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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
September 5, 1989  10:00 pm Eastern Time
Topic:  Programming on the Apple IIGS
Forum Leader:  Dave Sugar  (AFL Dyfet)


AFL Dyfet  Okay, I guess we are ready to get started then...Good evening and
           welcome to
AFL Dyfet  the Apple II Development forum.  Tonight's topic relates to
           Toolbox programming
AFL Dyfet  on the IIgs.  We will be using PROTOCOL starting NOW.  This means
           that if you
AFL Dyfet  wish to ask a question, you should enter a '?' on a line by
           itself, and if you
Zith       how does one go about setting up a heartbeat task header from c
AFL Dyfet  wish to respond to what's currently being discussed, you should
           enter a '!' on 
AFL Dyfet  a line by itself.  You will all be called in turn, I guess
           starting with
AFL Dyfet  Zith :).  GA Zith, you have the floor :)
Dave Lyons !
Dave Lyons I'll take that one...I've done it before.  You need to declare a
           structure that
Zith       ok now I understand how to set up a task header from assembly but
           how 
Dave Lyons has the heartbeat task header fields in it, followed by a few
           bytes of
Zith       is one created from within C. Des orca c have a #pragma 
           command?
Dave Lyons code for "REP $30, JMP >yourfunction".
Dave Lyons As far as I know there's no #pragma for it, but doing it with a
           structure
Dave Lyons is straightforward.  I think we should put the answer in a folder
           in the C
Dave Lyons folder of Let's Discuss for everyone's future reference (I
           will).
Dave Lyons (ga)
AFL Dyfet  That sounds like a good idea, Dave...Okay, our next question is
           from AFA Parik,
AFL Dyfet  GA...
AFA Parik  Ok, how does QD II draw the pointer?  Scan line, or vbl?  
AFA Parik  (when does it draw it)
AFA Parik  ga
Dave Lyons !
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
Dave Lyons It does it using scanline interrupts by default, but you can tell
           it not to
Dave Lyons by using SetInts (I think that's the right name for the toolbox
           call).  In
Dave Lyons that case I'm not sure when it redraws--whenever is most
           convenient for it.  ga
AFL Dyfet  Hmmm...we seem a little short on questions tonight :)
Dave Lyons (No, it's SetIntUse...yeah, that's the ticket.)
AFL Dyfet  GA Coach, you have the floor now...
Coach101   Has anyone seen any "public" 5.0 tool box docs yet?  Its almost
           fall now!
Coach101   ga
Dave Lyons !
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
Dave Lyons I wish I could give you a date...the wait is largely over, and
           when you
Dave Lyons finally see the stuff I hope the quality makes it seem worth the
           wait.  I
Dave Lyons know I and others did a lot of reviewing to get things right. 
           ga
AFL Dyfet  I know I can hardly wait myself :)...Well, I believe Windrider is
           next, GA...
Coach101   Guess I will need to take the checkbook to AppleFest then....  
           thanks
Coach101   for tackling a *tough* and *touchy* question.....  
Coach101   done
Windrider5 Does anyone know if you can write a custom SortList routine (List
           Manager) in C
Dave Lyons !
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...(I swear I'm gonna make this a macro :)
AFA Gary J :)
Dave Lyons Very good question.  The tricky bit is at the end, where you need
           to return
Dave Lyons the result:  A<B or B>A.  The result needs to be in the Carry
           flag, and I'm
Dave Lyons not sure whether APW C and/or ORCA/C generate "prolog" code at the
           end of
Dave Lyons your function that happens to preserve the carry, or if it's lost.
            If it's
Dave Lyons preserved, you could do inline { clc } in APW C, and whatever the
           ORCA/C
Dave Lyons equivalent is.
Dave Lyons If not, you can write a small assembly-language "wrapper" around a
           C function.
Dave Lyons ga
Windrider5 what's an inline {clc}
Dave Lyons "inline { clc }" and "inline { sec }" are how you can
AFL Dyfet  Hmm...interesting...and a little tricky :).  The inline function
           allows you
Dave Lyons generate "clear the carry flag" and "set the carry flag"
           instructions from
Dave Lyons APW C.
AFL Dyfet  to imbedd machine code instructions into your program, as Dave is
           explaining
AFL Dyfet  within my explanation :)...GA Coach...
Coach101   The APW-C manual (in the section on calling/receiving) sequences
Coach101   has some interesting examples of how one could creatively use
           the
Coach101   inline function.   ga.
