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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
May 16, 1989   10:00 p.m. Eastern Time
Topic:  Programming Shells and Environments
Forum Leader:  Dave Sugar  (AFL Dyfet)  


AFA Gary J There's the banner....
Coach101   Good Evening everyone
AFL Dyfet  Hi Coach!
Coach101   Dave, have you ever heard of "come from" programming
AFL Dyfet  Yeah :)
AFL Dyfet  Trying to debug some speghetti code?
Coach101   WIsh I had a copy of that article....   A good one... Right up
	   there with MUMPS
AFA Gary J :)
Coach101   :)
AFL Dyfet  I don't recall what magazine it was in anymore...if I happen to
	   come across
Coach101   Did you ever figure out their final example?
AFL Dyfet  it again, I will remember to get you a copy...
AFL Dyfet  I really don't recall it anymore...:)  It's the sort of thing that
	   haunts
AFL Dyfet  programmers nightmares...
Coach101   I particularly enjoyed the "assigned comefrom"
AFL Dyfet  Hi Marty, a true ADV loyalist?  Or mt on a Mac :)
AFL Marty  Mac?
AFL Marty  No Macs here.... I shot them all.
AFL Dyfet  :)
AFL Jack   Just Big Macs, huh Marty?  :)
AFL Marty  Only at the golden arches :)
AFA Gary J Hi Dave
Dave Lyons Hello Dave.
AFL Dyfet  :)
Coach101   Gees.... Matt's got him talking to himself....
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet  Yes, I guess we will get down to business shortly :)
JSchober   What's the topic tonight??
AFA Gary J Programming Shells and Environments...
AFL Dyfet  We were going to have a surprise guest tonight, but he's not
	   online yet, so I
AFL Dyfet  guess we will start now:
AFL Marty  That must be the surprise :)
JSchober   :)
AFL Dyfet  Good evening and welcome to the tuesday night Apple Development 
AFL Dyfet  Forum chat.  Tonight's topic, as I have been reminded, is
	   Programming Shells
AFL Dyfet  and Environments (APW, Orca, ECP, etc).  We will be using PROTOCOL
	   starting
AFL Dyfet  now.  This means that if you wish to ask a question, you must
	   enter a '?'
AFL Dyfet  on a line by itself, and if you wish to comment on the current
Matt DTS   ?
AFL Dyfet  question being asked, you must enter a '!' on a line by itself.  I
	   will
AFL Dyfet  call you each in turn to speak, starting with Matt, who seems to
	   have the
AFL Dyfet  first question.  GA Matt :)
Matt DTS   Who's the mystery guest?  :-)
Dan Burton <- Doug Davies
AFL Dyfet  One of the people involved with SSSi, the company that will be
	   introducing
AFL Dyfet  the Genesys resource management tools.  Unfortunately he's not
	   online...
AFL Dyfet  For those unfamiliar, Genesys is/will be a product that will allow
	   you to
AFL Dyfet  create/edit/manipulate System 5.0 resources in a friendly and easy
	   manner.
AFA Parik  ?
AFL Dyfet  I guess we can move on to the next questions.   GA Parik.
AFA Parik  is the demo up? 
AFA Parik  ga (i hate this :)
AFA Gary J !
AFA Gary J No  :)
AFL Dyfet  No, not that I am aware of, Parik.  Okay, GA Gary.
AFL Dyfet  Oh, strange timing there :)
AFA Gary J (sorry  :)
AFA Parik  pre-GAing...GAing before his time?
AFL Dyfet  Okay, the floors open to questions.
Coach101   ?
AFL Dyfet  Okay Coach, GA.
AFA Gary J Q = Coach
Coach101   From a curiousity viewpoint, what shell do the people here use?
JSchober   !
AFL Dyfet  GA Joe.
Dave Lyons Davex.
AFL Dyfet  Of course, Dave :)
Coach101   I must have missed out on the cocktails :)
DwightW1   apw's shell
AFL Marty  <-- Orca
AFL Scott  Davex, and Orca.
CompuWizA  Merlin 16+
Beta Boop  Orca
AFA Gary J Orca
AFA Parik  <-- Orca/M v1.1b :)
AFL Dyfet  Incidently, I use Command.COM, Orca, and Nautalus/GS.
AFA Parik  ?
AFA Gary J Q = Coach, Parik
AFL Dyfet  I think everyone's gotten a chance to get a reply in :).  GA
	   Parik.
