PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/USEnet Digests/USEnet Vol. 4/USEnet 4.30

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Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #30
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Usenet Mac Digest     Friday, February 26, 1988      Volume 4 : Issue 30

Today's Topics:
     Nuvotech EasyNet?
     Sound on the Mac II
     A/UX disk I/O (real numbers) (2 messages)
     Beginning Mac Programing
     DrvrInstall Question
     GKS on MAC II
     WriteNow format needed
     Mac SE with IIGS Keyboard
     Re: GKS on MAC II
     WriteNow vs. Easy Access on the Mac II
     How about Epsilon for the MAC?
     IIGS keyboards on Mac SE/II
     Re: Ever heard of VideoTrax backup system?
     Info on Rodime RX1000
     Re: Mac SE with IIGS Keyboard
     Re: grapes?
     application's home folder. HELP
     MacNosy for Mac II?
     FlushVol() when files are open

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

From: [e-mail] (964[jak]-Robert Halloran)
Subject: Nuvotech EasyNet?
Date: 23 Feb 88 14:24:59 GMT
Organization: AT&T ISL Middletown NJ USA

Does anyone have experience with the Nuvotech EasyNet adapters for
Appletalk?  They appear to be a variant of the Farallon PhoneNet
adapters for less money.  Has anyone used both and is willing to share
their information?  Thanks.
--
                        Bob Halloran
=========================================================================
Classic UUCP: {ATT-ACC, rutgers}!mtune!rkh    DDD: [phone]
Domain-style: [e-mail]                   evenings ET
USPS: 19 Culver Ct, Old Bridge NJ 08857
Disclaimer: These opinions are solely MINE; any correlation with AT&T
    policies or positions is coincidental and unintentional.
Quote: "There were incidents & accidents, there were hints & allegations"
        -- Paul Simon
=========================================================================


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

From: [e-mail] (Michael J. Larsen)
Subject: Sound on the Mac II
Date: 23 Feb 88 18:28:00 GMT
Organization: Princeton University, NJ

Could anyone who has successfully used the SndNewChannel function to get
multi-channel sound please explain how it is done?  I tried following
the guidelines in Inside Mac V, without success.  Please respond by
e-mail.

                        -Michael Larsen


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

From: [e-mail] (Fred Fish)
Subject: A/UX disk I/O (real numbers)
Date: 23 Feb 88 06:18:19 GMT
Organization: occasionally

Ok, with all the speculation about disk I/O, and the
advantages/disadvantages of DMA, I decided to drag out and dust of a
disk performance benchmark written by Rick Spanbauer a LONG time ago and
used to test Amiga hard disks when they first became available.  Since I
already had Sun 3/50 timings, all I had to do were the A/UX ones.  Here
are my measured results using the diskperf.c program, and ballpark
verified using the Unix dd program:

Performance timings using Rick Spanbauer's diskperf.c program.

                                        Amiga   Amiga   Mac-II  Sun
                                        Floppy  CLtd    A/UX    3/50
                                        df1:    dh0:    HD80SC

File creations (files/sec)              <=1     7       6       6 File
deletions (files/sec)              1       15      8       11 Directory
scan (entries/sec)            38      50      371     350 Seek+read
(seek+read/sec)               2       40      110     298 Read speed,
512 buffer (byte/sec)    11014   17133   55168   240499 Read speed,
4096 buffer (byte/sec)    12024   17133   53708   234057 Read speed,
8192 buffer (byte/sec)    12080   17133   54013   233189 Read speed,
32768 buffer (byte/sec)    12136   17133   53644   236343 Write speed,
512 buffer (byte/sec)    4974   12603   44181   215166 Write speed,
4096 buffer (byte/sec)    5180   13512   47211   182466 Write speed,
8192 buffer (byte/sec)    5170   13653   46832   179755 Write speed,
32768 buffer (byte/sec)    5190   13797   46930   187580

Notes:
   (1)   All Amiga tests done under 1.2 release 33.46.
   (2)   df1: tests done after "addbuffers 32" & fresh formatted disk
   (3)   All Amiga and Mac-II timings done by Fred Fish.
   (4)   Sun-30/50 timings by Rick Spanbauer.
--
# Fred Fish    hao!noao!mcdsun!fishpond!fnf     [phone]
# Ye Olde Fishpond, 1346 West 10th Place, Tempe, AZ 85281  USA


