PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/USEnet Digests/USEnet Vol. 4/USEnet 4.37

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From: Jeffrey Shulman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #37
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Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #37
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Usenet Mac Digest     Friday, March 18, 1988         Volume 4 : Issue 37

Today's Topics:
     What I found on the inside of SE's cover....
     Buzzing noise coming from my SE's 20SC
     Apple's CD SC CD-ROM driver
     Urdu font for the Mac?
     Help needed writing macwrite document merge program
     Non-PS printer drivers
     Font Changer for WriteNow?
     Do we need games? (Was: Beyond the best...Dark Castle)
     Mouse buttons, modifier keys, etc.
     Review of CMS 60 Meg SCSI HD for $795
     Hardware Test Programs for Mac II
     Re: looking desperately for Hebrew word-processor for SE
     First Impressions with MacRecorder (Longish...)

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

From: [e-mail] (Mahboud Zabetian)
Subject: What I found on the inside of SE's cover....
Date: 12 Mar 88 08:32:58 GMT
Organization: Advanced Technology, Princeton University

I opened up my SE to fix the funny buzzing noise the hard disk was
making(more on that later) and I noticed the signatures on the inside of
the cover.  Now, I used to have a Mac 128, and those signatures came as
no surprise, but what surprised me was that among the signatures I saw
the familiar signature of STEVE JOBS!!  I thought he was fired before
the SE was designed.  Or do they still let his signature be there since
he started the whole Mac dynasty?

Anyone at Apple want to help with this bit of trivia?
--
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] (Mahboud Zabetian)
Subject: Buzzing noise coming from my SE's 20SC
Date: 12 Mar 88 08:52:02 GMT
Organization: Advanced Technology, Princeton University


A week or so after my SE had been living with me for 90 days, I was
agonized to here a strange buzzing noise that changed frequency, and
volume, every couple hours.  At first I thought it was the fan having a
sore throat, but after opening the Mac up I realized the problem was the
little hub cap on the spinning axle of the hard disk.

This noise would go away if a bit of pressure was placed on the hub, and
after manipulating it in no particular fashion, the noise went away, for
a few days. Then it returned to haunt me again, and I went insane and
(very carefully) applied (a very minute amount of) vaseline between the
hub and the axle. People at Apple are going to hate me for having done
that but (a) my warranty was void anyway, (b)the hub only seems to be an
electrostatic-ground connection, (c) the hard disk is quieter than ever
and has been so for two weeks now, (d) at least I didn't use cooking
oil, motor grease or peanut butter.

I applied the vaseline by sticking a toothpick into the end of a
vaseline Lip goo(?) tube, and then carefully inserted it between the hub
and the axle. Don't try it since I don't accept any responsibility if
you fry yourself on the CRT, or damage your Mac, or your body.

I just wanted to relay that information, as I have heard two other
people complaining of a new noise their Mac has been making.
--
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] (Norman Graham)
Subject: Apple's CD SC CD-ROM driver
Date: 11 Mar 88 01:24:53 GMT
Organization: Oklahoma State Univ., Stillwater


Has anyone tried to use Apple's CD SC driver with other CD-ROM players?
If it will work, how should the CD-ROM player be set up?

    Bus Arbitration [on/off]
    SCSI id (does this matter as long as it's not 0 or 7?)
    anything else?

In particular, I'm trying to use it with a Toshiba drive.  The mac seems
to talk to the drive long enough to tell it to lock the CD-ROM drawer,
but an icon for the drive never appears on the desktop.  Any ideas?

(by the way, I'm using a HFS formatted CD-ROM).
--
Norman Graham
Oklahoma State University              Internet:  [e-mail]
Computing and Information Sciences         UUCP:  {cbosgd, ihnp4,
219 Mathematical Sciences Building                 rutgers}!okstate!norman
Stillwater, OK  74078-0599


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

From: [e-mail] (Robert Young)
Subject: Urdu font for the Mac?
Date: 7 Mar 88 13:21:15 GMT
Organization: Computer Science Dept, Queen Mary College, University of

There's a student here at Queen Mary College, London, who is interested
in obtaining an Urdu font for the Mac, if there is one available. I seem
to recall, some time in the dim and distant past, that various
non-standard fonts have been mentioned on this bb, so promised to put up
a message on his behalf?

