PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/USEnet Digests/USEnet Vol. 3/USEnet 3.092

Internet Message Format | 1988-04-08 | 30.1 KB | [TEXT/ttxt]

Date: Sat 14 Nov 87 10:25:54-GMT
From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN@SDR>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V3 #92

Usenet Mac Digest     Saturday, November 14, 1987    Volume 3 : Issue 92

Today's Topics:
     Re: An A/UX question...
     Re: SE Internal Hard Disk Size
     Re: Review of _Quarterstaff_ (Mac game)
     Re: Mail-order question/recommendations
     Re: Making sure PrGeneral exists
     BeepInit and Screen Memory...
     Re: An A/UX question...
     Re: ATG File Format
     Re: An A/UX question... (2 messages)
     Async ATalk Bridge?
     Re: Yet more INIT questions
     WriteNow header trick
     Quickeys and QuickFolder NOT compatible
     Re: diskless mac-II A/UX
     Bernoulli drives
     Re: Quickeys and QuickFolder NOT compatible
     Delux Music Contruction Set Printing Problem
     Does StartUpSound get played automatically?
     Re: diskless mac-II A/UX
     Re: A/UX and 3rd party disks?
     Re: No more 512k to MACPLUS upgrades After DECEMBER?
     Re: Suitcase failure...
     why applications should ask for mouseUp events
     Re: Writing your own installer for home built SCSI disks

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

From: [e-mail] (Mark A. Verber)
Subject: Re: An A/UX question...
Date: 4 Nov 87 16:09:21 GMT
Organization: Ohio State University, Computer Science

Try using diskformat rather than mkfs.  There is a utility which can be
used to read macintosh floppies.  I can't remember what it is called off
the top of my head.

You should check with your contact from Apple about this.  As far as I
know the current beta version of A/UX comes with the toolbox subset. The
program is called toolbox.

Cheers,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Science Department                     Mark A. Verber
The Ohio State University             [e-mail]
[phone]                  cbosgd!osu-cis!verber

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

From: [e-mail] (Raymond Lau)
Subject: Re: SE Internal Hard Disk Size
Date: 3 Nov 87 14:12:47 GMT
Organization: The Big Electric Cat

HD Setup (since 1.3 I think) sets the HD to a fixed amount of usable
space.  Before, they formatted it to as much good sectors as that once
existed, but that caused a minor problem.  If you were to back up a
nearly full hd, reformat it...and then find tha t there's less
room...makes restoring that much more difficult!  So Apple decided to
leave a safety buffer and format it to a number in the 19Mb range...
(expecting that there'll never be less usable space on the disk - unless
the disk is in need of repl acement)


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

From: patm@omepd (Pat Mead)
Subject: Re: Review of _Quarterstaff_ (Mac game)
Date: 4 Nov 87 16:46:14 GMT
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro

I just last week got a review copy of this game for our Users Group
Newsletter.

I may have a newer copy of this game since some of the problems
discussed before didn't occur to me. For example I could double-click on
a saved game and it would go in just fine. Also taking an object from
someone in the same party is fine. But I'm also running it from my hard
disk. My version is 1.2 or 1.3.

Just to add to the previous review I have found much to be lacking in
this game. The first thing you'll notice is that you must open a door, a
simple task right. Being used to text adventures you type 'Unlock door
with key'. No go here DOOR is an unreconized word. The only sentence
that works 'unlock with  bronze key'. If you use the word door foget it
you'll never get in. You get  the idea of how bad the sentence parcer
is. There is a way to get around some of its problems. You can choose a
verb from the action menu and an object from the characters menu or room
menu to build most of your sentence. I have also found no way to split
up food between party members. This is a pain to pass the food around
when you have 3 rations and it would be easier to split it up.

I have spent most of my time playing fighting the game instead of really
playing it. I have great hopes that the AI under the poor interface is
good if only I could get far enough to see it. They are working on a
multi-player version with apple-talk or modem which could spice things
up some but the first order should be to make it user friendly.