Coach101   APW....  THanks for the information.... Just curious...  APW's
	   following
AFA Parik  (obvious) whats Nautilus GS?
Coach101   is rather light!  GA
AFL Dyfet  I knew someone would ask that :).  (No, I didn't pay him :). 
	   Nautalus is a
AFL Dyfet  project we're working on over here.  The PC :( version will
	   probably be out
AFL Dyfet  before the GS one, though.
AFA Parik  whats it do.
AFL Dyfet  Well, it's a shell environment (was once known as CMD/16), it has
	   lots of nifty
AFL Dyfet  utilities, it follows the APW standard, and it has a module called
	   'pilot'
AFL Dyfet  which is a visual front end.  It's basically the 16 bit version of
	   Command.COM,
AFL Dyfet  and it's been in development off and on for some time now, as some
	   people here
AFL Dyfet  can tell you :)
JSchober   :)  
AFA Parik  does it have a fast assembler/linker?  :) 
AFL Dyfet  No, although it has some nifty communications utilities and MANY
	   disk/file
AFL Dyfet  utilities.
AFA Parik  release date
AFA Parik  (is anyone alive?)
AFL Dyfet  Well, the PC version is actually in early beta.  The GS version is
	   sorta
AFL Dyfet  lounging around waiting for me to have enough time to finish it up
	   :).
AFL Dyfet  As to release dates for either, I never give out release dates
	   until the manual
AFA Parik  we need hyperram
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Dyfet  is typeset :).
AFL Dyfet  Any more comments on Nautalus, or are there any more questions
	   waiting to be
AFA Parik  does anyone here use fastext and a TWGS?
AFL Dyfet  asked?
JSchober   (Well, I've got a question, but not about shells... :)
AFL Scott  Yep, Parik, I do.
AFA Parik  does it crash if you leave it on a looong time sitting in orca? 
Beta Boop  (fastext?)
AFA Parik  (ga with any other questions, I can take it up with Scott :)
AFL Scott  No, not here....
JSchober   (Doubles the speed of the Text Toolset)
AFL Dyfet  Okay, Joe, I'm sure we can do a change for your question.  GA
	   Joe.
JSchober   :)  Ok, I've got a pair of buffers -- one is a dynamic buffer that
	   contains raw
JSchober   $C0 image data, and the other is a 64K buffer to use for
	   unpacking... I set up
JSchober   all the parameters for UnpackBytes, but ... err... it SOMETIMES
	   (and I haven't
JSchober   figured out when it does and doesn't) unpack the full range of
	   specified bytes.
JSchober   Any limits to that tool call??  (Ok, ok, so LAUGH at the Q...)  
	   GA.
AFA Parik  !
AFL Marty  <-- laughing uncontrollably :)
AFL Dyfet  GA Parik.
AFA Gary J :)
AFA Parik  only 64k max at a time can be unpacked.  you can loop it
	   continually for ease.
JSchober   Not trying to do MORE than 64K, tho...
Dave Lyons !
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave.
Dave Lyons Post your question in Let's Discuss somewhere, & I'll answer it
	   tomorrowish--I am already planning
AFL Scott  (Dave is on a Mac.. :()
Dave Lyons to gain a complete understanding of PackBytes and UnpackBytes very
	   soon anyway.  ga
AFL Scott  :)
JSchober   :)  Ok, I'll do that... thanks.  Funny thing is ... sometimes
	   it'll unpack,
JSchober   sometimes it won't, even on the same size of (source) data... ah
	   well.
AFA Parik  any errors coming back?  make sure your pointers are setup
	   right!
JSchober   Well, they are; I get a partial unpack.  The result (PLA'd) just
	   isn't the same
Dave Lyons (Be sure not to use actual memory manager handles for PackBytes or
	   UnpackBytes.)
JSchober   as the destination buffer...  whatcha mean, Dave?
Dave Lyons The toolbox ref says to pass a pointer to a pointer; this is
	   correct.  But
Dave Lyons the stack diagram uses the term "handle"; if you actually pass a
	   handle,
Dave Lyons you will fry the memory manager, since [Un]PackBytes will modify
	   the pointer that
Dave Lyons is being pointed to.  This would consufe the memory mgr
	   completely.
Coach101   Cute :)
JSchober   Hmmmm.  So move the handle elsewhere, first??  Ok, I'll try
	   it...
AFL Dyfet  Well, just the pointer in the handle, Joe :)
Dave Lyons !
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave.