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

From: [e-mail] (James A. Woods)
Subject: Re: A/UX disk I/O (real numbers)
Date: 23 Feb 88 23:08:01 GMT
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, California

> Read speed,    512 buffer (byte/sec)    11014    17133    55168    240499
> Read speed,   4096 buffer (byte/sec)    12024    17133    53708    234057

for the mac2, these numbers harden the very rough timing for

    time cat /usr/dict/words > /dev/null

(~200K bytes in four CPU seconds) done on an beta a/ux a year ago.  it
looks almost entirely due to the speed of the system5 vs. bsd4.2
filesystem. considering how much other bsd stuff apple picked up, why
they didn't go for the berkeley filesystem is beyond me ...


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

From: [e-mail] (Miles Asher Weissman)
Subject: Beginning Mac Programing
Date: 23 Feb 88 18:32:07 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University


    A few people on the net have mentioned that they would like to start
programing with there Macs.  First a word of warning:

    IT IS GOING TO COST A RESPECTABLE AMOUNT OF MONEY

    The above should read ( about $200 + ).  The first thing all Mac
programmers need is Inside Macintosh I-V ( yep that's right, all FIVE
volumes costing between $20 and $27 each )  These tomes will in NO way
teach you to program the Mac, it will simply tell you the routines and
how to access them.
    To actually learn programing on the Mac, there is a new book out (part
of the Addison Wesley Mac Library) called "Programmers intro- duction to
the Macintosh Family"  This appears quite good, and explains how the Mac
memory map is used as well as all sorts of other specific Mac info.
    I can not at this time recomend any external books, although I have
heard that Macintosh Revealed Vol 1 & 2 are quite good.
    Finally, you need a good programing language.  I would recomend
LightSpeed Pascal or C.  There is also MPW but you had better have a
Hard disk and probably two megs of memory.  The third and final choice
would be Turbo Pascal or C, which many people like.

    In conclution, you will not get away without buying IM I-V, or at least
having all 5 vols around when your are programing.
--
        - Miles Weissman
    Acting President CMU MUG
[e-mail]
Carnegie Mellon University


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

From: [e-mail] (Forrest Tanaka)
Subject: DrvrInstall Question
Date: 23 Feb 88 18:17:25 GMT
Organization: Cal Poly State Univ,CSC Dept,San Luis Obispo,CA 93407

A few days ago, I asked a question on comp.sys.mac on how to use the
DrvrInstall trap which is not documented in Inside Macintosh.  Many
thanks to Brian Schipper of Claris who quickly answered my question by
pointing out that DrvrInstall *is* documented in Macintosh Technical
Note 108.  In case anyone out there was as lost as I was, the way you
call it is:

    FUNCTION DrvrInstall (refNum : Integer) : OSErr;

    D0 (input) driver RefNum (-1 through -32)
    D0 (output) error code

The refNum parameter must be the one's complement of the actual unit
table entry number.

Thanks again Brian!  It works great now.

--
Forrest Y. Tanaka
    Diablo #25, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, CA 93410
    [phone]
    ...{csustan,csun,sdsu}!polyslo!ftanaka


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

From: [e-mail] (Jim Saint)
Subject: GKS on MAC II
Date: 24 Feb 88 05:36:36 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas

Does the MAC-II support GKS ?
--
Thanks
Jim


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: WriteNow format needed
Date: 23 Feb 88 21:38:00 GMT


Does anyone out there have documentation on the format of a WriteNow
document?
--
Steve Dorner, U of Illinois Computing Services Office
Internet: [e-mail]  UUCP: ihnp4!uiucuxc!dorner
IfUMust:  [phone]


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

From: [e-mail] (Rei Shinozuka MCD SE)
Subject: Mac SE with IIGS Keyboard
Date: 23 Feb 88 23:56:23 GMT
Organization: Motorola SPS Sales Office, Woburn, Ma., 01801

I have put a down payment on a Mac SE.  It came to my attention that the
SE (and Mac II) can be used with the keyboard from the Apple II GS.
Since the regular Mac keyboards are unbundled from the system, it might
be a viable option.  THe reason I like it is that it's small, and I
happen to like to use my real desktop as well as the Mac desktop.  The
buttons correspond to those on the standard SE keyboard and it uses
Apple Desktop Bus.