So, can anyone tell me whether someone has already created an Urdu fint
for the Mac, and if so how can I get hold of it?

Thanx for your help, Bob.

Please mail replies to me rather to comp.sys.mac, unless you think that
the information is of general interest.
--
Robert Young
Dept of computer Science
Queen Mary College
Univerisity of London
Mile End Road
London E1 4NS

Email: [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Help needed writing macwrite document merge program
Date: 10 Mar 88 11:34:16 GMT

A friend of mine asked me to post this for him...

>From:    VAX1::UKJOHNSO     "Fireball XL5 calling ...." 10-MAR-1988 10:43
>To:    SQPHIL
>Subj:    Ignore 1st one This is official one

Dear Anyone,
    Does any one out there know a great algorithm for joining 2 MacWrite
Docs together ? It's part of my final year project and its very
difficult ! I have been trying for nearly 6 weeks but I seem to uncover
more difficulties each day !

I wish to use Turbo Pascal if at all possible

Any help is gratefully received !
--
Peter Johnson ,         ******************************************************
Computer Science Dept., * JANET : [e-mail]                   *
Liverpool University,   * UUCP  : {backbone}!mcvax!ukc!mupsy!liv-cs!UKJOHNSO *
Merseyside, England,    * ARPA  : [e-mail]  *
                        ******************************************************
***************************************************************
* Disclaimer :                                                *
*     It was only an idea.... you cannot blame me...          *
*        I was drunk at the time !                            *
***************************************************************


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

From: [e-mail] (Peter Sutton)
Subject: Non-PS printer drivers
Date: 11 Mar 88 12:43:01 GMT
Organization: Computer Science, Nottingham Univ., UK.

I am interested in driving a non-standard, "non-PostScript" output
device from "QuickDraw" (I am aware that there will inevitably be
limitations).

Has anyone written a device driver to convert "QuickDraw" into an ASCII
based printer command language (NOT PostScript)? If so are you willing
to give me some idea of the way forward, hints and potential pitfalls of
writing such a system.

William Woody ( <[e-mail]> ) mentions some articles in
MacTutor "a few months ago" where can I get hold of this publication?

In addition, has anyone got any information on which of the common Mac
packages (especially DTP) will drive the new low-cost "QuickDraw"
laserwriter? - either as they are or in some modified form - Will
software houses bring out reduced price, reduced performance packages
for the machine?

Thanks in anticipation     Peter Sutton       ( [e-mail] )


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

From: [e-mail] (Jim Cordy)
Subject: Font Changer for WriteNow?
Date: 11 Mar 88 20:25:32 GMT
Organization: Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Forgive my ignorance, but does anyone know of a program/way to change
all instances of a particular font in a WriteNow document to some other
font without affecting anything else?  Thanks.

Jim Cordy    [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Juri Munkki)
Subject: Do we need games? (Was: Beyond the best...Dark Castle)
Date: 11 Mar 88 14:29:04 GMT
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland

In <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (A. M. Rosenberg)
writes:
>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.

Maybe we should start writing good public domain arcade games.

It takes a lot of assembly language to make the graphics routines fast,
but the game logic is relatively easy to write in C or Pascal (I use C).
Maybe a gamewriters toolkit would boost production...

I just wrote some graphics routines that allow fast scrolling of a
playfield and up to 16 sprites per horizontal row. I also have a general
purpose maze editor that can relatively easily be converted to edit
mazes of any size. (No one should be forced to create a new maze the way
it was done in Teltnuag!)

Currently my routines work only in B&W (color is planned). They provide
a 512x512 playfield of which a 256x256 field is always visible. Any
number of sprites can be used, although performance naturally decreases
as the amount of sprites increases. The size of playfield can be
increased, but currently it requires some programming (my program has a
16*16 block maze constructed out of ICONs). The sprite is 32 pixels wide
and currently 32 pixels high (height is easy to change).

