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APPLE II DEVELOPMENT FORUM CONFERENCE LOG
Tuesday, June 26, 1990  10:00 p.m. eastern time
Topic:  Open Discussion
Forum Leader:  Dave Sugar  (AFL Dyfet)

Matt DTS   Anyone read the new folder in "Misc. Dev. Topics" yet?
AFA Gary J Matt:  Great news about developer prices.
AFA Gary J Yes.
AFL Scott  I have.  Nice news.
Nuzz       what news?
Matt DTS   It just became cheaper to be an Apple II developer.  (Partner =
           $300/year)
AFL Dyfet  And worth every cent :)
AFA Gary J That's for Apple II (ONLY) developer.
Nuzz       Do I get a rebate :)
AFA Gary J Have to pay a premium if you develop on a Mac.
AFA Gary J FOR a mac, I should say.
Coach101   Good News  !!
Dave Lyons (Nuzz, I don't know--give the hotline a call and fine out.)
Dave Lyons (Unless, of course, you didn't actually become a partner recently
           :)
SPW        hmm...anyone here know something about the SuperHires screen
           memory and $C1
SPW        file formats
AFA Gary J $C1 file formats?  That's just a screen image.
AFL Scott  Yeah, what do you need to know?
SPW        ok- when I load a c1 file into screen memory starting at $E12000
           with a
SPW        smartport firmware call and then turn on the screen- it looks like
           a
SPW        bunch of garbled mess
AFA Gary J Could be a linearization problem.
Dave Lyons (Eh?  There are *several* $C1 file formats...one of them is just a
           screen image.)
SPW        I haven't been able to figure out why 
AFL Scott  Why not just use GS/OS?  And, how many bytes are you loading?
Dave Lyons Yeah, you *do* want to turn on bit 6 of $00C029 first--that would
           explain getting garbage.
SPW        I'm loading the whole thing- upon bootup of the disk- which means
           I'm in;
SPW        emulation mode and GS/OS isnt there- but I did set the
           linearazation bit
SPW        do I need bit 6 on BEFORE I load it?
AFA Gary J Yes
Dave Lyons Yes!
AFL Dyfet  YES!!
AFA Gary J !!!!!
AFA Gary J :)
SPW        hmm...haven't tried that
Dave Lyons :)
Dave Lyons :) :)
AFA Gary J :):):)
SPW        I just set the bit when I turned the screen on
SPW        I guess I'll try that next then....thanks
Dave Lyons (My $.02:  Using SmartPort calls to load into $E12000 is pretty
           limiting.  What if the
Dave Lyons particular SmartPort device you're using doesn't support Extended
           SmartPort calls, or what if you're
Dave Lyons booting off of a ProDOS but non-SmartPort device, like a Sider?)
SPW        The program only runs on an Apple 3.5 drive on a GS with 1.25 M of
           memory-
SPW        just like FTA demos
SPW        oh- which type of $C1 file is a screen image which can be loaded
           straight into
SPW        screen memory?
Dave Lyons (SPW, Ick!  I wanna run it off my hard drive...WAAAAAAAH. (Whine,
           whine.))
SPW        Well, I bought the Firmware ref like you advised me and now I'm
           doing some
SPW        neat things with it
SPW        Siders never were very 'compatable'
Dave Lyons Huh?  My Sider works great with P8, it just isn't SmartPort.
AFL Dyfet  Siders do what is needed to be compatible with ProDOS!!
Dave Lyons SPW, filetype $C0 with auxiliary type $0000 is a 32K image.  Type
           $0001 is more complex--see the
Dave Lyons File Type Notes (available for downloading).
SPW        $C0?
AFA Gary J He means $C1
Matt DTS   I thought it was $C1 (isn't $C0 
Matt DTS   "compressed")?
Dave Lyons OOPS.  My mistake.  $C1/0000 is the 32K image.  I can't type
           straight.
Dave Lyons ($C0/0000 is a Paintworks Packed Picture.)
SPW        Is a Paintworks Gold Screen Image that type? How do I read the
           auxtype
Dave Lyons (Yet another reason to get the real File Type Notes--that way my
           typos won't screw you up.)
