PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/USEnet Digests/USEnet Vol. 4/USEnet 4.04

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From: Jeffrey Shulman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #4
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Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #4
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Usenet Mac Digest     Sunday, January 10, 1988        Volume 4 : Issue 4

Today's Topics:
     Bug causes bomb in MacWrite 4.6
     BERNOULLI 5Meg Hard Drives
     32K limit
     Excel Book
     Re: My 'disk catalog' overfloweth!  Help!
     Re: Word-Mail Merge
     overhead projector
     Re: Red Ryder 10.3 Download Quirks
     Debugging LDEV from Lightspeed Pascal
     MacDraft reads MacDraw?
     Re: 32K limit
     Re: Excel problem...
     WriteNow vs. Mac II
     Arcnet boards for Macintosh II or SE/AppleTalk to ArcNet capability
     Re: MultiFInder+MultiVideo+MultiMachine
     MegaScreen Monitors
     72-dpi gray-scales on 300-dpi LaserWriter!
     Re: FullWrite
     What is better tape or megafloppies for backup?

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

From: [e-mail] (Bill Lipa)
Subject: Bug causes bomb in MacWrite 4.6
Date: 7 Jan 88 22:56:48 GMT

I have here a true, repeatable bug in MacWrite 4.6, which abruptly
intruded on my existence when it ate 2 hours of work (I know, I know,
save and make backups). To cause a bomb, type "This is a piece of work".
Move the insertion point to the middle of this string and type "shoddy"
before the word "piece". Now, select Undo to remove the word "shoddy".
Move the insertion point to the LEFT using the ARROW KEYS. Select Redo
to add the word "shoddy" again. Bombola. Sometimes the bug does not
cause a crash -- just do it a few more times and it will, I swear. The
mistake seems to be that moving the insertion keys with the left and
right arrows does not cause Undo to become Can't Undo, unlike moving the
insertion point with the mouse or the up and down arrows. This is on a
Mac Plus with MacWrite 4.6 and MultiFinder. If this is old hat, sorry.
--
Bill Lipa
Bitnet: [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Eric H. Romo)
Subject: BERNOULLI 5Meg Hard Drives
Date: 6 Jan 88 21:58:57 GMT
Organization: North Dakota Higher Education Computer Network, Fargo, ND

I'd like to get peoples' reactions to the general utility, quality, and
performance of BERNOULLI 5Meg Hard Drives. Where can I get them(or can I
still)?
--
Here are my reasons for seeking such a drive:
A. Price -I've seen them at Icon Review for about $500.
B. Size  -There bigger than any external floppy drive, and ther not really big
      big enough to tempt me into saving important documents there without
      backing the doc's up on floppies.
C. Speed -Faster than floppies(about 2-3 times, or so I've heard).
D. Security -from crashes and other acts-of-God.
E. Expandibility -in the sense of cartidges that can be removed and more
      'memory' can be added by using another cartridge(blank or otherwise).


Basically my reasons appear similar to those who desire Bernoulli boxes in
general with the exception that I prefer the smaller 5meg size for reasons of
size and cost(A and B). I see myself using the drive mainly as a startup disk
which can hold a large system file(lotsa fonts/DA's) and all the common everyda
y type applications(Word,Paint,Draw,HyperCard,Pascal,Resedit. and associated
help files). The 5meg size should handle that set quite nicely for quite a few
years to come(in my mind) and is not too expensive so as to prohibit me from
adding memory onto my Mac+ and another hard disk(Bernoulli or other) in the
near future. In the event of getting an ordinary hard disklater this 5meg drive
could serve quite nicely as a backup(as do floppies today) for that drive.

I'm not totally convinced of my decision as of yet so I'm asking you out
there to check for loopholes, oversights, and mis-information in my
reasoning.(Oh yeah, I'm a poor graduate student writing his dissertation(Ph.D.)
-consider that in your responses too.)

Please pass along your advice/input directly to me and I will take care
of the followup article. In the event that you can't reach me by e-mail,
I'll be pleased to see your replies in this newsgroup(comp.sys.mac).

