ....{seismo!}mcvax!diku!daimi!jnp


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

From: [e-mail] (Steve Cisler)
Subject: Apple HyperCard User Group Newsletter
Date: 17 Sep 87 09:18:00 GMT


By Dave Leffler & Robin Shank

WELCOME...

This is the first issue of  The WindoidQ the newsletter for Apple's
HyperCard User's Group.  We hope the user group and newsletter will
create a forum for information about HyperCard, including tips and
techniques in various accessible formats to make your use of HyperCard
even more valuable, flexible, and fun.

We will bring you articles written by the development team and will make
efforts to take your questions and problems directly to the source for
an answer.

In addition, and most importantly, The Windoid will create a forum for
the open sharing of stackware and information.

Bill and Dan have shown a remarkable ability to immediately understand
the needs, ideas, and suggestions of HyperCard users.   The members of
the team have thus been able to assist greatly in shaping HyperCard into
what it is today.  The continuing interest in user input gives users a
unique opportunity to help shape HyperCard's future.

This newsletter provides an opportunity for  its readers to contribute
to the continued genesis of HyperCard.  With your assistance we can
continue to bring to HyperCard added depth and functionality.  In the
back of every issue will be a form for you to keep by your Macintosh*.
This form will give you the unique opportunity to be able to participate
in the continued development of HyperCard.

If you have a bug, suggestion, or comment fill out the form and send it
to:

AHUG C/O David Leffler Apple Computer Inc. MS 27AQ 10500 N. DeAnza Blvd.
Cupertino, CA  95014

Or  copy the form's format and AppleLink* it to: HYPERBUG

ASK THE TEAM...

The HyperCard test team has consented to provide us with a series of
tips and techniques based on frequent user questions.  Please send in
your questions and they will try to answer the most consistently asked.

How can I create a script that will enable me to double-click an icon
button?

Consider creating a button script like the following:

The following handler makes a button that will detect a double-click on
itself.  It waits 30 ticks for the 2nd click then times out.

Put this handler into a button's script, then add whatever special
things you want your button to do when double-clicked. Adjust the
timeout value if you want it to wait longer (or shorter).   A tick is
1/60th of a second.

on mouseUp
  put the ticks into originalTicks
  repeat until the mouseClick
    if the ticks - originalTicks > 30
     then exit mouseUp
  end repeat
  -- Put here whatever you want the
  --button to do when double-clicked.
  -- For example:
  Play "Boing"
end mouseUp

How can I get a word in a field to do something when I click on it?

One way would be to put a transparent button over the text.  If you want
to be able to move the word around inside the field without having to
move the transparent button with it, you can use the following "sticky
button" technique.

     The following script gets put into the field On Mousedown
    Set locktext of me to false
    click at the clickloc
    click at the clickloc
    if the selection is "Apple" then
        answer "What kind of Apple:" with
        "Macintosh" or "Apple II"
    else
        put "I don't know that word" into msg
    end if
    set locktext of me to true
End Mousedown

Note: MouseDown, mouseStillDown, and mouseUp messages only get sent to a
field when that field is locked. It is therefore necessary to lock a
field when expecting that field to deal with any of these messages.

The idea behind sticky buttons is to cause a word to be selected
(highlighted) with a single mouse click. 'The selection' then becomes a
container.

In the above script, we first unlock the field so that we can create a
selection. Next, we want to make Hypercard believe that we have double
clicked a word, when we really have clicked it only once. This is done
in the next two lines of the script. Clicking at the clickloc forces
Hypercard to click twice at the same location clicked at by the user. A
highlighted selection is then created. Once a word is highlighted, we
can use the Hypercard function 'the selection' to find out what that
word is.

Comparison can be done using multiple IF THEN statements or by the use
of a word-list field. In the above script, we do a very simple IF THEN
ELSE comparison which only looks for the word APPLE. When found, it puts
up a dialog. If any other word is clicked, a generic message is placed
in the message box. Remember that you do not need to show the message
box every time you want to write into it. Hypercard displays the message
box automatically whenever text is placed inside it.

How can I find out which line of a field a user has clicked in?

It is easy to calculate using information that can be obtained about a
given field.

