PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/USEnet Digests/USEnet Vol. 4/USEnet 4.36

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From: Jeffrey Shulman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #36
To: [e-mail], [e-mail]
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Date: Mon 14 Mar 88 09:54:26-EDT
From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN@SDR>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #36
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Usenet Mac Digest     Saturday, March 12, 1988       Volume 4 : Issue 36

Today's Topics:
     Re: some practical AppleShare questions
     Re: Behond the best... Dark Castle.
     Source management systems
     Re: A/UX Screen Saver??
     Re: HPGL output from a Mac?
     Re: Tandy Mac Clone?
     Re: Experts needed (for a watch that won't spin properly)
     Re: A/UX screensaver
     Sound Techniques
     Re: sndplay in MPW C (2 messages)
     Re: Peripheral Land Drives
     Mac II Public Domain Programs to Display TIFF files
     Shiva 2400 NetModem
     Toggle Cursor FKEY
     Re: Sound Techniques (2 messages)
     Re: Disassemblers / decompilers (was Re: (PrGeneral & ID 02s))
     Re: Source management systems
     Re: looking desperately for Hebrew word-processor for SE
     Update on WriteNow->MS Word
     Re: looking desperately for Hebrew word-processor for SE

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

From: [e-mail] (Larry Rosenstein)
Subject: Re: some practical AppleShare questions
Date: 9 Mar 88 03:06:50 GMT
Organization: Advanced Technology Group, Apple Computer

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Peter Steele) writes:

>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

AppleShare 1.0 & 1.1 did have a problem where a malicious user could
steal someone's folder.  Even though s/he couldn't open the folder s/he
could prevent the legitmate owner from gaining access as well.

AppleShare 2.0, which was recently announced, allows the owner of a
folder to set a flag prohibiting it from being moved, which prevents the
folder from being held hostage.

Are there other ways in which a malicious user can cause problems with
AppleShare?

--
         Larry Rosenstein,  Object Specialist
 Apple Computer, Inc.  20525 Mariani Ave, MS 32E  Cupertino, CA 95014
        AppleLink:Rosenstein1    domain:[e-mail]
        UUCP:{sun,voder,nsc,decwrl}!apple!lsr


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

From: [e-mail] (Alexander M. Rosenberg)
Subject: Re: Behond the best... Dark Castle.
Date: 8 Mar 88 10:07:43 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz; CATS

I am the bearer of ery bad news. Silicon Beach Software has said
repeatedly that they will not be producing any games after Apache Strike
Mission and Beyond Dark Castle. Since SBS is a leading innoator in
Macintosh-based games, this means the loss of good potentials, and that
we have only flight simulation software and silly puzzle games (nee The
Fool's Errand) to play. I am saddeded by this loss, as I suppose many
others are too.

To paraphrase from memory:

an SBS employee said, "It takes as much to produce a game as a business
product and a business product sells for more."

Perhaps we can start some sort of Letter Writing Campaign to help change
their mind. If lobbying can solve this coming dearth of games, then we
must take the challenge and demand our games!

DISCLAIMER: I am not in any way affiliated with SBS or anybody for that
manner.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~  Alexander M. Rosenberg  ~ INTERNET: [e-mail]   ~ Yoyodyne    ~
~  Crown College, UCSC     ~ UUCP:...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!alibaba~ Propulsion  ~
~  Santa Cruz, CA 95064    ~ BITNET:[e-mail]  ~ Systems     ~
~  [phone]       ~ Disclaimer: Nobody is my employer  ~ :-)         ~
~               ~ so nobody cares what I say.    ~          ~


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

From: [e-mail] (Jerome Bordier)
Subject: Source management systems
Date: 8 Mar 88 16:04:10 GMT
Organization: IMAG, University of Grenoble, France


I am looking for source management systems like the Source Code Control
System (University of Cal. at Berkeley) or the Revision Control System
(Purdue Univ.) existing on Unix. Were these systems transported from
Unix to the Mac? Does there exist another systems on the Mac.

