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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
Tuesday, August 28, 1990 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Topic: Complete Pascal
with Special Guest, Vince Cooper of Complete Technology
Forum Leader: Dave Sugar (AFL Dyfet)
AFL Dyfet Okay, I believe we are now ready to get started :)
AFL Dyfet Good evening and welcome to the Apple II Development Forum
Conference. We will
AFL Dyfet be discussing Complete Pascal tonight with our special guest,
Vince Cooper of
AFL Dyfet Complete Technology. We will be using protocol starting now!
This means that
AFL Dyfet if you wish to ask a question, enter a '?' on a line by itself,
AFL Dyfet and if you wish to respond/comment on the current question,
AFL Dyfet enter a '!' on a line by itself. I will now turn the floor over
AFL Dyfet to our guest, Vince, who can explain to you what Complete
Technologies is,
AFL Dyfet and what their relationship with TML, and TML Pascal II users will
be.
VCooper Thanks Dave!
VCooper Hello everyone!
VCooper My name is Vince Cooper and I am the president of a new company
called
VCooper Complete Technology, Inc. Some of you may know me as the former A2
GS products
VCooper manager from TML Systems.
VCooper We are now in the business of publishing development tools for the
IIGS with
VCooper the former TML Pascal II and TML Basic being the first products we
have
VCooper brought to market.
VCooper We have updated the Pascal product to fix some problems in the
text editor
VCooper and have recently released Complete Pascal 1.0, and are working
hard on
VCooper Complete Pascal 2.0 which is to be a full blown upgrade of the
product.
VCooper We will do some work on Basic after the first of the year to
correct some
VCooper massive problems there, however, we felt the current market
dictated that
VCooper we work on the Pascal product first.
VCooper Basicly what has happened is that TML Systems felt that their
company was
VCooper better off to focus their attentions on creating new and inovative
products
VCooper for the Macintosh and that you, their former customers were better
off with
VCooper another company handling their former IIGS products.
VCooper The last few months at TML Systems all development and support
attention was
VCooper spent in the direction of the Macintosh and they, nor I, felt this
was fair
VCooper to their many many loyal IIGS customers.
VCooper Therefore, on the first of July we started Complete Technology,
and purchased
VCooper the rights to TML's IIGS product line and and started immediate
work to make
VCooper the products the best that we could for IIGS developers. We feel
we have
VCooper corrected the most drastic problem in Pascal (you couldnt edit
source) and
VCooper are now working hard on the other known problems as well as some
enhancements
VCooper that I felt were warranted...
VCooper As far as technical support and updates go, we have institued a
support
VCooper program for TML's former clients with our company to open a
support channel
VCooper for you, and to make updates and upgrades available in the
future.
VCooper Unfortunately due to many different circumstances we could not
offer free
VCooper updates and support to all of their former clients, therefore, the
support
VCooper program and update offer that we have put together has a nominal
charge
VCooper associated with it.
VCooper We would like to have been able to do this for free for everyone
since
VCooper the previous preformance of the publisher left a bit to be desired
in the
VCooper support area, however, we just couldnt do it for several thousand
people and
VCooper stay in business very long.
VCooper Plans? Well, as stated we are working on an upgrade to the Pascal
product
VCooper to bring it in line with what we feel a professional quality
development tool
VCooper should be. We will then start working on Basic to correct its
many problems
VCooper and bring it up to date with the current operating system used on
the IIGS.
VCooper The Basic work will be a little more intense since it also
involves a
VCooper conversion of development systems, however, we feel we can have
something
VCooper accomplished sometime early next year. Not the news some of you
wanted to hear
VCooper but better than you would have heard under the former
circumstances.
VCooper with that, I'll hand this back to Dave and see if I can handle any
questions
VCooper he or any of you might have for me tonight.
AFL Dyfet I for one feel you have a strong series of products to work with,
and hope that
AFL Dyfet you can overcome some of the negative impressions left by TML
Systems in the
AFL Dyfet market place. I think now is not a time to dwell on the mistakes
of the past,
AFL Dyfet but to look at the future for these potentially superb products.