AFL Dyfet  Side Note:  Orca/C, from what I recall, uses the same calling
           conventions as
AFL Dyfet  Orca/Pascal.
AFL Dyfet  That is, I believe the function does NOT clear out the stack frame
           before
Coach101   That is correct Dave...
AFL Dyfet  returning, so it may be possible to save the status flag on
           exiting.
Coach101   Oops.....  Apw-C has the caller clear the stack frame...
Coach101   Orca-C has the receiver clear the stack frame...
AFL Dyfet  Did I get that backwards??
Coach101   At least thats the way I rememver it...
Dave Lyons !
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave :)
Dave Lyons What do you guys mean by "clear out" the stack frame?  Removing
           the input
Dave Lyons parameters when the function returns?
Coach101   Yes
AFL Dyfet  Yes, exactly, Dave...:)
Dave Lyons APW C: caller normally removes the input parameters, but you can
Dave Lyons declare it as "pascal", and APW C will have the function remove
           them itself.
Dave Lyons (It can call both C and Pascal-style routines, as long as it knows
           what
Dave Lyons it's calling.)
AFL Dyfet  It's more common for the caller to clear the frame in C, since
           variable
AFL Dyfet  argument functions are supported, and, in theory, the called
           routine may not
AFL Dyfet  know what was passed to it.  Most Pascal implimentations have the
           called
AFL Dyfet  routine clear the frame, since the number of arguments are fixed
           and known at
AFL Dyfet  compile time.
Dave Lyons Dang--before, when I said "inline", I meant "asm".  (Duh.)
Coach101   Less crashes (without prototyping) if the caller clears the
           frame...
Coach101   I knew that looked strange Dave....
Dave Lyons (Well, I *feel* strange, so it's okay.)  BTW, I'd *rather* crash
           when I'm
Dave Lyons passing the wrong # of parameters, & find out right away that way.
            ga
AFL Dyfet  Hmm...I guess that makes Orca/C a little non-traditional
           :)...Well, I think we
AFL Dyfet  have gone far beyond the bounds of the original question :).
AFL Dyfet  Okay, I see that the next question is from Brin.  GA Brin...
Brin Londo Can load font and print w/ QDII. Having trouble w/ 3rd party progs
           (PWG)...
Brin Londo shoving font into FONTS.LIST file (is there a format for this
           file. ga
Dave Lyons !
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...:)
Dave Lyons I don't understand the circumstances--are you adding a file to the
           *:System:
Dave Lyons Fonts directory, or not?  The only entity in the universe that has
           the
Dave Lyons right to fiddle around with the Font.Lists file is the Font
           Manager, and it's
Brin Londo Yes but 3rd party won't recognize and load.
Dave Lyons supposed to contain information about the fonts in that
           directory.
Dave Lyons Did you create the Font file yourself, or did you get it from
           somewhere?  (In
Brin Londo Back to manual.  Must have missed its reference in Font Manager
           section
Dave Lyons other words, are you certain it's in the correct format.  As
           described in
Brin Londo used Beagle bros. font editor
Dave Lyons File Type Note $C8 (Font Files), there is a Pascal-string font
           name tacked
Dave Lyons onto the beginning of the file.
Dave Lyons Oh, okay--if it's a Beagle-created font file, it ought to be
           fine.
Dave Lyons Font.Lists is not mentioned in 
Brin Londo I'll just have to re-read Font Manager section I guess. (shrug)
Dave Lyons the Addison-Wesley toolbox reference, since it wasn't around at
           that time
Brin Londo Update?
Dave Lyons (it's mentioned in recent system software release notes).
Dave Lyons So, your 3rd-party software
Brin Londo Oh.  where exactly (futile search) today
Dave Lyons doesn't see the font at all, not even in Choose Font dialogs?
Brin Londo no only fonts in Font.Lists file 
Dave Lyons When you start up the Font Manager, it checks the
Dave Lyons Font.Lists file against all the font files actually present, and
           if there
Dave Lyons are discrepencies, it *rebuilds* the Font.Lists file
           automatically.  You
Brin Londo 4.0 or 5.0?
Dave Lyons have to try pretty hard to trick it into not rebuilding the list
           (copy over
Dave Lyons a file of the same name, without changing the modification or
           create date/time,
Dave Lyons for example).