If there's interest, I might document the code and make it free...
--
Juri Munkki
[e-mail]
[e-mail]


P.S. Is there ever going to be a Microsoft Flight Simulator for the Mac II?
     (I have Falcon, but it's a toy)


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

From: cca@pur-phy (Charles C. Allen)
Subject: Mouse buttons, modifier keys, etc.
Date: 11 Mar 88 21:33:07 GMT
Organization: Purdue Univ. Phys Dept, W.Lafayette, IN

Random personal opinions follow...

Some people have mentioned using modifier keys along with the mouse
button for calling up menus.  I hope this never makes it into the Apple
Human Interface Guidelines (AHIG).  The AHIG always use the mouse button
as a selection button.  Using modifier keys should "modify" the
selection (shift-click selects multiple, etc.).  I find using a
modifer/button combo for something other than a selection modification
confusing.  Trapeze uses option-click to resize and command-click to
move a block (or is it the other way around?).

Each button on a mouse should have a purpose orthogonal to the other
buttons.  In Smalltalk, the left button selects, the middle button
brings up a menu for "what's under the cursor", and the right button
brings up a menu for the view (window) as a whole.  In the Apple
version, there are two ways to simulate the middle and right buttons.
The middle button menu can be reached by command-click, or by moving the
mouse to an area of the scroll bar (the cursor changes shape when the
menu is available).  The right button menu can be reached by enter-click
(I think), or by clicking in the title tab of the view.  I always use
the second alternative in each case, partly because the first
alternatives require driving the mouse with two hands, partly because
the first alternatives mean using "the" button for something other than
selection.

Popup palettes and menus can be useful, but only if clicking on them
doesn't produce a "destructive" effect.  This usually means making sure
the current selection is under the cursor when the palette/menu pops up.
I'll pick on Trapeze again for violating this.  All the popup menus in
Trapeze put the menu head at the location of the mouse click.  If you
accidentally click in the menu location (instead of holding the button
down), you end up changing the selection to whatever is at the top of
the list.  [I don't have the AHIG with me.  Out of curiousity, does it
mention anything about this?  I don't recall...].

A rule of thumb I use is that I like to be able to explore an
application using just the mouse, without the keyboard (so I can have a
mug of tea in my other hand :-).  Text entry is unique, obviously.
Entering integers in a dialog text box?  Bleah.  As long as the range is
limited, why not put in some sort of control (perhaps as an alternate).

The above are just some semi-random thoughts on my personal preferences,
along with some explanation for why I like things that way.  If you
disagree, why, that's great.

Charlie Allen                   [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Chris Schanzle)
Subject: Review of CMS 60 Meg SCSI HD for $795
Date: 14 Mar 88 01:42:18 GMT
Organization: Univ of Maryland Baltimore County


Since I got several requests for information on the CMS SD60 external
SCSI hard drive I just purchased for $795 + $24.50 (shipping Federal
Express 2nd day & handling), what follows is a pseudo-review of the
drive and my experiences with it in the past week of bliss.

To summarize, I'm very pleased with my purchase and would highly
recommend this drive to anyone seeking reasonably quick, very affordable
mass storage device.  Call the HardWare House @ 1-800-356-2892 in
Philadelphia, PA for more info!

The CMS SD60 external SCSI hard drive arrived complete with 24 page
manual, cable, 800K floppy with release 5.0 system software and utility
programs, and power cord.

Physical attributes:  approximately the same footprint of the Mac Plus
(3.5 x 10.5 x 10").  The front is recessed where the cover plate of the
hard drive and in-use indicator light is located.  The black front
coverplate looks like it's hiding an IBM hard drive.  The SD 60 is only
available in platinum (I have an beige plus :-().  There are two 25 (yes
25) pin connectors on the back of the drive rather than the 50 pin jobs
normall found (but I think this is better, since I wouldn't have to buy
a 50-to-50 pin connector to daisy-chain drives!).  The dip switches for
setting the SCSI ID are also located on the back of the drive for easy
access.  I just noticed a front-view picture of the drive in one of
CMS's ads in MacUser (actually an ad for their tape drive - but the box
is the same).

After taking the cover off, I found a small fan in the back, a power
supply, and of course the drive.  There is a sticker on the drive
labeled "ST-277N", Seagate's notation - so I assume it's a Seagate
drive.