Dave Lyons How did you read the Filetype?
SPW        Oh, why does the screen need top be linearized before loading if I
           haven't 
SPW        even turned it on?
AFA Gary J Because that's what determines how the memory in that area is
           addressed.
Nuzz       FileType Notes are indispensable..
SPW        I mean- can I read the aux type from Basic system or
           something...
Dave Lyons Because "linearization" affects the mapping between addresses and
           the memory locations they correspond
Dave Lyons to.  If linearization is off, for example, the SCBs are NOT at
           $E19D00.  A big mess.
Matt DTS   Turning on the display automatically turns on linearization.
SPW        well, I'll try to linearize and if it doesn't work, I'll be back
AFA Gary J (My question is, why did Apple make the option for NON
           linearization?  Why
AFA Gary J use it..)
SPW        be right back
Dave Lyons Beats me.  Wouldn't want life to be TOO simple.
AFA Gary J I guess :)
AFL Dyfet  There is also a linear bank 0/1 option (64K direct, no I/O stuff
           except E0/E1),
AFL Dyfet  but nobody uses that either :)
AFL Dyfet  And, I believe, an option to turn on ramcard banking/I/O stuff in
           ALL memory
AFL Dyfet  banks :)
AFA Gary J At least the default should be to linearize.  It just makes
           things confusing.
Dave Lyons (Gary, I dunno...maybe there's some obscure benefit to NOT having
           it linearized...something about
Dave Lyons interleaving the memory locations between different chips &
           getting a slight speed benefit.  But maybe
Dave Lyons not, since it's all slow RAM anyway.  Ask Rob Moore if you see
           him....)
SPW        yes!! yes!!- Hey guys...it works now. Thanks a lot!

AFL Scott  I have a question...
AFL Scott  Why is the 320 mode system palette different from the Macintosh 16
           color 
AFL Scott  system palette?
Dave Lyons (Ours must be better.)
Doctor Why :)
AFA Gary J It has to be, Dave :)
AFL Scott  That's not true, Dave.  The macintosh 16 color palette seems to be
           made 
AFL Scott  explicitly for dithering colors.
Matt DTS   The default 16-color palette and the IIgs stuff were decided about
           the same time in different worlds.
Matt DTS   In other words, the color Mac and IIgs teams were not working
           closely enough together.
AFL Dyfet  Yes, Jeffrey, GA...
JeffreyH11 I would think the linearized mode would give you the better speed,
           just because
JeffreyH11 the code to use it is simpler.
Dave Lyons (I meant some *hardware* speed advantage to justify nonlinear
           mode's existence, JH, but I was just
Dave Lyons guessing.)
AFA Gary J In some cases, that might make a difference, Jeff, but most
           high-speed graphics
AFA Gary J use some sort of lookup tables for screen addressing, and either
           way it 
AFA Gary J wouldn't make any difference in that case.
Matt DTS   Did I mention I'm holding (in my hands) the Addison-Wesley release
           of Toolbox Reference Volume 3?
AFA Gary J Really??
JeffreyH11 Where can I get a copy???
A GibberFC ohhhhhhhhh ahhhhhhhhh
JeffreyH11 :P
Matt DTS   Yup.  My advance copy came down last week the day after the
           conference.
JeffreyH11 :)
AFA Gary J And it will be given away as a door prize this evening, right????
            :)
Matt DTS   They just got out of the bindery - we think they'll be in stores
           in about 3 weeks.
Matt DTS   About 1100 pages, including a full 5.0 toolbox example program in
           Pascal.
AFA Gary J Neato.
JeffreyH11 How soon can they be ordered from A-W?
Matt DTS   Write this number down:
Matt DTS   ISBN 0-201-55019-9
Matt DTS   Take it to your favorite bookstore and ask them to order it.