Does anyone have any experience, possible problems, or comments about
this marriage of SE with IIGS keyboard?

Thank you,
--
-rei shinozuka
shino@motbos


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

From: [e-mail] (Joseph Nathan Hall)
Subject: Re: GKS on MAC II
Date: 24 Feb 88 19:10:43 GMT
Organization: North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

I've been using GKS on a VAXstation GPX for almost a year now.  The
worst niggling-type problem with GKS under VMS is that GKS is really
designed to run under FORTRAN (that's right) and so all the "C" calls
are by reference (uggh) and many of the string paramegers use
descriptors (double uggh).

Aside from that, GKS is basically bloated, illogical and inefficient and
I can't understand why anyone would want to use GKS on a Mac instead of
QuickDraw.

You might want, I suppose, to port an existing GKS application from a
Sun or VAXstation to a Mac.  Good luck.  The only standardized binding
is for FORTRAN.  (Can you imagine writing in a non-stack-based
environment on a Mac???)  So whatever happens you're going to spend some
time changing all the calls to, say, gks$clear_ws() (on VMS) to ClearWs
or something like that on your Mac.  I'm sure the parameters are in a
different order, too.

GKS is not device-independent in an intelligent way, either.  Basically
you have to write code to support each individual device.  Some devices
support multiple windows, some don't--you write differently for each.
Some are monochrome, some are color.  Text is different sizes.  Markers
are different sizes.  Et cetera.

The worst part of the GKS interface is its rather carelessly designed
I/O. Under VMS the only way to input a string is to:

    0) Before you do anything with any of the input devices you
       have to call a routine to get the device coordinates, if you
       want to place your echo area (where the window will be) in
       a particular spot.  The echo area is defined in terms of
       device coordinates.

    1) Call gks$init_string to set up a window for the string input.
       This may include a title for the window, but there are problems
       (VMS-specific) with this, and it only works on the VAXstation.
       This means, basically, YOU CAN'T PROMPT for string input under
       the letter of the GKS standard.  Any prompting is implementation-
       specific.

    2) Call gks$request_string to get the string.  You can't specify
       the SIZE or FONT of the type inside the input window.  You can't
       input more than one line (nothing like TextEdit).  Basically you
       can't do much more than take a few ugly-looking characters worth
       of input using the GKS string input routines . . . .

I could list annoying "features" until my fingers fall off.  I've been
writing a user interface for a network analysis CAD tool and certainly
having to deal with GKS has been the most difficult part of this project
(unfortunately we're stuck with it).

I would kill to be able to wad up all these GKS hacks and write a nice,
clean Mac interface.

GKS?

Yuck.

    -joseph

/*
 * What, me worry?
 *
 * These are my opinions.  I'm sure everybody else agrees with me, but,
 * you know.
 */


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

From: [e-mail] (Dave Platt)
Subject: WriteNow vs. Easy Access on the Mac II
Date: 24 Feb 88 19:11:10 GMT
Organization: Coherent Thought Inc., Palo Alto CA

For the last few weeks, my wife has had substantial problems while
running WriteNow (version 1.07) on our Mac II system.  The problems
would begin whenever a WriteNow document exceeded about 7 pages in
length, and after she had been editing for more than about 10 minutes.
All of a sudden, whenever she hit the "i" key, WriteNow would insert a
burst of "i i i i i i i", occasionally interspersed with square-block
("missing") characters.  When selected, the entire burst of garbage
behaved as if it were one single character.

The only way we could find around this problem was to save the document,
Quit from WriteNow, relaunch, and reopen the document.  This would cause
the problem to go away for some period of time;  it would reappear after
varying lengths of time.  The speed with which the problem reappeared
seemed to depend on the size of the document;  once the document
exceeded 25 pages, WriteNow would run for only about 5 minutes before
glitching in this way.

