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From: Jeffrey Shulman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #9
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Date: Sun 24 Jan 88 10:29:40-GMT
From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN@SDR>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #9
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Usenet Mac Digest     Friday, January 22, 1988        Volume 4 : Issue 9

Today's Topics:
     MacExpo: Bursting at the seams
     Re: LightSpeed C gripes
     MacConnection drive alert
     Re: Sorting resources and a question about the list manager
     Re: FullWrite Professional Demo
     Re: MS-DOS Board for SE?
     Re: Some questions on Mac vs. PC Pagemaker
     comm program query
     Re: C vs. Pascal for the mac, vs C
     Problem with Color CopyBits and Pictures
     Copy II 7.x
     resetLaser DA

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

From: [e-mail] (Chuq Von Rospach)
Subject: MacExpo: Bursting at the seams
Date: 17 Jan 88 05:11:56 GMT

This was the year the Mac went Hyper. If I never see the word Hyper
again, I'll be happy. A few months ago, in Boston, Apple announced
Hypercard. This month, in San Francisco, the Mac Vendors went Hyper.

There were three new HyperCard books at the show, with announcements for
more. The only one worth looking at is Hayden's HyperTalk Programming by
Dan Shafer, which lets Goodman act as reference and really hunkers down
and teaches you to use the program. It looks hot, and I'll have more on
it when I finish poring through my copy (as an aside, it was the ONLY
thing I bought at MacExpo this year, more on this later).

Two HyperCard add-on products: the disappointing HyperDA (it lets you
read HyperCard stacks with all sorts of restrictions -- no writing, no
xcmd support being the major ones. It works, but only for simple stacks.
I'm waiting for the what HyperDA ought to be. To quote from the
literature: "HyperDA understands a full subset of the HyperTalk
language" -- now what does THAT mean?) and REPORTS!, which grafts on the
output functions that HyperCard really needs. Initial details look real
interesting.

Commercial stacks are arriving. Hypersoft has The DTP advisor, an AI
stack that helps you design a pretty newsletter. Hypernews is a new,
monthly, Hypercard Magazine On A Disk, at $60.00 a year. HyperPress
Publishign has HyperSpell, a spelling corrector/verifier that works
inside HyperCard; ScriptExpert, a HyperTalk helper, and Icon Factory, a
HyperCard based Icon designer (this one looks really neat -- I am
planning on grabbing a copy when I see it at ComputerWare).

Everyone is on the HyperCard bandwagon. HyperCard is arriving. I just
wish folks would stop putting "hyper-" in front of everything. It's
making me hyperventilate.

Speaking of hyperventilating, trying to breathe was an interesting
exercise at this years MacExpo. It's interesting to put things in
perspective. Two years ago, MacExpo was at Brooks Hall, sharing it with
the Apple II. Last year, it moved to Moscone Center, sharing it with a
boat show. This year, the boat show is gone, more than doubling the size
of the exhibits over last year. Friday, normally the slow day, was
walking gridlock. Getting from one side of the hall to the other was a
non-trivial problem, due to the size of the crowd. I'm frankly surprised
the fire marshall didn't move in. It was, in no uncertain terms, a zoo.
If you occasionally see something where I say "look interesting, I'm
going to get more info" it's because I saw something I was interested in
but could never get close enough to the booth to grab marketing
material, much less talk to someone.

Anyway, on to the show. First, since I've covered it in detail and
because it really was the highlight of the show, is Ann Arbor Softworks
and Fullwrite Professional. Anyone who was at the show and saw the
effort and cost put out by AAS would immediately realize how silly all
these buyout rumors are (the latest being Ashton-Tate). AAS has a lot of
ego and reputation in FWP. Selling out now would be admitting failure or
lack of nerve. One thing AAS has no lack of, however, is nerve. They're
in this for the long run, and they probably will pull it off.

