PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/USEnet Digests/USEnet Vol. 3/USEnet 3.106

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From: Jeffrey Shulman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V3 #106
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From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN@SDR>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V3 #106
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Usenet Mac Digest     Sunday, December 27, 1987     Volume 3 : Issue 106

Today's Topics:
     Weather Images (Mac II or Amiga?)
     AppleColour Monitor Quirk
     Re: IBM_to_Macintosh
     More magazines (& a mea culpa)
     Re: Dbase III files and 4D
     Re: Prototype Board for Mac II
     Re: CMS Experiences
     Re: HFS Flames
     Re: MacII Communications question
     Re: MacII Hard Disk partitions
     Re: image rotation
     Bug in Mac Word 3.01?
     Re: Hard disk back-up on a VCR ?
     Re: Finder 6.0 "feature" is a pain
     SFGetFile question
     Some questions on cursors and stuff like that there
     appletalk address
     Re: Weather Images (Mac II or Amiga?)
     Re: Purgable blocks in the heap
     Re: Dbase III files and 4D
     System Design tools needed!

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

From: [e-mail] (Marco Papa)
Subject: Weather Images (Mac II or Amiga?)
Date: 16 Dec 87 23:33:00 GMT
Organization: Felsina Software, Los Angeles


It has come to our attention that a picture appearing on the front cover
of one of the latest issues of MacWeek, was not correctly attributed to
the source.  This involves an article about current and forthcoming
products for the Mac II by Aegis Development of Santa Monica, CA.  The
picture is a broadcast-quality satellite color picture of the same type
one can  see on the local evening news weather report.  Bearing no
attribution, the reader is lead to believe that the image was either
produced or  downloaded to the Mac II with proper software from one of
the many  commercial databases that obtain these images from the
National Weather Service.

Very far from the truth.  The image was produced by Accu-Weather, Inc.,
decoded and downloaded to an Amiga 2000 computer with Felsina Software's
Digi-Weather software.  Somehow Aegis got hold of this and other
pictures from a third party and did not care to either ask for
permission for  publishing or attributed to the real source.  As far as
we know, there is no software for the Mac II that allows downloading of
broadcast-quality  weather images.

While Accu-Weather was reasonably pissed off at not having their
product, Accu-Data, credited as the source of the image, we were not
surprised. How many people know that the original "mandrill" was
produced at the USC  Image Processing Institute?

While MacWeek and Aegis Development gave no credit to the source, both
Amazing Computing and Info Magazine did credit both Accu-Weather and
Felsina  Software as the source of the images they published in their
recent reviews of Felsina Software's A-Talk Plus and Digi-Weather.

Just to set the record straight.
--
-- Marco Papa
   Felsina Software


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

From: mcdonald@sfu_dipper.cs.sfu
Subject: AppleColour Monitor Quirk
Date: 15 Dec 87 10:42:00 GMT


I have recently noticed an odd and unlikeable quirk in my Mac II
monitor.  A short time after being turned on (say 1-2 minutes) its image
will shiver up and down very slightly for a few seconds, and then
stabilize.  So far as I know, this is recent behaviour only--I certainly
never noticed it until a few days ago, and have had the Mac II for quite
a while.  Is this normal, or is it something I should worry about?  Will
it get worse?  The Mac II at the University Sales Centre is displaying
similar behaviour, so this may not be an isolated instance.

Thanks for the comments.

--
K. McDonald
Simon Fraser University
Vancouver, B.C.


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

From: [e-mail] (Greg Stephens)
Subject: Re: IBM_to_Macintosh
Date: 17 Dec 87 19:07:34 GMT
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino

I have tried several combinations of programs to perform multi-file
xfers between PCs and the Mac.

First, Red Ryder 10.3, says that it supports YMODEM.  I have never
gotten Red Ryder's YMODEM to work with any PC based emulator that
supports YMODEM.

However, MicroPhone 1.1 YMODEM does work with multiple files at least
when you are sending from the PC to the Mac.  I have not tried sending
multi-files from the Mac to the PC though.  Another nice thing about
MicroPhone is that it supports up to 56kbaud which helps if you have the
PC and Mac direct connected.

