PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/USEnet Digests/USEnet Vol. 4/USEnet 4.33

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Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #33
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Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #33
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Usenet Mac Digest     Saturday, March 5, 1988        Volume 4 : Issue 33

Today's Topics:
     Device driver status call with csCode == 1
     AUX SCSI driver question
     Accelerator/math coprocessor for Mac Plus
     Two Questions on programming 4D
     Re: Using a mac in a 220V/50Hz environment
     Has anyone done this?
     QuickerGraf 1.0 Performance Figures
     System/Finder patch available?? (2 messages)
     Re: Tandy Mac Clone?
     A/UX vs 4th Dimension
     Another book for beginners
     Mac II memory speed
     Re: some practical AppleShare questions
     Re: New Question about the Serial Drivers
     Datadesk Keyboard Info Wanted
     Re: Mac II ROM update
     MacInTax warning
     Re: Datadesk Keyboard Info Wanted
     Vertical Retrace
     dragging icons

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

From: [e-mail] (William Edward Woody)
Subject: Device driver status call with csCode == 1
Date: 2 Mar 88 00:43:56 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology


While tromping through the Macintosh II roms with my steel tipped boots
on, I noticed that when you do a _Status call (PBStatus() for all you
Pascal and C fans) to an open driver with csCode set to 1 in the
ParamBlockRec, then in the first 4 bytes of csParam you get back the
DCtlEntry record for that driver.  It seems that the ROMS are
intercepting the _Status call and looks up the DCtlEntry record for the
open driver if csCode is 1; the ROMS never call the device driver
itself.

My question is this:  Is this documented anywhere?  I see no mention in
Inside Macintosh anywhere about this "undocumented feature."  And are
there any other caviats of which are the ROMS which I should be aware
about in this vain?
--
  -  William Edward Woody
     [e-mail]                   (Mac>][n&&/|\)&&(MacII>AT)
Disclamer:  I haven't the foggiest idea what I'm talking about...


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

From: howarth@mandrill (David J. Howarth)
Subject: AUX SCSI driver question
Date: 1 Mar 88 22:03:38 GMT
Organization: CWRU Dept of Computer Engineering and Science

I have an AUX question that hopefully one of you experts can answer.
How does the SCSI driver handle seeking under AUX. Does the driver issue
a seek, put itself to sleep, and let AUX do some more processing until
an interupt arrives, or does the driver issue the seek and sit there
waiting until it completes.  I know that standard Unix drivers will put
themselves to sleep, but that doesn't mean that the SCSI driver does!  I
was curious if they use the existing SCSI routines or if they wrote new
ones for AUX. Please E-Mail any responses.  Thanks in advance  for any
help.

                               David J. Howarth


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

From: [e-mail] (Paul H. Calamai)
Subject: Accelerator/math coprocessor for Mac Plus
Date: 1 Mar 88 18:12:05 GMT
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario

Hi. I'm looking for recommendations for a 68020 accelerator board
equipped with a 68881 math coprocessor for my MAC +. The cost is not the
most important factor.  Speed and reliability are.

Any recommendations and critical comments would be welcome.

Thanks


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

From: [e-mail] (Yvo Van Wezemael)
Subject: Two Questions on programming 4D
Date: 1 Mar 88 13:32:17 GMT
Organization: Forte Research Group

I'm working with 4D since about 6 weeks and would like to have some
answers/comments on two things:

(1) Detecting end-of-file:
    I want to be able to import an existing textfile into
    a text-field (using RECEIVE PACKET), but when do I have
    to stop

(2) Importing into Picture-fields:
    Is there an easy way to import a picture-file directly
    into a picture-field?

Something else:

I would really appreciate the existence of a REPEAT...UNTIL statement in
the 4D language (Yes, I know I can do it with a WHILE instead, but ...)


            Thanks
                Yvo


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

From: [e-mail] (Chris Borton)
Subject: Re: Using a mac in a 220V/50Hz environment
Date: 2 Mar 88 07:37:43 GMT
Organization: UCSD Network Operations Group

I brought my 128K->512K->2M Mac to Germany last year with my ImageWriter
I and Apple HD20; all worked on a 250W transformer with no problems
whatsoever. Technically the HD20 didn't need the transformer--it takes
70-270V, but I wasn't about to tamper with a working system.