Thank you in advance
--
Jerome BORDIER   Laboratoire Structures Discretes  Institut IMAG
         B.P.68 - 38402 SAINT MARTIN D'HERES CEDEX   France
E.Mail:
[e-mail]   or   {uunet.uu.net|mcvax}!imag!bordier


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

From: [e-mail] (Mark Verber)
Subject: Re: A/UX Screen Saver??
Date: 9 Mar 88 16:06:32 GMT
Organization: Ohio State University, Computer Science

The easiest solution would would be to write a simple program that
bounces a bitmap around the screen.  When a return is hit it forks a
getty.  You could put this in inittab instead of getty.
--
Cheers,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Science Department                     Mark A. Verber
The Ohio State University          [e-mail]
[phone]                  cbosgd!osu-cis!verber


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

From: [e-mail] (Teriann Wakeman)
Subject: Re: HPGL output from a Mac?
Date: 8 Mar 88 17:34:19 GMT
Organization: HP Corporate Engineering - Palo Alto, CA

There are several plotter drivers on the market that will allow a Mac to
drive HP plotters.

MacPlotts II by Computer Shoppe - My vote for best plotter driver

MacPlots by Micro Spot (?)

and another by Softstyle

Sorry, I can not help you in capturing the output.
--
TeriAnn Wakeman
Hewlett-Packard
Corp. Quality


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

From: [e-mail] (Dennis Grittner)
Subject: Re: Tandy Mac Clone?
Date: 8 Mar 88 22:36:56 GMT
Organization: City of St. Paul Public Works

I had a brief conversation with an individual from Tandy during
Uniforum. They said that the Mac clone rumor appears to have come from
two sources:

1. Wishful thinking ( I'm certainly in this category - I'd love to see
Mac prices come down )

2. They advertised for some folk with Mac experience or some such as
they wanted folks with WINDOWING experience - supposedly.

I'd love to see a Mac clone ( that was useful - not the 512K Brazilian
thing ) but I guess I put it right near the Cray-on-a-chip rumor that I
overhead at the Malt shop last week :-)

--
Dennis Grittner        City of Saint Paul, Minnesota
[phone]        Room 700, 25 W. 4th St. 55102
"Let's just put Ollie, Ronnie, and the rest in jail!"


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

From: [e-mail] (Pierce T. Wetter)
Subject: Re: Experts needed (for a watch that won't spin properly)
Date: 9 Mar 88 20:44:14 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology


   I changed my spinning cursor too, (to a clock that runs backwards!).
  First of all, use resedit to edit the acur resource.
 SECOND, make sure the cursors are marked unpurgeable, otherwise the
memory manager purges them and the finder uses random memory for a
cursor. Pierce WEtter Corrupt, adj.:
    In politics, holding an office of trust or profit.

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

[e-mail]

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

[ I made an oil well that spouts.  If there is any interest, I'll post
it. - Jeff ]

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

From: [e-mail] (John Kullmann)
Subject: Re: A/UX screensaver
Date: 10 Mar 88 01:02:47 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA

Can you say 'launch moire'....

/john kullmann

--
John Kullmann
Apple Computer Inc.
Voice: 408-973-2939
Fax:   [phone]


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

From: [e-mail] (Alexander M. Rosenberg)
Subject: Sound Techniques
Date: 8 Mar 88 15:39:21 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz; CATS

Beyond Dark Castle does something very neat with sound. I used a public
domain program called Sound Leech to grab the sounds out of the file BDC
Data A. SOUN ID 94 is the music from the title page. It is at 5.5kHz.
The problem is, it sounds very tinny and mechanical. BDC does some
manipulation to all its sounds when it plays them.

Hypothesis:

BDC does some sort of fancy overlay of the same sound on itself, so that
it sounds fuller, simulating a better sampling rate.

BDC does some sort of smooth on the waveform.

BDC has some sound data information that I missed.

Sound Leech does a bad job of grabbing sound data.

Of all those, I can't figure out what is happening. All this
investigation makes me wonder why SBS does pruce a sound product, since
they no longer do games.

Any ideas as to what is happening? Anybody at Apple Sound Engineering
have an idea? (They always know whats happening with sound.)