Major Kudos to the AAS folks. They had a marvelous sense of humor about
their vaporware status, down to the demo folks telling some rather sharp
and nasty jokes about themselves. The demos are bloody amazing, by the
way. They had open Macs in one part of their booth (they had the prime
position of the show, and the second largest booth, after Apple's -- no
shrinking violets, they). They handed out a two disk demo set of FWP to
everyone who wanted one at the show, which says more than any marketing
demo can. I took mine home, plugged it in, and went gaga. I'm a word
processor junkie. This is a great fix. 'nuff said.

The AAS folks, despite the vaporware, the jokes, the bad press on
delays, are persevering and shipping a Gamma version of FWP to pre-paid
customers (gamma is the time honored tradition of software companies
when it is almost ready but can't wait anymore). According to folks at
the booth, 6,000 copies were shipped, and I've got independent
confirmation that it arrived at a couple of places. When they do finish
the product, everyone with Gamma will be shipped the rest of the
documentation and the final program, at AAS's cost. These folks firmly
believe that despite the long delay to market and the hassles, they're
going to walk in and waste Microsoft and Word. They may well be right.
The demos are rather impressive, so is the demo program.

'nuff said.

Speaking of Microsoft, they had a big, bland booth. Nothing interesting.
Among other things they were demonstrating was Microsoft File 1.0, a
wonderfully out of date program that had its last update in 1984. I
found this amusing as hell, considering how old and moldy the program
is. Microsoft should either update or dump the program, and considering
it's been supplanted by products like Reflex Plus and FileMaker+,
dumping is probably a lot cheaper and easier. The only folks who haven't
abandoned Microsoft File by now are the silly, the stupid, or the folks
who have very simple needs.

Speaking of FileMaker+, if you are an owner of FM+ and bought the
program while while it was being sold by Forethought, the new owners
want to talk to you. When Forethought was bought by Microsoft for Power
Point, the rights to FM+ reverted to Nashoba, the original designers.
The customer list didn't. The Nashoba people would LOVE to have you
re-register the program with them. There is a new release of FM+
available, version 2.1, which cleans up mac II and printing problems and
fixes a few bugs. They'll send you a copy if you re-register. To do
this, send the following information to
    Nashoba Systems
    FileMaker Registration
    1157 Triton Drive, Suite A
    Foster City, CA 94404

 Serial Number (from back of disk)
 Name
 Company Name
 Address
 City, ST, ZIP
 Day Phone
 Purchase Date (Approx)

I would expect a new, improved release of FM+, probably for the next
MacExpo. It's interesting, by the way, that Microsoft didn't pick up FM+
when they bought Forethought, even though it's a logical replacement for
Microsoft File and one of the best regarded low end Databases. Rumors on
the floor (NOT from the Nashoba booth, since they didn't want to talk
about it) say the Microsoft tried, but their offer was amazingly low and
insulting, so Nashoba turned them down. Grain of salt time, here.

On to Apple stuff. First, Claris. Claris, the software company spun off
by Apple, spread its wings with new versions of the standard Apple
programs and a couple of new toys. The new toys are forms generators,
which I won't cover. The important things are the updates of MacWrite,
MacPaint, MacDraw and MacProject.

Everything now runs on Mac II's and under Appleshare, and is compatible
with Multifinder. To get a Claris upgrade packet, call 800-544-8554.
These programs are no longer bundled with the Mac and no longer handed
out free by dealers. But the upgrade prices are reasonable for the new
functionality, and Claris is putting together a Tech Support
organization to support them. I don't see how anyone can complain
(although I expect it'll happen).

MacWrite 5.0. Upgrade $25. Available now.
    o Spell checker, 100,000 word dictionary
    o create your own dictionaries
    o keyboard shortcuts
    o arrow keys
    o decimal tabs
    o undo

MacPaint 2.0. Upgrade $25. Available now
    o tear off palettes
    o nine documents at once
    o auto scrolling
    o magic eraser (it'll erase what you painted, a layer at a time!)
    o startup screen support
    o  adjustable grid
    o lots more (my fingers get tired. It's neat)

MacProject II. Upgrade $145. Available now.
    o Hierarchical subproject consolidation
    o customizable calenders
    o 1500 resources/project
    o plotter support
    o task relationships

MacDraw II. Upgrade $100. Available Spring
    o 3 to 10 times faster
    o mulitiple layers
    o zooming
    o libraries
    o up to 2000 dpi resolution
    o color
    o plotter support

Those are just highlights. Looks like Claris is off to a good start.