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

Patrick Mead            ogcvax!inteloa!omepd!patm

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


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Mail-order question/recommendations
Date: 2 Nov 87 17:19:00 GMT

I had big problems with one called NetSolutions/Software for Less. I
ordered the HFS update for the MacWorks package from them.

They still haven't sent it to me (I've called them about 7 times) since
I ordered it on June 30.  About a month ago, I sent Citibank out after
them.  Hopefully, they can get things done.

I'd stay away from them, if I were you.

Ken



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

From: [e-mail] (Larry Rosenstein)
Subject: Re: Making sure PrGeneral exists
Date: 4 Nov 87 17:29:54 GMT
Organization: Advanced Technology Group, Apple Computer

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Earle R. Horton)
writes:
>
>let the development system library routine find out if it exists.  Either
>PrError() or ResError() will return resNotFound if the resource does not
>exist.

According to Inside Mac volume 5, you should call PrError.  I wouldn't
assume that ResError will have the same error.

>It's important to realize that the Printing Manager calls are not traps, but

Actually, starting with System 4.1, there is a Print Manager trap, which
replaces the glue that used to be linked with every application.  (The
trap is in the Mac SE and Mac II ROMs.)  You are right, however, in that
the trap ultimately calls code in the printer driver resource file.

--
Larry Rosenstein

Object Specialist
Apple Computer

AppleLink: Rosenstein1
UUCP:  {sun, voder, nsc, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr
CSNET: [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Thomas Summerall)
Subject: BeepInit and Screen Memory...
Date: 5 Nov 87 19:04:49 GMT
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH

A friend of mine is using an SE with Dark Castle on a hard disk which
has BeepInit in its system.  When he runs Dark Castle it tells him that
there is something wrong with the memory setup and that it can't run.
If he takes the beepinit out, then it will run.  This even happens with
very small beeps. (7k)

Does BeepInit store the beep in the area of memory that Dark Castle
wants to use for page flipping?  Does it have to?  It seems like there
should be enough room in the megabyte for both to exist.

This isn't a pressing problem, but it does raise some memory
organization issues that I would love to understand.  Has anyone else
had a similar problem?

Thanks in advance...

==============================================================================
thomas@dartvax * [e-mail]  |  Thomas Summerall '88
                                                       |  H.B. 3445
"And all that the Lorax left here in this mess,        |  Dartmouth College
 Was a small pile of rocks, with one word: UNLESS"     |  Hanover, NH    03755
                                        -Dr. Seuss '25 |

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

From: [e-mail] (David W. Berry)
Subject: Re: An A/UX question...
Date: 4 Nov 87 20:07:02 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA

In article <[e-mail]> buzz@phoenix (Mahboud Zabetian)
writes:
>
>Does anyone know how to ls a floppy disk from A/UX?  I want to get information
>on the files on a floppy, much as the finder does from the Mac OS.  I have
    Presuming you've put a standard file system on it and mounted it (see
below) you treat it like any other unix directory.
    ls /floppy                # presumes you did what's below
>tried to mount the floppy, first by using mkfs and then mount, but it won't
    diskformat /dev/rfloppy0        # format
    mkfs /dev/rfloppy0 800            # install file system
    mkdir /floppy                # make mount point
    mount /dev/rfloppy0 /floppy        # make it available has worked fine every
time I've tried it.
>mount.  I can't even get the Mac II to eject the floppy.  Any ideas?
    eject 0                    # floppy 0
    eject 1                    # floppy 1
>
>Also, is there a way to launch Mac applications from A/UX??
    Yes.  Many Mac applications can be run from the A/UX filesystem by
uploading them using macget.  For instance:
    macget foo
    mv foo.data foo
    mv foo.rsrc foo.res
    launch foo


--
    David W. Berry
    [e-mail]                   dwb@Delphi
    [e-mail]                   [e-mail]
Disclaimer: Apple doesn't even know I have an opinion and certainly
    wouldn't want if they did.