Matt DTS   (Take it to several bookstores and ask them to order it, if they
           don't ask for a deposit.  :)
JeffreyH11 Thank You!!!!! =:)
AFA Gary J Cost?  ($39 from store, $9.50 if you wait a year from A2-Central
           :)
Matt DTS   (Jeff = Jay Jennings clone?)  The retail price i s $39.95, and I
           believe it's in the summer APDAlog.
Matt DTS   (A2-Central's book deals were made with the cooperation of AW and
           Apple and are on books that have
Matt DTS   been out since Spring 1988 latest.  This book will be available at
           KansasFest but will not be
Matt DTS   heavily discounted.)
Matt DTS   It is on good quality paper, is perforated and three-hole drilled.
            It's an awesome book.
Matt DTS   (Oh, OK.  GA)
Andemar    LOL  :)
Coach101   Perforated?
Matt DTS   The pages are perfed so you can turn it into a notebook if you
           like.  Also 3-hole drilled similarly.
AFL Dyfet  Okay, GA Scott...
AFL Scott  This is probably dumb, but is there any licensing fee to use the
           Macintosh...
AFL Scott  16 color palette in a GS app?
Matt DTS   No, but I'll bet if you suggest it often enough there will be.
Matt DTS   <not smiling>
AFL Scott  Thanks
Dave Lyons <smiling>
AFL Dyfet  Hmm...okay, I see that Windrider has the next question and the
           floor now...GA.
Windrider5 I am having some problems linking a fairly large program (APWC). I
           have removed
Windrider5 all my DA's and purge memory before linking, leaving about 2 MB of
           free RAM
Windrider5 but I still get the error message Terminal Eroor .. Output buffer
           overflow
AFL Scott  I never got that error message, but I have had the APW linker
           freeze for no
AFL Scott  reason at all and this was using a LinkEd script.. GA Done.
Windrider5 Will additional memory fix the problem and is there a difference
           between the
Windrider5 error message Out of Memory and ...Output buffer overflow
AFL Dyfet  GA Dave
Dave Lyons Well, I don't know if you're going to
Dave Lyons like this suggestion, but we don't recommend using LinkEd these
           days...go for LinkIIgs, which comes
Windrider5 I have tried LinkIIgs and I get this error message
Dave Lyons in the "APW Tools" package (whatever it's called) from APDA.  It
           makes much better use of RAM.  ga
Matt DTS   Which version of LinkIIgs or the Linkers are you using?
Windrider5 "_somename  extends past Bank size ($10004>$10000)
Matt DTS   Aha.
Matt DTS   Are you linking everything into one code segment?
Windrider5 yes
Matt DTS   Your code segment has probably grown bigger than 64K.  You can't
           do that.
Matt DTS   It's time to segment the program into multiple segments (static
           and/or dynamic).
Matt DTS   (code segments can't cross bank boundaries when loaded so the
           Linker flags it as an error)
Windrider5 can this be done in APWC
Matt DTS   Yes.  Dave?  (Have you ever done it in APW C?)
Coach101   I have...
Dave Lyons Haven't done it myself,
Dave Lyons but it can be done.  It's in the manual.  I'll let Coach say how,
           since I don't remember the syntax.
Coach101   The syntax is totally different between LinkIIgs and the original
           Linker
Coach101   but it is well covered in the manuals.  Myself, I keep all the
           object
Coach101   files for each segment in a file by itself and then use the linker
           to
Coach101   specificy which object files (OMF files) go into which segments. 
           Note, there
Coach101   is not much you can do about the size of ~GLOBALS and ~ARRAYS. 
           ~GLOBALS 
Coach101   must also be kept under 64k, but I am not sure about ~ARRAYS.  If
           you want
Coach101   all the OMF in one file, there are options to both APW linkers
           that allow
Coach101   you to select the material from an OMF on the basis of its segment
           name
Coach101   (and there is an APW C statement to set the name, there is also an
           ORCA
Coach101   #pragma to do the same thing, but it did not work in the early
           ORCA-C
Coach101   releases and I have not tested it lately)...    ga
Dave Lyons (I believe ~arrays can be humongous without problems.  It can
           cross banks.)
