PD ROM 1/PD ROM Volume I - Macintosh Software from BMUG (1988).iso/Electronic Messages/USEnet Digests/USEnet Vol. 4/USEnet 4.71

Text File | 1988-06-18 | 32.3 KB | 894 lines | [TEXT/ttxt]

Usenet Mac Digest     Saturday, June 4, 1988         Volume 4 : Issue 71

Today's Topics:
     HP LaserJet II on a MAC?
     Need Program for Theatre Set and Lighting Design
     Info on SigmaDesigns LaserView card for Mac II?
     Statistical Packages
     Hypercard as a card catalog?
     Re: Speed of Redraw in Drawing programs
     PT109
     Re: FullWrite Professional
     WriteNow Version 2.0 Real Soon Now
     Re: Sounds, snd 's, and more snd 's...
     IMS Dyaxis Conversion Subsystem
     Statistical Packages for the mac
     Sound Leech problems
     Budget/Checkbook
     Re: PT109 (3 messages)
     FullWrite Pro stuff
     Global Data Disclaimer
     Re: MPW 3.0
     Re: Toolmaker's tip for MPW.
     Question about replacing a ROM-driver
     Saving style info in text file
     Static Semantic Checking?
     Software Distribution
     Re: Static Semantic Checking?
     Re: Utilities for RGB to 8-Bit
     Re: Software Distribution

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

From: [e-mail] (Ken Wallich)
Subject: HP LaserJet II on a MAC?
Date: 26 May 88 18:34:59 GMT
Organization: Ardent Computer

I'm considering picking up an HP LaserJet II with 2.5 meg of memory (I
can get one REAL cheap), and wondered if anyone had any experiance using
the LaserStart package HP sells.

What I want to know is what kind of printing does it support?  As I see
it,  it could do two things:  1) Use the LJII as in its normal "text"
mode, and provide some way of switching
   between its built in fonts (would I put embedded formatting commands
in
   my MacWrite/MSWord docs to switch fonts and styles?) 2) graphics
mode.  Since the Imagewriter series just prints the graphics
   sent to it by the Mac, couldn't an LJ do that too, if it had enough
memory?
   (mine will).

Anyway, no one seems to have discussed the new HP printers which can
have  LOTS of memory, and could handle a full page of 300dpi graphics as
an alternative to imagewriter printing (I know postscript would be much
niftier, but I'm waiting for the PS competition to make the printers
reasonably priced).

Any information would be much appreciated.  You can E-mail me, and if
there is any demand, I'll post a summary.
--
Ken Wallich
ubvax----\
hplabs----+--->!ardent!kmw
decwrl---/


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

From: [e-mail] (Peter Steele)
Subject: Need Program for Theatre Set and Lighting Design
Date: 26 May 88 17:10:31 GMT
Organization: School of Computer Science, Acadia Univ., Nova Scotia

I am posting this for a prof in the Drama department. They have a Mac
and want specialized theatre oriented software for the following
purposes:

- a set design a drafting program

- a lighting design program

- a scheduling program that can coordinate individual student schedules
with multiple theatre and studio availability and rehearsal times.

Granted, there's not likely anything out there specifically designed for
this sort of thing. However, does anyone know of a program or programs
that might come close to what they want. Any info would be appreciated.

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


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Info on SigmaDesigns LaserView card for Mac II?
Date: 25 May 88 23:17:14 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)


     I might be able to Get a Sigma Designs LaserView display card for
the Mac II for a really good price.  Only one problem, it doesn't come
with a monitor like it would if I bought it from a retailer, so I was
wondering if anybody could relay some technical information to me about
either the card, the monitor, or (preferably) both.  I would like to
know the manufacturer and model number of either the 19" or 15" monitor
(the ones that normally come with the LaserView), preferably along with
some specs like horiz scan rate, refreshrate, and connector pinout.
Also I would appreciate any information regarding the output of the
LaserView card itself, i.e. horiz scan rate, refreshrate, pinout,
compatible monitors, etc...  I would love to be able to hook the card up
to the Apple Mac II Monichrome Monitor I have collecting dust on my desk
or an Apple RBG Monitor.  If anyone has done this, or gotten the
LaserView display card to work with any monitor other than the one from
Sigma Designs, PLEASE contact me and tell me how you did it and how well
it works!
--
Thanx a million!
Myron Meier
sun!portal!cup.portal.com!Myron-Meier