JSchober   Well... gee, yeah, Dave.  :)
Dave Lyons Just keep your own pointer to the memory--don't pass the handle
	   that NewHandle
Dave Lyons returned to you.  It's perfectly okay to have the data IN a
	   handle, just as long
Dave Lyons as you don't pass the address of the master pointer.
Dave Lyons (ga)
JSchober   Ok, I got ya'.  I =was= using the handle returned by NewHandle...
	   maybe that's
JSchober   it!  If it doesn't help, I'll post that message...  :)
Dave Lyons Eek!  Eek!
JSchober   :)
AFL Dyfet  Looking at the docs, I probably would have made the same
	   mistake.
JSchober   (Oh, I'm done... :)
AFA Parik  !
AFL Dyfet  We need to fill that queue :).  GA Parik.
AFA Parik  If Apple would make a super-duper graphic compression routine, it
	   would be
AFA Parik  REALLLLLLLLLLLY nice.  *hint*  :)  ga
JSchober   !
AFL Dyfet  GA Joe.
JSchober   Err... not having the 3.2+ toolbox updates, what makes the ACE
	   compression
JSchober   scheme "fuzzy"??  GA
AFL Dyfet  (See, I just knew this was toolkit night :)
JSchober   LOL
AFA Gary J :)
Coach101   :)
AFA Parik  !
AFL Dyfet  GA Parik.
AFA Parik  from my simple understandings, it doesn't reconstruct the data
	   exactly, based
JSchober   <while everyone is smiling at each other, Parik takes ACTION...
	   whatta guy!> :)
AFA Parik  on the ups an downs (sine waves I guess, no tans for me :) it
	   compacts the
AFA Parik  data, so its sorta changed.  I dunno, maybe the peak would be
	   changed, maybe th
AFA Parik  bottom of the wave, who knows... its barely noticeable even with
	   voice sampling
AFA Parik  esp at higher rates. ga
AFA Parik  (and the routines are SMALL!  WOW!  like a couple of blocks total
	   for the tool)
AFL Dyfet  Okay, it's time to get that question queue filled (gads, I feel
	   like Jerry
AFL Dyfet  hustling for the kids).
Beta Boop  ?
JSchober   :)
AFL Dyfet  GA Beta.
AFA Parik  heh...daves kids
Coach101   We told you not to start without Hyper
Beta Boop  Stupid question time. I'm just learning Orca/Pascal
Dave Lyons About 6 blocks.
AFA Gary J (No such thing..)
Beta Boop  How do I get from a Pointer to the Pointee?
AFA Parik  (Hi Windrider)
Dave Lyons !
Dave Lyons Ummm...in TML Pascal you put an "@" in front of a procedure,
  	   function,
Dave Lyons or variable to get a pointer to it.  Anybody know if ORCA works
AFL Dyfet  I'm not too familiar with Pascal myself, being a 'C' person :). 
	   GA Dave.
Dave Lyons the same way?  I think it does.
Beta Boop  No, I mean that I have the pointer, and want to get to the
	   record.
Coach101   I think you have the question reversed Dave :)
Dave Lyons Oh, okay.  I *do* have the question reversed.  Sorry!
Dave Lyons The real one is easier anyway.  You put a "^" after a pointer to
	   get the object
Dave Lyons it points to.
Dave Lyons (Easier because it's standard Pascal.)
Beta Boop  Oh, it's that easy?  Thanks.
AFL Floyd  (Orca does use the '@' as an address operator though) 
Beta Boop  I did my part to fill the queue....GA
JSchober   (hey Bo... :)
AFL Dyfet  Okay, we need to meet our quota on questions here tonight.  Maybe
	   we will being
Montag4    (hey all... :)
AFL Marty  ?
AFL Dyfet  (bring) Vana down for an appearence if it help's get that queue
	   filled :).
Coach101   ?
AFL Dyfet  Seriously, GA Marty.
AFL Marty  Tell me about Genesys, please.
AFL Dyfet  I wish I could, unfortunately, I'm not too familiar with the
	   product, and the
AFL Marty  Specifically, how does it differ from DLU?
AFL Floyd  !
AFL Marty  (and Design Master)
AFL Dyfet  person I was hoping to bring online to describe it isn't.  As to
	   how it differs
AFL Dyfet  from DLU, that's easy.  It goes lightyears beyond.  It can not
	   only allow you
JSchober   ?