This is, in
AFL Dyfet many ways, about the best thing that could have happened for TML
Pascal and
AFL Dyfet Basic. I believe that A2 has the first question. GA A2...
A2GS 2 brief Q's....1) Any plans for supporting C?
A2GS In the long run of course, GA
VCooper In the very long run, maybe. Personally I feel there are already
two good
VCooper C compilers available and I would rather see our company pursue
something
VCooper that isnt already there such as Fortran, or to add an assembler to
our product
VCooper line..
AFL Dyfet (Just so long as you keep the nightmare of Cobol away from the
IIgs :)
AFL Dyfet And your 2nd Q, A2?
VCooper No Cobol, please! :)
A2GS 2) What is your view of the II's current status and future?
A2GS GA
VCooper I feel the IIGS has a bright future or I wouldnt be here... We've
made a
VCooper substancial financial investment in taking over these products and
setting
VCooper up a company to support and maintain them. Obviously we wouldnt
have done
VCooper this if we didnt feel it was going to be worthwhile in the long
run.
VCooper GA
AFL Dyfet Okay, Omega Man, you have the floor now...
Omega Man does/will the resource editor allow you to save sound and picture
resources? GA
SteveB That would be nice!
Omega Man :)
VCooper Right now it doesnt. We are in the process of deciding what we
want to do with
VCooper the resource editor. I'm not sure if we should enhance it to
handle many
VCooper different types of resources, or if we couldnt better spend the
time and
VCooper resources in enhancing the compiler so that it can handle OMF
files from
VCooper outside sources and other options that it now doesnt have. As
with any
VCooper development company our resources are limited. It might be better
for us to
VCooper leave high level resource editing and creation to speciality
products such
VCooper as Genesys and others and stick to the compilers. What we have
now is enough
VCooper to get a basic program up and running. It doesnt handle
everything, and could
VCooper probably use a small bit of enhancing, but I doubt you'll ever see
anything
VCooper from us that is as indepth as Genesys is in handling resource
generation.
VCooper GA
Omega Man ga Froo
AFL Dyfet Okay, Frooddude, you have the floor now...GA...
Frooddude Ok.... Vince, who are the people behind the "We" you have been
speaking of?
VCooper Well, at this time the people making the decisions are myself and
a couple of
VCooper folks that have invested money. I've also sent offers to a couple
of
VCooper programmers that I hope to bring online soon to work on our linker
and on our
VCooper Basic product. right now I'm doing all of the programming and
support and
VCooper that is just a bit to much for one guy to handle. We also have a
couple of
VCooper girls that work here in the office handling phone calls and paper
work so that
VCooper I dont screw things up too bad... :)
Frooddude Ok, thanks.
AFL Dyfet Okay, Michael, you have the floor now...GA...
Michael515 Will you have a Direct Connect area in ADV soon?
VCooper We've spoken to Dave about that and some things are working behind
the scenes
VCooper for online support here on AO.
VCooper GA
VCooper (Right now you can catch us in the Pascal folder in the Let's
Discuss area.) GA
AFL Dyfet Hmm...there are a few things in the works, yes ;)...
Shadow100 About when will v1.0 be ready to send out and how much will that
small upgrade
Shadow100 be.
VCooper 1.0 is already shipping, sans nice looking labels. The support
program costs
VCooper $29.95 for Pascal customers and $19.95 for Basic customers. There
are
VCooper some letters containing information about what is going on being
mailed out
VCooper to all of TML's former clients, although this is moving a little
slower than
VCooper we would like. If you're really curious we have posted the
letters here online
VCooper in the Pascal folder, inside a folder titled News From Complete
Technology.
VCooper GA
Shadow100 Thanks.
Kerry C2 Whats will v2.0 offer over the current v1.0 of Pascal?