On the PC side of things I have used ProComm and Mirror (the crosstalk
clone).  Both of their YMODEMs work with MicroPhone.  Procomm, however,
only goes up to 19.2kb so I would use Mirror or Crosstalk if you are
direct connected.

If you get YMODEM from Mac to PC working with multi-files let me know
how it works.


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

From: [e-mail] (Chuq Von Rospach)
Subject: More magazines (& a mea culpa)
Date: 18 Dec 87 06:34:54 GMT

Not to dig up a dead subject again, but there are a few comments that I
felt obligated to pass along, then I'll (hopefully) shut up about Mac
magazines for a while...

First, about MacUser: my mea culpa. I turned in a subscription renewal
to them. After all that screaming and yelling and posturing.

why? two reasons: One is that they publicly announced a new policy of
only
    reviewing things once they get it in shrink-wrap. That's a Good
    Thing, and removes (at least until proven guilty again) my
    contentions with them about pre-reviewing software, especially their
    Word 3.0 and PageMaker 2.0 abominations.

    Second, they've started up hypercard coverage, and the first column
    (kids, build your OWN minifinder!) was pretty good. For me, having
    some decent hypercard coverage and Neil Shapiro was enough to make
    me re-up. Neil on his own wasn't. And the latest issue seemed better
    than the last six months or so -- perhaps with the move to the Bay
    area done and things settling down, they can better focus on the
    magazine again. We'll see.

    Regardless, since I was loudly decrying them, I thought I'd also
    almost as loudly recant some of it. It's only fair (but wait! This
    is USENET! You can't be fair on USENET! Um....)

Also, I actually got a rejection letter from them. That's the good news.
The bad news is that it was a xeroxed form letter that doesn't give any
indication of what they were rejecting: "you're query doesn't fit....".
Since it came from Bobker's desk, I still don't know if he's rejecting
the query I sent in last March to him, or if he's rejecting the query I
sent in to one of the other editor's 8 weeks ago that got passed along
to him.

This is better than total silence, of course, but at eight weeks (giving
them the benefit of the doubt and expecting them to reject the most
recent query, expecting the rest to be totally missing in action) it's
STILL too long for a form letter reply to a one page query. But they're
improving on that front, too, it seems.

Speaking of missing queries, I'll point out that Macintosh Today ALSO
had a query that was still missing in action after eight weeks. And
they're in theory a weekly, which implies their material needs to be
MORE responsive and timely than a monthly. I'm not amused....

Second, MacWeek: I got, um, disagreed with by one of the MacWeek writers
on Delphi. It turned out, among other things, that I hadn't seen any
recent copies -- I was dropped off the subscription list silently and
hadn't realized.

So, I went and tracked down a bunch of issues I missed. And read them.
And yes, MacWeek has gotten better over time.

But, and I expect to be, um, disagreed with again, I still think
Macintosh Today is the more professional of the two "trade news" rags.
Even though it doesn't answer queries. I found a few articles in MacWeek
with significant factual errors, and one case where I had to wonder if
the reviewer really used the silly program (the review was of Ready,
Set, Go! 4.0, which I'm rather familiar with, and the review simply blew
it) If you can qualify for a free subscription to either, I think either
will do the job.  Given a choice, however, I'd choose Macintosh Today.
And I'm not sure that it is worth it at this time to get subscriptions
to both.

Next, Desktop Publishing: A few people asked me what I thought about the
magazines in the DTP world, since I do a fair amount of work with it.
Frankly, I'm not impressed with any of them. I subscribe to "Publish!"
because, if nothing else, the page makeovers are interesting. Otherwise,
it's generally high gloss, low content. Since MacWorld has turned around
from the same problems, maybe they'll fix Publish!, too. But I'm not
holding my breath. (for those that don't know, Publish! is pubbed by the
same folks that do MacWorld).

The other one, Personal Publishing, is sadly and blatantly IBM PC
oriented. Proud of using a hacked up machine to try to simulate what
comes naturally to the mac. I read it when I find an issue on the
newstand that isn't actively anti-mac, but they're material is worse
than Publish!'s.