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Statistical Packages
Date: 20 May 88 22:59:50 GMT

DataDesk Professional from Odesta should hit the streets next week.  It
has some excellent features that you are asking.  Call them and they
will send a brochure on it.
--
Armand Whitehead
BYU


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

From: [e-mail] (ephraim vishniac)
Subject: Hypercard as a card catalog?
Date: 27 May 88 13:01:32 GMT
Organization: Thinking Machines Corporation, Cambridge, MA

I apologize if this is posted twice, but news/lib filled up last week
and I don't believe this propagated the first time.

I'd like to hear from anyone who is using Hypercard as a (small) library
cataloging tool or knows of any available stacks for the purpose.
Comments on the appropriateness of this use of Hypercard and suggestions
of alternatives are also welcome.
--
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] (Eric Fielding)
Subject: Re: Speed of Redraw in Drawing programs
Date: 27 May 88 16:59:17 GMT
Organization: Department of Geological Sciences, Cornell University

You did not mention that you had tried MacDraft.

I have found that MacDraft is significantly faster than MacDraw for
redrawing lots of objects. I have tried downloading some graphics from
our VAX via VersaTerm Pro which creates MacDraw documents, and several
which wer just too painful to work with in MacDraw were tolerable in
MacDraft. More than a few thousand lines is bad under either program,
even on a Mac II, so I end up sending the PostScript directly to the
LaserWriter from the Vax. So much for WSIWYG :-(.

                ++Eric


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

From: [e-mail] (Jeffrey A. Sullivan)
Subject: PT109
Date: 27 May 88 16:33:58 GMT
Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.

I anyone using Spectrum Holobyte's new PT109 PT boat simulator?  If so,
how is it?  Any problems?  Any bugs?
--
..........................................................................
Jeffrey Sullivan              | University of Pittsburgh
[e-mail]          | Intelligent Systems Studies Program
[e-mail], [e-mail] | Graduate Student


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: FullWrite Professional
Date: 27 May 88 18:11:04 GMT
Organization: University of California, Berkeley

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Jack Decker) writes:
>Okay FullWrite seers, tell me this:  can FW import ASCII files
>with embedded codes containing formatting information?

Well, sort of.  There is a public domain program MakeWrite written by
Paul DuBois that can take a text file with user defined formatting
commands and create a MacWrite file, which could be read into FWP.  It
doesn't do really fancy formatting things, but it's a start.

MakeWrite is available anonymous ftp from sumex-aim.stanford.edu in the
<info-mac> directory.  Source code is included, so maybe someone can
make it produce FWP output directly.
--
Edward Moy
Workstation Software Support Group
University of California
Berkeley, CA  94720

[e-mail]
ucbvax!violet!edmoy


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: WriteNow Version 2.0 Real Soon Now
Date: 27 May 88 02:31:26 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

I just recieved the upgrade notice from T/Maker for WriteNow 2.0.  It
will be available in July and will cost $25 + tax and shipping ($28 for
USA except CA, $29.75 in CA).  The upgrade is free if you bought
WriteNow after January 15, 1988.

New features include
    * Mail Merge with conditional selections
    * 100,000 word dictionary (replacing the old 50,000 word dictionary)
    * Read MacWrite, text and RTF format files direct from WriteNow (no
        more translator)
    * Decimal tabs
    * Windows menu
    * Hide pictures options for fast scrolling
    * Compatibility with Multifinder, networks, large screens etc.

Minimum system required is a 512KE.

In the ad for WriteNow 2.0 that they include with the upgrade, they have
a comparison against MacWrite 5.0, MS Write and MS Word 3.01 which
includes time numbers for common operations.  One interesting number is
the time to spell check a 12 page document on an SE.  For WriteNow it
takes 6.2 seconds, while for the other three the shorest time is 1
minute and 48 seconds for Word 3.01.  MacWrite 5.00 takes 2 minutes 34
seconds for the same document.  Most of the other numbers don't show
that big of a difference, but WriteNow 2.0 appears to be significantly
faster then the others.