Many thanks.      -Eric.
-------
ERIC H. ROMO
<[e-mail]>
CHEMISTRY DEPT. UNIV. OF NORTH DAKOTA
GRAND FORKS, N.D.


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

From: [e-mail] (todd brun)
Subject: 32K limit
Date: 8 Jan 88 05:25:00 GMT
Organization: Harvard Univ. Science Center

I've dabbled a bit in programming with Lightspeed Pascal, and have run
across an annoying, if not crippling problem.  After I program for a
while, the 'GO' option from the menu no longer will run the program; it
states 'Program segment longer than 32K' or something like that (I
haven't got it right in front of me).  Needless to say, this is
crippling.  My program sufferes from errors of a bizarre nature, but
debugging is impossible.  Perhaps the 32K limit is itself the error.  I
don't know, but I understand that this is not exactly an unknown
problem.  I am working on a 512KE macintosh.  First of all, is there any
simple way to avoid this problem?  Second of all, exactly what is it
that is greater than 32K (not the code itself, certainly), and how does
one correct this?  Any advice and personal experiences are not only
welcome but actively solicited.  Please reply by e-mail, as I don't read
this group all that often. My health and sanity depends on your aid!
And some nice public domain programs may well result...
--
Thanks a bunch.
Todd
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
disclaimer:  "Remember, guns don't kill people, bullets do."


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

From: [e-mail] (Alan Epstein)
Subject: Excel Book
Date: 6 Jan 88 21:24:29 GMT
Organization: Meta Software Corporation, Cambridge MA

i'm looking for a good book which can teach a beginner how to program
excel macros. the person has used a mac and excel with some proficiency,
but has no programming experience. what is the best source on this?

(email please: i'll post summary)

[e-mail]            [uunet!metasoft!alan]


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

From: [e-mail] (Macintosh Users Group)
Subject: Re: My 'disk catalog' overfloweth!  Help!
Date: 5 Jan 88 04:14:20 GMT
Organization: RUNX  Un*x Timeshare. Sydney, Australia.

I strongly recommend an Australian Shareware product by John Lim called
d'Librarian. Our club uses it to catalog all our PD disks, generate text
listings for monthly PD reports, and find that particular file that a
member wants. The number of disks it handles in simply memory dependant.
With a 2 meg Mac II, you should be able to catalog around 550 800K
disks.

The shareware fee is only A$30 (or around US$22). It's great!

I will be posting a new version to the net in the next few days.

Jason Haines, President
--
Club Mac Macintosh Users Group, Sydney, Australia
Phone Home: [phone]
Snail:      Box 213, Holme Building, Sydney University, NSW, 2006, Australia
ACSnet:     [e-mail]       ARPA:   [e-mail]
UUCP:{enea,hplabs,mcvax,prlb2,uunet,ubc-vision,ukc}!munnari!runx.ips.oz!clubmac


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

From: [e-mail] (R. Perlman)
Subject: Re: Word-Mail Merge
Date: 8 Jan 88 04:29:36 GMT
Organization: Pacific Bell Marketing

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Michael Benjamin Weinberger) writes:
>I have a question about the Mail Merge on Microsoft Word and would
>appreciate any help I can get.
>
>It seems that when you have a record that does not contain one of the fields
>you have set up, Word still generates a line feed when inserting the record
>, at the point where you have left the empty field. Is there anyway to
>suppress this line-feed? A conditional perhaps? Thanks in advance.
>

You're not the only one with this complaint.  In "Real-World Answers
(BYTE Jan. '88, Pg 205) Ezra Shapiro goes on for 2  paragraphs about the
same problem with Word 3.01.  His solution:  (after trying Micorsoft
Works, FileMaker Plus, Double Helix &  Omnis 3 Plus) was to use Reflex
Plus.  You may not have an answer  to your problem, but at least you
have company.
--
"there's no success like failure and failure's no success at all" Bob Dylan