Dave Lyons System Software 4.0 release notes should talk about Font.Lists,
           but there's
Dave Lyons nothing to know that I didn't just tell you.
Brin Londo No. I meant will 4.0 rebuild list?
Dave Lyons Yes--any version of the system software that contains a Font
           Manager that
Dave Lyons cares about Font.Lists is smart enough to rebuild it.  Older
           versions of
Dave Lyons the Font Manager ignore Font.Lists completely, and no 3rd-party
           application
Dave Lyons should know anything about Font.Lists at all.
Dave Lyons How are you copying the font into your Fonts directory?
Brin Londo Thanks (off to go strangle Activison programmer).
Brin Londo Finder 5.0
Dave Lyons A final note--
Dave Lyons if you still have probs, you can *try* throwing out the existing
           Font.Lists
Dave Lyons file.  That should *not* be necessary, but if you can't find any
           other
Dave Lyons solution I'd be interested to hear what happens when you get rid
           of it.  ga
Brin Londo Interesting (If all you have is a hammer the world is a nail.) 
Brin Londo If that works I'll get back to you.  Nite all.  ga.
AFL Dyfet  Hmm, well, it's time to get that question Queue filled back up
           again :)...
Coach101   Why is there air?
Dave Lyons Because there isn't no air.
AFL Dyfet  Space that needs filling :)...
AFA Gary J Air is there to breath.
AFL Dyfet  Well, don't breath up all the questions :)
AFL Dyfet  GA JD, you have the floor now...
AFA Gary J (yeah! a question...I was almost out of breath..)
JDavies1   thanks, I need to know if there is any way to watch data going to
           the disk, 
JDavies1   I am having trouble saving data then restoring it. I wanted to see
           what was or
JDavies1   wasn't going out.
Dave Lyons !
JDavies1   i'm done ....ga
Dave Lyons Would looking at the file produced be good enough?  You could go
           into
Dave Lyons BASIC.SYSTEm and BLOAD the thing (details on request), or DUMP the
           thing with
Dave Lyons my favorite command shell (Davex), or with some other people's
           favorite
Dave Lyons command shells.
JDavies1   Yes but it is MIDI data and I'm not sure what it exactly suppose
           to be.. sounds
JDavies1   like I don't really know what I'm doing...well I'm real lazy!
Dave Lyons If you don't know what the data is supposed to be, how are you
           going to know
Dave Lyons if it's right even if you can watch it on its way to the disk? :) 
           You're
Dave Lyons gonna have to figure out what it is that you're supposed to end up
           with, before
JDavies1   Even to see what was saved was loaded.
Dave Lyons you can determine whether you're Writing it wrong or Reading it
           wrong.  ga
JDavies1   I just wanted to compare if what was going out was comming in
           first..I guess I 
JDavies1   could use a dummy window and compare the two after a save then
           load..Does
Dave Lyons Okay, so have your program write some of the data to the screen
           before you
Dave Lyons save it, and again after you read it back.  No problem.
JDavies1   anyone know of a disk editor that works under GSOS?
Dave Lyons I use Block Warden.  Doesn't work *under* GS/OS, but it doesn't
           take very
Dave Lyons long these days to switch between GS/OS and ProDOS 8.  Not long at
           all.
AFL Dyfet  That's a touchy subject :), since you cannot perform block
           read/write calls to
Dave Lyons WHILE you're under GS/OS, you generally can't write any blocks
           directly to
Dave Lyons your boot disk, since Sys.Resources is open.
Coach101   GS/OS Exerciser will work....  Not really a disk editor but it can
           save
Coach101   the day
Dave Lyons (Dave, you can BLOCK_READ with no problem, all the time, to a
           ProDOS disk.)
AFL Dyfet  a volume device that has an open file...or as Dave said...:)
JDavies1   Well I need support for more than two hard disk paartitions
JDavies1   with like copy II+ bit editor
Dave Lyons I don't know of a GS/OS disk editor right now, but ECP16 should be
           able
Dave Lyons to DUMP your file in hex with no problem.
AE PhilM   Vulcan will allow up to 4 Prodos partitions :)
Coach101   DUMPOBJ under Apw will also do nice hex dumps...
Dave Lyons Yeah, what Coach said.  I always forget that.
AFA Gary J Hmmm, I think there is something that someone uploaded in our
           library that
AFA Gary J will do that too..  All it does is display the file in
           hex...using a desk top
AFA Gary J window.