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

From: [e-mail] (David W. Berry)
Subject: Re: ATG File Format
Date: 4 Nov 87 19:17:56 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Marc
Kaufman) writes:
>1) Can anyone send me the format of ATG files (those high resolution
>   color graphic files used for demos on the MacII).
    I believe it's a Picture and can be displayed with DrawPicture To read
it in you could either allocate an appropriately sized handle and read
it in and then DrawPicture the handle or you could replace the StdGetPic
bottleneck with one that reads bytes from a file.
--
    David W. Berry
    [e-mail]                   dwb@Delphi
    [e-mail]                   [e-mail]
Disclaimer: Apple doesn't even know I have an opinion and certainly
    wouldn't want if they did.


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

From: [e-mail] (Stew Rubenstein)
Subject: Re: An A/UX question...
Date: 6 Nov 87 08:07:44 GMT
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab Harvard, Cambridge, MA

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Rick Daley) writes:
>There is an A/UX manual called something like "The A/UX Toolbox Guide" that
>goes into great detail about what applications can do that will keep them
>from working under A/UX.

How can a certified developer get a copy of that manual so that I can
try to write my applications in such a way that they WILL run under
A/UX?

Stew Rubenstein
Cambridge Scientific Computing, Inc.
UUCPnet:    seismo!harvard!rubenstein            CompuServe: 76525,421
Internet:   [e-mail]       MCIMail:    CSC

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

From: [e-mail] (Rick Daley)
Subject: Re: An A/UX question...
Date: 5 Nov 87 06:25:02 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, USA

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (David W. Berry) writes:
> In article <[e-mail]> buzz@phoenix (Mahboud Zabetian) writes:
> >Also, is there a way to launch Mac applications from A/UX??
>     Yes.  Many Mac applications can be run from the A/UX filesystem
> by uploading them using macget.  For instance:
>     macget foo
>     mv foo.data foo
>     mv foo.rsrc foo.res
>     launch foo

I can't let this go by without a comment.  The above scheme will ATTEMPT
to run a Macintosh binary from A/UX.  Most mac binaries won't run under
A/UX. There is an A/UX manual called something like "The A/UX Toolbox
Guide" that goes into great detail about what applications can do that
will keep them from working under A/UX.  In summary, the most common
problem is a lack of 32-bit cleanliness.  Most mac applications know
that they are running in a 24-bit address space and feel free to didle
with high bits of addresses. This won't work under A/UX, which uses the
PMMU to provide a 32-bit address space.  Future versions of the mac OS
are also likely to use 32-bit addresses. Anyway, we hope that developers
will start cleaning up the applications enough to make them A/UX
friendly.  But in the meantime, don't be surprised when your favorite
mac applications don't run under A/UX.
                        Rick Daley
                        rpd@apple/UUCP

ps.  The above directions for running mac binaries are only good for
A/UX versions up to Beta 1.0.  After that, you need to use a program
called rcnvt to produce the new "AppleSingle" or "AppleDouble" format
resource files. Type: "man rcnvt" to get more information on this.


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Async ATalk Bridge?
Date: 4 Nov 87 00:48:00 GMT

       In the October '87 issue of Dr. Dobb's, a project is
    presented to allow AppleTalk to be used over RS-232 lines.
    This involved replacing the Appletalk Link Access Protocol
    with an asynchonous protocol to handle the link level.

       As suggested in the article, a very useful extension on
    this project would be a "bridge" to route packets between a
    machine on the other end of the RS-232 and the rest of an
    Appletalk network.

       I would like to know what others have attempted in the
    way of using a Mac' as such a router.  To me, this is a
    project worth exploring, and I will welcome discussion via
    email on seeing this idea to life.