First of all, we can find out what size rectangle a field occupies by
using the field property, RECT. Short for rectangle, RECT returns four
numbers in a comma separated list. The numbers represent the upper-left
and lower-right screen coordinates for that field.

Next, we can find out what the line height of each line of a field is by
using the field property, TEXTHEIGHT. As you might have guessed, each
line of a field can really be expressed as a multipleof the line height.
Unfortunately, we must determine that multiple using the screen
coordinates. Here's a user defined function that will do just that:

Function Clickline
    return ((item 2 of the
    clickloc - item 2 of the rect of the
    target) div the textheight of the
    target) + 1
End Clickline
on openField
    put clickline() into msg
    pass openField
end openField

Ignore the openField handler for now, but take a look at the function.
As you may remember, the Hypercard function, THE TARGET, returns the
name and id of the object which last received a message. Likewise, the
Hypercard function THE CLICKLOC returns the horizontal and vertical
screen position of the last mouse click as two comma separated integers.
With that knowledge, let's dissect the function Clickline() (yes, you
need the parentheses).

The function returns an integer which represents the number of the line
of any field clicked in.

Here's how the function determines the field's line number. First, it
takes the vertical location clicked at by the user (item 2 of the
clickloc) and subtracts the top of the field (item 2 of the rect) to
determine how many pixels are between the top of the field and the
location clicked at. Once this is known, determining the line number is
a matter of dividing those pixels by the TEXTHEIGHT. This is what the
rest of the function does. We add 1 because Clickline() returns a zero
for line 1.

Clickline() is very flexible. In the openfield handler shown above for
example, we use clickline() with a put statement, treating it just like
the number it returns. You can also use it with an IF THEN statement or
any place where you would use the number itself. All you need do is
replace the 'put line' of the openfield handler with your script.

What about scrolling fields?

An interesting exception arises when using scrolling fields. The above
function does not account for lines that may have scrolled off of the
screen. It looks only at the visible area of the field. Consider the
following function:

Function Clickline
    return (((item 2 of the
    clickloc - item 2 of the rect of the
    target) div the textheight of the
    target) + 1 + trunc(scroll of the
    target/textheight of the target))
End Clickline

It adds the number of lines that have scrolled off the screen to the
total number of visible lines. The field property SCROLL returns the
number of pixels scrolled off the top of the field. When divided by the
TEXTHEIGHT, this yields the number of lines. Since a full line may not
have scrolled by, it is necessary to truncate the value using the TRUNC
function.

Put both the function definition and the openfield handler in your home
script where they can be used by any field in any stack.

How can I hide buttons from command-option key peek?

When you don't want people peeking at your buttons, it is necessary to
trap the command and option keys. While there are several ways of doing
this, here is one that is simple and works about 99% of the time.

The basic idea is to take the user to another card when the command and
option keys are both pressed. This can be a "no peeking" card or a rules
card or some other kind of card. When the user releases both keys, you
then return to the card the user was viewing before trying to peek.
Following are the two scripts that accomplish this. Put the top one in
your  stack script and the other in the "no peeking" card script.

For the stack script:

On Idle
    if the commandkey is down and
    the optionkey is down then
        push this card
        go card "no peeking"
    end if
end Idle

For the "no peeking" card script:

On Idle
    if the commankey is up and
    the optionkey is up then
        pop card
    end if
End Idle

POWER USER TIPS

%  Create a button on your Home card with a script that says, 'go to
stack "the stack you want".'  When you click on it, not finding a stack
by that name it will put up SFGetfile asking "Where is the stack you
want?"

%  To zoom directly to the script of an object, hold down the Shift key
while double clicking on the object, or while choosing Object "Info...".

%  Do not name a button or a field with a name that begins with a
numeric character.  This causes problems in that  if you ask for a
button "1812" HyperCard looks for the button whose number, not name, is
1812.

%  In the button or field tools, holding the shift key down when
dragging constrains the movement horizontally or vertically, making it
easy to drag in a straight line.

%  With any tool, Option-Drag in Fatbits allows you to scroll the
screen.

%  To "pre warm" the cards in a stack so that "show all cards" will
really cook through the stack, put an "on openStack" script that locks
the screen, shows all cards, and then unlocks the screen.  This quickly
and invisibly caches all the cards, so that "show card" scripts will
work at optimum speed.