The problem does not seem to depend on the presence of MultiFinder (it
occurs even when running under the single-task environment).  I tried
removing all of my nonstandard INITs;  the problem still occurred.

I've spoken with the folks at T/Maker several times during the past
month or so.  They suggested:

-  Running the "WN Version Installer" to add a 4-byte resource to the
   WriteNow application;  this avoids certain problems with MultiFinder
   (e.g. system crashes when WriteNow is launched under MultiFinder).
   Didn't help this problem;  installing the VERS resource did, however,
   permit a different copy of WriteNow (same version) to work under
   MultiFinder on my Mac SE at work.

-  Running with the screen set to two-color mode, rather than 256-color
   mode.  Didn't help.

I called them again today, described the symptom again, and was told
that the "Easy Access" INIT (part of the standard system) has been seen
to cause this exact symptom, down to the key affected ("i").

So, I'm going to try removing Easy Access from my configuration, and see
if the problem goes away.  I'll post a note in a few days and let y'all
know whether getting rid of Easy Access has fixed the problem.
--
Dave Platt
  UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!dplatt     DOMAIN: [e-mail]
    INTERNET: coherent![e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Joseph Nathan Hall)
Subject: How about Epsilon for the MAC?
Date: 24 Feb 88 21:23:48 GMT
Organization: North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC

A *very* nice program editor for the (ahem) IBM PC is Epsilon, from
Lugaru Software.  The latest release is completely programmable,
emacs-like, generally a lot of fun to use even if you don't edit
anything with it.  It's also reasonably cheap ($60 student, <$200
otherwise).

Does anyone know whether Lugaru is going to support Epsilon for the Mac,
or whether something similar is/will be available?

-joseph

/*
 * Don't mind me.  When it gets hot it's the flies you'll have to worry
about.
 */


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

From: [e-mail] (Mike Blackwell)
Subject: IIGS keyboards on Mac SE/II
Date: 24 Feb 88 21:00:18 GMT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI

We have two Mac SE's and two Mac II's, all with IIGS keyboards. They
work great - we haven't had any problems at all. I think they're a big
win - they take up far less real estate on your desk, and they feel good
(to me) for long hacking sessions.

        Mike Blackwell        [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Jeff Meyer)
Subject: Re: Ever heard of VideoTrax backup system?
Date: 24 Feb 88 22:31:36 GMT
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA

I've also heard about this, and I understand the price should be around
$300-400 -- a lot cheaper than most 40MB cartridge tape drives (of
course, you have to already have a VCR).  Seems like the way to back up
stuff to me
-- I'm recommending that anyone planning on buying a tape backup unit hold
on until this makes it to the market.

>  * data can be broadcast

A friend at MacExpo was talking to someone in this field (I believe he was
from VideoTrax, but I'm not sure), and this is where it gets interesting.  A
British cable station had make a test deal with VideoTrax to have one of the
channels that doesn't put anything on between 2AM and 5AM in the morning
broadcast stuff for (again, I believe) VideoTrax owners.  It was passive
stuff -- 80MB of public domain text (articles, news, general information,
etc.) -- but just think of what a great method this would be for
distribution of Public Domain/Shareware software.  Heck, you could get every
PD hypercard stack available in one evening onto tape (well, maybe two
nights :-) ).

Neat idea, eh?

                    "What are you so damn
                     cheerful about?  The
                     stock market crashed!"
                                           "I'm a software engineer.  I
                                            TRAFFIC in human misery."
--
                                        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] (Robert Hammen)
Subject: Info on Rodime RX1000
Date: 24 Feb 88 21:38:41 GMT
Organization: Computer Applications

Hello,
  I'm still looking for a decent internal hard drive for the Mac II that
will give the most storage space for the price (I'm a disk pig). I've
seen a couple of mail order ads for the Rodime RX1000 (100 MB internal
Mac II disk) that place it in the $1200 price range. Anyone have any
experiences with this drive? Alternatively, does anyone have any
experience with the 102 MB disk from CMS (using a Conner drive) that can
be had for not much more? E-mail is welcome; if there is sufficient
interest I'll repost.
--
=========================================================================
Robert Hammen        Computer Applications    [e-mail]
Delphi: HAMMEN        GEnie: R.Hammen        CI$: 70701,2104



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

From: [e-mail] (Pierce T. Wetter)
Subject: Re: Mac SE with IIGS Keyboard
Date: 24 Feb 88 23:45:47 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology

>Does anyone have any experience, possible problems, or comments about this
>marriage of SE with IIGS keyboard?