    --------
    Lionel Hummel
    University of Illinois
    [e-mail]        >_ Different from
    {ihnp4!pur-ee}!uiucdcs!brutus!hummel    >  posting address

    "Truth is after all a moving target;
     hairs to split and pieces that don't fit.
     How can anybody be enlighted?
     Truth is after all so poorly lit."
             - Neil Peart


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

From: [e-mail] (Brian Matthews)
Subject: Re: Yet more INIT questions
Date: 4 Nov 87 17:19:04 GMT
Organization: Computer X Inc.

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Joel West) writes:
|Counting on having a QuickDraw grafport initialized in an INIT
|is a very bad move.  So anything referenced via A5, including
|variables such as white, randSeed, etc. is out.

Agreed.  It would only be a bad move if it didn't work.  It's a VERY bad
move because it works under some Systems on some machines, and not on
others, so it's easy to be fooled into thinking it works everywhere.  It
DOESN'T.  It's also fairly simple to initialize Quickdraw's globals and
open a port.

|I think QuickDraw can be used in an INIT; I just think you have to
|make your own port (I haven't done it, so don't quote me).

I have used QuickDraw from an INIT.  You have to do a little more than
open a port (QuickDraw generally isn't even initialized at this point),
but it's fairly easy to get things to work.

|Usually INIT's are very simple, like to install some code that
|will be used later.

This is true in general.  The reason I used QuickDraw in the INIT was so
I could set up some structures and calculate some sizes in code that was
going away after it was done (the INIT), thus reducing the amount of
code laying in the system heap all the time.
--
Brian L. Matthews                               "A man with one watch knows
...{mnetor,uw-beaver!ssc-vax}!cxsea!blm          what time it is; a man with
[phone]                                  two watches isn't so sure."
Computer X Inc. - a division of Motorola New Enterprises


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: WriteNow header trick
Date: 4 Nov 87 19:40:00 GMT


If you don't use WriteNow, you aren't interested in this note.

I like being able to define multiple headers and footers in WriteNow,
but I couldn't figure out how to make a header not appear on the first
page of a document, but on all subsequent pages.  Of course, I could
just define the header on the second page, but that's icky--you would
have to be careful when editting the file so the marker wouldn't slide
off the second page to the first or third, defeating the purpose.  Plus,
this would make it impossible to use a Stationery document to make it
happen automatically.

Anyway, I had a flash of inspiration.  For any given page, WriteNow uses
the LAST header definition it found on a PREVIOUS page, or the FIRST
definition it finds ON the page.  So, all I had to do was put TWO
headers at the top of my Stationery document.  The first is blank, and
results in a blank header on page 1.  The second is the header that is
printed on subsequent pages.

This works like a charm.  I hope somebody else finds this useful (or am
I just stupid, and you've all been doing this all the time?).

----
Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
Internet: [e-mail]  UUCP: ihnp4!uiucuxc!dorner
IfUMust:  [phone]

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

From: [e-mail] (Phil Hunt)
Subject: Quickeys and QuickFolder NOT compatible
Date: 5 Nov 87 15:13:29 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation

Hello,

   I have found that Quickeys from CE software and Quick Folder, a
shareware INIT file,  are not compatible with each other!!!   What a
tossup!!  They are both great stuff!!  If Quickeys is loaded, then
QuickFolder does not put it's extra 'New Folder' button in GETFILE
dialog windows, it doesn't crash, it just doesn't show up.

And a question about QuicKeys,  how do they make it both an INIT and a
CDEV??

I have the Quickeys demo, and it puts up its ICON on system startup (An
INIT) AND comes up in the control panel.  How do they do that???

Phil Hunt


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: diskless mac-II A/UX
Date: 5 Nov 87 20:10:22 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley

Speaking as someone who has watched (from afar, thank god!) almost a
thousand diskless Suns go out to the UC Berkeley campus and having heard
of the many disasters that the so-called ND (network disk) protocol
creates, I would advise against using ND.  (I think even certain people
in Sun have No ND buttons that they wear.)

