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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
Tuesday, November 13, 1990  10:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Topic:  Operating Systems
Forum Leader:  Dave Sugar  (AFL Dyfet)

AFL Dyfet  Okay, I guess we had better get started...contrary to popular
           rumor, we are
AFL Dyfet  NOT discussing plan 9 tonight :)...Instead, we will be discussing
           Apple II
AFL Dyfet  operating systems (in particular System 5.0.3, no doubt).  I see
           that Scott has
AFL Dyfet  the floor now...GA Scott...
AFL Scott  Is there anywhere documented the special text sequences to make
           things 
AFL Scott  like bold text in resource strings?  I know.. it's off topic!:)
AFL Dyfet  (oops :)...GA Jonah...
ShanoJ     What exactly do you mean, Scott? For likea statText control? There
           you'd just
ShanoJ     use the codes in the LETextBox section of the LE chapter...
ShanoJ     (also there are nifty resource equates for those that come with
           Rez... :)
AFL Scott  Yeah, StatText... Ok... Thanks... I didn't think to look in the
           lineEdit docs for Control Manager 
AFL Scott  stuff...:)  Thanks!:)
AFL Dyfet  Okay, Jonah, your next...GA...
ShanoJ     My NeXT? Where?! :)
ShanoJ     Okay, my qestion (especially for Dave): I need to get the mouse's
           loaction from
ShanoJ     an interrupt. Is there any good way to do this? In the ROM 01
           machines there
ShanoJ     are screen holes at $E0047C and $E0057C or some such that have the
           mouse
ShanoJ     loaction as long as the mouse has been initialized.... These don't
           work on the 
ShanoJ     ROM 03, however... GetMouse only works id the DeskManager is
           started, ReadMouse
ShanoJ     makes the normal mouse operations loose data (menus will stay
           pulled down even
ShanoJ     after you let go of the button sometimes, etc.), and that's all
           the way's I can
ShanoJ     think of! Any hints? Is there any official Apple way to do
           this?!
AFL Dyfet  I see we are drifting from topic a little early here :)....If we
           can keep to
AFL Dyfet  the topic for for the early part of this conf, please...As to your
           question,
AFL Dyfet  Jonah, I do not have a suggestion off-hand, however, if you would
           be willing
AFL Dyfet  to post it into a folder, maybe we could get some feedback for you
           there....
AFL Dyfet  Okay, Marty, GA, you have the floor now...
AFL Marty  I guess my question is rather unique (it pertains to tonight's
           topic :)...
A2Evanglst Topic Police!!!!
A2Evanglst ;)
AFL Marty  One or two members have reported problems in printing with
           the...
AFL Marty  AppleWorks GS Page Layout module under 5.0.3 and the new
           ImageWriter II
AFL Marty  printer driver...
AFL Marty  Specifically, they report that AWGS "locks up" and requires
           rebooting...
AFL Marty  yet the same document prints without incident under 5.0.2...
AFL Marty  Could this be attributed to additional memory requirements of
           5.0.3
AFL Marty  and/or the printer driver?
AFL Dyfet  The new driver does use additional memory for buffering.  Are any
           of these
AFL Dyfet  users on 'marginal' memory for AWGS already?
AFL Marty  You could say that.  Both members have 1.25 meg machines.
AFL Marty  Apparently my guess was correct.  I will post an appropriate
           reply.
AFL Marty  Thanks.
AFL Marty  (done)
AFL Dyfet  I do not know how much additional memory it uses offhand, but if
           either Matt or
AFL Dyfet  Dave know (*hint*)...
PoloPlayer What can you do on 5.0.3 that you can't do on the others besides
           rename system 
PoloPlayer Disk
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
Dave Lyons ACE, the Audio Compression and Expansion tools, expand
Dave Lyons sound about twice as fast as they used to.
Dave Lyons There is a new ImageWriter LQ printer driver that takes advantage
           of
Dave Lyons its higher resolution.  The ImageWriter II driver is about 3 times
           as fast as the old one.
Dave Lyons Standard File has a new look--instead of a Disk button you get a
           Volumes button that shows you
Dave Lyons a list of all your volumes, so you can pick one straight away
           instead of tabbing through them
Dave Lyons one at a time.
PoloPlayer oh yes, I noticed that!  Cool!
Dave Lyons There are a fair number of bug fixes, some of which
PoloPlayer GReat!
Dave Lyons are obvious and some of which aren't.
PoloPlayer That is pretty neat!
Dave Lyons There are major things fixed in both Text Edit (you can edit more
           than 4K of text without it doing
Dave Lyons bad things now) and the Resource Manager (it doesn't get confused
           on return from ProDOS 8,
Dave Lyons and it correctly handles resizing resources in a file, which
           should help immensely for things
Dave Lyons like Genesys and TML Pascal II.)
Dave Lyons ga
PoloPlayer whoa!  There are a lot of newies!
AFL Dyfet  GA Gibber...
A2Evanglst Unlike Mac System software... Apple doesn't have to update it
           every week so it will work ;)
A2Evanglst :::End of Snide comments ;)
PoloPlayer Hmmm, is there a file I can d/l to read all the updates? 
AFA Gary J You can download last weeks conference log, or this one when it
           gets put up :)
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
Dave Lyons Polo, the release notes will *eventually* be available from
Dave Lyons APDA, along with the disks, but so far APDA doesn't have them. 
           I'm sure somebody will post the
Dave Lyons APDA order number in Let's Discuss when it becomes available. 
           ga
PoloPlayer Ok...

