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From: Jeffrey Shulman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #42
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Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #42
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Usenet Mac Digest     Friday, March 25, 1988         Volume 4 : Issue 42

Today's Topics:
     RE:Re: Hard disks
     Re: A Solution to the Shareware Dilemma?
     Re: Prototyper vs. Doing it Yourself
     Re: 80 meg and greater hard disks, your
     Re: GetItemMark
     Re: MacApp (was Prototyper vs. Doing it Yourself)
     High Capacity Printers.
     Word/MacWrite -> NROFF ??
     Problem with ImageWriterIIs
     nice B/W monitor
     Quitting the Finder under MF
     MacProto - a Nubus prototyping card for the Mac II
     Re: Coral Allegro Common Lisp objects, and application hacks
     A pleasant surprise from ICOM Simulations

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

From: [e-mail] (Marty Lee)
Subject: RE:Re: Hard disks
Date: 20 Mar 88 16:44:35 GMT
Organization: Rick's Home-Grown UNIX; Portland, OR.


I just got a Mass Micro 50i (50 Meg internal) for my Mac SE at work.
Installation was simple and straight forward and took only 5 minutes!
The drive even came with a torx head screw driver to open the Mac. The
Mass Micro mounts upright on an aluminum bracket over the two  existing
floppy drives or Apple HD 20!!!  It comes with space for another (upto
100 Meg) drive also!  (A possible 120 Meg online in the Mac box!!!)

Iv'e been letting mine burn in for the past few days and it seems OK. It
makes for a great portable system!

(It cost $949 and arrived two days after ordering.)



              teksce           (Fastest path)
          /            \ tektronix!reed!  omen   !bucket!martyl  (Marty
Lee)
              \        /
               percival


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

From: [e-mail] (Andrew Macpherson)
Subject: Re: A Solution to the Shareware Dilemma?
Date: 20 Mar 88 12:09:06 GMT
Organization: STL,Harlow,UK.

In the UK there are immense hassles in actually transfering money to US
shareware authors (especially if they cannot accept credit cards).  The
last time I did so directly the bank charged (pounds)4.50 for an
International Money order (a cheque on their US branch) --- this for a
$38 registration --- (and I havn't had a response from the authors, but
that's another story...)

There is a company 'Shareware Marketing' (BBS # (+44|0) 732 770539)
which is one of the PD/Shareware copying services in the UK.  It's one
big plus is that they have arranged with a number of Shareware authors
to act as a registration clearing-house in the UK (possibly Europe?),
and they certainly take Credit Card orders.

If you are looking for an international outlet for your software I think
it may be worth your while to check what their arrangements are.

[IN view of the heat this discussion tends to generate, I must point
out: I HAVE NO CONNECTION WHATSOEVER WITH THIS COMPANY, NOT EVEN THAT OF
CUSTOMER.]
--
Andrew Macpherson
[e-mail]        - or -         ...!mcvax!ukc!stl!andrew
"It is always a great mistake to treat the individual on the chance
that he may become a crowd" -- Mr Justice Codd: (A.P.Herbert)


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

From: [e-mail] (Kenneth Mayer)
Subject: Re: Prototyper vs. Doing it Yourself
Date: 20 Mar 88 16:22:31 GMT
Organization: University of Pennsylvania

When last we saw our hero, [e-mail] (Richard Siegel) ...
> ... ... ...
>        However, I resist using tools such as MacApp, or Programmer's Extender,
>or MacExpress, or Prototyper, simply on the grounds that I'd rather do it
>myself. If I do it myself, I've gained an insight into how things work; I've
>gotten my hands dirty, and I know exactly where the bugs lie (if there are
>any). The learning is sometimes more valuable than getting the job done.

Granted. Most people however don't have the luxury of making the same
mistakes over and over again until they learn how to do it right. Tools
that I've used, such as MacApp and Prototyper are in the one case, a
pre- made library of a standard interface that my shop can use across
all  applications that we build. We use a lot of student programmers
who've barely started their programming careers, much less Macintosh
programming.