For apple proper, there are the three new LaserWriters. They're cute.
About half the size (and weight!) of the current ones. The lower end
printers are upgradable. The paper trays hold twice the paper, and there
are more of them, including an envelope tray.

The interesting new hardware to me was the MIDI port. Apple gets serious
about music, and seems to be trying to legitimize a new market that the
Mac has made inroads into. This announcement says a lot without
affecting many third party vendors -- a nice touch.

No scanner, it's due out later. Rumor mill has two new machines near the
end of the year, one possibly a portable, the other possibly a 68030
machine. We'll see.

Now, into miscelanea:

Avery now has laser printer labels. These are different than copier
labels in a couple of ways:
    o they're designed to be printed in laser printers without wasting
    labels along the top and bottom.

    o they're designed to be put in the paper tray and automatically fed
    without coming apart and gumming up the works.

The technology is impressive. For folks who run mailing labels, this is
a big step forward.

The big battle, if there was one at MacExpo, was in graphic programs and
retouching. Aldus came out with Freehand, which is going head to head
with Adobe's Illustrator. From my initial glances, I think Freehand may
be in the lead, but Adobe has a new release, Illustrator 88, that does
color separations and some other stuff, so it's hard to tell. Letraset's
Image Studio image touchup software is frankly amazing and impossible to
explain. You have to see it in action to appreciate it.

Let's put it this way. In five years, you'll be able to take a $1.00
bill, scan it into your scanner, you touchup software to put your face
on it and turn it into a $300 bill, then print it out on your color
laser printer, and it will be damned hard to tell it's counterfeit.
Image Studio is the first serious entry in the graphic touch up world,
and will probably come to be seen as being as revolutionary as
PageMaker, or Lotus 1-2-3, or VisiCalc were. It's gonna be fun to
watch....

DTP programs in excess. I got stuff on PageMaker 3.0, RSG 4.0, Scoop,
Xpress, and Interleaf. RSG is still on top, in my eyes, although
PageMaker is better for shorter, more graphic pieces. The others, in
general, keep both products on their toes waiting for someone to slip.
Except for InterLeaf. I don't like Interleaf on the Sun (I like Frame),
and I don't like Interleaf on the Mac even more, because they completely
ignored the Mac user interface in favor of the Interleaf user interface.
And they're significantly more expensive than any other product, with
less functionality. Expect this product to bomb royally, except in shops
that have already committed to interleaf on other machines.

Other things. aesthetics will paint your mac any color in the Panetone
system, or special marble, granite, or wood grain colors. It'll also
color all your accessories, hard disk, and laser writer to match. Colors
are about $300, up to marble and wood at $900. Expensive, but you should
see the results. Truly awesome, and pure ego.

Finally, SuperPaint 2.0, to be available 2nd quarter fro $199 new, $50
upgrade. new features include:
    o autotraciing of a bitmap into a draw layer
    o bezier curves
    o multigon tool
    o new air brush
    o free rotation of objects and text in the draw layer
    o multiple draw layers
    o graphics libraries
    o page size dependent on memory
    o TIFF support
    o laserbits is now one big page.

um, wow.

This year, I bought home over 4 inches of paper, a new record, and I
didn't come close to seeing everything, primarily grabbing stuff I was
at least marginally interested in. These are the highlights. If you
weren't there, while there weren't any major product annoucements or
surprises, it really was an event, and proves (1) the Mac is here, and
(2) that the next year is going to be fascinating.