I, as usual, have nothing to do with T/Maker or WriteNow other then
being a satsified customer of T/Maker.  I'll be even more satisfied when
I get a version of WriteNow that works with my Mac II.

-- Jerry Whitnell [e-mail]
..!sun!cup.portal.com!jwhitnell


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

From: [e-mail] (Benjamin Kuo)
Subject: Re: Sounds, snd 's, and more snd 's...
Date: 23 May 88 01:47:30 GMT
Organization: Bitsko's Bar & Grill, Public Access, Salt Lake City




  The "compressed" sounds are compressed with either Farallon Computings
or Impulse/MacNifty's own compression routines, and are not readable by
anything but the Farallon HyperCard stack and application or the
programs  SoundCap and SoundWave (and I believe SoundPlay).

  I haven't found even one public domain or shareware stack which will
convert a compressed file (although I do convert them with my own copy
of  SoundCap and my digitizer).  If anyone has the code to these
compressed  and uncompressed files I'd love to see them, considering
I've written to  the MacNifty people a few times about either getting
the code or purchasing  any part of their public domain code, and have
gotten no answers.

  Has anyone bought the new "SoundWave" package from Impulse?  I hear
that  they are including the code to modify the sounds and play them
with the  digitizer.  Any volunteers to mail or post them?


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

From: [e-mail] (Mark Welch)
Subject: IMS Dyaxis Conversion Subsystem
Date: 28 May 88 00:55:57 GMT
Organization: Ohio State Math-Stats Dept


We at The Ohio State University Sound Synthesis Studios would appreciate
receiving Dyaxis users' comments on the unit and on IMS customer
relations.

We are in the process of disposing of our unit, since it did not meet
our requirements, and because of numerous problems with the company's
not honoring commitments.

Thanks in advance,
--
Tom Wells
OSU SSS
!osupyr!eubie!wells
--
----- Mark Welch / 2880 N High Street / Columbus OH 43202 / 614 447 8314 -----
-----               ARPA: [e-mail]                -----
-----    `Wooden stakes and mallets?                                     -----
-----                 No, don't tell me ... I don't want to know...'     -----


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

From: [e-mail] (Todd Heatherton)
Subject: Statistical Packages for the mac
Date: 27 May 88 16:40:55 GMT
Organization: University of Toronto Computing Services


Two weeks ago I requested information about powerful statistics programs
for the mac.  I received a large number of requests for  information
from to be passed along, so I thought I should post a  summary. Abacus
Concepts, the folks who brought you Statview 512+ are releasing Statview
SE+Graphics shortly.  This product promises much improved graphics and
allows users to write their own statistics procedures.  Alternatively,
users will be able to purchase add-on programs written by Abacus.  The
first add-on is Statview GLM which should be good for most ANOVA
designs, post-hocs etc..  My concern with such a system is that the cost
will become quite high to build up a reasonable package.

The other program that was mentioned was Systat, by Systat Corp of
Evanston.  They also have a program called SYGRAPH available.  Both
programs are reputed to follow the mac interface.

Sadly, there were no super programs lurking in backwoods.  I hope this
information is useful, or encourges someone to write a really good
program for the mac (powerful and follows the mac interface)

--Todd Heatherton  [e-mail]
  Department of Psychology
  University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A1



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

From: [e-mail] (Marc Rhodes)
Subject: Sound Leech problems
Date: 27 May 88 17:57:03 GMT
Organization: NCR E&M Cambridge, Ohio

Has anyone else had any trouble with the Sound Leech program which was
recently posted to comp.binaries.mac?

1)  The opening screen comes up and disappears before I even get a
chance
    to read it.

2)  While in the open file dialog if I move to the System Folder it does
    not display the file System to open.  I thought that the new systems
    had some snd resources in them that would be fun to get out and use
    as beep sounds or something on my Mac Plus.