Hint: if you want to start a magazine, and have a spare million, there's
lots of DTP folks dying for a decent publication. Just don't hire Dvorak
as a columnist. Please.

Finally, a plug: I just got my first copy of "Macintosh Horizons," which
is the new name for Mac-A.P.P.L.E. The publication (which started out at
the Puget Sound Users Group Mac Newsletter and grew...) has a new
editor, a new focus, and among other things, Jeff (fluke!moriarity)
Meyer as a columnist. And, if things go right, me, so this isn't a
disinterested comment.

Needless, Macintosh Horizons is trying to combine the openness of a
User's Group newsletter with the exposure of a real magazine. They're
also trying to cover some of the things that other Mac magazines seem to
shine on. I'm impressed with the folks working with it, and I like the
first issue underr the new regime -- it shows a lot of potential. And
you ought to keep an eye on it and see if you like it. If what they have
planned works, I think MH will be the alternative magazine for The Rest
of Us, as MacTutor is the alternative magazine for the Hackers. I'm
encouraged enough to pitch in and see what happens.


chuq


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

From: [e-mail] (Cy Shuster)
Subject: Re: Dbase III files and 4D
Date: 18 Dec 87 08:13:38 GMT
Organization: Ashton-Tate, Torrance, CA

dBASE Mac has the ability to read and write dBASE II and III files in
place, i.e. once you have hardware access to the files, the necessary
dBASE Mac structure definition is built automatically from the dBASE III
internal definition, and the dBASE III file can then be read and updated
right where it sits.

The advantage of direct access over importing is, of course, that
importing implies copying, and therefore making the data out of sync
with the original. With a TOPS or other network where Macs and PCs can
both access the same files, existing dBASE III applications can continue
to update a database, while new applications can be developed as dBASE
Mac projects against the same files. And since relations are built by
key field values, one-way relations can be built from dBASE Mac files to
dBASE III files, in place.

For further information, contact Customer Service at [phone]
(this is not an ad!). (And Dennis, correct me if I left anything out!)

--Cy Shuster--  UUCP: ...scgvaxd!ashtate!cy   CIS: 74166,2027


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

From: [e-mail] (ephraim vishniac)
Subject: Re: Prototype Board for Mac II
Date: 18 Dec 87 14:33:36 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Steve
Bullard) writes:
>I am looking for a prototype card for a Mac II, preferably one with the
>NUBUS interface included.  Has anyone heard about/seen/used such a thing?

>Steve Bullard

At the MacWorld show last August, I saw one company with such an item.
(There may have been more, but I was in a hurry.)  The one that I saw
was Creative Solutions, the folks who brought you Mac FORTH.  For more
info, call them at 1-800-FORTH-OK.  Better yet, look for one of their
ads and double-check that phone number.
--
Ephraim Vishniac                      [e-mail]
Thinking Machines Corporation / 245 First Street / Cambridge, MA 02142-1214


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

From: [e-mail] (Jeff Walker)
Subject: Re: CMS Experiences
Date: 17 Dec 87 14:14:29 GMT
Organization: Automatix Inc.,  Billerica, MA


We recently got 3 CMS drives and a tape backup system in for evaluation.
The 40M, 80M, and 100M. The tape backup is the 60M 1/4" streaming tape
drive (based on the TEAC). I am very impressed with the quality of the
software which comes with the drives. It is easy to use yet powerful. It
lets you do the standard stuff like format, initialize, and install
CMS's drivers, but also let you do useful stuff like verify the disk,
display the allocation map, and move bad blocks. They have this one test
called "the overnight test" which writes to each block and verifies,
looking for bad blocks (wiping your drive, of course).

The backup software is very good as well. It allows you to a file by
file or image backup. The file by file is intuitive. It looks like the
normal "Open File" dialog, but also allows you to "Select All" or toggle
particular folders. The speed of the driver is good also: 32M in 10 min.

My only complaint about CMS is having 2 different floppies containing
system software. One for the lower capacity drives, and one for the
larger drives. A drive comes with the appropriate floppy, but its one
more thing to worry about when you are shipping different drives with
each system.

    -Jeff Walker
     Automatix
     [phone]
     vaxine.UUCP!jww

Disclamer: I claim dis claim to be true.