Richard Perlman  1E300 2600 Camino Ramon, San Ramon, CA 94583  [phone]
uucp {ames,pyramid,ihnp4,lll-crg,dual}!ptsfa!perl   ||   ceo rdperlman:8


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: overhead projector
Date: 7 Jan 88 17:30:00 GMT


Several people have expressed interest in an overhead projector for the
Macintosh.  Roger Whitney (sdsu![e-mail]) previously
posted information he found in Info World (9/14/87) about a device to
interface between a Mac and a Sharp QA-25 LCD overhead projector
display.  However, the phone number Roger passed along got me nowhere.
I have finally chased this down.  It seems that the device has passed
from Standard Memories, mentioned in the Info World article, to N2
Products, to Turnkey Products. I spoke to Rod Curry at Turnkey Products,
619/241-0777, in Victorville, CA.  Rod says that the device sells for
$950 ($779.20 to universities and military), is pretty much built on
order, and can be delivered in 6-8 weeks. He is sending me literature on
it.  I presume other inquires would be welcome.  (Roger, thanks for the
lead.  I would never have found this without your help.)

               H. George Friedman, Jr.
               Department of Computer Science
               University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
               1304 West Springfield Avenue
               Urbana, Illinois  61801

               USENET:    ...!{pur-ee,ihnp4,convex}!uiucdcs!friedman
               CSNET:    [e-mail]
               ARPA:    [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Jeff Parke)
Subject: Re: Red Ryder 10.3 Download Quirks
Date: 8 Jan 88 05:42:07 GMT
Organization: <[e-mail]>o

Hear! Hear!  I used to be a die-hard RR fan.  Not since getting
Versaterm. However, RR still does a very nice job on login procedures
with the macro language, so I use it as described above.

None of the RR's, including 10.3, have completely kept up with
continuous 2400 baud input.  Beyond that, forget it.  Versaterm handles
2400 baud with ease, and more.

As for up/downloading, I've had compared both at 19.2K for xmodem and
kermit, and I'm afraid Versaterm is easily the winner.

Versaterm was also one of the first packages out with an elegant update
to provide full multifinder awareness.

I have no financial or personal interests in the producers of Versaterm,
I just think there should be more such slickly-done mac applications.
--
uiucuxc!tikal!phred!jeffp {Jeff Parke}
Genie  : JEFFP
DELPHI : JEFFPARKE
Disclaimer: Random coincidence finds official policy here.


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Debugging LDEV from Lightspeed Pascal
Date: 8 Jan 88 16:58:35 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley

I have an LDEV that I've written in LSP that has the virtue of forcing
me to reboot every time I try to use it.  Is there any way I can use the
LSP debugging environment to find the problems?  If not, where do I go
about learning how to use MacsBugs in conjunction with LSP (I've read
the documentation in the LSP book, but I also need some basic
information about the assembly language that MacsBugs displays and how
to translate that back into the Pascal statements.)

Are there technotes about LDEVs that I should read?  Or about the list
manager in gereral?

Thanks,
--
James Moore
-------------------------    |
/ Go raibh sonas agus    /        |  [e-mail]
/ rath oraibh an    /    |--------------------------------------------|
/ Nollaig agus san    /    |   The University of California only knows  |
/ Athbhliain!        /    |   me as a number.  They couldn't care less |
/             /    |   what my opinions are.                    |
-------------------------    |--------------------------------------------|


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: MacDraft reads MacDraw?
Date: 7 Jan 88 07:12:00 GMT


Is it possible to get MacDraft to read in a MacDraw document or a PICT
format file?  Also, if a MacDraw document was designed in landscape
format, when read into Superpaint it gets reduced. Any ideas on how to
avoid this?
  While we're at it, any opinions on the relative merits
  of MacDraft, MacDraw, and Superpaint?  I'm looking at all
  three.


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

From: [e-mail] (-- Byron B. Han --)
Subject: Re: 32K limit
Date: 8 Jan 88 18:57:54 GMT
Organization: Communication Tools Group - Apple Computer, Inc.

You need to segment your application - each code segment has a maximum
size of 32K for most development environments.  MPW allows the developer
to override the limit.