--
Marc Rhodes
[e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Jeff Gortatowsky)
Subject: Budget/Checkbook
Date: 28 May 88 05:28:58 GMT
Organization: Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, NY


   Hello! Can anyone out there tell me/send some sort of checking
account management spreadsheet for either Microsoft Works or Excel? SUch
an item exist?

Thanks!
--
Jeff Gortatowsky        .....allegra!rochester!kodak!elmgate!jdg
Eastman Kodak Company
These comments are mine alone and not Eastman Kodak's. How's that for a
simple and complete disclaimer?


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

From: [e-mail] (Robert Gahl  Sun Federal  Systems Eng.)
Subject: Re: PT109
Date: 28 May 88 19:13:57 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, CA

> I anyone using Spectrum Holobyte's new PT109 PT boat simulator?  If
> so, how is it?  Any problems?  Any bugs?
>
I beta-tested the program for them and it is pretty interesting. Like
Falcon, it eats your memory whole. You can call for air support or
another boat to back you up. If you get the game to send air support
after you already have air support, the SPAD will turn against you, but
when you shoot it down, you shot down one of your own, not an enemy. The
back-up boat did not aid in the fight. In fact, if it had to come to
help you and a destroyer was between you and the aiding PT boat, I have
seen it "run" rather than assist. Only one time (in novice mode) did the
aiding ship do anything at all.

I've seen ships go down without firing a shot, and find myself up
against 7 destroyers at once without a prayer (at which time I ran like
heck).

When the paths are charted for you to follow, if they go over land and
you are in autopilot, so will you, thus sinking your ship because of
hull damage.

But, this WAS a beta version, and they said that these bugs were being
fixed, and so far, I have no reason to doubt it. The game is excellent
and well thought out. It is interesting to have to deal with a seaborne
enemy and an airborne one as well. At the higher levels the game can get
really difficult, but not impossible if you use common sense. Even with
the aforementioned bugs in the beta version, the game was still a blast
to play. Having dud torpedoes when a destroyer is bearing down on you
can only be experienced to be described. Depending on the mission area
and time you draw, your PT boat can be equipped with only torpedoes and
a couple of guns or have depth charges, full complement of guns, smoke,
and even rockets.


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

From: [e-mail] (James A. Von Schmacht)
Subject: Re: PT109 usage
Date: 28 May 88 19:47:21 GMT
Organization: People-Net [pnet06], Orange, CA

Is a little bit slow on a 68000, don't know about a Mac II.  Runs great
on 6.0/4.2 but barfs on 6.1/6.0.  Note: I call it slow and it's running
on a Hard disk...watch out floppy people(disks...not the associated
owners).  Action doesn't suffer, but getting your next mission can take
a couple of minutes.  be careful of using smoke...this slows the machine
down incredibly on a non-accelerated mac (fractals?).  Overall, I'm
satisfied with it and find iit a pleasent addition to my other sea games
(Sub-Battle, Gato). Have fun!
--
Jim von Schmacht
President, Ossian Productions

Disclaimer - It's good to be the King!

UUCP: {crash uunet}!pnet06!ossian1
ARPA: crash!pnet06![e-mail]
INET: [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: PT109
Date: 28 May 88 19:49:55 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)


Somebody asks about PT 109.  A fun game that is MultiFinder compatible,
Mac II compatible and great sound.  Graphics are ok (alot like Gato's),
but could be better.

The only thing wrong is it is buggy.  Since I've gotten it, it's gone
from working fine to a mode where no sound was availble but it still
worked and back again.  I also can't launch a saved game, only the
program itself. Others have complained about bugs of this sort as well.
I plan on calling Spectrem Holobyte next week to see if they know about
it.