  The SE standard keyboard is the IIGS keyboard with an extra inch of
plastic  around the outside. Pierce Wetter What use is magic if it can't
save a unicorn?
        -- Peter S. Beagle, "The Last Unicorn"
--
--------------------------------------------

[e-mail]

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


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

From: [e-mail] (Jim Cathey)
Subject: Re: grapes?
Date: 24 Feb 88 15:58:45 GMT
Organization: ISC Systems Corporation, Spokane, WA

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mark E. Perkins)
writes:
>    There is a program called "Fractal Contours" (PD or Shareware)
>that has an icon which could be said to resemble grapes or road apples.
>I believe that the creator for said program is "frak".  If some other
>application has the same creator, that could explain the problem.
>I hope this is it, and not a virus, Trojan, ...

I wrote this program some time ago, and the version I had posted to
usenet was not a trojan nor viral at all.  The icon, however, is not the
most attractive one I'll admit -- it's a small representation of one of
the output displays of a fractal contour.  Kind of a gnarly looking
cocked triangle with squiggly diagonal lines in it.  Since I did the
classic no-no and didn't check out 'frak' from Apple I guess it's
possible that something else could be conflicting with it.  (I found out
later that Apple had reserved all- lower-case creator types for itself.)
Alternately, your copy could have become damaged (or tampered with --
can you shrink-seal the cap of software?) Even your Desktop file might
be damaged.  Does ResEdit show the icon within FC to be the same as what
the Finder shows?  By the way, FC was Public Domain with sources posted
with the binary (Aztec C).  It was my vehicle for learning Mac
programming, and had no other reason for existence.
--
+----------------+
! II      CCCCCC !  Jim Cathey
! II  SSSSCC     !  ISC Systems Corp.
! II      CC     !  TAF-C8;  Spokane, WA  99220
! IISSSS  CC     !  UUCP: uunet!iscuva!jimc
! II      CCCCCC !  [phone]
+----------------+
            "With excitement like this, who is needing enemas?"


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

From: [e-mail] (David Hayes)
Subject: application's home folder. HELP
Date: 24 Feb 88 22:18:39 GMT
Organization: Meta Software Corporation, Cambridge MA

does anyone know of an easy way (or even a difficult way) for an
application  to determine the directory ID of the folder in which it
lives ?

i had hoped that CurDirStore would do it but it only holds the ID of the
last folder opened.

            thanks in advance,

                ...!uunet!metasoft!spud


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

From: [e-mail] (ephraim vishniac)
Subject: MacNosy for Mac II?
Date: 24 Feb 88 16:11:16 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA

I'd like to hear from anybody out there who's shelled out for the Mac II
version of MacNosy.

I've been using MacNosy for several years, periodically sending Jasik a
few more bucks for upgrades, but I'm finding the upgrade price to go to
the Mac II version a little hard to swallow.  (The upgrade policy, last
I checked, is that your old Nosy disk is worth $50 toward the new
version.  The new version costs more than twice as much as any previous
version.)  So I'd like to hear from someone who's paid already whether
it's worth it.
--
Ephraim Vishniac                      [e-mail]
Thinking Machines Corporation / 245 First Street / Cambridge, MA 02142-1214

     On two occasions I have been asked, "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put
     into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?"


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

From: [e-mail] (Mike Rutenberg)
Subject: FlushVol() when files are open
Date: 23 Feb 88 21:19:38 GMT
Organization: Reed College, Portland OR

Ok, here's a question that I haven't yet been able to get answered
(although I haven't talked with DTS).

I have an open file that I would like to keep open.  I would also like
to ensure that all that I have already written is actually put on the
disk.

Question: Is FlushVol() guanteed to work for all of the outstanding
write requests, or only for those where the file has been closed.

IM doesn't explicitly say what FlushVol() depends on.
--
Mike Rutenberg
    Software Engineer & Short Order Cook
    [phone]

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

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