The ImageWriter I had no complaints--according to official Apple specs,
it is the IW II that is cycle-dependent.  Has anyone verified this?

The reason I question this is that under the same listing of
cycle-dependent was the LaserWriter, and the institute where I worked
had a U.S. LW (later upgraded to a Plus) running off a transformer, no
cycle conversion, without a hitch.  Ignorance is bliss, I guess...

On the Int'l vs. U.S. analog boards: yes indeed, there are two.  I
learned the hard way.  Int'l is manufactured in Ireland, source of all
the European Macs, and has one jumper (W12 if I remember correctly--it's
labelled 120/220V) that decides what voltage.  BEWARE--the U.S. analog
board has the same jumper, in the same place, with a DIFFERENT
function!!!  Like I said, I learned the hard way. That ambiguous point
caused me much, much grief...

Thank goodness Apple has set a new wonderful direction with the SE/II
power supplies!  Now if only they'd do that for my ImageWriter II...
Any comments about the new LaserWriters?
--
-cbb
Chris "Johann" Borton, UC San Diego    ...!sdcsvax!borton
                    [e-mail] or [e-mail]
Letztes Jahr in Deutschland, nog een jaar hier, en dan naar Amsterdam!
"H = F cubed.  Happiness = Food, Fun, & Friends."  --Steve Wozniak


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

From: [e-mail] (Fubar Void)
Subject: Has anyone done this?
Date: 2 Mar 88 05:00:01 GMT
Organization: etaoin shrdlu INC.

Has anyone ported OS/360 to the Mac? A friend has been hounding me for
several months now. He would like to use the system to predict the
behavioral model of VAX/VMS in degraded mode (with every user running
EDT simultaneously). Since he is new to the Mac world and is eager to
learn he is also asking for MPW-shell sources to the above. He'll also
take RPG-II. Anyone out there?

AdvTHANKSance. No really...

r.
--

[e-mail] --or--
{ihnp4,lll-lcc,hoptoad}!scampi!ramin


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

From: [e-mail] (ephraim vishniac)
Subject: QuickerGraf 1.0 Performance Figures
Date: 2 Mar 88 17:02:50 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA


QuickerGraf 1.0 was released together with a performance benchmark that
compares the speed of various operations with QuickerGraf on and off.
Timings are reported as percentages:

    (time without QuickerGraf)/(time with QuickerGraf) * 100%

Figures over 100% indicate an improvement due to QuickerGraf and figures
below 100% indicate a detriment due to QuickerGraf.  For example, a
result of 2441% shows that QuickerGraf is more than 24 times as fast as
native QuickDraw for that particular operation in that particular mode.

Since reports have varied as to whether QuickerGraf is beneficial in any
mode but 8-bit color, I ran the benchmark in every mode available. Here
are the results:

    Test:                              Colors: 256    16     4     2
    simple pixel pattern fill, no clipping     319%  100%  100%  102%
    simple pixel pattern fill, region clipped  334%  243%  196%  150%
    fill oval, unclipped, simple pattern       251%  173%  141%  118%
    fill roundrect, unclipped, simple pattern  291%  201%  163%  133%
    unclipped, unmapped, copy mode copybits    170%   99%  101%   97%
    copybits with color mapping                310%   99%   99%  239%
    1 to 8 copybits, no clipping               196%   98%   98%  100%
    addover fill mode, simple pattern         1088%  100%  100%  100%
    blend fill mode, simple pattern           2441%  100%  100%  100%
    transparent fill mode, simple pattern      924%   99%   99%  100%
    hilite mode, region clipped                258%   99%  100%  120%
--
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] (Jeff A. Hallett)
Subject: System/Finder patch available??
Date: 2 Mar 88 13:33:32 GMT
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY


I realize this patch probably doesn't exist yet, but maybe some Mac guru
can come up with it.

