PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/USEnet Digests/USEnet Vol. 4/USEnet 4.56

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From: Jeffrey Shulman <[e-mail]>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #56
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From: Jeff Shulman <SHULMAN@SDR>
Subject: Usenet Mac Digest V4 #56
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Usenet Mac Digest     Friday, April 29, 1988         Volume 4 : Issue 56

Today's Topics:
     EtherTalk <-> Radius FPD
     Re: Floppies (made in the USA) (look for the union label)
     Re: X11 support on a Mac??
     Re: Floppies (made in the USA) (look for the union label)
     Word Finder DA
     Curious about a virus (??) icon
     Re: Network Innovations Info
     ImageWriter LQ questions
     IBM 3270 emulation
     Fake a KeyDown as MouseDown in Modal Dialog
     Capps' Editor Construction Kit (2 messages)
     Re: Mac II Ethernet Boards
     Re: Capps' Editor Construction Kit
     Fortran for the MAC II.
     Re: Fake a KeyDown as MouseDown in Moda
     Scores Virus Report 2 (2 messages)
     MacDraw <--> PostScript
     Hunting the Calculator with Tmon & MacNosy
     Problems with Printmonitor

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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: EtherTalk <-> Radius FPD
Date: 20 Apr 88 11:31:51 GMT

Has anybody noticed an incompatibility of EtherTalk with the Radius Full
Page Display (Macintosh II version) ? I got a system crash immediately
after the welcome message.
--
Joachim Lindenberg, University of Karlsruhe
Federal Republic of Germany - West Germany.


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

From: [e-mail] (Paul Cantrell)
Subject: Re: Floppies (made in the USA) (look for the union label)
Date: 21 Apr 88 17:43:37 GMT
Organization: Alliant Computer Systems, Littleton, MA

I would recomment against Nashua. A friend had quite a few and over a
couple of years almost EVERY ONE failed. Luckily, since he was using
them for archive by the time they failed, he didn't really want the data
on most of them anymore.

I have stuck exclusively with Sony and Maxell and have never had a
failure.

                    PC


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

From: [e-mail] (ephraim vishniac)
Subject: Re: X11 support on a Mac??
Date: 22 Apr 88 13:17:41 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA

>According to the latest issue of Macintosh Today a company named
>White Plains in Amherst Mass. will have X11 running on the Mac
>sometime in the fall.  Unfortunately I left my copy of Mac Today at
>home and cannot give you the full details on it.

The company is White *Pine* Software Inc., in Amherst, *New Hampshire*.
(White Plains is in New York.  There is an Amherst, MA, but there's one
in New Hampshire, too.)

  White Pine already has some terminal emulation and other
communications software for the Mac.  Their X11 product runs native on
the Mac (i.e., it's not an A/UX program) and is supposed to support
Multifinder.  "Company president Samuel Solon ... does not expect volume
sales until late 1988 or early 1989."
--
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] (David Getchell)
Subject: Re: Floppies (made in the USA) (look for the union label)
Date: 22 Apr 88 15:25:47 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Math., Univ. of Arizona at Tucson

Is this for true, Doc?  I own a couple boxes of each (Nashua, Maxell,
and Sony), and although I have had a couple Maxell's and Sony's die on
me, I have never had a Nashua fail.  On the other hand, my Nashua's are
all less than a year old, and the others are almost two.  Maybe disks
just wear out over time.  It sure would be nice if someone did some
valid testing so that we wouldn't have to rely on annecdotal evidence.

My address is "[e-mail]"

David Getchell


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

From: [e-mail] (E. Eugene Hartquist)
Subject: Word Finder DA
Date: 22 Apr 88 18:13:53 GMT
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY

The other day I bought a Thesaurus DA called Word Finder (tm) by
Microlytics.  I have not had a thesaurus on my computer since my  office
mate convinced me to give up my PC (with MS Word) in favor  of a Mac II.
 I missed having a thesaurus.