AFA Gary J (I don't recall the name, off hand)
JDavies1   I'll look for that program or use dumpobj, Thanks.
AE PhilM   Dave, how about adding a bload to nifty list ??
Dave Lyons Very good idea.  Nifty List will be getting modules Any Year Now,
           so things
Dave Lyons like that will be easy to do, without penalizing people who want
           to keep NL
AFA Gary J Yeah! :)
Dave Lyons small--they can ignore the modules they don't want.
Coach101   Great....    Interrupt queues module would nice....
Dave Lyons Eh?  Interrupt queue?
AFA Gary J :)
Coach101   List the people who have registered for receipt of particular
           interrupts
Dave Lyons Hmmm...interesting.  Not sure if it can be done from an
           outside-the-OS point
Dave Lyons of view, but I'll look into it.
Coach101   Ah, but your on the inside *NOW*
AFL Dyfet  Okay, I believe our next question is from Doctor Why.  You have
           the floor now.
Doctor Why I was writing a desktop program in Orca/Pascal and was trying to
           add some Print
Doctor Why Manager routines (for my first time). I was just inserting code to
           display the
Doctor Why various dialogs. The PrChoosePrinter worked fine but 
Doctor Why the PrStlDialog and PrJobDialog caused the system to crash.
Dave Lyons !
Doctor Why Any ideas?
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
Dave Lyons Gee, it doesn't look like you're using 5.0 yet.  (Under 5.0,
           PrChoosePrinter
Dave Lyons puts up a dialog that says "Use the control panel instead,"
           basically.)
Dave Lyons I don't know what's causing your crash, though.  At what address
           did it
Dave Lyons crash?  Did it return from the toolbox call at all, or did it
           crash while
Dave Lyons in there?
Doctor Why No, this was from a few weeks ago, and I don't have any specifics
           here.
Dave Lyons Well...gee...ask a specific question, get a specific answer. :-)
Doctor Why I selected the Print option from menu and crashed.
AE PhilM   !
Dave Lyons ga
AFL Dyfet  GA Phil...
AE PhilM   How did you get a print record?  You need to pass those as input
           to both 
AE PhilM   PrJob and PrStl
AE PhilM   ga
Doctor Why I used PrDefault? was that right?
AE PhilM   Sounds correct....humm...don't know.
Dave Lyons (flip, flip, flip....)
Dave Lyons No, PrDefault just
AE PhilM   Did you pass a handle or a pointer to PrDefault?
Dave Lyons initializes a handle to be a nice default print record.  You have
           to allocate
Dave Lyons it yourself with NewHandle, apparently.
Doctor Why handle.
Dave Lyons Where did you get the handle, Doctor Why?
Dave Lyons (BTW, "A print record is 140 bytes long."  TB Ref 1, page
           15-19.)
Doctor Why I believe that I defined it myself.
Dave Lyons DW, when you say you "defined it yourself," do you mean you
           declared it as
Dave Lyons a handle (as in Pascal:   var xyz: Handle;), or that you actually
           assigned
Dave Lyons it a value that came back from NewHandle?
Doctor Why handle := ^pointer
AE PhilM   Did you get 140 bytes of space from the memory manager?
Dave Lyons Yes, a "handle" as a data type is a pointer to a pointer.  The
           particular
Dave Lyons handle you pass to PrDefault has to actually be a Memory Manager
           handle,
Dave Lyons and it has to refer to a 140-byte block of memory.
Doctor Why You're testing my memory...I think so, but I'm not sure.
AE PhilM   If you did not allocate enough room for your record...that could
           certainly be
AE PhilM   the cause of the crash...on the otherhand if PrDefault is actually
           checking 
AE PhilM   the input to see if it is a memory manager handle...it  would
           probably return
Doctor Why That may be my problem. I don't remember if I used NewHandle
AE PhilM   with some sort of error, but do no harm.
Dave Lyons PrDefault *probably* isn't checking to see that it's a valid
           handle; in
Dave Lyons general, the toolbox assumes the application programmer is a
           responsible
Dave Lyons entity and doesn't bother double-checking everything.  It would
           rather
Dave Lyons crash.  (This is more efficient, except when your program isn't
           working
Dave Lyons right--it increases debugging time in exchange for better
           performance at
Dave Lyons run-time.)
