This is the readme file for Mesa 1.5B Revision 193.
o What is Mesa?
Mesa 1.5 is a traditional spreadsheet for NEXTSTEP(r) computers. It takes
full advantage of the NEXTSTEP environment, while feeling natural for users of
Lotus(r) 1-2-3(r) and Microsoft(r) Excel(tm). Mesa 1.5 requires NEXTSTEP 3.0
or greater.
Version 1.5 has 3D graphs, real time data feed capability, enhanced program
interfaces, a full featured scripting language (MScript), palettized objects,
foreign file support (wk1, SYLK, and Excel) and much more.
Mesa in demonstration mode does everything that a licensed copy would do, except you cannot build or save worksheets larger than 20 by 20 cells. Mesa also contains the MesaSampler suite of example and demonstration files and a new interactive demo called MesaDemo.app.
Mesa has been shipping since August 1992, and has won critical acclaim as well as becoming a best seller. At the 1993 NeXTWORLD Expo, Mesa won the "Best of Breed" Award for Financial Modeling.
o New low price!
Mesa for NEXTSTEP now retails for $199 per license. Because Mesa supports a floating license manager, you need only purchase licenses for the number of concurrent users on your network. To purchase up to 250 licenses, please contact your local dealer or IT Solutions (North America, 1.312.474.7700 or orders@its.com) or P&L Systems (Europe, 44.494.432.422 or orders@plsys.com). For more than 250 licenses, please contact Athena Design directly (1.617.426.6372 or info@athena.com).
o New features in Mesa 1.5B Revision 193.
We have added an interactive demo, more MScript constants and functions, Excel 4.0 file compatibility, the ability to execute Scripts based on changes in the worksheet, and better date handling. Additionally, Mesa 1.5B is the first NEXTSTEP application to run on Intel, Motorola, SPARC and HP PA-RISC.
o Running the Interactive Demo.
MesaDemo.app is an interactive demo that allows you explore the features of Mesa easily. Copy MesaDemo.app into whichever Apps directory you choose. Click on MesaDemo.app to start it up and then select Setup Mesa Demo from the menu. This will bring up the Go Ahead? dialog panel. Select Continue to install the Add-Ins needed for this demo. Once the AddIns have been installed, select OK at the SetUp Complete dialog box. At this point it will start up Mesa if it is not already loaded and bring up the Demo Path dialog box. Click on the title bar of the Demo Path dialog box and select Yes. Select Yes on the Run Demo dialog box. At this point Mesa should load the Demo.Mesa worksheet. If the Demo.Mesa worksheet has not appeared and the cursor has changed back to an arrow then double click on the Mesa icon and it should appear. Once Mesa has loaded the Demo.Mesa worksheet you can explore the demo.
When you are finished with the demo, please verify that any AddIns you have added have not been removed. You can check this by selecting Info -> Preferences, and verifying that your AddIns are still loaded in the Function Add-Ins Loaded area. If MesaDemo.app removed any of your AddIns, you can reinstall them by selecting the Add button in the Function Add-Ins Loaded area and choosing the AddIn you would like to load.
o Improved Date Handling.
Mesa now supports dates from the year 1900 C.E. to at least year 3000 C.E.
Mesa 1.5B Revision 186 users please note this fix.
Mesa 1.5B Revision 186 changed the way that Mesa allowed you to create formulas by selecting a cell (or range of cells) with the mouse and inserting them into the currently selected formula. In versions of Mesa prior to 1.5B Revision 186 you could enter an = sign into the cell and then select the cells you wanted to reference for that formula. For example a formula in cell A1 might look like this:
=B1 * C1
Mesa 1.5B Revision 186 changed this by allowing you to select other cells with a mouse only if you had entered a function before you selected the cells you wanted to insert into the formula. For example you could have built this formula by selecting the range B through B12:
=SUM(B1:B12)
but could not have built this formula by selecting cells B1, B2, B3:
=B1 + B2 + B3
In response to customer feedback Mesa 1.5B Revision 188 and higher now handles this feature in the manner that versions prior to Mesa 1.5B Revision 186 did.
o Problems we have seen with Mesa 1.5B Revision 193.
On the SPARC architecture:
If you enable "Stop on Error" or "Stop on CIRC." in the Recalc section of
the Sheet Inspector, and then encounter a circular reference in the
worksheet, your login will go away. If you enable "Debug Off", then this
error will not occur.
The Graph MesaView2 object displays its graph only once when run in test
interface mode in Interface Builder. This problem does not appear with the
Interface Builder from Next Developer 3.2.
On the Intel architecture:
Using the MesaView2 object with the Interface Builder from Next Developer
3.3 in test interface mode causes Interface Builder and Mesa to hang. We
have not seen this problem with the Interface Builder from Next Developer
3.3 RISC, nor with the Interface Builder from Next Developer 3.2.
If run into any of these problems, please contact us to see if we have fixed these problems. We hope to fix them as soon as we are able.
o For more information.
For more information please contact Athena Design; info@athena.com or
617-426-6372.
Mesa is a trademark of Athena Design, Inc. all other trademarks and registrations belong to their respective owners.