I have a black and white Mac Plus running the newest Finder.  Most of
you have probably noticed that fancy, metahorphic icons (ie. Red Ryder)
don't work anymore.  Understandibly so, since Apple warned people not to
make such icons since color systems wouldn't handle them correctly.

Well, it appears that Apple has made good its threat.  However, having a
black and white, I don't care if my icons work under color or not (I
don't mean the ones I make; rather, the ones on applications I already
have).  Therefore, it would be nice if there were a patch to Finder that
would put the old masking procedure back for us poor Black and White
slobs.

Anyone got any ideas??
--
Jeffrey A. Hallett                     | ARPA: [e-mail]
Software Technology Program               | UUCP: desdemona![e-mail]
GE Corporate Research and Development  | [phone]
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
|                            Credo Quia Absurdum Est                          |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+


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

From: [e-mail] (Rob Jellinghaus)
Subject: Re: System/Finder patch available??
Date: 3 Mar 88 00:55:10 GMT
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven CT  06520-2158

As far as I know, the reason Apple changed the way icon masks work is
not because of possible problems with color systems, but because it was
very difficult to deal with fancy icon masks while writing Multi-
finder.  I suppose it has something to do with the vastly increased
complexity of writing on the desktop, when there are N applications all
using it simultaneously.

If this is the case, a patch such as the one you describe could be
seriously hazardous to the health of Multifinder.

Just my semi-informed opinion... which could be wrong....

--
Rob Jellinghaus                | "They're cute, they're quick, and
[e-mail]           |  they're small!  Ha ha ha!!"
ROBERTJ@{yalecs,yalevm}.BITNET |
!..!ihnp4!hsi!yale!jellinghaus |             -- _Good Morning Vietnam_


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

From: [e-mail] (Bruce Hoof)
Subject: Re: Tandy Mac Clone?
Date: 2 Mar 88 22:37:27 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Portland State University; Portland OR

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jim Tubman) writes:
>
>This talk of Tandy producing a Macintosh clone doesn't sound completely
>absurd.  The programmer's interface to the Macintosh is very well specified
>in terms of operating system calls, and it would surely be no great trick to
>read and write Mac disks.  Tandy is a big enough company that it could put
>the appropriate resources into reverse-engineering the Mac OS, and into any
>resulting legal battle.

I love the rumors that fly around!!!  But this one is hard to believe. A
couple of weeks ago someone noted that Tandy was looking for Macintosh
programmers.  I poked around and discovered that Tandy is going to do
something with The Appletalk network.  This sounds like a smooth thing
to do.  After all PC's connect to the appletalk network.
    Bare in mind that I got this from a friend so the info might be wrong,
such is the life of a rumor.  But it sounds better than cloning the mac.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disclaimer:  I'm just a poor student getting through school.

Bruce Hoof.
UUCP:
    [e-mail]
    bruce@escargot


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

From: [e-mail] (n)
Subject: A/UX vs 4th Dimension
Date: 2 Mar 88 20:40:20 GMT

Last night I was at BMUG's A/UX SIG (plug: it meets every other week on
Tuesday nights at 9pm (next meeting 15th March) in their offices on
Kittredge Street, Berkeley - mail me for more info) and a 4th Dimension
enthusiast asked "will it run 4th Dimension? ...." so we loaded it up
and everything ran except for

    - printing (no print manager in A/UX)

    - switching databases (4D relaunches itself when it switches
      databases to clear the heaps ....)

the person who was testing it seemed to think it ran a little faster
than under the MacOS, probably due to the Unix buffer cache ....


        Paul Campbell


--
(C) Copyright Paul Campbell, you only may redistribute if your recipients can.
    E-mail:        ..!{ucbvax,hoptoad}!unisoft!paul
Nothing here represents the opinions of UniSoft or its employees (except me)
"Nuclear war doesn't prove who's Right, just who's Left" (ABC news 10/13/87)


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

From: [e-mail] (Mahboud Zabetian)
Subject: Another book for beginners
Date: 3 Mar 88 01:56:47 GMT
Organization: Advanced Technology, Princeton University

I bought this book last week, and I like the way it goes about
explaining the Macintosh.  I think it would go well with the IM volumes.