In the second case, Prototyper, I will be the first to admit that I
don't like the code that is generated. In a word, it sucks buffalo
chips. I don't think that it was ever meant to be a replacement for
writing good, clean Macintosh supporting code. Instead, it is a starting
point for how the program control should flow, where mouse and menu
events have to go, and it creates resources like windows, icons, and
menus better than any other package I've used.

I've found that Prototyper is most useful for interactive interface
design with a content expert. I can change formats, dialogs, and windows
quickly, then show the client the result. That makes my job a lot
easier.

MacApp is not going to replace all pascal programmers for some time to
come. My group has discovered several minor (and some not so minor) bugs
in MacApp. MacApp, in addition, makes it very difficult to do things
that you may want to do, but was never in the original design. For
example: it is impossible to center dialog boxes dynamicly. That is, if
you place a dialog window in the center of MacPlus screen in your
resource description file, it will be in the upper left quadrant of a
MacII display. Not pretty, and NOT in accordance with Apple standards.
And there is no workaround that we have found.

What MacApp provides is a way to write object oriented code. Which, if
done correctly (and I stress this highly), gives you code that you can
literally cut and paste into other applications. Object orientedness
allows you to create child class objects with extensions you need,
without modifying the base code source.
>
>        I guess the point is that I've done application development since
>before the first toolkits came out, and I've written all of my interfaces by
>hand. And enjoyed every minute of it. And I see no reason to throw out all of
>my work at this point.

You are one of the lucky ones to developed and maintained a workable
library over the years. My shop has been in business since 1984, and
yet, when I started last November, there was no source code in our
library that drove the standard event loop. Everyone is expected to
write one for him or herself.
>
>        When I get Lightspeed Pascal with object support, I'm going to use it
>to make my application smaller and more elegant, not just to run MacApp.
>

You may discover that the source code specific to your applicatio is
smaller, but that the overall source and object code is much larger.
Object oriented Pascal in MPW tends to be huge (a minimum of 100K).
--
-----     =====     -----     =====     -----     =====     -----
Kenneth Mayer            |    Teacher: "Two plus two equals..."
[e-mail]    |    Student: "Four, but what's a two?"


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: 80 meg and greater hard disks, your
Date: 20 Mar 88 17:34:00 GMT


I have a Mac II and a CMS-80 innerdrive (Quantum).  I recommend it
highly.  For a long time, I believe CMS has had the best prices on
Quantum-80 disk drives.  I got mine for $1213 mail order 5 months ago,
$200 cheaper than anyone else's.  CMS is one of the biggest drive makers
(4-5 yrs old) for the IBM PC, and recently entered the Mac market..

Many of the 16.5ms drives are CDC Wren drives.  Check out the Jasmine
Innerdrive-91 add to see the reliability specs on this drive -- they are
somewhat better than a Quantum-80 (MTBF- 30Khrs, v.s. 25Khrs).

Go for a drive with a 2yr or greater warranty, if you can.  Thus, don't
buy Apple drives, their warranty is horrible (3mo).

I am very suspicious that the Magic91 is a Wren-type drive.  If it is, I
think it's probably a bargain in the $1300 range...  If you ever want to
run A/UX on your Mac II, all you care about is fast seek time for paging
purposes!!!

Do you really want to use your disk with a future Mac II?  The
interleave will be 2:1 or greater, and the performance on your Mac II
will suffer.  For full performance, you'll want to reformat at 1:1
interleave.  After reformatting, will the drive work with your Mac Plus?
 I don't know.  Anyhow, MAKE SURE THE MANUFACTURER SUPPORTS CHANGING THE
INTERLEAVE (CMS Does), if you want to do this.  A few months ago, some
manufacturers had not yet released 1:1 interleave or 1Mbps SCSI disk
drives.

Maybe you should wait four months until Apple releases the new MacII/SE
combo machine.  That might mix things up a lot.