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~  Alexander M. Rosenberg  ~ INTERNET: [e-mail]   ~ Yoyodyne    ~
~  Crown College, UCSC     ~ UUCP:...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!alibaba~ Propulsion  ~
~  Santa Cruz, CA 95064    ~ BITNET:[e-mail]  ~ Systems     ~
~  [phone]       ~ Disclaimer: Nobody is my employer  ~ :-)         ~
~               ~ so nobody cares what I say.    ~          ~


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

From: [e-mail] (David Goldsmith)
Subject: Re: sndplay in MPW C
Date: 9 Mar 88 16:59:10 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Joel B Levin) writes:
>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Warren Gish) writes:
>IM V (final glossy version) says that the Sound Manager is in both the
>SE and the II.  I am using an SE and the System Release 5.0 stuff (w/o
>MultiFinder).  What goes on?

I guess IM V has an error.  As of System Release 5.0, only the Mac II
supports the Sound Manager.  It is likely that the next system we send
out will support the Sound Manager on the Mac Plus and Mac SE as well
(insert here your favorite caveat about counting on features in systems
which haven't been released or frozen yet).


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

From: [e-mail] (Dave Platt)
Subject: Re: sndplay in MPW C
Date: 10 Mar 88 01:51:40 GMT
Organization: Coherent Thought Inc., Palo Alto CA

>From Apple's very own Technical Note #180, "MiltiFinder Miscellanea", last
page, first paragraph under "Miscellaneous Miscellanea":

 "The sound glue that shipped with MPW 1.0 and 2.0 is _not_ MultiFinder
  compatible and should not be used.  Instead, applications should make
direct
  calls to the sound driver."

This might be your problem...
--

Dave Platt
  UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!dplatt     DOMAIN: [e-mail]
    INTERNET: coherent![e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Kent S. Harris)
Subject: Re: Peripheral Land Drives
Date: 9 Mar 88 22:36:56 GMT
Organization: Systems Control, Palo Alto, CA

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Lee
Atchison) writes:
> What do people think of Peripherial Land hard disks? ...

I upgraded my Mac 512 to a plus and bought a PL30 a couple of months
ago. So far I have no complaints (either it works or it doesn't).  I
don't have any experience with other drives so I can't offer a
comparative analysis.  Backing up several megs onto floppies is a pain,
but that comes with the territory (general HD w/o tape backup comment).
Soooo, you can put me down as a check mark in the "plus" column for
Peripheral Land.

Didn't mail this because perhaps others are interested PL HD's.

Kent

--
Kent S. Harris - consultant - 408-996-1294 - GEnie: K.HARRIS2
[e-mail] == {ihnp4,hoptoad,leadsv,ames}!scampi!ksh
[e-mail] == {sun!practic,ames,scampi}!scvcs!ksh
  "Not all government subsidized science is necessarilly bad; but all bad
  science is subsidized -- how else could it survive?" -- Petr Beckman


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

From: [e-mail] (Pete Paluzzi)
Subject: Mac II Public Domain Programs to Display TIFF files
Date: 10 Mar 88 17:44:07 GMT
Organization: John Von Neumann Center, Princeton, NJ


Does anyone know of a public domain Mac II program which will display a
scanned image which was saved as a TIFF file at four bits per pixel?
The Mac II in question has a 8 bit deep display.

If so please tell me how I can get a copy.
--
Peter Paluzzi
Sterling Software/ZeroOne Systems Group
The John von Neumann National Supercomputer Center
P. O. Box 3717
Princeton, New Jersey  08543

[e-mail]
BITNET: PALUZZI@JVNCC

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

From: [e-mail] (Alan Epstein)
Subject: Shiva 2400 NetModem
Date: 10 Mar 88 18:56:45 GMT
Organization: Meta Software Corporation, Cambridge MA

does anyone have first hand experience with the networked modems made by
Shiva? i'm considering a 2400 baud (though i haven't heard that they are
released yet), and want to know how reliable they are, how easy are they
to use, and whether they can be used to access the appletalk network via
dial-in line?

PLEASE SEND REPLIES E-MAIL. i'll post summary.

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


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

From: [e-mail] (Jay Roth)
Subject: Toggle Cursor FKEY
Date: 10 Mar 88 15:37:38 GMT

I recently tried to use Andy Hertzfeld's Toggle Cursor FKEY (changes
cursor size) on a Mac II, but it seems not to work (eventually causing
crashes and doesn't know about the screen size).  I'd like to know if
something like it does work on Mac IIs.  Also, I'm interested in any
other Mac utilities/programs that may be suited for visually impaired
folks.