AFL Dyfet  to create dialog boxes and OTHER resource usable items for system
	   5.0, it can
AFL Dyfet  also genorate rezcomp scripts from EXISTING resources, edit
	   resources in apps,
AFL Dyfet  etc.  It may be able to do a lot more, I just don't know off-hand
	   myself.  GA
AFL Dyfet  Floyd.
AFL Floyd  I was just going to say to forget about DLU, and the author of
	   Design Master is planning on adding
AFL Marty  When will I see it online?
Beta Boop  !
AFL Floyd  resource support before too long.  Dave, do you have the Genesys
	   demo in your library?  I could
AFL Floyd  upload it if you don't. ga
Matt DTS   (I suppose "rezcomp" is vaguely related to the Rez compiler...)
AFL Dyfet  I have heard there is a demo available, and we will try to get it
	   direct, or,
AFL Dyfet  with the help of Floyd, it seems :).  Thanks, Floyd.
AFL Marty  (I don't understand the term, so it must be vague :)
AFL Floyd  Okay.  You're probably better off getting it direct, but let me
	   know.
AFL Floyd  ga
AFL Marty  Done
Beta Boop  Genesys will create code for menus,
	   windows,dialogs,alerts,controls,icons,&
Beta Boop  cursors. So the flysheet says.
Beta Boop  GA
AFL Floyd  !
AFL Dyfet  I believe Coach is next.  GA Coach.
Coach101   Does anyone know a way to "drive" the APW editor from an EXEC
	   file?
AFL Dyfet  Shades of 'sed' :)
Coach101   (:
AFL Scott  (Don't we wish!)
Coach101   I thought so....     Drat....
A GibberFC drat....what ???? :)
AFL Dyfet  I believe the next person on the floor should be Floyd, who I
	   accidently
AFL Dyfet  skipped.  GA Floyd.
AFL Floyd  It will interesting to compare Design Master to Genesys as Design
	   Master is a fraction of the cost.
AFL Floyd  Design Master is $30 I believe and Genesys is what? $125?
AFL Floyd  ga  (No problem, Dave) ;)
AFL Dyfet  I have not heard about Design Master myself, though I agree this
	   would be
AFL Marty  ?
AFL Floyd  (Well, I'll upload the Design Master demo then)
AFL Dyfet  interesting, once we have real products to compare :).  I believe
	   the next
AFL Marty  ::checking::
AFL Dyfet  question is from Joe, GA Joe.  (and thanks again Floyd!)
JSchober   Ok... while we (were) on the topic of DLU, etc., does anyone know
	   what the most
JSchober   recent version of it (DLU) is??  I've got 3.0, which is really
	   nifty, excepppt
JSchober   it wants to give me families on check boxes, and no families on
	   radio buttons.
JSchober   Errrr... "oops."  GA...
AFL Dyfet  Okay, I believe Marty's question is next then, GA MARtY :)
JSchober   Gee, thanks... :)
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Marty  Is the Design Master demo available online?
AFL Dyfet  I believe Floyd indicated it would be shortly, Marty.
AFL Marty  I have an older one but I understand a newer version is
	   available.
AFL Marty  Oh... thanks
AFL Marty  done
AFL Floyd  (I'll upload the newer one tonight)
AFA Gary J BTW:  The March and May technotes are coming on-line tonight and
	   tomorrow.
AFA Gary J Some are already up.
AFL Marty  Is there some reason why the technotes take so long to get here?
Matt DTS   There hasn't been an April release of AII TNs since 1986 or so. 
	   Apple II TNs are in January, March...
AFL Marty  I'm referring to the March technotes.
Matt DTS   ...May, July, Sept. and Dec.  Mac notes are in Feburary, April,
	   June, August, October and Nov.
Matt DTS   They take so long because they have to be translated to text files
	   by hand, with diagrams.
Bill267    Is Uniforth a pretty good assembler or what do you reccommend...
AFL Marty  Ummmmm.... why don't you do them as text files to begin with?
AFL Scott  Marty, they write them on Macs... the printed versions are really
	   nice, tho..
AFL Marty  I know Scott... but if I were writing them with the knowledge that
	   they would
AFL Scott  so, it's worth it!
AFL Marty  be translated later on, I'd be more inclined to do them in text
	   format.
AFL Marty  The Mac _can_ do text files, can't it?
AFA Gary J Yes, it would seem like the way to go, Marty.
AFL Scott  I do like the work that Matt has put in on them.  Jim helped
	   translate them to
AFL Marty  I don't doubt that a lot of work went into them.
AFL Marty  I'd just like to see the tech notes posted during the month they
	   were written.