Food for thot: "Stupid is relative"
        -jww


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

From: [e-mail] (ephraim vishniac)
Subject: Re: HFS Flames
Date: 18 Dec 87 18:00:10 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Eric K. Olson)
writes:
> [discussion about file tags, their merits and costs]
>
>Floppies (MFS for sure and maybe HFS) when they're formatted have two
>directories, but I believe the file system only updates one of them for
>speed.

When a volume is initialized, a copy of the volume header (sector 2) is
placed just short of the end of the volume, in the next-to-last sector.
Even this is some use for scavenging, as it retains basic info about the
original state of the disk: a name, the volume allocation unit, whether
it's MFS or HFS, and perhaps other good things.

A small yuk: Apple's sample SCSI driver has a bug that prevents use of
the very last sector on a drive.  The bug escaped notice because volumes
are normally used only through the next-to-last sector (see above). But,
the bug serves as a signature to help you see if your disk vendor
mindlessly copied Apple's sample code, bugs and all.  Do this now: take
FEdit (or equivalent) and try to read the last sector of your disk...
--
Ephraim Vishniac                      [e-mail]
Thinking Machines Corporation / 245 First Street / Cambridge, MA 02142-1214


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

From: [e-mail] (Stew Rubenstein)
Subject: Re: MacII Communications question
Date: 14 Dec 87 02:53:57 GMT
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab Harvard, Cambridge, MA

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (da staff) writes:
>    So, I need a communications program that
>    (1) runs on a MacII
>    (2) has Kermit or at least Xmodem
>    (3) Can do Vt100 emulation.

VersaTerm runs great on a Mac II, has both kermit and XModem (not to
mention the faster YModem), and has the best VT100 emulation I've seen
(and I've seen a lot in my eight years using VAX/VMS).  It does
background downloading under MultiFinder.  It even has Tektronix 4014
and DG200 emulation, as well as VT100.  $99 from Peripherals, Computers
and Supplies, 215-779-0522. There's also a VersaTerm-Pro which adds
4105/4107 emulation, in color on the Mac II.
--
Stew Rubenstein
Cambridge Scientific Computing, Inc.
UUCPnet:    seismo!harvard!rubenstein            CompuServe: 76525,421
Internet:   [e-mail]       MCIMail:    CSC


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

From: [e-mail] (Stew Rubenstein)
Subject: Re: MacII Hard Disk partitions
Date: 14 Dec 87 02:59:21 GMT
Organization: Aiken Computation Lab Harvard, Cambridge, MA

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (da staff) writes:
>
>    I recently aquired a MacII with a 40Meg hard disk.  I went to partition
>it up but discovered that there are no native commands for partitioning
>an Mac hard disk under HFS.

Hard Disk Partition, by FWB Software.  $39 from MacConnection, I
believe. I don't have it, but I know people who do and use it every day
on a Mac II. Seems to work great.
--
Stew Rubenstein
Cambridge Scientific Computing, Inc.
UUCPnet:    seismo!harvard!rubenstein            CompuServe: 76525,421
Internet:   [e-mail]       MCIMail:    CSC


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

From: [e-mail] (David Phillip Oster)
Subject: Re: image rotation
Date: 14 Dec 87 03:42:27 GMT
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley

In article <76000070@uiucdcsp> [e-mail] writes:

>I think your analysis of the parallel bitblt algorithm is fallacious.
> [much deleted, check it, it is interesting]
You're posting shows the blind preference for elegance that I was
critiquing in my article. Think it through:

1.) Here is the analysis again:

The recursive version for rotating an NxN bitmap does O(log N) BitBlts
to rotate a bitmap by 90 degrees. (It does three BitBlts to interchange
quarters, then must recursively interchange those quarters all the way
down. Each recursive step takes another three BitBlts.)

In addition, the recursive algorithm only works directly for squares
that are a power of 2 on edge. (To handle other sizes, you usually copy
into an offscreen bitmap that is large enough, rotate it, and copy the
result back.)

The 8x8 transpose version does O(1) bitblt to rotate a bitmap by 90
degrees. In addition, it works directly for any rectangle that has edges
that are a multiple of 8.