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

From: [e-mail] (Paul Dietz)
Subject: Re: Sound Techniques
Date: 10 Mar 88 06:36:44 GMT
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI

I have a guess with almost zero justification: Different programs use
different representations of the waveform. Some use signed integers,
others just offset unsigned integers. If you played one assuming it was
the other, it would sound pretty much as you described.

The other possibility is that you're not getting a reasonable
anti-aliasing filter. Could somebody who knows the sound hardware
explain how the anti-aliasing filter is choosen for different sampling
rates? (I've been wondering if the Mac does ANY anti-aliasing at all...)

[Actually, if it doesn't, that might also explain your problem: Maybe
BDC upsamples and interpolates at say 22kHz to solve the alaising
problem...]
--
Paul H. Dietz                                        ____          ____
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering        / oo \        <_<\\\
Carnegie Mellon University                        /|  \/  |\        \\ \\
--------------------------------------------     | | (  ) | |       | ||\\
"If God had meant for penguins to fly,             -->--<--        / / |\\\  /
he would have given them wings."            _________^__^_________/ / / \\\\-


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

From: [e-mail] (Alexander M. Rosenberg)
Subject: Re: Sound Techniques
Date: 10 Mar 88 09:18:44 GMT
Organization: University of California, Santa Cruz; CATS

I thought I'd try and follow up here. What I've deterined is that all
the BDC sounds are at 5.5kHz, and the so-called "compression" is really
a method similar to the way that fat-bits are made (this may be an old
fat bits technique, it came from the Byte SmallTalk issue)

Each bit it plotted every 9 pixels. it is then replotted one to the
right 8 times. (This produces horizonal lines.) then the lines are
duplicated vertically eight times. This produces fat bits. I think
something similar is occuring with BDC sound technique. The sounds are
only every x samples, then "streched" to produce what sounds like a
better sampling rate, and a fuller sound. It also explains the tinny
echo effect that the sounds sound like when not "uncompressed."

Anybody know anything about doing this sort of thing? BDC has good
sounding sounds, and it only stores little bits of them.\

BTW, this fat bits technique also explains how sounds can be overlaid.
Instead of screching the sound, inserting another one interwoven, will
produce the effect of overlapping sounds. I ay have to experiment with
this as it seems a good way of storing sound for low-quality playback
and overlay. If Apple would ever docuemnt 'snth' resources properly, I
would even consider writing a 'snth' to do this, as well as a sound
filter to shrink sounds down.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~  Alexander M. Rosenberg  ~ INTERNET: [e-mail]   ~ Yoyodyne    ~
~  Crown College, UCSC     ~ UUCP:...!ucbvax!ucscc!ucscb!alibaba~ Propulsion  ~
~  Santa Cruz, CA 95064    ~ BITNET:[e-mail]  ~ Systems     ~
~  [phone]       ~ Disclaimer: Nobody is my employer  ~ :-)         ~
~               ~ so nobody cares what I say.    ~          ~


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

From: [e-mail] (Oliver Steele)
Subject: Re: Disassemblers / decompilers (was Re: (PrGeneral & ID 02s))
Date: 10 Mar 88 17:31:12 GMT
Organization: University Of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

[e-mail] (Joel B Levin) writes:
>Could someone explain what MacNosy does that TMON (version 2.8)
>doesn't?

    o Allows you to disassemble files from disk instead of memory
    o Gives symbolic names to cross-segment procedure calls
    o Walks the code to find out what's code and what's data
    o Puts field labels on memory accesses when it can figure out,
      based on nearby traps, what the data type pointed to by a
      register is
    o Lets you manipulate multiple windows easier than TMON will (2-click
      on a function name on a window and use a cmd-key to open up the
      disassembly for that name, or the parameter list for a trap, or the
      fields of a data type)
    o Makes lists of what procedures call what, what traps are used, what
      low-memory globals are used, and what procedures use what A5-globals
    o Reminds you, by counterexample, how nice the Mac user interface is