Coach101   I think you are right Dave (that would explain some of the "extra"
           code
Coach101   you will see from APW-C from time to time).  ga
Coach101   If you need an example, I can dig some LinkIIgs stuff up, not sure
           if I still
Coach101   have a copy of the old LINKED jcl though...
AFL Dyfet  Okay, Gibber has the next question and the floor now...Ga
           Gibber...
A GibberFC Two questions.... 1)  Are the beta drivers for the Scanner and
           Tape backup 
A GibberFC available yet?  and where do you find the dang pinouts for the
           internal
A GibberFC Modem jack inside the //c+?
A GibberFC ga
AFL Dyfet  Ga Dave!
Dave Lyons 1) Not as far as I know.  2) I've never heard of an internal modem
           jack inside the IIc Plus, but
Dave Lyons I have the APDA IIc+ reference manual here, and I'm looking....
Matt DTS   (there is one)
A GibberFC Well... I sorta tore one open when they first shipped... and there
           is one
A GibberFC clearly marked on the motherboard ;)
Matt DTS   If the pinouts aren't in the book, write to AIIDTS the normal way
           and we'll send them to you.
AFL Dyfet  How interesting...
A GibberFC Great!!!!
Dave Lyons p406....
Dave Lyons Pins 1-7, 1 is at the top, 
Dave Lyons 1=-5 volts, 2=receive data, 3=transmit data,
Dave Lyons 4=carrier detect, 5=DTR, 6=DSR, 7=ground.  ga
AFL Dyfet  A connector with a real live DCD?? :)
A GibberFC Thanks Dave :)
JeffreyH11 So?  The connectors on the back of the GS have DCD; I always
           assumed the
JeffreyH11 iic+ had it as well.
JeffreyH11 I used to have a iic - very strange serial ports.  GA
AFL Dyfet  The older IIc's only carried DSR in their cabling...
AFL Dyfet  And flipped it to the DCD pin on some IIc-Hayes cables...very
           strange...
AFL Dyfet  My complaint with the old IIc serial ports only had to do with
           what lines
AFL Dyfet  they chose to take out of the machine...well enough of that...GA
           Joseph, you
AFL Dyfet  have the floor now.
AFL Dyfet  While we're waiting on Joseph, is there anyone else who wishes to
           get in the Q?
JosephI    I have been having a problem with my Hardware
JosephI    Let me explain
AFL Dyfet  Okay...
JosephI    When I first puchased the ||gs i Could not afford a Hard drive
JosephI    I bought a ramkeeper
JosephI    today i have a 40 meg drive and 2 memory cards on my rasmkeeper
JosephI    I have been having many problems over the past year with programs
           crashing
JosephI    such as my managing your money and hyperstudio
JosephI    after much wasted time checking everything, I removed my
           ramkeeper
JosephI    Plugged my 3meg gs ram plus memory card directly into the mem ex
           slot
JosephI    AND SO FAR NO PROBLEMS!
AFL Dyfet  GA Matt
Matt DTS   What hard drive interface do you have?
JosephI    BUT KNOW I OWN A 1 MEG APPLE || MEMORY EX CARD AND a ramkeeper
JosephI    Applied's Vulcan
Matt DTS   I was going to suggest that perhaps the Ramkeeper wasn't DMA
           compatible with the new High Speed SCSI
Matt DTS   Card, which you aren't using.  Never mind.
A GibberFC What version of the Ramkeeper are you using?
JosephI    Should I try selling these expensive items or are they useful if
           fixed properly
JosephI    Version ? wait i'll check
JosephI    How do I find a version #
A GibberFC go to your CDA menu... choose Ramkeeper....and hit return...
A GibberFC that will give you the rom revision... 
JosephI    I think version 1.4
JosephI    I don't have it hooked up - it's in the box
AFL Dyfet  GA Gary
AFA Gary J I'm not real familiar with the RamKeeper, but I have been
           sucessfully using
AFA Gary J 3 megs on a CheckMate Memory saver with a 62 meg SCSI hard drive
           for quite
AFA Gary J some time now.  I like my setup, but I have encountered a few
           problems every
AFA Gary J now and then, one related to the type of RAM I was using on one
           of the cards,
AFA Gary J and the other was due to a loose jumper on one.  As far as
           whether you should
AFA Gary J keep them or not.... (assuming they work) it's up to you
           depending upon
AFA Gary J what you are after.  Speed was the main issue for having a "ROM"
           disk, but
AFA Gary J some of the newer hard drive configurations have surpassed ROM
           disks.