One thing I have to wonder, though. MacExpo has definitely outgrown
Moscone. There were too many people and not enough vendor room. I wonder
what they're going to do next -- Las Vegas?

chuq


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

From: [e-mail] (Richard Siegel)
Subject: Re: LightSpeed C gripes
Date: 17 Jan 88 07:11:28 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University

This is in response to your varied and miscellaneous gripes about
LightspeedC.  Before I begin responding to your specific complaints,
first allow me to say  that I am a user of LightspeedC (and to a much
greater extent its sister  product Lightspeed Pascal). It is not a
perfect application. It comes damn  close, but it's not perfect. But I
have *never* seen a perfect application, on  *any* computer.

You say that it "is one of the poorest products [you] have ever seen for
a  computer." But by comparison to what? The least you can do is tell us
what  you're used to. Or what you've found to be better.

One caveat: A main reason that I am defending LightspeedC is because I
like  the program. It is a fact (know my most of the readers of this
news group)  that I worked for THINK Technologies (the producers of
LightspeedC). But I am  answering this message as a satisfied owner and
user of LightspeedC. Whether  the reader believes this or not is of
little consequence to me. I simply am  relating the facts as they are.

Now, in response to your numbered points:

1a) "The documentation is awful."
    The function of a program's documentation is to tell you how to use the
program. For a programming environment, you need to know the basics: how
to  use the editor, how to use the compiler, how to use the linker, and
so forth.  I've been a user of LightspeedC since I first took up the C
language, and I  found the manual well geared towards someone who didn't
know how to use the  package. The manual does assume a certain basic
amount of Macintosh knowledge,  and a certain amount of C knowledge, but
this is stated in the manual's  introduction.

    Also, it's worth noting that Macintosh documentation is more sparse
than PC  (or other) documentation, because there's less to learn.

    An important part of using any programming language system is knowing
the  language you're trying to program in.

1b) "The library reference is incomplete, and doesn't say little things
like  which headers & libraries you must include."

    Horsefeathers. Chapter 13 of the User's Guide gives (on each page) a
library  function, along with a prototype of the function's declaration,
and #include  directives for the necessary include files.


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: MacConnection drive alert
Date: 15 Jan 88 21:45:00 GMT


This is a warning to anyone who may have ordered a 20 meg hard disk from
MacConnection. You MAY have gotten a less than wonderful drive. BUT -
you can probably get a better one if you call MacConnection.

Here's the story:

In late December I ordered the MacConnection 20 meg hard drive. The
drive used is a Rodime 652, which has a built-in SCSI controller. The
drive I received came with a sheet of paper stating that the drive is a
Rodime 652-B which works ONLY with the Mac Plus and NOT with 3rd party
SCSI ports. Well, I have a Plus, so it works for me, but suppose I ever
want to sell the drive? I have a friend with a Dove SCSI port on his
512KE, so we tried it; sure enough, it doesn't work.

The formatting software also seemed odd - it did not agree with the
documentation shipped with the drive.

I called MacConnection and asked them about this situation. The person I
spoke to immediately told me that I had received the wrong drive and
that  a replacement would be sent to me (and it was, arriving the next
day in true MacConnection style). This NEW drive contains what looks
like a Rodime 652-A (if I am reading the number right - just about the
first thing I did was take the cover off and look at the drive), and I
received formatting software that matched the description in the manual,
as well as backup software. I will find out tonight whether the drive
works with my friend's Dove SCSI port.

So anyway, if you recently got a MacConnection 20 meg drive and it did
NOT come with backup software and/or came with the funny comment about
not working with 3rd party SCSI ports, CALL MacConnection TODAY and get
the drive you are supposed to get. Evidently a number of these bad
drives were sent out.

(I wonder what's REALLY going on? My past experience with MacConnection
has been incredibly good, and they certainly took good care of this
particular screwup, but it also seems that if they KNOW they sent some
bad drives out that they should notify all recent purchasers and ask
them  to check to see that they have the right goods. I'm probably just
being paranoid...)