The main problem with ND is that on the server, the "disk" is just a
huge file.  If the "file" gets trashed, preventing the client from
booting, you can't poke around on the server side to figure out what's
wrong, since it's just one huge data file and not a hundred odd Unix
files in a Unix file system. The only way to fix the ND partition is to
copy a good one on top of it. Particularily in an environment where
users are not all computer science majors, it too often occurs that
users think that if the system doesn't respond for 10 seconds, it's time
for L1-A (Reboot key sequence).  This often trashes the ND partition,
and the client is dead until someone can fix it.

The diskless workstation is an interesting concept, but not without its
problems.  Disk-intensive applications will run like a snail, and large,
memory intensive applications may run slowly also, due to swapping
across the network.

I think the best compromise is the minimum-disk workstation.  Have a
small disk with the essential stuff to boot-up and enough for a good
size swap area.  Then mount a remote filesystem where most of the work
is done. You might even have a medium-disk workstation, which has some
extra room for those times when the server is down, or for running
disk-intensive applications.

Edward Moy
Academic Computing Services
University of California
Berkeley, CA  94720

[e-mail]
ucbvax!opal!edmoy

P.S.  Boy am I glad I have a "diskful" MicroVax II.


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

From: [e-mail] (Michael Rosenberg)
Subject: Bernoulli drives
Date: 4 Nov 87 18:23:56 GMT
Organization: Purdue University


I would like to get some feedback from those of you who have experience
with Bernoulli type cartridge disk systems, namely those by Bering and
IOMEGA.  I have been looking at the 20 meg models from both companies
and am considering the following factors in determining which one to buy
(or none at all).

(The drive would be used on a Mac+.)

   * unit price vs. online storage per unit (single vs duel 20/40 meg
prices)
   * reliability of the medium
   * compatibility with Mac SE and II (for later hardware upgrades)
   * cost of additional cartridges
   * failure rates of hardware
   * access speed (is it much slower than a typical SCSI HD)
   * various problems that you have run into
   * customer support of the product by the manufacturer
   * warranty info
   * drives from other companies not mentioned
   * anything else you think I should know

I will post a summary of the responses to the net.

Thanks in advance, Mike Rosenberg

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Rosenberg            Electrical Engineering Department

{decvax|harpo|inhp4|inuxc|seismo|ucbvax}!pur-ee!n9fik

[e-mail]      or      [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Larry Rosenstein)
Subject: Re: Quickeys and QuickFolder NOT compatible
Date: 5 Nov 87 21:36:39 GMT
Organization: Advanced Technology Group, Apple Computer

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phil Hunt) writes:
>
>And a question about QuicKeys,  how do they make it both an INIT and a CDEV??

It turns out that cdev files behave just like INIT files.  At startup
time, all the INIT resources in the file are executed.  The same is true
of files with type RDEV, which are used by Chooser.

--
Larry Rosenstein

Object Specialist
Apple Computer

AppleLink: Rosenstein1
UUCP:  {sun, voder, nsc, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr
CSNET: [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Peter Steele)
Subject: Delux Music Contruction Set Printing Problem
Date: 5 Nov 87 18:28:59 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Acadia Univ., Nova Scotia

An individual here is using DMCS 2.0 and has been having a very strange
printing problem. The songs he has print out fine on his imagewriter,
but when he prints on our laserwriter, each staff of a song *usually*
gets printed out on a separate page. Sometimes, instead of a staff per
page, we will get maybe the first two or three staffs on one page, and
then the rest of the song will mysteriously not print at all. Once in a
while, a song will print correctly, but we have not been able to come up
with any solution that we can use consistently to make sure a song
prints correctly on the laserwriter, it seems completely random. But it
always works on an imagewriter. Of course, this is very costly to this
individual-- we charge 15 cents a page for laserprinting, and when a 6
staff song which should print on a single page ends up as one staff on 6
different pages... You see what I mean. Any thoughts, advice, comments,
or whatever, that anyone has which might solve this problem would be
*greatly* appreciated. Send your replies to