VCooper 2.0 will offer a linker that allows you to link asm and c
subroutines to
VCooper your Pascal programs, or generates Pascal files that can be linked
to your
VCooper asm or C programs. It will also offer some enhancement in the
resource
VCooper editor although as I stated these enhancements will not be
bringing it inline
VCooper with some of the resource specific products like Genesys.
VCooper It will also correct some problems that we have found to be our
fault in
VCooper the existing editor and compiler.
VCooper (By our fault I mean we are now accepting responsibility for
things that
VCooper were wrong in the origional release which of course we didnt
write.)
VCooper GA
AFL Dyfet Go ahead Omega Man...
Omega Man will the 2.0 upgrade be free (to 1.0 users)?
VCooper We're not sure what the price will be at this time. Please
understand that
VCooper you are not buying version 1.0. It is simply thrown in as an
enducement to
VCooper get folks to join the support program.
VCooper We will ONLY offer future updates and upgrades to those that do
join the
VCooper support system. This is the only manner in which we can stay in
business
VCooper and support thousands of people that didnt purchase software from
our company.
VCooper Kind of a drag I know, but also a fact of business life...
VCooper GA
Omega Man sounds cool, :) ...ga...
Kerry C2 Do you have plans for improving the size of source code files
generated
Kerry C2 by the compiler, such as an optimizer in future versions?
VCooper Once we have improved the linker then we'll look at licensing some
things that
VCooper will make this possible. A few things that are not possible now
will become
VCooper reality once we have a new linker in the system. There are
existing utilities
VCooper that can be used to decrese the size of the load files and such...
I've
VCooper never tried to use what is there now, so I cant say for sure if
they work or
VCooper not on what the compiler system is generating right now. Some of
you may
VCooper have given it a try and may be able to answer this. This is not
an area that I
VCooper have checked out in depth yet. There were too many aligators in
the swamp for
VCooper me to look at the ducks... :)
VCooper GA
Kerry C2 Thanks.
AFL Dyfet Okay, RobertHess, you have the floor now...
RobertHess I realize that at this time, you have your hands full, but is
there a
RobertHess glimmer in your eye of future products and directions? Do you see
your
RobertHess company just being in the develpment tools business, or might
you
RobertHess also look towards 'general' applications as well? GA
VCooper Right now we're just looking at development tools and utilites.
Since we
VCooper came into being with an existing product line, something most
companies dont do
VCooper we havent taken a long look at application programs or anything
like that
VCooper yet. I never say never, but its not in the business plan right
now.
VCooper We do plan to look at another language or an assembler, but that's
still many
VCooper months away.
VCooper GA
RobertHess Thanks, (looking forward to a Modula-2 :-) GA
VCooper ( I thought someone just released a Modula-2, but I may be
wrong..)
AFL Dyfet Okay SteveB, you have the floor now...
SteveB Ok-- I noticed AWSOME pastinng in CP v1.0. The Cutting still
stinks, thought..
SteveB Are you planning to fix this? :)
SteveB (Dumb Question :)
VCooper Yes, however, we're waiting to see what, if any, corrections are
in the
VCooper next version of system software. CP 1.0 cuts and deletes much
better than
VCooper its counter part, Pascal II, however, we and our beta testers
admit there are
VCooper still some problems there with large chunks. We havent found any
scrollbar
VCooper freezing or any of the other problems, however, at least in 98% of
all cases.
SteveB I'm a Beta tester :)
SteveB GA- Thanks :)
VCooper I wont say they wont ever freeze, but nothing like what was in the
original
VCooper releases of this software. We did find some problems there with
the way the
VCooper program was coded and corrected them.
VCooper GA
AFL Dyfet Okay, go ahead Omega Man...
Omega Man Did you correct the problem with the Case statements (they couldnt
handle multiple numbers.. like Case numer of 45..100
VCooper that is not a bug, but it is the way this particular
implimentation works.