Word Finder is installed like any other DA except that there is a data
file (thesaurus data) that has to be available.  When you evoke Word
Finder you get an extra little menu item WF.  The amazing, brilliant,
exceptional, extraordinary, phenomenal, remarkable, significant,  super
(a few of the Word Finder suggestions) thing is that when you  select a
word, be it in a Word document, Edit document, or even a  HyperCard
Stack field, and click at the WF Lookup (or type  <command>L) the Word
Finder dialog box is right there with suggestions. Pick a replacement,
click at  Replace and you are on you way again.

I am delighted by my little Word Finder DA.  It is easy to use and
powerful in the sense that it is there when and where you want it,  you
don't have to go looking for it.  The thesaurus data is pretty good
too.

Least you think I am real easy to please, let me tell you about
Reports.  The posting is in comp.sys.mac.hypercard.

-- Gene


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

From: [e-mail] (Mike Rutenberg)
Subject: Curious about a virus (??) icon
Date: 23 Apr 88 01:38:55 GMT
Organization: Reed College, Portland OR

A friend recently found an icon in his desktop file which showed a
bombing mac with an image of "5/28" as part of the icon.  He has a lot
of programs flowing through his machine, so it could have come from any
of a variety of public domain material.

There is no indication that this is a virus, but it also is no longer
clear what the icon belonged to.  For various reasons it no longer
exists in the desktop file and the original application that it belonged
to is no longer on the disk.

Has anyone seen this icon and know who owns it?  Anyone else have it in
their desktop file?
--
Mike
..!tektronix!reed!mdr


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

From: [e-mail] (David Ackerman)
Subject: Re: Network Innovations Info
Date: 22 Apr 88 21:16:57 GMT
Organization: California Department of Water Resources

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Forrest Tanaka)
writes:
> Does anyone know how to get in touch with a company called Network
> Innovations?  I heard that they have or will have a product called
> CL/1 which allows Macintosh programs to communicate transparently...

Their contact info is:

    Network Innovations Corporation
    20863 Stevens Creek Blvd.
    Cupertino, CA  95014
    [phone]

  I talked to them at Texpo in Anaheim yesterday, and they said that
CL/1 will not be released until August. One thing that excited me was
that CL/1 is going to be included in a future release of the Toolbox!
Imagine being able to make calls to the Toolbox to send SQL queries to a
server process on a host...sounds like good stuff to me. I am also
looking forward to releases of the CL/1 server end for operating systems
other than VMS, and for more standard networking protocols like TCP/IP.
Right now they only do DECnet and Appletalk, as well as serial lines or
via modem.

  What Apple needs to do now is integrate all the features that Rob
Jellinghaus was talking about into the OS. And Apple, while you're at
it, how about some decent IPC facilities so applications can send data
to each other? Automated cut & paste. Microsoft is trying to do that in
kind of a kludgey way, and from what I've heard, Apple is trying to put
them into Multifinder. The sooner the better...there are some important
applications for such capabilities.

  I love my Mac, but there are areas (in the OS especially) that need
improving. Let's hope Apple uses those millions of R&D bucks to produce
some of those improvements.
--
David Ackerman
California Department of Water Resources     caldwr![e-mail]  (Internet)
"It's the water, and a lot more..."       ...!ucbvax!ucdavis!caldwr!ack  (UUCP)

         The opinions expressed above are mine, not those of the State
         of California or the California Department of Water Resources.


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: ImageWriter LQ questions
Date: 21 Apr 88 15:54:59 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

We have just recently obtained an ImageWriter LQ and have some
questions.

1) Only the fonts supplied with the printer (Courier, Symbol, Times, and
Helvetica) print out with the correct spacing. We have several PD fonts
with lots of sizes, so not have 3x the printed size is not the problem.
Words print over each other, or spaces between words are too wide.
Anyone have a workaround/fix for this? Is there a dip switch we can
change? which brings us to the next question...

2) In the IW LQ manual appendix, it lists dip switch settings for a
variety of configurations, but it doesn't list precisely what each
switch does. Does anyone know this information, or can you direct me to
a source? Thanks.
--
Ray Davidson
UUCP : ...sun!cup.portal.com!ray
Snail Mail:
22422 Walnut Circle South, #A
Cupertino CA 95014


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

From: [e-mail] (Weng Seng Cheong)
Subject: IBM 3270 emulation
Date: 25 Apr 88 02:19:01 GMT
Organization: Cornell Univ. CS Dept, Ithaca NY

Does anyone know of a good IBM 3270 terminal emulation program for the
Mac SE ? I need a program that actually does the above emulation.