Peter Steele Acadia Univ. Wolfville NS Canada B0P1X0 [phone]x121
UUCP:{uunet|watmath|utai|garfield}dalcs!aucs!Peter BITNET:Peter@Acadia


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

From: [e-mail] (Mahboud Zabetian)
Subject: Does StartUpSound get played automatically?
Date: 5 Nov 87 21:16:58 GMT
Organization: Princeton U., EE


Does System 4.1 and 4.2 play the StartUpSound automatically?  Mine seems
to do it.  I was going to install the SoundInit init, but I noticed the
soundcap file was being played at startup, even without it.  Anyone know
if there are any other surprises like this that Apple never told us
about?

I remember that the StartUpScreen feature, a few years back, was never
documented by Apple.
--
Mahboud Zabetian                [e-mail]
183 Little Hall                        [phone]
Princeton University                    [phone]
Princeton, NJ 08544                [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Chuq Von Rospach)
Subject: Re: diskless mac-II A/UX
Date: 5 Nov 87 23:47:31 GMT
Organization: Fictional Reality, uLtd

I don't want to get into the good points and bad points of ND (I own
three "No ND" buttons, personally...) but I do want to point out that
Apple couldn't port ND if they wanted to, because ND isn't a technology
that Sun make available to outside parties (unlike NFS, YP, RPC, XDR,
and NFS).

Of course, with SunOS 4.0, ND will be going away, and NFS enhanced so
that it will take over all the functionality of ND, clean up some of the
administrative glitches that ND users learn to love, and will remove any
excuse for Apple to not support diskless machines (hee-hee).

chuq --- Chuq "Fixed in 4.0" Von Rospach            [e-mail]    Delphi: CHUQ


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

From: [e-mail] (Phil Ronzone)
Subject: Re: A/UX and 3rd party disks?
Date: 5 Nov 87 04:01:53 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, USA

A/UX has a fairly sophisticated SCSI manager and generic SCSI disk
driver. However, at the same time, we incorporated bad block handling
and disk partitioning that is somewhat Apple specific. The disk driver
is designed to sense "Aha - this is not an Apple disk, but we'll try to
use it anyway".

So far, we have used (and have had fairly good luck with) many drives,
BUT, there are many many many rough edges that we have seen with a lot
of the third party drives out there. And, A/UX boots via a Mac OS
application that resides on the hard disk in a 2MB HFS partition, which
requires a Mac OS driver, which many newer third parties don't have ....
(although A/UX can be booted via the A/UX booter residing on an 800K
floppy).

So - when a drive is sensed that is not Apple, we have almost always
been able to use it in "basic dumb mode". This is where the disk driver,
supporting 32 "slices" autosizes the disk with the swap space on slice
1, up to a mximum of 20480 blocks, the remainder (minus 204 blocks)
starting at block 204 (this is the root / partition), and provides slice
31 to read/write the entire disk. This "basic dumb mode" is supported in
all the software, so, most of the time, you can use a "normal" SCSI
disk. That is what we designed for, BUT SINCE WE HAVE NO CONTROL OVER
ANY THIRD PARTIES, WE CAN NOT AND WILL NOT GUARANTEE IT! O.K.?

We do use a lot of CDC Wren III's (150MB full height) and like them a
lot. They do give us SCSI reset problems from time to time and one of
these days we'll take the time to track down the cause.

The SCSI manager and driver source code will be published in the A/UX
Writing Device Drivers manual.


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

From: [e-mail] (Joel West)
Subject: Re: No more 512k to MACPLUS upgrades After DECEMBER?
Date: 6 Nov 87 04:52:18 GMT
Organization: Palomar Software, Inc., Vista, CA

At MacHack West, the tech support folks denied that the upgrades would
be discontinued, saying they'd tracked it down recently.