AFL Dyfet  GA Scott...
AFL Scott  Is there a document available that tells about the new tool
           call(s) and mods to the toolsets so we
AFL Scott  may use them?
AFL Dyfet  GA Matt...
Matt DTS   All Apple Partners and Associates are being mailed the release
           notes and documentation for the one new
Matt DTS   call, ConvSeconds.  <GA>
AFL Scott  OK, thanks, Matt!:)
AFL Scott  I'm done...:)
AFA JoeyS  Dave: Will an update to NiftyList document anything new in
           5.0.3?
AFL Dyfet  Perhaps that one new call :)
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
Dave Lyons Next time I do an upload it will
Dave Lyons have ConvSeconds in there, sure (and whatever small fixes
Dave Lyons I've discovered in the meantime, as usual).  ga

AFL Dyfet  Okay, GA Booger, you have the floor now...
BOOGERB    using appleworks 3.0 with the timeout applications on a hard drive
           Iam having
BOOGERB    trouble assesing the timeout application with system 5.03 they
           worked fine 
BOOGERB    with system 5.02 , the only way to use them is to put in the disk
           and go from
BOOGERB    there.
AFL Dyfet  GA Marty...
AFL Marty  I use AppleWorks with TimeOut under 5.0.3 without any problems at
           all...
AFL Marty  make sure you have the current version of TimeOut (3.01) as well
           as current
AFL Marty  versions of your TimeOut applciations.
AFL Marty  done
BOOGERB    everytime I try to get the timeout applications they can't be
           found off the 
BOOGERB    hard drive but will fine them off the disk.
AFL Marty  Aha... you need to reinstall TimeOut...
BOOGERB    these are timeout applications for 3.0
AFL Marty  and tell TimeOut the pathname to your To applications.
AFL Marty  I'll send you EMail on it.
AFL Marty  done
BOOGERB    the only thing I changed on the hard drive was the operating
           system
AFL Dyfet  Okay, GA Tap...
AFC TAP    ok, I was just going to ask if your path had changed after the
           5.03 install
AFC TAP    as TimeOut hard codes the path to the applications in the
           aplwworks.system file
AFC TAP    if you havea block editor you may wish to check it... or just
           re-install
AFC TAP    <done>
BOOGERB    I don't think so
GSP1       You also want to be sure that TO.UTILITIES and installation come
           from the same
GSP1       disk.
BOOGERB    I am using a vulcan and copied from the disk with the t/o
           applications to the 
BOOGERB    hard drive
AFL Marty  Read my Email BoogerB.  Copying from the floppy is what's causing
           your problem.
BOOGERB    ok marty thanks I will try what you are suggesting thanks again
AFL Marty  That's why I get the big bucks. :)
AFL Dyfet  Okay, in that case...let's get to the next Q...GA Ace...
DangardAce Oh goody.. now for some sweeping, off-tangent, and ludicrous
           questions :)
DangardAce Firstly, I know this is a variable, but what is the minimum amount
           of
DangardAce memory overhead needed for page rendering in the new IW2 driver. 
           Does
DangardAce the rendering clobber anything not spoken for?  I guess maybe.. I
           would
DangardAce imagine that for text itd be different from pictures..
AFL Dyfet  GA Matt (Was waiting for this comment earlier :)...
Matt DTS   Just a sec...
Matt DTS   OK.  The toolbox documentation says not to call the printing
           routines unless you have a 10K block
Matt DTS   available, so any printer driver is justified in not working if at
           least 10K contiguous isn't
Matt DTS   available.  The new IW and IW LQ drivers attempt to spool to disk
           if they can't get enough memory.
Matt DTS   Text is not all that different than graphics since all are drawn
           by QuickDraw.  For more information
Matt DTS   on how printer drivers work, there's a fabulously well-written
           article on the subject in _develop_ #4.
Matt DTS   <grin> GA
HeadCase   Matt you're so modest
AFL Dyfet  Thanks Matt....
DangardAce (Gee I wonder who wrote that article :)
DangardAce Where is the disk spooling piped to?  Somewhere on the boot
           volume?
DangardAce Also, to Dave, are there any planned updates for DIcED?
DangardAce And uh, just one more thing, this isn't 5.03 specific, but is
           there a
DangardAce theoretical maximum to how many icons you can have in memory?
DangardAce Like, will Finder only accept the first 128 icons it encounters
           (assuming
DangardAce there's enough free mem to hold them all)
Mac Hater  hmm, sounds like a question for a Finder engineer.  
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet  Yes, it does...a chance for a new Finder person to prove himself
           :)]
DangardAce And, uh, one other thing, is the Laserwriter GS driver still
           using
DangardAce Imagewriter emulation to get the job done or are there any
           PostScript 
DangardAce primitives lurking in there, and uh, when do we get to see the
           Animation and
DangardAce Shrinkit Toolsets.. just imagine being able to pack/unpack
           animations on
DangardAce the fly.. Dragon's Lair startanims anyone?  GA
AFL Marty  (this guy must be on a sugar rush :)
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
Dave Lyons There will be updates
Dave Lyons to DIcEd -sometime-, but I don't have a schedule.  I have a
           partly-done DIcEd 2.0 that I've been
Dave Lyons working on.
DangardAce !- are you aware that DicED doesn't exactly behave menu wise with
           5.02+..
Dave Lyons The Finder and DIcEd do not impose any special limits on the
           number of icons
Dave Lyons you can have.  You can have as many as you can fit in memory.
Dave Lyons The LaserWriter driver was never using ImageWriter emulation--
Dave Lyons ImageWriter emulation is still *available* for
Dave Lyons use by applications that only know how to shove text out to a slot
           (for example, most ProDOS 8
Dave Lyons applications).  The Print Manager driver for the LaserWriter is
           actually sending PostScript(tm)
Dave Lyons stuff out to the LW in response to QuickDraw commands.
Dave Lyons (done)
AFL Dyfet  Dave, seems you didn't leave anything for Matt :)
ShrinkIt   unless someone at apple pays me a ton-o-bucks (not likely), there
           is not much possibility that there
ShrinkIt   will be a shrinkit toolset (and I don't think they want one,
           either)