2.) by experiment. I have actually coded up and run both versions. For a
256 by 256 bitmap, the 8x8 transpose method was about 10 times faster
than the recursive CopyBits method. (And, I didn't even optimize the
transpose method.)

The recursive method is elegant, but _slow_. The point of my article is
that the elegant algorithms you learn to appreciate in an algorithms
class  sometimes really _are_ worse than using brute force in the real
world.
--
--- David Phillip Oster            --A Sun 3/60 makes a poor Macintosh II.
Arpa: [e-mail] --A Macintosh II makes a poor Sun 3/60.
Uucp: {uwvax,decvax,ihnp4}!ucbvax!oster%dewey.soe.berkeley.edu


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

From: [e-mail] (Clayton Cramer)
Subject: Bug in Mac Word 3.01?
Date: 17 Dec 87 23:01:26 GMT
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA

I've noticed a bug in the Macintosh version of Word 3.01, and I'm
curious if anyone has noticed it.  (Ideally, you have a solution as
well).  If a print a document with a table of contents, and ask Word to
print the document back-to-front, it prints only the sections after the
table of contents section -- the table of contents section, and any
preceeding sections, do not print.  If I print the document
front-to-back, all sections print fine.
--
Clayton E. Cramer
..!hplabs!pyramid!kontron!optilin


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

From: [e-mail] (Bill Mayhew)
Subject: Re: Hard disk back-up on a VCR ?
Date: 13 Dec 87 17:35:25 GMT
Organization: Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine


While I don't own one, I've been told that it is an effective method.
The problem is that locating information inside of a backup isn't as
convenient as a streaming tape.

The mitigating factors are that a very non-fancy VCR can be used for the
tape transport and the tapes are much cheaper than DC600As or DC2000s.

The backup can also be tranmistted over any communications channel that
can handle an NTSC format transmission.  There have been several
experiments using satellite TV to do so.

I think the name of the product is Video Trax, and the control board
goes for about $US 300.  You can also buy a "specially modified" VCR
from them.

--Bill


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

From: [e-mail] (Raymond Lau)
Subject: Re: Finder 6.0 "feature" is a pain
Date: 13 Dec 87 15:36:21 GMT
Organization: The Big Electric Cat


There is an indirect way to specify what application will open documents
of a certain creator.  The Finder maintains this information in a
resource of type APPL id 0 in the DeskTop file.  This resource is just a
list of creators, the application and the directory ID of the
application.  The list is sort of like a LIFO thing.  The last
application you've touched in the Finder...that creator and name and dir
ID will be added to the head of the list.

Thus, if you have multiple applications of the same creator, the one
last moved, etc. will be the one the Finder "sees" when you d-click on a
document of that creator.

This list also grows forever if you use DAs et al to delete files, since
the Finder can't tell that the files are gone.  Solution - rebuild
desktop file, but that also trashes the entire APPL list.

Alternatively, you can write an application to maintain the APPL list.
Such an application might allow the user to specify which of mult
applications of same creator to use.  (Of course, when you go to the
Finder and move things around, the list will be updated)

--
Raymond Lau                       GEnie: RayLau
100-04 70 Ave.                    CIS: 76174,2617
Forest Hills, NY 11375-5133       Delphi: RaymondLau
United States of America          MacNET: RayLau
uucp: [e-mail] (..{phri,cucard,bc-cis,mstan}!dasys1!raylau})


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

From: [e-mail] (Robert Gardner)
Subject: SFGetFile question
Date: 18 Dec 87 17:02:11 GMT
Organization: Philips Research Labs, Sunnyvale, California

I am trying to call SFPGetFile twice in a row to get two input files
from the user. On the second call I want to filter out the file they
chose the first time. I have not been able to find a way to do this. If
anyone has any ideas I would appreciate help ASAP.