-- Jerry Callen
   Intermetrics Inc
   733 Concord Ave
   Cambridge, MA 02138
   ...{ima,ihnp4,harvard}!inmet!callen


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

From: [e-mail] (Zigurd R. Mednieks)
Subject: Re: Sorting resources and a question about the list manager
Date: 17 Jan 88 14:49:16 GMT
Organization: MIT, EE/CS Computer Facilities, Cambridge, MA

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] () writes:
>
>Question 2:  Is there a way to create a list without creating it in a specific
>window?
>
I suspect the reason the List Manager wants a window pointer when a list
is created is that it has to tell the window about its scroll bar. A way
to get around this is to not draw the list until you need it. (Passing
FALSE in the parameter DrawIt when you create the list.) Then, when you
are done adding elements to it, use the LDoDraw call to turn drawing on,
and call LUpdate to actually cause it to draw.

Have fun, -Zigurd
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Zigurd Mednieks           MURSU Corporation        [phone]
               25 Exeter Street
               Boston, MA 02116


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

From: [e-mail] (Jeff Meyer)
Subject: Re: FullWrite Professional Demo
Date: 17 Jan 88 19:54:06 GMT
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Chuq Von Rospach)
writes:
>I just spent 20 minutes with the demo that Ann Arbor Software is giving away

The thesaurus and dictionary that came with the beta (and which are
referred to in the documentation) are by Microlytics -- the thesarus IS
the excellent Word Finder thesaurus, integrated into the product, and
the reference manual states that the spelling checker uses the
"SpellFinder technology".  I think this is an excellent move -- why
re-invent the wheel when someone else has done it so much better?
Integrate it into your product, pay the original creator and save
yourself time and headaches.  Rewards excellence, too.

>memos, reports and technical documents. It doesn't look like FWP would
>handle a publication like OtherRealms or graphically oriented ad copy like

Examine the "sidebar" functionality -- I think it could do quite a bit
for the more graphically-oriented publications (but I haven't seen
OtherRealms on paper, so I can't say for sure).

>What doesn't it have? Good question. Probably a kitchen sink. It doesn't
>have equation processing (AAS said to use something like MacEQN, or do it
>in the draw function.

Yeah, that was the only major thing I noticed it not having -- but Word
does such a sloppy job of it, and MacEQN such a good one, that I think
that it's not much of a drawback.

It also doesn't have the "hidden" text attribute; but this is pointless,
since it allows you to hide outline headings (which was the only place I
used the hidden attributes in outline mode), and post-it notes (little
notes which appear as icons in the icon margin -- double-click them, and
they appear in all their glory, but they don't print).

The only real inconvenience I can think of will be that, as of the beta
version, FullWrite doesn't read Word files (1.05 or 3.x).  It does read
MacWrite files (Chuq, please test those out with the demo version -- see
how well it runs), so you can convert most of your Word files downward.
If that is true for the release, it will be a little awkward during the
switch from Word to FullWrite -- possibly more than some people who have
become accustomed to Word will want to make.  Not me, though -- having
worked on the FW beta for the weekend (with docs), my opinion of FW is
about twice as enthusiastic as Chuq's is.

>Damn, I wish I had the documentation. I want to know what I'm missing.

Well, let me take a look through the reference manual (flip, flip,
flip...):

-   The ability to "classify" a section of text or an illustration -- and
    then insert "citations" to that illustration anywhere (a graphic window
    pops up, you pick the illustration or section of text, and then the darn
    thing asks you how you would like that citation to look -- via radio
    buttons, of course!  Yow!).

-   Automatic repagination (but you knew that, didn't you?).  And their
    WYSWIG mode is MUCH easier to use (though the standard mode is very
    close to WYSWIG).

-   Any kind of placement (or kerning -- yes, they have that, though just
    between characters) is done giving you the choice of various
    measurements -- lines, inches, centimeters, pixels, points, picas.

-   Auto save options and file compaction (slower save).  Smart
    Quotes option (just like the Smart Quotes INIT, I imagine).