%  If you are running on a Mac II and want to see Visual Effects, be
sure to set the monitor to 2 bit mode.

STACK BUILDING HINTS

Beware of relying entirely on  "Go Back"  buttons for navigation through
your stack.    A good technique is: On openCard  "push recent card",
which remembers where you just came from.  Then when you do a "pop card"
you will always go to that recent location.

If you suspect that your pushes and pops are not in sync,  add the
following handlers to your stack script to help you sort them out.

on pop params
    put the params after msg
    pass pop
end pop

on push params
    put the params after msg
    pass push
end push

TELL HYPERCARD...

Please use the following form to make a difference in the world:

Date: Name: MailStop or Address: Phone: Versions of:
 a.  HyperCard
 b.  Associated software
 c.  System Software
    1. System
    2. Finder
    3. ImageWriter file
    4. LaserWriter file
    5. Any others Type of Macintosh: Peripherals: Description of problem,
suggestions or comments:

You can send this form to:

AHUG
C/O David Leffler
Apple Computer Inc.
MS 27AQ
10500 N. DeAnza Blvd.
Cupertino, CA  95014

Or, copy this format and AppleLink* it to:

HYPERBUG


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

From: [e-mail] (Gregory Dudek)
Subject: Re: Anyone Have ROvr 0? (Was Replacing system fonts)
Date: 16 Sep 87 23:12:42 GMT
Organization: CSRI, University of Toronto

It appears that you can find ROvr #0 in the system resource file ever
since system 4.0 !!
  Greg Dudek
--
Dept. of Computer Science (vision group)    University of Toronto
Usenet:    {linus, ihnp4, allegra, decvax, floyd}!utcsri!dudek
CSNET:    [e-mail]    DELPHI: GDUDEK
Paper mail: Dept. of Comp Sci, Univ of Toronto, Toronto, Canada


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

From: [e-mail] (Joel West)
Subject: Re: Text manipulation a la MacDraw, how to do it ?
Date: 17 Sep 87 11:55:43 GMT
Organization: Palomar Software, Inc., Vista, CA

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (J|rgen N|rgaard) writes:
> Hello everybody !
>
> Does anybody have an idea how MacDraw (for example) handles text-rotation ?
> I suppose it is handled in another than than just rotating the bit images.

Nope, MacDraw rotates the bit images, which is why you can look at it
and see it on an ImageWriter.

However, it also includes TextBegin and TextEnd picture comments, so
that it can later rotate it back to normal (editable) text, and so the
LaserWriter driver can recognize it as a rotated string rather than just
bits.

See Macintosh Technical Notes #27 and #91.
--
    Joel West  (c/o UCSD)
    Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA  92083
    {ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww     [e-mail]
   or    ihnp4!crash!palomar!joel    [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Jim Kateley)
Subject: Re: Hypercard
Date: 17 Sep 87 13:51:02 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA

Hold down the command (open-apple, or cloverleaf, etc) key, and pull
down the file menu.  When you do this, you have access to the  "protect
Stack..." menu item.  Select it and re-set the user level back to
scripting.


--

Jim Kateley
Applelink: kateley1
UUCP: {sun, voder, nsc} apple!kateley
CSNET: [e-mail]

Disclaimer: All the usual stuff, I speak for myself, etc...

Remember: When you smile :-), the world smiles with you,
          When you frown :-(, the world thinks you are hung over...


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

From: [e-mail] (Brian H. Powell)
Subject: Hard disk recommendations
Date: 17 Sep 87 20:52:01 GMT
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas


     I'm thinking about buying a relatively large (> 50MB) SCSI hard
disk. Can anybody give any recommendations?  I'd like to know about
speed, price, size, reliability, compatibility, etc.  (Disktimer II
results would be welcome.)
     Another question you are welcome to answer:  I can probably get by
fairly comfortably with a 40MB hard disk if I thought there were some
reason not to buy one of the larger hard disks.  Is there any reason not
to buy a larger hard disk?
     I'll be more than happy to summarize results if I get any.