My first attempt was to save the file name and vRefNum from the first
call and then check those fields in the fileParam block passed to the
filter for a match. Unfortunately, the ioVRefNum passed to the filter is
ALWAYS -1 (at least under HFS). I can't figure out any way to get from
the information in the fileParam block to a vRefNum to compare it with.
I also tried doing a PBGetFInfo call after the first call to SFPGetFile
and saving some info there for comparison, but there are so many ways to
specify a volume that I couldn't figure out how to do it the same way
that is needed for the filter. The volume information doesn't seem to be
changed in PBGetFInfo from what you specify.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Robert Gardner


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

From: [e-mail] (Sue Brezden)
Subject: Some questions on cursors and stuff like that there
Date: 17 Dec 87 21:54:06 GMT
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO

I'm posting these questions for a friend.  He's the expert, not me--hope
I don't screw these up.  I do save the group  for him and will get
e-mail to him--so either answer type will do.

Here goes:

  1.  He just got System 4.2, Finder 6.0.  Noticed that
      for the spinning watch cursor, there are now 7
      cursors instead of 8--cursor 256 is not there.
      Now, he wants to replace those cursors.  If he
      replaces the 7 cursors with 8, then saves them,
      he still gets the 9:00 watch cursor.  So where
      should he go to replace that one?  Is it in ROM?

  2.  On a similar note:  there is another cursor that is
      a circle divided into quarters (alternate black and
      white.)  It's used in hypercard among other places.
      Is this patchable, and how?

  3.  When using the option command about Multifinder,
      you get credits.  There are some things that are
      X'd out.  Some are obvious, but some are not.  What
      were all these originally?

  4.  He knows that there are resources in System and Finder
      which are there for other Macs than his.  Which ones
      can he remove to save space, but it will still work
      with his Mac (Mac 512KE with 2 meg).  He'd like some
      more space for fonts, etc.  He does not want Appletalk,
      either.

  5.  Which ROM patches go with which machines?

  6.  Same question as number 4 for System 4.1, Finder 5.5.
--
                                          Sue Brezden
                                          ihnp4!drutx!slb
Everything hurts.
                     --Michaelangelo


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

From: [e-mail] (yip)
Subject: appletalk address
Date: 18 Dec 87 22:46:14 GMT
Organization: University of California, San Diego

Does anyone know how to set the appletalk address for a mac to a
specific number?

thanks,
--
David Yip
[e-mail]
[e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Randy Spencer)
Subject: Re: Weather Images (Mac II or Amiga?)
Date: 19 Dec 87 02:49:57 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] () writes:
>
>It has come to our attention that a picture appearing on the front cover
>of one of the latest issues of MacWeek, was not correctly attributed to the
>source.  This involves an article about current and forthcoming products
>for the Mac II by Aegis Development of Santa Monica, CA.  The picture
>-- Marco Papa  Felsina Software

Aegis seems to be getting themselves into trouble these days, last night
at BADGE, Leo Schwab (Our new MC... good job Leo), was complaining about
EA using his work to show off their VideoScape product, and not giving
him the acknowledgement he felt he deserved.  I sure hope that this is
just lack of thinking at Aegis.  I hope in the future we see credit
where credit is due.  (One thing I will say for the Mac world, they
don't seem interested in presenting work done by others as their own...
generally)
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Randy Spencer      P.O. Box 4542   Berkeley  CA  94704        [phone]
[e-mail]        I N F I N I T Y         BBS: [phone]
..ucbvax!mica!spencer            s o f t w a r e                  AAA-WH1M
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


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

From: [e-mail] (Darin Adler)
Subject: Re: Purgable blocks in the heap
Date: 18 Dec 87 23:15:11 GMT
Organization: Apple

> My question is, is it necessary to call HNoPurge (for example)
> every time you call GetResource, or can you expect things
> loaded into the heap (like with GetResource) to at least be
> there until the next ROM call?
>
> Would a call like this be prone to this error:
>
>     DrawPicture(GetPicture(1000), &r);

When you load a resource which may be purgeable, it is sometimes
necessary to call HNoPurge. The only time something can be purged, is
when something else allocates memory. This includes anyone calling
NewHandle, NewPtr, SetHandleSize (to increase the size of a block),
SetPtrSize (to increase the size of a block), or ReallocHandle.
Routines which call these traps (directly or indirectly) are listed in
Appendix B of Inside Mac Vol. III.  (Although this list is not entirely
correct, it is a good starting point.)