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


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

From: [e-mail] (David Phillip Oster)
Subject: Re: GetItemMark
Date: 21 Mar 88 10:06:48 GMT
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>Does GetItemMark work?  I'm trying to toggle a check mark on and off in a

I've been hit by this one recently. It appears that the prototype for
GetItemMark isn't quite right. if you pass a pointer to an _int_ instead
of a pointer to a char you'll find the correct value in it. This has to
do with the fact that in Apple's Pascal, chars variables are represented
by ints, chars are only packed in pascal when they appear in arrays of
structures.
--
--- David Phillip Oster            --author of Stars
Arpa: [e-mail] --
Uucp: {uwvax,decvax,ihnp4}!ucbvax!oster%dewey.soe.berkeley.edu


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

From: [e-mail] (Larry Rosenstein)
Subject: Re: MacApp (was Prototyper vs. Doing it Yourself)
Date: 21 Mar 88 22:46:28 GMT
Organization: Advanced Technology Group, Apple Computer

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail]
(Kenneth Mayer) writes:
>
>come. My group has discovered several minor (and some not so minor)
>bugs in MacApp.

The MacApp team would like to hear about these, so that they can be
fixed in MacApp 2.0.  Send them to [e-mail].

> MacApp, in addition, makes it very difficult to do things that you may
>want to do, but was never in the original design. For example: it is
>impossible to center dialog boxes dynamicly. That is, if you place a dialog
>window in the center of MacPlus screen in your resource description file,
>it will be in the upper left quadrant of a MacII display. Not pretty, and
>NOT in accordance with Apple standards. And there is no workaround that we
>have found.

This is a problem with the Dialog Manager in general.

The only complete workaround is to patch the NewDialog trap and modify
the coordinates that are passed in there.  The problem is that there are
dialogs over which you have no control (eg, the print dialogs).  MacApp
exacerbates the problem by putting up dialogs itself.

For application-specific dialogs, you can simply move the dialog window
before you display it.  (MacApp 2.0 has a totally rewritten dialog unit,
which can automatically center dialogs if you choose.  This dialog unit
is a superset of the Toolbox Dialog Manager.)

This still doesn't handle alerts, which will still be done using the the
Toolbox.  To handle these, you would have to read in the ALRT resource
and modify the rectangle to center the alerts.  It should be possible
for your application to read in all the ALRT resoruces, center the
rectangles, and make the resources non-purgeable.  (For MacApp 2.0, it
should be possible to put this code into MacApp.)

>You may discover that the source code specific to your applicatio is smaller,
>but that the overall source and object code is much larger. Object oriented
>Pascal in MPW tends to be huge (a minimum of 100K).

This is not true in general.  There is nothing in Object Pascal (or
object-oriented programming) that requires the code size to be
excessively large.  The MPW linker can strip out method tables that
don't need to be there, which means you pay for the object-oriented
features only when you use them.

Even if you are talking about MacApp programs it is not true.  Many
people look at the size of their first MacApp program and don't realize
that more than half of it is debugging code that is stripped out of the
final version. (MacApp without debugging code is only about 50K.)

Also, people compare a MacApp sample program with an equivalent
non-MacApp sample, without realizing that the MacApp program does many
more things. Unfortunately, it is difficult to throw out only the
clipboard (or printing, or memory management, or ...) support in MacApp;
we targetted MacApp for complete applications rather than small
utilities.

--
         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] (Richard Vernon Ford)
Subject: High Capacity Printers.
Date: 22 Mar 88 13:04:36 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon University

I am looking for feedback by those of you using non-apple high capacit
PostScript printers on an appletalk network.  Has anyone had experience
with the DataProducts printer or the Varityper (sp?) or other high
capacity printers.  The planned use includes a duty cycle in excess of
1000 copies/day.  An Apple LaserWriter is not designed for this type of
load.

Please Mail me copies of responses, I will be happy to summarize for the
net.  Thanks in advance.
--
-Richard Ford
 Carnegie Mellon University
 Chemistry Dept.