"Programmer's Introduction to the Macintosh Family"    -Apple Computers
                            -Addison-Wesley The only assumption that this book makes is that
you are an experienced programmer, but you are new at Mac programming.

Hope this helps.

PS.  Anyone know how "MPW and Assembly Language Programming For the
Macintosh" by Konick is?
--
Mahboud Zabetian                [e-mail]
183 Little Hall                     [phone]
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544        [phone]
****** Anyone need a soon-to-graduate hardware/software engineer? ********


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

From: [e-mail] (GuestRA)
Subject: Mac II memory speed
Date: 1 Mar 88 15:11:27 GMT
Organization: AT&T, Denver, CO


We recently had occasion to open a Mac II that we have to add some
memory to it.  To our surprise, about half of the SIMMS were 150ns
instead of the 120ns we have been told is required by the Mac II.  This
machine was direct from our dealer (authorized and all that).  We called
the guy up and he said they have been mixing them and never heard of any
problems.  Since we design processor and memory for a living, we were a
little distressed.  We don't like memories that work %95 of the time
(only at certain temperatures, etc). I called our Apple rep directly,
without at first telling him what the story was, and he insisted you
should only be using 120ns SIMMS.  Has anyone else had this happen?  Was
Apple super ultra conservative on their memory spec? The Apple guy
called our dealer to have a chat.  No resolution yet, but our feeling is
they owe us the faster SIMMS.
--
Ronald A. Guest, Supervisor     ...!ihnp4!druhi!cosmos
AT&T Laboratories               <--- but these are my thoughts, not theirs
12110 N. Pecos St.              Denver, Colorado 80234          [phone]


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

From: [e-mail] (Peter Steele)
Subject: Re: some practical AppleShare questions
Date: 2 Mar 88 12:50:58 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Acadia Univ., Nova Scotia

in article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (henq) says:
>
> By the way: I am *very* impressed by AppleShare. Powerful product
> yet easy to operate.
>
But will it protect users from each other? I thinking primarily of a
(hostile) student environment where there's always at least one student
who would love to go around wrecking havoc on the system. In our
investigation, we found only one network server software that had the
kind of security we wanted--MacJANET. (JANET is an acronym for Just
Another NETwork.)


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


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: New Question about the Serial Drivers
Date: 3 Mar 88 05:29:23 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

In <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Dan Freedman) wants
to prefix patch the serial driver on his Mac SE, but cannot find the
resource.

IM IV-225 "In the 128K ROM, a single new Serial Driver replaces the RAM
and ROM Serial Drivers."  (You might find SERD resources in the System
File of your system software master disk, but they probably get dropped
out by the Installer when you build a system for a 512KE, +, SE, or II.)

IM IV-215 lists the unit numbers for the devices, including
.{A|B}{In|Out}. You can use the unit numbers to index the unit table
(found via low memory variable UTableBase), and change the dCtlDriver
fields of the Device Control Entries from a ROM address to a RAM handle
to your driver. (IM II-187..192)

If you want your code to be compatible with all models, remember that
dCtlDriver might be a handle to the RAM serial driver on a machine with
64K ROMs, or perhaps a RAM driver fixing a bug in 128K or 256K ROMs,
instead of a direct pointer to the ROM driver.

Christopher Jewell  |  [e-mail]  |
sun!cup.portal.com!chrisj


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Datadesk Keyboard Info Wanted
Date: 26 Feb 88 18:53:00 GMT


Has anyone used the Datadesk 101 keyboard -- the normal one, not the ADB
one?

What is it like in terms of "feel"?

Does it have a loud "clacky" sound or is it quieter?

Is it possible to exchange the caps lock and left command key positions,
either through software or hardware?

If anyone has any information/opinions (especially opinions!), please
send email to:

[e-mail]

(or ...!ihnp4!sys1!hal6000!trsvax!kevin if your mailer doesn't handle
the other one).
--
Thanks in advance!
Kevin Dack


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

From: [e-mail] (Forrest Tanaka)
Subject: Re: Mac II ROM update
Date: 3 Mar 88 04:44:56 GMT
Organization: Cal Poly State University -- San Luis Obispo

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Laurian Chirica)
writes:
>
>It has been reported (e.g., Macintosh Today in one of its January
>issues) that Apple will release a new ROM for Mac II which fixes
>some of the Slot Manager problems in the present release.
>My Apple dealer does not have any official information from
>Apple.  Did anyone get the new ROM and is willing to post some
>information/impressions?  Does it do more than just fix the Slot
>Manager problems?