Segmentation on Lightspeed Pascal is achieved by selecting view by
segment by clicking in the upper right hand corner of the project window
and then dragging source files from one segment to another.

Note that with LSP your segmentation is performed at the source file
level. With MPW the segmentation is performed at the procedure level.

With segmentation, your application can be HUGE.  Details on
segmentation can be found in the Lightspeed Pascal manual (as in how to
segment your project).  Also details can be found in Inside Macintosh,
or Knaster's books to name two sources off the top of my head.

This is not be construed as any position on Lightspeed Pascal.  This is
not an advertisement for MPW.

--
Byron Han, Communications Tool                              Apple Computer, Inc.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CSNet: [e-mail]     UUCP: {sun,voder,nsc,decwrl}!apple!han     408-973-6450
                 "Without Macintoshes, life itself would be impossible." - anon.


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

From: [e-mail] (Larry D Adams)
Subject: Re: Excel problem...
Date: 8 Jan 88 18:50:12 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Sys

I'm not exactly sure why this isn't working.  Yes, it seems to me also
that this *should* work.  However, it seems easily overcome.  Take a
look at why you want to do this.  Do you just want to make the current
cell the active one?  Easy.  Just type
    =SELECT(,"RC") that'll do it for you.  Of course, by inserting the "!"
before the "R" will give an error.  Again, I don't know why.  But, the
line above will make the current cell the active cell on the active
worksheet.  Any explanations or questions, please e-mail me.

    larry adams
    u of pgh
    adams3


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

From: [e-mail] (Jeffrey A. Sullivan)
Subject: WriteNow vs. Mac II
Date: 8 Jan 88 20:03:55 GMT
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Sys

I tried to get WriteNow (1.0) to work on a Mac II.  It booted up fine,
and selections, cuts/pastes, etc. all worked fine, but when I went to
type a word (it began with "I"), the I got repeated 5 times!!!  Couldn't
get it to stop repeating.  This was NOT a kbd malfunction, since it
worked fine with  other programs.

Any ideas?  Is there a new version of WN out?
--
..........................................................................
Jeff Sullivan                University of Pittsburgh
pitt!cisunx!jasst3            Intelligent Systems Studies Program
jasper@PittVMS (BITNET)            Graduate Student


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

From: [e-mail] (Peter Merchant)
Subject: Arcnet boards for Macintosh II or SE/AppleTalk to ArcNet capability
Date: 8 Jan 88 17:01:16 GMT
Organization: U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, NY

Does anyone know of any boards to either hook up Macintoshes to an
ArcNet network or bridge an AppleTalk network to an ArcNet network?
--
"Be my guiding light..."              Peter Merchant ([e-mail])


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

From: [e-mail] (David Phillip Oster)
Subject: Re: MultiFInder+MultiVideo+MultiMachine
Date: 8 Jan 88 23:25:37 GMT
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (David Goldsmith) writes:
>So any loop you have (such as the one David gave) should contain the
>following test:

>if (((**gd).gdFlags & (1<<screenDevice)) &&
>    (((**gd).gdFlags) & (1<<screenActive))) {
>    ... whatever you want ...
>}

>around whatever you want to do for each active monitor.


Now I'm confused. David Goldsmith is quite right, Stew Rubenstein also
pointed this out, but on the same page of Inside Mac Vol5. where
GetDeviceList() and GetNextDevice() are described is the call:

TestDeviceAttribute()

which is an easy and clean way of testing the gdflags. Surely, it is
better to use the call than testing the bits directly.
--------------------------------------------

Bug report:

I keep my modal dialogs entirely on the CRT screen that holds the window
the modal dialog refers to.  I do this by scanning th device list
looking for the one that holds my window, then constraining my modal
dialog ot be entirely on that screen (and if it is the main screen, I
check to keep it out of the way of the menu.) Apple itself got this
check wrong in the default menu definition procedure: menus that are
supposed to be drawn on a second video screen don't get drawn.