Dave Lyons ga
AE PhilM   :)  Ahh....debugger toolbox in ROM's is what we need.   Remember
           the IIe 
AFL Dyfet  Do we have any more questions or comments for tonight?
AE PhilM   debugger ROMS.  done
A2GS       ?
Dave Lyons Ack!  No, we *don't* need additional versions of the toolbox
           floating around--
AFL Dyfet  Okay, Go ahead, A2GS...
Coach101   ? (though not toolbox)
Dave Lyons my life is complicated enough with ROM 1 and ROM 3.  (Sorry!)
Doctor Why Thanks Dave (and Phil)
A2GS       I want to use the Floating Point Algorithms or at least look at
           them to adapt
A2GS       them to 16-bit code (the ones currently used by Applesoft), Where
           do I look?
Dave Lyons !
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
A2GS       Specifically I'm looking for DIV. and MULT. routines.
Dave Lyons Look in the Apple Numerics Manual, Second Edition, and at its
           37-item
Dave Lyons bibliography.  (Is that the sort of answer you're looking for? 
           Probably
Dave Lyons not, but I can't say "I'll send you SANE source," and I can't say
           "Just
Dave Lyons disassemble the ROM," so I say "Find some good reference
           material.")  ga
AFL Dyfet  :)...A number of magazines used to list entry points to the
           Applesoft FP
AFL Dyfet  routines :)...
AFL Dyfet  GA Gary...
AFA Gary J Or...you can look right here on-line..
A2GS       You wouldn't happen to know whether it's bank 00 or 01 (probably
           00)
AFA Gary J in the reference library.
A2GS       Where, where, where, where.....?
Dave Lyons (Whoops!  I overlooked the reference to Applesoft in the question.
            Sorry.)
AFA Gary J Just enter the words "AppleSoft and Internals" in the
Dave Lyons !
AFA Gary J search field, and there are a number of articles avaialble.
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave...
AFA Gary J (or available, even  :)
Dave Lyons From a running P8 program, Applesoft is in bank 0, but
Dave Lyons from the Monitor, when you're looking, it's bank $FF, since the
           monitor
Dave Lyons always shows you language card space in bank 0.  ga
AFA Gary J (Use keyword REFERENCE to get to the reference library)
A2GS       SO an address pointing to let's say Exxx is actually calling
           ff/Exxxx (right?)
A2GS       FF/Exxx
AFL Dyfet  Not exactly...bank $FF is really mapped into bank 0, and for all
           intents and
Dave Lyons From *your* point of view, as a Monitor user, yes.  From
Dave Lyons the 65816's point of view, no.
AFL Dyfet  purposes looks like the IIe memory map, when the roms are enabled
           :)
A2GS       Thought so :), don't want to go nuts looking everywhere
           else....Thanx :)
A2GS       GA
Coach101   I wish to write some additional protocol stacks for use with
           AppleTalk,
Coach101   How do I do this under 5.0.   Is, or will, the necessary docs be
Coach101   available?  ga
Dave Lyons Gee...doesn't anybody else want to take that questoin? :-)   
Dave Lyons Or "...ion."  I think the documentation is *mostly* already out
           there, but
Dave Lyons there are almost certainly some gaps.
Dave Lyons I suggest dealing with Apple II DTS officially (Channel AppleLink,
           MCI Mail,
Dave Lyons or U.S. Mail), with questions as specific as possible.
Dave Lyons (ga)
AFL Dyfet  I'd love to see TCP/IP myself :)...then I could FTP to HDS unix or
           other odd
AFL Dyfet  things like that :)
Coach101   Drat, someday I will take the time to write up the Partner
           app....
Coach101   Are the entry points that were documented for ProDos-16 still
           valid?
Dave Lyons Coach, write in anyway.  It can't hurt, and you'll probably
           actually get
Dave Lyons an answer.
Coach101   TCP/Ip is what I have in mind Dyfet :)
Dave Lyons Yes, the P16 stuff is still valid.
AFL Dyfet  With Telnet/rlogin support?   What are you trying to hook up to,
           Coach?
Coach101   24 II-GS, dozen or so Macs, several mainframes,....   All across
           the
Coach101   continental US
Coach101   Oops, forgot the VAXs & IBM-PCs
AFL Dyfet  Sounds like last winter, when we played 'the game' (cross country
           Empire :)
Coach101   Project for NASA.....
AFA Gary J Sounds interesting...
AFL Dyfet  Hmm...now that sounds like a fun project :)...