-   God, is this thing Maccish. (just had to say that)

-   Can save in "Template" mode -- opening up a Template FullWrite document
    is like opening up a Word document in Read-Only mode.  You can't
    overwrite it -- PERFECT for letter and article templates.  I always
    forget to use Read-Only mode in Word once a month, and overwrite my
    template letter with a lot of junk.

-   Tried the keyboard equivalences?  They have ones for the major
    functions, but any menu item can be pulled down by hitting a two key
    sequences -- one a numeric one that pulls down the menu (for instance,
    Clover-1 for the FILE menu (which it pulls down without you ever
    touching the mouse), and then Clover-n, where n is the nth item on the
    menu that doesn't already have a key equivalence (since the menu's down,
    you can see the n listed next to the item).  Very logical.  Oh, and you
    can walk down them with the arrow keys, if you find the mouse
    inconvenient to word processing.

-   Bookmarks... set one up (a text label), and then you can go to it by
    selecting it from a selection box.  This babe is built for BIG
    documents.

-   Gray scale for text -- ANYWHERE!  Paragraphs!  Drawings!  Double Yow!

-   *ahem*  Get ahold of yourself, Meyer.

-   Want to place a picture in the text?  A cinch.  Check the SIDEBAR option
    out -- lets you pop the picture in.  Gives you a choice as to how text
    should wrap around it -- either a lasso (text wraps around the outlines)
    or a rectangle (a marquee -- text wraps around a square enclosing the
    graphic).  Of course, you can have it draw a border around the marquee,
    automatically, set the gray scale of the background, etc., etc....

-   Dictionary is bigger than Word's -- 100,000 words; and the thesaurus is
    Word Finder, which says it all (220,000 entries).

By the way, for anyone who wants to convert their User Dictionaries over
from Word to FullWrite:  I looked at the User Dictionaries for both
programs.  FullWrite's is fairly complicated, but Word's is a bunch of
words seperated (I think) by tabs.  Probably use DiskTop or ResEdit to
change the dicitionaries type to text, read it into FullWrite as a text
document, and run the spelling checker on it; insert the words manually
into FullWrite's dictionary.  If someone can get a format specification
for the FullWrite dictionary, it'd be a lead-pipe cinch to convert the
things over on Unix.

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

Anyway, I can't think of a product that has surpassed my expectations
more than FullWrite Professional; I've tested the beta this weekend (not
under MultiFinder, though), and no explosions.  If Chuq and I were
Siskel and Ebert, I guess we'd both be giving this two thumbs up each.

I know you're used to seeing ecstatic reviews about new Mac products,
but believe me, no product since the Mac was released has excited me
more.  I spend a lot of time writing, and THIS is what I have been
wanting -- this is the word processor I imagined (without detailing the
features) when I first saw the Mac and decided to buy it.  HyperCard is
probably a more interesting/novel/amazing product, but for me, no
product will be more useful -- or more used -- than FullWrite
Professional.  I have, after two days of intense use, no reason to
believe there are any serious bugs in it (and, as said elsewhere, many
reasons to believe there is not -- AA does not want a repeat of the Word
3.0 disaster).

That is, as soon as my release copy gets here (TIM, DID YOU BUY ME A
COPY AT EXPO?!  I'LL TAKE AN I.O.U. FROM ANN ARBOR!  I'LL TAKE SCRIPT!
I'LL TAKE IT REFUNDABLE IN CONFEDERATE MONEY!).
--
                            "Butter becomes weightless?.... Raymond Burr
                             must be in orbit by now."

                                        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] (David Williams)
Subject: Re: MS-DOS Board for SE?
Date: 17 Jan 88 09:02:03 GMT
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino

Dos on the Mac or Mac II.

1) if you have a mac plus get a 68020 board 2) if you have an SE get a
68020 board

3) Buy SoftPC, which emulates the PC hardware in software (just needs a 68020)
   for $600.00 -- available in March.

4) XT speed, CGA emualation at this time, runs vanilla MS DOS <- Yup, acts
   as a 1 meg PC (so I think you need another meg), Stores files on your
   standard mac hard drive, dont need a separate HD like say Aux and you can
   store and run DOS binaries on your mac drives or run them remotely, albeit
    slowly over TOPS from other machines!

nuff said!