Brian H. Powell
        UUCP:    ...!uunet!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]


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

From: [e-mail] (Keith Rollin)
Subject: Re: Color for the SE? (Is this a dumb question?)
Date: 18 Sep 87 02:39:58 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA


In article <[e-mail]> you write:
>
>I suspect the lack of Color Quickdraw in the SE was an intentional crippling
>of that machine.  After all, if you could buy an SE and a color card, why
>get a Mac II?  This is, of course, only my own sorely misinformed ignorant
>opinion, and I don't want to start a flame war.
>

It's OK, no flame. But consider...

...Color screens take a lot of memory. In order to store a full 256
color screen on the Mac II, you need at least an additional 300K of
memory. This is the memory on the video card.

...Have you seen the Mac II, with its 16 MHz 68020 update its screen?
Its not incredibly fast in 8 bit mode. Want to to it on an 8 MHz SE with
its 68000?

...There is also probably a problem getting quality color screen in
quantity.

These are just my ignorant guesses too. I've never really asked why CQD
wasn't implemented on the SE.

--

Keith Rollin
Sales Technical Support
Apple Computer

Stupid Disclaimer: I read this board for fun, not profit

Stupid Quote: If god had meant man to fly, he would have given him plane tickets


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

From: [e-mail] (Dan Graifer)
Subject: Re: APPLESHARE server sitting on ETHERNET
Date: 18 Sep 87 04:52:06 GMT
Organization: UCSD Office of Academic Computing


Hardware:

Kinetics (makers of the FastPath Ethernet/Appletalk gateway) have
announced the following:

  EtherSC: SCSI Ethernet controller: $1050 old style,  $1250 new "thin"
     ethernet (ie the latter has a built in transmitter)
  EtherPort SE: MacSE/Ethernet controller card (will connect to either style):
     $850

Software:
There are a couple of ways to go with software:

1) Kinetics provides K-Talk, driver software to support appletalk  on Unix
     systems. (Kinetics makes Appletalk controller cards for many Unix boxes.)

2) Kinetics has a TCP/IP, Telenet, TFTP etc. package available for the Mac

3) (Best bet in my opinion).  Call Centram (Maker of the TOPS network, now
   owned by Sun Microsystems) and harass them about TOPS network driver
   software for this configuration.  They currently support file service
   off a mix of Unix machines on Ethernet connected to PCs and Macs on
   Appletalk/PhoneNet via a FastPath.  The marketing people I talked too
   were willing to admit the market for the product you want, but not what
   Centram's plans were.

In any case, call [phone] or write (2500 Camino Diablo, Suite 110,
Walnut Creek, CA 94596) Kinetics for their literature;  It includes stuff
for all the software that runs on their hardware.

Good luck.  Let me know if you find existing software to do what you want.
                              Dan Graifer
                              [e-mail]
Disclaimer: Nobody ever listens to me anyways; Why should they start now?

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

From: [e-mail] (Ed Winograd)
Subject: Hindi Language Instructional Software
Date: 17 Sep 87 02:42:49 GMT
Organization: The Pennsylvania State University - Computation Center

I have a friend who is looking for software to help her teach Hindi at
the college level.  She's not currently computer-literate, but she'd
like to find out about programs available on IBM mainframes under
VM/CMS, on the IBM PC, and on the Macintosh.  I know computers, but not
Hindi, so between the two of us, we should be able to judge whether a
particular program might suit her needs.  Any information would be
appreciated.



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

From: [e-mail] (Bruce Weiner)
Subject: NCR 7901 or ADDS Viewpoint A2  (HELP)
Date: 18 Sep 87 04:11:53 GMT
Organization: Princeton University, NJ

Does anyone know of any softwere, either public domain or purchase that
emulates a NCR 7901 well.  The ADDS viewpoint A2 is a good substitute if
the NCR is not possible.  Please let me know about anything.....

Bruce Weiner  -  BITNET: 6090799@PUCC
                 UUCP:   ...allegra!psuvax1!pucc.BITNET!6090799
                 USMAIL: 301 N. Harrison St. Bldg B Suite 322
                         Princeton, New Jersey 08544


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

From: [e-mail] (Glen Ditchfield)
Subject: TML pascal.
Date: 17 Sep 87 19:34:13 GMT


Today, the TML phone answerer told me that the Pascal v2.5 upgrades
would be sent out at the end of the month.  Apparently the information
Apple gives them about the Mac II interfaces keeps changing.