The following information comes from the specifications in the Appendix
of the manual:

    Heads auto-park at power down
    Formatted capacity = 62.40MB
    Average access time = 40 ms
    Non-operating shock = 60g (sticker on drive says 40g max tho)
    Reliability - MTBF = 20,000
    External SCSI ID Select:  0 through 6
    One Year Warranty

The software that is included appears to be a very polished product (I
was very impressed).  After selecting the SCSI ID and the drive model,
one can perform many functions:

    Format - erases all blocks and marks out bad ones.
    Initialize - creates Mac specific directory information
    Install New Drivers - in case the ones get trashed.
    Park - for drives that do not park on power down.
    SCSI Bus Status - self explanitory.
    Volume Data - lots of block allocation information
    Usage Map - graphically plots used blocks (nice!)
    Overnight Test - erases all information (hours to complete)
    Verify disk - trys to read each block (data not modified)
    Reassign block - if a block goes bad, one can map it to another
       block to avoid reformatting.
    Fast HD Copy - block by block copy to anther drive.
    Select Drive Icon - you can choose one of several given (or use
       Resedit to modify theirs and install it).  Nice touch.
    Shutdown/Restart - for use after using the Park function.

All of these functions are documented in the manual and in the on-line
help.  There is also extensive help in the manual about using HFS
efficiently and what to do if you experience problems.

When one selects FORMAT, a dialog box requests which model Macintosh the
drive will be used on.  Then a dialog box allows you to override the
interleave they suggest to give best performance on the different Macs.
They warn "capricious changes will likely be regretted."  The
interleaves suggested are 5, 3, and 1 for the Mac Plus, Mac SE, and Mac
II respectively.

The drive is shipped configured for a Mac+, preformatted and with
Apple's System Software release 5.0 (MultiFinder included!) and their
utility software.  They also include a program called "ZapPRAM" which
does the obvious (same thing as holding down Shift-Option-Command and
then open the Control Panel).  This is only useful for the Mac SE/II
users.  There is also an "PRAMFIX" INIT for Mac II users to help avoid
it from getting confusing PRAM information.  They didn't say much about
it in their README document about it.

Running DiskTimer II (vers 1.0) gives the following information:
    100 24KB Reads, Writes:  158, 159 deciseconds
    80 seeks across 1MB:  14 deciseconds

Personally I never paid any attention to the previous postings of these
numbers, but I hope someone will find them useful.  It would be
interesting to see how it compares to the other drives that are
available (where are those info-mac archives when you need 'em!?).

Comments:
    I've been waiting for almost a year for hard drive prices to become
reasonable, and this one finally gave me the most storage for the right
price.  How could I not be happy?  Personally, I purchased the drive for
more of the convience factors (BIG system file, all applications in one
location) as I did for the speed increase.  For me, 40ms is lots faster
than the 80ms numbers of the recent past. Sure, the Quantum 80 Meg
drives are in the mid 20-s ms access times, but they cost $300-$500
more!  (BTW, they do have an SD80 model that has an access time of 26ms)
for $1100 something.

The drive is slightly more noisy than I would prefer, but I wouldn't
call it LOUD by any means - those SE fans are definitly louder and much
more obnoxious.  On spinup, the drive sounds like the turbines from an
X-Wing fighter taking off in Star Wars - neato-torpedo!

Being a Seagate drive (assumption based on ST-277N notation discussed
earlier), I have high hopes that this will be a reliable drive.  Myself
and a friend ordered two drives at the same time (they let the shipping
costs slide) from a batch they JUST got in.  Unfortunately, his drive
crapped out on him after about an hour's worth of use, and had to send
it back.  It was doing weird things like not spinning up, changing speed
after a few minutes of operation, & giving SCSI errors out the wazoo.
The people at HardWare house were pleasant to deal with, but seemed
rather non-professional like the business was run by a family rather
than a company.  This doesn't bother me since, if I have problems, CMS
is a pretty big company and I can deal with them directly should the
(unfortunate) need arise.

After running the drive continously for 5 days and powering up and down
for the last two days, I'm happy to report no problems with the drive or
any software I've put on it (15 megs and counting!).  At this point in
the evolution of SCSI disks, I didn't expect to find any.

Rounding all this out, I think I've covered most aspects that would
interest those looking for a good buy in SCSI disks.  If you have
questions, feel free to mail me at the address below.  Naturally, the
standard disclaimers apply - I'm not affiliated with anybody but myself.