What I heard was that Macintosh IIs with Rev. A ROMs can't recognise
NuBus cards with more than 1MB in their address space.  Also, one of the
support chips allows a NuBus card to take over the bus for good.

These problems are fixed under the Rev. B ROMs.  If you have a NuBus
card with a >1MB address space, you can get your logic board replaced at
no charge until February 1994, I think it was.  Even though the ROMs are
socketed, the whole board still has to be replaced because the NuBus
support chip is soldered in.

I don't own a Macintosh II (just a Plus, which was the top of the line
when I bought it not so long ago. . .  *sniff* :-)).  So I don't know
how well the upgrade works.  I haven't heard anything bad.  Dealers
should know about it though.  The upgrade's been available since
February 1st.

Forrest

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


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

From: [e-mail] (William H. Jefferys)
Subject: MacInTax warning
Date: 3 Mar 88 14:22:22 GMT
Organization: U. Texas, Astronomy, Austin, TX

According to the latest MacWEEK, there is a bug in the 1040EZ form
released with this year's MacInTax. No matter how large the income, the
form will compute a tax due of zero! The error affects _only_ form
1040EZ. It does not affect Form 1040 or Form 1040A.

Registered owners can call SoftView with their serial number  for a
corrected version.

MacWEEK remarks, "...we still don't understand why Softview didn't take
the initiative to warn as many users as possible via the electronic
bulletin boards, AppleLink and MacWEEK as soon as it learned of the
flaw."  I agree.

Bill Jefferys
--
Glend.    I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
Hot.    Why, so can I, or so can any man; But will they come when you
    do call for them?    --  Henry IV Pt. I, III, i, 53


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

From: [e-mail] (Chuq Von Rospach)
Subject: Re: Datadesk Keyboard Info Wanted
Date: 3 Mar 88 18:05:59 GMT
Organization: Fictional Reality

In comparison to the standard 512Ke keyboard, it's wonderful. The
backslash key is in a bad place, I keep hitting it on the way to
backspace, but that is a matter of getting used to it. It's
significantly better than my Sun keyboard, also.

My typing rate is up about 4% since I switched. My error rate is down
about 50%. And better, after four hours of serious writing, my fingers
and wrists aren't sore.

>Does it have a loud "clacky" sound or is it quieter?

It's quieter than my old Mac keyboard.

>Is it possible to exchange the caps lock and left command key positions,
>either through software or hardware?

No.

>If anyone has any information/opinions (especially opinions!),

Nice keyboard. Buy QuicKeys to make the thing really useful.


Chuq Von Rospach            [e-mail]        Delphi: CHUQ

     There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their
home.
                               Ken Olson, President, Digital Equipment,
1977


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

From: [e-mail] (Robert George Johnston, Jr.)
Subject: Vertical Retrace
Date: 3 Mar 88 19:48:30 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University


    I would really like to know how to start up a VBLTask through some INIT
code  that will run forever. I have a task that does some nifty cursor
manipulations  that would be nice to have around in all applications.
(Similar to the old  Watch Install application before the Finder spun
the watch hands.) Does  anybody have any ideas or source code to do
this?

    Thank you.

    Rob Johnston.


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

From: [e-mail] (Neil Radisch)
Subject: dragging icons
Date: 3 Mar 88 19:58:38 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

What's the cleanest way to drag an icon if you know its location and
have its bitmap. I tried to use Draggrayrgn() but I could not find a way
to incorporate the bit image of the icon into a region.

thanks
--
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| "Better to remain quiet and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove |
|  all doubt" --- Abraham Lincoln                                            |
|                                                                            |
|  [e-mail]                                               |
|----------------------------------------------------------------------------|

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End of Usenet Mac Digest
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