(And I sent my disks in for the upgrade before Father's Day.  Oh, well,
at least it is free...)
--
Glen Ditchfield                      {watmath,utzoo,ihnp4}!watrose!gjditchfield
Dept of Computer Science, U of Waterloo         [phone] x6658
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada               Office: MC 2006
If you grab the bull by the horns, you at least confuse him -- R.A.Heinlein

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

From: [e-mail] (Phil Hunt)
Subject: MacPlus Video Problems
Date: 18 Sep 87 14:01:54 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation

(Arther Harkin writes...)

>...Macintosh Plus is having a "serious" problem......
>(Paraphrasing..) The drive clicks then the screen has alternating 1/2" vertical
>black and white lines.  Whats going on???

I had EXACTLY the same problem when I installed an Internal Hard disk
WHEN I  ACCEDENTLY LEFT OUT THE APPLE ROMS!!!!

So I would assume the H/W that maps or loads from the ROMS is bad or
maybe a ROM has gone bad itself.  Service Center time!!!

Phil Hunt


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

From: [e-mail] (Kerien Fitzpatrick)
Subject: External clocking of AppleTalk
Date: 18 Sep 87 16:27:40 GMT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI

Has anyone looked into externally clocking the AppleTalk port?  I am in
charge of a large Mac network with mostly Plusses and a few SEs.  The
thought of spending $1000 per Plus and $600 per SE to get them on
ethernet is a little overboard.  I don't feel we need a transfer rate of
10Mb/s, but that 230Kb/s is snail speed.  The original AppleTalk speed
is fine when the only equipment on your network is a LaserWriter, but
once you start putting file and mail servers the slow speed becomes
painful.  Is Apple doing anything about this or are they just looking at
connecting their new models to a higher speed network?

Any information is appreciated.

Kerien Fitzpatrick
Field Robotics Center
Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
[e-mail]
[phone]

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

From: [e-mail] (Kerien Fitzpatrick)
Subject: AppleShare and RAM cache
Date: 18 Sep 87 16:35:40 GMT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI

In version 1.0 of AppleShare the RAM cache is supposed to be set to 64k.
Now that version 1.1 is out I was wondering if I could increase the size
of the cache?  Is the cache size limited by machine memory?  If that is
the case I would add additional memory to the SEs acting as servers so
that I could increase the size of the cache.  I am also running
LaserShare on the AppleShare servers (LaserShare is fairly sharp, but
would benefit immensely by the ability to inform users that have queued
mail that the printer is out of paper or that their job has finished).
I tried our university computer store, but they did not know the answer
to these questions.

Kerien Fitzpatrick
Field Robotics Center
Robotics Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
[e-mail]
[phone]

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

From: patm@omepd (Pat Mead)
Subject: Re: TOPS Installer and System 4.1
Date: 17 Sep 87 16:36:53 GMT
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro


I had even worse problems with the Tops installer here. The old Feb 17th
(?)  version worked fine but the new March version that we just got for
our 2 new SE HD20 macs died with a system error. I found the easiest way
to install Tops is to simply use the Font/DA Mover to move the Tops DA
over from the installers system file and then just copy the Tops, Tops
Help and Interbase (if you need it) files over with the finder. This
works great. Also as a side note the Tops serial number is in the Tops
file itself. This means you can put the Tops DA in a DA file and update
past versions of it without causing problems with duplicate serial
numbers. I personally found this useful in being able to make one Tops
backup disk with the latest copy of all the files except Tops of which I
have 6 folders each with a different Tops file in them labeled as to the
machine which that serial number of Tops goes to. Hope this helps
someone else who maintains many macs using Tops.


***********************************************************
usual disclaimers---

Patrick Mead            ogcvax!inteloa!omepd!patm

***********************************************************


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: MACHACK WEST HYPERCARD KEYNOTE
Date: 16 Sep 87 19:04:00 GMT



                            MacHack West Keynote Address

Danny Goodman, author and contributing editor to MacWorld and PCWorld,
will give the keynote address at the MacHack West Conference.  Goodman's
most recent book, the 720 page "The Complete Hypercard Handbook" has
just been published by Bantam Computer Books.  Mr.Goodman has been
working with HyperCard for a year and a half.  His address will be
entitled, "The Impact of HyperCard on Macintosh Program Development.