Saw it running at the expo...slick stuff!
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
David L. Williams
dlw@hpda
Hewlett Packard, Cupertino Ca
Software Development Technology Laboratory
Distributed Computing Environment Project
Mailstop: 47LR
"Sinanju, buddy -- the real stuff"


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Some questions on Mac vs. PC Pagemaker
Date: 17 Jan 88 01:39:08 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

I use a Mac se with pagemaker each day putting out our newspaper on
saipan. I a am helping am also helping a frioend with a compueterland AT
clone with 640 k - 2 30 meg dh'd and atop-of-the HP printer.

I find Pagemaker operates exactly the same on both machines, with the
exception the PC version is slower in windows.

If it redraws a page in bitmapped (non rez fonts) it is very slow.

Plus we have had a tremendous difficulty in getting gfonts to show up in
the type selection windows.

We have also successfullly transported pagemaker pages from my mac to
his clone over a modem ..... they print well enough, but things like
screens and other goodies tend to be a lot darker on the HP.


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

From: carl (Carl Tollander)
Subject: comm program query
Date: 18 Jan 88 06:20:33 GMT


I'm still trying to decide on a communications program for my Mac II at
home.  Its down to either Microphone or VersaTerm (the non-fancy one).
If anyone has info on the following two issues, I'd be interested to
hear from you.

    1. How well do they work under MultiFinder?

    2. How easy is it to add additional file transfer protocols,
       (e.g. adding Kermit to Microphone)?

I would also like to have the capability to handle two modem sessions
simultaneously (though not necessarily simultaneously active) via the
same program (one telephone, one packet radio - plugged in different
ports). Can ANY communication package for the currently available for
the Mac II do this?  (Being new to the Mac, I don't know whether
starting up two copies of the same program under MultiFinder is an
option.)  Cost is an issue.
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Carl Tollander
ARPANet: [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: C vs. Pascal for the mac, vs C
Date: 17 Jan 88 20:27:00 GMT


It's true, C is just a hare's breath away from PDP-11 assembly language.
 It is untrue that C resembles the intel 80x86 architecture. 80x86
compilers have collossal kluges like "small, medium, large, super-large,
and huge" memory models!  The 80x86 machines don't have the pre/post
auto-incr/decr-ment addressing modes either.  A decent 80x86 C compiler
is a nightmare to write -- and there's seldom room for more than 1 or 2
register variables in CPU.  Segmentation and C don't mix well!

An amusing fact: I have heard the original PDP-11 C compiler could
compile the following C fragment down to one machine instruction.

 register char *p, *q;
 while (*p++ = *q++);

This is a indexed register move (both post-autoincrement mode) with a
test & jump to itself if the value is zero.  The Motorolla 68000 chip
was designed to resemble  a 32-bit PDP-11 (it has most of the same
beautiful addressing modes).  So was the VAX architecture.  C works very
well on these machines.

C is preferred by many advanced programmers because:

1.  C is very efficient.  Its macro preprocessor helps and it is
STANDARD.  C's register variables support efficient code generation. Its
pointer arithmetic outshines all other major languages.

2.  C's pragmatic syntax contains no bogus religion (like "though shalt
not put more than one assignment statement on one line" or "though shalt
always BREAK after every case statement-arm").

3.  C always supported separate compilation.

4.  C is fairly portable among UNIX boxes.  Pascal hasn't a hope of
doing file I/O, string functions, math library functions.  Many non-UNIX
C compilers provide a portability library (thank you, LightspeedC, you
saved me dozens of hours last night).

Don Gillies {ihnp4!uiucdcs!gillies} U of Illinois
            {[e-mail]}


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

From: [e-mail] (Bernard Yves)
Subject: Problem with Color CopyBits and Pictures
Date: 18 Jan 88 11:21:12 GMT
Organization: Philips Research Laboratory, Brussels


I have a problem with CopyBits and Pictures : CopyBits seems to crash
the machine when made after an OpenPicture.