I will appreciate if you will email your response to me. Thanks.
--
Weng Seng Cheong
Dept. of Computer Science        Internet:  [e-mail]
Cornell University            BITnet:    cheong@crnlcs
Ithaca, NY14850


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

From: [e-mail] (Brad Soe)
Subject: Fake a KeyDown as MouseDown in Modal Dialog
Date: 22 Apr 88 22:56:09 GMT
Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA

I want to know if it is possible to use the filter function  passed to
ModalDialog to take a keydown event, change it to  a mousedown event,
and have ModalDialog process this. I have a problem where I have two
textedit boxes in a dialog.  I want the dialog to behave in such a way
that if the user hits the return key in one textedit box, the cursor
automatically goes to the next text box and activates it.   I have tried
to modify: event.where to a point in the rectangle, set event.what =
mouseDown, and  OrBit(Event.modifiers, 128) (sets the mouse down bit),
but it does'nt seem to work.  Is there a way to do this?


                    Brad Soe
                    internet : [e-mail]
                    NASA Ames Research Ctr.
                    Mail Stop 233-18
                    Moffett Field, CA 94035
                    [phone]


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

From: [e-mail] (Scott Storkel)
Subject: Capps' Editor Construction Kit
Date: 23 Apr 88 22:14:22 GMT
Organization: Rice University - ICSA

Has anyone used the CAPPS' Editor Construction Kit from Think? Exactly
what kind of routines does this package include, and how useful are
they? Don't suppose anyone has tried to use these libraries with another
compiler, such as MPW, have they? Any comments would be appreciated.
--
Thanks
Scott Storkel
Macintosh Software Development
ICSA
Rice University
Houston, TX


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

From: [e-mail] (David Phillip Oster)
Subject: Re: Capps' Editor Construction Kit
Date: 24 Apr 88 14:55:31 GMT
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley

I found their advertising accurate, but I was mislead by it. You get:

    1.) a library (in two forms) that is somewhat similar to TextEdit but
    doesn't have word wrap. It does have tabs, and supports text records
that
    can be as big as memory.  (Getting scroll bars to work when you have >
    65767 lines in the record is left as an exercise for the usr.)

    2.) another library that implements the "grep" style searching used in
    LightSpeed C.

    3.) another library that implements the tree-walking file searching
that
    Lightspeed C does when it is trying to find where in the folder
hierarchy
    you put that incluse file.

    4.) source code for a simple editor using the libraries.  The source
code
    has some nifty stuff in it, like a routine to bold face the name of any
    system call that occurs in the text.  It is a really good example of
how
    to program the mac. The editor implements undo, so you get to see how
to
    do that.  I learned a lot from it.

    5.) you also get source for:
    5.a) a trivial editor, just ot get you up and running on the package
    5.b) a desk accesssory version.

Now here is the point I missed:

You do not get source code for the libraries.

There are hooks into the text editor to boldface, italicize or strike
out arbitrary blocks of text, to have things like the LSPascal
breakpoint stop signs scroll as the text scrolls, and LightSpeed C style
tabs are supported, but:

no wordwrap (though you could certainly use the hooks to auto-insert
carriage returns. (I'm not certain if you could create a "soft carriage
return character" like wordstar used to use.)) All lines must be same
height (you'd be better off not buying this if you want to learn how to
write a real word processor.)

If you are the kind of person who tends to hang a programming language
on the side of his programs (I know I am), then this package lets you
add a really nice editor for those files very simply.  They ask no
monetary royalties, only that you give them credit, in the same font you
use, among the copyright messages.

Although I was disappointed that I didn't get the library source, I'm
still happy I bought it. It's come in handy more than once.


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

From: [e-mail] (John Gilmore)
Subject: Re: Mac II Ethernet Boards
Date: 24 Apr 88 07:45:14 GMT
Organization: Grasshopper Group in San Francisco

> Does anyone know of a reason for this?  [Mac-II ether board recall]

The boards/drivers (not sure which) drop packets that are sent close
together, e.g. 6 packets containing 8K of NFS data; that might be a good
reason to recall them.  We own a Mac-II Ethernet board though, and
haven't received any recall notice.