PElseth    Oooh.  All AFLs here. Is this a private mtg?
AFL Scott  Problem with that is that Apple has to do the translation, right,
	   Dave?
AFL Marty  That explains it then.
AFL Scott  And Apple has allocated only one person to do that, right?
AFL Marty  They probably have to form a committee to get it done.
AFL Marty  :)
AFA Gary J Marty:  The May ones are being posted in May  :)
AFL Marty  (so are the March ones :)
AFL Scott  (Jim volunteered to help out... or so I've been told, again)
AFL Dyfet  Okay, listen up everyone:
AFL Dyfet  The special guest I had mentioned that may be stopping by just
	   did, a little
AFL Dyfet  late :). 
AFL Marty  This is he?
AFL Cheryl hi Mike :)
Hackz      Hi, Hackz - creator of Genesys!!!
AFL Dyfet  Go ahead and introduce yourself, Michael.  I believe Marty, at
	   least was
AFL Dyfet  interested in hearing more about Genesys all evening :)
Hackz      What do you want to know
AFL Marty  Everything
AFL Dyfet  :)
AFL Marty  But I'll settle for the difference between Genesys and Design
	   Master.
Hackz      OK, Genesys is a Resource creator/editor that works in a full
	   blown graphic
Hackz      environment.  It generates the actual resource fork and Pascal, c,
	   basic
Hackz      and assembly source code for you.
Hackz      It also does tool startup (proper order) and creates a "shell"
	   that you can
Hackz      run and try out your menus windows, etc.
Hackz      any thing else?
AFL Marty  That sounds pretty impressive.
AFL Marty  Do you have a demo version available?
Hackz      I have not seen design master, But I can say that nothing like
	   Genesys 
Hackz      is available anywhere (I know, "what about AppMaker and
	   Prototyper?"
AFL Marty  (I've never heard of AppMaker and Prototyper)
Hackz      Genesys is literally "What you see is what you get" for
	   programmers.
AFL Cheryl Mike, isn't Prototyper for the Mac??
Hackz      They are Mac (gag gag choke) programs.
AFL Marty  Ack
AFL Dyfet  Believe it or not, some of us DON'T use Mac's AT ALL here :)
AFL Marty  Demo version... is one available?
AFL Cheryl don't go "ack" around me.....I am a Mac person!!!:)
AFL Marty  (i know... ACK)
Hackz      When you create a menu bar/menus in Genesys you get a blank menu
	   bar
Hackz      at the top of your screen that you literally start typing the Menu
	   titles in!!
AFL Cheryl same to you, Marty :)
Hackz      The Genesys demo is a graphics slide show animation sequence and
	   may 
Hackz      be available here now??  It is available on the Source, Compuserve
	   and Genie!!
AFA Gary J No, not here yet.
AFL Dyfet  We don't have it yet :).
Hackz      Oh, Get With IT..
AFA Gary J We need it!
Hackz      I gave copies to Vince Cooper who I believe was going to upload
	   it??
AFA Gary J Hmmm.  We'll have to send fan mail to Vince  :)
AFL Marty  (ALL of us :)
AFL Dyfet  Vince isn't online at the moment...um, I believe Floyd has a demo
	   copy ready
AFL Dyfet  to upload also :)
Hackz      Any other questions about Genesys, resources or THE WORLD IN
	   GENERAL?
AFL Marty  Price?
AFL Dyfet  Shipping date planned?
Hackz      It will list for $125.00 but probably sell for around $89
AFL Marty  Special deal for AFLs and AFAs :)
Hackz      What did you have in mind??
AFA Gary J :)
AFL Marty  I was just kidding.
AFL Marty  The :) at the end is a smile.
AFL Cheryl no he wasn't :)
AFA Gary J No you weren't  :)
AFL Marty  I gotta get rid of this "pick on me" sign here :)
AFA Gary J heheh
Hackz      Oh, I'm new on this planet I didn't understand the iconisms :)
AFL Marty  The $89 figure you quoted... that's the likely mail order price?
Hackz      yup yes right uh huh
AFL Marty  Thanks for all the info.  Sounds like a very powerful utility.
Hackz      Any hard questions or easy comments :)
Hackz      Actually Genesys is planned to expand into more than a "utility"
AFL Dyfet  Well, unfortunately, the 'tuff' crowd left earlier...:)
AFL Marty  Goodnight all... gotta go tend my forum.
AFL Dyfet  Okay Marty, goodnight.