In spite of the bugs, it's still a fun game and a great time waster.
--
Jerry Whitnell
[e-mail]
..!sun!cup.portal.com!jwhitnell


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

From: [e-mail] (Chuq Von Rospach)
Subject: FullWrite Pro stuff
Date: 30 May 88 04:39:46 GMT

Just some random comments and questions on FullWrite Pro:

o The spell-checker recognizes Camus and Kafka, but not Sartre. The
    significance of this I leave to others.

o The spell-checker SEEMS significantly slower than Word's. However I
    timed myself, and it was actually pretty-close in real time on
    a non-trivial document (about 7% slower, more or less). Anyone
    want to guess why it feels much slower when it isn't?

o The spell-checker would be nicer if it had an option to tell it to fix
    this word in the entire document (and to quit asking me about it).

o The lookup function of the spellchecker is at least as good as Words.
(yay!)

o I've found the FullWrite spell-checker to hav a lot cleaner interface
    than Words. Subjectively, I catch more typoes with it, because it's
    harder to skip by one.

o Here's something I could do in Word I can't do yet in Fullwrite.
Hidden
    text. I'm writing a text where I want two versions: what I keep for
    myself and what I hand out (class notes, syllabus, etc). My text is
    set up hidden, so it doesn't print out unless I specifically ask for
    it.

    In Fullwrite, I can use posted notes on the system, but there's no
    way to print out posted notes. How do I do this without keeping
    parallel documents?

o Another thing I can't do in Fullwrite (I couldn't do it in Word,
either).
    Take a string of text like "THIS IS A STRING" and convert it to a
    bold-faced string like "This is a string" -- but do this as a wild
    card: for all words that are ALL CAPS, convert to a capitalized bold
    word. I cut/paste stuff through McSink and use the capitalize
    function, but it should be cleaner.

o FullWrite either has to add rulers to styles, or add named rules
(similar
    to styles) so they can be included in the document easily. argh.

o Bug or feature: If you select a section of text and choose "New Ruler"
the
    new ruler modifies the selected text. If you select a ruler, copy
    it, then select the same text and paste, the ruler REPLACES the
    text. It probably should modify that text.

o I wish there was some way to turn of the "change all is not undoable"
    alert. They only need to remind me the FIRST time I do a change all.
    When you do 10 or 12 in a row, it gets real tired.

o It'd be nice to have a menu for opening stationery or common files,
    similar to Word's "Work" menu.

o Auto-save should (optionally) go to a neutral, third file, so my
standard
    file and backup aren't over-written until I'm reader. Imagine
    deleting an entire chapter, having auto-save go off, and having the
    computer crash. ugh. (no, it hasn't happened yet...).

    Better, allow the system to auto-save backups to a different medium,
    like a floppy.

Having written and edited about 30,000 words since I got FullWrite, I
really like it. MUCH nicer to use than Word. Stable as a rock for me. A
few glitches here or there, but no real problems.


Chuq Von Rospach            [e-mail]        Delphi: CHUQ

    Robert A. Heinlein: 1907-1988. He will never truly die as long as we
                           read his words and speak his name. Rest in
Peace.


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

From: [e-mail] (Dan Allen)
Subject: Global Data Disclaimer
Date: 27 May 88 01:24:52 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA

There is a limit to the amount of global data that can be referenced in
the current Mac OS.  I realize that this is a problem.

I have mentioned before that USUALLY when people need to work with lots
of real numbers, as in large global numeric arrays, there are very slick
ways of allocating the data and getting around the conformant array
problem.  I have previously mentioned that a very good solution for the
C programming language can be found in "Numerical Receipes in C",
Cambridge Press.

I agree that in the best of all possible worlds there would not be any
global data limit.  But there is a limit currently.  I am simply saying
that to change it right now would cause a lot of incompatibility
problems, and that there are useful and easy workarounds to the problem.
I also said that the average large Mac application does not have a
problem, and I quoted the following data:

    HyperCard 1.2   312732 bytes of code,  25872 bytes of global data = 8%
    MPW Shell 2.0+  179874 bytes of code,  20674 bytes of global data = 11%

Let's all live with the limit, knowing that in some future Mac OS we
will certainly try to have the problem fixed.  Let's spend our time in
the meantime trying to write good code and not moan about this problem
so much...
--
Dan Allen
Software Explorer
Apple Computer


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

From: [e-mail] (Dan Allen)
Subject: Re: MPW 3.0
Date: 27 May 88 01:55:53 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA

MPW 3.0 will be larger (5 MB+) and yes, it will have more bells and
whistles.  APDA generally has been good about upgrades.  MPW 2.0 is
quite good, and you can get it today.  MPW 3.0 is still in the somewhat
unknown distant future.  Perhaps this year?  The 3.0 Alpha 1 release
occurred not too long ago internally, and I do not know if the Beta
release will be sold like it has in previous versions.