> Although somewhat slow and modulo a protocol bug which was fixed, Apple's
> NFS under A/UX did seem to work at the Sun Connectathon in January.

There are a few bugs remaining in A/UX NFS, but nothing serious.  Try a
"df -i" from a Sun that has mounted a Mac's disk; you get gibberish.
Also, doing "ls -s" produces numbers that were shifted the wrong way to
convert their units; on A/UX, "ls -s" output is in 512 byte blocks.  On
BSD, all such output is in Kbytes.  Doing "ls -ls" from my Sun to the
Mac's root directory produces entries like:

 156 -rw-r--r--  1 bin        317633 Dec 18 18:09 newunix

where the size seems to be in "2K" units.  "du" has the same problem,
which seems to be in the implementation of "stat" in the A/UX NFS
server.
--
John Gilmore  {sun,pacbell,uunet,pyramid,ihnp4}!hoptoad!gnu        [e-mail]
/* No comment */


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

From: [e-mail] (Richard Siegel)
Subject: Re: Capps' Editor Construction Kit
Date: 25 Apr 88 13:14:39 GMT
Organization: Carnegie Mellon

> *Excerpts from: 23-Apr-88 Capps' Editor Construction Kit Scott*
> *[e-mail] (367)*

> Has anyone used the CAPPS' Editor Construction Kit from Think?
Yup!

> Exactly what kind of routines does this package include, and how useful are
> they?
The heart of Capps' is PE, a mirror image the TE routines found in the
Mac ROM. The biggest difference is that (a) PE doesn't do word wrap; (b)
there's no 32K limitation - a PE record can contain as much text as will
fit into memory; (c) PE has support for "escapes", which allow you to
assign special behavior to stretches of text - boldfacing, for example,
or anything else. (d) PE has a mechanism for fast insertion of text no
matter how big the text is or where you're typing.

PE is more line-oriented than TE is, and includes additional routines to
take advantage of that; one could conceivably implement word-wrap on
their own, and end up with something that's still faster than PE.

The other components of the Capps' package are routines for
pattern-matching searches of text, and libraries for navigation of HFS
directories.

Some programs that use PE or other components of Capps:

        LightspeedC (for which PE was created)
        Lightspeed Pascal
        LaserTalk (from Emerald City Software)

Also my program FzzPlot Prime, but that hasn't hit the street yet. :-)

> Don't suppose anyone has tried to use these libraries with another compiler,
> such as MPW, have they?

Capps' is only available as LightspeedC or Lightspeed Pascal libraries.
I suppose it's possible to use it with another  compiler, (in fact, I've
done it, as an experiment), but I won't be the one to tell you how to do
it...

                --Rich
--
Rich Siegel
THINK Technologies


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

From: [e-mail] (Michael Gray)
Subject: Fortran for the MAC II.
Date: 25 Apr 88 19:31:36 GMT
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY

Does anybody know of a good fortran compiler that exploits the Mac II's
Microchip?  Microsoft Fortran runs faster, but it is really designed for
MAC SE/Plus etc.  Does any one have/heard about some other compiler?

Thanks in advance.

Mike Gray.


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Fake a KeyDown as MouseDown in Moda
Date: 24 Apr 88 19:19:00 GMT


    Although I have not actually tried this, I see no reason why you could
not just change the keydown from a return to a tab and then pass it back
to the the standard filter which would then process it the way you want.

--
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
+                                 +  Any thing I say may be taken as  +
+   Leonard Rosenthol             +  fact, then again you might decide+
+   President, LazerWare, inc.    +  that it really isn't, so you     +
+                                 +  never know, do you??             +
+   [e-mail]     +                                   +
+   GEnie:  MACgician             +                                   +
+   Delphi: MACgician             +                                   +
+                                 +                                   +
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------------+


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

From: [e-mail] (Phil Draughon (ACNS))
Subject: Scores Virus Report 2
Date: 25 Apr 88 18:29:14 GMT
Organization: Northwestern U, Evanston IL, USA


Scores Report 2

Sent on Monday 4/25/88 to comp.sys.mac.
------------------------------------------------------------------ This
is my second report on the Scores virus.  The important good news is
there are now two free disinfection programs called KillScores and
Ferret 1.0.  I didn't write either one of them.  They seem to work fine,
so there's no need for me to write another one.  I'm also happy to
report that CE Software's Vaccine 1.0 is effective against Scores.
There's not much new to report about the virus itself.