AFA Gary J GA
A GibberFC There will be a chip on the Ramkeeper that will give you the
           version 
JosephI    Speed is about the same with the hard disk and the transwarp
JosephI    I do believe the hard disk/ Ramdisk problems are related
AFL Dyfet  Okay, Doctor Why, GA
Doctor Why Also, is the Ramkeeper less than a year old? If so, it's still on
           warranty.
JosephI    It was really a nightmare when my machine crashed - let me
           explain
JosephI    I had my system disk GS/Os Version 5.02 on my rom card and i
           booted from here
JosephI    This allowed me to remove all files from the hard disk that could
           not be copyed
JosephI    using The BAckup || Program Available on the vulcan
Doctor Why If you were booting from the ROM disk, did you check it for bad
           blocks?
Doctor Why You can get strange errors with a bad block in the Tools folder.
JosephI    No bad blocks
Doctor Why <---knows from experience.
JosephI    Now say I selected Managing your Money fron Finder- Hard drive
           listing
JosephI    I would be using mym when I went to save Chapter 3 The program
           would crash
JosephI    And all work lost and not saved - ERROR MESSAGE PC=00
JosephI    I thought I had A Problem with MYM software - So I sent them the
           Disk
JosephI    Teck support at Mecc told me it ran fine on their machine
AFA Gary J The trouble with battery backed up ROM disks is that they can
           effect:
AFA Gary J 1) Your boot volume...  2) The rest of your memory.
AFA Gary J The problem could be related to either one of those.  If your
           boot volume is
AFA Gary J corrupted in anyway, you may have a flakey copy of ProDOS or
           whatever.  If
AFA Gary J it's the way your RamKeeper is supporting the rest of your
           memory, things 
AFA Gary J could be lost during a memory refresh in some area of memory that
           could
AFA Gary J cause your program to crash in the manner you've described.  
AFA Gary J Your best bet would be to try posting this question over in AE's
           support 
AFA Gary J boards here online.  (In the industry connection).  I think they
           have a
AFA Gary J topic board on the RamKeeper.
AFA Gary J GA
JosephI    Also when I Recieved the PC=00 error message everything froze so I
           cold booted
JosephI    And this is what happened- THE SCREEN BECAME DIAGONAL AND
           DISTORTED
JosephI    SOMETIMES I had to recopy info on the startup rom disk and
           reinitialize
JosephI    But I had to wait several minutes to correct the screen
           distortion
JosephI    All this started to occur after I puchaced the vulcan
AFA Gary J I don't know if the vulcan relies on DMA memory, but if so, that
           might be the
AFA Gary J problem.
JosephI    And I have talked to applied engineering many times by phone
JosephI    they were also confused
JosephI    Thanks gary probably right
JosephI    Happy with the computer now but I have  $500 worth of hardware
           with no use-any 
JosephI    sugestions?
AFA Gary J Joseph:  Ask AE.  Both devices are their products.  If they don't
           work together
AFA Gary J , then they should have an answer.
JosephI    They said that I should have my Apple memory card checked for bad
           chips
AFA Gary J Joseph:  That's a possibility, especially if the Apple memory
           card is a new
AFA Gary J addition to the system, and came along about the same time as the
           other
AFA Gary J problems.
JosephI    I don't own appleworks || gs so I don't have the utility to do
           so
JosephI    The apple memory card was piggyback on the ramkeeper and there was
           a slotmover
JosephI    with the GS ram plus attached also to the ramkeeper
JosephI    Think 01
AFA Gary J Vulcan is supposed to be fast, Joseph, and I think I've read it
           does do DMA
AFA Gary J reads.  (But only guessing)