VCooper That IS something we are looking at changing, but I've not even
looked at
VCooper the source code in that part of the compiler yet. If we can get
to it, we'll
VCooper handle that in the 2.0 release.
VCooper You can code around that problem, and if you're having trouble
send me some
VCooper email and I'll get you some code fragments that show you how to
can work around
VCooper the limitation.
VCooper GA
RobertHess First a comment on the previous question... case ranges are not
part
RobertHess of 'standard' pascal, but are implemented by a couple compilers.
RobertHess ...and TML 'did' document theirs as being one of them... now my
?
RobertHess Vince, I assume that many of your 'support' questions are still
in
RobertHess the relm of 'ToolBox' programming on the GS, rather then actual
RobertHess problems with your product. What ideas or methods do you have
for
RobertHess dealing with this? How much of a burden is this proving on your
RobertHess overall support efforts? GA
VCooper Well, I'd like to see some of the book publishers update their
existing
VCooper books and I'd like to see some new books done on programming with
resources.
VCooper However, right now, most of the questions we're getting are on how
to deal
VCooper with and get around some of the problems that were in the original
release of
VCooper the compiler. I believe with our first update, and our future
upgrade, we
VCooper will correct that and go back to answering general programming
type questions.
VCooper I'd MUCH rather answer those types of questions even though they
dont really
VCooper have anything to do with the tool being used to create the
program... :)
VCooper GA
RobertHess :-> yeah, I know what you mean... GA
AFL Dyfet Okay Kerry, GA...And then Steve will have the last Q for
tonight...
Kerry C2 I've never been able to get Real2Integer in TMLUtils library to
work correctly,
Kerry C2 has this/will this bug/feature be fixed in future versions?
VCooper It is a bug, and yes, we'll fix that in 2.0.
VCooper Right now you can call SANE and use a call that will accomplish
much the
VCooper same thing.
VCooper GA
Kerry C2 I use SANE to do the conversions.
SteveB Will you fix the Resoource Editor's problem of messing up Resource
files when..
SteveB you edit a menu resource? Is this a bug? :)
VCooper It's a bug, but we're not absolutely sure whos... Right now we
are aware of
VCooper some problems in the Resource Manager that cause trouble when you
are changing
VCooper the size of a resource which is what happens when you edit a menu
with our
VCooper editor. I'm sure some of the problem is also in CP's code. We'll
be fixing
VCooper this as soon as we get some updated system software and get the
word that
VCooper the problem we know about in the Resource Manager has been
fixed.
Dave Lyons Steve, what sort of messing-up happens?
SteveB When executing the Progam, I get an error "Unable to open Resource
Fork".
SteveB And then some Error numbers.
Kerry C2 Whenever I edit menu resources, the rest of the file becomes
corrupted
Kerry C2 and useless. If you don't use menu resources you should be ok
now.
VCooper There are some other problems with some things being off in the
resource
VCooper editor that ARE our fault and only our fault that we will be
repairing soon.
VCooper We'll get the word out to our customers in the support program as
soon as
VCooper something is done.
VCooper GA
SteveB Thanks :)
AFL Dyfet Okay, I would like to thank our guest, Vince, for attending
tonight....it was
AFL Dyfet much good news you have brought....
AFL Dyfet I know you need to leave shortly, so if you have any closing
comments?
VCooper Not really... Just would like to say that it has been a real
pleasure to
VCooper talk to everyone and if you have further questions for me you're
welcome to
VCooper post them in the Pascal folder here in the Let's Discuss area. I
check that
VCooper area a couple of times daily and answer any questions. Also for
those that
VCooper are interested we are also doing some work on the manual and will
be making
VCooper some improvements there. Wont do those of you that already have
it much good,
VCooper but future people that use the product wont go through the same
cold sweats
VCooper that some of you did... :)
VCooper Thanks folks! its been a real pleasure!
Kerry C2 Thanks for your time and help, and good luck!!
AFA Gary J Thanks, Vince!
VCooper Good night, everyone!