AFL Dyfet  GA GSP1...
GSP1       I wonder if the problem with the PRODOS 16 version of AOL software
           and...
GSP1       GS/OS 5.03 will solve the download lockup that accurred in 5.02?
Matt DTS   Under 5.0.3, if you're using a serial CARD (NOT the built-in port)
           and you get more than 65,535 
Matt DTS   unclaimed interrupts, the system will put up an alert that says
           "Gee, that's a lot of unclaimed
Matt DTS   interrupts.  Better see a dealer."  (or something like that).  If
           you press return, you're returned
Matt DTS   to your application.
Matt DTS   However, while the alert is up interrupts are disabled, so if
           you're in a download you'll lose
Matt DTS   characters and possibly have to start over, depending on how long
           you leave the alert up (and
Matt DTS   the retries, etc.)  Fortunately, you only get the alert once. 
           We're thinking that in the future we'll
Matt DTS   just eliminate it altogether.  <GA>
AFL Dyfet  Which means you have to watch your system....
GSP1       I've got a Datalink card which emulates a serial card.
AFL Dyfet  GA Tap...
AFC TAP    I've gotten that error with the internal port
AFC TAP    using both a ramfast and a HS SCSI together with AOL...
AFC TAP    <done>
AFL Dyfet  Okay, GA Ace...
DangardAce Um, uhm, uhh
DangardAce Has the duplicate filename bug been fixed?  The one where you
           can't replace
DangardAce  file with a new one with the same name if you run P8?
AFA Gary J The infamous "save as.." bug.
AFL Dyfet  GA Andy...
ShrinkIt   (This is Dave L--my session froze.)  Yes, the
ShrinkIt   problem where Standard File wouldn't give you a "Do you want to
           replace this file?" dialog was
ShrinkIt   fixed.  It was actually the Resource Manager not restarting
           properly on return from ProDOS 8 (the
ShrinkIt   dialog message was stored in Sys.Resources).  done
AFL Dyfet  Oh, Matt, out of curiosity, what are dealers supposed to tell
           someone if they
AFL Dyfet  get a person comming in who says they had the 65k unclaimed
           message?? :)
AFA Gary J I can tell you what they WILL say, Dave :)
AFL Dyfet  :)