The example that you gave is a place where you *do* need to keep the
block from purging. Note that DrawPicture *is* listed as one of the
routines that may move or purge memory. The best way to do this is:

        picture := GetPicture(1000);
        state := HGetState(Handle(picture));
        HNoPurge(Handle(picture));
        DrawPicture(picture, &r);
        HSetState(picture, state);

Note that it is not always necessary to call HNoPurge every time. First
of all, there are many ROM calls which do *not* move or purge memory.
Also, it is not necessary to assume that every resource might be
purgeable.  If you put the resource into your application, and do not
set the purgeable bit, nothing will make it purgeable behind your back.
Thus if the 'PICT' resource above was not marked purgeable, there would
be no problem with your original DrawPicture call.
--
Darin Adler, Apple Computer                          AppleLink:Adler4
UUCP: {sun,voder,nsc,mtxinu,dual}!apple!darin  CSNET: [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Dennis Cohen)
Subject: Re: Dbase III files and 4D
Date: 18 Dec 87 14:46:34 GMT
Organization: Ashton Tate Development Center Glendale Cal.

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Cy Shuster) writes:
> dBASE Mac has the ability to read and write dBASE II and III files in place,
> i.e. once you have hardware access to the files, the necessary dBASE Mac
> structure definition is built automatically from the dBASE III internal
> definition, and the dBASE III file can then be read and updated right where
> it sits.
>
> The advantage of direct access over importing is, of course, that importing
> implies copying, and therefore making the data out of sync with the original.

While it is true that importing implies copying, I don't believe that
the phrase "out of sync" is appropriate unless the file is also being
used concur- rently by dBASE III+ (for instance, over TOPS).  The
advantages of importing are:  availability of two-way relations and
indexes, improved performance, and the ability to add multivalued,
graphic, and choices fields to the file.  In short, while dBASE Mac can
manipulate dBASE II and dBASE III files directly, it is not the
preferred method (just as direct manipulation of text files is not the
preferred method), but rather a possible alternative for certain fairly
well-defined situations.
--
Dennis Cohen
Ashton-Tate Glendale Development Center
dBASE Mac Development Team


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: System Design tools needed!
Date: 20 Dec 87 17:40:51 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

Information needed!!!

I am interested in hearing about any packages available for Systems
Analysis, Design, Development and Documentation which might run on a Mac
II.  (This may be my chance to finally get a Mac on my desk at work in
an IBM environment, so please answer if you have helpful information.)

Our agency is currently time-sharing with other state agencies on an IBM
3081 mainframe with remote 3270 terminals and misc. printers.
Applications are written in a combination of Cobol II, CICS, Easytrieve
and Natural (just being implemented). Files are sequential tape, ISAM,
VSAM or Software AG's Adabas. We are looking for productivity tools to
eliminate the manual effort in analyzing application requirements,
designing and developing systems, and automating the technical and
operational documentation.

The ideal package (or combination of packages) would support the
following features, which have been requested by our data processing
management planning committee:

      *Project management system
      *Flexible system development methodology
      *System Analysis Expert System
      *System Design Expert System
      *CASE/Prototyping capabilities
      *System structure charts
      *System Component Tracking
      *Graphic data flow diagrams
      *Warnier diagrams
      *Data base design aids
      *Data dictionary
      *Forms creation
      *Automatic documentation generator

Needless to say, other items on their wish list include word processing,
desk top publishing and free-form graphics.

I am most interested in hearing from other data processing shops where
these tools may be already in use.

Replies should be directed to one of the following addresses (I will
summarize to the UUCP Net, GEnie and EchoMac):
--
GEnie:        JHENSLEY
EchoMac:      Jenet Hensley   (thru BMUG BBS   415/ 849-2684)
UUCP:         [e-mail]
   or         sun!cup.portal.com!jh
   or         sun.com!cup.portal.com!jh
   or         sun!portal!cup.portal.com!jh
   or         (whatever else will work -- the 'sun' site can be
               reached thru the following major UUCP sites:
               ucbvax, decwrl, decvax, seismo, hplabs )
US Mail:      PO Box 10964, Reno, NV  89510

Thanks for your help!

Jenet Hensley

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