ARPA: [e-mail]
BITNET: rf1m@CMUCCVMA

AT&T [phone]
US : 1000 Morewood Avenue
     Pittsburgh PA 15213


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

From: [e-mail] (Daniel J. Burns)
Subject: Word/MacWrite -> NROFF ??
Date: 22 Mar 88 18:18:07 GMT
Organization: Space/Astrophysics Grp, JPL

Hello.  Does there exist a utility to convert Microsoft Word and/or
MacWrite files to text files containing equivalent NROFF formatting
commands?   I want to compose a document on my Mac and send it over to a
Unix system.   Please respond directly to me, as I don't usually read
this news group (I'll summarize multiple responses).   Thanks!
--
Dan Burns
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
([e-mail])


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

From: [e-mail] (Mike McCann)
Subject: Problem with ImageWriterIIs
Date: 22 Mar 88 21:08:48 GMT
Organization: Clemson University, Clemson, SC

I have encountered a problem with the ImageWriterIIs in our MacLabs on
campus...smudged printouts.  Our first thought was the reinked ribbons
that we are using were causing the problem but the ribbons work fine in
our new ImageWriterIIs (platnum - 3 months old, the others that smudge
are beige - 18 months old).  We replaced all the old aluminum foil type
printhead shields with the new printhead sheild, we clean the printhead
and the printhead sheild to get all the crud of them and of course we
adjust the distance of the printhead from the paper (the smudging stops
when the pins no longer meet the paper - no smudging , no printout). Our
last thought is physical wear on the printer but what part is wearing
out?  If you have any suggestions or comments, please let me know.
--
Thanks in advance,
Mike McCann


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

From: [e-mail] (Henry Kautz's mailnews program)
Subject: nice B/W monitor
Date: 22 Mar 88 15:44:38 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill

After using several large monochrome monitors for the Mac II, we're
happiest with MegaGraphics: very bright, sharp, nice stand, and most
important, the dots-per-inch matches the Apple monitors -- no shrunken
fonts.  They offer steep corporate discounts, too, and shipped promptly.
 Only problem: *no* documentation (just a tiny scrap of paper which said
"plug the card in carefully"!).
--
---- Henry Kautz
:uucp:    allegra!kautz
:arpa: or :csnet: [e-mail]
:old style csnet: [e-mail]
* Opinions expressed are personal, and do not reflect official policy
of Bell Labs or AT&T *


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

From: [e-mail] (Jim Meiss)
Subject: Quitting the Finder under MF
Date: 22 Mar 88 21:05:47 GMT
Organization: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas


    More on the continuing saga of weird behavior under Multifinder on a
1Meg Plus:
    When you last heard from me I claimed that the default partition given
to PrintMonitor (78K for mine, though some claim it should be 80K) was
to small. So I increased it to 120. Don't seem to be having problems
with it now...
    However when I was printing, I tried to launch Cricket Draw 1.1, and
probably there wasn't enough memory avaiable for it, so it immediately
quit (note that I didn't get the dialog from MF telling me this...).
What happened though, was that the finder quit too. So here I was
running  PrintMonitor only, with the MF icon in the upper right, and no
"Finder" in the Desk accessory menu, or anywhere! Wow! I always wanted
to be able to run applications without the finder, and there I was. I
still could get to my DA's and they ran under the DA Handler, which upon
quiting gave me back PrintMonitor. I finally hit the debug button and
got the finder back by SM 0 A9F4, G 0. But the system was in an unstable
state...As was my heart.
    Anybody else seen something like this? Perhaps my mac has  the flu or
some other virus!


                Jim Meiss
                 [e-mail]
                [e-mail]



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

From: [e-mail] (Julian Vrieslander)
Subject: MacProto - a Nubus prototyping card for the Mac II
Date: 23 Mar 88 02:05:54 GMT
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY

There have been several inquiries in this group for info on Nubus
prototyping boards for the Mac II.  I recently received some literature
on a new product in that category.  It is called MacProto, and it is
made by:

    Adex Corporation
    105 Albright Way
    Los Gatos, CA 95030
    [phone]

Unlike the proto board announced by Vector, this one comes with Nubus
interfacing logic and a "Slot Declaration ROM."  The logic is set up for
Nubus slave operation.  There are two 32-bit latching registers: one for
address and one for data.  The board allows 8, 16 or 32-bit wide data
transfers.  There is also an addressable 8-bit read/write "user"
register.

>From the photograph, it looks like the interfacing chips take up about
half of the board space.  The remainder of the board is the prototyping
area, and appears to be drilled for wirewrap sockets (0.1" spacing,
plated-through holes).