DangardAce Also, it was stated that ROM 03 machines are
DangardAce supposed to be 10% faster than the ROM 01.. is this true for
           everything, or
DangardAce just for stuff that makes toolbox calls (this was asked on the
           boards but
DangardAce I'd thought I'd get the official word :))
AFA Gary J My guess on that question would be only stuff that uses ROM
           routines.
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave....
ShrinkIt   (Dave L again)  I don't have any definite numbers, but
ShrinkIt   the speedup there is just from running stuff from ROM instead of
           RAM.  Much more of 
ShrinkIt   QuickDraw in in ROM on ROM 3, so there is some speed improvement
           there.  UP TO 10%; I don't know
ShrinkIt   what a typical value is.  done

DangardAce Is there any truth to a rumor someone mentioned that the ROM 03
           has hidden
DangardAce caches and registers that 5.03 takes advantage of..
ShrinkIt   How can a ROM have a cache??
AFL Dyfet  As much truth probably as to the rumor that if you hold down the
           OA-ctrl-shft-
AFL Dyfet  opt-apple keys, you will get a message backwards from the Blue
           Temple :)
AFL Marty  LOL
AFA Gary J Another Rumor:  If you do an ASCII dump of the ROM 03 battery
           RAM, it says
AFA Gary J "Woz is the Walrus" backwards.
AFL Scott  I thought it was "I buried Steve" :)
A2GS       Wasn't it "Apple II Forever or till the Next Mac"  ?
AFA Gary J Scott, that's what you get if you play the digitized "Apple II"
           sound backward.
AFL Scott  ROTFL!:)  
ShrinkIt   Dave just left my cube...
DangardAce I meant registers and softswitches not found in ROM 01
DangardAce Sheesh. :)
AFL Dyfet  Okay Ace...Clearification is reasonable :)
ShrinkIt   We are not aware of anything "special" in the ROM 03 machine's ROM
           that the general programming public
ShrinkIt   isn't aware of (andy).

AFA Gary J I have a question....(not related to 5.0.3)
AFA Gary J I've had problems of not being able to enter the control panel
           after quitting
AFA Gary J certain IIGS desktop programs.  One of the programs is ShrinkIt
           GS.  The
AFA Gary J problem may be something specific to my machine, but I can't seem
           to track it
AFA Gary J down.
AFA Gary J (I can get into the control panel after busting into GSBug)
AFA Gary J GA, Andy
ShrinkIt   (DAL again)  I don't know how it could affect
ShrinkIt   ShrinkIt GS, but there -was- a bug fix to SetGrafProcs for 5.0.3,
           where it was leaving
ShrinkIt   the Busy flag incremented by one.  This prevents you from getting
           into the CDA menu if the
ShrinkIt   Event Manager is off.  The only place you're likely to encounter
           SetGrafProcs getting called is doing
ShrinkIt   Draft mode printing with the ImageWriter driver.
AFA Gary J This has happened to me in 5.0.2 AND 5.0.3.
ShrinkIt   Gary, does it stop you from getting into CDAs all the time, or
           only from programs that don't
ShrinkIt   use the Event Manager?
AFA Gary J Only FROM programs that use Event Manager?  I haven't tried to
           tie it to
AFA Gary J Event Manager/No Event Manager programs.  Just seems to be
           certain desktop type
AFA Gary J programs (i.e. America Online GS has no problem).
ShrinkIt   Well, after you quit ShrinkIt GS and can't get to the CP, what
           program are you in?  Finder?  ProSel?
AFA Gary J Oh, no, I'm using Squirt-16.  That may have something to do with
           it :)
AFA Gary J It's text based, no event manager.
ShrinkIt   That's what I mean--yeah, if you can't
ShrinkIt   get to CDAs from a program that -doesn't- use the EM, that means
           the Busy flag got incremented
ShrinkIt   accidentally.  ga
AFL Dyfet  GA Matt...
Matt DTS   Try allocating some DP space and using Nifty List to start up the
           event manager.  You likely won't be
Matt DTS   able to get Squirt to recognize many keystrokes, but if you can
           get into the CDA menu it's a really
Matt DTS   good indication that somebody is incrementing the busy flag and
           leaving it set.  (You can also check
Matt DTS   it out from GSBug - it's been in business at $E100FF for four
           years and going strong) <GA>
ShrinkIt   (Matt, starting up the EM isn't actually enough--somebody then has
           to call GetNextEvent or
ShrinkIt   EventAvail.  --DAL)
AFA Gary J I understand now.  But Matt, if I can get into the CDA menu to
           use Nifty-List
AFA Gary J to start the event manager, then I wouldn't need to start the
           event manager :)
AFL Dyfet  :)
ShrinkIt   (DAL:  You could drop into GSBug and type E1/FF: to see what the
           busy flag is, then E1/FF:0 and
ShrinkIt   you can get into NL, etc.  Whee.)
AFA Gary J GSBug get's me in, once I get into GSBug, I can get into the CDA
           menu all the
AFA Gary J time after that.
Matt DTS   You can also write a little program that does nothing but call
           GetNextEvent until you get a "Q"
Matt DTS   key-down event and see if you can get into the CDA menu there,
           etc., etc.  There's lots you can play
Matt DTS   with.
AFA Gary J Ok.  I'll check that, Dave.  (I'm interested to see if that's
           what's causing
AFA Gary J it)
AFA Gary J Dave, did you say that CDA menu problem I'm having should have
           been fixed with
AFA Gary J 5.0.3?  (Info scolled off screen :(
AFA Gary J (if it is indeed being caused by the incrementing of the busy
           flag, that is)
Matt DTS   Dave sez:
Matt DTS   "Only if it's being caused by SetGrafProcs incrementing the busy
           flag."  (If not, we'll have to
Matt DTS   figure out what's incrementing your busy flag.)
AFA Gary J Ok.  (Just wanted to confirm that SetGrafProcs was fixed in
           5.0.3)
AFA Gary J Thanks.
Matt DTS   Yes, SetGrafProcs no longer increments the busy flag
           one-sidedly.
AFA Gary J Thanks, Matt/Dave.