--
ARPA   : [e-mail]        BITNET : chris@umbc

"He was betrayed by the limits of his own potential."


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

From: [e-mail] (Laurian Chirica)
Subject: Hardware Test Programs for Mac II
Date: 13 Mar 88 19:15:55 GMT
Organization: Cal Poly State Univ,CSC Dept,San Luis Obispo,CA 93407

I had a Mac II since Dec. '78 and I love it.  Recently, some strange
things started to happen (as warranty period is about to expire).  It
would take too long to describe in detail, but I suspect a hardware
problem. It could be anything from the keyboard to a RAM bit which went
bad. The question is: Does anyone know of some kind of hardware test
programs  for the Mac II which would help narrow the problem?  I did not
see any ad in the usual magazines for such programs.  I also looked into
the APDA catalog (I am a member) and I did not see anything available.
I find it hard to believe that such programs do not exist. If I receive
any useful information I will summarize and post. Thanks,
--
Laurian M. Chirica  ([e-mail])
Computer Science Department
California Polytechnic State University (CAL POLY)
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 - [phone]


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

From: [e-mail] (Ari Davidow)
Subject: Re: looking desperately for Hebrew word-processor for SE
Date: 13 Mar 88 08:39:00 GMT
Organization: Whole Earth 'Lectronic Link, Sausalito, CA


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

MIT Hillel is marketing MacInHebrew which does not yet run on the SE or
Mac II, although Joe Weinstein, the author, says that he is working on
further enhancements.  To the best of my knowledge, MacInHebrew is
shareware available for a $25 donation to Hillel.  The last version of
which I was aware was 2.1--we have 2.0 on the WELL, but it still has
some problems,  even with the older machines.  There are also some P.D.
and shareware desk utilities that will allow one to place hebrew in
English Text, and the Apple Programmers and Developers Association
should be marketing a Hebrew version of the Mac operating system by now
(it was due in Feb., but I haven't had time to follow up), along with a
Hebrew/English hypercard. I believe that APDA is in Oregon, and that
they have an 800 number, but I left my addresses at home tonight, so
that is the best I can do.
--
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] (Laurian Chirica)
Subject: First Impressions with MacRecorder (Longish...)
Date: 14 Mar 88 02:29:49 GMT
Organization: Cal Poly State Univ,CSC Dept,San Luis Obispo,CA 93407


For about ten days now I had a great time playing with MacRecorder
version 1.0  from Farallon Computing, Berkeley, CA ($199-list, $149
various mail order  houses).  Although my experience with the product is
anything but  extensive, I am happy to report that it works and it works
quite well.  I used  it on a Mac II, with 1Mb-RAM, 8 bit color Apple
monitor.

I cannot give a complete review of the product, but here are some of the
first-few-hour-of-use impressions.

MacRecorder consists of a hardware sound digitizer and three floppies
with  software.  The digitizer is slightly larger than a pack of
cigarettes and plugs into the printer or the modem port.  It comes with
a built-in mike, a  separate mike line, and an auxiliary, low-voltage
input line (to input, say,  from a radio, tape player, or CD player--
cable included).  The software  comes on three floppies.  First floppy
contains a sound editor -- SoundEdit--  and a few sound samples.  The
second contains HyperSound stackware with  a small demo stack.   The
third floppy contains a lager demo stack with more  interesting sounds.
The documentation is not fancy, but I found it to be  complete and
accurate.

I had a problem in the beginning: the third floppy with the demo stack
would not load.  I sent it back to Farallon with the registration card
and in  four days I got a replacement floppy (marked version 1.05) with
a nice  letter of apology.  This time the stack demo worked.

I am most impressed with the SoundEdit program, which alone is worth the
money.   After sampling a sound (at 5.5, 7.3, 11 or 22Hz, giving,
respectively  3, 2, 1.5, or 0.75 minutes of mono-sound per Mb of Disk or
RAM), you can  display the sample graphically and massage it with all
kinds of sound effects:  change pitch up and down, bender and flanging
effects, amplification  (up/down), echo (strength and delay adjustable),
envelope setting, loopback,  filtering, backwards playing, etc., etc.
The filter has a nice equalizer-type  interface with five adjustable
frequency ranges.   You can generate new  sounds in the editor with a
tone generator (sine, square, and triangle waves)  or an FM synthesizer.
 Of course, the sample can be edited (cut and paste,  with click-shift
and all the good Mac-style stuff), labelled and colorized for  easy
reference.  All changes can be test-played without leaving the editor.