KillScores and Ferret 1.0 were posted on AppleLink over the weekend of
April 16.  I discovered them shortly after posting my first report on
Monday the 18th.  I believe they are also available on CompuServe, but I
haven't checked.

Both of these programs were written specifically to eradicate the Scores
virus.  They can also be used to simply check for the virus, without
changing anything on your disk.

I tested both Ferret and KillScores on my small infected test system,
and on some large uninfected ones.

Both of them worked on my small infected system.  They removed all
traces of the virus and repaired the system folder and all the damaged
applications correctly.  They both also correctly reported that several
large systems with nearly full 20 and 80 megabyte hard drives were
uninfected.

A word of warning, however.  My small test system only contains infected
versions of TeachText, ResEdit, and MacWrite.  I don't have the
facilities or the time to do large scale testing of lots of infected
applications.  Also, I don't have the source code for either of the
programs.  So I can't guarantee that either of them is perfect, or that
they won't damage your files.

KillScores has a better user interface than Ferret 1.0, although neither
one is very good.  Ferret 1.0 also seems to have a problem properly
reporting the names of the infected files.  This only works some of the
time.  KillScores does a much better job of telling you exactly what
it's doing.

The important thing is that both of these programs seem to work, and the
authors deserve our thanks.  Larry Nedry wrote Ferret 1.0, and
KillScores is the work of the MacPack/Apple Corps of Dallas task force,
headed by Howard UpChurch.

Getting rid of a virus is very tricky, even with the help of a
disinfection program like KillScores or Ferret 1.0.  I managed to make
mistakes using them during my tests, and ended up with a system that was
still infected!  I recommend that you carefully follow the steps below
to make sure that you've really eradicated all traces of the virus.

Step 1.  Make a startup disk containing just a system folder and a copy
of the disinfection program (KillScores and/or Ferret 1.0).  For the
safest results the system folder should be copied as is from a locked
original Apple system release disk.  The only files you really need in
your system folder are System and Finder.  Make sure your system folder
doesn't contain any non-Apple INITs, CDEVs, or other miscellaneous crap.

Step 2.  Restart your machine using the startup disk you just made.

Step 3.  Make a backup copy of the startup disk you just made.

Step 4.  Run the disinfection program on all the hard drives and
floppies in your collection, including the backup copy you just made.
Don't run any other programs or boot from any other disks until you're
done disinfecting, or you might get reinfected.  Use Finder, not
MultiFinder (I've only tested under Finder.  The programs might work OK
under MultiFinder too, but I don't know).

Step 5.  Shut down your system and restart using some other
(disinfected) startup disk.

Step 6.  Immediately erase the startup disk you made in step 1 and used
to disinfect your system.  The backup disk you made is free from
infection, and it contains a copy of the disinfection program that you
can use again if you need it.

For the safest results you should try to make sure that all the files
you copy to your startup disk in step 1 are uninfected.  That's why I
recommend using your original locked Apple release disk.  I have,
however, tested both KillScores and Ferret 1.0 with infected startup
disks, and they seem to work OK.

To double check, you can run both KillScores and Ferret 1.0.  The
program you run first should disinfect your disk, and the one you run
second should report that the disk is free of infection.

I've also tested CE Software's Vaccine 1.0 with Scores.  It seems to be
effective against the initial attempt at infection.  In all my tests my
vaccinated system bombed whenever I attempted to run an application
infected with Scores, and my system was not infected.  I've tried this
with the "expert display" option both on and off, and with the "always
compile MPW INITS" option both on and off.  I've seen bombs with ID=02
and ID=25.  I don't know why the system bombs instead of presenting
Vaccine's usual dialog box or tiny icons.

I'd like to correct an error in the first report.  When fixing an
infected application with ResEdit, you should replace bytes 16-23 of
CODE resource 0 by bytes 4-11 of CODE resource nnnn, not by bytes 2-9.
Bytes are numbered starting with 0.  I apologize if this caused anybody
any grief.