AFL Dyfet  Okay, do we have anything else for tonight?
ShanoJ     Matt, Dave, question:
ShanoJ     Are there any known problems with the RunQ and AppleTalk? Twilight
           uses the
ShanoJ     RunQ, and if AppleTalk is active, it seems that it's task is never
           called, but
ShanoJ     as soon as appleTalk is deactivated, everything is cool again...
           This is all
ShanoJ     on the same system, same system disk, etc.... I haven't been able
           to do any
ShanoJ     tests as I don't HAVE an AppleTalk setup, but this is what my beta
           testers are
ShanoJ     telling me...
ShanoJ     I even checked my tech notes and didn't find anything... :)
ShrinkIt   (DAL again) ShanoJ, no I don't know of any problems with the Run
           Queue and AppleTalk.
ShrinkIt   Why don't you use the Installer to install AppleShare and see if
           you have the problem?  It
ShrinkIt   shouldn't matter if there's really a network connected or not.
ShanoJ     Hmm... Will that work? I'll have to try it... Thanks!

ShanoJ     Can I ask a ORCA/C question?
AFA Gary J Why not?
ShanoJ     Okay, I have a program that has the following two lines:
ShanoJ     (err, make that three...)
ShanoJ     #define WIDTH 320
ShanoJ     #define HEIGHT 200
ShanoJ     int screen[WIDTH][HEIGHT];
ShanoJ     And it gets compiler errors at the first [ on the third line...
           What am I doing
ShanoJ     wrong? That's legal, isn't it?
ShrinkIt   What's the error message?  (DAL)
ShanoJ     (oh ya, forgot the ';'s on the first two lines...)
ShrinkIt   NO!  Preprocessor directives don't need semicolons.
ShanoJ     Something like 'expected ]' or some such...
ShrinkIt   If you #define WIDTH 320;  then every time WIDTH occurs in your
           code it will be replaced by "320;".
ShanoJ     Heh.... Thanks Dave... I'll go bash my head against the wall
           now.... :(
ShanoJ     I KNEW that.... Oh well, I guess if we could all program well, no
           one would 
ShanoJ     pay us...
ShrinkIt   (DAL) Great, you had me really confused.  Yeah, you forgot to
           *omit* the semicolons in the source; tha
ShrinkIt   that expalins it.
ShanoJ     Then again, come to think of it, no one DOES pay me... :)
ShanoJ     Wish that meant I didn't have any bugs.... :)
A2GS       Write it in Pascal....where you MUST have ";"
A2GS       :) 
ShanoJ     Ya, I've been using Pascal a lot lately, which is probably why I
           did that...
ShrinkIt   (Except when you have to *not* have ";" in Pascal, like before an
           ELSE.  In Pascal ";" separates
ShrinkIt   statements, and in C it terminates them.)
ShanoJ     Ya, I think on my tombstone it'll say killed by a ";"... :( I
           always put a ;
ShanoJ     before an ELSE, except usally I hit the "'" or "L" key
           instead....