Several sound files can be open at the same time with the usual cutting
and pasting to/from the clipboard.  The editor can display the
recording input level (eg. to test for clipping) or a frequency
spectrum (e.g., to decide on the sampling frequency) of the sound to be
recorded.  These functions (input level and the frequency spectrogram)
are  *not* available during recording (is Mac II too slow for this?).

Still in SoundEdit, you can do four-channel mixing and real-time
recording in  stereo (I did not try it, because you need two sampling
units for real-time  stereo recording).  However, using the editor you
can separately record two  samples, put them on separate channels, and
make a stereo sound from  them.  Copying one channel into the second
channel with a slight delay  makes a nice pseudo-stereo sound.  Since
the Mac II speaker plays only the  left channel  I used stereo
headphones to test the results. Sounds can be saved in a SoundEdit file,
as a resource, or as "instrument"  files for the Studio/Jam Session (I
don't have S/J S so I did not try it).   Using ResEdit I pasted sound
resources produced with SoundEdit into the System  file and I have all
the beeps I can stand (for a while).  I also edited some of  the
existing System beeps (they appear as "instruments" to SoundEdit) and it
worked very well.

WIth 1Mb of RAM I do not use the Multifinder much (I use HC a lot).  The
only thing I can say is that SoundEdit launches successfully under
Multifinder, complains about not having 1Mb available, but starts with
whatever memory is left and works well.  Of course the size of the sound
samples is diminished.

The second piece of sofware that comes with MacRecorder is a HC stack
called HyperSound.  The user interface looks like a casette recorder
with obvious and clear functions.  After recording a sound, a HyperSound
button will paste the sound on any card of and any stack you  want
together with a button to play it (ResEdit could be used but it is not
needed).  HyperSound puts an XCMD into that stack which can be used to
play other snd resources (e.g., pasted in with ResEdit).  The HyperTalk
interface is simply a "play sound <number>" command.  Another button on
HyperSound exits to SoundEdit for further processing.  Finally, another
button installs the HyperSound stack into your Home card.

I am very enthusiastic about MacRecorder system because it gives me all
the  functionality I need for a while.  (I am working on an HC prototype
multimedia database for a company in LA.  The final product, if funded,
will  be implemented on a back-end DBMS server with Mac's as user
front-ends.   BTW, DOES ANYONE KNOW OF AN INEXPENSIVE VIDEO DIGITIZER?
Does  anyone have experience with Koala Tech.'s Mac Video?  I understand
that it  is not running on Mac II yet.  Any rumors as to when it might
be ready?).

I saved the most important thing for last.  During more than six hours
of use,  *neither SoundEdit nor HyperSound crash one single time*.
Pardon me, but  recent experience with Mac II software made me quite
edgy when I try any  new piece of software.   I tried quite a few
painting, drawing, animation,  music, etc. software recently.   Somehow,
I managed to break all of them in  the first fifteen minutes.  I *dread*
the sight of the BOMB!!.  Now, imagine  how I felt when after an hour or
so of using SoundEdit, I pulled down the  Apple menu, selected the
"About SoundEdit" and ....    Well, I won't spoil it for you.

I remember reading on the net that MacRecorder existed, in a previous
incarnation as a PD, or Shareware product at 1/3 of the price.   The
original  designer (could some one help with his/her name?) and Farallon
did a good  darn job with MacRecorder.  As far as I am concerned, it is
well worth the  money.  Sure, I can think of many features that would be
desirable, but as it is Farallon earns a good, solid A in my book.  I am
looking forward to the next release.

PS.  I have no connection whatsoever with Farallon computing.  [ My
employer couldn't care less about my opinions :-)]

--
Laurian M. Chirica  ([e-mail])
Computer Science Department
California Polytechnic State University (CAL POLY)
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407 - [phone]

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