MacProto comes with a user manual and a disk containing C-source and
sample programs showing how to read to and write from the board.  Price
is $299.95.
--
Julian Vrieslander    [phone]
Neurobiology & Behavior, W250 Mudd Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853
UUCP: {cmcl2,decvax,rochester,uw-beaver,ihnp4}!cornell!batcomputer!eacj
ARPA: [e-mail]     BITNET: eacj@CRNLTHRY


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

From: [e-mail] (Bill Arbaugh)
Subject: Re: Coral Allegro Common Lisp objects, and application hacks
Date: 18 Mar 88 04:51:00 GMT
Organization: Army AI Center, Pentagon

A couple of things concerning the discussions about lisps for the mac.
Someone mentioned that the ExperCommon Lisp bombed a great deal.  They
are correct!  That and the fact that it is not a complete common lisp
are the primary reasons I switched to using Allegro Common Lisp.
     Yes, Coral does not support CLOS (PCL).  And, it is rather
difficult to learn without examples, although it is somewhat like
Symbolics flavors.  The primary benefit of using CLOS is that I can
develope a majority of the application on a Symbolics or TI Lisp machine
and then port it to the mac and only have to worry about the window
conversions.
     I do believe that Coral is working on implementing Common Windows.
Intellicorp is pushing for Common Windows to become the standard window
system for Common Lisp because that is what they used to implement KEE
on so many machines.  I don't believe that they are having much luck.
As for X windows, I thought I saw something on comp.windows.x indicating
a patch file for CLX for Allegro Common Lisp.  I'm not sure though- and
probably only allows operation as a client.  Does anybody know?
     The way I creatde a pseudo "application" with allegro is to write a
function, say test,  that sets the menubar to the one for my
application, closes the Listener window and selects my application
window.  I then continually loop through a function that controls my
application.  I think you could use window-null-event-handler here as
well.  This must be done because if the function test returns a new
listener window will be made and exposed.  Then at the end of the file
containing my application I add the s-expression (TEST).  When the user
double clicks on the application file icon the default menu bar appears
for a second but then is quickly replaced by my own menu bar and window.
 The above description worked for my particular application because I
needed to continually apply the same  function.  I am not sure how
performace will be affected by continually applying, say,
window-null-event-handler.  Let me know if you try it.
     There are some problems with the above method. Unfortunately,
memory is wasted because we had to load the entire developement
environment.  Also, if an error occurs a listener window will magically
appear, or the user can abort test by clover-.  Although I think you can
trap that if needed.  I didn't really care enough to look into it.
     I hope the above helps or at least points you in the right
direction.
--
==========================================================
Bill Arbaugh               Phone:  [phone]
UUCP:  *!uunet!cos!hqda-ai!arbaugh ARPA:  [e-mail]
==========================================================


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

From: [e-mail] (Joel B Levin)
Subject: A pleasant surprise from ICOM Simulations
Date: 22 Mar 88 14:42:41 GMT
Organization: BBN Communications Corporation

I had a very nice surprise when I got home last night -- a little
package from ICOM containing a free upgrade from TMON 2.8 to TMON 2.8.1.
 Everyone who bought 2.8 should get it.  It works on a 68020 (though it
still doesn't support '020 '881 or '851 (dis)assembly).  A couple of
extra FKEYs and an INIT, some with MPW source, are also included.

The differences list is 19 fine print paragraphs on a page of the
newsletter that came with it; for me, the important fix was to resolve a
problem between Suitcase and the ExitToShell and Relaunch functions.
They have added a couple user area commands.  They fixed a number of
bugs with Radius addons, Mac II color and multiple screens, saved user
areas, Discipline for one trap, etc.  There is a command key to close
one or all windows.  There is better MultiFinder compatibility.

The size of the user area has increased from 7200 to 7300 bytes; TMON
itself has increased less than 1K.

To me, this is impressive support of a very nice product.

    /JBL
--
(I have no connection with ICOM Simulations or its personnel other
than as a happy customer.)
UUCP: {harvard, husc6, etc.}!bbn!levin
ARPA: [e-mail]

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

End of Usenet Mac Digest
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