I'd recommend you get 2.0.2 now and check out 3.0 whenever.
--
Dan Allen
Software Explorer
Apple Computer


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

From: [e-mail] (Dan Allen)
Subject: Re: Toolmaker's tip for MPW.
Date: 27 May 88 01:47:27 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA

Watch out for one GOTCHA, however.  The stubs file as it ships with MPW
also stubs out the routines that print floating point numbers.  If you
do a printf with a floating point number nothing will complain but your
answer will be entirely wrong!

A typical misuse of this stubs file came for me when I wrote a simple
tool that did no floating point.  Then I wanted to time the benchmark
with TickCount and print the result rounded to tenths of a second.  The
answers came out all wrong.

WORKAROUND: delete the last two lines of the file which are:

    ecvt() {}
    fcvt() {}

and then your printf of floating point numbers will work properly and
you will still save a bunch of space.
--
Dan Allen
Software Explorer
Apple Computer


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Question about replacing a ROM-driver
Date: 25 May 88 22:51:34 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)


     I'm Trying to TEMPORARILY replace the standard serial drivers with
my own specialized drivers.  I know that I can permanently replace them
with a call to DrvrInstall with the correct refnum, but is there any
STANDARD way to restore the old drivers.  Ive thought of a way which
involves saving the location of th old drivers DCE, but I dont know if
DrvrInstall disposes of the old one or not, and I would have to manually
place the old DCE back into the unit table, something Id rather not do.
If this is the only way to do it, fine, Ill do it. But Id appreciate any
suggestions for a better way.  Also, will DrvrRemove re-install an old
ROM-based driver if its substitute is removed, or am I just pushing my
luck.
--
Thanx in advance,
Myron Meier
sun!portal!cup.portal.com!Myron-Meier


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

From: [e-mail] (Brian Gaines)
Subject: Saving style info in text file
Date: 27 May 88 00:16:36 GMT
Organization: U. of Calgary, Calgary, Ab.

Have any standards been proposed for files carrying the new text style
information? It would be useful to have an interchange format. I have
tucked the StScrpHandle information into the resource fork of the
associated text file as a resource 'styl' id 128. The file can be read
as plain text by other applns but mine can pick up the style info and
restore it.  However, if we all start inventing resource ids there will
be chaos.  In the longer run it would be nice if MacWrite, Word, etc
would read up these files.

IT WOULD BE USEFUL IF APPLE SPECIFIED A STANDARD FOR A STYLE RESOURCE IN
A TEXT FILE.

Meanwhile it easy to output MacWrite & Word interchange formats to pass
the style (but not the color!) over.  Less easy to reverse the process
as you have to throw away a lot of info.

As an aside, printing the new formats takes little effort - the
TEStyleRec is very neatly structured.  Getting scrolling to work
correctly without truncation or garbage bits is more effort.
Unfortunately, we have to throw out the TEAutoScroll of IM IV and go
back to our own ClikLoops again. The pleasure of seeing multicolor,
multisize, multifont, multiface text scrolling around in a document,
resizing, word wrapping, etc, is well worth the effort however.

Tab support and getting over the 32K limit make the final result far
hackier than it need be.  Hopefully, these might get into the roms one
day.
--
Brian Gaines
[e-mail]
{ihnp4}!alberta!calgary!gaines


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

From: [e-mail] (Phil Sohn)
Subject: Static Semantic Checking?
Date: 27 May 88 15:35:33 GMT
Organization: MIT Media Lab, Cambridge, MA


Since everyone was so helpful about MPW search (aka grep) let me try
this question again:

Does anyone know of a static semantic checker for MPW C?  Something
along the lines of lint.  MPW does more checking than LSC, but still not
enough.

What do you guys use to track down bugs?  Macsbug is ok, but be real,
debugging in machine code is a pain. Right now I have a problem in data
initialization that I can not track down.  My program never even gets to
main!