I'd also like to thank Dave Lavery and Howard Upchurch for their early
work on the Scores virus.  I used their results as a starting point for
my own research, and I should have given them credit in my first report.

I've discovered several more interesting facts about Scores, including
more attacks on VULT and ERIC, an explanation for why some applications
don't get infected, and several bugs in the virus.  There also may be a
few problems with the disinfection algorithm I presented in the first
report.  The details aren't important now, so I won't describe them.

It has been reported that the virus contains some sort of special code
designed to fool ResEdit.  This isn't true, although I have had ResEdit
crash inexplicably on an infected system.

Please note that I am NOT Phil Draughon!  I'm just using his account to
post this message, since my usual machine is having trouble posting
notes.  My real name and address are:
--
John Norstad
Academic Computing and Network Services
Northwestern University
Evanston, IL 60208

Bitnet:   JLN@NUACC
Internet: [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (ephraim vishniac)
Subject: Re: Scores Virus Report 2
Date: 26 Apr 88 12:55:21 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA

For news about the virus, see MacWEEK for Tuesday, April 26.  There's an
article headlined "Scores virus prompts FBI investigation."  It turns
out that the target programs were two proprietary programs developed by
Electronic Data Systems, Dallas TX, and used at various government
agencies.  The virus is believed to have been circulating since March
1987.  "According to one source, both Apple and the FBI know the
identity of the programmer who wrote the virus more than a year ago."
No motivation for the attack is given.

>KillScores and Ferret 1.0 were posted on AppleLink over the weekend
Ferret 1.1 is now available; I picked it up from Mass Mac and Electric
so I imagine it's on plenty of local boards by now.  It ran very
smoothly on my (uninfected) file system.  I don't know if it corrects
the problems with file name display that the author of the above-cited
report mentioned.
--
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] (Tom Cianflone)
Subject: MacDraw <--> PostScript
Date: 26 Apr 88 15:37:21 GMT
Organization: Gould CSD, Fort Lauderdale, FL

Is there anyway to get MacDraw to open a file it previously saved in
PostScript?  Background: We draw on a Mac, uplink the PostScript files
to UNIX, and source them into our troff documents.  We archive the
entire document on tape.  If we need to go back and update the drawings,
we either have to be able to get MacDraw to operate on the PostScript
code it generated originally, or we will also have to archive the
MacDraw files on Mac discs.  We would prefer not to have to keep an
archive of the Mac discs!

I tried to 'open' a PostScript file in MacDraw, but the file does not
show up in the 'open' dialog box.  Any other tricks here?  As alway,
thanks in advance.  And please, email me if possible.  I simply can't
keep up with the volume in this newsgroup!
--
=>      Regards, Tom Cianflone ([e-mail])      <=
=>   ...!{uunet,sun,pur-ee,brl-smoke}!gould!tcianflone      <=
=>    ...!ihnp4!{codas,allegra}!novavax!gould!tcianflone    <=
=>  NOTE: Disregard header info. Email to above paths only. <=


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

From: omh@nancy (Owen M. Hartnett)
Subject: Hunting the Calculator with Tmon & MacNosy
Date: 25 Apr 88 23:38:52 GMT
Organization: Brown University Computer Science Dept.

[Andy Rooney type diatribe follows:]

Did'ja ever notice that Apple can't get it right when it comes to the
numeric keypad.  I mean, they keep moving around the keys, plus is minus
and minus is plus on some keyboards.  It makes you crazy when you try to
use the Calculator DA.  Well, I know you can buy different calculators
and they're much better, and so forth, but Apple has a calculator and it
should at least be somewhat useful.

The worst part, the thing that really drives me crazy, is that they get
the Enter key wrong.  Anyone who's ever used a 12-key pad to enter a
column of numbers on a real adding calculator knows that the Enter key
should be the equivalent of the Plus key, not the equals key.  They had
it right in the very early days of the Mac (Finder 1.1 BC), but they
changed it.  Apparently no one at Apple uses a 12-key pad to enter
numbers.