First of all, the environment :

    mac II with 1mb, 256 colors, internal hd40,
    system 4.2, Finder 6.0, LSC 2.11 (or 2.13 ?, not sure now)

I want to write a little program to display files produced by a small
ray tracer. The file format is quite simple : a binary file with the
resolution (e.g. 256) and the red, green, blue byte values for pixels. I
want also to produce a PICT equivalent file; to ease the problem, the
CLUT is fixed (it is read from a resource).

After some reading of IM, there seems to be a quite simple solution :
makes an offscreen pixmap containing the pixel values of my image, open
a picture, then copybit the pixmap in my window, then close the picture
and puts the pic handle in the window record.  But that does not work.
Here is some part of the code :
--
...
WindowPtr w;        /* the window where the image is displayed */
Rect br;        /* the bounding rect of the image */
PixMapHandle pm, pm2;    /* pm is the handle to the offscreen pixmap */
PicHandle pic;

...
/* creates the window w with the right rect centered on the screen */
...

pm2 = ( (CGrafPtr) w) -> portPixMap;
    /* pm2 is a handle to the window pixmap */

/* intialise the pixmap pm : allocates space for it, makes its clut pointer
be the same as the window clut */
...
/* read the file and fill the pixmap pm with the pixel values
computed from the r,g,b values by using Color2Index */
...
/* now open the picture and CopyBits ... */

SetPort(w);
pic = OpenPicture(&br);
CopyBits( (*pm), (*pm2), &br, &br, scrCopy, nil);
ClosePicture();
SetWindowPic(w,pic);
printf("size of Pic : %ld \n", GetHandleSize(pic) );


Seems easy, but does not work. The program crashes before the printf
with system error = 01! If I do not open a picture, (suppress the
statements with OpenPicture, ClosePicture,...), that works : the window
is filled with my image.
Is it a memory problem with CopyBits and OpenPicture ? (it crashes even
with small image of 128*128 ).

In fact, there is another solution which I tried and works but used too
much memory and was really too slow; it does not use an offscreen pixmap
and CopyBits, but SetCPixel. The code looks like this :

...
RGBColor rgb;
int h,v ;
...
SetPort(w);
pic = OpenPicture(&br);

for (v =0; v < yres; v++)
    for (h=0; h < xres; h++)
        {
        ReadPixelFromFile(rgb); SetCPixel(h,v, &rgb);
        };
ClosePicture();
SetWindowPic(w,pic);

Why the same scheme does not work with an offscreen pixmap and CopyBits ?

Yves Bernard
([e-mail])
Philips Res. Lab, Brussels.


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

From: [e-mail] (Richard Siegel)
Subject: Copy II 7.x
Date: 18 Jan 88 19:00:36 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University


Has anyone tried Copy II Mac on a Mac II? A friend showed me his 7.0 and
later  7.1, and both of them crashed miserably on startup - total
machine freeze, so  bad that power button didn't work and I had to pull
the plug.

This was on Mac II with 2MB, DataFrame XP20, two floppies, Radius FPD,
and  Sony CPD1302 monitor.

    --Rich
--
===================================================================
Richard Siegel
THINK Technologies, QA Technician (on leave)
Carnegie-Mellon University, Confused Physics Major
Arpa: [e-mail]
UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,sun}!andrew.cmu.edu!rs4u
==================================================================


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

From: [e-mail] (Daniel Carr)
Subject: resetLaser DA
Date: 17 Jan 88 18:34:17 GMT
Organization: North Carolina State University - Computing Center

i am looking for Greg King, author of the resetLaser DA, a desk
accessory that resets the laserwriter.  i have a beta version, version
.20, and I am looking for a newer version.  The version I have crashed
with the new system.
--
thanks
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
 :: Daniel Carr :::::::::::::
  ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
  // [e-mail] //
 // d.c.carr //// GEnie /////
////////////////////////////

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

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