Phil Sohn        [e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Shane Looker)
Subject: Software Distribution
Date: 27 May 88 18:31:24 GMT
Organization: University of Michigan Computing Center, Ann Arbor


Once you've finished a piece of code, product, or whatever, how do you
go about marketing it?  Are there any reputable companies which will
market products?  Buy them from you?  Pay royalties from sales?

Does anybody have any information?
--
Shane Looker
[e-mail]
uunet!umix!pepe.cc.umich.edu!shane
[e-mail]


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

From: [e-mail] (Dan Allen)
Subject: Re: Static Semantic Checking?
Date: 27 May 88 23:58:10 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA

There is no lint available for MPW yet, to my knowledge.

As for your data init bug, what I would do is use MacsBug in the
following manner.  Start up without MultiFinder.  Do an AB on Launch.
Double click on your app.  When you go into MacsBug you are not far from
your code.  SB 12D 1  which will then set an interesting ROM Debugger
break right before the first line of your code (or your compiler's
_RTINIT code).  Trace twice after you have gone and you will be at your
code.  Tracing from there on will show you what's going on...

SUMMARY:

    AB Launch
    G
    Double click on app
    You will then be placed in MacsBug
    SB 12D 1
    G
    You will again enter MacsBug
    T
    T Now you are at the first step of your code.
--
Dan Allen
Software Explorer
Apple Computer


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Utilities for RGB to 8-Bit
Date: 26 May 88 14:45:00 GMT


    The problem here is that you have a true 24 bit image and you want to
display it as an 8 bit image.  This has been an ongoing problem and
there is no perfect solution.  The previous two responses would work
fine if you had only 256 pixels in your image, but that would be  VERY
small!  One way to do this would be to do a scan through the image
sampling it in 256 places (evenly).  Then assign these colors to the Mac
CLUT.  Now display the image using the Mac's ability to find the closest
color available for each pixel.  This gives you a unique color map for
each picture.
    Another way, as suggested, is dithering.  The idea is to try to cover
the entire 16 million colors with 256 by making a CLUT that has a very
large range of colors.  Doing this will make very large steps between
shades and will make your picture look "banded." To reduce this banding,
you have to alternate between the two nearest colors depending on how
close the real color is to the available ones. There are many articles
on dithering (also in "Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics" by
Foley & Van Dam).
    I hope this helps.  I wish I could provide an algorithm, but that would
take up too much space here!
--
Joe Peterson
Schlumberger Technologies
Billerica, Ma

UUCP: ...mit-eddie!applicon!peterson


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

From: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Software Distribution
Date: 28 May 88 20:21:24 GMT
Organization: The Portal System (TM)

Since I'm in the process of talking to someone about marketing a product
I'm working on, I'll try answering some of this.  There are basicly two
approachs to getting your product to the customers (and getting their
money in return :-)), do it yourself or find someone else to do it. To
do it yourself is alot of work, since you basicly have to set up a
company to do this.  But the one advantage is you get all the rewards,
not just a pecentage.

The other approach is to let someone else take care of the other
headaches. Finding those people is the first problem.  One way is to
become a certified developer.  Apple sends you, among other things, a
list of publishers looking for products and what kind of products they
want. They also give you a name of the person to contact (very helpful)
to discuss your product.  You can also find publishers by looking at ads
in MacWorld and MacUser (or MacTutor for programmer's products) and see
who sells a line of products that yours would fit in with.  When you
call these, you don't have a name, but the person you want to talk to
(or at least start with) is the Vice President of Marketing (sometimes
the Director of Marketing). Make sure you get his/her name from the
receptionist for future correspondence.  Finding a reputable company is
not easy but most are and a good indicator is how they treat their
customers.  If they treat their customers well, then they'll probably
treat you OK too.

What kind of deal you make with them (assuming they are interested),
depends on many things.  What you want, what they can afford, what they
think the sales potential is, etc.  Companys will typically buy piece of
code or an algorithem (such as Andy Hertzfeld's QuickerGraf), whereas
they usually pay royalities on a full product.  How much depends on the
product, your previous products (if any) and how good a negotiator you
are.

-- Jerry Whitnell [e-mail]
..!sun!cup.portal.com!jwhitnell

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