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

From: [e-mail] (Henry Kautz's mailnews program)
Subject: MegaScreen Monitors
Date: 8 Jan 88 20:35:30 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill

Does anyone have *any* info. about the picture quality of MegaScreen
mono. Monitors, and in particular, how they stack up against Apple mono,
Big Picture, Radius, etc?  *Please* mail me.  Thanks.
--
---- Henry Kautz
:uucp:    allegra!kautz
:arpa: or :csnet: [e-mail]
:old style csnet: [e-mail]
:mail:  AT&T Bell Laboratories
    Room 3C-402A
    600 Mountain Ave.
    Murray Hill, N.J. 07974
:office phone: [phone]


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

From: [e-mail] (David B. Caplinger)
Subject: 72-dpi gray-scales on 300-dpi LaserWriter!
Date: 9 Jan 88 04:13:28 GMT
Organization: U. of Nebraska at Omaha


I'm increasingly appaled by 72 dot-per-inch gray-scales when printing
forms and the like on our LaserWriter Plus.  So, I got to thinking (look
out, world!) about it, and I wonder:  Is it possible to make a patch to
the Laser Prep software that will re-define the gray-scales to a 300-dpi
type?  More specifically: has anyone done anything like this?

The theory goes something like this: When the Laser Prep software loads
all of the PostScript macros in, it should be able to include re-defined
macros for the various gray-scales that say, MacPaint (though I was
using SuperPaint for this) -type "standard" (ha) values.  In fact, I
think Don Lancaster wrote an article about something similar to this,
but I never saw it.  (I only heard about it from a friend.)

Any hints about this would probably be appreciated by many more people
than just me!  :-)
--
-/ Dave Caplinger /-
 ihnp4!unocss!ca055

-------------------/ Lonely is as lonely does; lonely is an eyesore /-------


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

From: [e-mail] (Jeff Meyer)
Subject: Re: FullWrite
Date: 9 Jan 88 23:29:21 GMT
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA

FullWrite Professional betas shipped about two weeks ago.  They're
trying to release it at Expo, but it's going to be a race.  They're
doing *unheard* of things for betas -- they've got an 800 number for bug
reports, and are shipping updates by Fed Express or some such overnight
biz.

On the other hand, the betas (while containing bugs) seem to be pretty
solid (nothing REALLY nasty).  Which is saying something with a product
this complex.
--
                            "Holy jumping Mother O' God in a sidecar with
                             chocolate Jimmies and a Lobster Bib!"

                                        Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
INTERNET:     [e-mail]
Manual UUCP:  {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, hplsla, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
CREDO:        You gotta be Cruel to be Kind...
<*> DISCLAIMER: Do what you want with me, but leave my employers alone! <*>


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

From: [e-mail] (Marty Lee)
Subject: What is better tape or megafloppies for backup?
Date: 9 Jan 88 16:03:50 GMT
Organization: Rick's Home-Grown UNIX; Portland, OR.

As a new owner of a MacII with a 40 Meg hard disk I find it a real drag
to do a full back up onto 800K floppies, you need 50 of the little
suckers and about an over an hour of time.

As I was flipping though the last couple of MacWorlds there seem to be
four (4) better alternatives:

1)  MegaFloppies like the Jasmine unit for $999.  Each floppy can hold
    10 Megs.  The floppies are $40 each.

2)  IOMEGA Bernouli Box Dual 20Meg box, about $2000.

3)  Tape drive...don't know how much a fair price is and if the speed or
    file structure is the type you can recover or backup a single file.

4)  Another 40 Meg hard disk, about $1000.


My first thought was to use option 4.  Then option 1 was bought to my
attention.  I tend to favor #1 because the media is removable and it
would be nice for the lesser used files.  I've been told that the
MegaFloppies been having trouble with reliability because the read/write
head rides on the media unlike #2 or standard hard disks.

My question: should I be worried about the MegaFloppies?  Any better
solutions?

tektronix!reed!omen!bucket!martyl  (Marty Lee)

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

End of Usenet Mac Digest
************************
-------