Well, I went nuts one day and attacked it with Tmon and MacNosy.  Now
I'm not suggesting anyone do this (after all this is Official Apple
Software I'm talking about), but if someone took Fedit or Mac Snoop and
changed the hex string in the calculator Desk Accessory from:

    4CAD 452B

to
    4C2B 452B

they'd find that the Enter key acts like the plus key (the plus key even
lights up on the calculator).  This really makes Calculator useful to
me, at last.  This works okay on the macPlus and Mac II with the small
(not extended) keyboard, and may work okay on other keyboards as well.
Now you can total up all the checks you write to Apple computer without
having to look for the damn plus key, just slam down your pinky.

[End of Andy Rooney diatribe, it was easier to do than I thought.]
--
Owen Hartnett
Brown University Computer Science

[e-mail]
omh%cs.brown.edu
{ihnp4,allegra}!brunix!omh

"Don't wait up for me tonight because I won't be home for a month."
            -W.C. Fields


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

From: [e-mail] (Chuq Von Rospach)
Subject: Problems with Printmonitor
Date: 26 Apr 88 22:02:47 GMT

Consider this a combination warning to the masses and public RFE for
Apple to fix Printmonitor....

Folks printing in the background should be aware that Printmonitor might
run out of memory in the standard 80K partition. This works under most
circumstances, but not, as I found out last night, in all.

I was working with 4D last night, printing off a large (500+ page) cross
reference. The cref takes over 30 minutes to generate (this is a large
database, in case you were wondering....).

I start to print. 20 pages in, Printmonitor has a problem. it runs out
of  memory, and it died, so it wanted to know if I wanted to restart the
job.

Well, since it ran out of memory, I killed the job, went in and
increased the size of PrintMonitor's memory from 82 to 90K. Reran the
cref. The print starts. At page 90, printmonitor runs out of memory and
dies again.

Now, I have this dilemma. I've got the first 90 pages of a 500 page
print job printed. I'd REALLY like to avoid spending another 35 minutes
reprocessing the silly print job, and I'd really like to avoid printing
90 wasted pages on my laserwriter. I've got better things to do with my
time and money....

So here's my first RFE for PrintMonitor: Allow me to define what page to
restart the print job at. I can always go back and reprint the job and
specify a starting point, but why should I have to waste forty minutes
of my computers time regenerating something that already exists? I've
already got the print job. Why can't PrintMonitor simply count pages
until it hits the  place it needs to start? It already knows how many
pages are in the print job, so it's obviously able to count pages --
this new functionality seems trivial to add.

Whenever you're printing out page 20 (of 23) of your mailing label job
and the printer jams, you'd pay just about anything for this
functionality. II can't think of the number of times this has bitten me.
Last night wasn't the first time, just the last straw, so to speak.

On to problem number two. This is rather insidious. I've got a 600K
print job that's unprintable in printmonitor because the memory segment
is too small. Printmonitor wants to know if I want to print it again.
Well, no, not until I grow the memory. So I "suspend" printing
indefinitely. Printmonitor obliges, and sits there waiting for me to
start the printer again.

PrintMonitor has no "Quit" button, or "Quit" menu item. There is
absolutely no way I can make PrintMonitor die. Unless PrintMonitor dies,
I can't change the memory allocation through the Get Info dialog.

This is called a race condition. I can't print the job without changing
the memory, I can't change the memory until I either print the job or
toss is out of the queue. I don't want to toss it out of the queue
because I don't want to spend all that time regenerating it (although
I'm close to doing it anyway out of sheer frustration!). I got around
this one the hard way. I rebooted, and caught printmonitor before it
restarted and changed the memory size to 120K. In printing the 500 page
document, by the by, it used about 110K out of the 120K. People who
print very large jobs might wnat to take note of that and increate
printmonitor's default size.

I consider this a bug. PrintMonitor is a program that you Can Not Kill.
It violates the interface specs by not having a "quit" menu option, and
while you don't really need it often, when you do, and it's not there,
it's a killer.

Hey, Apple! please, pretty please, fix Printmonitor?


Chuq Von Rospach            [e-mail]        Delphi: CHUQ

                                                Welcome to the Latrine
Wall!
                               What do you want to do, number 1 or
number 2?

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