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

From: [e-mail] (Alain de Cheveigne)
Subject: MacApollo: who has it, where can I get it?
Date: 17 Sep 87 17:36:31 GMT
Organization: Inst. de Rech. et Coord. Acoustique-Musique, Paris


I saw an article in Computer Graphics May 86 on something called
MacApollo that lets you use a Mac as a station on an Apollo domain.

Has anyone used it?  Where can I get it?

thanks

    Philippe Fabiani
    Universite Paris 7,
    Laboratoire Image et Parole,
    2 place Jussieu,
    75251, Paris CEDEX 05, France.


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

From: [e-mail] (David Goldsmith)
Subject: Re: HyperCard distribution For New SEs
Date: 18 Sep 87 17:18:26 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA

All Macs sold after August 15 are supposed to have HyperCard bundled.
It is not physically in the box; rather, your dealer is supposed to give
you a copy when you pick up your Mac.

Any time a dealer says they don't know about an Apple program or
product, you should have them check on AppleLink.  All dealers have
access to AppleLink precisely to resolve questions like this.
--
David Goldsmith
Apple Computer, Inc.

AppleLink: GOLDSMITH1
UUCP:  {nsc,dual,sun,voder,ucbvax!mtxinu}!apple!dgold
CSNET: [e-mail], dgold%apple@CSNET-RELAY
BIX: dgoldsmith


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

From: [e-mail] (Robert Gardner)
Subject: Physics and Computer Games
Date: 18 Sep 87 17:35:24 GMT
Organization: Philips Research Labs, Sunnyvale, California

This may not be the right forum for this, but...

I'm concerned about the number of computer games/simulations lately that
incorporate incorrect physics. I'd like to see a "Stomp out Bad Physics"
movement to help programmers get it right.

As an example let me mention Dark Castle and StuntCopter. Now, I don't
do any of this to embarrass the programmer/developer/publisher of these
(or any) packages. These both happen to be excellent programs that are a
lot of fun. But I worry about what they are teaching the people
(children, esp.) who use them about physics. The understanding many
people have of the physical world is already pretty bad. And the fact
that these programs show these problems is further evidence that even
intelligent, capable people can have misconceptions about the world. If
this could be remedied I believe the technological  achievements of the
mankind could be even more remarkable...

So, now the examples: Dark Castle: When swinging across the ropes (in
the dungeon) the way to successfully jump from rope to rope is to jump
when you are at the top of your swing. Jumping too soon or too late
causes you to miss the second rope. Now, admittedly, timing is a big
issue in doing this in real life, but the fact remains that at the top
of your swing you no longer have any forward momentum. If you let go of
the rope at the top of your swing you will therefore fall straight down
and not go forward at all. I had a hard time figuring out how to jump
the ropes successfully in Dark Castle because I kept feeling like I
should be trying to jump forward to catch the next rope so I was always
jumping too soon. (The animation clearly shows a jump rather than a
'reach'.)

StuntCopter: This problem is much more bothersome. Here the goal is to
fly a helicopter over a moving cart, drop a man from the copter and have
him land in the cart. The problem is in the trajectory of the man after
he lets go of the helicopter. In the game he always falls straight down
from the helicopter regardless of the helicopter's speed or motion. In
real life (assuming no wind) the man's forward velocity as he falls
should be exactly the same as it was the moment he let go of the
helicopter. In other words, if the helicopter is flying exactly over the
cart, moving at the same speed as the cart, then the man should land in
the cart when he lets go, regardless of the speed at which he falls. If
there is a wind then the wind velocity should be added to his initial
velocity, so if the helicopter is flying into the wind he doesn't go as
far, if it's flying with the wind then he goes farther. (Wind resistance
is actually somewhat more complicated than this, but this gives you the
idea.)

Sorry to flood the nets with this gibberish, but I feel very strongly
about the issue and I think it's the programmers/developers/publishers
that need the message the most since they're the ones providing the
games/simulations. Actually it's kinda nice that the software is good
enough that things like this are noticeable! Keep up the good work, but
"Stomp out Bad Physics"!

Robert Gardner

P.S. If anyone knows of a (more) appropriate forum for this message
please cross-post it and/or let me know so I can see if it gets any
reaction. Thank you.

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