I think that Jasik is a very good programmer of conventional computers
who wouldn't know a user interface if it double clicked him.*  Waldemar
Horwat, on the other hand, is a genius who unfortunately hasn't written
a program aimed at the same problem MacNosy is.  MacNosy is better for
disassembling static programs and trying to figure out how they work;
TMON is better for looking at running programs if you need to see what
happens as they run or if you've got source code so you already
understand how the pieces fit together.
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oliver Steele                       ...!uunet!mcnc!unc!steele
                               [e-mail]
"A sea urchin is the best way to comb the inside
of a hairy tube."        -- Peter Wolfenden

* I KNOW it's a misplaced modifier.  I HATE linear languages (grumble
  grumble grumble...)


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

From: [e-mail] (Dennis Cohen)
Subject: Re: Source management systems
Date: 10 Mar 88 14:46:49 GMT
Organization: Ashton Tate Development Center Glendale Cal.


Apple has announced that a Source Code Control System will be in version
3.0 of MPW which is due to be available in beta form from APDA this
summer.
--
Dennis Cohen
Ashton-Tate Macintosh Division
dBASE Mac Development Team
--------------------------
Disclaimer:  Any opinions expressed above are those of the author.


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

From: [e-mail] (Ari Davidow)
Subject: Re: looking desperately for Hebrew word-processor for SE
Date: 11 Mar 88 09:54:48 GMT
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA


>I am desperately looking for a Hebrew word-processor for the Mac SE

Joe Weinstein (author of MacInHebrew) claims to be working on an update
that will accomodate the newer Macs.  In the meantime, it might be worth
subscribing to the Hebrew Users Group newsletter ($7.50/yr) which covers
all of the gossip, reviews, and Q&A relating to using Hebrew with
microcomputers.  We also have some Hebrew desk accessories in our
software 'library on the WELL (home of HUG online), but I don't
personally know what works with the SE.

To subscribe to the HUG newsletter, send a check to: HUG newsletter, c/o
Berkeley Hillel, 2736 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94704.  We are planning
some extensive Mac overviews in the next couple of issues, so this is a
good time if that is the computer you use.

Ari Davidow   "Jewish" on the WELL--a damn nice example of virtual
community well![e-mail]  |
well![e-mail] {ptsfa,hplabs,ucbvax}well!ari


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

From: [e-mail] (Richard Siegel)
Subject: Update on WriteNow->MS Word
Date: 11 Mar 88 16:33:31 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University


Since I was the one who originally posted the query, I've found some
info...

There is indeed a desk accessory for doing translation from WriteNow to
MacWrite files, which is fine, because MS Word can read MacWrite files
with no problem.

All is not roses, however. While the translator DA converts documents
containing pure text with no problems, as soon as I try to convert a
document containing graphics (mostly pasted-in MacPaint bitmaps) I run
into problems. The conversion process itself goes smoothly, but as soon
as I try to load the file into MacWrite or MS Word, MacWrite gives me
the message "Some paragraphs couldn't be read into memory due to a disk
error", and MS Word says "Ignoring part of a MacWrite document." When
the document is in, I notice that large chunks of text, usually
immediately following the graphics, are MISSING.

I can compare the documents by eye, and copy over the chunks that are
missing, but to do this for a document weighing in at over a hundred
pages is a real nuisance, to say the least.

I'm using version 1.61 of the converter; it's shareware at $20.00, but I
don't intend to buy it until I have a version that's useful to me.

If Ed Bolson is out there, and if there's a newer version of the
translator, I'd sure like to know....


Rich


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

From: [e-mail] (S. H. Schwartz)
Subject: Re: looking desperately for Hebrew word-processor for SE
Date: 11 Mar 88 18:31:01 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick NJ

MIT Hillel (617-253-2982) has software for <$100.  You'll have to ask
them  about the functionality.

What's the "new ADB keyboard"?

                --- Shimon.
--
    "Misheniknas Nisan, yotzei Adar."
        --- Dan Lerner
S. H. Schwartz       [phone]  [e-mail]
                     [phone]  ...rutgers!paul.rutgers.edu!shs

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

End of Usenet Mac Digest
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