I would rather get an upgrade sooner rather than later.  However, you
don't have to buy the whole kit at once.  In particular, you never need
the keyboard, and the Level 2 can wait.  It's only the Level 1 that's
really necessary right away (a third party memory upgrade would be
nice).  If your dealer says you can only buy one with the other, try
another dealer.
--
    Joel West (c/o UCSD)
    Palomar Software, Inc., P.O. Box 2635, Vista, CA  92083
    Author, Programming with Macintosh Programmer's Workshop (Bantam)
    {ucbvax,ihnp4}!sdcsvax!jww     [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Explaining is not understanding)
Subject: Re: Suitcase failure...
Date: 6 Nov 87 15:46:00 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation

Well, boot blocks and time did solve most of the problems.  I finally
recopied all system/finder files on both disks, ran the 4.0 Boot Blocks
program on both disks, reallocated the Suitcase fils as specified, and
after three cycles of reboot/fail (with no intervening changes), the
system is now back to normal.  Almost...the MB software no longer shows
the "Turning on MacBottom..." message in the startup dialog box.  If
that is all that remains wrong (and about 6 hours of running indicate
that), I am happy.  Strange world, software.

Gary


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

From: [e-mail] (Cs313s19)
Subject: why applications should ask for mouseUp events
Date: 6 Nov 87 06:32:16 GMT
Organization: U. of Hawaii, Manoa (Honolulu)


Inside Macintosh's chapter on the Toolbox Event Manager recommends that
you always use "everyEvent" when calling GetNextEvent, so you get all
types of events.  I never thought this was important, until I neglected
to ask for "mouseUp" events in an application.

My program ignores certain mouseDown events (such as when you click in
part of a window which has no meaning).  When the corresponding mouseUp
event goes into the queue, it stays there.  (A mouseDown which is
tracked has its mouseUp consumed by something like MenuSelect or
TrackControl.)

The problem: When I click on a menu, MenuSelect calls WaitMouseUp, to
see if there's been a mouseUp.  There *is* a mouseUp in the queue, so
MenuSelect stops tracking, and never draws the menu.  The mouseUp gets
consumed by this, *but* then I release the mouse when the menu fails to
track, and the number of queued mouseUps stays the same.  (Is there a
Law of Conservation of...?)

Similarly, controls always "fire" immediately, without tracking.  The
feel of this whole mess is sort of as if your mouse could never drag,
only click.

When I changed my GetNextEvent call to ask for mouseUps, the problem
went away, of course.  Moral: Read the fine print.

 -- Mike Morton // P.O. Box 11378, Honolulu, HI  96878, [phone] HST
      INTERNET: [e-mail]
      UUCP:     {ihnp4,uunet,dcdwest,ucbvax}!sdcsvax!nosc!uhccux!cs313s19
      BITNET:   [e-mail]

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

From: [e-mail] (Michael Czeiszperger)
Subject: Re: Writing your own installer for home built SCSI disks
Date: 5 Nov 87 21:12:14 GMT
Organization: OSU College of the Arts Computer Lab

>The driver also needs to be on the first two blocks of the hard disk, which
>are inaccessible by normal programs (even Fedit).

The driver isn't on the first two blocks, they contain header
information. They can be accessed through the SCSI manager, which I have
already managed to do.  They question was whether I can just copy a
driver from another formatter/init program.  Fortunately, I managed to
figure it out myself. I think the driver needs to be somewhat
customized, so as long as the driver is for the same type of disk,
everything should be all right.  I've got ahold of the Developers SCSI
example driver, and am working on it.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Michael S. Czeiszperger      | Disclaimer: "Sorry, I'm all out of pith"
  Systems Programmer I          | Smail: Room 406 Baker      (614)
   College of the Arts        |        1971 Neil Avenue      292-
     Computer Lab             |        Columbus, OH 43210     0895
The Ohio State University     | UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax}!cbosgd!osupyr!artsvax!mike
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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